What Games Are

Going Stateside

So I have some news. 

It's been an incredible year for me, both personally and professionally. My writing continues to travel farther than I had imagined possible. I've been involved in many exciting projects and I've made many new friends in every sector of the industry. I've also been very lucky (although my entrepreneurial friends maintain you make your own luck), particularly when I received an email from the US State Dept asking me to check my immigration status in July. 

After applying many times over the last 20 years, my wife and I had finally won a pair of Diversity Visas (also known as winning the green card lottery). This meant we could legally live and work in the USA as permanent residents, untethered to any one company or industry. It's a type of visa that over 5 million people apply for every year, and you have about a 1% chance in any given year of winning. Which, given how well things have been going otherwise, is frankly amazing timing. 

The visa also opened the door to my second big stroke of luck: Hearing the news, a startup contacted me and offered me a creative director position to help them change the gaming world. And the unusual thing is that I think this startup might just be crazy/ambitious enough to do it. 

No, really. And that's why we're moving to the USA.

Everything You'll Ever Need To Know About Gamification [TechCrunch]

As I wrote a while ago, gamification is much simpler than some folks would like it to be. It's also balder in its practise than in its ambitions. My most recent post on TechCrunch continues in this vein and offers some simple rules and how-to to puncture the myths and be pragmatic. By all means gamify. Just don't lose your head in the clouds while doing so. 

Read the full article here.

Games Don't Need Saving

It's a rite-of-passage thing. Also an age thing. You're probably around 25, have jumped, slaughtered and strategised your way through at least 1000 games, and found them amazing and entertaining. Then something happens.

You start to get bothered by the sameness. You start to notice that games recycle the same ideas on a generational timeline, that every 5-7 years or so game developers repackage the same concepts for new platforms. And also keep making the same mistakes.

Over time, you start to think that games need to be saved.

Get Your Ass to Metro [TechCrunch]

My TechCrunch column over the weekend talked about Windows 8 Metro (or whatever it's called these days) and the likely gold-rush opportunity that has opened up around it. It's not a rush that will last long, however, so strike while the iron is hot.

Read the rest here.