Permanent Hiatus

Can I get a raisin Julius? Longmont Potion Castle

2011-12-30T15:08:00.000-08:00

Technically, LPC released an album this year – LP8, but really, I discovered his whole catalogue this year. What is Longmont Potion Castle? The shortest way to describe him is that he’s a prank-caller comedian, but that’s hardly fair. LPC is the Jackson Pollock of his form. Or maybe, he’s the Salvador Dali – or probably both. Instead of just picking at the people he calls, he coaxes them into absurd situations through a combination of scattershot non sequiturs and surreal pranks.

Some of them include complaining about dog gnashing or asking a restaurant manager whether he wants to get lubricated with some good old boys, or threatening people with the vengeance of Dirk Funk – and none of this sounds funny on the surface, but trust me, it’s like Jazz – once you see where LPC is taking these skits, you start to appreciate the skill and style that makes this form of prank calling an art.

Dubstep is reaching singularity and it’s a good thing

2011-12-29T20:28:00.000-08:00

If 2011 isn’t the year that dubstep reached its zenith, it’s certainly close. With extreme overexposure in movie trailers, cereal commercials, and pretty much anything signified to be dangerous or cool, dubstep is inching closer to its inevitable supernova. Let’s put this out there – dubstep going kaboom is a good thing because it’s the only way to save dubstep.

Like drum and bass or big beat before it, dubstep is hitting that point of saturation where it’s increasing harder to find evidence of what made the genre popular in the first place. I’d put most of the blame on the bandwagon jumpers – those that don’t really understand the genre, but begin doing dubstep because it’s the hot new kid on the block – as a result, we get music-makers who take the most formulaic elements of dubstep and turn them up to the extreme. Thus, for every Skream, we get ten Skrillex’s.

The bubble’s going to pop – and eventually listeners will tire and move on to the next big trend. I see the implosion as invariably a good thing:

First, the bangwagon jumpers will abandon the genre because it no longer sells – thus taking with them the worst tendencies of the music

Out of that a hardly few purists will remain – and they’ll continue making excellent music by distilling the very best parts of dubstep into its essence – i.e., Kode9, Digital Mystikz etc.

Finally as dubstep disintegrates – there will be musicians who take the genres most compelling parts and refashion them into something new and exciting. We’re already seeing artists working on the fringes – SBTRKT, Sepalcure, Egyptrixx – whose work might not be categorically considered dubstep, but they’re cribbing notes from the genre in interesting ways.

So, yeah...dubstep is dead...long live dubstep!

Music in 2012: The R&B Identity Crisis

2011-12-27T15:57:00.000-08:00

R&B gets weirdly, wonderfully introspective – Frank Ocean & The Weeknd

What the hell is R&B in 2011? I don’t know – and I don’t think R&B knows any longer – at least that’s the vibe I get out of the two artists I listened to most this year: Frank Ocean and The Weeknd.

Frank Ocean is probably the more traditional of the two - there’s still plenty of come hither here, but it’s undercut by a willingness to be brutally honest (with himself most of all) and show a rare vulnerability, or even better, a willingness to follow his narrative where his imagination takes him – whether that’s driving an Oldsmobile into the ocean or smoking Novacane-laced drugs and dreaming of Stanley Kubrick.

The Weeknd shares a penchant for honesty, but it’s the cruellest kind. This Toronto outfit deals in empty promises and empty bodies, but buries it under pretty textures and softly cooed R&B tropes. Despite often falling into the familiar R. Kelly trap of boasts and bragging, there’s something unsettlingly sociopathic about it. It's a fascinating case of beautiful people singing songs about other beautiful people being the worst kind of monsters.

What Gamer Will the Wii 2...Appeal To?

2011-05-09T21:06:00.000-07:00

Is it already time for the next generation of video game consoles? If you’re Nintendo, then the answer to that question is yes. Project Café is on its way (or possibly Nintendo FEEL – yikes), and it appears the gaming world will get a good look at it come E3 of this year.

So, why when you’ve sold roughly 80 million consoles would you need to start burning the fires of the production plant to pump out the next system? As I’ve harped on before, it’s because Nintendo’s strategy of selling consoles to casual gamers has painted them into a corner.

Casuals just don’t care

The problem with selling to casuals is that they’re not looking to extend their video game experience. Give them Wii Sports and the vast majority of them are supremely satisfied. As a result, the Wii’s attachment rate for games is paltry compared to say that of Xbox 360 and PS3.

Though neither of those systems sold at the astronomical levels that the Wii did, those consoles were sold mostly to gamers, who happen to buy at least three to five games per system.

Combine that with non-standardized technology and a mountain-full of shovelware, and few developers were willing to risk money to make AAA games a success on the biggest console seller. And those that did heed the Siren’s call of a huge user base, discovered what discerning minds already knew, no one who seriously plays video games only plays them on the Wii.

Moving in a new direction

Give props to Nintendo though, they’ve realized this fact and are not sugar-coating it any longer. I can recall past statements where developers weren’t getting the Wii. Apparently, that’s not the case any longer as Iwata himself thinks it was a mistake to position the Wii away from core gamers.

It’s more than just marketing speculation though; if the rumours are true, the next Wii is on its way, and its goal is to appeal to third-party developers, and ultimately core gamers.

Somewhere Michael Patcher must be smiling, because he called it all along, despite Nintendo’s numerous denials. The era of the Wii2 will begin sometime in 2012 – and first and foremost – it will be the dawn of the HD era for Nintendo.

Wii2 hardware speculation

If you’re going to make a system in this era, it’s going to have to be in high definition. With the Wii2 that much was certain since high definition televisions have been rapidly adopted over the past few years. But what else will the next Nintendo system contain – and what does the speculative hardware say about Nintendo’s chances for success.

From a horsepower perspective, it’s likely the Wii2 either be on par with the Xbox 360 and PS3, if not more or a little less powerful. Graphically and speed-wise, the new Wii will likely be on equal footing. A bigger question is storage – Nintendo has traditionally stayed away from in-built storage – but it’s likely (and cost-effective) that they go with a hard drive this time around.

Like whatever Microsoft comes up with in its next console, the new Wii probably won’t be sporting a Blu-ray drive – I think that’s something neither console maker wants to concede to Sony.

Now, here’s where the rumours get interesting. The reason the next Wii might be called FEEL is because it may have touch-sensitive screens in its controllers. Though initial projections say that the controller will have a traditional layout, the screen gives Nintendo a differentiator and a way to bridge the gap between casuals and core gamers (apparently, it will also have the waggle functionality of Nintendo’s Wiimote and Wii Motion Plus).

It also gives gamers the ability to interact with two screens, or stream content from one screen to the next (which explains the other rumoured name for the Wii2 – the Nintendo Stream). It also possibly opens the door to not using a controller to play the system, but the ability to play with a handheld – ahem, the DS or 3DS.

Can Nintendo compete – from a hardware perspective

If we’re talking pure horsepower, then yes it seems the next Nintendo is designed purely to run with Sony and Microsoft; however, from a cost perspective, I’m more than sceptical.

I have three systems already – adding a fourth to this cycle of consoles is a reach – especially if the rumours that the system will be priced around $400 are to be believed. Even as a core gamer with disposable income, you’d be hard pressed to convince me to buy a second console in five years.

Add to that the somewhat miserable buying experience with the Wii, where core gamers were proverbially left out in the cold, and I truly believe Nintendo is climbing a pretty steep hill. Sure, you’ll get fans and people excited about the next big thing, but I’m sure there will be an equal number of people who wait on the system to see what it offers – a lot of people will need to be convinced of the next Wii’s value.

Nintendo can’t afford for these people to wait too long – because they are potential sales that could likely be scooped up by Microsoft and Sony when their consoles come knocking in 2012 and beyond. Additionally, as the first entry in the next cycle, Nintendo’s next system is at great risk to be leap-frogged by the next Xbox or Playstation from a hardware perspective.

So what can Nintendo do? If they’re truly after the core gamer, it means the system is going to need AAA titles early and often, and more importantly, from developers other than Nintendo. If they really are serious about capturing that market, it means not just playing ports of existing games, it means delivering gaming experiences that truly define the next cycle of consoles.

Can Nintendo compete – from a marketing perspective

It seems like Nintendo is coming full circle. One of the reasons for the Wii’s inception was Nintendo’s realization that they were no longer adequately equipped to compete with Sony and Microsoft for the core gamer. If anything, the rough ride that was the GameCube solidified Nintendo’s blue ocean strategy of appealing to casuals in the next go-round.

As I’ve mentioned before, the problem with that strategy is that it painted Nintendo into a corner. Casuals are not gamers – they don’t buy games regularly (if at all), they don’t invest time researching which games are good, and they are not console (or arguably channel) loyal.

You can sell a lot of systems to excited casuals, but not a lot of games. Worse still, casuals have no loyalty to you – they are not fans and they will move to the next big thing with no hesitation. If anything, this threat is emerging in the casual games market found on the iPhone and Facebook – these are serious competitors to Nintendo because the products they make are convenient and cheap, and appeal to the same user base.

Further, the casual user base is a one-shot deal, particularly when we’re talking a second console in five years. If Nintendo can’t get casuals to buy more than one or two games from its current system, what are its chances convincing them to buy another system entirely? I don’t think they are very good.

Where does this put Nintendo? Some think they might go back to core gamers, but that’s an equally dangerous strategy. Xbox and Playstation are no longer new, unproven concepts. Their brands now have significant history and cache with gaming enthusiasts – and the gaming world in general is one that tends to maintain strong tribal associations.

Whether it’s to a specific console (the typical fanboy), or to gaming in general – my informal impression is that the Wii is not considered a serious gaming device. Additionally, Microsoft and Sony, in competing for this market, have gotten very good at appealing to gamers, developing their own niches and communicating their value propositions. Nintendo struggled to appeal to core gamers with the GameCube – where will the company be now, nearly ten years later, against better prepared competition?

Well, success starts with games. If you’re going to appeal to the core, you’re going to need games they want to play – and games that can’t be played on the other guys’ systems. If the rumours are true, Nintendo is courting big names like Rockstar and Capcom.

They’ll need high-end developer support – and it will need to be continual because one or two games just won’t be enough to move the market to purchase – any core gamer who’s been burned by the Wii will take that much more convincing.

It’s a good thing Nintendo is so flush with cash from the previous cycle because it’s going to cost significant dollars to woo developers to the new system – and further, publish and market games that demonstrate a strong vision of how the next generation of consoles will be defined, while also motivating gamers to forget about Nintendo’s last one.

Some lingering questions

Is Nintendo going after core gamers?

In a recent Destructoid article, a valid point was made – why would Nintendo go for the core gamer market? As I mentioned above, this is the same market that didn’t do Nintendo any favours on the GameCube. Though finicky, casual gamers represent a lot of dollars. Perhaps, Project Café represents an upgraded version of the Wii, with better graphics and processing and its own unique functionality – via handheld screens. Here are the big issues I see with this approach:

The trouble with causals

· If Nintendo makes the system too quirky, it will be too costly for developers to make ports of games on it – thus no games – like the Wii
· If Project Café is an upgraded Wii – it will have an upgraded cost – can Nintendo really convince casual gamers to shell out $400?
· Casual gamers just repeats the previous issues – low attachment rates and low loyalty

If they go the other way and try to appeal to core gamers, and all the Call of Duty’s that entails – they run into the following problems:

The trouble with cores:

· If the system is only slightly better, most developers will make ports of games – why would anyone bother buying a system that plays games they can play on systems they already own?
· Nintendo’s reputation and image as a core gaming company is non-existent – it means a lot of dollars convincing developers, media and ultimately gamers frozen out by the Wii
· Being first means being leap-frogged by Sony and Microsoft who will play the wait-and-see-approach and then try to capitalize with stronger hardware

I suspect Nintendo will try to appeal to both worlds – using an upgraded system to leverage its unique IPs in order to appeal to core gamers , while trying to provide enough quirky functionality to try to appeal to the casual market again.

The risk they run is simply this – go too far towards core and they’ll lose the casuals and end up competing with better prepared competition that will eventually have better hardware.

Go too far toward casuals and they repeat the Wii’s mistakes – make a system that’s difficult to develop for, and doesn’t sell enough to justify the effort – thus being relinquished to the dreaded causal zone.

I’m curious and hopeful for Nintendo’s efforts, but honestly it’s the most treacherous path I think they’ve ever taken. Because as the old saying goes…try to satisfy everyone and you end up what….?

Are video games too long?

2011-02-06T13:56:00.000-08:00

Let me tell you a story, it begins with a bright-eyed boy, full of pep and vigor – ready to put that fresh Final Fantasy 13 disc in his Xbox. It ends, with the same boy, pale of skin, and with hollowed-out eyes staring at the screen, 70-some hours later and with no will to go on.

I’m over exaggerating (kinda – but not about the hours), but at some point, my will to keep playing Final Fantasy 13 evaporated. I made it through the tedious first 20 hours, kept plowing away at the endless, and endlessly frustrating side-quests, and eventually just gave up – and pretty much right at the end – I just didn’t want to play any more Final Fantasy 13.

Why? For me, the game was too long – and it overstayed its welcome. I just didn’t want to commit any more time to the same game, when there was so much else out there that I could be doing – in real life or virtually with other games.

It got me thinking – are games today too long? Because a game costs $60, do gamers inherently expect a certain number of hours out of it? And more importantly, do hours actually equal value?

This led me to wondering, what is the right length for a video game – and tied intrinsically to that – what’s the right value based on that time?

Have games gotten longer? Yes.

First, I think this question needs to be answered. My experience says yes. So, why?

Well, when I was a kid, most games weren’t actually very long. Something like Kung Fu on the NES only took about half an hour to beat. Once you beat it, you just kept playing the same levels over and over.

Other games were longer, like Mario Bros. – but the actual core experience was pretty short. The game compensated its short length by making it challenging. The time consumed, was really in doing levels over and over to beat them. Some examples: Mega Man, Ghouls n’ Ghosts, Contra etc.

I think the obvious answer for why this was is simply technology – a cartridge could only hold so much information, so naturally the games were limited by this constraint.

That said, there were some long games on the NES. The two Zelda's and Final Fantasy 1 were long for their time – but interestingly, they fall into a particular genre – role playing. And they weren’t the only ones – Dragon Quest, Crystalis etc.

The right length depends on the game – to a degree

So perhaps, technology was not the only factor – but the type of game also dictated length. I mean, I can’t imagine playing an 80 hours Mario Bros. game, and wouldn’t want to…the game would become too repetitive at that point.

But, for some reason, an adventure games seem better suited for longer completion times. As this forum posted noted, there seems to be a magic formula for certain game genres.

Where does the magic formula come from? Gamersushi’s says it’s related to pacing.

In a similar vein, a recent Destructoid article points to the quality of the experience.

I think both articles are right, if not touching on the same thing from different angles - a game is only so good as it entertains you. So why does genre play a role in these things? I believe it’s because genre dictates the flexibility of the narrative structure and the flexibility of the game’s mechanics.

Take for example, the best shooting games (COD4, Bioshock, Halo). The mechanics of these games is fairly restrictive – there is a particular way to play them, and that stays unchanged. These games seem to be most successful by presenting intense experiences in a variety of environments that challenge the player’s mastery of the mechanics. These types of experiences seem best served by a tight script that allows for a good balance between quiet/loud scenarios.

A game of all intense firefights becomes exhausting. A game of fetch quests in abandoned hallways becomes mundane. And at some point, the best shooting games also know when to finish – because you can only shoot so many nameless enemies before the specter of repetitiveness kicks in.

Same rules apply for other genres of games – the more flexible the play style and story structure, the longer the game can be drawn out. For example, Assassin’s Creed 2 does a great example of making a 40-50 hour game seem compact, because there are a variety of narrative strands to follow and a variety of different tasks that can be done using the game’s mechanics. With more stories, and various things to do, the game avoids being repetitive. Some other great examples are Red Dead Redemption, Fallout 3, Oblivion.

The right length depends on the player – to a degree

Even though I found the quality of my experience with Assassin’s Creed 2 to be excellent, I still struggled completing it. And that’s entirely my own fault. The right game length doesn’t just depend on the game itself, it depends on who’s playing it.

As this GamePro correspondent points out, gamers (like me) are getting older. And here’s the key maxim that applies to our gaming habits:

· Adults have money, but no time
· Teenagers have time but no money

My most important commodity when gaming isn’t the cost of the game. It’s how long the game takes to complete. I simply don’t have time to play video games, work a full time job, play sports and pursue other hobbies. A 70-hour game means I couldn’t play seven other 10-hour games.

The stats don’t lie, using telemetry (achievements or trophy information) game developers have noticed only about 5 percent of players finish most games. And further, more than 90 percent of games are only played four or five hours. A specific example would be the less than 10 percent of people who beat Joe Danger.

But, despite this, one look at forums discussing the issue and you see comments like “if it’s less than 25 hours, I won’t buy it.” And I understand that – because as a young person with limited income, I remember wanting the biggest bang for my buck. On the other side of the coin, are older gamers commenting “Free time is scarce when you’re not 13 anymore.”

What’s the right value for a game’s length?

So if there is a divide in what makes a good game length, not only based on the game, but on the player’s profiles (age, income etc.), what is the magic formula for a game’s value?

I don’t have the answer, but I see some solutions that help address problems on both sides:

Short games with lower price points: For older gamers, I think games like Portal and Limbo provide an excellent experience in a tidy 3 hours, and most importantly, the games are priced like a 3-hour game. I know that I gravitate toward Xbox Live titles because they provide a variety of experiences, without being too costly for my wallet or my day timer.

Serialized games: Penny Arcade Adventures provided a great experience in short installments, rather than be released as a full-length game. I haven’t played any TellTale games but they seem to be taking the same approach release the full game in small affordable chunks.

Create your own content: Though Little Big Planet has its own campaign, what really extends value for those looking for hours of entertainment is the ability to create and share your own content. The game never ends as long as people are contributing content.

Multiplayer: One of the reasons Call of Duty and Halo are so popular is that they can appeal to young and older gamers. You could play Black Ops Zombies for hours trying to master it. Or you could just hop into a couple of matches with friends, and then drop out to take the dog for a walk or do dishes, or god forbid, play more Final Fantasy 13.

Is there free speech in video games?

2011-01-20T20:20:00.000-08:00

Some people have Failblog, some people have videos on Break, Me, I visit the Xbox Suspension and Console Bans forum for my morning laughs. There’s something inherently hilarious about reading angry posts from 13-year olds and seeing their lies and/or sense of entitlement picked apart by weary Microsoft staff.

Freedom means responsibility

See, games today give us more freedom and more ways to express ourselves. Now it goes beyond simply our Xbox or Playstation profiles - games themselves are becoming modes of expression - whether it's levels in Little Big Planet or emblems in Call of Duty Black Ops.

But more freedom means more responsibility - and that's not something a lot of preteens handle successfully - at least that's my Xbox experience. So inevitably when these kids (and in their defense, plenty of adults too) get banned for misbehaving, one of the most common defenses that they use is their First Amendment Right to Free Speech – this is usually their justification for creating racist, homophobic, or just plain pornographic (hello giant pensises!) material in their profiles or in game.

The first amendment explained

So, does the First Amendment apply to these poor souls. The answer is no. But why?

First, and most important, the First Amendment does not entitle people to free speech - and that's in any capacity - whether you're in a shopping mall or on your Xbox. You can't go yelling racist things in a store or movie theatre any more than you can on a game of Halo.

So, what does the First Amendment protect? It protects you from the government limiting your speech. The American government in particular cannot pass laws or legislation that prevent the use of some language. But since Xbox and video games are private businesses and are non-governmental entities, this right does not apply.

Terms of service and video games

What does apply? Here's the second point: whatever rules the private business makes.

Specifically, for Xbox and Playstation, in order to use their services, you have to sign their Terms of Service Agreement. In that document, the companies outline what gamers are allowed to say and/or do, and what the consequences are if they don't behave. If gamers continue breaking these outlined rules, ultimating they can be completely removed from the service, no matter how much time they have spent on their profile or money on their games.

The same goes for games such as Halo or Call of Duty - when you play them online, you are agreeing to their terms of service - which includes other things such as boosting or modding. For example, get caught boosting in Black Ops, get banned for 48 hours - continue doing it after your ban and you run the risk of being blocked from playing the game online entirely.

Free speech is not a grey area

If there's one thing about language, it's ever-evolving. For people that watch over games, that means an endlessly changing list of what words, phrases and symbols are inappropriate.

As the head of Xbox's enforcement group notes, context is hard to determine, so they tend to fall on the side of prevention - sometimes that means accidentally banning someone for living in Fort Gay - but, at the same time, it means they can avoid getting into endless (and often ridiculous) debates with people about the historical context of the Swastika, for which I'm personally glad.

Music Review: Gayngs - Relayted

2010-07-26T15:26:00.000-07:00

Despite his recent run-ins with the law, George Michael has at least has one thing to smile about – Gayngs’ newest release, Relayted. After all, the album has fingerprints of his influence all over it, as it drips with slow-burn ballads full of softly cooed sexual advances. In fact, nearly every touchstone of eighties soft rock gets a shout-out here – whether it’s the saxophone-player in a smoky alley vibe of Sade or the nearly note-for-note homage of Godley & Creme’s Cry. The trouble is Gayngs play it a little too tight, forsaking the deconstruction of this rich source material into something exciting (see: Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti), and instead choosing to create lesser facsimiles. Still, Relayted remains a worthwhile listen, but only as a warm up while you dig out the originals from the crate in your basement.

Music Review: Infinite Body - Carve Out the Face of My God

2010-07-22T08:41:00.000-07:00

Infinite Body – Carve Out the Face of My God

Somewhere between the abrasive melodicism of My Bloody Valentine and the tireless drone of Stars of the Lid rests Infinite Body, the handiwork of one Ryan Parker. His album title couldn’t be more apt, as his musical landscapes are populated by grand hymnal reveries full of swelling, clear-eyed crescendos, buried by cottony sheets of white noise. Like some kind of sonic approximation of the disintegrating gaze of a deity, Carve Out the Face of My God is full of songs like ‘Out to Where I Am,” where a majestic cathedral organ multiplies itself over and over until the sheet power of its presence strips everything else away.

Are games getting a little too real?

2010-06-16T13:37:00.000-07:00

With the recent E3 show, all three console makers either unveiled or showcased more support for motion-based peripherals.

Clearly, Nintendo’s success signaled significant market opportunity for that type of gaming, which perfectly explains why Microsoft, Sony and a number of developers are jumping into the market. Reserving my own skepticism on this strategy (following the money – more on that later), this influx of motion controls left me with a broader question:

With motion-based input, when do video games cease being videos games, and become a little too real?

Body movin’ body movin’

No matter whose presentation it was at E3 – console maker or developer – a big component was devoted to motion-based games.

At Microsoft, it was Kinect.

At EA, it was the EA Sports Active.

At Nintendo, it was Wii Motion Plus support.

At Sony, it was Sony Move.

As part of these presentations, a variety of live demos were done to show how the product works. A couple of them stood out in particular. First, the EA fitness titles demo highlighted a woman running in place using Kinect. Second, as part of the Sony presentation, Tiger Woods golf was demoed using Sony Move.

In both cases, the person’s actions using the peripherals were meant to approximate, as close to reality as possible, the actions taking place on screen – for the first example, it was running, and for the second example, it was swinging a golf club. It left me wondering, at what point do video game cease being games and start becoming reduced approximations of reality – and more importantly, what role does the peripheral play in this sliding scale?

This is where it starts getting real…

In the Sony demo, the presenter noted that he had trouble hitting a particular shot in real life – and with the Sony Move – he had the same difficulty. The question I would ask – is the game supposed to mimic the reality of the game player’s tendencies and limitations, or is it supposed to enable the player to do things they wouldn’t normally be capable of doing – in essence, allowing them to achieve some level of fantasy through the game?

My personal response would be that I’m not looking for a golf game to approximate how I play golf. I play golf terribly – that is why I’ll never be on the PGA tour and play PGA courses. The game allows me to achieve my fantasy, without requiring me to develop the real world skill to achieve it. As games ask us to make inputs that are closer and closer to the real thing, it begs the question, why don’t we just do the real thing instead?

Which leads me to the EA fitness demo for Kinect. In the video, a woman is seen going for a run – not a real run, but a virtual run, through a virtual world – via running in place in front of the system and television. I’m a big advocate for physical fitness and appreciate EA’s efforts, but it becomes necessary to ask: couldn’t players simply go outside and do the same thing, saving themselves the cost of the system and game? Provided, living in Canada means long winters, but the barrier to getting access to a treadmill or a gym are low – so what does the game provide that real life doesn’t?

You’re living in a fantasy world.

To be honest, this question isn’t what really piques my curiosity. It’s the broader context: the fact that the input requirements of these new peripherals and games blur the line between real and unreality so closely – that one could reasonably weigh the options between doing the action in a game and doing the action in real life. Which just leads to more questions, such as where do we split the difference?

Because I can easily approximate a golf or bat swing with a motion controller, does that mean I need to do so in a game? What about more complex inputs for sports such as hockey or football? Both sports already have motion-based games, but the movements required don’t really mirror what’s done in real life. Will they eventually, or because the movements are too complex for the motion-based controllers, are players to be left with a weird hybrid?

For my part, I prefer when games are enablers to a fantasy world – one that might contain real-world elements – but still lets me do something easily that I could not do in real life. Out of all the games showcased at the main E3 presentations, the one that offered this opportunity the most was Nintendo’s new Zelda game. Sure, it required real world inputs, but it did so in the context of a fantasy world – and even when it mimicked certain actions, it was in a completely fictional setting that a player could never actually inhabit.

What’s another world for immersion?

To me, Nintendo’s approach with Zelda demonstrates where motion controls mostly succeed. By creating more tactile inputs for gamers, developers and console makers can add new layers of immersion, while still retaining the fantastical elements that give games their escapist pleasure.

That said, there’s certainly risk for overkill on motion-based input. My experience with the first Red Steel was a sore right arm, from having to hold up “my gun” for so long as I traversed levels. And my fiancé eventually gave up on Twilight Princess. Seeing it firsthand, the path of her user experience with motion controls was pretty clear: from surprised joy, to frustration, to “I wish I could just play this on a normal controller,” to letting the game collect dust in our Wii box in the basement.

What makes something viral?

2010-04-29T13:17:00.000-07:00

Something I've been thinking about a lot lately is what makes something viral. Not necessarily from a viral video or marketing campaign perspective - but the larger question of: where do memes come from? I was sitting around the airport a little while ago and jotted down some random notes:

What makes something viral?

Content
Liquidity

Content

Why do I share things?

To build social capital

My friends will like me more, pay attention to me, respect me more

What builds social capital?

Making things that meet people's needs

What do people want?

To be entertained
To discover something that blows their mind
To discover something that validates a strongly held belief
To be part of something others consider important
To laugh
To make a difference (or to be seen as making a difference)

When you make something viral:

You are not speaking to a customer, you are speaking to a person.

So, you have to ask, what do people care about?

It’s not about your message, it’s about the message.

Example: Evian dancing babies...often viral content that is associated with a company is only tied in the loosest, subtlest or most metaphorical way.

With this in mind, ask yourself:

How does what you do bring something good into society at large?

How does what you do bring something good to a person’s experience of life as a whole?

What do you believe in that’s not part of the organization’s success?

Liquidity

What makes something liquid?

It’s easy to find

I can Google it and it comes up right away

It’s unique to itself

If I look for it, I know that I can find only it.

It’s easy to share

I can send it
I can save it
I can post it

It’s easy to show off

It can be a badge
It can be added to my profile
It can be carried across various media

So these were my random thoughts...not sure how they stack up against the experts (Seth Godin or Dan Ackerman). What do you think? Are there other factors to take in account, when considering whether something goes viral or not?

Dead Man's Bones - s/t

2009-10-21T15:58:00.000-07:00

Dead Man’s Bones – s/t
Oh October, how you charm with your ghostly gifts. Halloween’s a funny (non)holiday – it gives us a chance to both cringe and laugh at the things that go bump in the night. The collaboration of Ryan Gosling and Zach Shields., otherwise known as Dead Man’s Bones, gets this contradiction completely. Backed by an eerily high-pitched children’s choir, they sings songs about zombies, love, werewolves, love and drowning – and in that order. It’s a marvelous blend of old-school doo-wop crooning and darkly dreamt romanticism – in other words, a great soundtrack for a night of ghouls and giving out candy. Highlights include: My Body’s a Zombie for You, Pa Pa Power and Flowers Grow Out of My Grave.

Wii Don’t Play – Why Nobody’s Playing the Wii in 2009

2009-08-11T11:08:00.000-07:00

Sure Nintendo has put a lot of Wii’s in a lot of homes over the past couple years, but if a recent report by Nielsen Research is to be believed, nobody’s playing them. The report notes that only 6 percent of Wii users are playing the system actively, the other 94 percent aren’t using the system much at all.

You Can’t Stay Casual Forever

So what’s going on? I have one theory: when it comes to casual users, they either stay casual forever or eventually they become refined users.

The drawback to Nintendo’s blue ocean strategy is that the casual market is inherently an entry market. To use a metaphor, Nintendo is selling a product to infant users. As infants, there’s only two ways for them to go. Users can stay infants or they can grow up.

If they stay infants then they stay casual – for good. And as truly casual users, that means they aren’t going to play your system very often (likely at parties and social occasions), they aren’t going to buy very many games or non-brand games (non-Nintendo made games) and they are unlikely to buy system upgrades (the refinements to the Wiimote are going to be a hard sell).

As I’ve argued before, the original Wii sports was highly successful in getting these users to make a purchase based on its transformative experience. Unfortunately for Nintendo, for most of these users, Wii Sports is enough to satisfy their infrequent gaming needs – and things like Wii Sports Resort don’t appear different enough to be appealing.

Infant Gamers Grow Up

On the other side of the coin, some infants eventually grow up. That means users graduate from casual gaming to more refined gaming. Again, unfortunately for Nintendo, the needs of these users are not sufficiently met by the Wii. Ultimately, as these users become more accustomed to the norms of gaming, things like Wii Music appear too simplistic to say something like Guitar Hero.

That’s not to say that Nintendo has no games for this audience – there’s Mario Galaxy, Punch Out and others – it’s just that there aren’t enough of these games. Another inherent risk with infants who grow up is that they will start trying other systems and other games. Users being siphoned to other systems is only half the problem for Nintendo – another large issue is that as these gamers try other systems, they become accustomed to these system’s play styles and controllers.

By my own experience, what eventually happens, is that as a refined gamer, you begin to find Nintendo’s offering somewhat lackluster – both from a game level and a playability level. As a refined gamer, you start looking for bigger, longer games with more exceptional experiences – something the other consoles do quite well. And, as some of my friends would agree, you begin to say to yourself while playing a Wii game, “this is alright, but I’d like to play it with a regular controller.”

Even with the refined control of the Wiimote, I suspect it won’t be enough to convince refined gamers. Sure, the remote has some interesting input capabilities that mimic real-life interaction, but it also has its drawbacks. No one I know wants to be waving a controller around, all the time.

If I were Microsoft or Sony, that’s something I would be thinking about pretty hard before committing too much to their own waggle technology. Same goes for making casual games – it’s a huge market, sure – but it’s an unstable market that will possibly ignore your new games out of indifference, or worse, starting playing the competition’s games out of boredom.

PR: Are you Busy or are you Indispensable?

2009-06-30T09:58:00.000-07:00

One of the great failings of most public relations is measurability. First off, I'm not talking evaluation. There's plenty of collecting news clips and analyzing media impressions.

That, however, is not the same thing as being measurable.

Sure we PR people do all sorts of campaigns and activities - and yes we make sure to count all of these activities and their surface level results. But what does this show? Does it show that we're indispensable or does it just show that we're busy.

I came across a recent article by Diane Thieke that resonated pretty strongly with me. She argues that we, as PR professionals, need to demonstrate the value of our offering in clear, measurable terms. And by measurable, she means the bottom-line.

She provides 10 different ways to accomplish this, and the ones that stick out with me are tying PR activities directly to company yearly objectves, assessing what the competition has done - and most importantly, objectively measuring the variety of relationships that PR manages.

That means analyzing and qualifying your strategic and media relationships, because the nature of those relationships, is the difference between getting good or bad press, or potentially, between winning or losing on vital revenue-impacting opportunities.

Collecting clips is a great way to show effort, but the analysis needs to go one step deeper. By taking evaluation to the next step, being truly measurable, you will not only quantify your activities, but qualify them with the contextual value that ultimately contributes to the bottom line.

DLC Works for Me: Burnout Paradise

2009-06-19T11:30:00.000-07:00

They made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. Criterion that is, and the offer was expanded content for Burnout Paradise. At some point, the amount of downloadable content (DLC) that came with the game spurred some critical mass in my buying subconscious. With so much content to try and explore, I could no longer justify not owning the game – which made me wonder – am I the only one, or has Criterion discovered special in its DLC strategy?

Hit and Miss and Hit

When it first came out in January 2008, I tried the demo. I liked the game, but it I wasn’t convinced that I wanted it. So, I waited. And waited. The buzz for Burnout Paradise was strong at first, but then it diminished pretty quickly. Now, by EA’s own admission, part of the reason was that DLC support just wasn’t there. Blame it on a combination not offering a lot of content at the beginning, and overcharging for the content that was there.

As a result, Burnout Paradise drew scorn from users who felt they were paying for content that either could be in the game (play modes) or content that didn’t seem to require much effort from Criterion (palette swaps on cars). Eventually, I stopped hearing about the game and forgot about it.

Then a funny thing happened. Criterion released new game modes in July 2008 – and along with it, new challenges, and a couple new vehicles. Then, in September 2008, Criterion went one step further, adding a whole new play type – bikes – plus, a day/night cycle, dynamic weather and more new challenges.

Following up on free content, Burnout Paradise began offering paid DLC, starting with a local multiplayer party pack (February 2009), to new theme cars, to new game styles to most recently an entire new island filled with new cars, events, smashes, jumps and challenges (Big Surf Island - June 2009).

Content keeps them coming back

I couldn’t say no any longer. For me, the content was just too tantalizing now, and I picked up a copy. That’s my story. But the question is, what did EA and Criterion learn? And more importantly, was it a success on a bigger scale?

A quick survey of media coverage says yes. Between the Cops and Robbers release and the Big Surf Island release, Burnout Paradise is renewing media interest with a slew of reviews and discussions – and this is more than a year-and-a-half after the release date. That kind of coverage is unheard of for most games. As one senior producer at Criterion noted, the response to DLC was a significant increase in people playing the game right after new content was made available.

Criterion’s approach is unique, but they aren’t the only company who’s made a commitment to supporting their games well after launch. Most recently, World at War (WAW) and Fallout 3 have offered extensive iterations of DLC post-release. The results have been significant, with WAW garnering over 2 million downloads of both map pack one and map pack two. Fallout 3 has experienced similar success, as Anchorage and Pitt have been some of the top downloads on Xbox Live.

DLC makes cents

If there’s one thing these games share, it’s the idea that the purchased disc is only the beginning. As a recent interview with EA’s John Riccitiello noted, the publisher is invested in the idea their offerings don’t have to end with the first purchase. With a mix of free and paid-for DLC, gamers now have the opportunity to expand their games, prolonging value, preventing trade-in and providing revenue through expanded content that doesn’t require a whole lot of new assets.

And for the developers themselves, it’s the opportunity to keep the game fresh, going so far as updating the game in order to improve the physics or continually refine gameplay elements. In the case of Burnout Paradise, Criterion uses its DLC not only to offer content, but to refine the code, so that the gamer ultimately receives the best experience the game’s technology will allow.

All this leads to positive word-of-mouth, which builds momentum through the right media channels, and makes someone like me, reconsider a game I originally passed over for purchase. In my case, the DLC worked for me – and as the numbers attest I don’t think I’m the only one – so I fully expect to see more of this DLC strategy when we see a Burnout sequel.

Music Review: Discovery – LP

2009-06-18T09:48:00.000-07:00

Discovery - LP

Summer is the best time for ridiculousness. Something about all that heat seems to loosen up our normally narrower critical faculties. Summer makes it okay to wear crocks and appreciate Transformers sequels un-ironically. With that in mind, LP from Discovery is made for the sunshine season. Born out of a long-running side project from the lead singer of Ra Ra Riot (who released the solid Rhumb Line recently) and the keyboardist from Vampire Weekend, Discovery is all about throwaway pop songs and plenty of auto-tune. It shouldn’t work, and it wouldn’t usually, but the cheesy lyrics and ramshackle synths scream summertime good times. If a comparison can be made, it’s like Chromeo, but less lusty. Whether it’s the playfulness of So Insane or the spot-on cover of I Want You Back, Discovery are mining the right kind of shallow – and making the perfect soundtrack to baggy shorts and Hawaiian shirts.

Calisthenics

2009-06-16T08:26:00.000-07:00

swells moans thunderbolts

chassis geysers rocket

throttle honey hums

plume dewy with

hot dissonance joyous

fricative ersatz throaty

ribbons flailing red

palaver exceeds levers

feverishly furiously zeal

Oil Industry PR: Too little, too late?

2009-04-02T19:15:00.000-07:00

I recently came across a commercial by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, in which the main message is that CAPP wants to listen to you, average joe, about your concerns about the oilsands development.

Sometimes people ask my why I haven't dived into oil industry communications and one response out of a variety of reasons, is that I feel that it's an industry dicated more by PR than actual action.

While I realize this isn't always the case, the CAPP commercial certainly demonstrates an organization clearly attempting to communicate to concerned publics well after a slew of damaging media coverage directly (National Geographic) and indirectly (other news agencies covering the fact that National Geographic covered the Alberta oilsands).

In the realm of public perception, how can something like CAPP's efforts looking nothing but as a reactive PR policy supported by an industry who's concern for the environmental stewardship of northern Alberta only becomes apparent when the negative publicity makes it possibly expensive not to do so....

While I totally acknowledge that CAPP has long existed before this whole controversy, the organization's communications effort regarding what concrete actions the industry was taking, certainly needed to happen a lot sooner than now...maybe it's just my uninformed opionion, but the CAPP commercial leaves me with the impression that the industry wasn't doing enough, until its publics told it loudly that it needed to...and where there's smoke, there's fire: something smells like a major failure in action or public relations by the oil industry in all of this...

ringtone

2009-03-11T05:53:00.000-07:00

all along the watchtower
weaponed breaths beat rust
waiting exhale wails bullets

Crosshatch

2009-02-12T09:59:00.000-08:00

I will be your father figure
linger in the leaves laced
black gloves eyeing wallets

The Best Overlooked Albums of 2008

2008-12-23T08:23:00.000-08:00

I don't know what the best albums of 2008 are - that's hard to say without hearing everything. However, here are some great albums I think got a bit overlooked this year.

Punk(ish) and Metal(ish) Albums

Gaslight Anthem – The 59- Sound
Bruce Springsteen and punk make for a remarkably potent mix – one of my favorites all year.

Dance Gavin Dance – Downtown Battle Mountain
This is a ridiculous screamo album – but it’s also pretty irresistible.

Dillinger Four – CIVIL WAR
It only took seven years for a follow up but this album was totally worth the wait.

The Loved Ones – Build and Burn
An honest blue-collar punk album that just delivers.

Baroness – Red Album
It was a strong year in metal and I think this release is a contender.

Zozobra – Bird of Prey
Relentless and punishing, Zozobra steps up its efforts in a big way.

Krallice – Krallice
Something this intense shouldn’t be so constantly listenable.

Veil of Maya – The Common Man’s Collapse
One of my favorite bands last year continues its excellent streak.

Misery Signals – Controller
Ditto for this great band and release.

Rock(ish) Albums

1990s – Cold and Kind
Listen to “The Wool and the Lamb” and tell me that this isn’t a great record.

The Acorn – Glory Hope Mountain
This Ottawa band didn’t get any love, but they deserve it – this is an album album

American Princes – Other People
A solid and toe-tapping record from a consistently good American band

Born Ruffians – Red, Yellow and Blue
The Ruffian’s sound is jagged, but spiked with great melodies.

The Bound Stems – The Family Afloat
Everything is falling apart, but sounds so together on this album.

The Cansecos – Juices!
The Cansecos have a knack for delicious keyboard-flavored soul.

Dennis Wilson – Pacific Ocean Blue
Dennis proves that there was another talented Wilson in the Beach Boys.

The Depreciation Guild – In Her Gentle Jaws
Chiptune meets Slowdive in a gloriously great mashup.

The Dodos – The Visitor
This album just oozes the warmth and wandering of summer.

Evangelicals – The Evening Descends
A bent testament to widescreen cinema and horror-movie storytelling.

Foals – Antidotes
Battles meets British Rock in a furious blaze of songs.

French Kicks – Swimming
They dirty up their minimalist rock with epic results.

Headlights – Some Racing, Some Stopping
Every song on this compact pop album is superb.

The Helio Sequence – Keep your Eyes Ahead
Despite some stumbles this record is full of mind-blowing moments.

Hilotrons – Happymatic
Wobbly-legged melodies with a bright falsetto for a singer.

Mae Shi – Hillyh
They lost their lead singer and they persevered – good thing too.

Okkervil River – The Stand Ins
The last song on this album gives me goosebumps every time.

Passion Pit – Chunk of Change EP
This was the singer’s engagement gift to his wife – great gift!

Sun Kill Moon – April
Who needs the Red House Painters? Long live Sun Kil Moon

Two Hours Traffic – Little Jabs
The light on east coast can-rock hasn’t gone out yet.

The War on Drugs – Wagonwheel Blues
Music that sounds better in feedback – great album.

Wilderness – (K)now(W)here
They are consistently awesome in what they do.

Wye Oak – If Children
Both beautiful and anarchic, this is a great almost post-rock record.

Electronic-ish Albums

Autechre – Quaristice
Autectrhe always find a way to challenge and delight.

Azeda Booth – In Flesh Tomes
I would say that this was the best release from Calgary this year.

Belong – Colourless Record
Brief, elegiac and haunting drone(ish) record.

Clark – Turning Dragon
A chaotic, complex listen – just trying sourcing the samples

HEALTH/DISCO
A new movement in aggressive electro was born here.

Holy Fuck – LP
I saw them live this year – they can turn any source into something to dance to.

Kleerup – s/t
Not a lot of people can do heartsick with electronics – at least not this well.

Lykke Li – Youth Novels
Lykke Li is one of the reasons the Kleerup release is so good.

Mahjongg – Kontpab
Not quite rock, not quite electronic. All awesome.

Sian Alice Group – 59:59
Ditto.

Rap(ish) Albums

Black Spade – To Serve with Love
Such an effortlessly solid album – I highly recommend

D-Sisive – The Book
His story is heartbreaking, his return is incredible.

Del the Funky Homosapien – Eleventh Hour
Del does his thing and it’s crazy, but a fun listen.

eMC – The Show
This supergroup delivers one of the best rap releases of the year.

Invincible – Shapeshifters
Great female emcee with a decidedly political bent.

Jake One – White Van Music
This is an awesome mixtape with a great variety of guests.

Jean Grae – Jeanius
Some of the best wordplay I’ve heard all year.

Madlib – King of the Wigflip
Madlib has a way of creating the most oddly memorable beats.

Everybody is not an Expert: Leave PR to the Pros

2008-12-22T12:53:00.000-08:00

As communications enters a variety of new mediums enabled by technology, we must continue to assert our expertise and ensure that what is communicated through these channels is managed, planned and developed by PR pros. Although traditional forms of communications continue to decline, there are plenty of opportunities rising up through the Internet’s ability to connect people quickly. Whether that’s simply making sure your organization is found online (Search Engine Optimization) or diving into the world of real-time communications (Twitter), it’s got to be managed by the specialists.

Particularly when it comes to communications mediums that are enabled by the newest of technology, there’s an ongoing debate about whose responsibility it is to dictate how to work within those mediums. Social technology with its empowering aspect brings a certain pressure on communications experts – that because as Shel Holtz points out – the argument is that social media is so widespread that it becomes the work of everyone. Similarly, communications via technology tools such as Content Management Systems, or other technology-enabled tools like Video Feeds or Podcasts come with a certain pressure from the technology experts who control them, whether that’s your internal Information Technology Specialist or an outside contractor.

Fundamentally though, what gets communicated should remain under the direct control of the PR pro; because while the technology behind the mediums might change, from newspaper to real-time chat, the strategy and the execution of communications stays the same. You might be talking through a different channel, but how you talk and persuade is static.

Why isn’t everyone an expert?

While everybody can use social media, that doesn’t mean everybody is an expert. Holtz points out that everybody can make eggs, but that doesn’t qualify them to be a chef at a high end restaurant. Additionally, letting technicians control the messaging is like letting your printer control the content of your print publications – as Holtz notes, the technician’s job is to make sure it looks the way it’s supposed to, and the PR pros job is to determine the content.

In a recent post by Kristy Scott at adliterate, she furthers the idea by arguing that just because everyone has feedback, doesn’t mean it’s valuable. Ideas can’t come from anywhere, and they shouldn’t. For the sake of focused and coherent communications, it’s best if the messages come from the people whose job is to craft them every day.

From my own personal experience working with a large marketing group and a larger group of technology experts above them, the most effective campaigns were the ones where public relations and marketing used the source information they received from the technology professionals and crafted it the best way they could to elicit the desired response from the key audience.

When this hand-off wasn’t so clean and feedback continued to be received from all parties, the results were often muddled, compromise-ridden messes – neither effective in communicating the right technical details nor emotionally resonant enough to reach people effectively. Sometimes a good communications idea can come out of a non-traditional source, but I would agree with Scott that the majority of time, the best communications are those crafted by the people whose career depends on them.

The key is to understand that a PR pro’s job is not limited to a few simple activities. To say that specializing in social media or any other technology-enabled forum (SEO or Online Community Management) is the role of people outside of PR is looking at things with too narrow a focus; in my opinion, PR as a skill set is not a concrete checklist, but a larger set of meta-skills. Whether it’s social media, investor relations, community management or technology PR - these are areas where PR pros can and should be responsible.

The true responsibilities of a good communicator are wide-spanning; that means we as communications experts need to learn and become experienced with these tools so that they become a part of our broad range of communications skills. When and if new mediums open up where communications can be established, it is the responsibility of the PR pro to manage and (directly or indirectly as often is the case in social media) guide them – because public relations is about managing relationships no matter where or how they take place.

3 Reasons Why Far Cry 2 Sucks - The Trouble with Realism

2008-12-11T15:52:00.000-08:00

Far Cry 2 is not a bad game. But, it’s not a good game either.

So, it’s no surprise that the game didn’t sell the way Ubisoft projected – and despite a positive outlook from the company – I don’t think it will end up being a major success.

Despite spectacular environments, excellent persistent graphics (almost no loading) and a game that paints a realistic portrait of war-torn Africa, there’s one major flaw haunting the whole affair: realism.

The trouble with realism in games is simple: games are not real. They might be built on physics systems that operate like the real world, they might include real weapons, real environments and advanced AI – but in the end, they are not real – they are games.

So why doesn’t realism work? I’ve got three reasons:

Immersive versus Enjoyable

While many games strive for immersion, whether through environments (GTA 4) or narrative (Portal), the ultimate question that decides if players come back to a game constantly happens to be: is it enjoyable?

The immersion tactics of GTA 4 serve the gameplay – they are not the sole focus of it. All the sights and sounds of Liberty City are impressive, but it’s how you navigate that landscape in often unrealistic ways that makes the game fun.

Same goes for Portal with its strong sense of narrative that draws you in through a subtlety delivered story. The game makes you feel like you are part of the environment, but ultimately, its window-dressing to the gameplay mechanics.

Certainly, these games are successful at using immersion to portray reality – but the key is that the reality is the game’s own. It’s not real-world logic that the games are holding players to, but the internal logic of the game itself. The “reality” of the game works in harmony to how the game is played, further enhancing a player’s experience.

Far Cry 2 stumbles because the game’s dedication to creating a “real” environment goes against the internal logic of the game. To name a few, here are some of the “realistic” things the game does to create immersion:

Weapons can jam and break over time
Warring militias will attack you frequently
Outposts that you’ve cleared will have people in them again
Traveling to different places can take a long time

All of these things adhere to the logic of the real world. If you were to attack an outpost, it’s likely that if you came back later there could be people in it – and they wouldn’t be friendly. Same goes for weapons – they can break and jam.

The problem is, these mechanics don’t jive with the logic of the gameplay. Consider the premise of Far Cry 2 – you are a solider whose mission is to kill the Jackal. To accomplish your mission you must:

Kills hundreds of men who stand in your way over various missions
Trek endless miles either in a jeep, boat or by foot across the African Savannah
Negotiate between two dangerous militias
Find a way to constantly battle malaria during the whole affair

No matter what kind of elements that are added to make it realistic, such as giving the player malaria attacks, the fact is – the goal of the game could not be realistically achieved by one person in real life.

That said, these real-world elements make playing Far Cry 2 often excruciatingly frustrating. The game wants you to kill dozens of men to complete a mission (unrealistic), but then it hinders you by making your weapon jam (reality), and making you travel a long distance (reality) through countless hostile, respawning outposts (reality).

Games as escape from reality

So what could Far Cry 2 have done differently? That’s simple, remove weapons jamming and make it easier to teleport to the start of mission objectives. Is this realistic in the real world? No, it isn’t. But at the same time, it’s not unrealistic to the logic of Far Cry 2, which asks you to complete missions using a lot of weapons and traveling to lots of different locations.

The key is that games are an escape from reality – so while they might reflect elements of reality – they should not operate exactly like reality. The point of the game is to challenge and empower a player to do something they couldn’t do in real life. The trouble with Far Cry 2 is that it attempts to give you “real-life” challenges in a game that couldn’t possibly be replicated in real life. The result is that the realistic elements frustrate and limit a players’ enjoyment of the main mechanic of the game – planning and completing objectives using a variety of weapons, tactics and vehicles.

The sore thumb theory

As some reviews attest, another problem with trying to make a game reflect the real world is that when the game to do this with some component, it sticks out like a sore thumb.

With Far Cry 2, all of these pieces attempt to create a vivid picture of a real war-torn African landscape – except the day and night cycle happens faster than in real life, enemies don’t act like humans and sometimes when they are shooting at you, they are not even facing you.

The trouble with realism is that it demands complete loyalty. You can’t make some elements realistic and then shirk other things because they just stand out even more, doubly reversing the immersion you’ve attempted to create. Sure, my weapon jams just like a real gun, but why do the guards not see me when I’m standing right next to them? Why does it take five shots to knock down an enemy? The problem is, you can’t go for reality half-way because every element that’s not realistic takes game players out of the game, and gets them asking these types of questions.

The trouble with realism is that it’s not always fun – especially when it doesn’t serve the gameplay. Just look at the equally mixed-reviews of Mirror’s Edge, which attempts to portray parkour in a realistic way, but then makes design decisions that conflict with the internal logic of the gameplay.

With Far Cry 2, it suffers from the same problem – the balance between creating an immersible reality and delivering an enjoyable game experience is offset for the former.

So when you ask, is this game realistic: you can say “mostly, yes” but when you ask is this game fun:

I have to say “mostly, no.”

Calgary Flea Markets

2008-12-07T13:18:00.000-08:00

The Rule of Flea Markets

If there's one rule I go by in judging a flea/farmer's market value, it's how many uni-brow-sporting Ukrainians can be found there. The general guideline is, the more Ukrainians the better the flea market. The logic for this is simple: the spirit of the flea market is the antithesis of formality. A flea market is like a big family gathering, where everybody brings something to the table - it's this simple spirit of the community that makes them unique to a grocery store or mall.

Calgary Flea Markets

Crossroads Market
Crossroads market started in NE Calgary, but it has truly found its home at the crux of Inglewood and Ogden. Based on my rule, this is the quintessential Calgary flea market - it's filled with Ukrainians who sell a variety of products including cheese, farm eggs, cabbage rolls, ham hocks and honey - not to mention, the retail section where you can purchase handmade clothes, wax candles, salvaged antiques, ancient electronics and giant plaster wizards. To be honest, Crossroads is a total mess - but that's what makes it enthralling - the place is totally human and it hums with the creative energy of people coming together to share their work and interests. The farmer's market is the best Calgary has to offer, the restaurants inside are totally family-run and the retail section is an attic-digger's dream of new and used items.

Calgary Flea Market
The first thing you'll notice about the Calgary Flea Market (located on Currie Barracks in SW Calgary), is a distinct lack of Ukrainians - never a good sign. My experience with the Calgary Flea Market is this: it feels like a flea market for people who don't like flea markets. It's way too clean, well-lit and while the stores do offer handmade crafts or food, it's not in any way similar to the kinds of things you'll find at Crossroads. The vendors do offer some great products, but they are of the commercial variety, and honestly, fairly expensive. At the Calgary Flea Market you can get gourmet chicken sausage from a company that has it's own website. Same goes for any of the retail products - everything is of the high-end variety - and considering the clientele are coming from Lakeview and Mount Royal - that's fine. Just don't expect the same kind of family-knit ambiance that glows in Crossroads.

Hillhurst-Sunnyside Farmer's Market
While smaller in scale than the prominent flea markets in Calgary, the Hillhurts-Sunnyside Farmer's Market (located at the Hillhurst community center) is filled with a wonderful variety of homemade products or antique items. The offerings are more focused on crafts than food, but the vendors are no less enthusiastic to talk to people about their handicrafts. The only real drawback (other than smaller size and less
Ukrainians) is that it's not open for very long (Wednesday evenings when it's warm out). Still, it's a great community-inspired market to check out.

Other Calgary flea markets
There are a few other smaller community-focused flea markets that I haven't been to, so I can't pass judgement. But, here's a bit more about them:

McKenzie Towne Farmers' Market (Open Thursdays in Calgary's SE)
ThornCliffe Greenview Farmers' Flea Market (Open Saturdays along Centre Street N)
Sweetgrass Market (Open weekdays and weekends in the deep SW of Calgary)

Just remember, If you come across one of these markets and there seems to be a high number of people with eyebrows that touch, you know you've struck flea market gold.

The lowdown on DLC: Where's our downloadable content? Part Two

2008-11-23T09:55:00.000-08:00

Team Fortress of Brand Loyalty

Unlike the example of GTA4 with its one-shot downloadable content, Valve seems to take the never-ending beta approach. Like Google, nothing Valve does ever seems to be final, and that certainly goes for Team Fortress. There's no real update schedule, just a series of changes and upgrades as Valve sees fit - whether it's new maps or new character abilities - and of course, it's all free.

For Valve it seems, downloadable content is a way to continually cultivate a community, and more importantly, a loyal community. By constantly providing rewarding content for the players of its games, Valve is building strong brand loyalty. As such, the expectations and excitement for the company's next release, Left 4 Dead, are high precisely because the community has come to expect a strong multiplayer component with DLC - and for it, the community will reward Valve with its purchasing dollars.

The Far Crying game

In a similar vein, Ubisoft also makes games that continually provide new experiences. Although in the case of Far Cry 2, it's the community itself who's making the DLC. With a robust map editor, gamers can continually invent new playing experiences for Far Cry 2 and share them online. So while the game might not come with the same polish as COD4, it does offer endless innovation - and like Valve - this cultivates some pretty strong game loyalty.

Souless Caliber

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Namco has managed to irk its community with its use of DLC. In the case of Soul Caliber 4, it was made pretty obvious from the beginning that all the downloadable content was already available on the disc. However, Namco had much of it locked, and chose to make gamers continually pay through microtransactions to access the content, such as getting Darth Vader or Yoda (if your version didn't have one of them). The result is some pretty negative press and word-of-mouth. Rather than cultivate the community by rewarding them for being loyal gamers, Namco intends on profiting off of their enthusiasm for the game - I think one strategy builds loyalty and the other eats at it until there's nothing left.

What does it, what does it all mean?

So what is the monetary value of downloadable content? If the above examples are a guide, DLC does offer some benefits:

-New content means continual interest

-DLC makes the cost-of-entry high for competitors

-DLC can be rewarding from an exclusivity-deal agreement perspective

-DLC can foster strong brand loyalty (and disloyalty if handled incorrectly)

From my perspective, DLC works best when it's used like social media ala Facebook or Myspace - that means it's gotta be free.

It works best when it's free because it adds value to the game that the gameplayer didn't initially expect. In marketing we call this an unexpected bonus. It's something that I would not expect or miss if it wasn't in my game, but it adds a bonus if it is present, like updates to Team Fortress 2, or adding zombies in Grand Theft Auto 4 or the ability to constantly create new maps with no added cost in Far Cry 2.

When you do try to charge for it or monetize it in some capacity, you change the dynamic of the relationship. As Chris Anderson pointed out in an epic Wired Article, how your market treats free things is vastly different than how it treats things that have been assigned a value ("zero is one market and any other price is another").

When there is some direct remuneration for my DLC, whether that's paying for it straight-up or getting it free on some condition (ads, future subscription etc.), it makes me evaluate what I'm giving up in return and whether it's worth the effort or the dollars. For everyone who was excited about new maps in COD 4, there were an equal number dissatisfied at a perceived over-valued cost.

When the DLC is free, it's the developer/publisher taking the first step in the relationship - they are saying, we want to talk to you and we walk to entertain you. While the content is free, the developer/publisher gets something valuable in return, they get the game players' continued interest (versus other games out right now) and they get the game players' brand loyalty for when new games come out.

Free means that the developer is interested in the player for more than just their money, they show a genuine interest in investing in the players' fun. Just ask Valve and the buzz for its next release whether this kind of positive reinforcement via free DLC has a definitive, demonstrative financial value.

Where do we go from here?

Who knows? Will consoles be completely digital in the future? Some rumours say yes.

If this is the case, how will DLC be addressed, let alone piracy.

If all consoles go digital - how does that change the relationship between game player and developer/publisher?

When the content no longer comes in a box that I have to go pick up at the store, will it change how much I value it?

And bigger still, will it change my perception of what it means to call something a full game versus DLC - when all of it essentially becomes downloadable content.

The lowdown on DLC: Where’s our downloadable content?

2008-11-10T08:33:00.000-08:00

Part one

With Call of Duty 5: World at War on the horizon, the sun is slowly setting on Call of Duty 4. You wouldn’t know it though judging by its Xbox Live numbers. Call of Duty 4 continues to be successful, particularly on the Xbox where it still draws large crowds almost a year after it came out.

The funny thing is – the popularity of COD4 is surprising given the lack of support it got from Infinity Ward via Activision:

Three new maps and some minor playlist updates.

This lack of support got me thinking – what is the value of DLC or downloadable content?

And what does it mean either financially or competitively to developers and publishers, and of course ultimately, gamers?

Call of Duty like clockwork

In the case of COD4, there’s an obvious answer why there are no more maps or playlists, despite the game’s popularity: Call of Duty 5.

Since Activision sticks to a yearly release schedule, gamers aren’t likely to see a lot of post-release support for these games. Simply, Activision isn’t going to release downloadable content that’s going to cannibalize their new game, COD5, for their old game, COD4. The easy answer is that anyone who was going to buy COD4 new already has – and the publisher has no financial gain when people buy it used.

It’s in Activision’s best interest to motivate gamers to buy the next installment using new content as the carrot, and then eventually we’ll all move on again to COD6 for the same reason.

So this approach makes financial sense – what does that mean for a company like Bungie, who has released a variety of map packs for Halo 3?

Don’t stop the Halo

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Halo 3 has seen a number of new maps released. While Bungie doesn’t have to worry about cannibalizing its own games, it does beg the question: what’s the value in releasing downloadable content or DLC for a game that’s been out for months. The chances of new purchases significantly drop after the first couple of months, and likely, many of the new players bought the game when it was used.

However, I do think there’s one reason for Bungie to keep releasing maps and that’s called entry to market. By continually to make new content, Bungie keeps its fanbase satisfied and makes it that much harder for other developers to lure this giant subset of gamers away to their game. It gives Bungie a competitive edge while they set to work on their next release. The more people still playing Halo 3 come Halo 4 time (or whatever they’re making), the easier it is for Bungie, and big daddy Microsoft, to make a sale.

Grand Theft Autopilot

So Bungie has its reasons for publishing DLC months after Halo 3’s release, but how about something like Grand Theft Auto 4? When it was first released, there were a myriad of promises of DLC. Now, it looks as though downloadable content won’t be coming until the new year – that makes it almost six months after it shipped to retail. Is there any value here?

Perhaps from the perspective that it means people will hold onto the games, but how does that work financially? The chances that many of the copies of GTA4 that were purchased used is quite high, and from a return on investment perspective, Take Two gets nothing back for delivering DLC to these buyers.

I would make the argument that GTA4 is the example of a company releasing downloadable content as part of an exclusivity agreement; Take Two will receive money back for the DLC, but it’s likely a part of a deal with Microsoft rather than the direct benefit of moving more units. As for Microsoft, at this point, the only benefit of the exclusive DLC is another bullet point on a marketing sales sheet.

Part two coming next week...

Wii Music Struggles to Sell

2008-11-03T15:22:00.001-08:00

As I suggested in my previous post, Wii Music is competing in a market where casual gamers already feel that Rock Band and Guitar Hero are casual enough.

As this recent news post from Wired suggests, Wii Music is struggling to make the same kind of sales that came with Wii Sports or Wii Fit.

Perhaps it's just a minor miscalculation by Nintendo in terms of finding the right audience, or perhaps, Wii Music's struggles are a sign of bigger trends to come. I'll always applaud Nintendo for attempting to break out of the mold, but even so, I think there's danger in relying solely on a casual audience - sure it's a big market of people, but it's a fickle market too.

Wii Music Too Casual for Casual Gamers?

2008-10-20T16:46:00.000-07:00

With the release of Wii Music this week, a lot of gamers are paying special attention to how it’s received by the general public. Why would that be?

Because, for many gamers, Wii Music is symbolic of Nintendo’s movement away from traditional “games.” When it was first presented at E3, the buzz was hardly positive. With no rules and essentially no way to win at the game, some critics considered it nothing but a toy. For core gamers, it seemed outright alien. It was a game you couldn’t play.

Now, the release imminent, gamers are wondering whether Nintendo’s full shift to casual will replicate the successes of Wii Play and Wii Fit. If the game does well, it could very well mean the end of core Nintendo games. After all, the games will go where the money goes.

So with that in mind, it’s interesting to see that the game’s launch in New York was pretty tame by Nintendo’s standards. As Kotaku wondered aloud, does a poor launch mean that Wii Music is the first failure in Nintendo’s casual foray, or does it just mean that casual gamers aren’t likely to attend launch events. I have my own thoughts on Wii music – and they go down like this:

I have a suspicion that Wii music won’t be successful (or as successful as Nintendo’s other casual games) and the reason is that it’s too casual for even casual gamers.

The problem is, casual gamers are already used to rhythm-based games and these games are not nearly as casual as Wii Music.

Guitar Hero and Rock Band are phenomenal successes and certainly a large reason for that is their wide adoption by those that fit into the casual game territory. As Gamesutra points out, the term causal game is pretty broad and Guitar Hero and Rock Band definitely fall under the genre. What that means is that a large percentage of the people Nintendo has targeted previously with the likes of Wii Play and Wii Fit have likely played a plastic guitar or drum set before.

That said, these people are already familiar with the structures of these games, which arguably are a grey area between casual and non-casual. Sure, you can pick up Guitar Hero and just start playing, but it adheres to some pretty traditional structures, such as points, bonuses for doing well, and penalties or ending the game for failing. Though the rhythm and music components of these games give them a broad appeal, they still play like core games.

Now, Nintendo is trying to entice this audience to play a similar rhythm and music-based game, except without the need for points, or even winning. I would argue that this won’t appeal to casual gamers coming up on Guitar Hero or Rock Band because they’ve already been socialized by these other game structures – they’ve come to expect points for playing well and losing for not playing well – and by removing this aspect of the game, you are removing one of the, now, key reasons they play it.

I could certainly be proven wrong this December at the registers, but I’m betting that the people Nintendo hopes will play Wii Music are the same ones saving up to get Guitar Hero and Rock Band instead.

Call of Duty 5 Beta Impressions

2008-10-16T08:41:00.000-07:00

So somehow the gods smiled on me and I got a beta test for Call of Duty 5. After the highly successful Modern Warfare, we turn back to World War 2 and back to Treyarch, the much-maligned maker of the lackluster Call of Duty 3. So what’s the verdict? Did Treyarch make good on a promise to improve on their last effort? Did they top Infinity Ward’s gem?

The answer is yes, but it’s also no….the beta gave me access to World at War’s (WAW) multiplayer with five modes and three maps to try. Here’s my point-by-point breakdown:

Maps

Good

Castle and Roundhouse are solidly put together; there’s a ton of variety – open spaces and tight quarters. This makes for interesting matches.
The artistic design is well done for these levels; varied colors and textures between vegetation, buildings and items.
The ancient Japanese setting of Castle brings something novel to the table. The level takes place on a steep incline which adds some interesting dynamics.
Roundhouse takes place in a massive trainyard with blown-out buildings and some clever catwalks. There are a ton of nooks and crannies to hide.

Bad

Malkin takes place on a Japanese island outpost – sounds promising but…
It feels a little off. The set design is too cluttered. It’s a case of there being too much lying around. I found it bottlenecks the action.
Everything in this level is dark brown. I realize that it’s supposed to be night, but it’s almost impossible to distinguish friend from foe, or foe from vegetation, or foe from building.

Gameplay

Good

Since WAW runs on the same engine that built Modern Warfare, the gameplay is similar – same controls, same movement, same framerate.
But it’s thankfully slightly different as well – moving seems faster, especially running.
The bonuses for kill streaks have changed – for 7 kills, it’s dogs, which works surprisingly well. The dogs aren’t invincible, but they can surprise you. Plus, they’re great at rooting out campers because the dogs can pretty much go anywhere a person can. That means walkways aren’t always safe.
Another positive is that the Tanks feel fairly balanced. They are powerful (they are tanks after all), but a couple of good rocket strikes can take them out. Driving them is pretty intuitive and there’s nothing more satisfying that firing a shell into a sniper’s nest (at least for me on Roundhouse anyway).
The gametypes are decent and varied – War is a welcome change – you have to consecutively capture points which adds a new challenge because it’s a single flag to attack or defend. Plus, all the standard modes seem to be intact.

Bad

It’s probably just a beta thing, but the spawns are atrocious. Modern Warfare’s were pretty good for the genre. WAW’s are not at all. You’ll find yourself dying at least 2-3 times just because of spawns where you’ll magically appear in front of a group of enemies or worse, someone will spawn right after you on Free for All, garnering them a free shot at your back.
The artillery strikes are loud and mostly useless. Unlike an air strike, the artillery lasts a long time and hits a large patch of map. The problem here is that it’s too spread out to accurately pinpoint a group of enemies and it’s length and effects can distract you and your team as much as the enemies.

Weapons

Good

Sniping is easier – it doesn’t take as long to stop breathing (just half a second as opposed to two seconds) and the action of the rifles feels more stable.
There’s extra modding ability – now you can add surpressors, sights or extra ammunition as part of a weapon’s upgrades.
For what they are, there’s a good stable of weapons and anachronistic mods to make the guns feel similar to Modern Warfare.

Bad

Grenades feel underpowered. It takes a near direct hit to take out an enemy.
Molotov cocktails don’t work at all – unless you hit the person directly, the flames render no damage. You can stand in a room on fire and not be hurt.
Flares aren’t useful – they’re meant to blind, but they don’t. You can still pretty much see so they don’t accomplish the same thing as a flash bang.

Perks

Bad

Juggernaut – since a lot of the guns seem to come with less power than in Modern Warfare, I found myself getting 8-9 assists in a match. That’s because it can be near impossible to kill an opponent without having to shoot them multiple times.
Revive isn’t useful – Revive gives you last stand, but it also lets you revive an ally who’s in last stand. Because players are so used to last stand, the latter perk never comes into play – at least not in multiplayer mode.

Overall

The game is a reasonable step forward, but it’s not without its issues. While the engine is the same as Modern Warfare, Treyarch’s the driver and they don’t bring the same level of polish to the game. It’s a case where Treyarch has added new features, but without fully considering the impact of them on the game play.

Sure some things in WAW sound cool, but it ends there in actual use. Infinity Ward seems to get this concept and regrettably it’s lost in translation for Treyarch. WAW has potential and some good ideas, but it remains to be seen if the myriad of rough spots will mar the game’s lasting power.

pawnshop

2008-10-10T11:07:00.001-07:00

I never meant to be rich, oh
but my tiara polarizes people
into true and false questions

has been

2008-08-14T11:23:00.000-07:00

this is wisdom I don’t want
waiting for the wishbone
drama of a leafless autumn

hairpin

2008-08-14T11:20:00.001-07:00

snake light these car lengths
shine idle cherry guts on the
midnight side of dangerous

Brett Favre and the Madden Curse

2008-08-08T07:05:00.000-07:00

Back in 1999, Electronic Arts (EA) decided to stop putting John Madden on the front cover of its Madden NFL video game. Instead, EA started featuring football players instead. What followed out of that is an increasingly odd trend – that whatever athlete makes the cover tends to have either a down season or their worst season period. Otherwise known as the Madden Curse.

Curses!

Take for example the 1999 cover – Eddie George. In 1998 George had a spectacular season and helped his team to the Super Bowl. Then he appeared on the Madden cover. His next season was filled with injuries and he never fully recovered, going into a slow decline. The year Michael Vick appeared on the cover – he broke his leg and didn’t play the whole season. The year Shaun Alexander appeared on the cover, he injured his foot, missed a bunch of games and looked terrible in the rest. The year Ray Lewis appeared on the cover, he fought injuries the whole season and ended up with his worst statistical year, plus his team missed the playoffs after winning the Super Bowl the year before.

Unretirement is a verb

So this year, perhaps EA tried to play it safe. They put a retired player on their cover. He can’t get injured right? Well, what he can do is not stay retired – as the current cover jockey just did.

For Madden 2009, EA decided to feature Brett Favre – and it’s going to be a mistake that haunts them all year. With Favre a) announcing his un-retirement and b) creating a Minnesota Vikings-sized boatload of drama and now c) getting traded to the New York Jets – the curse has clearly struck again.

So now, Madden 2009 will feature Favre in a Packers uniform – a team he won’t be playing with this year and a team he clearly left on bad terms, damaging his legacy in the NFL.

The one thing I have to wonder is – since EA won’t be updating their cover – will they be updating the roster so that the Jets have Favre?

flowchart

2008-07-25T10:51:00.001-07:00

I have a thesis that fails to explain
why my fake-white collar friends
cascade like empty water bottles

campfire

2008-07-25T10:49:00.000-07:00

If they’re cold, there’s still a little
wine behind the leftover kerosene
handcuffs, pamphlets and torches

Music Review: Depreciation Guild, Helio Sequence, JDSY

2008-07-17T10:30:00.000-07:00

Depreciation Guild
In Her Gentle Jaws

One part Kevin Shields, one part Mario bros., the Depreciation Guild make fuzzed-out shoegaze music that sounds like some long-lost super Nintendo soundtrack – all gauzy effects-laden guitars mashing it up with MIDI bleeps and beats. While it’s not in the same camp as the neo-gazing of M83, it’s at least in the same campground, sharing the same penchant for woozy vocals and melancholic textures. Where it differs is in the percussion, which buzzes with the energy of a hungry arcade – throbbing drum machines and pulsing keyboards kick the whole affair into a decidedly different atmosphere, making for an invigoratingly unique listen.
Highlights: Butterfly Kisses, Digital Solace, In Her Gentle Jaws

Helio Sequence
Keep Your Eyes Ahead

Who knew that losing your voice could make you a better singer? In the case of Brandon Summers of Helio Sequence, losing his voice forced him to re-learn how to sing – good thing though because it’s a boon to the already dynamic mix of effects-heavy guitar and off-kilter drums. With past albums, the instruments did the heavy lifting and Summer’s voice barely tread water. Here, vocals are as strong as the music, fleshing in new bits of melody and context – that said, some lyrics borrow a bit too much from Dylan (Shed Your Love), but it’s a minor misstep on a mostly promising release.
Highlights: Lately, Back to This, Hallelujah

JDSY
Adage of Known

Intelligent dance music isn’t dead, it’s just sleeping – so proves JDSY (Joey Sims) straight from New York with the kaleidoscope Adage of Known – a dance album that smartly left dance at the door. JDSY isn’t looking to get feet moving, he’s looking to get heads spinning with electronic songs that are actual songs, with actual verses, melodies, choruses, climaxes and denouements. It’s oddly claustrophobic and sparse at the same time – the beats are dense and closet in the vocals, but the tone and pace is warm and welcoming – it’s a fascinating tension that sculpts the unexpected into audio satisfaction.
Highlights: Staircase, Drifter, Horizon Line

Public relations: Google owns you

2008-07-15T09:24:00.000-07:00

The day of the newspaper is almost over. So says David Meerman Scott in the New Rules of Marketing and PR. He implores PR professionals to stop spending time writing “press releases” where we hammer out a lifeless sheet that’s been vetted through a million committees, legal departments and the like – and then cross our fingers, post it to a PR wire and hope some journalist likes it enough to contact us. It’s such a convoluted process and with the democratization of information via the Internet, it’s brutally ineffective.

The truth is – traditional PR isn’t working anymore. That’s because traditional media isn’t working anymore. The latest statistics show that newspaper readership continues to decline, and the same for television. Less and less people are reading or watching traditional news. That means less and less people are going to read our stories through these channels.

The Internet is growing significantly as the news medium of choice. And it’s not just traditional sites like CNN, its user-generated sites like Digg, stumbleupon, del.ici.ous where the readers decide what’s most relevant to them. The Internet is democratizing Journalism and that means it’s also democratizing public relations.

Our landscape is changing significantly – half of what I learned in PR school no longer applies. In ten years, I’m sure most of it won’t apply at all. With that said, the guiding principles of public relations, communicating, will always be relevant. The rise of the Internet isn’t the end of PR – it’s just means re-evaluating how the cycle works.

Instead of creating “push” pieces, we need to start creating “pull” pieces. Instead of talking at our audiences with press releases, glossy newsletters, over-produced annual reports, we need to start having genuine conversations. In marketing, guru Seth Godin coined the term “permission marketing” for this approach. For us, it’s should be called “permission communication.”

We need to start creating “news releases” that any person can find on the Internet easily, read and understand. That means optimizing our releases for searching on the Internet, which means eliminating the jargon, eliminating the PR-speak, and writing plainly and simply.

It’s quite simple: Google owns you. That’s how the majority of people will look for your company, your products and your news. The “pull” approach means that you stop writing at your audience and instead let them come to you. Let them find you easily with Google, and when they do, make it easy for them to do what they want on your site, so that it’s rewarding and meaningful for them.

Once you show that you’re genuine about delivering the best and most useful content and information to the people that want to read about you. They will trust you and they will keep coming back.

Video Games: Guess what, Wii Fit sucks

2008-07-04T15:30:00.000-07:00

Wii Virus

A while back, the President of Epic games compared the Nintendo Wii to a virus. Basically, he explained that the Wii was the perfect PR hype machine. It’s the kind of product everyone talks about, but once they own, they stop playing it. As an early adopter of the Wii, unfortunately, I’d have to agree. Essentially, the Wii’s endless hype, and subsequent retail dominance can be traced to two factors: first experience and word-of-mouth.

First experience basically means that the Wii is built to be awesome when you first try it. Who can’t remember trying out Wii sports tennis for the first time and being blown away by how much fun it was to swing the remote? The problem is, this experience doesn’t become more rewarding the more you play the game – if anything it stays the same or drops as familiarity leads to tedium. The reason for this is that Wii sports is a casual game, and by nature, it’s game play is shallow. There’s no real progress and there’s no real depth to continually playing. It’s the same exact game each time you turn it on.

However, because the first experience is totally awesome, it leads to a lot of positive word-of-mouth. Here’s the typical scenario: Your friends try Wii at a friend’s house, and the next you thing you know, they’re telling everyone how great it was. It’s not reflective of actually owning the Wii, but that hardly matters. The word-of-mouth spreads like wildfire, increasing demand, decreasing supply, which just reinforces the cycle.

Wii aren’t Fit

Now, here comes the Wii fit to replicate the experience of Wii Sports. It’s the same exact situation. There’s uncontrollable hype for the game because it is a lot of fun to play for the first 10-15 minutes. Add in promises of getting fit and you have another game that’s being driven by word of mouth. The reality however, is that Wii fit is just as shallow as Wii Sports and owning it, isn’t nearly as fun as just trying it. The evidence can be seen in growing dissatisfied Amazon posts or the huge number of gamers who are already giving up on Wii Fit’s fitness programs.

Couple this with the fact that the Wii is still struggling to sell third-party games and my earlier prediction still holds strong. I feel strongly that the Wii’s innovation, while unique and needed in the video game market, simply isn’t enough.

The Wii’s technical limitations mean that it’s not appealing for most developers who are concentrating on next-generation titles. Add that to the fact that the Wii’s glut of cheap imitation games makes it different for its consumers to choose quality games – resulting in people only buying name brand games (Nintendo games) means that third-party developers will be less willing to design games that just won’t sell.

Music Review: The 1900s, The Foals and Al Green

2008-06-19T10:57:00.000-07:00

The 1900s
Cold and Kind

Most breakups result in tubs of ice cream, not creative epiphanies; fortunately, for the seven-member The 1900s, emotional disaster has turned into a pretty, and pretty cohesive, record. Employing various boy-girl vocals, the album mines the same personal wreckage as Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, while adding enough surprises to separate it from the 70’s lite-rock cannon. If there’s one thing The 1900s share with their idols, it’s the fact that they’ve made an album, album – from the urgent piano of the first tracks, to the gospel-ish choir in the middle to the aching coda at the end, Cold and Kind is best experienced, for all its beautiful ebbs and flows, as a whole. Highlights: The whole thing…(also: Wool of the Lamb, Georgia, When I Say Go)

The Foals
Antidotes

The Foals are their own genre, and that genre should be called divisive listening. If you hate kinetically-charged math rock with a Battles meets Brit-rock aesthetic, then you’ll hate the Foals; if you love lyrics that repeat every third word because it sounds cool and random thrown-together subject matter that came freshly picked out of a hat, then you’ll love the Foals. Antidotes is simply a frustratingly, enjoyable, unbearably, wondrous album. Highlights: Red Sock Pugie, Olympic Airways, Cassius

Al Green
Lay it Down

You know the drill – trot out former all-star, dominate the record with “supporting” new all-stars and let everybody collect a cheque. Well, Al Green isn’t going down so easy – Lay it Down might “feature” John Legend and half of The Roots, but it’s still Green’s show. Green’s falsetto still has its stunning wattage, and it basks in the syrupy sweetness of the AM radio horns, old-school Hammond organ buzz, and fat bass lines. Of course it’s not Green’s best work (that’s Call Me), but it is his best work since returning to recording in 2003, and it captures the essence of satin soul better than anything else released since Green retired the first time around. Highlights: Lay it Down, Just for Me, You’ve Got the Love I Need

Balzac Mall Maul

2008-06-03T11:05:00.000-07:00

Who puts a mall in Balzac?

Somewhere right now there is a group of people, probably seasoned professionals, sitting around a table. These people are agreeing that building a mall in Balzac is a good idea. Not only do they think that a mall is a good idea, they think it should be a super-mall ala West Edmonton Mall.

No doubt they have charts, they have research and they have statistics that support this idea. These people not only think that a super-mall is financially tenable, but that it’s likely to turn some kind of profit. While I’m no expert, my gut feelings says no, they’re totally wrong.

The news of course, sounds like a regurgitated press release and states that most of the retail space is already leased, that the mall will feature wondrous shopping and entertainment and will take advantage of a booming Alberta market. They’re forgetting the most important thing though – will anybody go there?

I realize Calgary’s exponential outward growth makes Balzac pretty close to the city limits, but unless you actually live on the northwest/northeast corner of the city, it’s not a convenient location. One of the things that makes West Edmonton Mall appealing for its core shoppers, Edmontonians, is that it’s reasonably fixated within the city. A Balzac mall is a drive for someone relatively central and is almost Odyssey-an for anyone living in the deep southwest or southeast.

And, unless you can get Calgarians to go there regularly, you’re not going to turn a tidy profit. Tourists alone won’t be enough to carry a mall of this size.

I’m all for ambition, but this venture already has a bad location on its side. If Canada (and partly Alberta) ever slides into recession like the US, we could be looking at one of the biggest and most expensive financial disasters in Calgary, or not quite-Calgary’s, history.

Music Review: Crystal Castles, Health, Gutter Twins

2008-05-30T09:56:00.000-07:00

Crystal Castles
s/t

It’s an Atari game and now it’s also a Toronto two-piece who twist an 8-bit aesthetic into dark, danceable post-rave. Singer Alice Glass contorts over Ethan Kath’s combination of warped Nintendo squeals and heavy synthesizers – the resulting sound isn’t just cold – it’s positively frozen. Crystal Castles sound as though they’re playing frost covered instruments in a meat locker while wearing black hoodies and black sunglasses with the lights off – in other words, it’s menacingly good. Highlights: Untrust Us, Courtship Date, XXZXCUZX ME

Health
DISCO

If there’s one release that could probably do with a drastic remix it’s Health’s underwhelming self-titled release from this year. While their first album did add some interesting thematic elements to the sludge-rock genre (pop, noise and ambience), it felt a little too much like Boris’ Pink redux than an original release from an original band. DISCO re-imagines Health through the lens of some wickedly aggressive electro – it’s an impressive mix of brontosaurus rock with razor sharp synthesizers – and it comes across like a raving LCD Soundsystem hopped-up on angel dust running naked through the streets. Highlights: Lost Time (Picture Plane Remix), Heaven (Narctrax Remix), Zoothorns (Nastique’s Remix)

The Gutter Twins
Saturnalia

Remember when gothic meant something other than wearing dark make-up and scribbling in a skull and cross-bones diary? Me neither, but The Gutter Twins (former Afghan whig Greg Dhulli and former Screaming Trees Mark Lanegan) conjure up a dark and sensuous record that would soundtrack perfectly to Bela Lugosi’s Dracula. Whether its white noise strings, growling stand up bass, rumbling synthesizers, or whispery come-hither lyrics, the whole record effortlessly melds into a smoky vision of wax candles and crushed velvet. Highlights: The Stations, Circle the Fringes, God’s Children

Boy Scout

2008-05-27T15:47:00.003-07:00

cue the bones of my alpha
male countryside littered with
everlasting high school muscles

Rye coke

2008-05-27T15:47:00.001-07:00

in the bar where i play my air guitar
there’s shards of a disconsolate animal
self stealing hands under blouses

Long distance

2008-05-27T15:45:00.000-07:00

lapels and crowns scorn your own
disowned brother by the yellow
birch boys wring the tire swing

PR: People Don't Care About Your Crappy Website

2008-05-26T10:46:00.000-07:00

A dedicated web-writer is not a popular person. Here’s why. You meet your project manager. They proceed to tell you all the things they want on a website/microsite/e-mail/banner. Their strategic plan says the outcome of all this communication is action by the customer. Your response? Nope. Not happening. Nothing doing.

It’s a common argument I have everyday. You can say all the things you want in an online world. Your audience doesn’t care.

Websites are not books, and they don’t just operate differently. People using websites approach them differently. They are not looking to read, they are looking to do.

People are getting more ruthless and selfish when they go online. A recent study by Jakob Nielsen found that people only read about 20 per cent of the words on a page.

Research also shows users are ignoring any attempts to keep people on a page (people will stay on a page for 4.4 seconds per 100 words). People have become better at knowing where to go, and like the TV commercials we skip, people are better at ignoring marketing/pr information that is irrelevant to their task.

The key? People want websites to get to the point. This is especially important when you consider that roughly 75 per cent of people will find your homepage by search engine. The key is to help people do exactly what they want, and make it seamless – from search engine – to your homepage – to their task.

Your website/microsite/email is a tool- no different from a hammer or a measuring tape – if you make it easy and useful, people will keep using it.

Update

2008-05-26T10:45:00.001-07:00

Update

Sorry for the lapse in posts – I’m in a bit of a transitional period with this site.

With the end of 11th transmission, I’ve been unsure how to use this site for both comic and text posts.

Ultimately, I’ve decided this site will be dedicated to text posts and that a new site will be delivering the much-delayed comics. I’m in the process of building that new site, but in the meantime, I’ll keep updating permanent hiatus with articles.

double suicide

2008-04-02T07:34:00.001-07:00

double suicide
it dribbles onto the newspaper and
you are a parable that I can erase in
falling these beads of bright ochre

hard boiled

2008-04-02T07:33:00.002-07:00

hard boiled
so you have no recollection of reloading
and throttling flint in naked fireworks of
your two-fisted poetics splintering crates

pegleg

2008-04-02T07:33:00.001-07:00

pegleg
brake for phantom pangs I fill it up
with new pots and pans they are asking
you sir please stop the shouting

teleprompter

2008-04-02T07:31:00.000-07:00

teleprompter
a braille of iron descending into
the mouth haunted angry raze
this involuntary iron brain

deadpan

2008-04-02T07:29:00.000-07:00

deadpan
abandoning demand I listen to ACDC
and burn with luck to tidy in those
superficial spaces and duck the bouquet

bedroom eyes

2008-04-02T07:28:00.001-07:00

bedroom eyes
where are the redemptive details i
bezel violently fingernails wreak
the headboard’s bloody bloody

Fast Five Music Reviews

2008-03-11T10:19:00.000-07:00

The Acorn – Glory Hope Mountain
Glory Hope Mountain is a quasi concept album about the lead singer’s mother and her tumultuous journey from South America. It’s a tender mix of shambling acoustics and subtle African rhythms where the heart is mapped over the geography of continents and psychography of hardship in a wide-eyed tribute. Highlights: The Flood pt. 2, Crooked Legs

Burial – Untrue
A year-end favorite, and deservedly so, Burial’s second album is the warmest cold record I’ve heard in a long time. Distant, yet edging over with latent emotion, it’s the perfect synopsis of unreconcilable love. Not a sunny day record, but one that soundtracks great saying hello to the night. Highlights: Arcangel, In McDonalds, Ghost Hardware

Ladyhawk – Shots
Ladyhawk are proving to be more consistent than small town transit with a second release of solid, squalling guitar workouts. This release gets a little darker, moving away from no luck resignation into alcohol-fueled mortal contemplation. The abyss stares back and it sounds great. Highlights: Fear, Corpse Paint, Faces of Death

Miracle Fortress – Five Roses
So Panda Bear gets all the credit for reviving the Beach Boys with Person Pitch, but I prefer Miracle Fortress’ Five Roses. Rather than play to the postmodern crowd, Five Roses revels in oldschool melody and the sweet interplay of double-tracked falsetto vocals. It’s forward-thinking, but still saves the baby from the bathwater. Highlights: Maybe Lately, Beach Bay, Hold Your Secrets to Your Heart.

Ungdomskulen – Cry Baby
The band name means “middle school” but sounds more like something a middle-schooler would draw on their binder. It’s a pretty fair representation of the band – a buzzing amalgamation of sung-scremed vocals, high-wire guitars, galloping drums and punch your lights out bass. The rhythm section is worth the admission alone. Highlights: Glory Hole, Modern Drummer, Ordinary Son.

Our robot overlords are coming

2008-03-05T14:56:00.000-08:00

An Atlanta bar owner has discovered a new way to solve crime and homelessness. With robots of course! It's funny but also kind of sad.

We all get that crime and homelessness are problems, but a robot that rolls around shooting water at people is sort of an absurd solution. Especially when a recent newscast points out in detail who is controlling the robot, what he looks like and where he works.

Another problem of course is that these robot overlords look suspiciously like the evil robot overlords from Doctor Who.

FREE Article about Getting Things Free

2008-03-04T06:45:00.000-08:00

The latest issue of Wired has an excellent article by Chris Anderson on how the Internet is changing that game of business.

The demonetization of business is a fascinating concept, particularly because it resets the framework of what business actually is – no longer about products, it’s now about relationships.

Even when you give something away for free – somewhere there is value in the relationship of one person giving another person something that they value, even if they didn’t have to pay for it. Think about how TV and radio work - you watch or listen for free from the station, who in turn makes money by being paid by people who want you to watch or listen to their ads.

Seth Godin touches on some of these ideas, and the new importance of relationships in a recent speech to the music industry, one business in particular, who is having trouble adjusting to this new economy.

And, the article by Anderson is, of course, totally free to read.

How much do you walk?

2008-02-18T12:08:00.000-08:00

The average person walks less than 6,000 steps per day which is less than 2 miles. Doctor's recommend at least 10,000 steps per day to maintain cardiovascular fitness.

It's hard in a sprawling car-friendly city like Calgary, but the benefits are clear:

People in walk friendly neighborhoods weigh 7 pounds less on average
They tend to be more active (and interactive) in their community
They tend to support local businesses (because they walk to them)

Momentum works both ways. Right now, Calgary just keeps growing outwards endlessly, promoting rising infrastructure costs for roads, utilities, schools, police, transit etc. It all means that Calgary gets more expensive, and the further out you go, the more you have to drive, the more pollution you create - more more more.

Think about moving inwards - it creates higher population density, which promotes better use of infrastructure (roads, ulities, schools, police, transit, etc) and creates a stronger local economy with a thriving, lively center. There is a reason people want to move to Vancouver.

Check out www.walkscore.com for walking information and your city's walking score.

Science fiction poetry?

2008-02-11T13:27:00.000-08:00

Log03/09/48
outside the climate suit
charles surveyed a bottled sunrise
broken over leaves and foundations

Log08/26/46
I would kill for milk
trapped in the isosceles
tail until next august

Log11/04/48
inject the apes with it
inject the apes with it
and leave before you see
and leave before you see
eyelids jerk and blaze
eyelids jrek and blaze
like this deflated land
like thiss defalted

PingMag - Design in the Way of Japan

2008-02-06T07:19:00.000-08:00

Seth Godin, marketing (or arguably communications) genius extraordinaire highlighted this Japanese design magazine in a recent post.

As someone who loves all things Japanese, I highly recommend it. It's full of unique art and design stories both local to Japan (calligraphy, traditional woodmaking and...Japanse skate parks!) and international (miniminal techno record sleeve design and surreal Serbian photography).

For example, check out these cool undeground subway murals.

Jain Vain and the Dark Matter - Review

2008-02-05T09:32:00.001-08:00

Love is Where the Smoke is

Where there’s smoke, there’s a great new record from Jane Vain and the Dark Matter. Imagine gypsy waltzes colliding with synthesized drums while confessional storytelling bounces off the walls of chamber pop and you only get a hint of where Jamie Fooks, Dillon Whitfield and friends are sailing. Channeling Chan Marshall, Jane Vain occupies a similar breathless space where the band feels like it’s either on the verge of rocking out or falling apart all together. With Fooks’ voice always one beat ahead of the music, there’s a relentless sense of doe-eyed desire funneling through songs like “I’m so afraid” and “we must destroy”, which is supported by rich instrumentation using violins, ukulele, banjo and ambient midi squiggles. Other than line-crossing maudlin of “these ghosts” which gets a little too Billy Joel in its bridge, Love is Where the Smoke is, is a great release from a talented local band.

Can't Get Enough of Japan and its Culture?

2008-01-25T14:48:00.000-08:00

How do they tow cars in Japan? What's J-pop music? Why does Japan love cartoons?

Get all your answers at 3Yen, a site dedicated all things wonderfully Japanese.

Get all your facts: Know your Gackt from your Miyavi. Revel in the joy that is eating Pocky and watching Full Metal Panic. Wonder strangely why Kit Kat is the number one study-food for Japanese high school students.

Onion versus Wii

2008-01-25T09:22:00.000-08:00

The Onion looks into the future and finds some new Wii games.

Hard Sell

2008-01-23T07:20:00.001-08:00

Because it’s whether I trust the product. Relapse. Benefits. Features.
Hell is subjective on a weekend. This time with tongue. And finally,
who makes it? This says I’m desirable. My scent is a tribe. Complex
flourishes. Accidents. Plastic. Conspicuous attempts. Welcome
to my brilliant mental basement disappointment. Whoa logic.
Fell into the cicadas. With a tremendous advantage over those
who don’t. There are no dull moments. Moot. Liquid. Courage.
My shrinking psychic distance. Kissing wild ordinary charismatics.

For PR eyes only: Best Books to Buy

2008-01-22T11:05:00.000-08:00

Keeping up with PR trends is tough. Good thing there are some great books out there.
These are some of the best I have come across:

Fall of Advertising and Rise of PR – Al & Laura Ries
Permission Marketing – Seth Godin
Unleashing the Ideavirus – Seth Godin
A New Brand World – Scott Bedbury
The Origin of Brands – Al & Laura Ries
Beyond Buzz – Lois Kelly
The Brand Gap – Marty Neumeier
Zag – Marty Neumeier
The New Rules of Marketing and PR – D. Scott

Why would you want a tentacle arm?

2008-01-18T15:09:00.000-08:00

Because tentacles are awesome. Especially when they are your own.

Gaia online is a new social network (like facebook) for nerds, particularly those fond of role-playing games and anime.

But, they also have a great store full of quirky accessories and clothes. Including tentacle arms - great for halloween, or christmas depending on your predilication for strangeness.

Wii Wait for Third Party Support

2008-01-17T15:52:00.000-08:00

Will Nintendo's Wii make it without Third Party Support?

Sure, sure the Wii is a hit. It’s phenomenal sales of 13.7 million units as of September 2007 is astounding. Its marketing shift away from traditional games to new markets was a brilliant move, both in a marketing sense (growing the existing market) and in a competitive sense (where Nintendo couldn’t keep up with Sony and Microsoft).

But…there’s a big but.

Selling a lot of systems is great up front. However, it’s only one half of an equation. Nintendo needs sustained gaming success to drive the Wii. The hardware will only sell and sustain Nintendo for so long, and then the games will be what defines and rejuvenates the system over and over. Playstation 2’s continued sales prove this fact. Despite being a six year-old system, it continues to sell surprisingly well (better than the PS3) because of the depth of games offered.

Wii lacks games.

Beyond the Nintendo-created titles (Mario this, Mario that), Nintendo’s third party titles aren’t selling well. What does this mean? It means games created by other companies are not being bought by consumers, either for a lack of interest or because the developers haven’t really grasped the Wii’s true potential. Regardless the reason, bad third-party sales are a good indicator that developers will turn away from Nintendo for the more traditional consoles where they can make profits.

And Nintendo will lose ground. Perhaps I’m early on calling it, but Japan’s latest console sales are a good bellwether for the Wii. The recent sales figures show that the PS3 is now outpacing the Wii and analysts predict that the playing field will be close to even by the end of 2008.

I estimate the Wii’s novelty will wear off by around August of this year. If Wii doesn’t start producing “A” title third-party games (ala Bioshock, Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, Rock Band) like the other systems, Nintendo will find itself in the same position it was with the woeful Gamecube. Wii will end up last in the console race despite its boundless innovation and massive momentum.

Huckabee wants to change US Constitution

2008-01-16T11:17:00.000-08:00

Spreading like wildfire over the Internet is Mike Huckabee's recent comments about the constitution. Here's what he said:

"I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution," Huckabee told a Michigan audience on Monday. "But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god. And that's what we need to do -- to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view."

Nice. My first thought was that wouldn't a move like this effectively make the United States a theocracy. You know, the kind of theocracy we see in Iran, the dreaded mortal enemy of the United States because of its supposed hatred of freedom.

I should run for president on the platform that we amend the constution so that Mike Huckabee can't run for president or bear offspring. I would also run on the dinosaurs do not exist because Chuck Norris went back in time and killed them platform. The latter will no doubt get me some votes. Or, by the very least, Chuck Norris' support.

the wolf twenty five

2008-01-14T22:03:00.001-08:00

or...the non-photoshopped version:

Wait for August

2008-01-14T11:51:00.000-08:00

Charms

Just inside the rim. She gasped
gripping the handrail. These
relentless chemicals. Another
slip pandora. Because sleep
erases. Forfeiting ghosts.
Peel exasperated plaster.
Dried with angst. Slow violent
fingernail. In pills and acetate.
Drama and chimeras. Eyeless
exits. Used to imitate an ache.

Camelot - Pumphouse Theatre

2008-01-14T08:12:00.000-08:00

Camelot

Sometimes earnestness gets you nowhere. Camelot, now playing at Pumphouse Theatre is a perfect example of why. Despite very best attempts by Front Row Productions, the sheer lack of talent, budget and execution make this musical simply not worth seeing. Of course there were warning signs:

a) the audience is almost entirely made up of friends and family
b) the actors are primarily high school students
c) the actors who were not high school students were friends of the director

None of these things usually translate into a good production – and Camelot certainly isn’t a good production. That’s not to say that the actors didn’t try hard – they did. But, the lack of experience and talent was evident not only in the stilted dialogue and off-timed jokes, but in the weak singing, except for the female lead.

Now, perhaps this isn’t my cup of tea. There were lots of people enjoying the show – and maybe because we only get one full Broadway-type production rolling through cowtown every year, Front Row Productions constitutes some kind of stop-gap.

Still, as much as I feel like I’m kicking a sick puppy, I can’t justify paying for something terrible, even when the person delivering it has a big smile on their face. If you want bad theatre by enthusiastic people – Camelot is your ticket. If you want good theatre probably done by emotionless professionals, then I’d say hold on to your money and wait for the real thing.

Enabler

2008-01-10T11:06:00.000-08:00

Enabler

Don’t play what if Wheeled
in blue The authentic feels
like Clacking unwound
Powder Eyeball Harness
instead Yellow nausea.
Drop in cold Why criss-
crosses Can you speak can

For PR eyes only

2008-01-10T09:12:00.000-08:00

For PR eyes only

Between all my projects, I read a lot of PR and Marketing sites. It helps with work and life.

Whether it’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Branding, Storytelling or Emotional Marketing, I try to keep up with what’s going on. Here are some specific articles I like:

SEO Copywriting 2.0

Building a SEO Marketing Plan

Emotional Marketing

Emotion Triggers the Right Moves

Building a Brand Enthusiast

Differentiate your Brand for Reals

Stories Make the Difference

Ten Truths about Branded Storytelling

the wolf 24

2008-01-08T22:33:00.000-08:00

Selling on Ebay - Three Things to Watch

2008-01-08T07:46:00.000-08:00

Watch out for these 3 things when selling on Ebay:

My girlfriend and I sell things on Ebay and we’ve learned some lessons along the way.
We’re not power sellers but we’ve done almost 200 sales with minimal trouble. Here’s how:

1. Expectations are everything

First things first, people don’t read your product post, not all of it anyway. They won’t read all your shipping rules and costs. Often, they will “watch” it or they will just bid on it (especially new ebay users). This can result in annoyed customers when it comes time to pay or when they realize how long it takes to get their item. Especially at Christmas – users don’t always understand that basic shipping might not get their item in time during holidays.

What do you do?

We tend to avoid posting shipping rates. Tell them to e-mail you in the post. Make sure that’s written as high as possible – even under the product headline. Then go on to describe the product. That way if they like your setup, they likely will buy your product. Often the product isn’t the difference maker – it’s your shipping information and pricing that makes the difference – especially with used items or bulk items.

2. Take lots of pictures – and be descriptive

Of course you only get one default picture – but adding one is a good idea, especially for used items. And, if your product is in fair condition – describe what “fair condition” means. Not everyone has the same idea in mind. We’ve come across a couple of disputes this way so it pays to be very clear about the product’s condition. In fact, it helps sell the product as buyers prefer honestly over vague/fluffy hype.

3. Shipping is the difference maker

A lot of sellers use shipping as a way of adding revenue. Don’t do this. If you want loyal, returning users – set the shipping price fairly. And if you provided a quote that was a little high, refund them the minor difference. It’s a small cost and it makes you an extraordinary seller, and unlike 99 per cent of your competition.

And, if you can deliver a product or set up local pick up – do it. Even if you have three eyes and no hygiene to speak of, local pick up is one of the easiest and most inexpensive ways of making a sale.

These things have helped us along the way – no matter what we’re selling – from used video games to beauty products to stuffed bears.

Hot Links

2008-01-07T13:28:00.000-08:00

Hot Links

Awesome.

Occasionally, in life or work I find things that I think fit the word. Here are few cool sites I like:

Threadless
www.threadless.com

It’s pretty ubiquitous by now, but this t-shirt site has a load of designer-created limited-run t-shirts. There are some incredible designs and ideas here to put on your body.

Rotofugi
www.rotofugi.com

You can buy plush ninjas. Enough said.

Endless online book
www.writesomething.net

It’s a book where anyone can add to part of the story. Strange, beautiful, thoroughly post-modern.

Gapingvoid
http://www.gapingvoid.com/

Cartoons drawn on the back of business cards. Small, epic and surreal portraits of our world gone wrong.

pitch selective (draft two)

2008-01-07T10:18:00.001-08:00

Pitch selective

half the solved
reception preserved
awesome in relief

several tabs into desire
staring outliers
see stupefied again

lanterns of cognizance
alight karma links
anointed lightning

echo schemes silver
such fresh rectangles
minimized this realm

mortal solipsists
click physics
quack contractual

story penetrator
understand the shadow
vapor anchors

brainchild landslides
bargain backdrop
by hard grey flames

Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam

2008-01-04T09:20:00.000-08:00

Animal Collective – Strawberry Jam

So this is what insanity sounds like.

Take “jam” literally since this album playfully squishes pop, noise, electronics and hymnals into a sweet little confection. Admittedly, I’m a latecomer on this album. Actually, I can’t say that I’ve ever been the guy waving the Animal Collective flag from the float on the parade. I’ve listened attentively, but eventually forgot their previous albums. Alas, no true sticking points for me.

I’ve been running jam through my brain for close to a week and I feel this one’s different. Whether it’s the spurting electronics that play like Jackson Pollock or the angelic countermelody of the background singing, Strawberry Jam feels like a definitive statement from Animal Collective.

For Reverend Green’s skiprope guitar or #1’s Age of Aquarius synth chords and downtuned vocals are definite highlights. I recommend listening to it, and maybe even joining the float too.

Daft Punk Electroma

2008-01-03T12:14:00.000-08:00

Daft Punk's Electroma

Did you ever secretly wish to yourself that you could find a movie where men dressed as robots decide to dress as humans by wearing giant playdough faces. Which then disturbingly melt in the summer's heat and and cause the men dressed as robots to be chased out of town by folksy townspeople dressed as robots. Which logically ends with the men dressed as robots wandering the desert until one explodes and the other lights himself on fire and continues wandering.

That in a nutshell is Daft Punk's Electroma - a strange movie starring Daft Punk, but oddly not including their own music (though it sounds pretty similar). I'm not saying it's a good movie (the desert sequence is excrutiatingly long) but it's probably worth finding on the cheap for curiousity's sake.

music sounds better in you in 2007

2007-12-17T11:20:00.000-08:00

Top Music for 2007

When I inevitably go deaf from listening to too much music, I would like to at least be able to remark on what made me go deaf, and hopefully remember that I enjoyed the experience along the way. Here is my "list" of music that I liked in 2007. It's neither a list in that it's not numbered, and it certaintly isn't exhaustive - this is just the stuff I can either find on my ipod or dig out of my unsteady memory.

Rap
Abdominal
Dalek
Wu Tang

(I thought it was a pretty weak year for rap - sorry Kanye and 50 cent, neither of your releases lived up to their hype)

Metal
Insomnium
KillWhitneydead
Longing for Dawn
Honorable considerations:
Neurosis
Baroness
Earth
Nadja
Dolorian
Middian
Virgin Black
Fucking Champs
Veil of Maya
Boris with Michio Kurihara

(It's already past trendy to like metal, but it was a good year with a lot of diverse releases which the above reflects)

Pop/Rock
The National
Radiohead
The Saps
Band of Horses
Battles
Radiohead
King Khan and the Shrines
Black Moth Super Rainbow
Blitzen Trapper
Boat
Brunettes
Christian Kiefer
Chromatics
Hallelujah the Hills
Households
Jens Lekman
Joel Plaskett
Les Savy Fav
Liars
Loney Dear
Love of Diagrams
Maritime
Marnie Stern
Meneguar
Wingtip Sloat
Miracle Fortress
Nina Nastasia and Jim White
No Age
Okkervil River
Spoon
St. Vincent
Twilight Sad
Uncut
!!!
Benoit Pioulard
Jetplanes of Abraham
LCD Soundsystem
What made Milwaukee Famous
Wintersleep

(I felt like the best releases came early, but things picked up in the fall)

Electronic
Burial
Cex
Clark
Cassius
Alter Ego
Muscles
DJ Jazzy Jeff
The Field
Gouseion
Justice
Pantha Du Prince
Simian Mobile Disco
Studio
Tobias Thomas
Tough Alliance
The Tuss
Aphex Twin
Mixed Up in the Hague
Yeasayer
Dan Deacon

(a great year for electronic with some off-the-wall releases and new trends)

Out-there
Eric Copeland
Magik Markers
Stars of the Lid
Eluvium
Svarte Grenier
Phosphorescence

(I feel like there was a lot more than this, but I can't remember - these are still really good - from dissonant to etheral)

Punk/Hardcore
Lifetime
Circa Survive
Comeback Kid
Daggermouth
Ghost of a Thousand
Hot Cross
I Can Put My Arm Back On You Can’t
Wednesday Night Heroes
Crime in Stereo

(Another weak category, but these releases blew me away)

Best spring-time album - Loney, Dear - self-titled - fun and wistful like rain
Best summer-time album - Lifetime - bouncy and fun to listen to while running
Best fall-time album -The National - moody and introspective
Best winter-time album - Burial -Untrue - Haunting, dark yet luminscent

the wolf 23

2007-11-25T14:23:00.001-08:00

the wolf 22

2007-10-18T20:14:00.001-07:00

the wolf twenty-one

2007-10-10T20:58:00.000-07:00

the wolf twenty

2007-10-03T20:51:00.001-07:00

False Positive

2007-10-01T09:39:00.001-07:00

This comic is part of an ongoing series I'm doing called "False Positive" for Eleventh Transmission - an excellent online arts and culture magazine from Kirk Ramdath.

This month's issue includes articles on:

Calgary Take Back the Night

Calgary Street Fashion Show

MIA's real-world music

Take a look

pitch selective

2007-10-01T08:23:00.000-07:00

half the solved
reception preserved
awesome, in relief

several clicks of desire
staring into outliers
see, stupefied again

laterns of cognizance
alight, this link karma
anointed lightning

echo schemes silver
screens of limit
minimized this realm

dying ploys pixel
sell mortal solipsists
the tether to click physics

story as penetrator
understand the shadow
is amplifying vapours, anchors

brainchild landslide,
a good bargain backdrop
by hard grey flames

the wolf 19

2007-09-17T19:55:00.001-07:00

Hello Mr. Fantasy - Week One Match Ups

2007-09-05T12:23:00.000-07:00

Paul moderately over Bryan

Barring some kind of Wayne-like catastrophe, Paul should edge out Bryan this week through the sheer horsepower of his quarterbacks. Peyton Manning gets a minor feast in the offensively-potent, defensively-inept Saints and Brett Favre should fare okay against the Eagles as long as he remembers to throw the ball with his eyes open. While Paul’s running backs are decent, they might feel like a Hooters waitress with the stiff opposition they get in the Patriots and Bears, who can nullify the best of fantasy attacks. Peering over the wide receivers, I’d give the minor edge to Paul again as Matt Jones gets the Titans and Jerry Porter gets the Lions. Throw in Gates and the deal is sealed – Paul takes a closer than expected win.

Ryan creeps by over Dean

Consider this an early Christmas gift Ryan. I’ll give Ryan the win here only because two of my top players face the Baltimore Ravens this week. While I’m not sold on how good they’ll actually be this year, they should make enough of a dent to slow down Rudi Johnson and TJ Housh. Otherwise the quarterbacks are fairly even here – Kitna is facing the best passing defense from a year ago and Romo is facing the team he threw four picks to last year. In terms of running backs, a healthy Gore should have a better game over the Cardinals, than a somewhat healthy Henry over the Bills. I give the edge in wide receivers to myself because I think Reggie Wayne and Hines Ward will likely outperform the likes of Chambers and Horn who have nobody throwing them the ball. Ryan, takes it, but it could swing the other way, depending on a couple of key players for both teams.

Ian barely over Wayne

I’ll say it right now – I could be wrong on this one. Really, this match up is the closest of the week. Wayne and Ian’s quarterbacks are roughly equivalent – I can’t see Eli Manning bettering anything Jake Delhomme does against St. Louis. The running back situation is the same – Jackson has a favourable match up, but so does Addai. I would give a minor edge to Ian with Jones Drew playing the Titans, but depending on his playing time, this could turn the other way. Ian takes the edge on receives with Coles, Johnson and Boldin probably producing better stats than a question mark like Stallworth and an EZ-rider driving Eddie Kennison. The defenses will probably make the ultimate difference as the Patriots get to return Chad Pennington’s passes for touchdowns and the Vikings get to watch more overthrows than a South American government.

Derek convincingly over Dennis

Apparently Herman Edwards is putting the diapers back on Larry Johnson as they look to “protect” him from playing football. Despite this recent news, I still think Derek takes Dennis in a confident win. While Larry Johnson gets less carries than usual, he is playing the Texans, which means if he only gets five runs that each go for 70 yards, Derek should be fine. In a key position, Johnson and Maroney make a stronger pair than McGahee and Taylor, who turn their potential into more broken promises than a dead-beat dad. You can give or take on the quarterbacks and wide receivers since both team feature strong producers in Colston and Fitzgerald, but question-mark players in Burress and Calvin Johnson. With the Ravens and Eagles defense, Derek should have this match up in the bag.

Larry easily over Lindsay

At this point, Larry will easily win, since Lindsay hasn’t set his lineup yet. CBS has Larry by 212, but it could be worse. Once Linsday sets his lineup I can update this post to include my comments, which will no doubt be overstuffed with verbosity and wit.

The Wolf Eighteen

2007-09-04T18:27:00.001-07:00

Hello Mr. Fantasy – a Preview Revue

2007-08-23T10:09:00.000-07:00

So here we are fast approaching another significant milestone in the continuous shared journey that is our fantasy football league. It’s been an agonizingly long and tumultuous offseason with plenty of moves, arrests, free-agent signings and conversely, hold-outs. As we merrily prance up fantasy hill, we see Sunday looming in the horizon. Some of us will triumph, some of us will fail and some of us will select a third-string running back in the third round on a “hunch.”

So here is a quick review of the main players in this tragic saga. Split into two parts, let’s look at who you have and how you’ll probably do on Sunday night.

Wayne

Who you have: Your current roster is such a pitiful dog, not even Michael Vick would have the heart to strangle it Eli’s coming is a song that no longer drives fear into the hearts of fantasy competitors – he hasn’t realized the potential of his brother, but maybe one day he will – oh wait, he’s throwing to Plaxico Burress – no, no he won’t. Addai is the lone star here, which isn’t saying much. Stallworth will have approximately three minutes of a good game and then inexplicably break both his arms tying his shoelaces.

How you will do: Actually, you have drafted okay the past couple seasons, but get saddled with tough injuries. With your luck Wayne, you would pick a defense and somehow they wouldn’t start. Though the lousy luck might be some kind of vengeful karma for drafting Mike Williams and Mark Brunell last year.

Michael Vick expounds on the value of Wayne's current roster

Ryan

Who you have: Gore is a big potential back, who gets hurt too much. Smith is a big potential receiver, who gets hurt too much. If they made a sandwich in honor of Leftwich it would be the kind of sandwich one forgets on their car seat on a hot summer day – in other words, smelly and unappealing, but if you’re desperate, you’ll take a taste.

How you will do: Barring any drafting of 1,000 pound backs like LenDale White, you might do okay. I would stop the unhealthy fascination with all things Cleveland Browns though, we got together the other day and Ryan, we’re worried about you. Some kind of intervention might be coming, so act surprised.

A Byron "Leftwich"

Dennis

Who you have: While he’s no bachelor like Jesse, Carson Palmer has proved to be a valuable commodity on the fantasy market. As for Poops McGee, his value is a little harder to place – will he show his dominant-college side or his plodding Buffalo Bills side. One can make the argument that he moves to a team with a better quarterback and line, but one would be entirely wrong – Baltimore’s line is aging and their quarterback isn’t exactly drinking from the fountain of youth. Larry Fitzgerald is pretty good though, so as Meatloaf warbled, two out of three ain’t bad.

How you will do: Your first three picks last year barely played – by all means – keep up this trend. I certainly won’t stop you from taking Drew Bledsoe-calibre players. Also, if you want, I’ll totally let you draft Ron Dayne again.

Sometimes two out of three is bad

Derek

Who you have: It was looking dire for a second there, Larry Johnson was willing to ride the bench which would have effectively put your fantasy football team on the bench as well. Still, there’s no guarantee Johnson can take another heavy dose of running – at some point he’ll break down. Dree Brees and Marcques Colston is a great combination, provided Colston doesn’t go through some kind of Keary Colbert or Michael Clayton transformation where his fantasy value melts like Toth’s face in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

How you will do: You had an okay draft last year, but just didn’t have the keeper depth to make a move. This year could be a different song and dance since keeping only three players really doesn’t give any of us a significant advantage – plus, we get to draft real players instead cut-outs such as Corey Bradford or Chad Jackson.

blah blah blah blah

The NFL was especially hard on Michael Clayton

Dean

Who you have: Rudi might fail, or he might do what he always seems to do – run for 1200 yards and get 13 touchdowns. I’m not positive, but I think Brady mixed up his playbook with Willis McGahee during a Buffalo/Pats game. That’s fine, he should be his usual consistent self in between impregnating any female that comes within 30 metres. Wayne is always the bridesmaid, never the bride, but this might be his year – of course I was saying that last year, and the year before and the year before.

How you will do: Here are your first three picks – Ovie Mughelli, Doug Johnson and LeRon McCoy. Are these even players? We’ll regardless, you’ll probably draft them really early and spend the rest of the draft defending, and secretly crying on the inside, about your decisions. Based on your talent, you should join the raiders as a scout – and then maybe on the side you can run a bed and breakfast with the offensive coordinator.

Oakland Raiders headquarters

Ian

Who you have: Jay Culter doesn’t have a killer mustache, which should legitimately worry you. I guess this is counter-balanced by Steven Jackson magnificent serpentine dreads. As for Chad Johnson, I haven’t seen this kind of brazen self-love since Larry discovered the Internet. If Chad Johnson grows a mustache, the apocalypse will truly be upon us.

How you will do: Since you actually have draft picks this year, you should do better simply by default. Plus, you basically are drafting like you get the fifth pick, since the guy in front of you will be too busy selecting players who will be working at Sizzler in two weeks. My only word of advice? Grow a sweet mustache for the draft – it is your…destiny.

Jay Cutler has nothing on this guy

Bryan

Who you have: You’ve got the youth movement on your side with a trio of young players with a lot of upside – Bush, Leinart and Walker still have the potential to put up even better stats. This is the fortune bestowed upon you for inheriting a team of woe from an Irishman. He was too busy thinking about potatoes, so his picks were usually suspect. Alas, getting the first round pick is a big helper for building a solid team. I’ve been trying that strategy for years and still can’t find myself in last place.

What you will do: You are like the old man that used to give us m&m’s by the fence at my junior high – you like them young. Present history indicates you will draft rookies again, but that all depends on who falls to you. The disadvantage of doing decently is that you’re getting table scraps for the following draft.

Melts in your mouth, not in your hand

Larry

Who you have: Looking at your current roster is like looking into a child’s birthday giftbag – some of its good, and some of it you throw in the bushes right after the party. Marc Bulger should continue to be solid as long as he doesn’t get hurt. Terrell Owens, I’m afraid, is probably on the downslope of his career. He’ll get you solid results, but nothing spectacular. I’m still not sold on “fast” Willie Parker because he is also “small” Willie Parker and “inconsistent” Willie Parker.

What you will do: In all honesty, you probably had the best draft last year and it paid off with….third. Can you make it two great drafts in a row? Only time, and Hilda the one-eyed homeless oracle that sleeps behind my coop, will tell.

Hilda has forseen better days...

Lindsay

Who you have: You should know that your season went down the toilet the minute Vince Young appeared on the cover of Madden. I put a call in and asked that they add Brian Westbrook and Marvin Harrison to the background, but no dice. As Meatloaf once didn’t sing, one out of three ain’t bad. Westbrook will inevitably get hurt, but his production when he’s healthy makes up for it. Harrison is father time, he is the monolith of fantasy football, he will outlive us all and rule the cosmos with his bride fortuna as they travel from galaxy to galaxy devouring worlds.

What you will do: You will make inexplicable picks that furrow the brow of your competitors, and yet equally inexplicably, they will pan out for you. Is this keen insight or merely serendipity – your continual high ranking suggests the former. Your deductive abilities suggest that you are the Jessica Fletcher or Matlock of fantasy football.

Lindsay didn't age well at all

Paul

Who you have: You have dominated the past couple seasons, but I think your reign may be coming to an end. No longer in possession of two dominant backs, you have settled on keeping Tomlinson. He’s an incredible back, but one day he will get legitimately injured and miss more than a game or two – when that happens, your chances of winning outright drop significantly. Having Manning and Holt doesn’t hurt you either – but they are also players yet to face major injuries. At some points the odds will even up. At least that’s what all your disturbed fantasy competitors secretly hope.

How you will do: Your draft last year was inconsistent. Your first five picks were brilliant and then you took chances later, which didn’t really pay off. I guess that’s the nature of investing in players though – you treated your draft like a banker (which makes sense since you worked in a bank). You played it safe with the big money picks and played it risky with your latter picks. It’s a decent strategy to follow and one that will probably help you immeasurably again this year. Especially with a much lighter keeper roster to rely on.

He walks with a cane for a reason - winning has an ultimate price.

Letters from Neo-Tokyo - Token of my Tokens

2007-08-22T11:10:00.000-07:00

The object of my affection
Recently, Jackie and I made our way down to Eau Claire Market to mindlessly spend our extra tokens and eat at the most underrated restaurant in Calgary, the Eau Claire theatre diner. It’s not the most mature diversion for a man of 28 years, but I can’t deny how much fun I have going to the Eau Claire arcade.

Whether it’s playing the latest Japanese shooting game or a ridiculously hard drumming rhythm game or dumping token after token to win more tickets for overpriced DVD’s, we almost always have a blast. For Jackie and I, the arcade was one of those great options when there wasn’t really anything else going on in Calgary. Plus, the restaurant makes great diner food that was far better than some its pricier competitors – cough Galaxy and Avenue diners – cough.

Alas, no more. With our recent visit, we were shocked to see that the arcade/lounge/restaurant has now been closed. As we ascended the escalator, we both stood stunned at the boarded up windows and ratty paper sign. With the recent changes to the market, it appears the arcade is either being renovated, or more likely, simply removed.

Harder better faster sadder
To put it bluntly, it sucked the wind out of our night. I know it seems rash, but I was actually depressed. One of our most reliable activities was gone, in a heartbeat, and with no replacement in sight.

Unfortunately, arcades are going the way of the dinosaur – and Calgary has no other decent arcade. Well, there is the bus depot or the airport, but those hardly count – the games are the same ones I played when I was eight. The University used to have a great arcade and then it was halved and shoved into a cramped little corner in favour of a giant, useless Greek restaurant. Now the Cove arcade is no bigger than a walk in closet – not ideal conditions, unless you are a hardcore game – which Jackie and I are not. Southern Fun might still be around downtown, but I don’t have the courage to stroll through a swath of prostitutes and drug-dealers to get there. Some of the other theatres have mini-arcades, but these only serve as cursory waiting areas. They aren’t enough to keep you entertained for more than twenty minutes, unless you are really fascinated by the social experiment that is dance-dance revolution.

Arcade decay sustain release
Arcades are on the decline and the reasons are simple. Home gaming has improved exponentially both in terms of scope, cost and interactivity. One feature of recent arcade games was delivering an experience hard to replicate in the home – dance-dance revolution, guitar games, shooting games etc. That was part of the thrill – the number of unique peripherals and applications.

This is no longer an advantage. The Wii and games like Guitar Hero bring that same level of interactivity into the living room – and at approximately the same cost as a prolonged stay at an arcade. Plus, you get to own those games. In the arcade, their yours only as long as you have money to feed them.

Hail social
Still, despite the relative equality between home and arcade gaming, I feel like I’ll be missing out. Arcade games bring a unique and kinetic social experience. There’s something thrilling about sampling a wide variety of unique and clever games with the company of friends. That experience will be hard to replace – even with the dearth of interesting console games. It’s not the first time I’ve witnessed the end of a great arcade – I could easily wax nostalgic about the arcades that used to inhabit Market Mall and Chinook Mall – but Eau Claire is the hardest because it seems so final now.

Old geeks die hard, I guess.

the wolf seventeen

2007-08-20T21:09:00.000-07:00

Manic for Summer Movies

2007-08-15T11:12:00.000-07:00

Live Free or Die Hard

It’s been a long time since Bruce Willis donned this franchise and the rust shows a little bit – but surprisingly, not on Bruce. The problems inherent in Live Free or Die Hard fall more on the direction and plotting of the movie, than Willis’ gruff speaking character, who really isn’t a character at all, but simply how we all perceive the persona of Bruce Willis.

Yes, things explode and people are shot many times. Cars crash and fights ensue. The math is easy – but somewhere along the way the equation loses a little of the heart and charm of the previous movies. In the last Die Hard, Samual L. Jackson saved an otherwise lame excursion that fell somewhere between Lethal Weapon 3 and Rush Hour 3 in uselessness. In Live Free or Die Hard, the premise starts with blazing action as Willis must transport a valuable hacker into the government’s hands. This works – the banter between Willis and Justin Long is sharp and the suspense of how McClane (Willis) will outsmart a cunning ex-government hacker boils in adrenaline.

One of the joys of the Die Hard series is that it always heralded some small amount of reality, where the audience felt that McClane’s situation could be, at least slightly, plausible. Unfortunately, as the second half of this latest film rolls, the plot takes a number of missteps and the action drops into ridiculous hyperbole. Between the unnecessary bringing of McClane’s daughter into the movie and so-stupid-it-needs-to-be-seen battle between Willis and a fighter jet, Live Free or Die Hard doesn’t evoke the same spirit as its predecessors, especially the first one – which in comparison feels all the more inspired and essential.

Hairspray

Let me make one thing clear – I have an odd fondness for musicals. It’s probably due to the fact that I like music, more than I like, say, over-acting and choreography. Regardless, Hairspray is a good musical with boisterous songs, tight dance numbers and loads of sarcastic charm. One of the most appealing things about Hairspray is that it isn’t played completely straight – the lyrics are often mean-spirited while the music plays on unaware. On the opening number, “Good Morning Baltimore” a joyous chorus rings on about homelessness, town drunks and the poor – good morning Baltimore indeed.

The basic plot revolves around a dance competition and the larger racial implications of 60’s USA. The movie favours the microcosms of the characters rather than try to teach too many lessons to the audience ala Rent. For my money, this elevates Hairspray beyond a recent crop of other musicals in that it lets the characters imply the big picture, rather than hit us over the head with it, to music. I had low expectations of this movie before walking in, and arguably seeing John Travolta kissing Christopher Walken did disturb, I was pleasantly surprised with the outcome.

The Bourne Ultimatum

Another title for this movie should be – “10 steps to making a good film.” As with the Bourne Supremacy, Paul Greengrass takes the helm with his patented jittery camera-style and launches Robert Ludlum’s third novel into the filmmaking stratosphere. In this latest installment, plot development takes a backseat to pure chase. The tension of the movie isn’t watching Bourne figure out who he is; it’s watching him careen towards ever-dangerous US authorities like some kind of unstoppable missile.

There are huge spectacles of chase, explosions, crashes and fights –all done with a thoughtful lack of special effects. The realistic style is incredibly refreshing in an age of Transformers, where nothing felt real and there was no reason to invest in the action. Transformers made you watch action. Bourne’s efficacy makes you feel like you are part of it. Spy movies need a little grit. It’s nice to see a protagonist with dirt under his fingernails - it puts heart into stories usually concerned with glitzy technology and acronym-wielding intrigue.

The only negative? The movie ends! Before you know it, it’s over – like, over over. But what a ride it was. In a just world, these movies would serve as an actual ultimatum to other filmmakers to stop throwing CGI at us, and tap into something other than adrenaline.

the wolf sixteen

2007-08-07T18:51:00.000-07:00

the wolf fifteen

2007-07-25T20:29:00.000-07:00

Sunshine

2007-07-24T11:18:00.000-07:00

Sunshine

Most people scoff when I say I liked Steven Soderberg’s Solaris, but there was something instinctively powerful about its story and its slow grace. Keeping in mind that I haven’t seen the original (and continue to search for it), the subtle opera called out to some higher sense than that of typical science fiction– cough cough Armageddon. What I enjoyed most about Solaris was the threat was our own weaknesses and inability to cope with the potency of our emotions, rather than say, a giant hurtling asteroid.

Well, Sunshine tries for the same austerity of say Solaris or 2001, but ultimately fails. Visually, it’s a stunner – there’s a fascinating slow boil that rises up from the dark and light interplay of the ship as it hurtles toward the sun. Directory Danny Boyle, continually presents shots of the ship’s bright orange shield, followed by the immense shade of the ship hiding behind it. As fascinated as the characters are in the brightness and immensity of the sun, Boyle also keeps us focused its devastating power and beauty.

The plot revolves around a group of astronauts, physicists and scientists aboard the fatefully titled Icarus II, which of course not only invokes the old greek tragedy but implies that there was an Icarus I. As the group moves toward the sun, tensions flare, mishaps occur and the crew is put under great stress to solve them. For the first hour, the film chugs with clockwork perfection – the focus on the drama inside and outside the ship is tight. The dialogue and scientific focus of the plot adds a great depth of believability and lets us invest in these characters.

While there are certainly some familiar touchstones of other science fiction movies, Boyle adds just enough visual flash and drama to keep it interesting. Unfortunately, this balance is upset about midway through the movie, when characters begin to act against type, clichés rear their ugly head and believability is sacrificed for cheap thrills. After probably the best scene in the movie, where all the characters watch Mercury drift across an ocean of fire, things go down hill. The crew find out that the Icarus I is floating somewhere near the surface of the Sun and they go to investigate – cliché alert. Of course, something goes wrong and crew start dying – double cliché alert. Unfortunately, this is the high point of the low points – the plot gets more muddled, as does the special effects, strangely enough. The end turns into a mish-mash of pseudo-everything that darkens all of the promise from the first half.

Too bad – it’s especially disappointing when all of the mystery and tension are released in such a confusing, yet conventional way. Watch Sunshine to understand what it could have been, not for what it is.

Summer Movie Roundup

2007-07-20T13:17:00.000-07:00

Summer Movie Round-up:

I see a lot of movies. Well, I think I see a lot of movies – compared with most people.

You know that movie quiz that’s always floating around facebook – I think I’m somewhere in the 250’s out of around 300ish movies. I probably like movies more than I admit to myself. I’m the kind of person who, when watching Grind House and hearing about that movie’s influences, goes in search of the movies that inspired it. Right after Grind House, I quickly went looking for Last House on the Left and Vanishing Point. When I was younger, I used to wander around the video store picking up classic movies and old oscar-nominated movies just so I could watch them. Does this make me some kind of expert? No. Does this make me obsessive? Kinda.

Jackie and I always feel strange when people tell us they only see a couple of movies in a theatre a year. We probably see that many in the span of a week, or at least, a couple weeks.

With that in mind, here’s what we’ve seen since Jackie’s been back for the last two weeks.

License to Wed

This movie got drubbed by the critics, and while I can understand why they might dislike it, it’s not nearly as bad as they made it seem. It’s a typical rom-com, but certainly not any worse than most typical rom-com’s. There were some decent laughs, the characters were decently acted, with maybe the small exception being Robin Williams taking it a little too far and coming off creepy instead of the desired well-meaning. Otherwise, it was a pleasant summer movie – not deep by any means – but light and reasonably funny.

Transformers

Like the above movie, this movie is basically the same thing. A high concept movie that is incredibly light on substance. This should come as no surprise – it’s a movie about talking, transforming robots based on an old Hasbro cartoon and toy line. The action was okay, although occasionally too jumpy to the point of not being able to understand what was happening. The dialogue was occasionally self-referentially hilarious and occasionally groan-inducing cheesy. Another light summer movie where you can leave your brain at home.

Pirates of the Caribbean

It’s a long movie and it’s a convoluted movie and it’s the prototypical summer spectacle movie. The story wrapped up decently, the action and stunts were fantastic. The special effects were eye-popping. I can’t say that I felt truly satisfied by the conclusion, but I wasn’t disappointed either. Adding Chow Yun Fat was also a bonus, scoring brownie points with me – although I was a little sad inside that he didn’t have a toothpick in his mouth and two guns at any point – but perhaps that’s just me not letting go of my many-year obsession with Hard Boiled.

Knocked Up

The thing I liked most about Knocked Up was the fact that I could actually picture it. With most comedies, there’s an element of suspended disbelief so that the jokes can operate freely. With Knocked Up, the scenario, the characters and especially the dialogue never seemed out of place from my everyday reality. Judd Apatow has a knack of taking an ensemble cast and letting them simply follow the wireframe script in a way that comes across refreshingly real. Characters don’t seem like they’re aching to shoot out a funny line, but instead simply say them. The way the dialogue is so fully infused with pop-culture references while still retaining that sense of real people talking is exceptional for most movies.

When one of the kids in the movies says to her aunt “I googled murder” it’s both hilarious and realistic because it seems like something a kid would do if they had access to google. When Ben starts talking about how sometimes he wishes he could change his past actions, it’s all the more amusing and seemingly real when he uses Back to the Future first as a metaphor, which then devolves straight into bad movie quotes and impressions.

Knocked Up wasn’t as consistently funny as The 40-Year Old Virgin, but that’s more attributable to the fact that it’s a different animal entirely. Knocked Up is not as slick a movie and isn’t as driven to uncover the laughs. It’s more content in finding the humorous moments between all the stress, worry, pathos, melancholy and everyday fight of life.

For this, it might not be as visceral as The 40-Year Old Virgin when sitting in the theatre, but it sticks with you a lot longer afterward.

the wolf 14

2007-07-17T21:20:00.000-07:00

Sorry, it was a little late - getting back into the groove now.

Calgary Stampede - Good, Bad and the Ugly

2007-07-04T08:35:00.000-07:00

The Good

Fireworks
In the quest to super-size everything into grand spectacle, the Stampede offers up nightly fireworks just to remind everyone that one more day of gong show is gone. While the sentiment’s cheap, the fireworks are pretty cool to watch from the safe distance of Scottman’s Hill. Aside from Global Fest, there aren’t too many opportunities to sit down with the family for a fireworks show in land-locked Calgary. It’s one of the more lasting Stampede traditions, and now, seems kind of classy in comparison to the rest of the junior-Vegas debauchery we host.

Free Food
Free food, even when it’s bad, is ultimately still good. Regardless whether those sausages have been evolving in the sun over an 8-hour span, they still taste as sweet and delicious as nectar from the gods for the sole reason that you did not pay for their botulism-fused goodness.

The Sky Carriage
The forbidden pleasure of spitting on tourists can hardly be matched in this entire world.

The Bad

The Coca Cola stage
If you are a musician or entertainer, and say you’re looking through the stable of shows your agent booked, and you see that you’re scheduled to play the Stampede Coca Cola stage, this means only one thing. It’s over. Whatever success you achieved, whatever heights you reached in the past, they are not coming back. The Coca Cola stage is the place where bands come to die. It’s a veritable garden of Tom Cochrane’s, Cheap Tricks, and unforgettably, Hinders. I can’t in recent memory, think of a band who played the Coca Cola stage and was better for it – Matthew Good fell Icarus-like after his show. Sloan never tasted the same success after the Stampede. If you see it on your schedule, just put your guitar down, put on that Arby’s smock and get that burger spatula ready. It’s the only way to save a little dignity.

Country Music
Country music was once good. There was Merl Haggard, Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Loretta Lynn and Patsy Cline. Then came Billy Ray Cyrus with Achy Breaky Heart and it was bastardized forever. Let’s make one thing clear. Today’s “country music” is hardly country music. It’s generic rock music with violin. Worse still, is that country music is nearly as bad as rap music for gimmicky concepts and atrocious lyrics (uh, hello, Save a Horse Ride a Cowboy – barf!). Today’s country music is what office drones want to dance to in their one pair of embarrassing white jeans. Ever notice that cowboys on old western movies don’t wear white jeans. That’s because they would be shot. Enough said.

The Ugly

Being trapped in the Zipper with someone getting sick above you or losing your wallet on the Zipper.

Both are equally frightening. There’s nothing quite as terrifying as being stuck in the caged claustrophobia that is the Zipper, stuck facing slightly up listening to the squeaking of the badly-carnie managed ride, when all of a sudden, you hear the familiar sound of someone losing their corndog high above you. You’re stuck. There’s nowhere to go and that mesh front is hardly a defense. You shake the cracked mahogany chest pad in desperation. But it’s too late. Here it comes. No, no, noooooooooaaaaah.

The other scenario is frightening, but not as disgusting, and I actually had happen to me when I was like thirteen. When you’re thirteen, if you are a loser-kid like I was, you had a slim velcro wallet of some kind. You probably were a dumb kid, like me, and didn’t put it in your acid wash jeans and instead put it in your jacket. So the Zipper starts up and you get a swinging and whoops, there goes your wallet into the bottom of the compartment. You hope it stays there, but of course the ride starts up again and you go spinning upside down. Your wallet plummets out the loose grate and you watch it go tumbling into the crowd. Being the respectful Stampede crowd it is, your money disappears forever. Spiderman wallet, why did you forsake me?

Topless Guys and Girls

You know that sweaty shirtless guy dancing outside at concerts. He’s all drunk, swaying and yelling random crap. He pisses you off and rubs his mansweat up against you as he stumbles frantically toward the front of the stage. Well, the Stampede is where all those guys get together. It’s the shirtless douche bag convention.

Dude, I don’t need to be coated in your Ogden-flavoured manbrine. And, really, you and your beer garden breath are totally wrecking Hinder for me! You are ruining my Hinder experience.

Ladies you fare no better. If having some chain-smoking cougar flash her low-hanging milk curtains at you is a special thrill – look no further than the Stampede. If I want to see soggy flapjacks, I’ll take in a free mall breakfast.

I’m always surprised at these quality people who show up. Where do they come from? I never see them all year, until the beginning of each July. Do they all reside in some secret cave, and come July, go rolling out of it into the blazing sunlight, their fingers splayed, shading their eyes from the judgmental heavens?

Or is it some kind of Bruce Banner-like transformation, only instead of incredible superpowers, people lose half their IQ, half their walking speed and have the sudden desire to walk in a horizontal line slowly so it is impossible get around them and traverse the Stampede grounds from end-to-end in less than three days.

Why does the Stampede give regular people the excuse to be morons – do they simply think that big crowds hide stupid better? I haven’t pinpointed the exact reason, but I have my clear suspicions. It’s those damn superdogs.

the wolf thirteen

2007-06-25T22:06:00.001-07:00

the wolf - thirteen

Another transition comic - but this time in semi-colour. Or, how Dean bought art pens and needed a reason to play with them (and blur in photoshop).

the wolf twelve

2007-06-18T20:13:00.001-07:00

the wolf eleven

2007-06-04T20:11:00.000-07:00

Ex Machina

2007-06-04T08:25:00.000-07:00

Every time I seemingly think I’ve outgrown old staples of my childhood, they come rearing back with the unexpected force of newfound depth. At some point in my high school years, the concept of visiting the comic store lost its appeal, either in the fact that the comics I read took a turn for the worse or the fact that I’d suddenly gone from doing something every other kid was doing to something that only a few kids did and were socially marginalized for doing. Either way, my visits became less frequent and eventually I stopped buying comics regularly.

Now, a grown man, or at least as close to a grown man as I’m likely to become, I’ve gone back to the comics format – on my knees no less – weeping and pleading for forgiveness. A lot of my return can be attributed to stemming interest in cross-over comics such as Miller’s Sin City and Batman, but there have been a couple other titles that have demonstrated a uniquely adult perspective on the world, while still using familiar comic-book tropes and artistry.

On my last birthday, my girlfriend gave me two collected works for Brian K. Vaughn’s Ex Machina. Looking at the covers while we ate our steak dinners (at the 80’s timewarp restaurant known at the reef n’ beef), I really came into the comics with no expectations. I had never heard of Vaughn and had never heard anything about Ex Machina. Jackie described it as a superhero comic that involves politics and she was right, it was, and oh so much more.

Ex Machina basically follows the story of Michell Hundred, who by some accident acquires the ability to talk to machines – basically any machine that involves some level of complexity from phones, to billboards to even guns. With his newly-found powers Hundred decides to fight crime as “The Great Machine” in his home city of New York. At this point it’s pretty standard comic-book fare.

Where it gets interesting is that all these details are in the past – the story is told from the present – where Hundred has retired from crimefighting, ran for Mayor of New York and won. During Ex Machina, Vaughn weaves the current story of Hundred’s daily struggles as Mayor of New York with his recollections as a crimefighter and ultimately the day that shaped his future – September 11th.

It’s a fascinating story in that Vaughn doesn’t pull any punches about politics in New York or what makes Hundred tick – he’s by no means a superhero in personality and struggles like any normal man to wade through the myriad of back-dealing that’s involved with his job – all of this occurs as he must deal with his past, his unknown powers and new crops of dangerous people trying to harm the city, him or his family.

The timeline of the story starts sometime after September 11th and Vaughn explores a number of big-picture issues such as the war in Iraq, first-amendment rights in art, children’s education, labour issues, gay marriage, and the New York power blackout. As much as there is tense action and suspense, there is a great deal of interplay from the characters as they deal with issues that often share thematic similarities with issues from The Great Machine’s personal history. It makes for some interesting parallels to watch how Hundred treats politics in the same was as he treated crime fighting, or at times, how he treats them differently.

I’ve enjoyed this series so much that I’ve actually gone back to the comic store to buy issues now. Sometimes you really can’t appreciate something until you’ve come full-circle to see it from all the angles. I’m glad I came back to comics for this great series.