I’ll be giving a lecture at the IGDA Leadership Forum in November. Quick summary: “This session will attempt to summarize, and make relevant for the game industry, the most important lessons that I learned when getting my MBA from MIT Sloan. This session will not be a thinly-veiled attempt to glorify business school or to suggest that attendees enroll at MIT Sloan. :-)”

Henry writes about Eric Klopfer’s work on Augmented Learning and mobile educational games. Eric’s team has created an “Outdoor Augmented Reality Toolkit” — a drag and drop authoring tool for location-based games on Windows Mobile devices that has been used by researchers and educators around the world, and will soon be available for download here.

Microsoft has announced that XNA Creators Club members will be able to actually sell their games via LIVE.

Via Raph, news of the open alpha of PlayCrafter, another “easy way for anyone to make games” platform. (See Raph’s blog for a video.)

Google’s developer challenge for its Android mobile platform is resulting in some really interesting applications, including a barcode scanner that finds pricing and metadata on the fly, and an iris (eye) scan for biometric authentication. How long will it be before Android-based games are piggybacking this functionality?

Blizzard is creating a new cross-title Achievement system, much like Xbox LIVE’s Achievement system, which will give players a unified score across all Blizzard games. I wonder if this indicates that Blizzard intends to expand Battle.net into more of a comprehensive platform like Steam?

Recap of what seems to have been a very, very interesting talk by Jon Blow, who asserts that gameplay elements and narrative elements often conflict in commercial games.

Crowdsourcing games (like Google’s “Image Labeler”) are one of my favorite topics, and here’s word of a new one — The Stock Moose, which presents you with performance charts for two stocks and lets you choose which one you would buy.

At Comic-Con, Cliff Bleszinski revealed that Gears of War 2 would feature linked Achievements, or special content that is unlocked only if you’ve earned a specific achievement in the original Gears of War. For example, if you’ve completed Act One in Gears Of War, you will unlock a playable Anthony Carmine in Gears of War 2. This is similar to what Peter Molyneux is doing with Fable on XBLA, i.e. enabling you to win currency that can then be spent within the world of Fable 2.

I suspect that this sort of thing will become increasingly popular with developers, some of whom will do it simply because it’s cool, and some of whom will do it because it can be useful for promotional purposes. (Use the earlier release of “Game A” to help drive interest in “Game B.” Or alternatively, take “Game A,” which isn’t expected to be a huge hit, and link it to “Game B,” which is expected to be a huge hit, in hopes that “Game A” benefits — a potentially more subtle or interesting version of the “bundle Game A with a demo or beta of Game B” strategy.)

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Kzero compares the traffic rankings of various virtual worlds.

Activision is launching an online music platform, based on the Guitar Hero franchise, that will compete with iTunes. Great idea. I’d love to know how they intend to handle portability between devices and between games.

For those of you looking for an extremely quick recap of the console makers’ E3 highlights:

• Nintendo announced Wii Motion Plus (a hardware add-on that makes Wiimotes more precise), Ubisoft’s Shaun White Snowboarding, which uses the Wii Fit board, the long-expected Wii Music, and the even longer-expected Star Wars lightsaber game. Nintendo also unveiled the WiiSpeak microphone, which allows a room full of players to converse with one another.
• Sony showed Resistance 2, unveiled a movie download service for the PS3 and PSP, and announced an original Ratchet & Clank game for PSN. There was also mention of a “massive action game” that would accommodate 256 players simultaneously. And of course, additional glimpses of Little Big Planet were a big hit.
• Microsoft unveiled an avatar system for LIVE, an updated dashboard, a party system (that enables friends to jump from game to game together), and integration with Netflix. On the retail games front: the next Viva Pinata, and a movie-making game that uses the Vision Camera called You’re in the Movies, and a karaoke game, Lips, which uses music on your Zune or iPod and ships with motion-sensitive microphones. Finally, the news that Final Fantasy is, well, finally coming to Xbox. On the LIVE games front: Primetime interactive game shows like 1 vs 100, the true sequel to Geo Wars, an all-new Galaga, and an original game in partnership with South Park.

Speaking of E3: You may agree or disagree with them, but the guys at Penny Arcade really know how to poke fun at the platforms. :-)

Gamasutra has posted an article sharing ten lessons for designing games that appeal to “older gamers” — which they also call “silver gamers.” Most of the lessons seem obvious, but it’s worth being reminded of them.

I would have liked it if some of the lessons were expanded upon. For example, lesson #1 emphasizes the importance of repeatable tutorials, but tutorials are simply one means of addressing a larger issue: that of teaching people what they can do in a game, and then helping them to remember those lessons later on. (Lesson #2 was “better printed manuals, reiterating the importance of this issue.) Given the tremendous length of some games, and the fact that busy adults may spread that gameplay over weeks or even months, it’s easy to forget the lessons taught in a tutorial.

This problem is exaggerated in games, such as Assassin’s Creed or MGS4, that pack large amounts of functionality into disparate objects and/or context-sensitive situations. (Though MGS4 does some things nicely, like automatically displaying all the ways to use an item when you select that item from the menu.) The request for meatier printed manuals, like repeatable tutorials, is ultimately a symptom of this larger problem.

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Raph calls out the McDonald’s Line Rider commercial, which I hadn’t seen yet. It’s a neat idea for an advertisement, and Raph draws on a few numbers to make the interesting point that Line Rider might be better known than the TV shows that host this advertisement.

Also from Raph, word that Habbo has reached 100m registered users worldwide. Quite a milestone.

Soren’s been on a bit of a “Spore creature watch” since the free creature creator was released. These particular creations will make any fan of Star Wars smile. (Take one guess as to the identity of the creatures before clicking the link. You probably won’t guess correctly.) Soren also points out that 500k creatures were created in two days. An auspicious beginning for a product that I really hope does tremendously well, commercially-speaking!

An account of the first meeting of CCP’s Council of Stellar Management, a democratically-elected group of players who meet with CCP twice a year to inform the future development of Eve Online.

An interview with Neil Young, who left EA to found an iPhone game publisher called Ngmoco. This quote caught my eye: “The iPhone, from a performance standpoint, is pretty close to a PSP, but unlike the PSP, it’s got a touchscreen, accelerometers, a camera, it’s location-aware, it’s got all of your media on it, it’s awake with you, it’s always on, and it’s always connected to the network. So if you think about the types of games and entertainment experiences that you can build on a platform like that, it’s got to get pretty exciting pretty quickly.”

The guys who made Duels.com (a mind-numbingly tedious — but very popular — web game) have taken their simple, asynchronous multiplayer design philosophy and applied it to baseball. The new game is called Baseball Boss. It’s in closed beta, so I haven’t had the chance to play, but something tells me Baseball Boss will be very successful. Accessible, short-session, asynch multiplayer gameplay and baseball (with its wide audience) seem like a good match to me.

Lots of people made fun of Activision for porting Guitar Hero to the DS. Looks like Activision got the last laugh: it sold 300k units, in North America only, in the first week.

The Freakanomics blog is worth subscribing to, if you haven’t already. Via it comes word of a neat experiment: in the psychology department coffee room at Newcastle University, prices for tea and coffee were posted on the wall, and an “honesty box” (i.e., in which to place your payment) was set nearby. This sort of experiment is fairly common, but the twist was that, in some weeks, a photo of flowers appeared above the price list. In other weeks, it was a pair of human eyes, staring directly at the person reading the price list. In weeks with eyes on the list, staff paid 2.76 times as much for their drinks.

This brought to mind my earlier post on the wonderful book Predictably Irrational, which noted that you could dramatically cut down on cheating in exams if you simply asked students to recall the Ten Commandments before they took a test, or — more pointedly — by reminding them of a school honor code. (You had to do this right before the test — it couldn’t happen weeks before and still retain the effect.)

A long time ago, I wrote an article for Gamasutra exploring the possible design of a feedback/rating system that would discourage antisocial behavior in MMOs. That system, which still may have merit, pales in comparison to the wonderful elegance and simplicity of these psychological tricks. And given that (1) one of the biggest challenges for online, anonymous systems like MMOs (and LIVE) is antisocial behavior, and (2) companies are spending tens of millions of dollars on these systems (if not more), why aren’t more companies hiring psychologists and behavioral economists as consultants or full-time employees? The cost seems justified, given the potential benefits.

(Actually, I’ve heard of a few MMO developers hiring economists, but I think that most are focused on the optimization of in-game economies, as opposed to tackling anti-social behavior. There is a relationship between the two, but they are not equivalent.)

Too wonderful for words. (Kim and Raph already beat me to it.)

Jeremy Liew posts an estimate that most successful free to play MMOGs will generate $1 to $2 monthly ARPU. Some commenters dispute that, claiming up to $5. As always, the truth is probably somewhere in between (though I’d lean towards the higher end for free MMOGs that do a good job of serving niche audiences and/or that have more creative revenue-generating mechanisms.)

Majesco becomes the first publisher to capitalize on the opportunity created by Nintendo when they stunted Wii Fit by not including streamlined, customizable fitness (and especially cardio) modes in the game. Hopefully Majesco doesn’t go too far in the opposite direction and forget the fun.

And speaking of Wii Fit, Nintendo claims that they didn’t create this video, but if they did, it’s one of the most brilliant marketing gimmicks ever. (And it looks like copycat videos will bring Wii Fit even more attention; Playboy just posted one. No nudity, but still maybe not safe for work.)

Ummm… and speaking of Wii Fit (again…) Danc writes an eloquent post accurately labeling it a great example of game design as a “transformational new product development technique that can turn historically commoditized activities into economic blockbusters.”

There are two design issues that I have been thinking about lately. One is the question of consequences, which smart guys like Clint Hocking and Randy Smith have lectured and written about. Are we robbing games of meaning (and/or eliminating the sense of wonder they can create) by reducing player choice, amping up positive feedback, and increasing the degree to which we hold the player’s hand? The second is the question of difficulty — how challenging should a game be, and is it “pandering” or “betraying the spirit of the game” to do things like offer a very easy play mode, design more forgiving checkpoints, add a hint system, etc? (Accessibility and difficulty issues are, in fact, a recurring theme on this blog.)

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The Amazon pre-order page for my book is up. It feels wonderful, weird, and intimidating to see it.

It still doesn’t have a cover (thus the “no image” image.) That’ll hopefully get pinned down in the next couple weeks.

It’s strange… I want to say more, but I can’t think of anything worth saying. I mean, it’s out there now, for better or worse. And it’ll have to speak for itself. Right?

Oh, and for those of you who I bombarded with emails asking for feedback on the title of the book: thank you so much for your advice! How Ethan and I ultimately ended up with the current title, “Changing the Game,” is a long and dramatic story — drop me a line if you’re curious to hear it. (A teaser: the book nearly ended up with the name “500 Panama Canals,” but our publisher wouldn’t have it. Too bad — that one was my favorite by far!)

The LA Times, which has historically been quite critical of Second Life (at least, in regard to its usefulness to businesses) published an article last month showcasing the increasing use of SL as a corporate meeting space.

Ubisoft is making a game for the DS based on Allan Carr’s “Easyway” to Stop Smoking. Love it. Really hope it works. This could be great for our industry.

Valve’s Steam Cloud has been unveiled. Steam users will now be able to access game-generated data (such as save and configuration files) from anywhere. Nice.

For those of you who haven’t heard of it, DOTA is a hugely popular Warcraft 3 mod with an interesting development story. Very fun, too. A nice article about it can be found here.

Forbes publishes How Technology Can Save Retailers, which, in fact, is all about online games, not technology in general. The topic — using games as marketing and consumer research platforms — is something that I cover extensively in my upcoming book.

Sandra Day O’Connor is working on a video game that will teach children how the judicial system works. (Lots of great serious game-related links in this post, I’m realizing. It feels like an inflection point of sorts.)