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The Shawshank Redemption and Steve Jobs

There are going to be 1000's of blog stories about Steve Jobs because there was so much to the man.  He changed the world and in my case, made my career possible.  From my first published game on the Apple II in 1980 to my current work on the iPhone.  

But personally there's something in Mr. Jobs' life that has always resonated with me so very strongly.  

Steve Jobs left Apple Computer in 1985.  In fact he was fired from Apple.  Here's what he had to say about that:

“I feel like somebody just punched me in the stomach and knocked all my wind out. I’m only 30 years old and I want to have a chance to continue creating things. I know I’ve got at least one more great computer in me. And Apple is not going to give me a chance to do that.” – Playboy, 1987

If you have ever felt wrongly judged, this has to resonate with you.  Perhaps it was a company where you thought you were doing great work and were fired unjustly.  Maybe it was a spouse who just lost faith in you.  Or maybe you were wrongly accused of something you didn't do.

In "The Shawshank Redemption" Andy Dufresne is a young and successful banker who is convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of his wife and her lover, a crime he did not do.

This is one of my favorite films.  Why?  Because in the end the good guys win.  In fact I can't think of a single film with a more satisfying conclusion than Shawshank.  

When things were especially difficult in my life, when it seemed the tables had turned against me, this quote always centered me:

"Get busy living, or get busy dying." - Andy Dufresne

That's what Steve did after he was kicked out of Apple, the company he had co-founded.  He got busy living.  First with NeXT Computer, which while not a huge business success, did change the world of computing ... the very World Wide Web you are reading this on was created by Tim Berners-Lee on a NeXT Computer in 1991.  Then he went onto Pixar where the first fully 3D rendered feature film success, A Toy Story, was created.

But nothing, not in any film or novel, compares to the "I told you so" triumph of Jobs' return to Apple in 1997.

Apple was truly on the ropes in 1997.  At the time Michael Dell, founder and CEO of Dell Computers had this to say about Apple:

"What would I do?" Mr. Dell said to an audience of several thousand information technology managers. "I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders."

What happened next has been well documented.  The iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad were wild successes.  Jobs didn't just win product categories, he created entirely NEW product categories.  Was there even any sort of tablet market before the iPad?  

For me, a lifelong video game guy, the iPhone app store created the first 'meritocracy' for games ... a place where anyone could come up with the next cool app, and get rewarded for it.

So when I think of Steve, I think of how he proved everyone who wrote him off wrong.  It has motivated me during the last decade to make great things happen.

“I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.” - Steve Jobs’ Stanford Commencement Address

Thank you Mr. Jobs

 

Go to MacWorld, Play Bocce with a Pretty Lady, Win Stuff

This FREE game will be out in a few days.  If you like "Paper Toss" or 'SKEE-BALL' ... you'll love PlayScreen BOCCE BALL.

Apple Rope-a-Dope's Adobe Flash

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rope-a-dope

The rope-a-dope is performed by a boxer assuming a protected stance, in Ali's classic pose, lying against the ropes, and allowing his opponent to hit him, toward the end that the opponent will tire and make mistakes which the boxer can exploit in a counter-attack.

In competitive situations other than boxing, rope-a-dope is used to describe strategies in which one party purposely puts itself in what appears to be a losing position, attempting thereby to become the eventual victor.

So today Apple announced that you'll be able to use alternative tools to create iPhone/iPad/iPod touch apps:

"... In particular, we are relaxing all restrictions on the development tools used to create iOS apps, as long as the resulting apps do not download any code. This should give developers the flexibility they want, while preserving the security we need."

But here's the thing, that's NOT Flash running as a plug-in in Safari.  That's an Adobe tool that converts Flash applications into Native iOS applications which are submitted into the iTunes App Store, which Adobe has shown in the past.

With all the review processes and controls etc...

And at the same time Apple clarifies its rules on approvals.  No 'junk' apps.  Apps have to use iOS controls.

Very clever.  

By Request: In Praise of Paper

NOTE: This article originally appeared in Interactivity Magazine, June 1998.  I am posting it in honor of http://www.mobilesketchbook.com ... a very useful tool for iPhone designers.

In Praise of Paper - William Volk

     Let me tell you a little secret.  The best way to build a great "high tech" interactive title is to start with paper.  I know it sounds "retro", but in designing for a visual medium paper works best.  A room filled with your creative, technical, and yes ... marketing types ... with at least one person who can draw blazingly fast ... is the best way to come up with great designs.

    It doesn't matter if it's a video game, educational title, or corporate presentation.  The ability to view what the thing is going to look like, right then and there, can make the difference between success and failure.  Rapid visualization allows you to explore the possibilities, come to consensus, and most importantly have a actual clue as to what the product is going to look like.  All the verbiage and flow diagrams in the world can't take the place of a talented artist's quick sketch at what you're talking about.

    At this recent Interactivity Roundtable, I bought this concept up for discussion.  Unfortunately it degraded into a debate on why a computer based input system can’t be as good as paper.  I suppose I could have called this article “In Praise of Ultra High Resolution Flat Panel Displays Mounted Horizontally with Pressure Sensitive Drawing Surfaces”, as this advanced technology is slowly becoming available (Disney is rumored to be using it as a replacement for traditional paper and pencil animation stands).  However for most of us the computer display and drawing technology (monitors and mouse) isn’t as immediate as paper or a white board.  I’ll concede that the “paper-less office” is a possibility, as I suppose the “paper-less bathroom” is also a possibility …. but for most of us … I doubt it.

    The main point is that rapid (within seconds) visualization of design concepts is a necessary first step in creating great designs.  I also think the nature of the initial design meeting needs to be open and inclusive.  Having representatives from all areas of product development from the “get-go” allows for a consensus on what the title will look like.  All ideas in this “creative room” need to be considered.  There will be plenty of time to whittle the design down to the practical and producible.

    Drawing can and should play a role as the design is refined.  To start with the drawing serves to center discussion on what a particular section or game will look like.  In educational software (see dCamera) there is often a question of the fit of the on-screen elements.  Text must be readable and the images should be identifiable.  Drawing is a fast and inexpensive way to look at several possibilities and to arrive at the ever important design consensus.

    I view the process of starting off with a general concept and a few sketches and finishing with a complete description of the title in a design document/database as “turning the wheel.”  You review ever smaller sections of the title in ever greater detail, refining at every turn.  Drawings eliminate much of the “how did we end up with this?” nonsense that can lead to re-work and blown budgets.  In the example (dCharge) notations are made about the use of the screen and the placement of text and numbers.

     I’m not against the use of computer based tools.  In fact I believe that the final design should be reflected in a production database.  This can be a relational database that contains the description of all production elements and their use in the product.  I think the next step will be to have this information available to the entire development team in the from of a browser accessible intra-net database.  Programmers, managers, artists, and testers should be able to access a common design “document” that details the operation of the title.

    Just as drawings representing the appearance of the title enable the visualization of the various “interactive scenes”, other styles of drawings can be used to convey operation of a title.  Flow diagrams can be used to link the earlier sketches into a diagram of how a user will navigate the title (see dPKMain).  Action can be represented in a series of drawings, otherwise known as a storyboard.  

    One justification for this visual emphasis is the mere fact that part of the audience for a design document are “visual learners.”   It may be a generalization to say that the programmers tend to be more comfortable with written descriptions than your art staff, but it’s not far off the mark.  I learned this by trial and error.  At Lightspan we started with a very detailed text document that described our titles in detail.  What we found was that we needed the text description … and we also needed visualization.

    Having reams of written description of the title and it’s production elements was not sufficient to insure production of a design in a timely and accurate manner.  The visualizations of the scenes and of the flow of action provided the “forest” that helped to provide a context to the “trees” of the individual production elements.  You can see how the final game screens (Charge and Camera) reflect the design intent. 

    This may all sound obvious, but it easy to get caught up in the world of “high technology” and forget just how natural the processes of drawing on paper and design can work together.  Find some who can quickly come up with rough visualizations (the best do it in mere seconds) and your design meetings will have a focus that mere words cannot provide.  

PlayScreen launches portal with OVER 25 Free games for the new Palm Pre Phone, Games Galore for Palm Pre Users at PlayScreen.com

SAN DIEGO - June 8th, 2009. The company that launched some of the most popular iPhone web-based games has announced the release of more than 25 web-based games optimized for the Palm® Pre™ browser. Titles include casual, action, puzzle and social games. 

"These ad-supported titles take advantage of the phone’s screen size and the advanced Palm webOS™ browser’s performance and Ajax capabilities," said William Volk, president and CEO of PlayScreen. "Titles include blackjack, solitaire, bowling, sudoku, solitaire, roulette, backgammon, darts, golf and other popular games."

"PlayScreen is applying its considerable experience in advanced mobile technology to bring these titles to consumers," commented PlayScreen President Sherri Cuono. "There are no installs required and these games are optimized to play via Pre’s excellent browser."

"With all the excitement over this new phone and operating system, we wanted to make sure consumers had their favorite games," added William Volk. "And the games are here, at PlayScreen.com."

About the Palm Pre Phone

Palm® Pre™ is the first phone running the new Palm webOS™ platform, which brings together your important information from where it resides – on your phone, at your work or on the web – into one logical view.(1) Palm Synergy™, a key feature of webOS, pulls your contacts and calendars from places like Outlook, Google and Facebook, so everything is right there for you when you need it. Palm Pre also lets you flip back and forth between all the things you have open at once-instead of opening and closing them-so you can flow easily between activities without losing your place. Pre’s exquisite design includes a touch screen and a physical keyboard that slides out only when needed. The new Palm Pre and webOS are designed to be so in sync with your needs that it feels like Pre is thinking ahead for you. More information about the Palm Pre phone is available at www.palm.com/Pre. 

(1) Use of this device requires providing a valid e-mail address, mobile phone number, and related information for account setup and activation. Unlimited usage data plan strongly recommended; additional data charges may apply. Within wireless coverage area only. Number of applications and actual performance will vary depending on applications used and actions performed.

PlayScreen and the PlayScreen logo are trademarks of MyNuMo, LLC. Palm, Pre, webOS and Synergy are among the trademarks or registered trademarks owned by or licensed to Palm, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

About PlayScreen: San Diego based PlayScreen is a social entertainment company publishing casual, social and action games on the iPhone, Google Android, Palm Pre, and Nokia handsets. More Details about PlayScreen at www.PlayScreen.com . (PlayScreen is a trademark of MyNuMo, LLC.)

Contact: [email protected] +1 858 692 1124

You can preview these titles on your PC/Mac with Safari, Firefox or Opera at: PlayScreen.com/PalmPre

Twitter Saved My Life

Well, not exactly ... but for three days solid I used TweetDeck and replied to EVERY message I saw about the Bailout and keep pounding away that Bailout Bonanza (our iPhone game) was delayed, perhaps due to concerns about it's satirical nature. That message was then re-twitted by major bloggers to 10's of 1000's of followers

Well, it just went LIVE in the store. It had been delayed for well over a month.

You can see it on the iPhone App Store.

Sales were generated last night even though you have to type in the name or use my provided link to buy the title. It isn't in the "what's new" in the game categories yet.

Look, what I basically did was to create a wave of public discussion on the approval delay. Our contacts had told us that the title might be looked at next week. This Twit Blitz may have done the trick, I have NO WAY of knowing if it did the trick.

I also resorted to on-camera begging last weekend:

http://www.theappshow.com/2009-03-22-the-app-show-episode-21-no-parking/

Building a Better Bounce Trap

This is a story about how a good game became GREAT.

I am proud to announce that Bounce Trap Tilt just got released on iTunes and the App Store. 



The original Bounce Trap got some nice reviews on iTunes and in the press. 

... this iPhone puzzle game is fun. It's got the addictiveness part down pat. This is one of the first iPhone games that I'd deem worthy for an actual gamer. - Hands-On, Destructoid.com

Addiction is a cruel mistress. She sneaks up on you, luring you with promise of pleasure. It's a rouse, a trap – one time and you're hooked. Bounce Trap ensnares you with its easy-to-learn gameplay, drawing you back with its subtle strategic depth. ... Bounce Trap provides polished casual play with enough depth to entertain a seasoned gamer. - PocketGamer 

With a mixture of action, strategy, and chance Bounce Trap can get fairly addicting and will provide entertainment for young and old. - AppCraver 

But along with that, there was a legitimate criticism that the game needed more interactivity. You could control where the ball was released, but like Peggle^tm, once the ball was released you didn't have any control over it's trajectory.

Well, Bounce Trap Tilt now allows you to control the ball by .... tilting the iPhone. You can curve your shots, aim for specific bonus holes etc... We also added a new audio driver and shrunk the game from 26MB to 9.3MB with all the music and sound effects of the original. You can even buy the game ($0.99) directly from your iPhone by texting BOUNCE to 74415.

And of course, it is a free update for existing players of Bounce Trap.

Update: Bounce Trap Tilt is featured in "What's Hot" on iTunes!

iPhone Apps ... and you know it don't come easy.

The iPhone Application store has created a Meritocracy for mobile apps and the rewards can be great. The problem is that the market has many many titles. Over 7000 applications at last count. There are over 20 Blackjack Games alone (make that 21, we just released one).

Kenny Rogers Announces Casino Games on Apple App Store

Do the math. There have been over 200m downloads of iPhone apps. If we assume that one out of ten have been paid and half of those are games than we have 5m paid game downloads. There are over 1400 paid game apps in the store. This would imply that the average game sells a bit over 3500 copies. However, in a typical market HALF of the sales (or more) would be sold by the top ten titles. According to some sources, 80% of the sales would be sold by the top twenty titles. So an 'average' title might only see 1500 sales or so.

I have argued that the key to success here is to have extraordinary efficiency combined with excellent quality. That isn't easy, as reflected in the recent news from GLU on their iPhone efforts:

http://www.casualgaming.biz/news/27895/Glu-gloomy-despite-Q3-gains

However, despite the gains seen in Q3 the firm has issued a gloomy outlook for the upcoming Q4 - and president and CEO Greg Ballard has blamed the company's failure in capitalising on the iPhone phenomenon as the cause. To date Glu has released just one title for the platform.

"In truth, we were less disappointed about Q3 than we were about our outlook for Q4," Ballard told Pocket Gamer. "We missed our numbers, but only by about $150,000. But the slowdown that we see in Q4 is what's causing more uncertainty. Q3 was not as calamitous as the numbers might have suggested.

"We know that games are typically purchased in the first 90 days of owning a handset, so if people are buying fewer handsets, then fewer games will be sold. And in the US, when people did buy new handsets, a lot of them bought the iPhone.

I have blogged on how the cost structure of a venture backed game company can be a problem. It seems it is also a problem for established companies as well.

Predicting hits is a tricky business. Best to have a model where you can profit from even minor hits in this saturated market.

The iPhone Application store has created a Meritocracy for mobile apps and the rewards can be great. The problem is that the market has many many titles. Over 7000 applications at last count. There are over 20 Blackjack Games alone (make that 21, we just released one).

Kenny Rogers Announces Casino Games on Apple App Store

Do the math. There have been over 200m downloads of iPhone apps. If we assume that one out of ten have been paid and half of those are games than we have 5m paid game downloads. There are over 1400 paid game apps in the store. This would imply that the average game sells a bit over 3500 copies. However, in a typical market HALF of the sales (or more) would be sold by the top ten titles. According to some sources, 80% of the sales would be sold by the top twenty titles. So an 'average' title might only see 1500 sales or so.

I have argued that the key to success here is to have extraordinary efficiency combined with excellent quality. That isn't easy, as reflected in the recent news from GLU on their iPhone efforts:

http://www.casualgaming.biz/news/27895/Glu-gloomy-despite-Q3-gains

However, despite the gains seen in Q3 the firm has issued a gloomy outlook for the upcoming Q4 - and president and CEO Greg Ballard has blamed the company's failure in capitalising on the iPhone phenomenon as the cause. To date Glu has released just one title for the platform.

"In truth, we were less disappointed about Q3 than we were about our outlook for Q4," Ballard told Pocket Gamer. "We missed our numbers, but only by about $150,000. But the slowdown that we see in Q4 is what's causing more uncertainty. Q3 was not as calamitous as the numbers might have suggested.

"We know that games are typically purchased in the first 90 days of owning a handset, so if people are buying fewer handsets, then fewer games will be sold. And in the US, when people did buy new handsets, a lot of them bought the iPhone.

I have blogged on how the cost structure of a venture backed game company can be a problem. It seems it is also a problem for established companies as well.

Predicting hits is a tricky business. Best to have a model where you can profit from even minor hits in this saturated market.

Hey! You! Get off of my cloud.

The moral of today's tale is simply this:

Hosting your software on a 'cloud' who's masters are not happy about the rise of "cloud computing" may not be the wisest strategy.

I am referring to the story regarding Microsoft's Azure Services Platform.  Namely that Microsoft could block popular Azure apps that exceed their allocated storage and/or processing hours.  

According to The Register article I am linking to, your allocation limit is 2000 hours and 8 instances of processing time.

I think this puts into question Microsoft's commitment to Cloud Computing.  Since Cloud Apps, such as Google's, threaten the cash cow of Microsoft Office sales, I am reminded of how Microsoft effectively killed Web Applets nearly a decade ago.

Of course one hopes that Microsoft is paying attention here and changes this policy.

Meanwhile: Cloud Buyers Beware.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Crash

(With apologies to Dr. Strangelove)

They say every cloud has a silver lining, here's this one's.

For some businesses it MAY be very good. Here's why.

Let's take two iPhone game companies as an example, Company A and Company B.

Company A manages to get a few $million or so from a VC in the summer to build games for the iPhone market. They setup offices in Silicon Valley, driving distance from Sand Hill Road, and put one of the VC guys on the board. They hire people, start working on iPhone games. Last week they ship two very nice titles, one is free, one is around a buck. My guess is they will be lucky to see 10,000 unit sales, or gross receipts of $7000 on that paid title, and that is optimistic. Honestly, they will probabily make less (based on what I have heard from other developers). Knowing salaries, rents, overheads ... the paid title has a burdened cost of $50k to $100k. I'm sure the plan is to continue production but not be cash flow positive for a number of years. Spend the raise, put out titles, build I.P., get to a 'hit'. The typical B, C, round scenerio.

Company B doesn't raise $$$ from anyone. Instead it uses the profit from development projects to fund title development. They ship their first title when the iPhone app store opens, modest sales. The title acts as a showcase allowing them to secure more development deals. They don't move to Silicon Valley, they don't hire a bunch of people, they run off cash receipts. The development deals improve the skills of the team as well. Because of this they build an efficient system that produces quality titles at a fraction of the expense of Company A. They begin releasing a stream of quality titles for the iPhone that become profitable with even modest sales. As long as they maintain cost control they are profitable on every title and maybe even get a hit or two. Cash flow positive.

Fast forward several months.

Maybe Company A doesn't get round B (see Sequoia Presentation). They have to cut staff, expenses, try to make a profit on their highly burdened titles.

Meanwhile Company B just continues the flow of products, still brings in dev deals ... people get paid.

Who just benefitted from the Crash?