The annual Games Developers Conference (GDC) in California gives me rather mixed feelings these days. Essentially it has become two entirely different events that occur at the same time.
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Featuring...
    Games are not intrinsically addictive. No matter how hard game-makers try to make them grabby, games don’t represent an addiction in and of themselves. If games were actually addictive as some claim, there’d never be any failed games. The whole nature of psychological addiction is commonly misunderstood.
I’ve become embroiled in events and the prognosis for the outcome looks singularly bleak. The game makes a point to remind me that I’m playing a game, but even so – whilst the locals task me with this errand or that, there’s a constant sense that I’m in over my head. While everyone seems to be keen on giving me instructions, I’m not at all certain what I’m supposed to be doing now, what I’m supposed to be doing next, or whether I’m doing the right thing. Really, quite a lot like life. Jump to the new comic, or new readers can click the banner to begin at the rather rough beginning:
Jump to the new comic, or new readers can click the banner to begin at the rather rough beginning:
The “Spirit” rover on Mars was designed to last just 90 days in some of the harshest conditions we’ve ever dumped equipment into. After 2,213 days Spirit has finally had to be declared as a stationary research station, and is expected to maybe last a few more months until the accretion of sand prevents it getting power from its solar panels. If you ask someone if something can or can’t be considered ‘mainstream’, the usual response involves numbers. User numbers, audience numbers, profits. Stuff like that. The thing is that the idea that large audiences = mainstream is essentially fallacious. You tend to get much larger audiences for mainstream things, but not always. Something that is mainstream can have very small numbers indeed. Then we say it has ‘niche appeal’. Quite a lot of things we think of as mainstream fall into that category. Dear Steam team and folks at Valve Software generally, Firstly, thanks for all the nifty sales over the holiday season. That was really quite nifty, even though there were obviously some problems arising from the large number of units sold. There’s one special present that you could give us all, however, even though it seems like a very, very, very minor thing. 
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