Games

The guilt of the video-game millionaires

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From the New Yorker:

One night in March, 2013, Rami Ismail and his business partner Jan Willem released a game for mobile phones called Ridiculous Fishing. Ismail, who was twenty-four at the time and who lives in the Netherlands, woke the following morning to find that the game had made him tens of thousands of dollars overnight. His first reaction was not elation but guilt. His mother, who has a job in local government, had already left for work. “Ever since I was a kid I’ve watched my mom wake up at six in the morning, work all day, come home, make my brother and me dinner—maybe shout at me for too much ‘computering,’ ” he said. “My first thought that day was that while I was asleep I’d made more money than she had all year. And I’d done it with a mobile-phone game about shooting fish with a machine gun.”

Great read.

Last year, 71 million people watched other people play video games

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I remember the first time I saw the X Games on TV. Snowboarding? On TV? It just seemed odd. But now snowboarding has also become mainstream, a big draw in the Winter Olympics.

Turns out, this same thing is happening with video games. Though I shudder to think that video games will ever make its way into the Olympics, there is no doubt that watching other people play video games has gone mainstream.

The invention of Jeopardy!

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Jeopardy! will turn 50 this year and the version hosted by Alex Trebek will turn 30. Ken Jennings, one of the all time biggest winners on any game show ever, won more than $3 million on the show. In the linked post, Jennings interview the mother and creator of Jeopardy, Julann Griffin. Julan was married to Merv Griffin, who created Wheel of Fortune. Just saying.

Apple offers “Refund for In-App Purchases made by a minor”

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Apple sent an email today to its iTunes account holders who have made in-app purchases. The email gave account holders the chance to ask for a refund for any and all in app purchases made by a minor.

I think this is beyond fair. The text of the email is in the post.

Apple adds Indie Game Showcase to iTunes

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To get to the page, launch iTunes, click the App Store link at the top of the page to get to the App Store, then click the Indie Games Showcase banner at the top of the page (you might need to wait for it to rotate into view).

The NEX band and the world’s first hardware app store

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The NEX band is a wrist band that acts as a hub for clip-on hardware mods that add various notification capabilities. At first blush, this seems like a genius idea. The NEX band tackles some of the same ideas addressed by existing smart bands, but builds in a plug and play extendability.

I can only assume that the appropriate teams at Apple are digging in to this technology with great interest. Fascinating tech.

Arduboy is a business card that can play Tetris and other games

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[VIDEO] Could this be the future of business cards? Based on the Arduino Pro-Mini, the programming is done on a computer and downloaded into the chip. A lot of hand work and not flexible, but if the market likes this, I suspect automated manufacturing and a more flexible form factor will follow. Video embedded in the post.

Sweet!

The case for Apple to buy Nintendo

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This case has been made before, but this article does a good job of analyzing all the moving pieces.

In my view, access to the Nintendo game catalog on iOS would strike a major blow to Samsung. Having Pokemon, Mario, Zelda, and their many friends exclusively tied to iOS would likely provide the most significant point of software differentiation between the two rivals.

[Via a free reg-wall]

The real story of the Sochi wolf hoax

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A member of the US Olympic luge team posted a video showing an apparent wolf roaming the hallways of one of the Olympic Village dorms. Watch the embedded video for the real story.

Accusations of App Store manipulation

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Not sure what to make of this. Is the App Store being gamed, or are people being careless with their .99? Follow the links in the story to get the big picture. There are a lot of them.

Candy Crush maker King Digital’s IPO filing

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King games have been downloaded on 500 million mobile devices, almost one game for every person in Brazil and the U.S. What’s more, about 408 million of those consumers play at least one game a month; some 124 million play every day.

Those are staggering numbers. But is this success long term?

Here’s how Olympic hockey works

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I’m a huge fan of Olympic hockey. The rink size and rule changes make the game more exciting, allow for better skating and passing. I also think the scoring is better, with 3 points for a regulation win, 2 points for an OT win, and 1 point for an OT loss.

Opinion aside, I’ve been scratching my head trying to understand the rules for moving from round to round. The linked site lays all that out nicely.

Games with hidden developer shout outs

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These games have hidden unused pieces of text, never intended to be seen during gameplay, because developers have voices too. These include things like programmer shout-outs, messages aimed at hackers trawling through the game data, and the furious ranting of overworked, underpaid coders doing crunch-time.

This is a pretty good list. 423 games. How many of these do you remember?

Olympic luge so fast, they had to add uphill sections

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[VIDEO] In the 2010 Olympics, Georgia republic luger Nodar Kumaritashvili died after a training run. On that track, the lugers reached speeds of 95 mph (152 kph). Even though officials concluded that the crash was driver error, they determined to slow the track down for the Sochi games.