What she's up to

Heloooo!!! Is anyone there?!!

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The truth and drama behind Cow Clicker

I clicked a cow and I liiked it! This oldie but goldie is a part of game dev essentials and explains the thinking and satire behind Ian Bogost experimental game. 

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We tend to be quite pessimistic, but the truth is, there is some really good stuff happening in the world. For example: The results show that just 10% are aware of that the United Nations’ first Millennium Development Goal, to halve the world poverty rate, has already been met, even before the target year 2015. 

In Conclusion:

The results indicate that the UK population severely underestimates the progress in education, health and fertility reduction in the world as a whole and in countries like Bangladesh, whereas they severely overestimate how much the richest countries have changed to renewable energy. 

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What should you pray for?

I just stumbled over a gem on YouTube, called The FlipSide. This episode is awesome, but I think the question they should end with is: What should I pray for? And I know what I should pray for, but I don't always do that. I should pray for being a better person, a gentler, less judging one, more empathic and helpful, less selfish, harder working, more courageous, less lazy. What do you think you should pray for, and do you always do that?

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The average game developer is a 31-year-old white man with no kids and works so much he might as well be undead. 

I think they forgot to add Single :)

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LoL's lead producer on Empowerment

This is a great talk from Riot Games' Travis George, lead producer for League of Legends. He talks about trust and empowerment as core values for self directed, self managed teams, and provides very nice and useful advice on how to shape such teams.

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Scary ad is scary

I saw this ad on 9gag and read the comments, which mainly point out that the ad is exaggerated. So I typed "women should" in Google and these are the suggested results:

women should not be in combat

women should not preach

women shoulder tattoos :D

women should not speak in church 

women should be seen and not heard

Is it just me or does this list contain only one sane suggestion? Or should I just shut up because I am exaggerating?:)

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About crunch from a Swedish game dev perspective

Is it worth it? Can you do without? Its OK if it is not forced? This is the situation of crunch in Swedish game studios, topped with very interesting concepts about work and the definition of a workplace.

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A great compilation of links and resources for indie teams, wrapped up in a witty, intelligent satire on how to become successful in this scene.  

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The Trinity tank-healer-DPS, demystified by its own unintended creator, Richard Bartle.

" This doesn't make a great deal of sense in gameplay terms: the healer is redundant (they're basically just armour for the tank), the premiss is unrealistic ("I'll hit the guy in the metal suit who isn't hurting me, rather than the ones in the cloth robes who are burning my skin off"), it doesn't work for player versus player combat (because players don't go for the guy in the metal suit) and it doesn't scale (a battle with 1,000 fighters on either side — how many tanks do you need?). Don't get me wrong, it can be a lot of fun, but it's a dead end in design terms."

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Two more producer bits you need to know of

This week, the Internet has been quite productive for producers :) 

First, Samuel Rantaeskola debuted a series regarding How to structure an organization with a wonderful post regarding the power balance between the game director and the producer (or between creativity mode and delivery mode): The Yin and Yang of Game Projects. He tried to start a conversation and I joined the game, but I am really hoping to see more replies on the topic. 

Then, Ernst ten Bosch - who is a producer for World of Warcraft! - debuted on Gamasutra with a post that tries to define what a producer is and what it does: What Makes a Good Game Producer? He uses almost the same metaphors as I do and I find this quite funny: Herding! Parenting! The only difference is, of course, that my metaphors are with cats. 

Finally - I've decided to ignore my fear of commenting and interacting so I replied to both articles. 

And Super Finally: today is programmers' day. Congratulations, my friends, and may your code grow in power and wisdom!

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Sebi has many games on Steam

Valve has announced Steam Family Sharing , a new game lending service which will allow up to ten authorized devices to share the same library of games.

Guess who will be using the Steam Family Sharing service....

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This is a very interesting study about naming of characters in MMOs. Apparently, we are far more creative at naming our virtual personae, even though games like World of Warcraft far stricter naming limitation compared to the limits we have in real life. This could be due to the fact that in life we have far more ways to create our unique identity whereas in games like WoW, the only truly unique trait we can have is the character's name. OR it could mean that in games, we like to be unique, but in real life, we'd rather blend and be one with the crowd.

I find this a really interesting topic to think about. Also - I'd love to change my name to match my avatars' name, but I fear people would judge me. 

"The first result that became apparent was that players in World of Warcraft are incredibly talented at creating unique names. Characters with the same name can exist on different servers, so the mind-boggling 3.8 million unique names found in the dataset was not expected. This is more diverse than real-world names, despite the naming restrictions in World of Warcraft."

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What does it take to be an entrepreneur? 

“Very tough to sleep most nights of the week. Weekends don’t mean anything to you anymore. It’s very difficult to “turn it off”. But at the same time, television, movies and vacations become so boring to you when your company’s future might be sitting in your inbox or in the results of a new A/B test you decide to run. You feel guilty when you’re doing something you like doing outside of the company. You begin to see how valuable creativity is and that you must think differently not only to win, but to see the biggest opportunity. You are creative and when you have an idea it has no filter before it becomes a reality. This feeling is why you can’t do anything else. You start to see that the word “entrepreneur” is a personality. It’s difficult to talk to your friends that are not risking the same things you are because they are content with not pushing themselves or putting it all out there in the public with the likelihood of failure staring at you everyday. You don’t have a problem anymore being honest with people about not cutting it. Quitting is not an option. You’ll hear not to get too low when things are bad and not to get too high when things are good. You’ll become addicted to finding the hardest challenges because there’s a direct relationship between how difficult something is and the euphoria of a feeling when you do the impossible. You learn the most about yourself more than any other vocation as an entrepreneur. You learn what you do when you get punched in the face many many times. You learn what you do when no one is looking and when no one would find out. You learn that you are bad at many things, lucky if you’re good at a handful of things and the only thing you can ever be great at is being yourself which is why you can never compromise it.”

  Excellent article on Gamasutra today!

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This is related to software development but I think it is very relevant regardless of the industry. It answers the question: What is a Project Manager?

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For all my game dev friends: How 2 Talk 2 Press

Gamasutra editor Mike Rose gave a talk at GDC Europe today about getting the press to notice you and your game. Here you'll find a written version of the talk.

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The six year story of an indie Steam hit -- this is the story of how the team behind the popular shooter was formed, worked, and what they very much wish they could have changed about the company and project if they could.

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This is a 19 years old guys who decided to make the most amazing job application. Wishing him the best of luck!