Strange Video Games In Today's Modern Arcade Vol. I

As a parent of young kids, I see a lot of weird arcade titles that only exist in child oriented gaming locations such as Chuck E. Cheese and in this example, Incredible Pizza. I took pictures of some of the more interesting ones. Click the pics for larger sizes and makes sure to check the company websites for more weird titles.I'm not sure if they got Rick Dees' permission for the title, but Disco Duck from Coastal Amusements is basically whack a mole for your feet.
This was a really nice and elaborate cabinet for Fishin' Time from ICE(Innovative Concepts in Entertainment Inc.)
The one that takes the cake though is this Gone Fishing cabinet from Tsunami Visual Technologies, Inc./JVL Corp. As you can see, it's just s single giant button that whacks a fish for distance. Yes, it's an arcade version of that penguin whacking Flash game from Yetisports.

Austin video game finds

(As I'm writing this, I'm sitting right next to the voice actor portrayed "Big Rigg" in 50 Cent: Bulletproof....right next to him, the guy who was "Mobster" in the same title)

In the last couple of evenings, after the conference has wound down for the day, I've been able to find a few places around Austin to check out some video game stores.

On the first day, I was able to check out Game Over Videogames. They have a large selection of games for pretty much every major American console ever made, but sadly no copies of Banjo Kazooie or Tooie. There ware also lots of gaming shirts, toys, etc. The prices seemed a bit high for some things but then again, I haven't shopped for classic games in while. They did have a tempting copy of Buffy The Vampire Slayer for the Xbox but I passed. I wish someone would open up a similar store in Houston but I'm not holding my breath.


The second day, I drove up and down Lamar Blvd to check out various shops I haven't visited in around a decade(Waterloo Video: wish there was something like that in Houston, Planet K: I don't remember it being as much of a head shop).


I went to two Half Price Books and actually found some PS3 and 360 titles, if I had either system I'd proabably snap them up at 30 bucks each. I settled for a PS2 copy of Midnight Club Racing for three buck and a Yakov Smirmov videotape of his Branson act.


Cheapo Discs & DVDs seemed promising with Simpsons Skateboarding PS2 for 10 bucks and Bust-A-Groove psone for only three. Sadly, the former was scratched and the latter turned out to be a bootleg. I settled for Prince Of Persia: Sands Of Time PS2 for 7 bucks.


I also ran across a Goodwill store that was beautifully organized and had stuff I've never seen in my town such as an Xbox and and original Gameboy with a case and tons of games.


I dared not to ask prices, I'll just imagine they were 20 dollars each and remain happy in my blissful ignorance.

Top Gun slot "machine"

I hesitate to even call this thing a slot machine, it's more of a gambling videogame(they call it Sensory Immersion Gaming):
As you can see from the marquee, they got all of the major stars(Kelly McGillis, Anothony Edwards, & Val Kilmer) I asks the guys with WMS about this and they sais it was because "you're Maverick!", but I wonder if licensing had more to do with it.
They've also produced many other themed casino machines based on such properties as Hasbro board games(Monopoly), Clint Eastwood's likeness(Dirty Harry, Fistfull of Dollars) and even Green Acres.

I think I'll wait for Mr. Belvedere Video Poker.

Austin GDC - Habbo Hotel

This the the biggest room yet:
A lot of the sessions that have interested me the most here at the Austin GDC are the ones relating to online communities. As a parent with two young girls, one rapidly becoming a tween, the interactions and community psychology of online worlds is something I've been paying attention to more and more. I was able to see two keynotes today, the first from Sulake lead designer Sulka Haro. Here's a few things I found interesting.

In Finland, cellphones are common enough among teenagers that the initial sales were SMS based, directly selling the in game furniture items that you decorate your room with(called furni),but when the game introduced a UK version, they moved to selling credits for money which turned out to be one of the most complicated things in the game. Worldwide there are around 100 different ways that they sell credits.

They use the idea of one in a million when thinking about users figuring out loophole in the game. With 80,000,000 users 80 will find the loophole.

With advertising, they're try to get away from standard avenues such as banners and heading more toward branded items, such a a Mountain Dew couch. It's been very successful with branded items becoming more valuable than readily available item that might even have more functionality.

Some items are apparently worth up to two thousand real-world dollars, they recently calculated the total market value of all existing items at around 550,000,000.

When dealing with cheaters and scammers, the fear of their parents finding out what they've been doing is a much worse threat that jail time.

In a recent survey, 70% of habbos wanted a foreign friend but only 44% have a positive attitude toward foreigners(!). So many Finnish teens crowded the Japanese hotel when it opened that they had to develop IP blocking technology to prevent the Finns from overtaking it.

He doesn't like the terms web2.0 or game 3.0 for Habbo since they've been doing it for almost 7 years. Also dislikes the term User Generated Content. It's too generic and makes users sound like content creating robots. Prefers the term "player created activity". Proud that Habbo is a non-violent non-game.

He then showed some of the content of Habbo(which has gotten pretty insane since I dabbled with it 5 years ago.)

There is now a music mixer and audio samples that can be bought. Habbo was silent for 6 years and now music is everywhere and most is player created. The resulting music can be bought for about 15 cents an album and burned to a CD.

He showed a room that looked like a McDonald's with people standing in line to order and as he said "people are role-playing a minimum wage job". There was also a police station with people acting a police officers, there are numerous armies, mafias, pretend gambling casinos. He pointed out that they can't actually do anything malicious, it's all just role play. There are also record stores and he also showed off a room with 20 rare expensive items that totaled up to 200 dollars. Since that particular item is no longer offered it's actually worth much more now. He then showed a room of people dressed in brown role playing as horses "for hours and hours and hours."

Habbo is almost completely user driven and they try very hard not to define content. There are no pre-defined feedback loops, no in-game rewards for doing anything. Players get enjoyment from fame gathering or just loving to play. The players usually know what's hot before the designers do. He has to resist the temptation to think he knows that the users want. In other MMOs community managers end up becoming superstars in the world and they try to avoid that like crazy.

A couple of examples of in game Habbo transitioning out side of the game world, Habbo-themed wedding invitations and cake topper for a couple that met in the game and the "pool's closed" phenomenon - a giant raid by 4chan that temporarily shut does the US hotel and is now a t-shirt and meme repeated by people who might not even know what it originally meant.

Far Cry 2 To Have Orphanage Burning Mini-game

...is a headline that you'll never see. Mythical orphanage burning was a hypothetical mission that you might get sent on if you acted like a complete bastard in a game that was designed to react to a player's previous actions in the game.

Another interesting bit in the talk "Familiarity breeds contempt: Building game stories that flow" by Ubisoft's Patrick Redding was an example game called "papaRatzo", a free-roaming title where you play a photographer rat in a London that's eternally night time and your task is to take embarrassing and incriminating photos of mythical creatures called "Cele-Brites".

The game sounded so awesome I sort of glossed over the example it was used for. I've also been up since 4:30 am driving for 3 hours. Here's a picture of that big room.

And here's a picture of the next room I was in:

It was uncomfortably small and packed but the talk about "community influencers" in MMOs was very interesting. I really never knew such a thing existed and it's a deviously clever use of your userbase. I attempted similar community interaction(on a much smaller scale) when I used to have a live talk show on cable acces tv. I still talk to people I met on those message boards and get togethers.

I also took four pages of illegibly written notes for seemingly no reason.

I have infiltrated the Austin Game Developers conference

By large amounts of persistance and a lot of luck, I am lucky enough to attend the Austin Game Developers Conference, even thought I feel have no business being here. There was a bit of trouble checking in a getting my badge so I missed the first two sessions, but I'm finally in and patiently waiting for this one to start. It should be interesting.

This room is freaking huge.