I am going to buy an OUYA.
It may not be tomorrow. It may not be this weekend. But before the calendar year has expired, I will be purchasing an OUYA. I am aware that it is not running on anything remotely near top of the line hardware. I am aware that many of the games it features will become available on my Kobo. In fact, it is both possible and depressingly likely that at the end of the day my PS3 will simply feature more, better games.
I am going to buy an OUYA because I like dreams.
Tomb Raider, will critically popular, sold 3.4 million copies and this was still not enough for Square Enix to turn a profit. Hitman barely broke even. Some estimates peg MW3 as costing 100 million dollars to produce. This model that every game has to have unbelievable hype and sell like gangbusters is not going to work for very long. Rising dev costs will tank how many games can be made, and the need for guaranteed sales is going to kill creativity. The AAA model is going to kill gaming far faster than it will save it. I mean, look at me. The most fun I had in the last year was easily with either Space Marine or Transformers: Fall of Cybertron. Neither game was particularly huge and neither game stood a chance in hell of matching the CoD marketing juggernaut, but god-damn they just cooked.
This is why I want to throw my money behind OUYA. Games don't have to be marketable or sexy, they just need to be fun. How they're fun doesn't matter, and the mechanics that make them fun are probably independent of the processing power required to generate a photo-realistic city in real time. If this crazy experiment works, devs will have a chance for creativity to matter again. They will have a chance to nurture a product from beginning to end, at a normal person pace, instead of the development hell behind every major title now.
It will not replace my PS3. It will never compete with the big boys. That expectation is foolhardy and unrealistic, and anyone who resorts to that as an argument against the OUYA should be struck with an open hand. What it will do, hopefully, is provide me with an easy to use outlet to find some fun, simple games. Something for me to get into if I don't want to drop 60$ and 20 hours. Maybe I only want to throw down 10 dollars and 5 hours, whatever, hopefully it with fill that niche in my gaming hierarchy.
And, if it doesn't, well I guess I still have my 3DS.
Tuesday 25 June 2013
Tuesday 18 June 2013
Future Planning
Planning is a weird thing. Generally speaking, I tend to be a person who plans out everything in detail, complete with contingencies and back-ups. This is all done with the knowledge that despite however many hours, how much detail and how much dedication I pour into my plans they're never going to be quite right. I try to think things through in advance, but then lo and behold something new comes along. What's worse, sometimes exactly what I planned for comes along.
I've gotten back onto the job application train. For those counting, this train is now at 150 applications with one phone interview. Whoo whoo. Recently, I've revamped my resume into a new format and I've started using a new cover letter format. Consequently, I've convinced myself that this was the change needed to turn it all around. However, there was a three week hiatus where I did not apply for anything as I was frantically filling out last second grad school applications. One of them has already gotten back to me with a heartfelt "HAHAHAno." What I had told myself, and what I had told my friends and family was that even if hell froze over and I was accepted to a Master's program I would still be applying to jobs right up until day 1. Now I've started to question that.
The funny thing about planning for the future is that you get excited. On paper, UPEI having a stroke and accepting me would appear to be the worst thing ever. Moving to a small city on the other side of the country, signing another lease, enjoying geographic and social isolation all in exchange for a degree that has questionable merit from a professional standpoint? This looks like a raw deal. Yet, for some reason I really really want to. Getting hired in Calgary? On paper, the best thing ever. I could actually make money instead of hemorrhaging cash. I wouldn't have to move. I wouldn't have to reboot socially. I'd be near family. Yet somehow, while I remain hopeful for this possibility, it doesn't seem like the golden ticket to a magical chocolate factory that I had envisioned.
Do I miss university? Apparently yes. Except that I categorically despised large chunks of it.
Right now, I suspect my worse fear is actually that both dreams might come true. An employer AND a graduate committee might think that I am competent. If it came down to it, I don't know which I'd choose. An improved version of what I do now? Or blowing it all up and starting again for a year? I know one of those is good, but the other keeps winking at me and promising impossible things.
The worst part of all of this, this planning, this fear, this hope, this excitement is that all of it, every detail is reliant on someone I have never met reading 800 words about me and determining whether or not I deserve a chance. Despite my best efforts, I can't plan for that.
I've gotten back onto the job application train. For those counting, this train is now at 150 applications with one phone interview. Whoo whoo. Recently, I've revamped my resume into a new format and I've started using a new cover letter format. Consequently, I've convinced myself that this was the change needed to turn it all around. However, there was a three week hiatus where I did not apply for anything as I was frantically filling out last second grad school applications. One of them has already gotten back to me with a heartfelt "HAHAHAno." What I had told myself, and what I had told my friends and family was that even if hell froze over and I was accepted to a Master's program I would still be applying to jobs right up until day 1. Now I've started to question that.
The funny thing about planning for the future is that you get excited. On paper, UPEI having a stroke and accepting me would appear to be the worst thing ever. Moving to a small city on the other side of the country, signing another lease, enjoying geographic and social isolation all in exchange for a degree that has questionable merit from a professional standpoint? This looks like a raw deal. Yet, for some reason I really really want to. Getting hired in Calgary? On paper, the best thing ever. I could actually make money instead of hemorrhaging cash. I wouldn't have to move. I wouldn't have to reboot socially. I'd be near family. Yet somehow, while I remain hopeful for this possibility, it doesn't seem like the golden ticket to a magical chocolate factory that I had envisioned.
Do I miss university? Apparently yes. Except that I categorically despised large chunks of it.
Right now, I suspect my worse fear is actually that both dreams might come true. An employer AND a graduate committee might think that I am competent. If it came down to it, I don't know which I'd choose. An improved version of what I do now? Or blowing it all up and starting again for a year? I know one of those is good, but the other keeps winking at me and promising impossible things.
The worst part of all of this, this planning, this fear, this hope, this excitement is that all of it, every detail is reliant on someone I have never met reading 800 words about me and determining whether or not I deserve a chance. Despite my best efforts, I can't plan for that.
Monday 10 June 2013
Window Dressing Activism
The following is one side of a conversation I had with a friend in Ottawa.
"I am about to write something offensive
Remember how the "hot" social cause of the day back in 2003 was global warming? And every fucking wannabe social activist was all like "OH THE HUMANITY WE GOTS TO SAVE THE WORLD" But it was really just an excuse to go to "green parties" and get tanked and then feel like you're not just another alcoholic manwhore/womanwhore? In 2013, a new social cause has risen up to take its place.
Gay Rights has become the new Global Warming.
The cause most socially acceptable to latch onto and preach about, while simultaneously requiring an almost non-existent amount of dedication in order to maintain the facade of giving a damn.
I hate. These. People.
This really crystallized for me while looking at Facebook today. So many photos of people being tanked at 302. And posting shit like "OMG PRIDE 2013!!!" "LGBT EQUALITY GUYS!!!11" You have truly advanced the cause of ending discrimination based on sexual identity by dressing up like a banana and pounding jager. And I know, maybe I'm just a stick in the mud, but to me this window-dressing support of valid and important social causes would seem to diminish and mock the cause."
Phew. There it is. Some good 'ol fashioned hatred.
"I am about to write something offensive
Remember how the "hot" social cause of the day back in 2003 was global warming? And every fucking wannabe social activist was all like "OH THE HUMANITY WE GOTS TO SAVE THE WORLD" But it was really just an excuse to go to "green parties" and get tanked and then feel like you're not just another alcoholic manwhore/womanwhore? In 2013, a new social cause has risen up to take its place.
Gay Rights has become the new Global Warming.
The cause most socially acceptable to latch onto and preach about, while simultaneously requiring an almost non-existent amount of dedication in order to maintain the facade of giving a damn.
I hate. These. People.
This really crystallized for me while looking at Facebook today. So many photos of people being tanked at 302. And posting shit like "OMG PRIDE 2013!!!" "LGBT EQUALITY GUYS!!!11" You have truly advanced the cause of ending discrimination based on sexual identity by dressing up like a banana and pounding jager. And I know, maybe I'm just a stick in the mud, but to me this window-dressing support of valid and important social causes would seem to diminish and mock the cause."
Phew. There it is. Some good 'ol fashioned hatred.
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