Sad news for Mac gamers – Austin-based Aspyr Media, the folks who keep porting us our Sims and more, just announced layoffs and cutbacks of up to one third of their staff. All of their 2009 projects ate still slated for completion, but for some hardworking families, it is not going to be a merry Christmas.
Aspyr Layoffs December 19, 2008
GTA Pwns the Universe September 4, 2008
Three pieces of Grand Theft Auto news today.
First, GTAIV has, to absolutely no one’s surprise, sold 10 million copies to date. That’s right folks – the combined populations of New York, Philadelphia, and Las Vegas could all potentially have played through hundreds of ways to jack your car or possibly save your life. With Take Two vowing to continue full promotion of GTAIV through the holiday season, expect those unit numbers, and the $433 million-plus dollars in revenue attached to them, to keep climbing higher.
Second, with that news in the can, it should come as no surprise to anyone that Take Two Interactive saw its third-quarter sales way up, boosted by *OMGRLY* GTAIV. Take Two’s net income for the quarter was over a cool $50 million, a heck of a lot better than the negative $50+ million they had this time last year.
Third, and why you care. A few sweet little nothings whispered by Take Two into the waiting ears of sandboxers everywhere: GTA Chinatown Wars out in Q4 2008.
Never! A game unveiled at E3 coming out in the same year as its debut showing? The devil you say. Apparently this is what they’ve been working on instead of the XBox 360 exclusive DLC Microsoft shelled out $50 million to acquire in 2007. I, for one, look forward to welcoming my new teeny stylus-controlled masters, er, pimps.
Why I am doing this September 3, 2008
Why now? A few people have asked me why I’m going all out in trying to break into games writing NOW, after college, grad school, law school and a few years in practice. There are a lot of reasons, not least of all the post-PAX rush, but the #1 is Randy Pausch.
Dr. Pausch was a professor of computer science, specializing in virtual reality at Carnegie Mellon University. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in September of 2006. A year later, on September 17, 2007, Randy Pausch gave “The Last Lecture” – a talk he called “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” – in front of a crowd of 400 at CMU.
In The Last Lecture, Randy talked about his life, his hopes, his dreams, and how he achieved them. Even as he acknowledged that he was dying, showing his CT scans to the audience, he effused light and determination and inspiration and truth.
In one anecdote, Randy recounts his reply to a colleague who asked how it was that Randy managed to get tenure a year early. Randy replied, “Come see me in my office any Friday at 10 at night and I’ll tell you.”
Enough said. It’s time to get to work. School is easy, this is hard. I love it already, though. If I can make a break into a place like Gamespot, 1UP, G4, or the rest, or even if I can make a solid go of this on my own, I will have achieved my childhood dream. It’s what Randy Pausch would have wanted. It’s what I want.
Professor Pausch died on July 25, 2008. Let us all try to live our dreams to live his dream.
Playing With My Weiner 