Geek Bravado

The blown hard arrogance of Parallax Abstraction.

Monthly Archives: October 2012

Apple’s beginning to test the limits of their fans

Leave a Comment Posted by on October 26, 2012

Strap in, it’s another Apple post! It’s been a busy week for them so you know I had to get one in.

We had the announcements of the iPad Mini, a tablet that’s substantially more expensive than most of its rivals and inferior to many of them on features. We also got a new entry is the ludicrously overpriced segment of the MacBook line as opposed to just the normally overpriced segment and to the shock of pretty much everyone, a new full size iPad, a mere 7 months after they started pushing the iPad 3. This was all intentionally timed around the launch of Microsoft’s own Surface tablet as well as Windows 8. All that was followed up by Apple’s latest quarterly earnings which were still very rosy but had a few negative surprises. As usual, the fanboy press corps is spinning like a washing machine in a tornado to minimise the negatives as if it’s somehow their job to keep Apple elevated in the realm of public opinion. None of this is a surprise.

However, the reactions I’ve seen from many an hardcore Apple fan mostly this week but to a lesser extent in the last month as well have me very curious and wondering if the company everyone loves to love is beginning to test the limits of their fandom.

Whenever Apple has a press event or an earnings call, the most telling elements are never what they say but what they don’t say. They are masters of massaging their message and spinning without the appearance of doing so. It’s incredible and no one I’ve seen can do it like they can (though having most of the press never ask tough questions for fear of losing access certainly helps too). They will always hype up their successes and distort numbers into universal positives but they will simply avoid talking about things they can’t brag about. iAds, iCards, Siri, Apple TV sales and many more are all examples. The notable recent exception is Maps, only because it was so unbelievably terrible that they had to say something because even the press had a hard time defending them on it. Being a public company means they can’t hide sales figures though and this quarter, the shock was that while they still sold a boatload of iPads, it was noticeably lower than forecast. This was made up for and then some by iPhone sales that clobbered last year’s but there’s a telling omission in that stat as well. They never say how many of the new iPhones being sold are to new customers and how many are just existing customers replacing old handsets. A sale is a sale either way but the latter is a worse kind of sale because it indicates that they aren’t necessarily growing the user base as much, something that could be a long term challenge as other platforms like Android and Windows Phone rapidly start catching them in the app department.

Everyone, fan or no, was stunned to see them announce the iPad 4 (or the new New iPad). There’s been much speculation as to why they would replace their flagship tablet after such a short period as they have built their empire on relatively predictable yearly product cycles.

Some are claiming that the iPad 3 was actually not fully baked when it was shipped and that it was merely a stop gap measure until they could get this one out. I don’t go for this as there have been no major reported faults with the iPad 3 and it’s biggest new feature was the Retina display which impressed everyone and still hasn’t been matched elsewhere. The only real change in the iPad 4 is a faster processor which isn’t a big draw since barely anything’s making use of the iPad 3′s processor yet anyway.

Others speculate that Apple wants to put all their iOS products on the same refresh cycle so that they can have new iPhones and new iPads both come out in the Fall and have the same guts, rather than the iPhone always leapfrogging the iPad for six months. I don’t buy this either because people don’t have unlimited money and if you release both a new iPhone and iPad at the same time, I think you’re less likely to guarantee a sale of both as opposed to staggering the releases which makes it easier for consumers to justify the additional expense.

I speculated after the reveal that there may be an unannounced tablet coming from a competitor that destroys the iPad 3 and Apple was desperate to get something slightly better out ahead of it so they don’t get killed in the high-end segment this Christmas. That’s a long shot though. While the Surface looks promising, no one thinks it’s an iPad killer and if someone had an superior device coming for Christmas, a PR push would already be in full swing. It’s possible that Tim Cook is scared of Windows 8 and it’s potential impact among the crowd who still own PCs but don’t have a tablet yet. Given how much time he spends making snide remarks about the platform, it certainly seems to be on his mind a lot.

iPad sales do seem to be in decline and while it is modest, that the year of the iPad 3 is the first year of this decline could be a bad omen for the future. Does a slightly faster upgrade fix that though? At best, it puts a finger in the dyke.

Of course, I have no real idea what their motives were in doing this. What I do know is that a lot of iPad 3 owners feel burned, many of whom are hardcore iFaithful. Now, this is technology and one can say that getting upset because something you bought got upgraded is a classic example of First World Entitlement Syndrome. The thing is, this is the culture Apple has carefully cultivated for many years now. The yearly technolust and turning technology into fashion accessories is what’s driving their growth. For whatever reason, they feel the time is right to push the boundaries harder and try to get consumers to upgrade yet again. Maybe it’s out of arrogance (which they certainly have plenty of), maybe it’s out of fear of the real competition that’s coming and the inevitable race to the bottom that will ensue, maybe it’s just an experiment that they won’t repeat . Either way, I’ve seen more than a few people who have lined up to give them money for years now questioning if they want to as often and some are even saying they’ve had enough with Apple altogether. Take this quote from the iPad Mini thread on Gamers With Jobs:

“I am a longtime Apple guy – a musician, audio producer, and have been using them almost exclusively for the past 15 years. We have 2 iPhones, an iPad 3, & an iMac in our home, and I switched my dad over to OS X a few years ago and just recently bought my mom an iPad. The last 2 or 3 years have really disillusioned me, though, and I’m no longer viewing Apple as exclusive in my home. I’m considering my next PC purchase and highly suspect it will be a PC. I’m switching to WinPhone 8 when it launches, I’m getting a Surface, and will probably move my composing rig over to Windows soon, too. Maybe I’m unique, but Apple isn’t winning me over these days.”

Notice how this isn’t a decision he just reached, he said this has been building for the last couple of years. This is not the first such sentiment I’ve read either. I’ve seen blog posts (I unfortunately lost the links to them) from decades-long Apple users who have become disillusioned with the company’s recent direction. They say product quality has gone down (in stark contrast to the public perception about Apple stuff), their software has become much less reliable and buggy and that they seem more focused on cranking out expensive, consumable consumer electronics on a yearly basis than supporting their existing customers well and keeping everything polished to a mirror shine. Some have too much investment into Apple hardware and software to be able to switch, some still consider them a lesser evil than Microsoft and a few are actually considering dipping their toes in the other ocean. I’m not talking fickle mainstream customers here, I’m talking guys who have been using Macs since they were in black and white, since long before OS X and who stuck with the company even when they were on the brink of bankruptcy. These are the people who started the iCult. And they’re considering change.

Is this the majority of Apple customers? Of course not. It’s a tiny, infinitesimal slice of the user base and even for how much money they give the company, no one would notice if they went somewhere else. The thing is, these people are the taste makers. When Apple was almost dead and released the first iPod, these were the people who convinced the mainstream to try it. These are the people who stuck with the company through thick and thin and who were the first ones to preach the genius of Steve Jobs to the world. They may not mean much monetarily now but some of them questioning their long-time loyalty is a very telling sign.

Apple have purposefully created and curated monumental, astronomical and I believe unsustainable market expectations for themselves and while they’ve managed to capitalise on them so far, cracks are beginning to show. The “old guard” may be beginning to lose faith and while that’s not the end, it could be that the bubble is about to pop. When that happens, the reaction will be massive and will likely multiply exponentially as more of the mainstream public realises that the company’s image of infallibility is just that, an image. This won’t happen overnight, it won’t even happen in a year but their fortunes can still turn quickly. The “old guard” customers are not where Apple’s making most of their money right now and they shouldn’t necessarily be focusing on them. I do however believe that what these people have to say is a sign of potential major challenges ahead. Apple’s leadership should be paying close attention to what these people are saying and taking their words to heart before their sentiment expands and begins to run away from them.

I know this post sounds very doom and gloom and I’m sure more than a few of you dismissing it as “haters gonna’ hate.” I am not a fan of Apple and have very sound, legitimate reasons for that but I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I don’t want to see them fail or go away. Apple has woken up the rest of the technology industry from a stagnant slumber. They’re forcing others to think outside the box and innovate and it’s about damn time that happened. I guarantee that things like Surface and Windows 8 wouldn’t exist (or at least not in their current forms) were it not for Apple forcing the issue. I do believe Apple has gotten too big, too powerful and way too high on its own success. Their leadership is arrogant and greedy, their die hard fans are insufferable and they all need to be taken down a few pegs. Their growth needs to stabilise and they need to become one player in a vibrant, competitive market. Having one company so far out in front is not good for anyone, as Microsoft’s once near total dominance proved.

Despite Apple’s continued great successes, I believe some events in the last month or so are providing small signs of where things could be heading. The people leading Apple are much smarter than me and that they’ve managed to maintain this bubble as long as they have so far is remarkable and admirable. It can’t last forever though and if they don’t want it to burst suddenly, they need to reign themselves in a bit. Your most loyal fans are speaking Apple, you ignore them at your own peril.

Business, Mobile Phones, Predictions, Tablets, Technology , , , , ,

The social games bubble is bursting and mobile is next

3 Comments Posted by on October 25, 2012

I’ve said for a long time that the explosive growth of social and mobile gaming is a fashion trend. Many a clueless analyst and click driving “journalist” has latched onto this trend as a clear and irrefutable sign that this is where all gaming is going and those who doubt it just refuse to embrace “the future”, sentiment that always makes me chuckle and roll my eyes. This does not mean I think they are going to go away or that they won’t be a major part of the gaming landscape going forward, that couldn’t be further from the truth. However, how anyone can look at the growth in both industries and say that it isn’t a bubble is either clueless or just doesn’t want to see the truth. There are many industry bubbles throughout history to refer to and this bears many of the same signs.

There has been much proof of the cracks in the bubble appearing of late but few have been as dramatic or sudden as the implosion of Zynga. They had a meteoric rise with their shovelware skinner box Facebook non-games and were reporting staggering and ballooning revenues that made many believe they’d finally cracked the nut to make gaming something everyone could get into, even when drenched in scummy business practices. It caused a gold rush of investment and many more companies to spring up in the space, few of which got the same level of attention. They quickly tried to expand into the similarly exploding mobile space, paying insanely overvalued prices for studios that had hit titles like Words with Friends and Draw Something.

Zynga quickly went public and has been cratering ever since but not before their scumbag extraordinare CEO Marc Pincus got his big pay day. From an IPO price of $10, they are now around $2.10 and their market cap is worth less than their physical assets such as real estate. They are losing money, closing studios and laying off employees, bleeding users, writing down mobile studio acquisitions made just months prior and are desperately trying to restructure themselves as an online gambling company. As is the case with most fashion trends, people got bored with what they were offering and moved on. Though Zynga is the biggest example of this, they’re also far from the only one. Lots of front line workers are now out of a job while the people who led them into oblivion are still rich. It’s the opposite of any kind of justice or fairness.

I am not a stock market analyst, I am not a professional pundit and I’m certainly not any kind of journalist so why does it feel like I’m one of the few who actually saw this coming? I certainly didn’t see it happening this fast but I was laughed at when I said this type of growth was unsustainable. When companies grow too fast, they tend to crash down hard. It’s the ones that have measured, controlled growth that tend to survive and thrive. It appears an upheaval is happening in the social games space right now, one that’s going to decimate a lot of what was quickly built, leaving behind something that will be much smaller and certainly not something that represents the future of all gaming. Many of those in charge of these companies deserve to have some hard questions asked of them but so do the analysts and press people who overhyped them and now act like they couldn’t have known this would happen. If a clueless armchair commentator like me could see it, what’s their excuse?

Make no mistake, while this may be a bubble that started to burst in the social space first, a similar reckoning is coming to the mobile games industry as well. A bazillion and one mobile studios are starting up every day and many former AAA developers are switching to mobile development, many as a means to try and survive. The AAA industry is without a doubt in a chaotic state right now but as I’ve said before, mobile is quickly becoming just as risky and hard to succeed in. It’s gone from a space where nobody could fail to a space where your cost of entry may be low but you’d almost have better financial luck buying a lottery ticket. Those who succeed either do so hugely or just well enough but the majority crash and burn. This isn’t being talked about because no big players have been affected by it yet, the same as in the social space. But make no mistake, it’s coming. A lot of hyped games will fail, a lot of studios will fold and a lot of talented aspiring developers will be left disillusioned and will give up on the craft. That’s a crime to the medium.

To be clear, while I don’t care for more social and mobile games, I’m not getting some sick sense of schadenfreude from this happening. I don’t like to see people out of work and I think the more people there are making video games of all types, the better off everyone who is into this hobby will be. However, as someone who isn’t into those forms of gaming, it has frustrated me greatly to see pundits proclaim that the types of games I love are dead, they’re no longer possible and that we either need to embrace “the future” or get out of the way. Social and mobile games will be here for the foreseeable future and that’s a good thing but they’ve started themselves off on very shaky ground, largely led by greedy businesspeople and the analysts and press puppets that propped them up and ignored valid questions that needed to be asked of them. As business does, it will adjust, adapt and what’s left will be strong and know how to thrive. But the time for meteoric growth is rapidly ending,

Ask yourself this question: Why have the majority of big publishers who have been around for decades only dipped into social and mobile gaming (yes, EA being a notable exception who is also feeling the pain right now), instead choosing to focus on their core console and PC businesses? Is it because they’re just clueless old guard types who stubbornly refuse to embrace reality and will end up in the footnotes of gaming history? Or could it be that businesspeople with a history of success saw the signs of another bubble and decided to feel things out before jumping into bed with the unknown? No one’s saying so we don’t know for sure but consider this as well: Zynga once had the financial might to buy almost any AAA publisher and now, despite EA’s stock price and market cap being a fraction of what they used to be, EA could now buy Zynga lock, stock and barrel with cash they have in the bank. That flip happened in less than a year and I think it speaks volumes.

The last few years of social and mobile’s stratospheric rise has been very interesting to watch. And the next couple of years after the bubble bursts and it begins to settle into a more sustainable model will be even more interesting.

Business, Predictions, Video Games , , , , , ,

Indie Hypocrisy Part Deux: Notch & Walled Gardens

1 Comment Posted by on October 24, 2012

The last time I wrote one of these types of posts, it ignited a bit of a firestorm on Twitter. While some of that was something I should of expected because of the personalities I was criticising, my post was also more mean spirited than it needed to be to make my point. I’m going to try to not be so harsh this time. Also, be aware that the things I’m levying my criticisms at happened a little while ago. I didn’t have any time to blog last month so this isn’t as topical as some of my other posts are.

Being as big a fan of the PC as I am, I’ve been paying close attention to Windows 8 which is due to launch later this week. My opinions of it have swung around quite a bit and I’m still in a bit of a weird place where I’m not sure what to think about it. It’s likely a number of posts in the near future will be talking about it in some way.

I am a huge admirer of both Minecraft and it’s creator Markus Persson (aka Notch). The game is not really my thing but I totally see what’s cool about it and why it’s become the viral sensation it is. Notch went from obscurity to overnight epic success and in my opinion, he deserves it. Not unlike myself and others I’ve both criticised and admired, he’s also known for speaking his mind bluntly, something he did when he took Microsoft to task over Windows 8. As I said in my last one of these posts, I like people who speak their mind, even when they know it will stir up controversy. This industry is too full of PR filtered crap and it needs more brutal honesty. But (and I say this as someone who still isn’t running Windows 8 and is very much on the fence about it), I think Notch’s slamming Windows 8 for being closed is both disingenuous and hypocritical.

Now, one of Neowin’s reporters already said to Notch a lot of what I wanted to say here. Basically, he slammed Windows 8 for being closed and the author called him a hypocrite because he happily embraces other ultra-closed platforms such as iOS and Microsoft’s own Xbox Live Arcade, both of which have seen great success with their respective versions of Minecraft. Unfortunately, Notch chose to respond as if he was personally attacked which I don’t think the tone of the article was doing. His statements against Windows 8 were his and the author responded to him. And the thing is, the author’s right.

What I find hypocritical is embracing platforms that are engineered from the ground up to be as closed and controlled by their creators as possible while simultaneously condemning a platform that is still one of the most open this side of Linux. Now it’s true, the new “Modern UI” (formerly Metro) component of Windows 8 does require that any software written for it be sold exclusively through Microsoft’s Windows Store and go through a certification process. Microsoft also gets a cut of those sales. I’m among those who see the potential in it but have strong reservations about what it can mean for Windows itself.

But here’s the thing: The wide open desktop component is still alive and well in Windows 8 and there’s zero evidence it’s going anywhere. Many doomsayers claim that the “Modern UI” is Microsoft trying to turn your PC into a closed tablet ecosystem where you can only run what they let you and only if they get their cut. I can understand there being concerns about that, I really can, but there is simply no proof that such a thing is their full intent or that the desktop will suddenly be gone in Windows 9. To do such a thing would be suicide for Windows and Microsoft knows it. Enterprise will never adopt a walled garden ecosystem, there are years of applications out there that require the desktop that will never get Modern UI versions and the way the environment is engineered will simply make a lot of specialised and high-end applications impossible. Most modern games and media creation software for example, simply can’t work as walled apps. These are just two of the segments that drive Windows dominance in the PC space and Microsoft’s not going to cut them off.

Should their intentions change, I’ll be right at the front of the hate line with my pitchfork and torch. I’m simply wanting to see evidence of intent before I get in that line and there isn’t any yet. Adding a new, closed layer on top of the desktop is certainly reason to raise an eyebrow and observe but it is proof of nothing. The fact is, Apple made super closed ecosystems popular, Google made them more popular and Microsoft is simply continuing on a trend that people want. And what many mainstream people are saying is that they don’t care about not owning content and having everything be controlled by a large company, so long as there’s an appearance of security and they don’t have to make any real effort to learn how to use a computing device. Not to put too fine a point on it but a lot of people are lazy and/or stupid and they have a lot of money. If Microsoft wants to be a part of that, I have no issue as long as the parts that I both know how to use and enjoy remain and continue to be supported. If I start to feel sidelined, I will look elsewhere but I don’t believe I have been yet.

Where I believe Notch really became disingenuous was when he claimed that Microsoft wanted to certify Minecraft for Windows 8, implying that if he didn’t certify it, his game wouldn’t work at all on the new OS. That’s simply not true. What they actually wanted to do was create a “Modern UI” version of Minecraft that would be sold in the Windows Store and which would likely work on the new Windows RT tablets in addition to Windows 8 on PCs. If he doesn’t want to do it, that’s his choice but the existing PC version of Minecraft works just fine in Windows 8′s desktop environment. I know, I just tried it on a test machine before I wrote this. There is no certification process for desktop software on Windows 8 and it’s just as open a platform as it ever was. Leaving out this detail was a critical omission on Notch’s part and I don’t think it helps his argument. Windows 8′s “Modern UI” environment is no different than the Mac App Store and just is as restrictive in many ways. But like the Mac App Store, it’s completely optional to use (though I admit, it’s much more in your face) and if you want your wild west environment that is the desktop, it’s still there and comes with a few improvements in Windows 8 to boot. Minecraft is not being shut out of Windows 8 because he chooses not to have a version of it in the Windows Store.

A lot of this fearmongering of Microsoft killing the desktop reminds me of a big controversy back when Windows Vista launched. A New Zealand based security researcher claimed that Vista had layers of DRM baked in that were designed to make it impossible to play unauthorised content on it and was closing large portions of Windows to protect the interests of content industries (i.e. Hollywood and the record companies). He got a lot of press and a lot of people condemned it as the beginning of the end for Windows. Long story short, his paper was proven to be poorly researched, biased garbage (see Response to Criticism section), none of what he predicted came true and he’s pretty much never been heard from since. Now, Windows Vista was a pile of burning garbage for other reasons but this chief scare tactic just wasn’t true but everyone still got riled up despite a lack of proper evidence.

Now I want to be clear, Minecraft is Notch’s game and he can choose to put it or not on whatever platforms he chooses. If he doesn’t want to be part of the Windows Store, I don’t hold that against him. Even if I end up installing Windows 8, I don’t see myself buying a lot of content from there. I do however believe that he doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on when he claims he’s against closed platforms while embracing some of the most closed ones around at the same time and I find it a disservice to his fans to phrase his objection like Microsoft is shutting Minecraft out of Windows 8 altogether when that’s simply not true and there’s no evidence whatsoever that they plan to go in the direction he claims they are.

I’m trying to keep an open mind about Windows 8 but I do have concerns about Microsoft’s long view of where Windows and the PC are going. But past evidence has shown that trying to guess motive and getting upset about it in advance usually just ends up making people look ridiculous. When Microsoft decides to deprecate the desktop, PC users should be upset and I’ll be right there with them but until then, can we base our criticisms on facts rather than wild speculation?

Notch, I highly doubt you’re ever going to read this but if you do, I hope you don’t also interpret it as a personal attack. I truly have a lot of respect for you and what you’ve accomplished. I don’t intend to insult you but as someone who does have a large pulpit from which to speak, I don’t believe what you’ve been claiming properly serves either your fans of the PC community as a whole. You may disagree and that’s cool but I hope you may understand where some people find issue with the position you’ve proffered. I’m not trying to convince you to like Windows 8 but if you’re going to hate it, please hate it based on what’s known rather than assumed and understand that when you embrace elsewhere what you rail against Windows 8 for, it causes some to ask why.

Business, Predictions, Predictions, Video Games , , , , , , , , ,

Corporate E-Mail As A Social Network? What Fresh Hell Is This?

Leave a Comment Posted by on October 23, 2012

I was checking out a gaming news site this morning and in one of their random links sections, I came across this gem. It’s an article written by the CEO of social media tool company HootSuite which talks about how e-mail has become a massive waste of time and productivity in the corporate space, that it’s an obsolete technology and that it should be replaced with something that’s more akin to a social network and that should maybe even integrate Twitter and Facebook somehow. Now, this is another one of these articles which asks someone with a vested interested in seeing a technology fail what he thinks of said technology. He also offers no actual alternative ideas, only criticisms which is surprising given the space his company is in. But the actual criticisms he throws out are so boneheaded and miss the point so entirely that as an IT person in a medium sized company who deals with buckets of e-mail every day, I just had to step up and comment. I’m not going to address each of his points individually, only in a broad sense so go check his article first.

He acts as if e-mail’s the problem and needs to be replaced with something better. However, e-mail is not the problem. As is so often the case, the people using the tools and not the tools themselves are to blame. Firstly, let’s just throw away that pointless stat about how young people are using e-mail less now. This has little to no bearing on the business world which is what his article addressed and how people are choosing to communicate outside of work has no bearing on how they communicate at work. Work and personal life are supposed to be different things and they don’t always have to sync up

At the company I work for now, the people actually handle e-mail pretty well and use it effectively. It’s not perfect and some people don’t manage it ideally but by and large, it’s good. Being one of a two-man IT team, I get a ton of messages a day between user support requests, vendors and informing people of what we’re doing. I would wager that few outside of the executive team get more e-mail than my boss and I. I am rarely at the coveted “inbox zero” but most of the time I’m “inbox ten” at most. How do I do it? Simple: I manage my e-mail well. It’s not hard and I do it with only a few easy steps:

1. If an e-mail doesn’t really require my attention, I delete it. If it’s something minor, I respond to it and delete it. If it’s something longer term, it goes in one of a few folders with generic labels that indicate its category. Nothing stays in the inbox that I don’t need to be reminded of the next time I check it
2. I don’t send one word acknowledgement replies to every message I get. Unless I have something of substance to add, I don’t answer it. Some people consider it rude if you don’t do that and they’re wrong. If you don’t have something relevant to the conversation to say in reply, don’t. Your platitudes just clog up people’s inboxes and waste their time. Send an e-mail when you have something of use to say.
3. I e-mail only the people I need to talk to. Overuse of the Reply All function is a plague and is 100% the result of people either being lazy or disorganised. If you don’t want 20+ message deep threads of e-mail clogging your inbox with a conversation that long since stopped involving you, then when you are in a conversation, make sure to prune out people whose input is no longer needed as it progresses. And if you’re being kept in the loop unnecessarily, ask to be removed. This is easy to do and cuts down on clutter immensely. Again, asking this is not rude, it’s efficient.
4. Similarly, e-mail threads about setting up meetings are unnecessary. Outlook has a calendar invite system for a reason. If you want to setup a meeting, send out the invite and if people have issues with the time or subject of discussion, they can edit the invite and send it back. Using a long e-mail thread to schedule a meeting is doing it wrong. Have the meeting at the meeting, not in e-mail beforehand.
5. If you’re sending attachments around with the expectation that they’ll be edited and resubmitted by recipients in your e-mail thread, you’re also doing it wrong. If your office doesn’t have SharePoint or some other document management solution, then put the relevant files on a shared drive and put a link to it in the e-mail. Attachments are for the purpose of delivering finished documents to where they are supposed to go, they are not a means to enable collaborative editing. Think of it as sending a physical letter. You don’t send a letter to someone expecting them to hand write a bunch of changes and send it back. You send them a finished product. E-mail attachments should be treated the same way.

We don’t need a reinvention of the concept of e-mail or to turn e-mail into some kind of bastardised social network to solve these problems. These aren’t problems with the medium, they’re problems with the people using it. They are signs of an epidemic in the corporate world of people who are not properly trained in time and resource management. If they don’t have those skills, no number of reinvented tools will help them. Turning e-mail into a social network that possibly ties into Facebook and Twitter?! Seriously?! How many stories do we have to read about employees being fired or disciplined because of stupid crap they post on their Facebook profiles on their personal time? We really want all that tied into corporate e-mail as well?

Not everything has to be “a connected social experience” and many things, particularly in the business world are best not wrapped in the social media driven narcissistic notion that everyone around the world wants to hear what you’re doing every second of the day. You’re at work, you aren’t supposed to be surfing social media and it certainly shouldn’t be part of your daily work communications. And I say that as a heavy Twitter user who posts too much crap on it myself and often from the office. Like many facets of life, e-mail can take control of you but only if you let it. Learn to manage your time and your inbox and you can firmly keep your e-mail manageable and effective. It doesn’t matter if the concept of corporate communication is reinvented and revolutionised, disorganised people will be disorganised and that’s the problem businesses need to solve. Teaching people to communicate effectively without unnecessary noise is how you tackle this problem, not by making them learn an entirely new way of doing the same thing and tacking even more layers of complexity on tit.

Of course, this was a weighted article written by a guy who runs a company that stands to benefit from the agenda he’s pushing. I agree there’s a problem and many of the core symptoms he laments are alive and well. But it’s soundly a people problem, not a problem with the medium and his answer serves only to muddy the waters further, not clear them up. His solution is not the answer and he’s attempting to solve the wrong problem, one no one asked to solve.

Business, Predictions, Technology , , ,

Extra Life 2012: Amazing For Some Unexpected Reasons

2 Comments Posted by on October 21, 2012

It’s about 10:30am this morning and I’m driving back from my office, having just completed playing Dark Souls live on the Internet for 24 hours straight to support an awesome children’s charity. I had to do it at work because my Internet at home can’t upload fast enough to do a live stream. I quickly realise that it’s reckless for me to be driving myself home as exhaustion is producing symptoms very similar to slight drunkenness, which is probably coming across in how I’m driving as well. But there isn’t much traffic on a Sunday morning and my bed is calling. As I fight to keep my eyes open and can think of little more than sleep, I still feel this incredible sense of euphoria that keeps a grin on my face the entire way.

I took part in Extra Life last year and enjoyed it but decided to amp up the challenge for myself a lot this time around. It was a challenge I looked forward to but also dreaded somewhat. There were a million things that could go wrong and I’d taken on a lot to maintain when enduring increasing fatigue. I really had no idea what to expect from the day and fear of the unknown is always a big problem for me. What ended up happening was more than I could have ever hoped for, both for Extra Life and for me personally.

I set my rig up in the office board room the night before so it would be all good to go Saturday morning. A trip to the Carp Farmer’s Market for a Bacon On A Bun on my way in and I was rarin’ to start. Last year, my amazing supporters raised $728 for my Extra Life run and I was already over $1,300 for this year. I’d passed my first stretch goal to do a second live stream of Duke Nukem Forever but it looked like my second goal to do one of Amnesia: The Dark Descent was not going to happen. No big deal, a ton of money had still been raised for sick kids and I made that Amnesia goal very lofty on purpose because well, I don’t really want to have to do that.

I get the stream rolling and all seems to start well. I have zero experience doing any kind of commentary and one of my biggest worries in doing this little show is that I’ll come across as stiff and boring, a problem not uncommon among amateur Twitch and YouTube types. This will drive away viewers and with the way my brain works, knowing that I endured a complicated streaming setup for nothing will drag my morale down and make the day even tougher. I get a few co-workers and Gamers With Jobs folks watching and my viewer count goes up to about 10. In the grand scheme of Twitch, that’s nothing but for a largely unpromoted first attempt, I think it’s decent so I’m feeling good. I start to plug away at Dark Souls and as one would expect, progress is slow and frustration filled. I die, a lot.

Then something incredible happens.

A friend suggests I specify in my Twitch profile that I’m playing Dark Souls which makes the channel easier to find. Once I do, random people start joining the stream. The viewer count starts going up and a real fun dialogue begins in the chat. Everyone’s really into this, offering advice, helping to guide me through the game’s massive and very confusing world and figure out how best to level my character and choose equipment. Occasionally I get trolled into hitting an area I’m not ready for but hey, it’s a charity event so it’s all good. People start asking me questions about why I’m doing this and hours go by with a bunch of us–both people I know and never have before–just shooting the breeze as I Prepare To Die.

A few people who own Dark Souls suggest having me summon them into my game to help me on the journey. Dark Souls’ matchmaking system is all but broken and summoning fails most of the time and leads to some slow periods but we all stick with it and soon, I’m barrelling through tough areas with amazing expediency thanks to the help of these great people. We play and chat together for hours and hours, some only leaving the stream because they simply can’t stay awake anymore. Many hilarious moments involving a hacker, facepalmingly dumb deaths and my reactions to meeting some freakish creatures for the first time are had. The number of viewers continues to go up (peaking around 40 which still isn’t much but is way more than I expected) and surprisingly, I start to get e-mails saying a lot of them are following my Twitch channel, which otherwise has nothing on it. Most of these people I had never met before today and most of them didn’t even know this stream was happening until they tripped over it, yet here many of them are as much as 12 hours later.

Many of my viewers are saying they love the job I’m doing commentating the stream. They say I’m funny, engaging, interacting with people (which I guess a lot of Twitch personalities don’t) and they’re sticking around because they really enjoy what they see. I get asked if this is something I’m going to do more and when the next stream is going to be. I didn’t know how to process this and still kind of don’t. I’ve had some ideas for a while about doing some Twitch or YouTube content as a creative side endeavour but after hearing the kind of work the big guys like TotalBiscuit do, I made myself laugh thinking I could ever pull that off. But these folks were saying I could and that they would tune in if I did more. There’s a lot of potential hurdles standing in the way of such a thing becoming a reality between copyright issues, my home Internet speed and of course, time and money or lack thereof but I’ve suddenly been given a sense that maybe there’s something to this. The gears in my head are turning faster now.

I went into the day thinking that if I could raise a bit more money and double last year’s takings, that would be a major victory and could leave satisfied. My Amnesia stretch goal was almost $700 away and I figured most people who were going to donate probably already did. Boy was I wrong. As word started to get out and the viewer count went up, the donations started coming in and not in small amounts. Multiple rounds of $50 and $100 started showing up and the total began to skyrocket. Within a few hours, my day’s goal was smashed and $2,000 actually seemed within reach again. As we reached the final $100, one of the founders of Gamers With Jobs piped up in the chat after putting $50 in and said if we didn’t reach $2,000 by 1:00am my time, he would make up the difference. My brain kind of stalled at trying to realise that I went from the second stretch goal having no chance to being guaranteed. I can’t even remember what I said at the time, only that it probably wasn’t very coherent. What I thought was a wildly ambitious goal had been achieved and people rallied to make it happen. $2,000 is a ton of money for a charity and none of that was me, that was all of you! You are all superheroes!

The experience of doing this live stream was tough but it was also some of the most fun I’ve had in years. I’m both elated and terrified at the thought of now having to do one of Amnesia. It’s going to quite possibly be the greatest challenge I’ve faced in almost 30 years of playing video games. But with a bunch of people in the Twitch chat, it will also be a ton of fun and I think the anticipation outweighs the fear, for now at least. I decided to do this because though playing video games for 24 hours isn’t easy, it’s also a leisure activity and I felt the spirit of Extra Life was best served by making things challenging. But it also ended up becoming something much more and led to me thinking of a lot of things I never expected and hitting a goal I purposefully setup to be very unlikely. This was a day I’ll remember for a very long time and in what was a pretty good year so far, this stands out as one of the biggest highlights. I can’t wait to do the upcoming two bonus streams and who knows, maybe more stuff later on. I still need more sleep but even as I groggily type this, I’m still smiling.

Thank you to everyone who made this day so special. The army of Gamers With Jobs and WESA/BluMetric Environmental folks who donated and helped spread the word, my best friend Dan (also known as StylezXP) who came to visit at night with Tim Horton’s and got me some Reddit coverage and in particular, the army of amazing random people I met on Twitch who helped guide me through Dark Souls and provided many hours of co-op fun. KeyMastar, Aikao (Supagroop amirite?!), Dhaz15, PrimeDragoon, Blackdrop and many others I know I’m forgetting, the whole day was exponentially better because of you and you also helped raise a ton more money than I ever thought for sick kids. Regardless of how much fun this was for us all, helping a deserving charity out so much is something truly respectable. Thank you so much!

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