And this pretty much explains it all...

Oh Midway...

For those of you without a business background, allow write out what I shall dub "the equation for a successful company."

Successful Company: Income - Costs > 0

The once proud Midway games apparently had an error in the equation and for a decade or so had accidentally replaced the ">" sign with a "<" sign...thus bankruptcy. As such, you can imagine the company-wide hilarity that ensues when someone discovers a stash of these:
That's right, ladies and gentlemen...Midway had apparently assigned the role of "profit manager" to an inanimate calculator. (Insert joke about how this would still be better than most account managers at major banking institutions in the US here).

"Fame" Inspires the team...

Game developers are an eclectic bunch, so finding something they all have in common can be a challenge. We did discover that there is one thing that binds everyone together and inspires our daily existence...the love of dance:

Jason explores his inner Robot, in an interpretive piece we call "Jason explores his inner Robot."

Skittles proves once again that being younger allows him to do things our bodies are no longer capable of doing. Also, Batman makes an appearance.

On the importance of sending good video...

Ahh the "video link thread." This is the bane of modern corporate existence. I get, joke-free, on the magnitude of 500 emails on a light day. The ability to sift through emails is one of those untaught corporate skills that, if never grasped, can sink a career. At a glance you need to know which emails are important, which can be ignored, which need to be dealt with immediately, and which can quietly go down the stack until other issues are dealt with. Which is why, faithful readers, I seriously hate youtube links. True, your mom might think a video of two newborn kittens is utterly precious, but as far as I'm concerned, you've just wasted four of my precious seconds while I read the body of your email and moved the message to the recycle bin.

Until, that is, I received an IM at home the other evening from my friend Casey, who I haven't spoken to in years. This IM, with no other text, contained nothing but a link to the video you are about to see. This video, with its deep subtext, short length and inspiring message truly made me a believer in the power of Youtube videos to unite us all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8SLTvA39xI

Speechless? I thought so.

Aside: Someone teach me how to embed a Youtube video like the cool kids do.

Coco - 30 years later...

Here's the deal...I have a huge following on this blog with the "tween" crowd, and when I said that I was excited to see the remake of Alan Parker's 1980 "Fame", they laughed and laughed. You see, to them, they think "Fame" was in the same vane as "Save the Last Dance" and the flood of other dance movies of the modern era. I'm here to tell you, kids, the original fame was raw. I mean raw. That film was a hardcore drama. Between the illiteracy, the homelessness, the difficulties of interracial relationships, coming to terms with homosexuality, the "Coco scene", the pregnancy and abortions...you name it...Fame had it. It was raw. But it was also a genuinely great film. The TV show and movie had a huge impact on all of us generation whatever-ers...so it was with reserved excitement that I went with my lady to see the remake.

If someone wanted a poster quote of this new movie from me, here's what I would give:

"Take everything that made Fame great, dilute with 99% water, release it as a film with the same name, and that is this movie!"

The "Coco" scene in the original Fame haunts me to this day. It is raw. I'll have a breakdown if I describe it...so suffice to say, Coco really, really wants to be famous. Coco's tears in that scene were dwarfed only by my tears watching that scene.

The modern version? Coco 2.0 walks into the "bad man's" trailer, and he is a little too aggressive trying to, literally, make out with her. When she resists, he lets her leave. My God that is powerful stuff! I'm sure had I stayed through the credits there would have been a scene where the "bad man" writes her a letter of apology and they become the best of friends. The original Coco is still crying...still waiting for her letter. It will never come.

In summation, the modern remake of the theme song is pretty sweet.

Zombieland - A Microreview

Some thoughts on Zombieland. Overall, it was a fun little flick, but I don't feel like being verbose this evening, so here's the bullets.

• There is someone in this movie who you don't know is in this movie, and if you did know that this person was in the movie, you would have seen it the first showing on opening night. I won't spoil it for you, but if you put this person in a movie with Burt Reynolds, you would seriously have the two greatest actors of this, or any, generation in the same movie. Quite frankly, the fact that this person is in this movie means I have to give it a perfect review score regardless of the content of the movie or the individual in questions performance. Seriously, see this movie to see this person.
• I don't know how many times I have to get into this debate, but zombies don't run. They don't. I know you kids with your fancy new "zombie movies" think that anything that eats human flesh and is dead counts as a zombie, but it doesn't, and the fact that you are arguing this with me is filling me with rage. Zombies lumber. In fact, as far as I or any other connoisseur of the genre is concerned, zombie films should have stopped with the original George Romero Dawn of the Dead. Now those were zombies that lumbered.
• I'm going to be serious for one paragraph. I feel that movie theaters should issue customers a stun gun when they buy their ticket, and we should be allowed to stun any patrons that piss us off during a movie. This stun gun should have only two charges to keep things from getting out of hand. I love film (not that movies are shown on film anymore) and I used to love going to the theater, but the collective mannerisms of society have depleted to the point that I feel I get a better experience watching a cam copy of a movie on a black and white 13 inch movie while a TNA wrestler kicks me repeatedly in the testicles. How are any of us supposed to actually like going to the movies when we are constantly bombarded with the jerkhats who actually take phone calls and then speak loudly in some Eastern European dialect, overweight women who laugh maniacally at inappropriate points, the general chatter of a hundred people who feel that dramatic scenes are boring and thus they should use that opportunity to talk to their loved ones, cell phones ringing, people checking there email on their iPhones...I take that back...we need more than two charges....

A note on applying to jobs in the video game industry...

Literally every day of my life I'm stopped in the street by some college kid looking for tips on how to "break in" to gaming. Usually, I just hand them the squeegee and spray bottle I carry with me and have them clean my car before I answer, but today is 10/02, so I'm going to share my wisdom of nuggets with you without requiring the manual labor.

A lot of resumes cross my desk and a lot of candidates come in for interviews...here's some good tips that will get you hired every time:

• Always apply for whatever position is available. Just graduated from school with an English degree? Go ahead and apply for that senior online programmer with 10 years of experience position.
  
• Always go ahead and let us know that what you really want to do is design games, regardless of whether or not we are hiring for a designer position. Designer jobs are easy to come by...every game company has openings for people who we want to pay huge salaries to sit around and think of a "cool idea" for a game. There is no shortage of skilled people to fill hard roles like programming and art...finding someone who can say "wouldn't it be cool to make a game like World of Warcraft" is virtually impossible.
• Always write your resume in a non-standard font. Please. If I don't have to go to Adobe.com and pay $40 to download your font I probably won't read your resume.
• Never dress appropriately for the interview. We're a bunch of game developers...we wear jeans and t-shirts all day long. The last thing I want to know is that you care so much about getting this job that you are willing to iron your one dress shirt to make a good impression. You are a special rock-star, better than our best, and you should let us know this by rolling out of bed in whatever you slept in the night before and stumbling into my office.
• Never let on that you actually want the job. Nothing will hurt your negotiating position more that letting us know that you actually want the job you are applying for. Please make sure you seem disinterested the entire interview. Don't make eye contact. Don't talk about games. Don't seem passionate.
• Always answer the question "what do you do for fun" by stating that you do whatever job you are applying for in your free time. So, if you are applying to a programming position, say that you only program in your free time. The last thing I'm looking for when I ask this question is any insight into what you might be like as a human being and what it might be like to...I don't know...spend 40+ hours a week in constant interaction with you.
  
• Whenever I ask the question "Do you have any questions", always respond with "no." I'm definitely looking for employees who aren't inquisitive about the position or the company.
• Always liberally insert anti-Semitic or anti-American comments throughout the day.
• Never show up on time. You don't want to appear needy. A good rule of thumb is that if you are scheduled for a 10:00am interview, don't show up until around lunchtime. REFUSE to address the fact that you are late.
• Whenever you are asked to solve a problem on the board, instead decide to draw a cute picture of your private parts or a graffiti tag with lots of "swears" in it. Also, please take a long time to actually draw the aforementioned item, because the last thing I want is to see that you are able to think quickly on your feet. After I ask the question, go to the restroom, read the paper, grab some coffee, and only then should you draw your "junk" on the white board.
• Always comment about how much the games we have made in the past "suck." Please point out your detailed knowledge of every glitch, bug or poor implementation of gameplay we've ever done. DEMAND that we fire everyone involved with the last title because they were clearly raised by illiterate, diseased primates.

Using these tips you should land your dream job in no time! Good luck and hope to see you soon.

Happy Jimday – 10/01/2009

October is upon us!


For those of you who are unaware, 10/01 is the historic holiday known as "JimDay." You see, there is a guy on our team who I'll call Jim, because his name is Jim. In honor of this (and the fact that Jim does awesome work), we have declared today to be Jimday and threw him a party to celebrate. No, it was not Jim's birthday, nor was there any special reason to hold JimDay today...other than the fact that it was October First, which totally made sense. Please, please, please write your Congressperson and ask, nay demand, that this be a federally recognized holiday.

First, as is traditional on "JimDay", here is the JimDay card:

JimDay Card


















Of course, people literally lined up to sign the card for this historic Jimday:

Feel the love! (Last name deleted)












Sure, a card is nice...but what about serious party decorations?

Amazing!















Let's look at the detail-work on the banner, shall we?
















Since you haven't written your state representative yet, we couldn't find any "Happy JimDay" banners at the store, and had to go with "Happy Birthday." Luckily, with our amazing programmer art skills, we managed to seamlessly cover this fact...

How about refreshments? It isn't JimDay without food is it? Of course not! We decided to go with an assortment of cheesecake, which as served on amazing zoopals plates. These plates are shaped like animal heads. This was paired with Zoopal animal-shaped utensils and Zoopal sippy cups. Please go buy a gross of Zoopal goods at your local store now, because now that I know they exist, the idea of a Zoopal-less world leaves me feeling empty inside.


JimDay Cake! Notice the "frog" Zoopal plate in the upper left hand corner.













In honor of JimDay, we presented Jim with crucial gift certificates redeemable from his co-workers to help him get through the day:


And finally, what you've all been waiting for...a blurry IPhone picture of a small sub-portion of the festivities!
















In summation, Jim is a guy, and therefore we had JimDay. Also, Cake.