Stop me if you’ve heard this one…

There’s been a lot of buzz on the web about piracy, this time not affiliated with the Flying Spaghetti Monster or Johnny Depp, but… e-books.

Every news article about the potential e-book market is another can of gas on the fire:

• The petition against Google’s e-book scanning
• Apple’s impending i-book store
• The Kindle-killing (and horrifically named) i-Pad

Seems that e-books are the talk of internetville. But doesn’t all this talk sound familiar? Stop me if you’ve heard this one:

Sales are down! Piracy is destroying the industry! Lawsuits! Copyright!! DRM!!!

Oh yes, that’s right. We DID hear all this before. From the music industry. We heard it when the cassette tape format was invented. We heard it again when CD burners became a household item. And we got to hear it again when Napster + broadband internet connections made it possible to download an entire library of audio in minutes. And now that books are on the block, we get to hear it again from the publishing industry.

Yawn.

I’ll direct the publishing industry to read my Open Letter to Gene Simmons (of the band KISS) and the RIAA. Simply replace the word “music” with “e-book” and replace “Recording Industry” with “Publishing Industry”.

Oh, and replace “Pirates” with “Pirates”.

The Problem is Virtual

Until recently, artistic works such as music, video, pictures and stories required a medium to contain the art and transfer it from one person to another. That medium (Tape, DVD, CD, Book, etc…) had a production cost, a fixed physical expense that someone had to pay because that THING had to be manufactured, packaged, shipped, received, warehoused, and stocked.

For decades, we’ve been told how much it costs to make THINGS and to ship THINGS and to stock THINGS. And the cost of the THINGS keeps going up because of [fill in the blank].

But consumers were never buying the THING. People don’t really want a cassette tape. Or a book. Or a computer file for that matter. Consumers want the art that the medium carries. They want the story about Frodo and Sam. They want the song by Jagged Spiral. They want the picture of the pirate flag.

With the internet, the medium is all but removed from the product, leaving an intangible stream of ones and zeros. At long last, the products of art have been un-THING-ified. Virtualized.

One of the reasons consumers never wanted the medium in the first place was that it adds unnecessary cost to the art. Well, now the medium is almost completely gone, but where are the savings? We should be seeing prices dive for the virtual products, but the industries still try to justify the old prices.

This is a problem.

Price Check

Why is an e-book selling for $9 when the hardcover book is $13? Why in the Hells do they both list at $29?

Seriously. Twenty Nine American Dollars is the Publisher’s Suggested Retail Price for an E-Book? Is that supposed to make you think that $9 is a good deal?

I’m not the only one calling the publishing industry out on it’s bullshit. New York Times Bestselling Author Michael Stackpole lists plenty of other reasons publishers can’t justify their e-book pricing.

The industry holds the price up, because they won’t let go of the THING-ness of their product. They see every sale of a virtual product as a direct equivalent of the sale of a physical product. They think that every e-book sold is a physical book not sold.

Reality Check: Virtual products are not Physical products.

Truth is, the publishing industry should be thrilled to death about internet distribution. E-books may have a lower cost, but they have a far higher margin than their physical counterparts. If you don’t know what that means, ask an accountant. If you can’t make your business work with this new math, then hire a fucking accountant, and change your business to become profitable. The last thing you’d want to do is waste money on lawyers to fight the system. Ask the recording industry.

Why is the industry is down? Why aren’t people buying? Its simple. The product is virtualized, but the price is not.

Hey, it’s a free market, and it’s not against the law for businesses or even the entire industry to use business practices leading to their own obsolescence. It also isn’t against the law for them to starve to death because they refuse to adapt to the new technology.

But it looks like instead of taking advantage of the new technology they have available, the publishing industry has decided to try to force a square peg into a round hole. When that doesn’t work, they sulk and stare at the dwindling sales and blame…

Pirates!

Before you break out the flamethrowers, understand that I’m not endorsing piracy.  Piracy is unlawful and unethical. Google is evil for doing it, and so is everyone else who does it.

But I am telling you that it is entirely true that (music/movie/ebook) piracy is NOT “killing” the (recording/motion-picture/publishing)  industry. It wasn’t back when cassette tapes came out. It wasn’t back when the VCR was released to consumers. Author’s careers are not being destroyed because their books are available for free at the library, or borrowed from friends, or sold in used bookstores. Musicians aren’t going broke because their songs are played on terrestrial radio, myspace, and pandora at no cost to consumers.

The publishing industry is down because of many factors, but piracy is the last one to worry about. Wasting time on it is like rearranging deck chairs on a sinking ship.  Keelhauling every pirate in the universe won’t fix what’s wrong with the publishing industry, the music industry, or any other industry, because Pirates are not a problem; they are a symptom.

Let’s look at the problem that causes piracy to become popular:

Free as in “E-Books”

Price a product high enough and two things will happen.

• Sales of that product will decrease.
• Customers will find other ways to get the product for less.

The music industry already learned this, but let’s look at how it pertains to the publishing industry, by examining these ‘other ways’ to get the product for less than the listed price:

• You can get every Dean Koontz book ever written for free… at the public library.
• You can get every Stephanie Meyer book for free… by borrowing them from your niece.
• You can buy the latest Stephen King novel for One Dollar…  on Craigslist. (In hardcover.)
• You can buy Scott Sigler’s latest for just a couple bucks… at the used bookstore.
• Ebay.com
• Swaptree.com
• Bookcrossing.com
• And you can get the latest of pretty much any e-book for free… by pirating it via bittorrent.

Care to wager that library usage is way up? Borrowing/lending? But you won’t hear about the publishing industry claiming that libraries are “Destroying the industry” or trying pass laws banning the sharing of books. That would be just as laughable as saying that pirates are destroying the industry.  It’s just one more way customers can get the product if they don’t think it’s worth the list price.

Am I suggesting that publishers are causing an increase in piracy by setting their prices too high? Yes. Just like they are “causing” people to check books out at the library, or borrowing them instead of purchasing them at the bookstore. Just like they are causing consumers to obtain the product through other methods, or pass on the product altogether.

Of course publishers have to fight piracy, or people will think they’re OK with it. But to declare that piracy is destroying the publishing industry is simply not true. Illegal? Yes. On the rise? No doubt. But look at the cause:

Your business plan sucks.

Here’s where you should be focusing. Not on pirates. Solve this problem, and piracy will diminish, along with borrowing/lending and library usage.

But, we doesn’t understand business or teh Interwebs!

I can already hear the publishing industry screaming at me that it can’t make a profit off what people are willing to pay for e-books. Sorry, but that argument does not fly.

You can price your product whereever you like, but products are never worth more than people are willing to pay for them. It doesn’t matter how much they cost to make.  Like I said, price it too high and people won’t buy it or they will find cheaper alternatives. Yes, including piracy.

This is the spot where I’d make a “buggy whip manufacturer” reference, but q.e.d. right?

The Solution

The solution starts by acknowledging the real problem.

The solution starts with letting go of the paradigm of treating ones and zeros on the web as a physical product. Virtual products are not Physical products.

The solution starts when people stop crying that change is bad, fighting against the new tech, and trying to cover up bad business models by blaming pirates.

I suspect the solution requires a generation of post-internet people growing up with virtualized products; people who weren’t born into a system of 100% THINGS and then had to suffer the paradigm shift to the virtual. These people will have a more intimate understanding of this “problem”, and perhaps when they grow up to take over for the current regime, they will arrive at a more elegant solution – one that works to Everyone’s advantage.

A Review of Playing Evil in the Video Game “Neverwinter Nights 2″

[Editor's Note: There's a handful of micro-spoilers in here, but nothing that will keep you from enjoying the game.]

I’ve waxed philosophic before about breaking out of my assassin RPG niche. In the video game Oblivion, I played a  hyper-testostrinated human male fighter carrying the largest and longest weapon I could lift. In Jade Empire, I chose a female magic user. Throughout the Original Neverwinter Nights Trilogy (Neverwinter Nights / Shadows of Undrentide / Hordes of the Underdark) my avatar was a tricksy, elvish Shadowdancer.

Neverwinter Nights 2 (NWN2 for short) gave me a new option for avatar diversity.

It was 30 Dec 2007. The game installer chugged away as I read the back of the game box for the upteenth time. Bright letters across the box declared, “Everything you do has a meaning”. Other games have offered options for playing evil characters, but NWN2 seemed to go a step further, almost daring players to test the boundaries of morality. After all, the game designers had taken the time to plot out the repercussions of all your actions in the game. My Inner Philosopher pitched a denim pup-tent as he thought about turning the reins over to my Inner Evil Draconian Overlord.

Evil it is then. For while I’d played a diverse series of characters in the past, I’d always been on the Good side. The obviously-we-have-to-kill-the-shadowlord-because-he-wears-black-and-has-a-deep-voice side. What if I wanted to kill the shadowlord just so I could take his place? What would it be like to be the new evil on the block?

Pyro Firespawn and Posse. Yeah, We Bad

I decided to find out.

And so Pyro Firespawn was born. Don’t laugh. He’s a Chaotic Evil Tiefling. Tieflings are humans tainted with blood of a demonic heritage.  He’s got horns and a tail. He likes to burn things. He’s also a cleric, so he can kill people, raise them from the dead, and then kill them again. (That’s why I told you not to laugh.)

Xtna helped with the aesthetic creation of Pyro. He’s my first avatar to have any resemblance to my physical self. At least, as near as the game engine would allow us to create. Do you want to date my avatar?

The Difficulty of Evil

So I set out on my Evil Epic Adventure. It wasn’t as simple as it sounds. Right away, I discovered difficulties being evil. If I simply slay everyone who got between myself and what I wanted (merchants, for example) I’d have no one to back me up and the game would end with me in prison. That wouldn’t be a long game, and it wouldn’t be a satisfactory ending.

Evil Lesson #1 – Evil requires Power and/or Stealth. Pretty much all the sins require you to be stronger, faster or sneakier than someone else. When you’re a Level One Pissboy, you ain’t pushing anyone around. Therefore, I shied away from being what I called Stupid Evil. I had to keep my eyes on the big prize. Intelligent Evil is far more evil, don’t you think?

Evil Lesson #2 – Evil Looks Good. I often found myself weighing off which side of the fight would help me more in my evil goals. Should I be nice to this person because they might join my party or give me information? Should I kill the dragon and save the townsfolk, if that is the only way to get them to tell me where the uber-important evil magic sword could be found? Signs point to yes.

Evil Lesson #2 “The Enemy Of My Enemy Is My Friend” One thing was always certain. I was literally hell-bent on defeating the King of Shadows, because he was coming to destroy everything.  In fact, some of my companions were happy to stand alongside me in battle although they did not agree with my alignment for the same reason – because the Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend.

I was so Good at Looking Good and being Evil, I could have run for the Republican Party.

Evil Lesson #4 – Evil Loves Company. Did Hitler have any friends? Probably more like “associates” or “companions”, which were another aspect to consider in NWN2. They have alignments too, and if I upset their more…delicate sensibilities, they could leave or worse, turn on me at a crucial moment. There’s no pleasing everyone, and some of my companions did leave me because of my choices. Others flat-out defected to the other team. (…and died some pretty spectacular deaths because of it. Seems their actions had repercussions too.) So, in order to keep the allegiance of my followers, I had to avoid certain evil tasks that I wanted to do. In order to increase their loyalty, I had to help them perform some good tasks I didn’t really want to do. Basically picking my battles and weighing off short term Goodness for Long-Term, Big-Picture Evil.

Halfway through the game, I had my evil system perfected. I was truly evil in (seemingly) unimportant interactions and lied and backstabbed when appropriate to further my larger objectives. On the surface I was just a Regular Guy who looked like he was following the rules. In this respect, I became less Chaotic Evil and more Lawful Evil. I was so Good at Looking Good and Being Evil, I could have run for the Republican Party.

Or so I thought.

Fate and/or the game designers were a step ahead here, because it wasn’t long before I was placed on trial for a crime I did not commit. I thought I had little to worry about… until they began to call in Character Witnesses.

Let’s put it this way – it was a long trial.

That aside, my philosophy of Evil-When-It-Matters worked well. I gained a lot of trust and respect with my companions, the Thieves Guild, and with good King Nasher himself. Eventually I was granted my own keep and knighted. I had a party of very powerful followers, some of whom could beat Mother Teresa on the Goodness Meter.

Then the time came, and I took my party of followers deep into the enemy’s domain to confront the Shadow-Lord himself.

Denouement – Evil is Good

Sunday November 15, 2009 I reached the ending of Neverwinter Nights 2. The inner sanctum of the Shadow Lord’s stronghold. Because of my evil affiliation, I was offered the opportunity to leave my companions and join with the Shadow Lord.  I saved the game and played out both possible endings. [Note: You might get the same opportunity for the alternate ending if you play a good character, but since I didn't do this, I can't be sure.]

I have to say, the evil ending was easier and more satisfying, but it was more because of the way the actual endings were written – something which has raised concern with more than one person who played through NWN2. If you’re interested in reading more about the NWN2 endings, check out this review by aeon (warning: spoilers) which does a good job of summing up the disappointing ending for good characters.

Was it Fun Being Evil?

It was certainly a lot more work. Often, I had to try and guess what the game designers meant to be Evil choices in the game. The ambiguous wording of my question-response options made me think, “Is that an evil thing to say?” The Good responses were mostly obvious, so it probably would have been easier to play a Good character.

Some of the evilness was fun. Double-crossing a dragon? Wow. Fun and rewarding. Happily throwing out promises you have no intention to keep was more of a relief than actual ‘fun’. Killing people who thought they could trust you, that was a tough one.

In short, being evil towards evil beings was wicked fun. Being evil towards good people wasn’t easy. Being evil towards helpless people brought me no joy at all.

Beyond Evil

With NWN2 behind me, I’m just in time for the next big thing… Dragon Age: Origins. Apparently, they’ve tried even harder to blur the line between good and evil.

Dragon Age: Origins is on my Christmas list. So expect a review when I finish it…two years from now…

-Z

In part one of this series on Audience Entitlement, we discovered that the author does not work for the audience.

In part two, I pointed out that the audience doesn’t have to take any crap from the author. (That’s what I’m here for. My amazing perception of the obvious.)

Now, let’s put these two parts together and find out, Will It Blend?

The Golden Rule

I listed “Honesty” and “Respect” as two things the audience can reasonably expect from an author. These are fluffy terms, and difficult to measure. In some cases, only the author knows if they are being honest or not. And there’s always some sum-bich who has to push the envelope. Who’s to say that intentionally leaving the third book out of a series couldn’t be Honestly and Respectfully done, if that’s the artist’s intention?

Plenty of gray area for us to all fight over, but the concept boils down to this:

Regarding the Audience/Author relationship, the best rule of thumb is The Golden Rule, which works in both directions. The author should respect the audience, and the audience should respect the author.

The Solution to Incomplete Series Malaise

Taking this discussion back to the original post by Neil Gaiman, the issue of audience entitlement was brought up regarding the phenomenon I titled “Incomplete Series Malaise”.

The problem summarized, is that the audience wants the next book in the series but the author isn’t working on it, or isn’t working on it as quickly as members of the audience would like.

For the author to simply say “I’m not your bitch” and leave it at that is disrespectful. The audience will say, “I’m not your bitch either,” and then see how many curses about you they can fit into a 140-character twitter post. Sadly this is where Mr. Gaiman left the matter hang, when I believe he is only half right.  I say that because the  solution to Incomplete Series Malaise comes in two parts:

If the audience respects the author, they won’t make demands.

When a member of the audience begins reading a series, they should not have any expectation of due dates or even of completion, except for what the author communicates. The audience can be as excited and enthusiastic as they want, and while they have every right to ask when the next book will be done, they have NO RIGHT to demand the next book in a series, or to get pissed off if it isn’t getting done when they’d like.

Audiences, if you can’t handle this, then don’t read a series until it’s complete. The author is not your bitch.

If the author respects his/her audience, he/she will tell them when the next book in the series is expected to be finished.

This is the part that I think Mr. Gaiman missed. True, the author does not work for the audience, but an author who does not at least have some respect for thieir audience doesn’t deserve one.

The wise author would have information about book release dates at a webpage/FAQ/blog post where excited fans can be directed. This is the official “I know, I got it, I already answered that, and you can find the official answer here…”

Authors, if you can’t handle this, then don’t write a series. Its disrespectful to the audience, and they are not your bitch.

And So On…

We can extend this simple solution out to ten-thousand other areas of the author/audience relationship. For example, social media responsiveness, web presence, the author’s right to privacy…

When I boil the whole thing down like this, it seems like the “Can’t we all just get along?” solution. And it is. You’d think we wouldn’t need this bit of common sense pointed out to us, but all it takes is one dickhead with a twitter account or an introverted author [Editor's Note: Aren't they all?] to ruin it for the rest of us.

So, when the inevitable happens, and you see authors/audiences getting into a pissing match, feel free to link them here for a dose of common sense.* And if you have any other applications for this bit of wisdom, feel free to leave a comment…

-Zero

*Except for me, naturally. Point me back to this post and I will totally fuck you up.

There’s a piece missing. That seems to be the problem.

Anyone in the world who can find the “audio in” jack on their soundcard can record and edit music. Any fool with a video camera and i-movie can make a video. Anyone with a library card has access to a word processor, and the internet.

Welcome to 2008. No flying cars yet, but much of the known world can access the media created by anyone else in the world.

The part that is missing is in-between. Now people have access to all the media in the multiverse, but it seems like a lot of people don’t know what to listen to, what to watch, what to read…

…because they don’t know what they like…

…because they don’t know what other people are watching, reading and listening to.

Stupid, right? Well, there’s people who like songs because they like them, and there’s people who like songs because other people like them.

You might have heard the term “Pop” before, it’s actually short for “Popular”, like the cute, blonde girl in your school who is always picked for things: Homecoming Queen, Student Council, ‘Most Likely to Succeed’, and of course, ‘Most Popular’. There’s people who like her because they actually know her and think she is a likable person, and there’s people who like her because other people like her, because it is the popular and accepted opinion to like her, because it would make you an unpopular minority if you chose Not to like her.

TV shows? Movies? Music? Books? Religion? Politics? Same thing.

But there are some people who actually have some experience to base their opinions on. There are people who take perceptive observations before coming to a judgment, and there’s sheeple who need to check with everyone else before making their decision.

Which brings me back to my point: with all the media in the world a few mouse-clicks away, what do you listen to? What do you watch? What do you read? There used to be a ‘man’ who was more than happy to decide for you what was popular, in the form of your local papers, radio and TV stations: The Man. The Reference.

But that Reference is gone, and there are far too many sources scrambling to replace it. So do we go by Myspace friends or Facebook? Amazon or Rolling Stone?

There’s a piece missing. That seems to be the problem.

Or, maybe it isn’t a problem after all?

Art Is Resistance
-Zero

Books like Eckhart Tolle’s always get my Inner Philosopher worked up, and I have to buy them. He could have named the book “Ways to Be Happy While Getting Screwed Up The Ass By Your Boss, Family, CoWorkers, Strangers and God” and I’d buy it. Because there’s a tiny, tiny subset of those Self-Help books that truly are life-changing, and they are well worth the volumes of Trite-Shite and Atlantis-Nonsense that you have to sift through to find them.

Eckhart Tolle’s previous work includes a book entitled “The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment,” which is a fantastic exploration on the human perception of time. The book focuses on how to stop dragging the past along with you, and stop thinking that Someday you will be happy. Instead, the book describes how to ‘Live In The Now’, and I highly recommend it.

His latest release, “A New Earth: Awakening to your Life’s Purpose” is a profoundly life-changing book… for the right people. But I don’t think I can really recommend it for four reasons:

1-Americans are self-centered already

First, I think the idea is a bit much for many people, but especially Americans. The core idea is to step back and take an objective look at yourself. Doing this will make you realize that the Real You is not bundle of needs and desires that always go unsatisfied. Letting go of ‘wanting’ and physical things is an old practice, and at the very core of Buddhist thought. Tolle tries to sugar-coat it for Americans to make it easier to swallow, but I don’t think your average American is capable of processing this idea.

Worse, I suspect many people who hear about the book will run out to buy it because they Really-Really-Want to let go of their Wanting. Its these people who need the book most, but its not going to help them, because they simply won’t comprehend it. Meanwhile, those who buy the book to make themselves better are already conscientious and self-aware (because they are buying a book like this), and don’t really need the book. Choir. Preaching.

2- You just read it

Second, I’ve basically just told you the entire book, so save your money and your time. To Tolle’s credit, he gives lots of advice, examples, and points of view on the matter, and ties it well to Christianity and other world religions (he claims to cater to no particular world religion.)

3 – It should be free

Thirdly, if Eckhard Tolle really practiced what he preached, he would license the book through Creative Commons and make it available online for free.

4 – Bad Juju

Fourth, and most difficult for me to explain, is that the book is dangerous. The advice Tolle offers people to create a third-person viewpoint of themselves can, if used as intended, separate the Real You from your desiring, unhappy, habitual False Self. However, it can also be used to create a refuge or buffer; a place where you can watch your False Self rob a liquor store for drug money. It could allow a person to remain calm, cool, and collected in the face of performing terrible things. Then they could go to sleep without the slightest guilt saying, That wasn’t The Real Me!

Learned Multiple Personality Syndrome, anyone?

The Alternative

Do yourself a favor and read “The Power of Now”. Then read this outline of Buddhist philosophy, and put the two together for yourself. If you see how the two fit together, you don’t need to bother with “A New Earth.”

Art Is Resistance
-Zero

While reading an old issue of Escapist Magazine that asked whether video games should be considered ‘art’ or not, my Inner Philosopher made an interesting observation. Is it possible that people who play First-Person Shooter video games like Doom, Quake, etc, might have a different approach to death and violence than those who prefer Second-Person Shooters like Tomb Raider, Diablo, Command and Conquer, etc?

Death in First Person

A major difference between Second Person and First Person viewpoints in video games is that those playing from second-person will see their character(s) die, but those in first-person will experience death pseudo-firsthand. Likewise, those watching from top-down will watch their characters performing horrific deeds, but those looking down the barrel of the gun will perform the deeds themselves. It’s a subtle, but significant difference, like programming a robot to perform a task instead of doing it yourself. There is an added level of abstraction to the second person view, while the first person view is more immediate.

Personally, I’m not as into games that have a top-down or over-the-shoulder view, because that perspective literally takes me “out” of the game. Being in first-person makes me feel more connected, it removes a level of “suspension of disbelief” and makes the game more entertaining for me. I think a Holodeck / Virtual Reality system would be awesome. I definitely ride without the Top Down.

Anyway, it makes me wonder if there are specific personality types or life experiences that would make people tend toward the first-person view or second-person in games. Is there something that makes people want to ‘separate’ themselves from the actions, experiences and deaths of their virtual counterparts?

Perhaps the University of Minnesota Psychology Department should be looking into this.

Blog on,
-CZ

An open letter to companies of virtual “products” that are actually “services.”

We are way beyond the magical year 2000 now. Turns out Nostradamus didn’t know shit. The world did not end, and I’m still paying for the end-of-the-world party I had in 1999. (still slightly hungover too…)

So here we are in 2007, and there are 3 things that Should Be, but Are Not:

1- Flying Cars

Where the hell are they already?

2- Virtual Reality

We been looking forward to Virtual Reality ever since seeing the Holodeck on Star Trek, and the closest we ever got was this crap. Oh yeah, and SecondLife. 

3- Software as a Service, not a Product

Alright, so we ain’t been waiting on this one for near as long, but I loaded up the new Adobe Reader 8 and I’m wondering how is this different from version 7? Version 6? Version 3?

What Adobe Reader changed from previous versions is to hide all the buttons people used to use (Like ‘Save A Copy’? Yeah, glad you got rid of *that* useless button) and replace them with things like BEYOND Adobe Reader. Seriously? What the fuck is Beyond Adobe Reader? BEYOND Adobe Reader? And a meeting button? In Adobe Reader? WTF?
The casual user doesn’t use any of those ‘Value Subtracted’ features. They use it to view PDF files. Let me rephrase that in a parable for Adobe:

[Setting: The Pearly Gates]

God – “Alright mortal, before you can enter Heaven, you must answer this question, and answer it honest and truthfully, or shalt thou forever burn in a fiery pit of, um… of Fire!”

Adobe Reader User (terrified) – “Yes Lord.”

God – “What is the purpose for Adobe Acrobat Reader?”

Adobe Reader User (sweating) – “Um, to read PDF files?”

God – “Correct!”

It isn’t just Adobe. Microsoft Money and Intuit’s Quicken programs haven’t changed functionality in a decade, but they have continued to release new versions every year. And Windows? Exactly what I am talking about. These companies have bought into the paradigm that a Software Product is a living, breathing entity, which ebbs and flows like the tide, continually morphing into new and exciting user experiences under the guidance and direction of their marketing department…

…but they are wrong. Sorry, into the fiery pit of Fire with you.

If you can’t write a piece of software and call it done then you don’t have a Product. You have a Service. If customers buy your software off the shelf, install it on their computers and never look back, then you have a product. But what we have instead is a mindset I call Version Release Syndrome.

It isn’t hard to understand why. You have hundreds of people working on the project. For months. Years. You fine tune, and you beta test, and you work work work. Suddenly, the shareholders scream in unison. The press has been notified, the preorder checks have already been spent, and the market is buckling under the stress of waiting. The drop dead date is etched in bits on the internet. The bloggers scream! “It’s gonna suck!” “It’s gonna rock!” There is no more time, and not enough caffeine in the world.

Somewhere a file is transferred to the duplicator. You just went gold.

After the programmers come out of their comas, then comes all the frustration of shoulda/woulda/coulda. Shoulda added this feature. Woulda got more user feedback. Coulda done more QA testing. If we only had more time.

And now we sit here, in this big money-making-machine, and it’s a shame to shut it all down now. I mean, what are all these talented people going to *DO*? The juggernaut pauses for just a breath. It would be SO DIFFICULT to shut it down, and SO EASY to…

Keep going.

The beauty of the internet has only enabled this attitude. Software companies can ship unfinished and untested ‘product’ and provide patches later. Just slip in a clause into the EULA, and bam! You can make money today on software that isn’t even finished! Game companies are the most notorious for this, but at least They draw the line on their releases at some point, so they truly are a Product. Imagine if music or movies did this! (although with DVD re-releases and CD remasters this can be done to some extent)

This is NOT the way.

What companies will eventually realize is that software in all its forms, movies, music, e-books, webpages, RSS News Feeds, blogs, and even operating systems should be distributed as services, not products. Charge a subscription for them. In case no one noticed, they already are, but it’s about the clumsiest system I can imagine.

Instead of trying to trick your customers into upgrading to the new version, get them to sign on as subscribing customers. Which method do you think will make more money? Think long tail. AOL understood this. Give the software away. Free. Charge a subscription for the service, like a utility.

This IS the way.

Blog on,
-CZ

My step-grandmother passed away recently, and the funeral was yesterday. My step-grandfather is a member of the Ojibwe tribe in Hinkley, MN and therefore, part of the funeral ritual was conducted by a Medicine Man, which included ‘smudging’ all of us with sage, and ‘passing the pipe’.

It was a much more moving ceremony than the traditional pastor-in-the-pulpit, rambling on some jibber-jabber that sounded more like a lecture, and even more like it was written out in advance, all the blanks filled in with the appropriate names.

Instead of an hours worth of rhetoric, the medicine man told us about a dream he had regarding our dearly departed. Then he summed up the dream with a speech that was not only short, but also meaningful and memorable. I don’t think I will ever forget it, and I can quote it to you here:

Life is a like a path through the woods. The path is long, and sometimes people want to take a shortcut. But those who try to take a shortcut get lost, and have to go back, and start over. Those who take the long way get to the end first.

At the end of the path, you meet the Creator. He looks at some and says, ‘You are ready to come with me, your work here is done.’ To others he says, ‘I am leaving you behind, because you still have something here to do.’

So if you’re reading this, I guess you still have some work to do.

And I bet it’s not reading this lame-ass blog.

Blog on,
-CZ

Reviewing Oblivion and playing out-of-character

I’m playing Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion now, which is awe-and-some. The level of detail in the character generation is sick, for a game where you switch between first-person view and third-person view, and in neither case can you see your own face. I quickly developed my favorite alter-ego, a thief/assassin, and set out.

Oblivion is open-ended both in plot and in skills. You can go anywhere you like, and while there is an overall plotline, you don’t have to follow it. Your skills increase for whatever you keep doing. For instance, the more locks you pick, the better you get at picking locks. The more you jump around, the more your Acrobatics skill increases. I immediately started working on my sneaking and lockpicking skills, and use of a bow and daggers.

After the game gives you a chance to get used to the controls and interface, you are given an option to pick from a list of character occupations or archetypes (fighter, scout, mage, witchhunter, priest…) the mouse pointer hovered over the word “Assassin”, when my Inner Philosopher woke up.

IP: “What are you doing?”

Me: “I’m picking my character’s occupation.”

IP: “Assassin again, hmm?”

Me: “What?”

IP: “Well, don’t you always pick the Assassin?”

Me: “Sure, because it’s my favorite.”

IP: “Have you ever played anything else?”

Me: “Well, no…”

IP: “Then how do you know if you wouldn’t like something else better?”

Me: “I like the Assassin, and I’m playing the Assassin.”

IP: “Fine, fine, I was just wondering what that might mean about your personality.”

Me: “It means that my mad sneaking-around-skillz allowed me to live through High School, and now I can use those same skillz to unload a Quick Shadowy Death on the virtual residents of Oblivion.”

IP: [yawns] “It could also mean you are a cowardly bastard who just likes to shoot other people in the back.”

Me: “Do you really think I paid $50 for this game in order to develop a new virtual skillset?”

IP: [Deathly Silence]

Me: “Fine. I will pick some other occupation if you will stop that.”

IP: [Normal Silence]

Me: “Thank you.”

So I started over and made a Fighter. A real fighter. I mean a Drinks Petrol and Pisses Nitroglycerin fighter. He is also a lizard who can breathe underwater. I picked a name in the lizard tongue which means, “Eater of Puppy Dogs For Breakfast”. He carries an axe so big it blocks out half the screen (Note To Self: Need bigger monitor.).

And no more sneaking. When I enter a dungeon, I yell, “Woe to all who are here, for I have come to paint the walls of this place with your blood!” This has several advantages:

• The wimpy characters run. They weren’t worth my time anyway.
• The tough guys come out of the woodwork, so I don’t have to go looking for them. (Note to Virtual Self: Need bigger satchel for healing potions, ideally a Bag of Holding.)
• It makes me feel like a tough guy. Even if the dungeon is empty.

This is very strange for me, and not a very easy playing style for me to get used to. Plus, I doubt the skills I’m learning by ‘Stretching Out’ and playing a gregarious, blundering oaf will translate well to the real world:

Troubled CoWorker: “Conrad! I’m so glad you are here, there’s a problem with my computer!”

Me: “Ha! How Dare it trouble you poor, helpless cubicle dweller! I am here to destroy your computer problems!”

Troubled and Disturbed CoWorker: “But don’t you want to know what’s wrong with it first?”

Me: “A waste of time! Look! I have already gutted this machination of evil, and I will hang the entrails around your cube! The next computer you get will think twice about giving you problems!”

Troubled and Really Disturbed CoWorker: “Great…um, thanks. Guess I’ll be leaving early today…”

Blog on,
-CZ

Osama Bin Laden, Kurt Cobain, Elvis and myself were hanging out in a Hash Bar in Amsterdam.

No, it’s not a joke. It’s a dream I had. I think it was a dream. Stop interrupting.

Anyway, we were sitting at a table together, not necessarily talking about anything in particular – weather, the economy, fashion trends, and the coffee, which was surprisingly bad considering what it cost.

I couldn’t find my spoon, the one I had been stirring my coffee with, and at first I thought that Kurt had taken it. He was kind of a dick, which is not what I expected at all, and *he* had a spoon. I’m trying to pay attention to what Osama is saying, since he seems very intelligent (which is also not what I expected, and should have been a tip-off that this was a dream) and he seemed to be very knowledgeable about current fashions, despite the fact that he wore a bedsheet.

Right, the spoon. So anyway, the coffee was so bad that I gave up on the thought that stirring it might actually help. Then I thought that the coffee might have been so very bad that it actually dissolved the spoon, which would explain the taste. Then I thought that a spoon dissolved in the coffee might have *improved* the taste, and I should be thankful that it did not taste worse. My Inner Philosopher perked up and noted that if I could view all potentially bad events this way, my outlook on life would improve dramatically. I told my Inner Philosopher that he was right – the glass was not half full, it was completely full – of expensive coffee that tasted like dogshit mixed with Windex and dissolved silverware. That shut him right up.

Suddenly it dawned on me that the three people I was seated with had something in common: No one knew for sure whether they were really dead or not. (Except me of course, because I was talking with them.) I started to worry that I might end up with the same condition, like I might ‘catch’ their indeterminate existence status through osmosis or some mutant media-virus. I thought of my parents, wondering if they should hold on to my Marillion CD collection because I would be *Pissed* if they sold it on E-bay and I wasn’t really dead. I thought of my friends, rushing off to verify reports that I was sighted hitch-hiking through Oregon, or making out with Paris Hilton backstage at a Black Eyed Peas concert. The whole thing made me sad.

I suddenly wished I had a coffee, and then realized that I did have a coffee, so I edited my wish and wished for a good coffee. And a spoon. I asked Elvis if I could use his spoon, partially because he wasn’t using his, and partially because I love hearing him talk.

“Sure thing,” Elvis said, “Go right ahead man.”

Blog on,
-CZ