Friday, May 24, 2002

John Markoff on the ongoing video game boom. "As game software and hardware become more elaborate and the profit potential grows, the development budgets of hit software titles are swelling as well. Costs now routinely fall from $3 million to $6 million, and $10 million is no longer unusual. The development team for the latest Laura Croft game, which is being produced in England, has jumped to 50 from 15." This just underlines the growing divide between educational technology, often produced at a tenth to a hundreth of these budgets, and entertainment titles. I don't see the market for educational titles changing fast enough to close this divide, and I worry that the expectations for educational technology -- in the eyes of students, teachers, and designers -- will become more and more driven by the state of the art in entertainment. Where's the middle way? 12:21:48 PM     Sorry for the extended break -- travel and some personal business kept me from posting recently. I think it's interesting how inherently fragile weblogs are, subject as they are to the time and energy of one, or maybe two, people. The energy and insight of those individuals is what makes weblogs so interesting to me, but the other side of the coin is that a variety of events, good and bad, can throw a weblog off its stride. (Am I just making excuses? Maybe -- but there are plenty of weblogs I follow that go on hiatus for various reasons.) 12:15:40 PM

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