The Hunt For Gollum - LOTR Prequel

Absolutely spectacular independent production of a prequel movie for the Lord of the Rings. I love encouraging people to create and share and we should all aspire to this level of polish. My hats off to these folks.

Video Game Blogging From Inside The Game

Those who have been using Steam as their gaming platform of choice will know about a little built in feature called the browser. It isn't your average browser. It's actually integrated in to Steam's in game interface which over lays what ever game you happen to be playing at the time. It isn't very fancy, it doesn't support tabs or even a right click menu. It does however support javascript and most of the functionality of Google's web apps. This includes mail and Google Docs. That last one is what I wanted to focus on in this post.

Steam plus Google Docs makes a wonderful platform for writing about games. More specifically writing reviews that some times require using names and places specific to the game that are easy to find when you are playing but not as easy when you are searching the web. A simple two button combination switches between live game play and your word processor. What could be better for writing about such dynamic content as games?

You also have access to the IM and chat client built in so you can bounce your ideas off your gamer friends. As well as get input and feedback on what you've all ready written. You can use it to get quotes to add some spice to your write up. Community and game groups also give you some data and statistics on how many people are playing a particular game which is also very useful. So many wonderful uses for the system!

Of course it doesn't have be limited to Google docs and I could see this being useful in quite a few ways. Blogging is another similar use of the system. Simply fire up your web based blogging interface and you are set to go. Twitter would be another great use for it. Tweet your clan matches or LAN party games as they happen. You can even use Pandora radio to give your game an alternate sound track. What other crazy things can you come up with to use the steam built in browser for?

Windows Phone 7 and Mobile Gaming

I’m excited! I’m excited for what is about to happen in online mobile gaming. Mashable of all places has a long list of games coming out on Windows Phone 7 and Engadget has some great videos showing off all the sweet Xbox Live features integrated in to the system. While I do own an Xbox live account this is still not enough to warrant buying a new smart phone just to scratch that gaming itch. I suppose it helps that just recently this story about Sony having some sort of Android based gaming device possibly with the PSP branding coming to market. Roll this up with Google’s moves towards bringing gaming to Android(Slide and Zynga) in response to Apples push for mobile gaming and the competition is about to get heated. This of course is great for gamers as we’ll have tons of choices, tons of things to talk and debate about and even more to play.

Personally I’m still banking on Android and here is why. Microsoft is building a pretty rigid and controlled marketplace similar to what Apple has built. This stifles innovation and makes investment a calculated risk. Windows has flourished by being basically open the Android platform is similarly open which leads to innovation and unique solutions and experiences. In the current financial climate people want unique experiences that aren’t expensive and only an open platform can provide that. Android has surpassed Iphone in sales and now its just a matter of software quality. Shouldn’t be tough to bring that up with folks like Sony, Zynga and Google working on it.

Plants vs. Zombies - Dancing Version

There just aren't words to describe how hot break dancing flowers are. Hate to say it though Zombies FTW!

One More Facebook Issue

I’m promoting a new game that my company FatHat Games is putting out called BabySavers. Of course we are a small company so we have to leverage every social media network we can. This includes of course, the largest, Facebook. I had previously removed my account from Facebook due to their privacy issues and my general distrust. Unfortunately needing to do business I had to re-open my account. While I’ve observed many nuisances during this process like imported blog notes not formatting properly and a crap ton of e-mails being automatically generated for me there hasn’t been any real show stoppers. Until this morning.

Facebook does what it can to prevent bots and one way it does that is through the captcha every where! This verification happens till you “verify” your account. In order to do that you have to provide your phone number so they can text you a verification number. This is where the problem lies. Due to my afore mentioned privacy issues I’ve chosen not to provide my cell number as part of my profile. And yet now Facebook wants to know what my cell phone number is. I wish I had taken a screen shot ahead of time but there is no indication, no text, no warning indicating that this information is not maintained. I don’t want Facebook to have that information at all. Do they keep your number when you “verify”?

Obviously there are more privacy issues with Facebook and I shutter at the thought of how many people throw their information at the service willy nilly. Lets hope Facebook gets their house in order some time soon. I fear the worse though. That it’s going to take an apocalyptic style data breach to wake every one up. Here’s to hoping for the best!