Whyos

I’ve been working on superfluid full time for the past year (we just had an anniversary); conceiving with Brana the concepts behind the Quids virtual currency, developing the model and audience of superfluid.biz, and recently completing construction of quids.org. Periodically, I’ve continued posting here, on both games and superfluid, but now that we’ve begun to collaboratively blog at http://blog.superfluid.biz I’ll no longer be putting anything new up here. I believe that superfluid, and its blog should be of direct interest to anyone working in games, both as it’s used to facilitate the development of games, and because it’s an interesting bridge between game activity/thinking and concrete activities in the physical world. -You can also follow what we’re doing on twitter, at @superfluidquids

Jeremy Wagstaff recently posted a very positive analysis regarding Skype, with which, as a heavy user of Skype for IM, I quite empathize.  However, his take on voice functionality is a tad euro-centric; not to say that he’s wrong, but I think that Skype’s journey back from years of neglect is a harder trek than he posits. The audience isn’t quite aligned as he suggests, and the typical usage isn’t quite right for a widespread integration with social nets. Read More »

It’s been interesting to watch as Microsoft and Sony simply decided to copy Nintendo’s philosophy and execution of a ten-year console cycle, rather than come up with an entirely new strategy. Nintendo was slightly more sophisticated in execution, as they gave their technology an initial release as “GameCube,” then a secondary release of basically the same hardware with the addition of of a groundbreaking controller interface, as Wii, giving an effective 10-year life to the technology. In the current economic environment, it is probably best not to try to push another round of console hardware down user’s throats (especially at the price points they want to remain at), so, in this way MS and Sony are adapting the model, but it’s no great stretch. Microsoft’s Natal or Sony’s unnamed PS3 technology will probably form the Wii part of their respective cycles. Back in 2006, Sony was saying that PS3 would have a 10-year lifecycle, and at E3 this year Microsoft was saying the same thing of 360. Read More »