Tag: inspiration

What happens when pirates play a game development simulator and then go bankrupt because of piracy?

What happens when pirates play a game development simulator and then go bankrupt because of piracy?

This is hilariously funny and extremely sad at the same time … make sure to read the whole thing.

The cracked version is nearly identical to the real thing except for one detail… Initially we thought about telling them their copy is an illegal copy, but instead we didn’t want to pass up the unique opportunity of holding a mirror in front of them and showing them what piracy can do to game developers. So, as players spend a few hours playing and growing their own game dev company, they will start to see the following message, styled like any other in-game message:

pirate message

Boss, it seems that while many players play our new game, they steal it by downloading a cracked version rather than buying it legally.
If players don’t buy the games they like, we will sooner or later go bankrupt.

Slowly their in-game funds dwindle, and new games they create have a high chance to be pirated until their virtual game development company goes bankrupt.

The cool thing about Google Glass which isn’t immediately obvious

Since Google announced their Google Glass project, I kept thinking which of their products would be the most useful on that platform.  Gmail? Probably not too much.  Search? Perhaps.  Ads? Don’t think so.

Today, after reading this blog post I realized that I was thinking about it all wrong.  It’s not what Google will push into the glasses, but what the rest of the world would come up with.  Google Glass is Android-based.  And we’ve seen already how powerful the platform is, and how many people come with so many cool ideas.

And, all of a sudden, I can’t wait for this whole new thing to pick up…

Reinvent payphones

Via this Habrahabr post (in Russian), I’ve learned about a Reinvent payphones initiative, which I think is pretty cool.  According to the article, the contract for provision of payphone services for the New York City expires in 2014.  So the mayor, Michael Bloomberg, has started the initiative to figure out what would be the best use for such a vast infrastructure (around 11,000 booths throughout the city).  Some of the ideas are really cool, for example:

  • Free WiFi hotspot
  • Power socket for recharging mobile devices
  • Weather and air quality censors
  • Location and other information (“you are here”, places around, etc)
  • Ad-supported free services

Here are some of the project suggestions: beacon, NYFi, smart sidewalks.  Also, read more here.