Tadhg Kelly › Comments

"Yeah, I have many issues with it too. Why I don't Like Metro: http://whatgamesare.com/2012/0..." - Tadhg Kelly

"On any Facebook game typically 90-95% are free players, 5-10% are paying players (who might put $10 or so into a game once a month), but the whales pay way more. Only a very small number actually pay 10k into the games though. Zynga revenue statements for the IPO bear this out, more or less, with about $800m revenue on 150m users (I think). If the 5%/10k figure quoted above were true, not only would they be significantly undervalued as a company, there would be social/national outcries. 5 million people spending $120,000 a year on a game would be the sort of thing that registers politically." - Tadhg Kelly

"Well that's just stupid." - Tadhg Kelly

"Spot on." - Tadhg Kelly

"Both. There's a slight chicken-and-egg aspect to it. The store is excellent, which draws customers but customers are willing to pay because the store is excellent. :)" - Tadhg Kelly

"I don't mind the critical tone, as the subject is of the post is what I don't like. My experience with using it on Xbox is not the same as yours though. I find the joypad interaction to be much faster than just about everything except full-on text entry. Indeed I often use the silver-button menu to just shortcut to where I want to go rather than Metro proper, which can't be right.  Thanks for the comments!" - Tadhg Kelly

"Potentially, but what it really comes down to for developers is revenue. Its why iOS is still the number 1 platform for apps, for example, even though Android has a much larger install base." - Tadhg Kelly

"What I've used of Expose on the Mac was generally a bit faster, although it had an arcane action of pushing to the screen corners, which can be incredibly annoying sometimes (leads to a lot of accidental activations)." - Tadhg Kelly

"Was that meant for byronm by any chance?" - Tadhg Kelly

"Yeah I don't really buy that paradigm-shift idea so much. I love my Phone, for example, but its interface is essentially a simplified desktop (which as a result works).  On the personal prefs thing, totally agreed." - Tadhg Kelly

"Actually when I said "xbox bing call of duty" to test, it showed me Grey's Anatomy as a first option. I say first, what it actually did first was nothing, then showed me Bing with no content, then nothing. Then Grey's. I do have a bit of a cold today, but still." - Tadhg Kelly

"It's an open question. I think you're safe for the moment, but perhaps creating an AIR-installable version would be a smart backup plan." - Tadhg Kelly

"Facebook Actions... No. This is a bad idea, effectively doing a 'Google Buzz' number. Great for the 5% who love to publish, but bad for the 95% who don't particularly like the feed spam." - Tadhg Kelly

"Well they support ePub 3, so isn't that the same thing? Hard to know without playing with the software." - Tadhg Kelly

"So according to Twitter, the new software allow authors to publish directly to the iBookstore. Seems like a salient detail to have missed in the liveblog, no?" - Tadhg Kelly

"Indeed, thanks :)" - Tadhg Kelly

"submitted by reddit to blog." - Tadhg Kelly

"I think that's neat, but most of the time I suspect that 'context' is actually just noise, so I question its value. When I search Google I'm mostly searching for information, not coffee shops, and there's already enough distractions (ads, bad sites, etc). I wouldn't trust my friends to provide the links to what I want because most of the time we do not share the same interests. If I'm searching for articles on game theory, what does it matter what my mum thinks of that?" - Tadhg Kelly

"I too remain fairly mystified as to why search and social are supposed to come together." - Tadhg Kelly

"Thanks Myles." - Tadhg Kelly

"I'd argue that they haven't, any more than Blizzard have walked away from Diablo.  Valve is also an unusual case in that it has Steam, which gives it far more leeway. Blizzard has something similar with World of Warcraft and Battle.net, and Epic with Unreal." - Tadhg Kelly

"http://whatgamesare.com/2011/0..." - Tadhg Kelly

"Thanks :) I often get that wrong for some reason." - Tadhg Kelly

"Is it possible that the onset of mental decline at 45 is actually a reflection of working in the civil service? It always struck me as a mind-numbing (in the truest sense of the word) occupation, like any habitual job." - Tadhg Kelly

"It's really very simple why WP7 hasn't taken off.  It's not actually a good UI. It's good looking to the tech community as a set of screenshots, but when used the usability limitations of Metro become apparent very quickly." - Tadhg Kelly

"Great question. In my opinion, Just Dance is behaviourist, but only just. It is also influenced by tetrism. A strong element of the game is about trying to master the skill of pulling moves, but there is less actual emergence than first appears over the long term. Many of these peripheral-dependent beat-following games tend to follow a similar interest pattern where they are initially great experiences, but shelved quickly for this reason. Some, such as Rock Band and Guitar Hero, have more storysense. I don't think I would class them as narrativist as such, but they are close. This effectively places them near the centre of the graph overall, which is not surprising. They remain the most memorable franchises of the genre because they capture both the physical fun and the elements of a role in an attractive fantasy for millions of would-be musicians out there. Those games are highly thaumatic. Thanks for the comment!" - Tadhg Kelly

"Hi Kiokio I have no issue with games that are guided, or even on rails. As an example, I love Rez. The difference is where the choices that I make are of high agency. While I may well be following a character in MW3 from one set piece to another, each is still a valid area of gameplay, each a test of skill and to some extent strategy. (Except when the interludes and scripted failures etc show up). I unfortunately haven't played Crysis yet to compare. Will get to it soon." - Tadhg Kelly

"Take the same logic and apply it to any other user interface. A phone that only shows apps you might install. An OS desktop that only shows icons for docs you might write. An iTunes that only shows tracks you haven't bought and hides those that you have. You may know you own content, but how do you access it? How do you remember where it is? How do you build up an instinctive understanding of the interface that you use to get there so don't have to read the screen each time you use it? Those are the most important jobs of any UI, and the Xbox dashboards keep going further and further away from them and into some high concept idea of directing user attention for optimal first impressions. They're forgetting second, third and tenth impressions and the longer term use case. The single best way to actually access content on the machine is to ignore the new dashboard entirely and use the silver button menu instead. If the same design principles hold for other Metro implementations, the..." - Tadhg Kelly

"" All three attempt to develop software OS they believe will work for the common user, while understanding that they can't account for every SINGLE user but aim for the majority. " That's not a development process, it's an ambition, and a very general one at that. The companies in question approach product development very differently. Apple focuses on creating products which inspire delight, Google aim for ubiquity. Microsoft aims for ownership of users more than anything else. While all three have ecosystems, Microsoft make the most out of trying to sell users on the ecosystem idea. Use our phone, our PC, our console, our one interface etc. And that's ok but their products tend to have a lack of respect for users, thinking of them as sheep who'll take what they're given. Which they will if there are no other options (Windows) or there's a strong need to be interoperable with others (Office) but not in an open field. When Microsoft have to compete on product, they usually lose..." - Tadhg Kelly

"The problem for Origin is that there's no loyalty and little love there, and prices will inevitably be higher than for games on Steam. Steam is winning because of very deep promotions (and a great service) that are pricing PC games down toward the price they want to be ($5). The motivation for Origin is to try to push against that trend (and fail). Windows Marketplace would be a much more likely competitor, but that I'm absolutely convinced that Windows 8 is going to be a train wreck, leaving most user sticking with Windows 7. W8 is trying to solve a problem that nobody has with an interface that nobody (outside of the tech bubble) likes to plug them into an ecosystem that nobody cares about. However if Microsoft sees sense and releases the marketplace as an update for W7 then it might have a chance." - Tadhg Kelly