Apple wants more iPod ready cars

“Bob Borchers, who is the senior director of iPod worldwide product marketing, told CNET that Apple is interested in making the use of iPods in cars much easier.”

Who would have thought that MP3 players in cars would take so long to get off the ground? The lawyers, that’s who. As a generalization, before the iPod showed up the term “MP3″ had negative connotations. MP3 was associated with illegal file-sharing, not with audio compression for the mass-market. With the advent of iTunes, the mass-market had a way to get a wide variety of legal MP3s easily online. Apple again helped break down the tenuous relationship of online music and legality. Perhaps, then, they should be the ones to really pursue the automobile market for MP3 audio.

I say this because my first instinct was to chide Apple for shutting the competition out of the car audio market. But it’s a much harder market to get into than one would expect, as illustrated in Lawrence Lessig’s book Free Culture.

“Your investment [in MP3 audio] buys you not only a company, it also buys you a lawsuit. So extreme has the environment become that even car manufacturers are afraid of technologies that touch content. In an article in Business 2.0, Rafe Needleman describes a discussion with BMW:

“I asked why, with all the storage capacity and computer power in the car, there was no way to play MP3 files. I was told that BMW engineers in Germany had rigged a new vehicle to play MP3s via the car’s built-in sound system, but that the company’s marketing and legal departments weren’t comfortable with pushing this forward for release stateside. Even today, no new cars are sold in the United States with bona fide MP3 players. …” [5]

This is the world of the mafia—filled with “your money or your life” offers, governed in the end not by courts but by the threats that the law empowers copyright holders to exercise. It is a system that will obviously and necessarily stifle new innovation. It is hard enough to start a company. It is impossibly hard if that company is constantly threatened by litigation.”

So maybe a big company like Apple is doing a long-term favor to all of the non-disc based audio innovators. Though Lessig wrote this in 2004, the state of the market has not evolved much. We’ve seen a few manufacturers who have taken legal risks by getting involved. Audio-jacks and FM transmitters are currently the most common way to listen to MP3s in the car. The 2007 Infiniti G35 will come with a hard drive to store audio files on but it is the rare exception to the rule.

If Apple can get its foot in the door with a few car manufacturers, the gates might open for others to claim, “our car is ready for all of your audio devices.” It seems risky, but if anybody has the pull right now it’s Apple. We’ll see.

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Are Games Getting Easier?

“Mark Raby’s article, on TwitchGuru, asks if games are easier compared to older games like in the 1980s.”

Actually, he doesn’t so much ask as bemoan the loss of the “good ol’ days” of gaming. The problem with Raby’s logic is that it doesn’t allow room for evolution and doesn’t frame the days of more difficult gaming in anything but a positive context. In response, I will proceed through his argument point-by-point and explain the possible flaws.

1) “In spite of the rapid growth in technology and the ability to make games more intricate, game have become fundamentally less challenging than they were 20 years ago.”
Intricacy does not equal difficulty. My overarching theme is that Difficulty was little more than a building block of teleology in games (goal-oriented tasks). Due to limitations in technology as well as economic forces, Difficulty was used to extend gameplay. In the arcades, Difficulty meant more quarters. Difficulty allowed programmers to reuse the same scenario because programming space was limited. The reason many early NES games were challenging is not because Difficulty is a natural part of gaming, but rather it was a hold-over from a previous mindset. “Game Over” is a tactic for replay, not a principle of gameplay.

I point to a fictional game imagined by author D.B. Weiss. “Lucky Wander Boy” (which is also the name of the book) is an old arcade game cherished in the memories of the main character. The game never obtained any popularity, however, because it had no challenge. “Play” was in exploration, wandering, and collecting. Weiss uses “Lucky Wander Boy” as the comparison for blood and gore of modern gaming. It wasn’t just a way to articulate old versus new; Weiss sought to compare modes and mindsets.

Difficulty can be fun, but difficulty can be frustrating. We play games to enjoy ourselves. If they’re too easy we might not enjoy our progression. But just because it is easy does not mean the act of acomplishing the task isn’t entertaining. Difficulty is not law.

2) “Game Over” Drives Satisfaction of Goals Acheived
Raby wrote, “I’ve had Super Mario Bros for about 12 years and every time I pass that final Bowser stage, I still get a great sense of satisfaction. In contrast, when I conquer a game from this era, I just feel relieved that it’s over. I rarely get the feeling anymore that I won because of hard work and determination.” Sounds like he shouldn’t be playing new games. The claim here is that unless you beat something that was not meant to be beaten, you haven’t earned victory. He is right that the name of the game has changed – games are designed to be finished. That way, they can tell the full story if that is their goal. Or, perhaps the story is inconsequential and experiencing the whole world is the real payoff.

Raby writes that game author want to show you everything they’ve done in putting the game together. The difference between his view and my view is that he criminalizes this action; it’s as if programmers who want players to beat the game are “showing off.” If you worked extremely hard on a creative piece, wouldn’t you want your audience to see every bit of it? A game filled with puzzles wants the player to try their hand at everything. A game with an interesting weapon half-way through wants you to play with that weapon. Raby’s logic would claim that the Gravity Gun in Half-Life 2 should be some sort of pay-off rather than a piece of equipment handed down from on high. But, those of us who have played Half-Life 2 know that merely playing with the Gravity Gun is satisfying; just because we didn’t get five game-overs in between does not change that fact.

3) LucasArts adventure games force you to think on your feet instead of just giving the soltuions to you.
This is true. This is very true. The Secret of Monkey Island is a difficult game that requires a lot of problem solving and a lot of brainpower. But not everybody is cut out for this and we certainly shouldn’t force it upon people. Games don’t have to be “thought provoking” to be enjoyable. Once again, I refer to the satisfaction of play. The Secret of Monkey Island, as well as other adventure games along the LucasArts style, bore me. This is just a personal preference, of course, and I know that despite my dislike for the genre they are indeed good games. But they’re not for me. So why force that down my throat? This is why genres exist – to act as outlets of creativity and cater to audiences of differing tastes. Raby claims that if game publishers think games which are too difficult will drive the market away. His solution? Force players to challenge themselves; just suck it up and deal. Doesn’t sound like the kind of publisher from which I want to buy.

Also, I believe his claims that strategy guides are stifling creativity on the designers’ end are unfounded. Not everybody turns to a walkthrough the moment something looks challenging.

4) The Final Boss
I disagree with nearly everything Raby says in this fourth section. Has he played Pain Killer? Resident Evil 4? Devil May Cry 3? Ratchet and Clank? God of War? There are plenty of bosses that are way harder now than they ever were in the NES and Genesis era of games. Bowser wasn’t “tough” in Super Mario Bros. All he required has a good job and a solid landing on the bridge’s axe.

The reason you can make “several flubs” when fighting today’s bosses is that you aren’t expected to do everything without getting hit once. The life-meter was one of the most important inovations in gaming, yet Raby does not acknowledge its existence in reference to boss fights. People (aka my roommate third year of college) do not break controllers because bosses are too easy.

5) The Paradigm Shift in Popular Genres
Raby cites the “Casual Gamer Genre” as one of the big problems with modern gaming. If The Sims is such a problem, why is it the best selling PC game of all time? He’s worried that “Casual Gamers” (a problematic term, if you ask me) are softening the market for everybody and that designers need to strike a balance to keep both sides happy. If you ask me, those types of gamers are still drawing the short straw when it comes to games.

Perhaps Raby just needs a new genre himself – that of the Difficult Game. That way he doesn’t have to exert any effort to find the difficulty burried in most of the good games released in the recent past – not like that’s a challenging task.

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The Office Webisodes Now Online

Check out the first two episodes of this summer’s office fix.  In it Angela, Oscar, and Kevin go in search of a missing $3000 dollars.

It’s great to see these three characters taking center stage. Sure, we love our Michael, Dwight, Jim, and Pam, but there’s tons of untapped potential in the rest of Dunder Mifflin as far as main characters go. Kevin in particular has become one of my favorites.  His brand of dry humor combined with the peculiarities the writers have given him (like his implied porn habit) PLUS his mad basketball skills force the viewer to want to know more.

It just a shame these webisodes are a little too short.  A good five minutes would have really done the trick for me.  It would also be nice to be able to download them on iTunes or in some other form.  Just because it’s called a webisode shouldn’t limit it to web watching – it should just mean that they’re released on the Internet only.

That being said, they’re a must watch for any Office fan.
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