Unfettered Blather

On May 31st, 2009, I will be pulling the plug on Unfettered Blather. This is not a decision I entered into lightly. In its heyday, this site used to draw over 500 unique visitors a day. I have been linked on Instapundit and was linked once by Major Nelson. I’ve never had the most popular or renowned website, but for a brief period it was doing exactly what I wanted it to do. The purpose of this site was always a means to foster discussion. Unlike a forum, by posting topics of interest to me I was able to be exposed to instant differences of opinion, and sometimes validation of my beliefs. I primarily talked about videogaming here, which is my primary hobby. I love discussing games. As a software professional with a decade of experience, videogaming is interesting to me from the perspective of both design and business, and I was always interested in talking about either aspect. I’d much rather discuss the storytelling approach of Fable II or the design decisions that went into it then discuss whether or not the game was “good”. Sure, I’ve had some discussions on what is “fun”, but sometimes a game can be very good and still not bring much joy with it.

Without too much effort, this site easily draws 200 unique visitors a day, which is enough to get the occassional comment and rare real discussion going. I seem to bring in an inordinate amount of spammers as well. A lot of bloggers scratch their heads over how to increase traffic, but it’s really not that hard, it is a lot of work. To me, an audience was important because this was a place to interact, sometimes be told outright that I’m wrong. I was sanguine with differing opinions. I’m willing to have my mind changed. However, getting that audience and maintaining it? I just can’t do it right now. Without that interaction, this place is just a digital soapbox for me, and I lack the sense of self importance to post routine rants about how wise I am and how messed up the world is. Let me break it down like this.

Games or blogging?
If I mostly talk about gaming, what good does it do for me to blog instead of play games? I’ve been in this situation before and it led to a year long hiatus. You can’t write about what you love and not do what you love anymore. Between the longer hours at work and studying for my certification I know I’m going to be looking at a choice once more. I play games to relieve stress. I write to clear up the clutter in my brain. I have other means to accomplish both, but I’d rather spend the time playing games then writing about games. I could write here and there, but that’s only going to drive my numbers down and turn this place into yet another digital soapbox, another voice adding to the cacophony. No thanks.

I need to focus on my career.
I spent most of my time at my previous employer leading software development teams. Not as a manager per se, but usually the guy right below. I loved this role and it helped me decide how I wanted to proceed. I knew I would end up in management some day, but I got there about five years earlier than planned. Now that I’m here and the economy sucks eggs, I really have no choice but to plow forward. I need to focus on getting my Project Management Professional certification and maybe after that I might try to learn more about .NET so I can share more common ground with the team I lead.

People are more important.
While I want to focus on my career and enjoy my hobby, the other distraction is my team. I made a commitment when I became the manager of this team that I would set and example, be honest about ways I could improve myself, and look for ways to grow them in their jobs and careers. I care about these people. They are not my friends, but I don’t think of them as employees. They are my teammates, the people who I rely on everyday. I owe them my best. Focusing on blog articles, formulating ideas, trying to schedule with Buddy, these are all activities that take my focus away from people who rely on me to lead them and stand up for them. We had a layoff this month and I take it personally that some members of my team lost their jobs. Did I really do my job to the best of my ability? Was there anything I could do to make our business better? I don’t know that there was anything I could have done to prevent what happened, but I do know that I have an obligation to make sure my team is always doing there best, because their jobs depend on it.

Family is the most important
I’ve routinely put my family before blogging, this was never a choice. Certainly they are not causing me to give this up now. However, I won’t lie and say that they are not yet another reason I need to give up this site. All told, not counting domain registration costs, this website costs about $14 a month. Pocket change compared to my gaming budget. Still, with the economy being what it is, every expense we don’t need is simply a drain. I want to be out of debt this year, I don’t know if that will happen. At best we’ll be done by November, at worst we’ll be done by February. Once we’re clear, I will have an extra $800 a month to fall back on. That is a huge chunk of change to me. I need to get this financial pressure off my family. It’s not good for my wife because she stresses. I’ve been out of work before and with the recent layoffs at my company it makes her more nervous. Mentally, I need to focus some of my energies on the house in addition to my career and my team. I haven’t been writing as much because I simply lack the concentration.

All that said, I am not turning the website over to Buddy Pine. While Buddy is a good friend, his business is booming and he has about as much time as I do. We talked at length about this last week and both agreed that neither one of us can continue the site.

I’d still like to write about games, but I can’t do it as a one man show. I’d consider a writing gig on the side, guest blogger, volunteer work, whatever. I just can’t do it five times or even three times a week anymore.

I loved running this website, I loved writing, and I loved it when a real discussion cropped up. I’ll miss doing this. I won’t promise that this is my last post on the site, I’ll see if any follow-up is needed. However, if this is not the last word here, it will be even lighter than normal until May 31st finally arrives.

Related hilarity here

There have always been complaints about Microsoft Points and how Microsoft refuses to do anything in actual dollars. Part of the problem is the wonky conversion. In the United States, 400 MS Points is equal to $5 but the smallest unit you can buy is 500, which comes out to $6.25. This causes no end of complaints, especially when Wii Points are essentially 100 per $1. However, I find Microsoft Points to be entirely consistent with how Microsoft does business and especially how it treats its customers.

So how do you win this “game”?

There really are only two options.

1. Refuse to play
2. Don’t worry about it.

Any other solution causes heartache and grief over a business practice that is unlikely to change this hardware generation. The simple fact is that the way MS points work the most you’re likely to be out is a couple of cents, maybe a buck at the most. In the meantime, all the ranting, raving, and obsessing doesn’t do anything but create unnecessary stress.

I don’t worry about it because points don’t expire. If I don’t have enough I don’t worry about the fact that I will have to purchase more than I need. The unused points will just go to a future purchase. I’ve carried a balance as low as 30 points, which is essentially worthless. Those 30 points are worth less than half a dollar, though I can still use them in conjunction with a future points purchase.

At best, Microsoft may end up profitting a few cents that I’ll never spend. I’m able to afford a 360, a subscription to X-Box Live, and have enough disposable income to actually buy things off the service. I think I can afford to lose a few random cents over the next few years.

I made a prediction back in December that PC gaming as we know it would end. The new OnLive service seems to support my vision of the future.

What I haven’t seen yet is the real potential of a service like OnLive, but when people talk about “A new way to play games on the PC” they’re thinking too small. If all the heavy lifting is done on a server somewhere, why would this be limited to a PC?

Let’s get a few things out of the way, I’m well aware of the technical limitations right now. At some point in the future someone is going to figure this out and make it work. Maybe it won’t be OnLive, but this is a direction the industry has been looking at for awhile. OnLive is possibly just the first to really make a go. We already have browser gaming thanks to GameTap, so the ability to deliver content through a browser is possible and happens already. What OnLive introduces is more reliance on the server side and a true thin client. Honestly, lots of non-gaming applications already do this. The question now is “when” not “if” they can get it to work.

When OnLive, or whatever, finally becomes available there is nothing that says you will actually need a PC to make it work. They might be saying it now, but all you really need is enough processor to handle the content and rendering graphics. A console with the ability to interact with OnLive could do this, a blackberry hooked up to a monitor and keyboard like I suggested in my original article could do it if it had the rendering capabilities, older PC’s in need of an upgrade suddenly become viable. The possibilities are endless.

Not only that, but it’s not really a bold and daring idea. On demand content is already becoming commonplace with movies. This fits the general public’s expectations just fine. The only thing holding all this back is that the infrastructure may just not be ready to handle this kind of service on a massive scale.

I have been sick for most of the week. Finally, Wednesday, I came home from work after I decided I couldn’t take it anymore. I was out all day yesterday. I subsisted on a steady diet of MS Saga and the newly released Fallout 3 expansion, The Pitt.

My wife commented, as she always does, that I should be in bed. Frankly, if I’m not well enough to go into the office then I feel I should at least enjoy my time knowing that work is stacking up in my absence. A few checks of my work e-mail today confirmed just that.

The other nice thing about playing videogames all day while I’m sick is that it is an affirmation that my hobby has limits. I definitely do not see myself being able to do this all the time every day. As much as I love my games, doing nothing but gets old after awhile.

One of my long standing frustrations in games are when I feel like my input into a game is minimized to the point of uselessness. When I say input I don’t mean I expect the developers to listen to my ideas, but input as in I am using a mouse/keyboard/controller/whatever and what I am attempting to do is not translated into the game.

I recently picked up BAJA: Edge of Control because it looked like an interesting game. I’ve never gotten that much into rally racing games because so few have been done well. Off-road racing simulators can be a lot of fun when done right, and the differences between driving on asphalt and driving on, well, anything else, make rally racers feel like an entirely different genre where you happen to also drive vehicles with wheels very fast and try to cross a finish line first. Everything else is different.

Understanding this difference, I expect vehicles to handle differently than they might in other racers. What I do not appreciate is to suddenly find myself veering to the right for no good reason or flying sideways off the track. I mean, literally, flying. I wish I had a video but the manuever shouldn’t even be possible and I notice that none of my AI opponents seem to have a similar handicap. Then again, I also noticed that not only do I always start in last place but I’m easily three car lengths behind the rest of the pack at the starting line. Why? Is the AI so weak that I will just skunk it if I could actually get the vehicle to do what I want? I wouldn’t mind skidding out of control so much if was because I went too fast into a turn on mud or hit some ruts while going full out. It is frustrating to have slowed down to almost a stop, compensated, and still get pulled in a different direction. I feel as though the game doesn’t even care what I am trying to do.

I know it’s not a racing game, but I can’t help but compare it to Street Fighter IV. While I acknowledge that Street Fighter IV is largely successful for going back to its roots, one thing they really translated well from the old Street Fighter II are the controls. If I attempt a fireball and screw-up I always feel like it is my fault. Hard kick, flip, jump, everything happens exactly like I want and the game does it right away. If I goof up a move, and I do it often, I know it was me.

If the whole point of a game is to provide an interactive experience, then the most frustrating thing that can happen is that a player will feel as though they do not have control. Too many games already take control away from the player for extended cutscenes or quick-time events. Not even giving them control where they are supposed to be in control of the action is slovenly design.