Potential Investor: So, the target market for this game would be guys with a high-end gaming rig and experience with MMOs.
Meg: Or would be GIRLS.
Red Bull Augmented Racing
When the demo for Red Bull augmented racing began at NYGaming‘s local games demo, I was just getting warmed up for a rant on how much I hate branded games. Corporate sponsorship almost always means a mediocre casual game, minus some gameplay elements and plus some extra annoying popups.
Still, I was attracted to the cyberpunk awesome of arranging Red Bull empties into a racetrack, scanning and filming them with a smartphone (iOS only, which seems more like a branding choice for Red Bull than a technical requirement), choosing a background, and letting the app creating a playable, unique racetrack.
The social element comes in when players upload and share their tracks, with the ability to race the ghostcars of friends and strangers. Of course, there’s the ubiquitous social leaderboard (guess there are some elements of a typical branded reskin), and the ability to like and share on Facebook.
In conclusion, I still don’t really like Red Bull. I don’t really like racing games. But the juxtaposition of empty cans of chemical energy, and the augmented reality pocket tech is way too cyberpunk to ignore.
Twitter meta-game Zeitheist also demoed at the NYGaming at AOL Ventures the same night.
Posted in Game Reviews, Gaming Culture, New York City
Tagged augmented reality, Game Reviews, games, New York City, nygaming, Red Bull
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Factually Accurate
“If we don’t get this content release out, I’m going to be like John the Baptist!” Harold pauses here, unsure if I’m following him. “Do you know who that is?”
“Yes. I do. You know what my dad does for a living, right?” I said, “And the answer is that he’s a pastor, not that he chops people’s heads off for me.”
Hockey Stick Growth
One of the speakers at TechCrunch Disrupt was David Karp from Tumblr, who was talking about “hockey stick growth”, massive increases in the users and site traffic.
I thought it would be hilariously meta to take a picture from the Tumblr talk and post it to my Tumblr. So I did.
But the client failed because there was too much traffic.
Posted in New York City
Tagged #tcdisrupt, blogging about blogging, meta, New York City, TechCrunch Disrupt, Tumblr
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Risk Reward Ratio
A few mornings ago, I was in Starbucks with Harold. Also, the sun came up that day. But on this particular day, the guy on the register was so horribly unpleasant that it stands out from my usual Starbucks visits. The cashier was completely antisocial, grunting his responses to customers, when he wasn’t rolling his eyes and scolding his coworkers, but in his defense, he seemed to be the only employee who hadn’t started yesterday.
“That could be me,” I wailed. “This June content could fail and then I’ll lose my job and I’ll never be able to find another job I like this much, actually, I’ll never be able to find another one at all, and then I’ll have to work in the Starbucks and I’m going to be cranky all the time, and I’ll be working with monkeys and I’d be broke all the time again, and I would hate that even more now that I’ve done something else!”
(Oh, no, looking for work in Raleigh did no lasting damage to my psyche at all. None. Totally over it. Why do you ask?)
Harold said all the right things (That won’t happen. That won’t happen. No, seriously, Meg, listen to me. That won’t happen.) but here is the thing about high-risk, high-visibility deadlines: They are high-risk, high-visibility deadlines.
TechCrunch Disrupt
Spent a couple days in an unheated warehouse looking at cyberpunk startups. I gotta go write some stories now.
Posted in virtual life
Tagged #tcdisrupt, TechCrunch, TechCrunch Disrupt, virtual life
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Nanobots
I met up with my high-school friend Roy and some of his visiting friends at Katz Deli, where we ate piles of deli meat and exchanged expat stories. Expat stories are are like regular stories, only with more “at the Kazahkstan border crossing” and “then he got deported” involved.
“I can’t eat any more of this,” I finally said. “It’s delicious, but I can actually hear my arteries clogging.”
“Don’t worry, Meg,” Roy said, “By the time we’re old, we’ll be able to buy new cybertronic organs. And nanobots will maintain them.”
“You’re so right! I don’t have to maintain a healthy lifestyle, I just need to be fit enough that nanobots catch up before these fries do! Yay for science!”
Nerd Baby
Also, Allison would like to introduce everyone to HaveYouHadThatBabyYet.com
Posted in Austin, New York City
Tagged allison, bnter, New York City, stree, twitter
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Awesome
Alt-tabbing between writing a personal message (Hi Figment! How are your zombie muppets?), reading a work email (…availability of space transport and time travel relies on…) and working on a tutorial (…to best handle killer monkeys…).
Awesome.
Posted in New York City
Tagged awesome, Figment, killer monkeys, my cyberpunk life, my virtual life, New York City, travel
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Journalists’ Secret Handshake
I always feel like when I make just a little bit more money on a story, or get into a magazine with a slightly higher circulation, I’ll feel like a real writer.
But right now, whenever I receive a press pass, I think I’ve tricked the event organizers into letting me go. When I receive review games, I worry that the developers are wasting a copy on me. They’ll send me a game, just for talking about it? That can’t be real! While I’m getting better at calling myself a writer, I still think it requires qualifiers. Yeah, I’m a writer, but not like a real book or anything! Fake writing! On the internet! Yes, just like your friend who posts pictures of her cats on Blogspot! Only not about cats. Wanna see a story I did in a publication you’ve never heard of, about a game you’ve never heard of?
So this weekend, Harold was a guest Big Apple Comic Con and I went along with him. We were barely inside when I was asked for directions to press registration. Over the rest of the weekend, several guys at the con asked me which artists I was covering or who I was writing for. Even though I was really just there with Harold, I felt like a proper writer.
I’m going to assume it’s because I seem like such an awesome indie journalist, and not that my smalltalk skills resemble pre-story interrogation.
Posted in New York City
Tagged being a real journalist, Comics, games, Harold, minor milestones, New York City, press pass
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