We Use Xtra Normal To Make A Sub-Par Video About Flash Games And Intellectual Property
Here is our first attempt at using xtranormal to make a video. This was obviously inspired by this video we posted a couple weeks ago.
Do You Plan On Having Friends?
8bitrocket Diatribe: Fathers' Day 2011: The Adventure Freak and his Little Atari Freaks
It has been a little over two weeks since our dad passed away. I have found it difficult to focus on any one thing for an extended amount of time since, and while the fog is certainly lifting a little, I have not found the motivation to dig deep into my HTML5 Centipede game, do game reviews, or mash-up interesting topics on the web. That stuff may come back to the site soon, or it might not come back at all. That's cool though, and change or no change; evolution, stasis or devolution; entropy or wither, there will always be something new or interesting going on to cover or accomplish. It just isn't happening right here, right this moment, but it could start up any minute, or not. There certainly are other directions we can go in or not go in. We could create a Who's Next 2, or we could create a Who Are You?. Either would be cool, but maybe it is the journey that will be the best part and not the final product. That being said...
Here's a little Father's Day Diatribe
The Adventure Freak and his little Atari Freaks
Way back in 1981 our dad set us on the track to become what ever it is we have become when he showed us an ad for the Atari 800 computer in a local newspaper. A friend of his at work had one and he had piqued dad's interest with stories of virtual cave exploration and battles with bears and other wild beasts. I assume the game he was describing was Zork I, but we didn't know it then. The game didn't matter, what mattered was that the emerging technology and my dad's need for adventure had converged right at a that moment in time.
Dad's entire life was filled with a juxtaposition of adventure and boredom. His early passions were in mountaineering and rock mining gave way to enduro desert motocross racing and off the beaten path gold panning / ghost town site exploration. The boredom was focused around his desk jobs at Litton, TRW, and Hughes Aircraft where he parlayed his Master Of Fine Arts degree into a respectable career as en electro-optical designer and engineer. While he was not very interested in the actual work, he loved to draw and design. So, his job, while boring to him in subject matter and rote machinations, provided him the ability to get paid to do something he liked...drawing.
But what dad really loved was to be outside. He set up a sort of mechanical workshop / laboratory in the garage where he spent most of his rare free time tinkering with this or that. The garage was filled with his adventure gear, motorcycles and other assorted instruments to fight boredom. He always had fire crackers or an air-gun ready for a little extra-curricular fun and he was always planning out his next adventure. His vacations were to take Steve and I out desert motorcycling riding or on wild camping trips along Northern California rivers where we would meet a host of odd, sometimes scary, but always interesting characters and places.
None of the things my dad wanted to do were in any normal tourist magazine or book. He ordered government topographical maps and painstakingly researched locations for exploration down to the exact quarter mile by quarter mile quadrant where a historical sight might have existed in the past. Our trips always had an old mining camp, mill, or ghost town involved, and the adventure was always mapped out in the greatest of detail. Hikes or drives along rugged roads always ended at some exciting abandoned site that dad had read about. The trip lengths were generally far too short to accomplish everything dad had planned, but we always had a blast before going back to boredom of real life.
When Steve and I started our own families and could not devote as much of our time to his adventures, dad found a group of enthusiastic miners and outdoors-men to go 4x4ing with (he was in his 70's at the time). They visited even more outlaying desert ghost towns and old mining camps. He always told us that we were going to have to deal with A LOT of Boredom in our lives and we could tell that he was talking from experience. Dad knew exactly what fought his boredom - planning and then executing his outdoor adventures.
So, why would a guy like this be so taken with a description of a computer text adventure in 1981? I think to dad video games were pretty boring, but the ability to have the virtual adventure, described to him by a fellow adventurer motorcycle buddy, must have really sparked his interest. This adventure was completely different than the simple tank and pong games he saw us playing on the TV. An adventure in the computer that could be even better than his own planned excursions must of seemed like Nirvana to him at the time.
The Atari 800 computer was pretty expensive back then. A fully outfitted machine was close to $1500 and not really in his budget. Steve and I became very enthused about the computer though and put it high on our list of priorities. We started to check Atari programming books out from the library and design our own games on paper before we ever had a machine. It would be at least 3 years before that expensive machine would come into our home, and during that time we envisioned our own computer adventures that were every bit as real as the ones dad was taking us on in the wild. Not to say that we were designing actual adventure games (I'm sure we did so some of that), but we were putting the same painstaking, boredom-fighting time into planning what we would do with the Atari computer, when we obtained one, that dad put into planning out his next set of real-life adventures.
Eventually he would buy a used Atari 800 and a full set of gear for cash deal from a co-worker. The funny thing is, he never once touched the machine. I think Steve and I did demo it for him a number of times and show him games, but as computers were starting to enter his work-place, he began to see them as boredom creators not the awesome boredom fighter / adventure-in-a-box that his mind envisioned upon hearing tales of cave exploring, monster fighting computer sessions from his work buddies. He was an adventure freak and he had created two Atari Freaks with his early passion and support of our computing dream. He saw that passion in us and bought the computer even though he no longer felt the same way about it. While Steve and I absolutely loved going on Dad's real-life adventures, we were always sure to being along an Atari computer magazine or book to entertain us when the adventures came to a lull. It was all fun to us, so we didn't realize it then, but we were subtly merging both types of adventures in ways that dad never expected or maybe intended.
Pop's skill at planning and executing rubbed off on us in the unexpected way of giving us the example of the passion we would need to be successful in the computer generation we were about to enter. He never once asked us why we wanted to explore the computer as much or more than we wanted to go on his adventures. He could see that his enthusiasm had been the spark that ignited a full blown computer freakdom in his boys. I think he was both awed by the technology and happy that even though he found it to be a boredom creator, he knew that that the mastery of it would be important for us in the future. He used to call us "Atari Freaks" as a genuine term of endearment.
In the mid-80's I found him in his room one day studying a large binder that his work had given him. In it was a full description of a new CAD drawing program that they wanted him to learn. His eyes looked glazed over as he told me that most of the designers were having their physical drawing boards taken away to be replaced by computers and software CAD programs. While the sound of this excited Steve and I, dad was pretty upset about it. I didn't understand it then, but now I can see that the last remaining fun part of dad's job was being driven away from him by the very same technology he thought would open up new adventures for him just a few years before. The same technology that excited us and gave us a direction and purpose for our own computer adventures was strangling the last breath of interest from his day job.
A few weeks later, Dad came home with an Atari 800XL of his own in what I assume was an attempt to find that passion he once briefly had for the computer. Steve and I gave him Zork I, II, and III, as well as a chess game. He must have tried them all a few times, but eventually the computer became covered with books on gold mining, ghost towns, and California / Nevada maps. He was literally covering up the symbol of his boredom boredom with something that really excited him. Dad would retire a few years later and only touch a computer a few times at Steve or my house to play motocross games on the PC or Playstation. We would buy him a few PC computers over the years, but they all would end up just like the Atari, covered in his real boredom fighters.
After the final, barely used, machine was put into the garage in about 1999, he never owned another computer. He never went on the internet and never read one of our web sites or played any of our games. He had no desire for these types of adventures as the real ones he had experienced and hoped to experience were the source of his passion and excitement. In the last 10 years, while dad's heath had been failing, he would have found an adventure planning treasure trove on the internet. If he was still able to plan and go on adventures, the computer systems of today might have proven to be the absolute best boredom fighter he could have found. Or would they? Dad loved the tactile feel of the books and maps, so would the virtual version have been as interesting to him? Maybe so, maybe not. In any case, he was able to instill in us the need for adventure and the need to not stay satisfied with boredom. He had an outsider spirit and drive that we have taken to heart and will always take to heart. His passion helped fuel ours and it was the best gift he could have ever given.
I wonder what affect my passion for planning and making computer games, writing books, and spewing all of it out on the infobaun will have on my two boys. I can only hope that I can have the same impact that my pop had on Steve and I. He loved to experience everything first hand and was not satisfied with a 3rd party account. Dad's hatred of being behind that desk and his love of planning and executing his out door adventures made him an adventure freak and he spawned two little Atari Freaks. I think all three of us were happy with the way things turned out. Whatever types of little freaks I help create, I'm sure I will be happy with the way things will turn out too.
Happy Fathers' day to all the fathers out there, and especially to those who have lost a father, son or daughter. Hopefully you have been inspired by your father or will, as a father, inspire your sons and daughters with your passion what ever it might be.
How My Dad's Love Of Games Helped Foster My Game Development Career
Please excuse me, just one more time, so I can write some final thoughts about my dad, and how he helped me in my career. Last weekend we had had his memorial at my house, and so I'm trying to put some final thoughts together, to give him a good send-off.
My dad did not play video games very often, if ever. However, he loved to watch us play, and he supported our computer dreams since their inception. Here are some thoughts about where he steered us, early on, in the right direction to help foster a love of games and game design and development.
-Board Games: Jack Straws
This seemingly simple game of "Pick Up Sticks" was the first game I can recall ever playing. The red box taunted me from the high shelf in my dad's room. I could only play it with his permission. Why? because it was so easy to lose the little pieces. Each "stick" was an intricately molded tool or object that could very easily stick to the other pieces. To play the game, you would start by dumping the pieces in a pile on a table, then take turns removing them, one by one, without disturbing any other pieces. The gameplay was simple, yet it took amazing strategy and concentration to get good at it. In some ways, this might be the perfect game. Almost no set-up, very few rules, totally different every time you play, and fun as hell. These are still my own personal tenants for a great game. I get goose bumps when I think about playing this game back in the 70's with my family. Other great board games my dad introduced me to an early age: Parchesi, Scrabble, Bushwhacker and Chess.
-Early 1970's Arcade Games: Wild Gunman at the Old Town Mall
In the early to mid 1970's, before I became obsessed with the Atari 2600, my dad took us to a placed named The Old Town Mall. Now legendary in the minds of people from the South Bay in Southern California, the Old Town Mall was part hobby shop (Paul Frieler's Historical models, comic book store, stamp collecting store), part crafting arena (local artisans, candle making shop, glass blowers, custom t-shirts), part amusement park (two dark rides, flying bees ride, carousel, 9 hole miniature gold course), and part amusement midway (shooting gallery, huge arcade). The whole place was themed like the turn-of-the 19th to 20th century with cobblestone pathways, building facades, old-time street lighting and people in costumes. There was even one of the very first "food courts" in the United States located at the north end. In hindsight, it was an amazing place. I loved it as a kid, but I don't think I fully appreciated it until it was gone.
We usually entered the mall through one of the North entrances, which was also the entrance to the arcade. No matter what we were doing, my dad always had time to stop and play some of the games. He was drawn to games that reminded him of his own childhood, playing cowboys in the hills and fields of Manumit Boarding School. His favorite game was Wild Gunman by Nintendo. This mid-1970's game featured a light-gun and a projection movie screen. Your job was to quick draw the cowboys before they could shoot you. My dad would tell us stories about his childhood while he put on the holster and got ready to play. My brother and I were fascinated by his ability to outdraw the bad guys. After he played this, we would enter the mall, and go straight the the shooting gallery. After shopping he would take us to the "Raw Juice Store" for refreshment. We probably only made this trek a couple times, but in my mind, we did it every week. It's one of my fondest memories, and it taught me that games and entertainment are best enjoyed with other people.
-First Video Games: Tandy TV Scoreboard:
Years before we convinced my dad to get us an Atari 2600, he arrived home from work one day with the "Tandy TV Scoreboard", what has to be be one of the most bizarre looking Pong games ever made. I'm positive the odd look and feel of this unit was what drew him to it (also, it was probably really cheap). The unit had one detachable controller, the other controller was attached to the unit that connected to the TV. There was nothing remarkable about the games: they were pong and pong-a-likes. There was nothing new or interesting about "TV Score-bored" (as we called it), and honestly, we grew tired of it very quickly. What was remarkable was that my dad brought this home for no reason: it was not a birthday, or Christmas, or anything else. The surprise of it all was thrilling. Sure, it was Tandy, and it was lame. Sure we played it a few times and it stopped working, and sure, overall it's failure probably postponed an Atari 2600 in our house for a couple years. However, the event still taught me some valuable lessons; surprises are a great thing, innovation is important even in a "me-too" products, and most important of all, you don't need a special occasion to have fun with your family.
-8bitSteve
Wii U? More Like P.U.
Through some great contacts we were able to jump the line and look at the Wii U up close and personal today at E3.
Wow. What A dud!
Honestly, I love (or at least once "loved") the Wii. I think it solved a very unique problem with games (the complex interface), but has now been bettered by Microsoft Kinect. I think Wii-motion Plus was a great idea, but sadly, never fully utilized (where is my Wii-motion Plus Star Wars game, eh?). However the Wii U makes little sense. It is a complex device in search of a problem that does not exist.
If you have not seen it, here is a description:
The console itself looked like a Wii with rounded edges. It purports to have HD output, but from what I saw (for the demos), they are probably using a standard Wii that is slightly modified for the new controller. Sure, this might just be temporary, but it was not impressive in any way. Wii-motes are still used, so from my perspective, the actual console will be souped-up for better graphics, and little else besides connecting the new controller. I hope I'm wrong.
The new controller *is* where all the differences come into play. It has a 6.2 inch screen, with two analog sticks, buttons, etc. It has cameras and gyroscopes, and nearly anything else you can imagine. It's like a mini-iPad with built-in controls.
The key feature of the new controller is that the Wii U games will stream content to the controller, so you can play games using both screens simultaneously, your TV and the Wii U controller screen.
The demos we played were all "interesting". They split the game between the two screens, effectively, and the gameplay was seamless. So far, so good. In one demo, your job was to aim and block arrows fired from pirate ships. By physically moving the controller left and right, you could find ships to block. When a arrow was caught, you shook the controller make it drop off, then continued. It all worked fine, but the question was "why?" It was not fun at all. In fact, the effect was jarring. The TV was hardly used, and the instructions were very complex. It was the complete opposite of the Wii, and it was not intuitive in the least. Oops.
Another demo we tried was a chase game. Four people with Wii-Motes chased a player controlling Mario with the new pad controller. The player with the pad could see where all the others players were, and tried to hide from them. It was a fine party game, but one guy in our group said "It's Pac-Man Vs....I played this 8 years ago!"
Next.
There was also a demo of a shooting game that worked like the chase game (but with two wii-motes instead of one), plus a non-playable, interactive HD video of Zelda. It was nice, but not any more impressive than your standard 360 or PS3 game.
That was it. Underwhelming does not even cut it. While it was obvious that some great games could be made that utilized both screens, you had to use your imagination to figure out what they might be, because there was nothing on the show-floor to fill the gap. Strategy games are an obvious usage, but when you think of Nintendo, your first thought is hardly "yeah, strategy games!" (OK, the "Advanced Wars" series is fun, so there is ONE possible game.).
One of the Nintendo reps told us that a "feature" of the system would be to take your games with you. Okay. He said "So, imagine if your wife comes home while you are playing and wants to watch TV. You can let her watch, and you can take the game with youwith on the controller!"
Huh? Since when in the past decade has that really been a problem for someone? Have you heard of DVRs and "On Demand" Nintendo? It sounded like a desperate plea to find a feature that made the controller useful. As well, all of the games they showed tried to use both the controller AND the TV together. How does that work in "running away from my wife because my game is obviously more important than her" world?
While Microsoft was busy showing some amazing looking Kinect games (Star Wars, Disneyland, Kinect Sports 2), Nintendo looked confused and beaten.
Actually, I felt kind of embarrassed for them. They should have kept this whole thing under-wraps until they had some fully baked games ready to show, or even (to be honest) rethought the whole thing. The new controller was not fun to use and it appeared to serve very little purpose besides giving the player who was "it" in the multi-player demos an advantage over the players with Wii-motes. It looked like a desperate attempt to answer the threat from mobile devices and Kinect, but answered neither one in any real way.
Honestly, if ANYONE else (besides Nintendo) showed this thing, it would not have even made a small dent in press coverage. It's just not that compelling. The good news for Nintendo is that legions really believe they are geniuses who can make anything fun, so first day sales should be solid (see 3DS). However, they certainly have dug a deep hole for themselves this time, and if they can get out of it, they may just prove those legions correct.
However, if they don't find a way to pull this out, I don't see great things ahead for Nintendo in the next couple years. From what I saw, they could be the next SEGA. Not a bad thing, as an HD, Kinect version of Zelda would be a really cool game.
R.I.P. Dad : My Last Conversation With My Father
Lorraine, Carol, Shaffer, Steve, Mari, Jeff : 1976
Our dad, Shaffer Fulton, (mine and Jeff's) died today after a long battle with dementia (among other things). It's been months since I've been able to have a real conversation with him. Here is a story I wrote about that final conversation that I never published because it was far too personal. However, this is my last chance to do it, so here it is.
----
(February 8, 2011)
Fellow Parents, How Do You Want Your Kids To Remember You?
I visited my dad last Sunday. He's 85 years old, and he has onset dementia, so he can't express himself clearly, nor can he come-up with many nouns, so he can't describe anything that he wants or needs without a ton of trouble. It is very difficult to have a conversation with him, but every Sunday I still go into his room, pry his eyes away from the TV, and try anyway.
That day I decided to point to the photos around the room and ask him if he knew who was in them. The first photo was from about 1983. It's of my dad, sitting on a soccer ball, describing something to my sister, as my brother and I play in a game in the background. I asked him who the guy talking was, and he could not tell me.
"It's you dad", I told him.
"Yeah, yeah, him," he replied.
"Do you know who those guys are in the background?" I asked him
"Oh yeah, they were over here and now they are over there," he replied.
I interpreted this to mean that he knew it was my brother and I and that we had moved out and made our own way in the world.
This was the most I had gotten out of him in months. Encouraged by this conversation , next I pointed to a photo of his mom taken in the 1950's.
"Who's that?" I asked
"Oh, yeah, you know that one was in the other place, and I was not in that one", he told me.
I interpreted this to mean that he knew it was his mom, and he still remembered that she had sent him to co-op boarding school for his entire childhood when he was 7 years old in 1933.
Finally, I pointed to a photo of his father, that was right next to his mother. The photo was from the 1930's, and his father looked very serious.
Without missing a beat my dad, stood-up from his bed, and an scowl crossed his face. This was quite incredible, as my dad did not get up very often.
"He was the one who went blam..."
He made a fist and swung it slightly at his bed.
"...and the boy was just this high..."
He made a motion with his hand, lowering it to his waist, showing that the recipient of the "blam!" was just a small boy.
"...and I did not like him at all. " my dad continued.
"Really?" I asked?
"And I never wanted to be like him, ever," he finished.
"You weren't dad, you really weren't" I assured him.
Then he sat down on his bed again, picked-up the TV listings, and looked at them. Our conversation was over.
So even after all these years, now viewing the world through a cloud of Alzheimers and Dementia, my dad never forgot or forgave his father for beating the crap out of him when he was 7 years old, and then forcing his mom to send him and his brother away to co-op boarding school for almost a decade.
My dad cannot remember which hand is which, or even his own name, but 78 years later, he still remembers how scared he was of his father, and how it terrible made him feel.
----
I think my dad was also very fearful that his own kids would have similar feelings about him, just like he had about his father. Well, daddy, there was no need to worry. The top of my memory is filled with all the great things we shared together. Yes, we never had it easy, but you taught us well: about working hard, about saving money, about playing soccer, and about what is important in life.
Thanks for everything dad.
-8bitsteve
Need A Death Panel? HMOs Already Got You Covered
So my dad is very sick, lying in hospital bed at his house, unable to walk, speak, eat or use the bathroom without help. Over the past 18 months he has developed severe dementia. We thought he was just slowly fading away.
He has been to the doctor many times, and is now, basically, waiting to die in my mom's living room. Just a yesterday, a visiting nurse let it slip that the doctors at the HMO have known all along what was wrong with him. It's this:
Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus (NPH)
I looked it up, the symptoms are exactly what my dad has:
- mental impairment and dementia
- problems with walking,
- and impaired bladder control leading to urinary frequency and/or incontinence.
It's a terrible thing, but it's also curable and there is a procedure that could make him whole again. The site says this:
"While the success of treatment with shunts varies from person to person, some people recover almost completely after treatment and have a good quality of life."
However, the HMO has decided that he is "too old" to have the procedure. My dad took great care of his body for 82 years. He is the healthiest person I have ever known. Then this thing hit him like a ton of bricks, and he faded into oblivion. He could be saved, and live another great 10 years, but "it has been decided by the power that be at the HMO" that he is too old for it.
If that is not a "death panel", I have no idea what a "death panel" might be. Where are the "Anti-Health Care Reform People" when there is something to really shout about? Oh I guess when it is a corporation making those decisions, and not the government, then it's OK.
8bitrocket InterWeb Mash-Up For Friday April 29th, 2011
A Note From 8bitrocket
Hi everyone, I hope you are enjoying our new focus and format as much as we are are enjoying it. We found it very hard to write lots of in-depth articles because the industry is changing so much at the moment. We will have more in-depth articles and stories soon, but right now we are trying keep it fresh daily with all sorts of content that we have written, found, collected, or is sent to us.
Zombies invade the royal wedding!!!
The new game, Class 3 Outbreak, by Binary Space Games, simulates a Zombie outbreak at the royal wedding! The game uses Google Maps to display real world locations and is integrated with Facebook for socal play. Plus, it's got Zombies!
The project is primarily being used as a tool to get people to their unique funding idea. At www.indiegogo.com/Class-3-Outbreak they are taking donations to help fund the final, fully playable game.
April 27th, 2011. Westminster Abbey, United Kingdom. Binary Space
have just released their spin on the Royal Wedding using their
game, Class 3 Outbreak to simulate a zombie outbreak during the
wedding ceremony. William and Kate are shown standing outside the
Abbey, surrounded by onlookers, and appear to be unaware of the
oncoming zombie hordes. Undercover agents and body guards are
scattered throughout the crowd, however they are greatly
outnumbered. Visit the Royal Zombie Wedding map now to watch the
zombie outbreak unfold.
The Zombie Royal Wedding was created using Binary Space’s game,
Class 3 Outbreak. Class 3 Outbreak is a zombie survival game that
takes place in real world locations on Google Maps(R), with real
life friends via Facebook(R). This version of the game was created
to promote Binary Space’s funding efforts on IndieGoGo, where they are trying to raise
$50,000 to develop the game. Jay Weston, Game Designer, says,
“Binary Space is an independent games developer, and we would
greatly appreciate any support, please visit the IndieGoGo link
and contribute to the project if you like it.”
More details about Class 3 Outbreak can be found on the Class 3
Outbreak (www.class3outbreak.com)
and Binary Space (www.binaryspacegames.com)
websites.
Become a fan and follow C3O’s progress on Facebook (www.facebook.com/class3outbreak).
AS3 Tip Of The Day: Quick And Dirty Bitmap Collision Detection Routine
This works with MovieClips. Pass in two, if the non-transparent parts of the MovieClips are touching, it will return true.
private function pixelhitTest(o1:MovieClip,o2:MovieClip):Boolean{
var retval:Boolean =false;
var bd1:BitmapData = new BitmapData(o1.width,o1.height,
true,0x00000000);
var bd2:BitmapData = new BitmapData(o2.width,o2.height,
true,0x00000000);
bd1.draw(o1);
bd2.draw(o2);
bd1Point.x=o1.x;
bd1Point.y=o1.y;
bd2Point.x=o2.x;
bd2Point.y=o2.y;
if (bd1.hitTest(bd1Point,255, bd2, bd2Point)) {
retval = true;
}
bd1.dispose();
bd2.dispose();
bd1=null;
bd2=null;
return retval;
}
Atari Nerd This Day In Atari History
- 1981 April 29: Avalon Hill publishes Conflict 2500 for Atari 8-bit computers
- 1982 April 29: Atari copyrights Kangaroo coin-op operation, maintenance, and service manual
- 1983 April 29: Imagic releases Moonsweeper for Atari 2600
- 1983 April 29: Imagic releases Fathom for Atari 2600
- 1983 April 29: Imagic releases Solar Storm for Atari 2600
- 1992 April 29: Atari Corp files trademark for Space Lords
- 1993 April 29: Atari Games files trademark for Metal Maniax
- 2003 April 29: ign.com Name arcade version of Battlezone #82 of Top 100 Games Of All Time
Management Sucks 001: No, It's Not "Just Business"
While working as a developer and then later as a manager for "The Monolith" for 15 years, I learned a lot about how old-style corporations feel about their regular employees. This new series, Management sucks, explores some of the experiences I had while trying to manage a team of developers in that ultra-structured corporate environment.
Many times in my final years at "Monolith" corporation, I heard these words uttered to me:
"It's not personal, it's just business"
The words were usually used to describe a situation where a very productive, yet not "directionally correct" (more on that term another time) employee, was going to be affected by a "lay-off".
To me, swallowing this kind of language was one of the worst things about being a manager. To really take in part what was happening, you needed to force it down your throat, digest it, and then make it part of your daily regimin.
My problem with this kind of language, especially with the phrase "It's not personal, it's just business", is that I really did not believe it. To believe that phrase to be true, I had to set-aside everything I truly felt about people and how they work best on a team in an organization.
The thing is, to say "it's not personal" when you are about to do the following, is a complete lie:
1. Take away someone's livelihood.
2. Show someone that the entire collection of their skills and experiences is not at all worth while to the company.
3. Giving an employee no notice of a lay-off, then using an outside agency to relay the bad news instead of doing it yourself.
4. To tell someone, in no uncertain terms, that you are not interested in seeing them again on the premises, and to treat them as an intruder and escort them out of the building, when just minutes before they were a trusted employee.
In fact, to me, it was one of the most "personal" things you could ever do. It very well is business, but it is also very personal.
Now, don't get me wrong, I completely understand "why" things are done this way, and I'm not suggesting that it is the wrong way to do it. But I am saying that, if you have the attitude that the act is "not personal, just business" you are fooling yourself. That kind of attitude helps lead to a place where you disconnect yourself from the realities of your employees.
It's something that happened to me, and it is one of the reasons I needed to make a change in my career. The same day that I actually said to myself "It's not personal, it's just business" as I sent an email that would effectively terminate a very loyal and hard working contractor, was the day I knew I needed to try something new. It was the day that I came to conclusion once and for all that Management Sucks.
The current state of 8bitrocket Towers
It has been a long, eventful two months to begin 2011. I have not found the time to write much on the blog, but that will change as soon as Steve and I begin our new adventure in game development. I'm not sure the term "extra" time applies as I am sure we will be working our asses off, but not having to spend 25% of my time looking for new gigs will certainly give me a little "extra" time to devote to the blog even if it is early in the morning or late on a Saturday night.
While I have enjoyed some personal growth (as well as a little bit of cash) during the last 7 months of independent development, I have missed out on the daily camaraderie that goes along with working directly with other developers. Being able to work again with my brother day to day at a new game development gig certainly will go along way toward solving that problem. I have worked a little bit with my developer friends at Creative Bottle and Jet Morgan, but days that contain a healthy dose of developer give and take have been few and far between. While I use Tweet Deck to monitor many of your Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn feeds on a minute by minute basis, nothing replaces the day to day, face to face contact that I had as a developer at Mattel for the previous 14 years.
Over the last seven months I have spent the bulk of my time as the single lead developer, architect, and CTO for my projects. Most of my work has been with Producto Studios, a full service creative agency and animation studio located in Redondo Beach. I have had the opportunity to work on a nice set of Flash games and interactive applications with the professional, seasoned Producto team for host of different clients. Work has been fast-paced and I have been able to bang out application design and code pretty quickly as the Producto team is very good with change control and requirements finalization. I am by no means a stickler for water-fall, non-iterative development, but with a programming staff of one (me) and tight deadlines, combined with the feast or famine nature of contract development, projects with ever-changing, creepy scope kill both productivity and morale.
Business-wise, January started very slow. We had about 10 unsolicited gigs start and stop (and a couple start again) during that time, which was both encouraging and frustrating. I found myself deep into a couple independent iPhone and Flash game projects for lack of anything else to do, but those stopped as soon as the HTML5 Canvas chapters started to come back from both the tech and copy edit reviews. Starting in late January, Steve and I started a whirlwind courtship with a big gaming company that resulted in us both accepting full-time positions to work remotely (read from home) as game developers. We have been asked to not write up anything on the company until we officially start on March 14th, so I will abide by that and not mention the them by name. In the last two weeks though two of the projects with Producto Studios have started and I have been "feverishly working on them the to ensure they are in a good state before I start the new gig.
In the coming weeks, Steve and I will be focusing the blog on our day to day adventures with the new company, as well as re-starting up daily updates to the another blog that was stalled in 2006 when we started up 8bitrocket.com. The direction will hopefully be a Superficial.com style daily send up of big and small business and management practices that we feel need being made fun of. We also will highlight games, TV, movies, books and other media that focus on the same subject. We'll see how much time we have to keep it going, but we would love to find some "extra" time in our schedules to devote to keeping it updated.
Also, Steve's last day at Mattel was yesterday, so we now have the band back together, ready to take on new gaming adventures. Now that enough time has passed, I am ready to dive back into the early history of web development for Mattel. I will be posting a little tribute to the golden years (2001-2006) in the next few days. When Steve was still working there I didn't want to write anything that might get him in trouble. I still don't plan to write anything controversial, but I did make up a song about it a few years ago that will probably rear its ugly head in a Flash video of some sort...