Tuesday 28 June 2011

And after getting excited about playing music again, this happens...

And after getting excited about playing music again, this happens...

A note on the turntable.fm website:
We're very sorry, but while we would love to let you in and rock out with us, we need to currently restrict turntable access to only the United States due to licensing constraints.

We are working very hard to try and get you in as soon as possible.

If you believe this is a mistake and you are located in the United States, please e-mail help [at sign] turntable dot fm

Again, sorry, and we hope to see you soon.

Billy Chasen
CEO
Fuck you music industry. Fuck you with a pole, sideways.

I was exposing this great music to people who can't even buy it on CD or on itunes because you're too fucking ignorant and scared to promote outside of Australia!

Monday 27 June 2011

7 Years of LA Noire development hell

IGN have a great and disturbing article about Team Bondi's LA Noire 7 year development cycle.

It features responses by Brendan McNamara, who is the typical egotistical management type.

I'm sick of dealing with management fucktards like McNamara. I’m butting against it daily at the moment and I’m sick of it. There may be a bit of projection onto McNamara in this rant, but he’s not the only person who acts like he does in this industry… ;)

But if you ask me, “whatever it takes” means getting rid of egotistical arsehole pricks like him out of the games industry.

However you cut it, running your staff into the ground is NOT a good management plan, nor is it good for maintaining an industry.

I don't buy into the argument that it's due to the competitive nature of game development. I know people in the finance and defence software creating business - software which is worth billions of dollars and far more important than games ever could hope to be - and they positively baulked when I told them the crap hours for the crap pay we put up with.

How is this environment good for a competitive and sustainable industry? You can't develop and nurture creative skills in this kind of environment! How are you meant to have people who are strong leads if you burn everyone out and they leave after a year or two? People will leave for other studios overseas, where at least pay if not conditions are proven to be better. However, more often people leave the industry altogether, choosing to go into fields which pay better and are not as demanding on their time and sanity as games. All that talent, skill and knowledge has left the industry. Is it any wonder every bloody game is almost exactly the same now days?

And where is the industry left after this scenario, repeated time and time again? After the closure of studios and mass exodus due to McNamara and others “management skills”, a lot of casual / indie developers have popped up as a result, and yes, a few are making some great games, but is this really a sustainable industry? Will these startups be around in a year or two? Will they be around after Facebook dies (and it will die just like AOL and all those others died) and iPhone development costs increase with the continual revisions to the devices hardware?

I have a very strong suspicion these studios will vanish when the cashcow of iOS and Facebook games comes back to reality, and we'll lose even more talented people.

And lastly, this is directly to McNamara and anyone else who thinks the same way: it is not your game, you egotistical fuckstick; It’s every single person on that teams’ game! It belongs to everyone who works on it. And I don’t give a fuck who you are - Brendan McNamara, Sam Houser, Cliff Bleszinski, or Jesus Fucking Christ; if you’ve got a producer and leads, then help those people PRODUCE and LEAD - that's how a good producer/director should work.

Don’t give me this “I’m passionate about games” bullshit either – those people who are making $50,000 a year working 12 hour days plus weekends are passionate about games. Just because you’re on $200,000 jetsetting all over the world trying to get finance for the next game doesn’t make you any better, clever, or talented than the team you’re working with.

Tuesday 21 June 2011

Funky J back on the airwaves!


So, I have finally found a way to get back on the airwaves!

There's this great new streaming service called Turntable.fm.

You sign up using your facebook log in, and you can select any number of rooms generally split into genres.

For those DJs amongst us, you can create a list of tunes from their databank (or upload your own if they're not in there) and spin tracks alongside 4 other DJs, taking it in turns.

You have avatars which you can level up through playing music, and can become fans of other DJs, subscribe to email lists which tell you when your favourite DJs are playing, can use Twitter and Facebook to announce what and when you're playing, and can use text based chat to mention where bands are from, talk about gigs, talk about boobs, whatever.

I've been playing in the Hiphop Jazz Funk room, which introduced me to some damn good music, and I introduced some Americans to some fine Aussie hiphop via Hilltop Hoods, Delta, Funkwig & Denorthwode, Funkoars, Katalyst and others.

It's lots of fun, and if you like sharing your music then give it a try!

Saturday 18 June 2011

comments on violence makes me want to punch something!

This "psychologist" talking about violence after the Stanley Cup;
Quote:
[PEOPLE] spend countless hours exposed to incredible violence through TV, video games and movies. "I'm not surprised at all that the very same people who've grown up on a steady diet of observing and playing violence are then intrigued to watch it when they see it in person. ... There was a large number of people for whom this was a spectacle, an event to be observed and maybe laughed at and to participate in very, very minor ways in these activities," he said.
...
Their behaviour was "entirely consistent" with how they're expected to react to violence on TV or in video games, he said.
http://www.thenownews.com/technology/Stanley+riots+come+this/4962998/story.html

FOR FUCKS SAKE THEY WERE JUST WATCHING A GOD DAMN LIVE ICE HOCKEY MATCH AND HE BLAMES TV AND VIDEOGAMES!?!?!?

Seriously, people are going push their agendas despite all the overwhelming evidence against them, so what's the point in asking about anything, any more?

Every weekend, sports are played.

Every weekend, teams lose.

Every weekend, fights occur because of this. Often, these fights turn into riots.

And yet it's the first impulse of a psychologist when asked about how this can arise is to blame violent TV, movies and videogames?

Not the fact that people become so invested in that sport because they've got nothing else in their lives to be passionate about?

Not the fact that commercialism and competition have devolved so much that we can no longer enjoy a game of sport, but rather have to become so heavily invested in watching a team that we feel negatively when they lose - something we as fans and viewers have absolutely no control over - in other words the classic human dilemma of feeling hopeless in the face of an uncaring environment?

Friday 10 June 2011

Did Stephen Fry just out Little Big Planet 3 on twitter?

I love Stephen Fry, and follow him on Twitter, and he just mentioned this:


Off to do some voicing for Little Big Planet. Then lunch and QI. Only three more recordings and the 16 of Series 9 will be done.

Has he just outed Little Big Planet 3? Or is this for the PS Vita?

Either way, I'd LOVE to do a game with someone of Stephen's talent!

It's been a while...

So, after about a week and a half where every morning it would be a different song, it's been a while since I woke up with a song my head... well, at least one I hadn't listened to the previous day.

But this morning, woke up with this... Oh one two!


Breakadawn - De La Soul