Author: Jeff Morgan (Page 1 of 5)

Zynga and the death of Draw Somehing

May 24, 2012 / Jeff Morgan

As a gamer and more specifically a lover of indie games, my default stance with Zynga is pure revulsion. The company has blatantly and shamelessly cannibalized so many indie hits at this point that I simply will not support any product they produce. The latest title to join my blacklist is Draw Something, the smash hit from OMGPOP. Zynga recently purchased the company for nearly $200 million, a purchase that drew a lot of raised eyebrows, including my own.

Don’t get me wrong, Draw Something is fun. It’s a perfect recreation of a game I know as Telestrations. In the physical world, Telestrations requires players to sketch a word using a fat-tip, dry-erase marker. The drawings are expectedly bad, but that’s part of the fun. The same is true of Draw Something – human fingers just aren’t precise enough to draw an accurate representation of Kanye West on a smartphone, but they can damn sure mock up some window-shade sunglasses and draw a bar of gold next to a shovel.

But Draw Something doesn’t quite have the magic that makes players stick around after the initial week-long excitement is gone. For me, interactions over Draw Something didn’t create enough of a story. With Telestrations, players pass their drawings around a room. The next person writes the phrase the original artist was trying to sketch. The person of that draws – it’s a game of sketch telephone. The real fun of the game, though, is in the retelling of the drawings. You get to see where players missed the mark. Draw Something is just too easy after a few plays with a new player. You know how they think, how they communicate an idea, and because Draw Something presents a hangman-style letter bank from which to guess, getting the word right is a simple process of elimination.

I could see why Zynga might have initially been interested in Draw Something; the game was pulling 15 million users a day through Facebook alone. It was at the top of the app charts, one of the highest grossing apps around. But just a couple weeks later Facebook traffic fell by half. Despite the company’s recent announcement of a partnership with Dreamworks for ads inside the game, it’s hard to see the Draw Something deal paying out. Even with a nice ad deal, there won’t be enough players in a couple months to make the math work.

I can’t say I’m sad to see Zynga’s stock continue to tumble, but I hope the company’s fall only leaves room for more games to fill its void. For a couple weeks, Draw Something had me connected to friends spread all over the country. If a company that respects IP can swoop in to deliver a lasting version of that experience, I’ll be a happy man.

Entertainment, Lifestyle

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Don’t Box Cost Me, Bro

April 30, 2012 / Jeff Morgan

I recently had a conversation with a friend about picking up Tera, an MMO from En Masse that was making its way to the States. Tera’s big sell is a combat revamp from the typical MMO. Gone are the days of tab-targetting. Tera requires that you actually be facing your target in order to land your skills. It’s a nice concept, and it plays fairly well, but I still can’t justify buying the game. In a world of free-to-play, microtransaction games, the box cost just doesn’t play anymore.

Gaming is a zero-sum hobby at this point. If I want to pick up a game like Tera, it means subbing one of the games I’m currently enjoying out of rotation. Strangely enough, it hasn’t always been this way. Ten years ago, there just weren’t as many high quality games. With the proliferation of quality indie titles and the accessibility of those free-to-play games, though, I have plenty of titles to play. So why pick up a game like Tera?

This may seem a little clinical, but it’s the best system I’ve been able to devise. When I’m considering a new game, I basically break down the game’s entry cost. It’s not just the monetary cost. I also consider the amount of time I need to invest learning the game before I can really enjoy it (for some games this is a fair amount of time). For Tera, it looks a little something like this:

$50 box cost
$15 monthly fee
5+ intro hours

Is that really worth it? When I consider it against another game I’ve been playing lately, it becomes pretty clear. For Tribes Ascend, the cost looks more like this:

1 intro hours

And even that is a little aggressive. I was having fun with Tribes in the first 30 minutes, but if you haven’t played any of the previous titles you might take a little more time. Now granted, Tribes and Tera aren’t exactly analogous titles, but the list of top quality games with low entry costs continues to grow. And that says nothing of the changing face of the MMO. Players aren’t as dedicated to single titles, so does it really make sense to charge a box cost and a sub? Not to me.

I realize publishers want to recoup some of their investment with an initial return, but the box cost is actually keeping me from buying the game at all. I’d gladly throw $15 at the first month of a game, but $50 on top? I don’t think so.

As more games embrace MMO-style play without MMO subscriptions, the box + sub model just won’t be sustainable. Take a look at Diablo 3 – Blizzard could easily ask a sub for that game, but it’s box cost only. They aren’t even working in a microtransaction model (granted, they’re looking to get a cut of the real money auction house). It’s not just top-tier publishers; even the alpha-funding model upstages Tera-style pricing. I can pay as little as $10 to fund the development of an indie title and receive the full thing on release.

As the quality of games continues to improve, publishers are going to have to consider more flexible pricing structures. Like I said, gaming is a zero-sum hobby. I only have so much time to dedicate to games. When the low-cost games are outperforming the high-cost, you can guess what I’ll be playing.

Games

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Mobile continues to vex Microsoft

April 26, 2012 / Jeff Morgan

Imagine, just for a moment, a world without the iPhone. It’s tough, I know. Essentially every touchscreen experience you’re having today has been fundamentally shaped or directly influenced by Apple’s smartphone. But today, let’s take a quick step back to early 2007, when Apple had yet to introduce its industry-changing device.

Back then, Microsoft had nearly 40 percent of the mobile market share. The OS it hawked was nothing compared to Windows Phone 7, and not just by direct comparison. Even for its time, Microsoft on mobile was a clunky, frustrating mess. But still, it had 40 percent of the market. Fast forward to today. It’s more than a year since Microsoft unveiled an ambitious, stylish operating system on some very strong hardware (the initial HTC handsets were great) and its market share is plummeting, down 50 percent from the same time last year. According to comScore, Microsoft’s mobile share is down to 3.9 percent of the total market this year, and it isn’t going up.

Microsoft’s modern mobile operating system wasn’t too little. In fact, it’s pretty damn solid. It’s just too late. Way too late. Redmond is still trying to find a way to make things work but everything is a non-starter. Even the deal with Nokia, which has already turned out a device that can rival the iPhone, will do nothing to save Windows Phone 7, and it’s easy to see why. There is no reason to switch.

Last March I was given an HTC Inspire for review. It was my first serious experience with Android and I fell in love. The integration with Google products, the notification bar that has since been cannibalized by Apple, the flexibility and power in different handsets and ROMs – I loved all of it. I dropped my iPhone and haven’t looked back. What does Microsoft have? Bing? Xbox Live? The first might be a joke, but Xbox Live is pretty serious business. If there’s one place Apple and Google fail, it’s social. Could Microsoft find a way to take the world’s most volatile gaming network and turn it into a mobile powerhouse?

Maybe, but it’s hard to imagine users suddenly abandoning app stores for whatever Microsoft might throw together. Of course, it was also hard to imagine a world without Symbian but here we are. Even so, a compelling social offer probably wouldn’t be enough, and Xbox Live is too niche to really carry Windows Phone. Unfortunately for the good people in Redmond, “just as good as those other guys” is not going to be nearly good enough. If Microsoft wants to regain market share of any kind, they need to something huge–I’m talking smartphones embedded on human retinas and eardrums huge–to be relevant in the mobile universe.

Gadgets

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HP Phoenix makes a stylish high-end PC debut

March 31, 2012 / Jeff Morgan

The custom gaming/performance PC market is probably best known for its garish, overwrought case design and the staggering price of entry. Price comes down quite a bit as buyers look to build their own machines, but for a lot of people, pre-built is a fine option. It doesn’t require any technical expertise and there’s the added benefit of manufacturer product support. Buying a pre-built machine does involve some amount of compromise; you don’t get to pick every peripheral in the machine and there is the aforementioned aesthetic issue. When HP contacted me to test a machine that bucks the aesthetic trend, I was intrigued. After a few weeks with the HPE Phoenix h9xt I now have something I never thought I would have–a high-end pre-built I would actually recommend to a friend.

It goes without saying that custom PC builders can turn back now. I’m not going to be speaking your lanugage here, and neither is HP. You aren’t the market they’re trying to reach, and with good reason. You know your machine as well as any support tech and have likely ripped it apart a thousand times just so you could rebuild it. The Phoenix line is aimed at folks who want performance but don’t have interest in all that goes into building a machine. Different strokes, friends.

To that end, HP really delivers. The spec list of my HPE Phoenix h9xt is as follows:
· Windows 7 Home Premium [64-bit]
· Core i7-3930k six-core processor [3.2GHz]
· 10 GB DDR3 RAM [3 DIMMs]
· 2 TB 7200 rpm SATA hard drive
· Blu-ray player & SuperMultiDVD burner
· AMD Radeon HD 6850 graphics [1GB]
· 2 top-mounted USB 3.0, 4 USB 2.0
· Price as configured $1,799 (starting price $999)

This is not, by any means, the PC I would build were I to build one myself. Pairing a $600 processor with a $150 video card is just downright odd, but as with any machine at this price point, the HPE Phoenix h9xt can be customized to suit your needs. My first step would be to downgrade the processor and upgrade the video card. I don’t do anything that requires a bleeding-edge processor, but if you do, it’s there.

You may have balked at the 10GB of RAM–I know I did. It’s a 3-DIMM build, which seemed really bizarre until I learned that the motherboard runs with quad-channel support. I would still probably rather see a 12GB or 16GB configuration, but with quad-channel memory I was never hurting for performance.

None of the tech mumbo jumbo is really all that important, though. HP has been around for decades. If they couldn’t make a decent computer by now they wouldn’t still be in business. As for aesthetics, well, the market so far has proven that gamer’s aren’t really visual people. They’re into overstimulation of every sense. They like flashing lights, bulbous cases and all other variations on the grotesque. I know, it seems foolish to worry about aesthetics on a machine built for performance, but if we can learn anything from Apple (oh yeah, have you seen their market cap?) it’s that people value style.

HP took that lesson to heart when designing the Phoenix line of machines. I actually muttered the word “wow” when I pulled it out of its box. Not “WOW!” Just, “wow,” because it’s an understated look. It’s the kind of machine you could actually sit on your desktop without risking jeers from domestic visitors. It won’t scare off prospective mates. In short, the Phoenix is a sleeper–the kind of machine that performs exactly when you need it to without getting showy.

I never thought I would walk away from a pre-built machine thinking, “damn, I would buy that.” And yet, that’s exactly what I would be saying if I was someone else. I realize that’s a strange way to compliment HP, but to be fair, the HPE Phoenix h9xt isn’t designed for me. It isn’t designed for someone who knows the smell of a dying DIMM. It’s designed for the casual but committed power user. The not-quite-pro-sumer. This machine was created for guys who would be buying an Alienware but have too much self-respect, and for those guys I think it’s an excellent solution.

Gadgets

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Three simple reasons you shouldn’t buy the “new” iPad

March 7, 2012 / Jeff Morgan

I’m going to keep this short and to the point. I don’t have to. I have plenty more than three reasons you should take a pass on the new iPad, but I think three pretty much sums things up.

1. LTE is essentially nowhere
Apple spent a decent chunk of its time today touting the super-fast LTE speeds the new iPad was ready to exploit. The simple reality is that LTE is available to a tiny minority of the country, and its even spotty for those folks. LTE might be awesome when its out–in all likelihood it’s going to mean a massive increase in your cell phone or home internet access plan–but for nearly all intents and purposes it isn’t out yet.

You could definitely make the case that Apple needed to make the LTE upgrade so that networks didn’t have to wait for those pesky 2012 iPad buyers to get off the network. All the same, you likely won’t be able to take advantage of LTE so why pay for it now?

2. The screen difference doesn’t matter
I’m sorry, nerds, it doesn’t. Certainly not in any meaningful way. The current iPad screen is just 10 inches and ridiculously crisp. Crisp in a way that is almost unnecessary for a 10-inch screen. The new screen is definitely unnecessary for a 10-inch screen. Even for professional applications like showing off videos or photography to potential clients, the increased resolution will do nothing for mediums in which those resolutions are actually applicable. I don’t need to see a document in 2048×1536 on an iPad to imagine what it will look like in print. If my designers are not morons, it will look fine, even if you show it to me on the iPad 2 screen.

At this screen size, resolution is an utterly meaningless arms race. It does nothing but raise the cost of the device.

3. The iPad 2 is $529 with 3G
Bet you didn’t see that coming. I’m not an iPad hater. Hell, I want one. I’ve wanted one for a while now. The only reason I haven’t purchased one is that I’m not sure how much use it would see beyond casual reading (no kids). It’s probably for the best that I try to curtail my Netflix consumption, anyway. But that’s not the point. The point here is that the iPad 2, which is for all practical purposes just as good as the new iPad, can be had for $529 with a 3G sim in it. Pair that with an a la carte data plan and you have a much more useful device than the $500 bragging rights of the latest model.

Gadgets

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