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Prior to 2006, video games were for the hardcore. Xboxes, PlayStations, and Gamecubes separated the boys from the men. If you didn’t invest in learning button control schemes and combos, you couldn’t rumble with the best players in Soul Calibur II, Halo, or even Mario.

When the Wii launched in fall 2006, Nintendo redefined the definition of video games, shifting it from being a dominantly hardcore subculture to one that is for the true masses. Games that weren’t “games” in the traditional sense such as Nintendogs and Brain Training proved that casual gaming was on the rise. Since last year, Nintendogs has sold 21.67 million copies worldwide and Brain Age has sold 17.41 million copies worldwide. Those aren’t small figures. It used to be that only Mario or Sonic could reach those numbers, but now casual games can, too – because there is demand.

Our lives are becoming increasingly connected to technology, and leisure time is spent almost entirely on the computer browsing the web for the next funny YouTube video. Who has time for video games anymore? Especially to invest 40+ hours in a JRPG? Not many. People today have short attention spans, no doubt thanks to the Internet. We get our information from Twitter in 140 characters or less, from our friends on Facebook, and from tabloid-style newspapers such as the Metro that are given out free but offer no more than a paragraph or two on any given news report. This is the world we live in, and that is the world for which what game engineers need to develop.

A virtual meal in Restaurant City

Take FarmVille, a farm simulation game created by Zynga, on Facebook. Launched in June 2009, FarmVille seems to be unstoppable, boasting a community of over 82.7 million active users since of last February, smashing through every available person’s free time. It’s impossible to be on Facebook and not know at least one person who isn’t harvesting some kind of crop, earning virtual coins, purchasing animals, and expanding their farm plot. Facebook users aren’t playing FarmVille for hours on end. Gaming is often broken down in chunks. Water this, plant that, then come and check on how it’s going in a few minutes or hours. Read the rest of this entry »

No one cares if you’re a Mac or a PC. There is no such thing as being a Mac or being a PC, and anyone who says otherwise is a complete fanboy who needs to grow up and realize that we live in a world where the work that we do is more important than what we do that work on. Computers are computers, whether it has a glowing Apple on its back or not. No one cares, just like an idiot is still an idiot whether they’re rich or poor.

Yes, I’m typing this out on a Mac, but that’s because it’s my primary computer at the moment. However, I could just as easily get a PC and do the same thing.

Owning a “premium” computer that costs nearly double that of a PC will not make you produce better content. I’ve been using my MacBook for almost three years and after switching to Mac, I was convinced that I did better work on Apple’s computers. For the last few years, I’ve deluded myself into thinking, because of my affiliation with the Mac, that I was superior to all my friends who were banging out on their ugly Dells and HPs. How wrong I have been and I am glad that I’ve realized it before it’s too late. My work flow may have improved significantly because of OS X’s more manageable interface, but it doesn’t mean I’ve produced better material.

Some people will say that a beautiful piece of hardware inspires them to create wonderful content and, for a short bit of time, I bought that bullshit too. I was so high from drinking Apple’s Kool-Aid that I completely forgot that I once wrote great articles on a PC (a lousy one at that, a Windows ME).

Apple’s “Get a Mac” commercials with their infamous “Hello, I’m a Mac. And I’m a PC” slogan, starring Justin Long and John Hodgman, would like you to think otherwise. Their iconic commercials have been airing since 2006 and have done nothing but fan the flames between Mac and PC users. Often witty and humorous, Cupertino’s ad agency has really created a cult following through these commercials. It’s not pretty. Read the rest of this entry »

At last Monday’s Mobile World Conference in Barcelona, Microsoft took the wraps off their next generation Windows operating system for their mobile division dubbed Windows Phone 7 Series. Ever since the wildly popular iPhone OS hit the scene in June 2007, Microsoft has been sitting on the edge of its seat, waiting to retaliate with an interface that is finger-touch friendly. As pundits continued to flake on the Redmond-based company’s Windows Mobile 6.5x variations, their market share continued to slide. A comScore survey conducted late last year revealed that the Windows Mobile smartphone OS market share had fallen to third place, while the iPhone advanced to second place, and RIM’s BlackBerry continued to reign supreme.

Windows Mobile phones, much like BlackBerries, have long been known for their enterprise usage and hardly for their ability to integrate music, video and other web-centric social services such as Facebook and Twitter effectively. While the iPhone has helped push developers in the right direction, few have even approached the friendliness and ease of use that has made the iPhone shine.

With Windows Phone 7 Series, Microsoft plans to rewrite their mobile history. Building on the success of their entertainment divisions that include the Xbox 360 and Zune HD, Windows Phone 7 Series looks to be the culmination of the best of both of those spectacular products. The result is a product that, like the iPhone, merges all the growing connections that we have come to require in our digital lives.

When the Zune HD launched last September, few picked it up and even fewer knew how well thought out the user interface was. As every company has tried to emulate the iPhone’s UI, Microsoft put a pop culture spin on the Zune HD UI, combining post-modern menus that run off the screen with slickly animated navigation screens, giving the device a futuristic feel with an emphasis on “textual” menus instead of a confusing mess of icons like those on the Apple product. Throw in a web browser that works nearly as well as Mobile Safari, plus a beautifully thin yet “rugged-looking” industrial design, and the Zune HD should have hit the iPod touch right on the mark, maiming it. But it didn’t. The Zune HD is an example of where great ideas fail to become the de facto standard.

Windows Phone 7 Series sports a UI that is very similar to the Zune HD. Gone are the hierarchical windows and drop down menus that are clunky and make for difficult navigation. In it are flat colored squares devoid of excessive decorations, simply displaying relevant information such as unread e-mails, missed calls, updates on Xbox Live (WP7 has Xbox Live integration), Facebook notifications, etc. All of it is there on the main screen AND on the unlocked screen (Apple, take note of this for iPhone OS 4.0!).

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