Monday, April 18, 2005

I don't care, as long as you're mine.

Things have been interesting lately. Justin and I have agreed to pursue freelance web design together and I expect that to have fruitful results. We will produce our work under the Velegant Design label, but both of us will have our own unique online portfolios. Should be fun. My portfolio site has been in the workshop for a while now, but it may need a major revision. The name I wanted isn't available, so a name change may also mean a philosophical change. I am thinking of creating an umbrella site with multiple subdomains for different things. We'll see how that goes. The above image contains a sample of what I have been developing. I really have no idea where I will go from there, but we'll see. Anyway, I was talking to Alan earlier about blogs and such. He told me that I do not update often enough. And I told him that I really don't have much that I want to say. So I asked him what I should discuss. He told me that I should discuss gender roles, since the two of us often talk about that type of thing. I guess I don't know what to say that I haven't said before. I will say one thing though; Alan should be applauded for including a crossdressing section on his photoblog. Apart from the actual artistic merit of such a thing, I do feel that "people being themselves" is always a good thing. And in particular, it makes me happy to know that he feels he can do that without any problems. It's interesting, because I have personally never had any desire to wear women's clothing or anything - I like wearing male clothing and in particular, I like exploiting my maleness...if that makes sense. Perhaps that's not the right way to put it. It's like a woman who buys expensive lengerie because she wants to celebrate her femininity. I guess I am the same way but in reverse. But having said that, I also think that I am of a generation where gender lines are blurred significantly. This is why I really get a kick out of Marilyn Manson's visual art - particularly with the Omega era. I think there is a certain strength about people who can express themselves in that way. Why would you be worried about having feminine qualities, afterall? Because women are "weaker" than men? If you really follow that to its conclusion, you realize that the men who are highly offended by such things are the same men who a) aren't very confident in their masculinity and b) do not have a particularly equal view of women. I grew up around very strong women, and I have always known women who have been very accomplished and intelligent people. So I've never grown up in a world where women played a certain role. I'm sure this partly impacts my view of females in general - I do not view women as some kind of herd, where certain hard-and-fast rules apply. I've simply always been in a situation where women were absolutely equal and there was no question about it. So all of this probably ties into my views on all manner of subjects, from sexuality to gender roles and so on. Perhaps this is why I don't think transvestites or transsexuals are "disgusting". I have never been in a situation where I've had the same thoughts as either group, however, I tend to try to empathise. Afterall, if men and women are truly equal, androgyny shouldn't be considered a bad thing at all. Oh, I just remembered...did anyone hear that Oddworld Inhabitants is getting out of the game business and moving into CG animation exclusively? I have a gift for Mr. Lanning:

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Thursday, April 14, 2005

Be obscene, baby.

I noticed that Tony had mentioned IGN's reviews on his page. And that reminded me of the Doom 3 review I read at 1UP.com today. I suppose my reaction was something like this: o_O Sure, the game is atmospheric. And certainly, it has impressive visuals. And understandably, it's a good fit for Xbox. But seriously, what about the extreme repetition? The fact that reading emails gets boring after the dozenth one? I don't know. Maybe others have enjoyed this game more than myself, but really, it doesn't do anything whatsoever to push first person shooters forward. Calling it a first person shooter is appropriate, because it certainly isn't coming close to anything else - I wouldn't flatter it by calling it a "first person adventure" or even necessarily a "survival horror" title. Speaking of 1UP.com, some people over there are just nasty. One guy was saying that Dreamcast was the first game console to go online at all. I made the mistake of mentioning the 64DD Randnet service in Japan and, uh oh...I get told I know nothing and am an idiot. Okay. lol This makes me think about the way that game sites let people comment on news. If you go to 1UP or any other game site that allows commenting on news, you invariably seem to find a bunch of stupid comments. Everything from "OMG!!1111 SONY'S TAKING OVER THE UNIVERSE!!!!" to "MS INVENTED IT FIRST FUK U!!" You really don't see a lot of intelligent discussion. It's kind of discouraging. Some people seem to spend so much time talking crap that they don't seem to be just enjoying what they have. I mean, if you look at PSP for instance, you can say it has problems. But so does DS. So does every system. Why bash it? Because you don't own it and you want to justify your purchase of a competing product? Screw you. In terms of gaming in general, things have been pretty quiet for me lately. I've only bought two games within the last few months. Those are Gran Turismo 4 and Resident Evil 4. GT4 is wonderful. I don't know what else can be said. It's truly the best driving game that exists - that is, if you are interested in simulations. Even the interface in the game is fantastic - it's so so much better than GT3. Everything is so clear and easy to use, I love it. In addition, there are finally a few more Australian cars in the game. Yay. They could have afforded to include more, however. But still, given the depth and breadth of the vehicle line-up, it's quite impressive. And RE4...well, I posted about that on OB. Brilliant game. Absolutely brilliant. I'm so pleased with the direction they took. As a longtime Resident Evil fan, I strongly approve. I would certainly love to see a game with this type of gameplay set in an urban environment, because of the many possibilities that offers (especially if you had more interactive environments). Still, whatever they do in future...I hope RE4 is only a first step. If they can build on that, I'll be buying future titles without question. My next big purchase will probably come from the paid freelance work I'm doing at the moment. I am planning to buy a Japanese Nintendo DS with Electroplankton. The game seems to have very minimal language, which makes it very import friendly. In addition, the Japanese packaging is simply gorgeous. A must-own, I think. I will be buying one of those new DS colours, which launches later this month. Two colours have already launched, but the other two (pink and blue) are coming out in a couple of weeks. I'll be getting the blue one. Of course, I'd kill for that special Electroplankton version of the DS...

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Wednesday, April 13, 2005

Electrocaine.

Well, the weirdness that has become my life continues. The last week feels more like a month. I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad thing. I now apparently have a stalker. You know, the type of person that you meet once in person and who decides that they want to follow you around and harass you constantly. 2005: Year of the Stalker. The headline of my year. Perhaps I should stop attending so many parties. In the last two weeks, I've met more people and consumed more illegal substances than I care to remember - it has been fun, but somehow I seem to make contact with the weirdest people on Earth. I wonder why. Anyway, that aside, I have to admit that things have generally been pretty good. Obviously the underlying issues are there, but somehow I feel that I am in better command of myself at the moment. Sometimes you have to teach yourself not only how to say 'no', but also, how to say 'yes'. You know? In terms of the 'net, Wonka Inc. has been doing okay. I have to admit, I had wanted people to go a bit further with their sign-ups. Aiyisha's hits the mark most deliciously (so yes, feel free to use hers as a good example). I think people are still a bit worried about crossing some kind of line - but rest assured, there is no line to cross. So if anyone wants to edit their sign-ups and push them a bit further, that'd be nice. And if you are not yet aware that this RPG has launched in the Inn, well, now you know. The morbidly curious (curiously morbid?) are welcome. Oh, before I go, I want to respond to a very well-constructed comment on my previous post. Sesshomarufan, I really appreciate the time you took with your comments, so I think you definitely deserve some kind of response/acknowledgement from me. On your first point; I don't actually think that quality on OB is slipping at all. Sure, we have ups and downs. But in general, things are on the incline. However, younger members do tend to be responsible for the lower quality stuff. We will not restrict people based on age alone, however; the only exception would be blocking those under 13. On your second point; I don't really mind what people have to say. I mean, I don't mind whatever opinion people have, nor do I really care how they choose to express it. But having said that, OB does require clear, readable English and something that goes beyond one sentence. That's it. Even for the more lethargic members of our community, it's not tough. On your third point; I agree that everyone has slightly different levels of quality. That's cool. OB doesn't require everyone to be Shakespeare. As long as your English is readable and as long as you post more than a sentence, you really have nothing to worry about. There are certain exceptions, but that's the hard and fast rule. Cheers.

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Sunday, April 10, 2005

Responses to your responses.

Thanks for your replies, everyone. But I think I should clarify a few things. Tony: I know that the age thing is not enforceable. But that's not what I'm talking about. I am talking about creating an environment that attracts a generally older audience. Applying a basic age restriction is certainly a part of that - if nothing else, it warns parents that children under 13 are not permitted on the site. This way, if we ever have complaints about something a parent finds objectionable, we can cite that point. Secondly, there's no spin away from what I've said before. Quite the contrary. Most active OB users are in their mid-to-late teens. What I was saying, as Desbreko mentioned, is that myOtaku is the site that has a much younger average age. My point was that OB is in a niche, because it tends to appeal to older audiences, as a result of its strong emphasis on quality. So, OB can be part of a general appeal to older audiences network-wide. I hope that clarifies my point. Desbreko: My comments about the network didn't directly include OB - I was referring to theO/myO. Out of all of our visitors (sans OB), about 20% are 18 and over. My whole point was that OB is somewhat seperate from that. So yeah, you are right in terms of what I was saying. I'm not sure what the status is today, but I can tell you that we've never restricted people under 13. Restricting those people is an option provided to us by Virtual Bulletin. We've simply never taken up the option, but we will in the future. Annie: I would really have to disagree with you on that. As a matter of fact, within the last few months, I could probably cite two dozen or more "New Members" who have truly outstanding post quality. This has been going on everywhere, but I think it's become particularly noticeable in Play It and Otaku Lounge, as well as The Arena. Perhaps people just don't notice these things, but it's something that has been a constant surprise for me. So, I am not at all concerned about OB somehow slipping backwards - as long as we maintain our focus on quality, we'll be fine. In the end, it is a bit like an uphill battle. Most of our visitors are sourced from theOtaku.com. If most of those people are quite young, then obviously, we are always filtering out a lot of people at OB. But that's just how things are. I still think that OB tends to be sitting in a very different place than the rest of the network. But as I mentioned, that's something we'd like to change, by deliberately encouraging an older audience to the network. As you can imagine, that is very difficult, considering the size of the site and the number of visitors. It's a gradual thing that doesn't happen overnight. But I think it's definitely doable, considering all we've accomplished so far. Baron: Well, it's not that I want discussion to change. I think that I do risk being misinterpreted when I talk about this subject. My intention isn't to make OtakuBoards into some kind of highly-adult discussion site. When I talk about "maturity", I think people often think I am talking about the content of the discussion. But I am not. I am simply talking about quality - quality in terms of how people write their posts and how they contribute. But the topics themselves? I don't really care. It's possible to discuss totally inane and stupid things with a sense of quality about your posts. Just look at that Moderation thread in Otaku Lounge for a perfect example of how I want OB to look like. In that thread, you had stuff going slightly in and out of topic, you had things shifting all over the place...it was very relaxed. But why was it okay? Because the whole time, people were paying attention and nobody was jumping in and spamming. I don't want OB to be all about serious debates. I've never said that. I want us to be able to discuss anything - even totally inane stuff. But the point is that it should always be done with some level of care - that is, at least make your posts relevant and readable. But to be specific, you asked why we would want to increase the age range in general? Well, it has little to do with content (at least on OB). It's more about attracting a broader audience than we have before. In many respects, we have cornered the market for younger people. The next logical step is to look for people who haven't been as interested in us before. And when it comes to anime, as Dagger has mentioned, there are a lot of older anime fans who are very passionate about the subject. In addition, this has added benefits for the future. If we have more older visitors, we also have more potential subscribers for our premium services. So this has a flow-on effect, I suppose. It means that we can continue to grow and we can continue to spend money on new sites. Right now we are working on new sites and one of them is going to receive a lot of financial investment from the network. It's costly, but I think that when it finally arrives, everyone will be most impressed with the results (and it will be primarily adult-centric, or at least focused on those who are 18 and over).

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Saturday, April 9, 2005

The children love the show.

Well, here I am again, after a brief absence. Why the absence? I guess I really didn't have anything to say. In my personal life, things have not been going well at all. Some of you know about that. I don't really care to share it here, but I do want to thank everyone for your well wishes. It means a great deal; I really place a lot of value in our little community here. It's nice to have that closeness, even when it's just over the Internet. I also want to take a moment to comment on OtakuBoards. Although I hadn't really announced any kind of official date for the next update, I was planning to have everything completed within March. Of course, it's now early April and we haven't launched anything new. This is really all due to me. Apart from other more regular online work (things like N-Sider and other aspects of this network, including myOtaku), I've also had an increasing amount of freelance work to take care of lately. And as some of you know, I have been working away on my own portfolio site - it's very important that I get that online as soon as possible. This has, unfortunately, resulted in less time for OtakuBoards. But do not worry; OB is still my baby. Part of the reason that I haven't really put it on the top of the priority list is because I feel that there's nothing urgent about the update. OtakuBoards is not facing a dire situation by any measure. Things are going well, I'm happy enough with the way things are being managed and I feel very secure with Dagger as our Administrator. And in terms of general forum structure, I'm quite satisfied with OtakuBoards as it is. So I haven't really had a burning desire to jump in and retool everything so quickly. Of course, the new update is still coming and I'm sure you will enjoy what it offers. But I am not going to offer any launch date, because things are very unpredictable right now. In addition, I have been thinking about the site's longer-term future. At the present time, we are in the process of changing this entire network. That change is all about our demographics - in other words, the people who visit the network. We are making changes that are based on attracting an older audience in general; increasing the general age of visitors. Right now, I am told that about 20% of the network's visitors are 18 and over. Obviously, it'd be nice if it were 80/20 rather than 20/80. There are a number of reasons for this, but it's largely about finding ways to appeal to different kinds of people and to grow the network further. Why do I mention this? Well, even OtakuBoards can play a role with that. OtakuBoards is kind of the black sheep of this network I think. By virtue of its much more strict quality rules, it tends to exclude the vast majority of people who visit myOtaku. As a result, it's more of a niche corner of the network. I have no problem with that (if I did, I would change the site accordingly). However, I do think that OtakuBoards can change in certain ways, to reflect the direction of the network. Part of this involves age restrictions. As you know, in order to register at myOtaku, you need to certify that you are at least 13 years old. At OtakuBoards, we do not use this system. You may still register regardless of age. However, I think this will change when our new update goes online - or even sooner. I would like to deny registration to those under 13, for various reasons. One is a simple question of quality. But another relates to the general change we've been seeing at OtakuBoards over the last year or more. If you look at what people are posting over there, I think you'll find that the content strongly differs from most of the stuff you see on myOtaku. I'm talking about both the quality of the discussions and the actual subjects involved. This isn't to say that I want to suddenly make OB an adult-only site overnight. No matter what we do, I think it's important for OtakuBoards to be family-friendly. That is to say, we will never loosen our restrictions in certain areas - we will continue to provide a language filter and we'll continue bar things like hentai and discussions relating to software piracy and so on. In other words, it'll still be a safe environment where people will be assured of quality. I think it is also important to consider how OtakuBoards can continue to be fresh and interesting in the future. While I am satisfied with the conventions we've established on V7 (ie: the way posts work in Anime Lounge and Play It), I do think that there are more things we can explore. This includes new forums for subjects that we do not currently cover, but it also includes other ideas for expansion - some of which I've mentioned before. The truth is though, I find myself at a loss with some of these things. In many ways, OtakuBoards has reached a certain point where I am pretty happy with it. Aside from the obvious surface things (new skins, some added features, fixes to some problems), I tend to feel that the fundamentals really hit the spot. It's kind of like "once you reach your goal, where do you go from there?" I suppose I could try to take OB in some crazy new directions...who knows. I'm sure part of my inspiration will come from what we do on the rest of the network in the future. Or maybe some of you have bold thoughts about where OB should go next. I'd definitely be interested to hear your thoughts.

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Sunday, March 27, 2005

The morning comes...

...and the snow is falling

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Saturday, March 19, 2005

Select my mode.

I had a bit of a creative breakthrough on my new portfolio site today. Hopefully I will be able to get the URL that I am wanting - it'll replace Killing-Bill.com (if I ever do K-B, it'll simply be hosted under that new URL). It will be nice to finally have an online home that is just for me; a place where I can keep a record of my various work. I won't be putting a blog there or anything (I will remain here at myOtaku always, especially with the new stuff we have planned for the site), but at the very least, it'll hopefully be a cool place to visit to see all of my stuff in one location. The big problem is going to be actually going through everything and tying it all together. Unfortunately some of my published work online no longer exists, because sites have closed down or changed hands or whatever. But I'll salvage what I can. So little time, so many tasks. It's amazing how fast the end of the month is creeping up. And on top of everything, I suddenly get invited to a million social events. Fun. Mostly. ~_^ Anyway, I'm out. My top hat is always full of candy; if you ever see it sitting beside me, feel free to dip your hand in. I promise that you won't regret it.

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Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Too dumb to run, too dead to die.

What a day. It went from being upsetting and disturbing (for no real reason whatsoever) to being...well, relieving. I was having a bit of a crisis, if you could call it that. Nothing to do with anyone else, just my own weird mind playing tricks on me (insecurities in relationships? Check). Thankfully Josh/Shy was online and we discussed it. And that helped a lot. I feel so much better thanks to that discussion. I can't tell you how comforting it is to be able to talk to someone who is not only a friend, but who can identify with what you're saying. I suppose that lately, though, insecurities have been getting the best of many of us. At least, this is true based on what I've been reading around myOtaku. Oddly, though, people who are insecure in this way are often my favourite people. Isn't it strange that some of the best people you know are also people who often lack self confidence? I mean, it's so true that people often don't see in themselves what you may see in them. I know this is true for me, anyway. People can tell me positive things (and to be fair, my friends both offline and online are very generous in this regard), and even in my own mind, I can be totally logical. But despite all of that positive reinforcement, I find it very easy to let totally emotional and irrational thoughts enter my mind. I can look at these things intellectually and work out where they came from (either failed relationships, or an abusive parent). But despite all the logic - despite being able to tell myself that nothing is as bad as my mind makes it out to be - I still somehow manage to feel incredibly anxious and upset about things at times. I would go into more detail, but...I suppose this is just what was on my mind right now. And I don't want to wallow in it any further. I mostly just want to thank Josh/Shy for being there to hear what I had to say and for helping me to sort things out. And by that same token, I should thank all of those who have been there for me in one way or another -- there are many of you and some may not even know how much they've supported me in general. Oddly enough, despite today's feelings, I've been feeling very driven as well. As in, er...creatively wrestless. Make sense? I just wish I had more time to do things outside this network. Not to say that I don't like doing what I do here; I love it. It's a major hobby for me and I love all the people I work with. But I am really hungry for something new, to the point where I almost don't care what it is. It would be great to make some of my older ideas a reality, but it would also be great to do something totally unexpected. Of course, there will be an element of surprise in what I'm doing now anyway. The two big things on the horizon are new stuff relating to this network (including OB) and a new N-Sider site. Both of those things will take up 90% of my online time, with the other 10% being taken up by a new freelance project that I'm working on. I am thinking that perhaps I can take out some of my frustrations on OB. By that I mean...give OB a splash of paint that is quite different to anything that has come before. Yes, it'll still have new graphics that will be palatable for most people. But I'd also like to do something that will cater to the older audiences and those who might be interested in something a little darker. But we'll see. As always, it takes time to actually engineer these things and bring them from your brain to the site. On another note, I am working on a new logo and stationery for my father's new company. It is simultaneously exciting and highly frustrating. After hours and hours of work, I'm still not entirely happy with everything. Anyway, I'll stop complaining. God knows this must be a chore for you to read, but at least it's semi-theraputic for me to write.

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Sunday, March 13, 2005

OtakuBoards Wish List

I really didn't know what to write on myO, but then an idea struck me. Someone was asking about OtakuBoards and that led me to thinking about some of the ideas I've had for the site over the last few months and years; ideas that are pretty much impossible to implement or that haven't really been on the agenda for one reason or another. So I thought I'd take an opportunity to talk about some of these ideas - stuff that isn't being actively planned but that I would love to do, if I could wave a magic wand and do anything within reason. One of the things that I like about OtakuBoards is that it's sort of become a niche community within this network. It's not the "nicheness" that I like so much as the fact that we've somehow managed to mould a very high-quality message board, within a broader community that is generally populated by fairly young people. myOtaku.com absolutely dwarfs OtakuBoards, but at the same time it doesn't contain the kind of quality requirements. So I really view the two as complementing each other. If this network were a neighbourhood, OtakuBoards would be the Town Center -- a place where people get together and have fun in a variety of ways. myOtaku would be the outer suburbs, where each person owns their own plot of land, where they can build whatever house they like. Their house can be all pink and have a pretty garden, or it can be brown and purple and have a messy garden; the choice is up to the occupant. Within reason, people can create their own personal home that is unique. But within OtakuBoards, they're having a shared experience that is all about communication and creativity. One of the cool things about OtakuBoards - and something I have actively been trying to foster - is that it isn't like many traditional message boards. Just look at our RPGs. I can't think of another location on the Internet where RPGs are as unique and finely-tuned. Look at our Anthology forum and the trends therein. You can jump from an RPG to a community-wide event, revolving around awards or art competitions. A message board is really a basic idea if you think about it. On its most basic level, it's all about entering messages and reading conversations. But I like to think that OtakuBoards has transcended that basic concept for the most part. Whether it's an RPG, an event, or something like 55 Fiction, there are quite a few different ways of interpreting this most basic aspect of a message board. Our updated Version 7 will continue to push OtakuBoards, in terms of incorporating elements that go beyond the simple concept of typing messages. But how far can that go? What other things can we do? I am never short on ideas. You may have seen an art thread (I think Lady Asphyxia posted it), which included a Flash-based tool that allows you to paint a picture with your mouse. The cool thing is that this tool tracks your movements and it records all of your mouse-movements. So it can play back the entire painting process and others can watch exactly how you did it. The latest version of MSN includes something similar, where you can paint images and text inside the actual chat window. This is something I would like to do on OtakuBoards. It would be cool if you could bring up a panel, where you could draw a picture or a message by hand and then immediately insert it into the post. Unfortunately, drawing with a mouse isn't the most intuitive thing in the world, but I think it would be a fun complement to what we have now. One of the biggest features that I want to implement on OtakuBoards in the future (if technology and cost is ever in our favour with such a thing), is OB Radio. If you are aware of current Internet broadcasting, you know that generally speaking, it's a one-way affair. Radio.Blog and other services allow you to basically stream your music and sound to visitors in an easy manner. They can change tracks and so on. However, I would like to set up a true radio broadcast service at OtakuBoards. By that I mean, a real-time, dynamic system whereby two or more members can hold a conversation that other members can tune in to. Of course, it wouldn't be open to everyone; that would be a bit difficult. We'd have people hijacking it and probably making bad use of it. But what if we had actual radio shows? For instance, what if Panda had her own show, to provide us with live anime news? What if Dagger provided impressions of upcoming anime that people could listen to while they post or draw artwork? But that's only the start of it. What if we had debate programs, or programs where multiple people discuss a topic (ie: anime becoming mainstream, or fansubbing, etc). That could be interesting. You can keep going with the concept. What if OB Radio linked to community events? Maybe we could have an amateur singing contest, or a "who would be the best anime voice over" contest. The possibilities are endless. Such a system would require so many things. Apart from all of the server-side elements (and the ability for both staff and guests to physically participate), we'd need to significantly alter OtakuBoards itself -- perhaps by providing a special pop-up window with data and options for listeners. Another thought I've had, which I actually discussed with Justin recently, was the concept of Otaku IM. Or, Otaku Instant Messenger. The exciting thing about this is that it's actually possible for Justin and I to make. Don't take that as an announcement though; most likely, we might just experiment with it if we get the time. If something cool comes out of that experimentation, it may get used. Who knows. But the idea itself is an interesting one. And there are a variety of ways to exploit such a system. For example, it may not be like a traditional instant messenger, such as AIM or MSN. It might be a bit more like ICQ. In its default mode, ICQ doesn't use a two-panel chat window. Instead, it's a little more like SMS/text messaging via your mobile phone -- you type a message out (with a character limit) and send it, where it is immediately received by the other user. So you have the same kind of back-and-forth communication as AIM/MSN users, but with a slightly different visual format. Such a system on OB would be interesting, I think. It would be particularly interesting if your myO/OB account directly linked to your Otaku IM service. The system could be directly attached to OtakuBoards, or it could sit on your desktop and you could use it while away from OB. Perhaps it could even be used on a cell phone. At the same time, developing a totally stand-alone instant messenger would be a unique challenge. I don't know about you, but for me, there isn't a perfect IM system out there. AIM is nice on a base functional level, but it looks awful, has a lot of totally unnecessary features and has highly obnoxious ads. MSN is nice, but lacks some of the ease of AIM. And it's not customizable enough (as with AIM too). It would be great to develop an IM service as someone who really has a lot of problems with current IM software. An Otaku IM could be stylish, extremely customisable, functional and devoid of ads altogether. Some of that relates directly to OB, some of it doesn't. But it's just another way that we could expand the reach and communication aspects of theOtaku.com's network. To go back to OtakuBoards specifically, there is one big feature that some of you have already seen at other places. And it's something that we are going to introduce with our next version update. It also happens to be one of my favourite message board inventions ever. We are simply calling our version "OB Arcade". OB Arcade blends some of these philosophies together (some of the things I've been talking about in this post). It does not involve typing messages, but it does involve a type of interactivity that complements what we have now. The cool part about OB Arcade is that you will be able to challenge other members to turn-based battles, in a broad variety of games, from different genres. So you won't just be playing for a high score as such - you'll also be tallying up a win/loss record in different games. Of course, being a potential challenger will be entirely optional; you won't receive dozens of challenge requests if you don't want to use the feature. But for those who do, it will be another way to enjoy OtakuBoards. We are also talking about incorporating arcade results into myOtaku, so that your win/loss record and your other game data can be stored on a special page at your myOtaku site. Right now this is possible, but it may be reserved for Premium members (when that service launches in the future - and believe me, it'll be the biggest thing we've ever done before...but that's another post). This only scratches the surface though. In reality, there are so many other ideas for OtakuBoards. For instance, it would be cool to introduce mouse gestures to OB in the future, provided that we have the right software (ie: something totally different to traditional message board software). All-in-all, you can bet that we'll be taking the technology we have and pushing it as far as we can. We have already done a great deal with the very basic idea of typing messages, so I think we can do some interesting things with Flash-based games and other technologies. Version 7 itself may be a landmark for OtakuBoards, but I don't view it as the end of the site's journey. Not by a long shot.

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Friday, March 11, 2005

And then, he makes fun of the way I talk! Probably!

Oh man, I love that line from the Simpsons episode involving Bush 41. Pure gold. ~_^ The last week has been...strange. Maybe it shouldn't seem odd for me to say that. Somehow all of my weeks end up strange in one way or another. Depending on what happens, I may or may not reflect on this in more detail in the future. There's a good dose of "fronting" for you. Or something. I have to say, I'm impressed with today's announcements from Nintendo at GDC. If you have been following Nintendo for the last few years, none of this will really come as a surprise. Iwata is just continuing to show his overall coolness/boldness. Perhaps the best thing about today's announcement is that it signals a coming period where Nintendo isn't worried about getting bloody fists. Where it awkwardly tried to mesh a traditional and non-traditional business model with GameCube (ie: pre-Iwata's presidency), it is now taking the gloves off and clocking Sony right in the jaw. It's nice to see that, if only because it means Nintendo will leap out of the gates and pull no punches. If anything, it should also hopefully mean that Revolution can really expand the market for new players; something the market desperately needs. All of this coincides with the latest projections about the next generation, in terms of costs and so on. It looks like big-budget games (that cost around $20 million to produce) will need to sell at least 600,000 units on console to break even. It's going to be insane. It'll further the whole "highly successful or nothing" reality. So of course, we're starting to hit that ceiling now. I think the industry is in a state of change at the moment and the coming generation will be the first real indication of where the chips will land. Very interesting time to be a gamer. ^_^

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