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Daily Archives: November 4, 2007

Merging media

I had a chance to try an iPod Touch first-hand recently. Basically an iPhone without the phone, you don’t need great cell reception in order to take full advantage of the device; it works off any wireless network for some of its online features, rather than a cell network.

The design of the iPod Touch is revolutionary and fun, but it reminds me an awful lot of the Nintendo DS. Which raises the question: could videogames merge into the iPod design in a more full-scale way, eventually?

For two generations of hardware now, the same three companies have dominated the platform wars: Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft. But such standardization is rarely maintainable. Some new company always comes along and tries their hand at things rather successfully, upsetting who the “big three” are in any given generation.

Sony was that company when they introduced the original PlayStation. Microsoft stepped up when Sega fell off.

Could Apple be the next corporation to wet its toes in the videogame market?

I can imagine it: a handheld system with HD-quality video, touch controls, an FM tuner, the ability to act as a personal organizer, a full-scale MP3 and MP4 player, with wireless internet and an optional phone feature, all in a size that slips into a Blackberry-sized cell phone holster.

The name?

Apple iPlay.

It could happen…

No WGA presence in videogame industry?

As Hollywood writers prepare to strike, one has to wonder why creators in the arena of electronic entertainment have never camped out in a canvas tent outside of Electronic Arts or Activision or some other big-name videogame producer with a bunch of protest signs, asking for a bigger stake in the profits of franchises like Madden, Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid or the Spider-Man games.

Is it because the videogame industry is a complete delight to work for with ideal working conditions and everyone’s rich beyond their wildest dreams? I doubt it.

I suspect part of the reason is that writers in electronic entertainment may not be unionized. Are videogame translators, script-writers, localizers and the sort even allowed into the Writers Guild of America?

Frankly, I don’t know.

But considering some of the rumors of 20-hour shifts, conditions that expect creators to live, eat and sleep in developers’ studios when on deadline and other such working conditions, it would be a surprising oversight by the WGA not to at least attempt to protect the scribes who bring us Silent Hill and Resident Evil.

Is there a benefit to the WGA potentially not having a presence in the vidoegame industry? Sure; no chance of a strike if there’s no union.

Then again, the way the industry tends to gobble up and spit out scribes, often leaving them in poor health from overworked conditions, uninsured and sometimes blamed for games that flop, well… maybe a bit more WGA presence in the industry wouldn’t be such a horrible thing, either.