Synaptic Sugar

It has now been one year since the birth of this blog, and I must say it’s been an invaluable tool for expressing my personal interests and sharing knowledge and pseudo-randomness with any like-minded reader. Availability of time to blog has fluctuated through highs and lows, and perhaps at times the level of topics discussed has followed the same path; but that is to be considered a feature, rather than a bug. In a year this blog has grown to a moderate success in ratings, and for that I can only thank my readers. I hope you will stay tuned to this channel and will find further stimuli for discussion or thought in these pages; whatever the case, I’m going to keep dumping here summaries of what I find of interest in the universe and beyond. If you care to listen, there are some available chairs over there and some fresh coffee on that table in the back.

I recently found a relatively old (dating back to November 2007) interview to producer and game design legend David Perry while reading articles on Gamasutra, the well-known game industry news website. The interview itself is highly interesting for a variety of reasons, but among other things I would like to quote a point on in-game advertising (since I mentioned the topic last October, see "Hellgate: localhost") that I find quite insightful. Here’s an excerpt worth commenting on:

“Players will have no problem with advertising if you don’t charge full price for your game and then include a little bit of paper that tells people that you’re sending their IP address to agencies and cover the game in adverts,” Perry joked, referring to player backlash over Battlefield 2142.

Another condition required for players to accept in-game ads is that you: “Don’t delay or interrupt the gamer at any time with advertising, or require them to click anything to get rid of it,” [...] “Give them something valuable in return - obviously a free game is great. Make advertising an exchange.”

I believe the last point in particular is the key. If companies want to successfully introduce advertising in games, they should follow a model that is as unobtrusive and transparent as possible, and should give something tangible in return to the players. Moreover, I add, if the ads are not custom-tailored to fit in the game context, the experience for the players can be severely damaged (how does an ad for the (real) DVD release of the movie Ghost Rider fit in a game set in the 22nd century?). In other words, they should follow a model that TV advertising is not following at all; but given the peculiarities of the gaming culture and platforms, the choice of imitating the TV model as it is, as undoubtedly many companies that are more eager to fatten their wallets than to offer a pleasant and engaging gaming experience are ready to do, would be little more than a failure.

And to complete the series of website makeovers (see "Fresh web look for the new year" and "Alpha Shooter website gets made over"), the website for the Neutron Engine (my own modular 3D game engine project) now also sports its new look (at least until I change my mind about it, which could happen). There is not much yet on it at all, but I should be able to post documentation on the engine and more content relatively soon.

The Alpha Shooter website now also has a new look, and new content has been added, like a screenshots page and resources for developers. Check it out and feel free to comment on it.

I gave my personal website a fresh new look for the new year. I’ve also reorganized the content and in my opinion it all flows much more smoothly now. Let me know what you think.