This month’s issue recounts the latest “year of mobile” and why gamers should be excited for what’s to come on their second screens. Speaking of portable gaming, Sony made a recent splash with the launch of their PS Vita…could we be seeing the start of a resurgence in dominance for last-gen’s industry giant?
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Nostaliga as a force seems to grow more powerful with every passing year. It has always existed. I remember the Stray Cats aping Elvis Presley while we ate at 50’s diners growing up. But it seems like ripping off the past has sped up recently. Vanity Fair pointed the trend out in fashion. The author of a book called Retromania made the same argument for music. Mark Harris at Entertainment Weekly lamented that sequels and remakes are almost all studios make now (9 of the top 10 films last year qualified as one or the other). Unless they become instead. And even gaming is jumping in as Halo and other games .
What’s weird is that the Internet is getting left out of this trend.
Today is Thursday and tomorrow is Friday. For Denuo Chicago, this statement is more than just an exercise in keeping your days of the week straight. Friday = Roll Day, where each week one pair of Denuologists is responsible for bringing in breakfast. We are treated to wonderful meals ranging from bacon cupcakes, bagels, breakfast burritos, donuts, shrimp 'n grits - you get the idea. I would say that savory breakfasts are bigger hits than sweet ones, not because they aren't as delicious but simply because sugar crashes are not fun.
The hockey stick growth and increasingly avid fan base of photo sharing app Instagram surprised a few, until they used it. This week came the announcement that Android users will soon be able to join in on all the vintage-y photo fun. All 300+ million of them! It’s clear that 2012 will be Instagram’s year.
So what makes Instagram different? I think some of it has to do with them being a bunch of squares.
I’m obviously not alone in my love for the Game Developers Conference‘s Experimental Gameplay Sessions. Every year it’s a standing-room-only affair, with an entry queue that wraps around the Moscone Center. A thousand attendees lining up to see the best and brightest from that year’s Experimental Gameplay Workshop (EGW) - an organization that exists to support the idea that there’s a group of developers who strive for originality, and who intentionally try to create new kinds of gameplay. You’re likely to see more amazing things in that two-hour session than you are in all the rest of your GDC calendar, which really says a lot considering the amazing, insightful talks that fill the GDC schedule every year (my personal schedule was at least triple-booked for every session timeslot this year – leaving a quick look at the entry queue, or the flip of a coin to decide which session to ultimately attend).
