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Me Myself&I

Freedom Denial

The scariest thing about last weekend is not Todd Akin, it’s being a teacher and get five years in prison for having sex with students at your place, all of them being above 18. Of course all gave consent.

5 years. Half a decade for that.

It’s the worst message you can send to all the legally horny women out there. Todd and his stupid shit? Ignore this bitch who cares, we all know he’s lying and saying retarded shit, water-doesn’t-get-you-wet retarded. Rape is serious. We know, women know only a very few morons would say the opposite and we will not listen to them.

But this? It’s saying you are a woman and you can’t act like men. You can’t have legal sex if you are a wife but you can have illegal sex when you are a husband. No judging, no moral just facts.

If you’re a woman it’s considered disgusting behavior, you’re a monster but if you’re a dude and you get caught it’s “shit happens, let’s move on” time? WTF.

This story is saying if you are a woman you can’t have strong sexual appetite. You can’t possibly want to act and decide to have group sex at your place, with adults, consent young people you know. Uh yes, she could.

Texas uses this no-sex-between-teachers-and-students excuse to grill this woman for cheating on her husband because the good behavior for a woman in Texas -and in the Judeo-Christian West world- is to shut the fuck up, raise kids and wait for your husband’s cock in your mouth when he gets back from whatever. Maybe from some other pussyhole.

I don’t know, it bothers me. I want women to be free and enjoy life like this teacher did (nobody was harmed or molested). I want them to not worry about thinking of sex, I want them to long for sex if they want and I’m tired of associating women and “non-sex” and rape as if it was the only way for women and all of us to think about this beautiful thing that is having fun with your body reaching higher pleasure, sweating.

I think it would profit everyone.

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Audio&Games

Why I am so concerned by the boring parts of game development

In response to this. DICE is a great developer but they have Electronic Arts backing them up (unlimited money, sort of) and it’s going to be interesting now that EA is shifting from AAA to F2P or small scale games.

To me game audio is dependent from game development which is dependent from game business. Game audio is a mess because game development is a mess because game business is a mess. I needed to understand the balance of power and how ultimately this impact my field.

In order to focus on quality innovation and fun on games (which is pure R&D), you kind of need an unlimited supply of money and time which are very hard to obtain, as you know.

So if you try to fund your game from your previous games, you want them to make money, in a sustainable way if possible.

If it happens, then game development goes right and game audio is happening in the best setting possible which is the one you want, otherwise: project cancelled, called at the last minute, miserable audio budget… The list goes on.


Busimech

Business is crucial. What people need to understand is that the computer game business always has been complicated (that is, borderline unprofitable) because as Marc Cerny says in his talk the only constant in our field is change. These days game developers are all jumping in the AAA VS Indie/F2P wagon but it’s not a matter of who’s right, it’s a matter of what’s going on, how people use their digital devices and what is going on behind the scene. It’s the other end of our development/design spectrum.

For example, some people might think that the iPhone5 and iPad4 will continue to guarantee a stream of revenue on the iOS side, getting even bigger even. But you have to understand that:

  • Carriers don’t want to be Apple’s bitch ever again. They are the ones paying iPhones full price, they are the ones selling data plans and trying to keep customers on their services. They don’t need to push people on data plans anymore.
  • Of course competition is more than heating up, it’s coming from everywhere (MS, Amazon, Google) and carriers will use that leverage.

So on iOS the success window is going to be even more narrow. Which means cross-platform dev tools as much as possible (diversify your bonds, nigga).

Another example concerning game audio: F2P == retaining players from day one and as long as possible == BIG AUDIO AND SHIT. But if you’re a small team, you should probably not go the F2P road (you work two years with a friend, you’re broke as hell you don’t make a F2P game because it’s trendy, WTF?). At least in the West, in Asia it’s another story.

The hundreds of millions of handheld consoles sold is a thing of the past and because Nintendo/Sony still don’t match game development easiness and cheapness we have with mobile phones and tablets, I would not go this way (get away from exclusive deals, no game is going to make me buy a $250 game device anymore).

Business is complicated, it is crucial and everything is possible. If we want to be able to push on quality, innovation and fun and because it’s so tied up to development variables, we need to get business right and control it.

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Me Myself&I

Smells and first commit

I had forgotten about Paris summer smell. Heavy weather, warm metro hallways, pungent pee, pungent sweat or pungent perfume, the smell of a storm coming. So many triggers. I’m always amazed at a perfume power. This one reminds me of this friend in high school and also of her place, this one immediately places me in this office with these people, this one is this blonde skateboarder from ten years ago… The smell of plants, so different from L.A. There’s nothing frying around. Riding my bike along the river, this almost non-existent breeze…

Of course it hurts too. These summers spent thinking “France is awesome!” only to realize year after year that it might not be the case, at least for me. It’s hard to divorce.

 
First one!

My first commit on my game, I guess things are becoming a bit more official when stuff is git’d. Michel coded and showed me -again- how disgustingly weird and unintuitive programming is. Even with tools like Unity we’re still SO into the ice age of coding, you don’t even know. Fuck.

I might have playable mechanics and a really basic version of my game soon. Exciting. Also, still doodling about the name even though I have an idea.

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Audio&Games

Like me some gamasutra

Excellent article on Pugs Luv Beats’ Theory of Fun and generative music. Basically Pure Data is my MIDI engine, the only difference is that I would less go on the playground’s road and aim more at a middle ground ala Sound Shapes (on a side note I don’t think platformers are great for heavy audio sync, the game flow is too noisy). If only we could have a game audio engine standard for that…

Also, building better tools for game design. My take on this was “the problem with Unity”. Again if we could get our “camera & microphone” standard to build games and I mean games, gameplay rules and feedback not worlds that would be great now that we have reached maximum asset output for 3D engines and humans…

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Me Myself&I

Earth is still the place for now

You wouldn’t believe how much I was into space when I was a kid. Completely nuts about it. Ariane 4, the future Ariane 5, the future shuttle everything was ready in the 80s to dream about that. If I had had the internet I would have tried to make something in this area. What not to love about space, especially for me.


Not the first black man to doodle about that, apparently.

I had learned how rockets are powered (liquid this, liquid that mix and BOOM) and Jean-Loup Chrétien was so inspiring. Oh, before driving rockets you need to fly fighter aircrafts? AWESOME.

That was when I was a kid and had a blank canvas in my mind and the feeling that the entire world is aiming for up there, right? RIGHT?

Today I don’t give a fuck about space. Fuck space.

Of course we can do amazing thing like sending a robot on wheels with a ZERO error margin far from Earth I know we can. I know we can master perfection despite all the philosophy BS. But it’s not beautiful when we are incapable of doing things this way here, when it’s about us because of the incredible, embarrassingly huge amount of waste of money and resource every fucking day. When we try to solve our humanity problems, we suck. That ruins everything for me. It’s all bitter in my mouth.

Imagine if this human power, this focus and dedication, this money were used to fix shit on earth: everything that goes wrong down here would be resolved in a year. Maybe less. That’s what makes me feel like “fuck your red rocks” because during that time a white dude shot Sikh people dead because of how they look, people argue over chicken and gay rights and a young 21 year old black man got shot in the head in the back of a police car. And so on. It’s 2012 and only white people dream about space, go on the Twitter and watch. A large majority doesn’t give a fuck about that stuff because we have to deal with stupid shit that shouldn’t exist anymore. I mean, we’re sending robots 60 million kilometers away at the same time. It hurts.

Science, NASA and professors, give me affordable highly efficient solar panel, give me affordable highly efficient fuel cells give me affordable highly efficient water filtering systems give me things that we all over the world would use. But you can’t. The US will not pay for things making the world a better place for no profit, the US are barely willing to make you all dream with a little car on a red planet. I’m sure Lonnie G Johnson’s JTEC engine is getting shut down by every possible entity. Profit.

It’s exhausting. The waste, Jesus. The waste.

Beyond that, it’s like the Olympics. So much bullshit about how “we’re all together, to infinity and beyond”. Solve 40 year old social issues for real before bragging that shit in my face every 4 years.

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Me Myself&I

Leica’d

Credit photo: Sean Bonner.

L.A. April 2012. Atwater Village, coffee, friend, talking. Click.

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Audio&Games

Garden 8

This Gabe Newell interview is making the rounds these days. Because he said:

We want to make it as easy as possible for the 2,500 games on Steam to run on Linux as well. It’s a hedging strategy. I think Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space. I think we’ll lose some of the top-tier PC/OEMs, who will exit the market. I think margins will be destroyed for a bunch of people. If that’s true, then it will be good to have alternatives to hedge against that eventuality.

So right, it’s FUD time because Gabe has a lot to lose with the Windows 8 store (also, Xbox Live integration). No one is pointing this out? In the interview he also says that touchscreen is a short term fad. I wish people would debate around this -it’s a big statement and very interesting- but no, people are focusing on Windows 8 being a catastrophe for Valve and everyone else.

Don’t you think it’s not that surprising to have digital distribution’s leader talking trash about upcoming competition? Don’t you think that Gabe could have started and invest Linux way before store competition forces him to do so? Don’t you think that knowing that Gabe is an ex-Microsoft employee who built his empire on top of Windows, you can take these declarations with a grain of salt?

Why am I in an industry that wishes new distribution channels to fail? Why wouldn’t you be interested in a new platform, touch more users, when making games is so hard and unpredictable as for the outcome’s success? I don’t get it. More options, what’s so bad about it? Unless they really screw us, there’s no need to wish them the worst when they are not even available yet. It just doesn’t seem professional at all.

Here’s the news: there is no perfect platform and there will be no perfect one. The only way for platforms to get better for developers is them competing to get us. We, developers need to push them to compete (by doing this p 58/66), this is how we can get leverage. Ouya is on its way to allow us to change the console area and that’s good. I don’t wish them to fail even if I see many obstacles on their road as well if not more than Microsoft’s Windows 8. They’re both shaking competition. That’s good for us. Apple disrupted our world, punched Nintendo/Sony’s handheld businesses. Now they’re sitting on their ass. Google didn’t change the market as deeply neither Amazon but whatever, let’s encourage players to play shall we? It’s Microsoft’s turn, no need to be a dick we need this competition. For example, it’s great that they included a trial mode in their marketplace for apps and games, a thing still missing in GooglApple ecosystems. That’s good for us. Let’s take advantage of this dynamic.

Platforms are gardens and we create seeds. No seeds, no garden. No garden, no people. Then, how creating seeds in an overcrowded walled garden where they will slowly die is better than creating seeds in a new, relatively more open environment where they can grow? And when your seed (game, IP) is strong enough port it in a crowded garden (I never thought Minecraft would come on Xbox AND be a massive hit on it).

At the end, you never know which one will succeed. So keep an eye on all of them and be honest about what they are/can do.

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Me Myself&I

WolfBANG

Another truth imho is that we all watch too much TV, and that’s what really makes us crazy.

I feel it. I’m completely Breaking Bad’s bitch, jumping and cringing in front of my monitor once a week. I started  the show over just by watching the pilot again.

And it’s violent, I had forgotten about it because I’m sedated like most of you guys. It’s violently “real”, there’s something terrible about the fact that if drugs were legal, there would be no critically acclaimed show (same with Weeds). There would be probably much less violence in Mexico too. I’d be good with that.

Our global society  is not handling well endemic problems (unemployment) and people’s solutions (I’ve been told that dealing drugs is very lucrative). Meanwhile, a TV drama shows us exactly how we can justify death to provide for our families and my family deserves more than yours. It feels plain wrong. Back to Scarface. At the same time we try to be more humans and caring (gay marriage and goose loving and whatnot) but it’s totally against what we value out there with our minds and our pockets: violence, aggressiveness. Dexter, Call of Duty, Steve Jobs, Skrillex. Mad Men is like a new genre I call “Quiet 60s Conservatism Aggression”.

We’re angry too. I understand “getting it out” through violence: sports, playing punk rock or slapping the bass are great activities for that. But this aggression towards others, everyone, wholly and fully against anything for your little clan is a little too primal.

Simply put, we ain’t no fucking wolves no more.


-Courage +Wolf

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Me Myself&I

Listen and solve (echoing)

It’s always good to think about something and see articles echoing my thoughts.

The dangerous gap between those who make software, and those who use it.

I’m a high end user comfortable with anything on a computer, knowing how things work to a ridiculous level. I’m not saying that to brag, I’m saying it by helping my mom on Office 2010 or reading this article above or how some people really still love a decade old XP’s interface and violently express it on the Windows 8 blog.

The truth is we, high end users developers and designers are fighting over stupid shit that 99% of people don’t care about and we live in a masturbatory bubble.

This is what I said about game programmers not listening to what’s going on outside that bubble, what players, users clients whatever you call them, really want. You guys should not just be listening to the hype or what would make your app, service and yourself cool but you should listen to people who are actively expressing some needs even if they seem to suck. Because these people have a problem that you can fix, and might even charge for. You make him happy, you earn some income.

Other echo on my reflections about race, black people and computer games.

We’re not saying that this stuff exists because of some hidden malice or secret industry-wide conspiracy to keep minorities in America down. The much sadder truth is that all this bullshit comes from simple, old-fashioned laziness. There’s no good reason video games can’t be infinitely smarter, more responsible and better than this — it’s just going to take time, thought, hard work and a bit of empathy.

And shit, who has time for that? Game developers have got to get another Callfield: Dutybattle out the door by Q3 or the EA monster will devour their children.

See the pattern? People so into their own power of creating apps and games that they don’t care or respect people at the other end. Seriously, stop this shit and please reconsider your position on this.

Oh you have to watch this 8 minutes Call of Juarez video it’s just… How the hell can they get away with this.

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Me Myself&I

Frightening

2012, we live in a world where it’s forbidden to post a nude picture on pretty much any social media service but where you can buy assault riffles easily.

I know it will probably not change in my lifetime but you people spawning kids jesus fuck you’d better invert the trend because maybe that’s just me but I’d rather have a 16 year old daughter taking pictures of her body than dead (yeah it’s a stretch to see it this way but that’s nothing compared to more-gun-control-is-reducing-my-freedom people’s insane arguments, nothing).