An interesting article from Time:  So, Should You Buy a Diamond?

Since writing the Culture of Trust post, I’m now seeing a fair amount of interesting stuff about the diamond trade/industry so I’ll just use this post for links that I find that are interesting.

What a great term.  I wish I could give someone credit for it because I’m pretty sure I didn’t make it up, but I’m not sure where I heard it first.  But to define it:

Monogamous games:  Games that require such a high degree of time commitment that it is difficult (or undesirable) to play other games while you are playing them.  When you stop playing them you usually never come back to them, although people do take the occasional break.

So almost every MMORPG is a monogamous game.  It’s really hard to play two of them at the same time.  This is an important thing to note:  a monogamous game is a monogamous game regardless of casual or hardcore players.  There are a lot of casual World of Warcraft players (although with WoW I’m not entirely sure what casual means – maybe less than 10 hours a week) and I bet most of them suddenly find that they don’t have much time to play any other games.  Or even think of playing other games.

The Halo series and Gears of War are also monogamous games.  In fact, any game can become a monogamous game to an individual – I heard someone say they had been spending 20 hours a week playing Windows Solitaire and had gotten addicted. 

But when a game becomes monogamous it also creates burnout.  People want to take a break.  Not such a big break that they are “cheating” on their main game, but a fun timeout.   The problem is that most games require a non-trivial time commitment to do anything.  Some games, like Battlefield 2142 and Warcraft 3, do allow 20-50 minute games that are one and done.  So do games like Bejeweled and Call of Duty 2.  YouTube also feels that niche, even though it’s not a game. 

I think this is yet another sign of social media becoming more ingrained in people’s new digital lifestyles and that the Internet is becoming the primary media. 

With Leonardo DiCaprio staring in the soon to be released movie Blood Diamond, a lot of negative attention will probably be brought on various African nations (CNN story on blood diamonds).  In reality the problem of a few people exploiting natural resources while the rest of the country suffers is nothing new.  But the few commercial successes that have helped make changes on broad (national scale, even though some of these nations are small) represents at least some chance for optimism.  I’ll site two recent examples.

This article from CNN about how Botswana did a deal with DeBeers to mine its diamonds and now offers free education (all the way to a doctorate), AIDs drugs, and general healthcare, to its entire population is pretty uplifting.  I also like the discussion of building a culture of trust (my term).  I think this is a very important concept.  If you ever want a true democracy and to order through the rule of law I think this is critical.  (Which is why I think perjury is a very serious crime and the lack of attention to it in our country may eventually weaken the entire justice system.  But that’s a rant for another day.)

The second event (article from CNN) that I think is great in this regard is the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank.  I think the microcredit (micro-finance) model of the Grameen Bank is very powerful on many levels and has had a clear impact in Bangladesh and beyond.  Not only does it enable people to help themselves, it also creates an incentive for people to work together and help each other be more successful.  It helps and inspires them to build a culture of trust.  What Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank have done is brilliant and I hope it sees wide adoption.   I think helping people be successful, develop themselves, help each other, and to find dreams, are the things that can end poverty and terrorism.  For a long time I have been somewhat cynical about what could be done to actually encourage that, but the fact that Grameen Bank has figured out a way and it has been successful I’m excited about the possibilities.   Congratulations on the Nobel Peace Prize!

As I said in my recent post Buying Things in Games, there is a brisk trade in online games that typically operates outside the official rules of the game. This trade continues even though various companies make an effort to stop it. A few make it “legal” and provide infrastructure for it.

Many game companies, especially Blizzard, seem to be run by purists. A purist (my contextual definition) is someone that thinks that the game is the game is the game and nothing should interfere, in particular that there should be no “special privleges” or any bias. IE: you cannot buy gold, you cannot cut any corners. This is fine in many games, but MMORPGs have various characteristics which make this point-of-view suck.

I’ll generalize them into one bucket: The Grind. Anyone that has played an MMORPG is familiar with the grind. You grind for money. You grind for experience points (to level). You grind for honor. You grind to get items (repeat the same dungeon over and over and over until your eyes bleed to get that one item you need). Sometimes the grind is fun. Most of the time it sucks, but you do it because you are addicted, your friends need your help, you just have to have that item, you want to keep up with your friends, etc.

Sometimes though, you have real life. Real life interferes with the grind. Wouldn’t it be great if somehow you could skip the grind? Especially when it sucks. Well thanks to eBay, the web, and money, you can in many cases. You can buy gold, you can pay someone to play your character, etc. But some people view this as cheating. (And lazy, which, well that’s probably true.)

I have a different view. We’ll call it the Prince and the Pauper.

In real life, some people have rich parents and/or trust funds. Others don’t. The second group has to do everything the hard way. The first group gets through all the hard, boring, mundane crap with ease not due to skill or hard work, but due to the chance circumstances of their birth.

The same thing is true in most fantasy novels. (I use fantasy novels because that is the genre of many MMORPGs and everyone is familiar with at least some fantasy novels even if in many cases it is Harry Potter.) In virtually every fantasy novel one of the characters has some great advantage due to their birth – they were blessed by the gods, they have some special magical abilities, etc. Harry Potter is an obvious example. Somehow we love those characters even though they are not necessarily successful because of hard work and effort but because of luck (of their lineage).

So, how does this apply to games?

In games, the circumstance of your “birth” is really who the character’s player/owner is. Many characters in MMORPGs are played by high school and college kids. They have lots of free time and not lots of money. To get the things they want, they just play a lot and work really hard at the game. To them, the grind is ok. It doesn’t have a natural trade-off.

If you have a job, you might not be the prince, but you are further up the scale. You probably have some disposable income and you have at least one big time sink (your job). So you can’t play as much as you might like and you also don’t want to be playing a game that feels like a job (the grind often feels like a job). So you think, rather than doing something that I don’t want to do for 20-30 hours (roughly the time it would take to accumulate enough gold to acquire your level 60 mount in WoW) you might decide that spending $150 is better. On the other hand, you might think throwing that much money into a virtual item is a waste and instead grind out gold for 20-30 hours. The answer to this is pretty much determined by how you value your time. If you have a ton of money and not a lot of time it is an easy choice, the reverse is also true. In the middle it is fuzzy.

Getting to the point: this is not cheating or bad or evil. It is just like reality and fantasy (novels). Some characters/people are blessed with a lucky birth. Others are not. Some view it as unfair, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t reality.

This type of reality is certainly the case in social environments like Second Life. If I want to go spend a million dollars buying virtual real estate or anything else I want, that’s great. Other people might make a million dollars starting from virtually nothing by developing premium properties (which has already happened: you can read about Anshe Chung becoming a virtual millionaire.) I point this out only as a contrast to the generally held POV of this activity in games. I think game companies should remove that stigma and embrace it. Some are starting to do that, but not all of them yet.

This is an interesting article: IRS taxation of online game virtual assets inevitable.

What is funny is that people seem to jump over all the wrong things in these discussions.  I am firmly of the belief that virtual items (including currency) will legally be equivalent to physical property in the not so distant future.  I think you can write all the crazy EULAs (End-User License Agreements) that you want saying that the company owns it, but one lawsuit will put all that into question.  If you spend 100 days of actual time – ie: 2400 hours – accumulating stuff in a game and the publisher takes it away, you are going to be mad.  Right now, if you aren’t a serious gamer you are probably thinking 100 days? that’s impossible.  But it’s not, I know tons of people that have well over 100 days (in the game – 2400+ hours) played in World of Warcraft. 

Technically Blizzard owns all the stuff you do, according to their EULA.  But there is a brisk market for WoW stuff (most of which is against the rules of the EULA):

• RMT (Real Money Trading):  This is buying game currency for real dollars.  Right now in WoW the exchange rate is roughly 7 gold per dollar.  (This can vary some by server and faction, which servers.  Gold can be transferred between factions on the same server [with a non-trivial percentage take by the system] but not between servers [unless you transfer a character for $25].) 
• OSCD (Out-Sourced Character Development):  This is hiring someone to play your character for you.  (I can again here all the non-gamers going “why the hell would you do that?”.)  In MMORPGs like WoW there are a lot of things that just take a lot of repetition to complete.  Like gold – anyone can get 20-50 gold an hour – but if your time is worth more than $5/hr you are better off to buy it.  Especially since it is boring as hell.  But say you want a new level 60 character built to your specifications – you can do that too.  There are plenty of services that will do this for you and they typically cost around $2/hr and basically have someone in China (or a similar location) play your character to accomplish whatever goals you want them to accomplish. 
• CRR (Character Resale and Recycling):  This is someone selling there character on eBay or IGE because they either quit the game (broke their crack addiction, got a girlfriend, had a nearly flunking out experience, etc.) or because they need some cash (some people build characters up, sell them, start over, etc.).  If you search for World of Warcraft charcters you’ll see a bunch going for anything from $50 to $3000. 

BTW, I made up the term OSCD and CRR since I haven’t seen much talk about this.  If there are terms already in use, let me know.

 All of these things would seem, at least to me, to indicate all this virtual stuff is worth real money to people.  I mean, how is this any different than owning a digital copy of a song you bought on iTunes?  That is a virtual asset too.  I paid for it because I wanted it, but have nothing physical to prove it.  I’m also at the mercy of Apple since their DRM traps me in their world (not unlike games).  So clearly, Apple is paying taxes on the sale of these virtual assets.

The same will happen in games, but there are two distinct differences:

• In RMT and OSCD most of the commerce is transacted overseas via various instant payment mechanisms (like PayPal).  The work is done overseas.  I’m not sure what there is for the U.S. to tax here.
• in CRR and very rare RMT cases (like people I know sometimes sell a few hundred gold, but most of the transactions are through farming services that accumulate large amounts of gold – again overseas) are small.  Most people aren’t selling a $500 character every month, it is usually a single transaction.  If it were taxed you could exclude the costs (subscribtion, probably broadband, maybe computer depreciation) from the income and you would probably get to $0 profit pretty quick.  ($15 month subscription, $35 month broadband = $50/month x 10 months = $500 and there aren’t many characters selling for $500 that don’t have ten months of time into them.)  So there isn’t much to tax there.  Besides if this were taxed they’d need to go chase the tons of other people who have eBay businesses that are shirking taxes – all of these things (including the sales of WoW related stuff) really should be taxed already, people just don’t report them in many cases.

I’m sure now this will become some big political issue now and we’ll have to read about it all the time.  Someone who is a big Second Life player will die and there will be some feud over their virtual estate and the IRS will get involved.  It will be interesting to see it play out. 

So I don’t think my parents or sister are going to read this and now I won’t be able to tell them about it until after Christmas.  (NOTE TO FAMILY:  If you read this, pretend you didn’t.  ;-))  I was at Compusa the other day and they had a stack of these 7″ LCD picture frames (link goes to Amazon) with SD/CompactFlash card readers by the check-out for $99.  I was like, hey that’s cool.  I have followed Ceiva, the original digital picture frame maker (sounds like a cheesy tagline, but it’s also true as far as I know), but never bought one because they always required some whacky service plan (more on that in a minute).  But I always wanted one.  So when I saw this stack of digital picture frames with card readers for $99 I bought one.  I wanted to play with it and I thought it might make a great Christmas gift for some members of my family.  I took a trip to Cairo and Luxor in Egypt for Memorial Day and have some great pictures to show off. 

So I ran this thing in my living room for a week and it is actually pretty cool.  It’s widescreen so I’m going to have to crop my pictures to make them look right.  For my starter experiment I just popped the SD card with all my pictures out of my camera (a Canon SD700 if you must know) and into the frame.  Worked great, except for the black bars (because of the widescreen). 

To turn this into a great gift I bought some 1GB SD cards for about $30.  I’ll then load a nice selection of pictures from my various travels.  And walaa, a customized, unique, fun Christmast gift.  It’s like making a scrapbook, except cooler and more appealing to the inner geek.  So if you are looking for a really cool Christmas gift with that personal touch and a shiny tech component there it is.

Looking around online reveals this must be the year of the digital picture frame.  There are bunches of options.  There are all sorts of cool things, like this: Digital Picture Keychain.  Here is a list from Amazonwith some of their picture frame choices.  I’m kind of having picture frame envy.  I might have to get a 4:3 aspect ratio one so I don’t have to spend as much time editing the pictures.

I like this hsow a lot.  For a long time I thought Showtime’s attempts at original programming well, sucked.  But I was sick at home one day and I stumbled across Sleeper Cell.  It’s a show about an FBI agent who infiltrates a terrorist cell in Los Angeles.  That show was pretty amazing, definitely not some HBO wannabe, so I gave a few other shows a chance.  (BTW a new season of Sleeper Cell starts soon, it’s definitely worth checking out.)  I’m not a big fan of Weeds, but I think it’s production values are strong. 

But, I’m here to talk about Dexter.  Dexter Morgan is a blood spatter expert (which is basically a CSI type of thing) and a serial killer.  But his father, a police detective, discovered his sociopathic tendencies early and channeled him.  So he kills only bad people.  He investigates them, verifies they are guilty, then kills them.  In the location where he kills them he puts up exhibits showing their guilt.  It’s all-in-all pretty clever.  What makes it more interesting is the interwoven tail of another serial killer, whom Dexter is tracking.  I can’t really say any more without a major spoiler, but suffice it to say it is well done.  Watch this series.  There are only two episodes left, but you can watch the old ones on Showtime-on-Demand.  (Or at least I can on Time-Warner.)

HBO still made (makes) the two best series of all time though:  Entourage and the Sopranos.  I’m really looking forward to the next Entourage season.  Of course if there is no triumphant return of Ari, I’ll be pissed.

[ Buy it on Amazon ] [ Official Site ] [ Gamespot: 5.5 Users: 7.2 ]

I almost didn’t buy this game after the mediocre (read bad) rating that Gamespot gave it (it’s a really well done review, definitely worth checking it out).  After playing it, I kind of agree with a lot of their issues.  But it grew on me a little.  I haven’t played it through yet, or even racked up a ton of hours.  That isn’t going to stop me from posting my thoughts though.

My biggest issue with this game is probably more of a general Wii issue.  The motion sensing controller is core to the whole Wii model so most of the games I’ve checked out try to make good use of it.  However, I can’t help but feel that the controls seem to oscillate between not very sensitive and hyper sensitive.  For example, in a sword fight in Red Steel the sword strokes don’t seem particularly natural or responsive.  In my opinion the response should be instantaneous and should follow the motion you make.  This doesn’t seem to be the case – maybe its a limitation of either the game or the controller, I can’t say.  I hope that future games do a better job of this.  The other end of the spectrum, hyper sensitive (or sometimes eratic) response is also illustrated by Red Steel.  You have to keep the Wii remote pretty stationary or you’ll find yourself constantly looking at the floor.  This causes you (well at least me) to overreact and shit up.  It takes a while to get this under control and constantly holding the controller in the right position is kind of a hassle.

So moving on, I think you’ll find my biggest gripe is tied to control.  I found it difficult to get used to waving the remote around in one hand to control where I looked and using the nunchaku in the other hand to move (or dodge in a sword fight).  It is possible that I’m just not twitchy enough for this, but it took me a long time to get used to it.  In fact, I’m still not used to it.  I did, however, find that over time I got a little more used to it and started to have fun.

My other complaint is something that Gamespot also pointed out.  The cut-scenes and dialog pretty much sucks.  I wish there was a mode where I could just go sword fight and not have to deal with the story, I’d use that all the time and give the game a much better review if it had that feature.  This would at least let me escape the annoying aspects of the game and have fun.  Like a Wii sword fight workout… that would be cool.

I also wasn’t blown away by the graphics.  I’m not sure if this is a Red Steel issue or a Wii issue.  In an FPS the expectations for graphics are just a lot higher and this didn’t get there – it pales in comparison to games like Gears of War on Xbox 360.  This may be due to the fact that the Wii is not HD, which seems like a weird choice.

So in summary:  This game is fun to mess around with and does do some interesting stuff with the Wii controller, but relative to other games in this genre it’s not very good.  I would only recommend it if you want to try out some interesting new games on your Wii.  I give the game a few kudos for the cool sword fight model and for doing some pretty cool motion sensing stuff in the interface.  I just wish they had done a little better on the quality.

My hope:  That someone comes out with a sword fight game that is really cool for the Wii.  I think the basic idea of the sword fights in Red Steel are really compelling and I would love to see a game that does a spectacular job of delivering on that concept. 

I’ll preface this with the fact that I have no kids.  But I read a lot of stuff about people whining about different things that I find really annoying and wasteful.  We have a professional class of politicians that have to always be making noise about something.  We have a professional class of whiners who constantly have to be complaining about something.  And we have a billion 24/7 news outlets on TV, the web, and everywhere else that need something to talk about.  Whiners and politicians are good that way.

BTW, the irony of the fact that I’m whining about whiners is not lost on me.  And I don’t think all politicians are bad.  Just most of them.

So this article:  Court rejects Illinois video game law is short, but good.  And I love this quote they pull from the ruling:

 “As we have suggested in the past, there is serious reason to believe that a statute sweeps too broadly when it prohibits a game that is essentially an interactive, digital version of The Odyssey.“

Brilliant!  I’m glad a rational judge got a hold of this.  Personally, I think trying to legislate taste is a really bad idea.  Parents should decide, or even better help their kids make informed decisions, what their kids look at.  There are movies, books, etc. that some might find inappropriate for kids.  I’m sure there are a ton of parents that think Catcher in the Rye is bad for kids.  And Amazon.com or the brick and mortar Barnes and Noble don’t card people before they buy it.  In fact, I wonder if Best Buy or Circuit City has to card kids before they buy R movies – I doubt it, but I’ll check.  There are a lot of R movies that are a hell of a lot more disturbing than most games.  Things like The Ring.

Anyway, I guess I just get frustrated seeing all these articles about people legislating what people can and can’t do.  And I’m pretty sure (at least in hindsight it seems this way to me) that at about 16 people should be able to make their own decisions.  I mean if we trust them enough to go 70 miles per hour in several tons of steal we should be able to trust them to make other choices. 

/diatribe

I love it when people tell it like it is.  And this article from Fortune titled Seagate CEO: I help people “watch porn” is great.  Some interesting perspectives and definitely worth the read.  You know it’s going to be an interesting article when it starts:

Sitting at the arm of a tech CEO during a corporate dinner is rarely as interesting as you might imagine. Usually, the CEO stays on message throughout the meal as a PR flak hovers, smiles, nods and prods the conversation along. Just keep the drinks coming, guys.

We read so much canned “on message” stuff these days in articles I just thought it was worth mentioning this article because it’s different.