Crap is Crap

I've got so much crap to do. I have clean the house, do the laundry and the dishes. I have to pay bills and go to the bank. Not to mention -

I'm working on a board game, a video poker design and I'm 50k words into a pulp novel. NONE of it is getting done. I'm just sitting here complaining on my blog about my miserable life that ain't so shitty - but I like to complain anyway.

Maybe, I should stop now and continue on my book? Yea, I should stop now and continue on my book. I should ... should .. screw it, where the Stumble button?

Old Gamers Never Die

I'm an old gamer. So old in fact, I was there at the very start of video and computer games. I played Pong and Space Wars in the pinball arcades. I owned an Apple IIe, an Atari 2600, and even a cherry red Famicom.

It's kind of sad that the history of video game development in Las Vegas has mostly been forgotten. Hardly anyone now-a-days realizes that at least two major video game genres originated in Las Vegas. The inklings of modern day FPS (First Person Shooters) and RTS (Real-Time Strategies) were developed in Las Vegas and I make the argument that flight simulators got their start here with an old PC game called DragonStrike.

Back in the early 80's there were three high schools in Las Vegas that had advanced computer programming and math labs: Bonanza, Clark and Western. It started around 1980 before there were any PC's in schools. I call it the "Univac Wars". Students from each high school spent hours trying to hack into the school district's Univac system and take down the other school's access. A few student were also creating ascii-text games on the system.

There was no real sense of security back then. You have to remember enthusiasm for computers in the 80's was about the same as it is now for say, ham radios. No one cared .. and unlike today, the math teachers who ran the labs had almost free rein to do whatever they wanted. It was beautiful.

Mr. V who ran Bonanza's computer lab and taught calculus was a disgruntled Vietnam vet. He basically let us do whatever we wanted, unless it was illegal with the computers. Mr. V even had his own school club. The club met once a year for the school picture and everyone was vice president unless they didn't want to be. It was called the Bonanza Sophistic and Rhetoric Society - The BSeRS. The BSeRS even had a Homecoming float. It was an green painted plank with brown balloons stacked in a pile with a student wearing bull horns sitting on top of the balloons.

If you're wondering where all the creativity and engineering talent has gone, then look no further than the security and procedural mandates of schools. When a kid can get expelled for installing a second OS - Linux or detention for downloading Firefox onto a school computer, you know the days of innovation are over.

In 1982, Bonanza got it's first Apple II and it had one program on it called Lemonade Stand. It wasn't long before all of the dudes had the latest in Apple games like: Wolfenstien, Apple Maniacs and Choplifter. There was also a huge desire to program your own game and out do each other in game play and sophistication.

These programmers and math geeks from these three high schools eventually combined together to form Westwood Associates.

More on Westwood in the next post.

Interesting look at the history of games
Play some of those classic games - The Vault

And this is the way it is ...

After working as a designer for a slot machine company I realized that humans are nothing more than really mischievous - sometimes dangerous monkeys. I think that's why elephants hate us - but that's another post.

Angry Monkey from Family Guy

One of the dirty little secrets of the slot machine industry is we strip away the most talented mathematicians from universities. Okay, investment banking gets first dibs - they pay the most, but after that, casinos can offer so much more money, benefits and "cool factor" than the university system. It's sad and tragic.

Seriously, do you know what a person with a Masters degree in mathematics gets at any large university? How about 30k a year and class full of noisy freshmen who hate math. If you're lucky, you get to tutor some basketball or football players in how fractions work.

But in the casino industry, a game designer gets their own office - okay probably a large cubicle, whatever computer equipment they want, travel all around the world, triple the university salary and best of all, respect. I mean respect for abilities, talents, and education. Las Vegas appreciates math and they don't care about color or gender. Game mathematicians eat at the finest restaurants and stay at the lavish resorts. You are a combinatorial superstar.

Just a tip to any Native American who might read this post - stop what you're doing and go get your degree in mathematics - especially if you're a woman. The industry will literally throw money at you. Please send me an e-mail and I'll tell you exactly what to say when you walk into a gaming company.

How did I get off on that tangent? This is how my mind works these days. --> where was I?

Even the most talented mathematician (remember we hired the very best) has to admit they're not above being entranced by shinny objects. You come to a third-person understanding of how your brain works. The rational part, recognizes and even embraces the emotional, primitive side. That's why so many game designers play slot machines.

They don't think they're going to win - they like how it feels. I guess it's the same reason medical doctors drink and smoke. It's this kind of duality thing. Enlightenment must be the acceptance of the ridiculous irony in using a meat-filled, chemical squirting machine to reason.

I remember being in Sydney, Australia at the Balmain Tiger's RSL (a little casino dedicated to a rugby team) with a truck load of mathematicians and we're all gambling like mad. A bunch of us were "team playing" - which means - everyone pools their money into a giant fund and then you play high denomination ($5 a pull) slot machines.

Everyone knew the odds - intricately knew the probability of winning. Didn't matter much - we were feeding the monkey brain. Press the button - watch the lights - hear the sound - hope to be rewarded with a goody - then press the button again. As a side note, the current CEO of Shuffle Master, Gavin Isaacs was leading the pack at that party and I think he still owes me money. Gavin is great manager and really inspired me.

----> When I started this post, I wanted to talk about that I woke up at 3am with an insatiably need for Batman pancakes.

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For a long time I was the only American member of the Balmain Tigers. I considered running for the board of directors and proposing having the annual meetings in Las Vegas.

A glimpse into the life of a math TA --> Physics forums 
Video from one of the slot machines I designed. ---> Eagle Rock 




One of the artists on the project, Pat was kind enough or cruel enough to put a caricature of  me on the inner tube. And yes I really do have chicken legs - Also you can hear the voice of one of the artist who passed away before the game was complete.

Pony Craft

Lately it seems I find a video I want to share, but the video also spawns a whole back-story that has nothing really to do with the video. And I end up posting this whole back-story and end it with a video that has nothing really to do with the preceding post ...

I guess what I am trying to say is that I am going to post a back-story and then present the video and it will seem that the two are not really connected - except in my brain they are. This is just a warning.

I purchased StarCraft II the day it came out. I'm a fan of StarCraft and WarCraft but it's a love / hate relationship.

A long time ago, back in the late 80's, I worked for computer game company called Westwood Associates. I was a designer on the first RTS (real-time strategy) game called Dune II. I was "a" designer. Brett Sperry was really the one who created the genesis of the design. He was a big fan of a German game on the SEGA called, Herzog Zwei.

Herzog had all the elements of an RTS but I still consider it an arcade game. There will always be a debate whether the first RTS was Dune II or Herzog - but it certainly wasn't Blizzard's WarCraft or StarCraft. I'm also very suspicious as to where Blizzard got their code. At that time, employees at Virgin Entertainment (Westwood's parent company) and Blizzard were very close and their offices were practically next to each other in Irvine, California. - This is just my speculation - most former Westwood folks don't think there's any connection.

Anyway, Brett had a particular talent of taking a design to the next level. He did this with Dune and in role-playing games like Eye of the Beholder, which was an iteration from Dungeon Master by FTL. You can even see elements of modern day flight simulators in DragonStrike and interactive elements and free-flowing AI in Circuit's Edge

Westwood is gone. It was eventually purchased by Electronic Arts and sucked into the giant vacuum of EA LA. Remnants of it remain in the game company, Petroglyph Games, which is owned by Mike Legg and Joe Bostic.

----> Back to StarCraft II. I've been playing this game off and on for over six months and have yet to win one multiplayer game. I've not even gotten close to winning a game. There are way too many professionals out there - and they are so fast and efficient. Sometimes I feel bad for my guys who are just Zerg fodder.

Which leads me to this video I found on Kotaku; it's a new game called PonyCraft. Big eyed, rainbow colored unicorns - now that's something I can get my head around.






Read Kotaku article ---> Stop what you're doing

Mobile Gaming Dominates Game Developers Conference

I've been in the video game industry a long, long time. I've designed games for the NES, SNES, Sega, Sony, PC and other platforms.

In the universe there's this stuff called Dark Matter ... no one really knows what it is but it makes up 80 percent of the universe. Computer gambling games - (slot machines, video poker, horse race games, online poker) are the dark matter of the video game industry.

It is where most of the money is made and where most of the player are. Take one casino in Vegas - MGM, they have around 3k slot machines pulling about 250 bucks a day in profit .. that's about $750,000 a day. .. one casino .. one city. Of course there's volatility - but you can see my point. Now with China opening up casinos and the explosion of Internet gambling ..

The "new" popularity of mobile games, which are really just casual games on a small devices are nothing more than slop spilled over from the gambling genre. Highly repetitive with quick, inconsiste­nt reward systems.

The video game console business is extremely volatile with huge cycles. Just look at the history of Atari, NES, SNES, Sega ... The computer game industry will always be there .. not huge .. except for World of Warcraft, but without the giant fluctuatio­ns.

So, when so-called experts say the trend is this way or that . take it with a grain of salt.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost