BadMoPho

Recently, we at AFK received a mass-email from Amazon asking us to sign an NDA so we could be brought into the loop.  We filled it out and are awaiting the incredible inside opportunity.  If moves like this don’t spell land grab, I don’t know what else would. That started me thinking a little bit more about Amazon and their place in the video gaming universe.  It didn’t take long for me to come to the conclusion that, well, Amazon wants to rule the gaming universe.  And guess what? They will.  Maybe sooner than anyone expected. In addition, they actually told me so a few weeks back when I spoke to two of many Amazonians charged with rebuilding their games business into the industry Gigantor.  Read More

In the mid-19th century, hundreds of thousands of people from around the world traveled great distances and endured unimaginable hardships to get to California and Alaska after hearing about “gold nuggets lying around on the ground for the taking.” Last week, while browsing Barnes & Noble, (the actual store, not the website….that’s right, no Nook) I saw a book entitled “Make Millions Developing iPhone Apps!” Subtitles told me that “very little cost and no programming skills or technical experience” were required for me to embark on this sure path to app wealth. Is developing apps the latest version of the Gold Rush? As I recall from elementary school history, when the world’s masses flooded to Sutter’s Mill and the Klondike, very few ever actually found Read More

Last week a friend and well-respected recruiter in the gaming industry asked me to send over an updated resume for his files. Immediately I received a reply which counseled me that, if I’m ever back out into the job market, I’d need to remove the mention of “mobile” from my CV and find suitable replacement terminology. “Use terms like ‘apps’, ‘casual games’ ‘DLC’ and ‘social’ wherever possible,” he recommended. Having been a fixture in the mobile games space since the late ’90s, that would present a problem, and I felt relieved that I wasn’t currently seeking employment.  I still make my living in mobile gaming and, while I understand why there might be some mild aversion to the term “mobile,” particularly outside pure mobile-centric gaming companies, Read More

“My life is an MMO!” That’s the answer I got from a twenty-something employee of mine last week when I asked what the latest online game he was playing was. Feeling like he was about to go all William Gibson on me, I instantly turned to go, but he would have none of it. “It’s like, way back in the day, 2008 or so, I would get up in the morning, log a few hours of World of Warcraft or Eve or something, head off to work, grab a few more hours during my “lunch hour” (he actually did finger quotes and I tried to remember if he had started working for me by then), and really get in some serious grindage around eight at Read More