|
 |
Friday, February 07, 2003 |
Are the Brothers creating the first true community of interest for the Matrix Franchise? - Yes there have been tie ins before but this is different. I see this as a David Reed model where all the related gaming builds a permanent and evergrowing community of support for the Matrix franchise
Neo Realism.
"And it turns out that Andy and Larry Wachowski, the fraternal writer-director team behind the lucrative franchise, have been harboring a deep secret. 'They've made two and a half sequels,' divulges veteran game designer Dave Perry. That unexpected half sequel turns out to be an hour of 35mm film footage shot exclusively for the videogame Enter the Matrix, due May 15 on all major game systems.
The videogame's filmic element - starring the movie cast and shot on the Australian movie set - marks an important step forward in the burgeoning creative relationship between Hollywood and the game industry. The game also boasts a Hollywood-size price tag: a rumored budget of $20 million, roughly four times the average cost of developing a PS2 title....
The Wachowskis' master plan included a novel twist. Rather than rehash the plot of The Matrix Reloaded, the game tells a parallel but equally important story. You don't play as Neo - though he, as well as Morpheus and Trinity, definitely figures in the game. Instead, you play two characers who have supporting roles in the film: an assassin named Ghost, portrayed by Hong Kong action star Anthony Wong, and hovercraft pilot Niobe, played by Jada Pinkett Smith. ('Jada had to learn more lines of dialogue for the game than she did for the movie,' says Perry.)
More importantly - and and in a move that might have some significance in future tie-ins - the game and movie story lines will intersect in unique ways. Exact details of the crossover are closely guarded, but Perry offers one cryptic example. 'In the movie, you'll see a package. If you play the game, you'll understand how that package got to where it is in the film. We're guessing it's not via FedEx.
Between the film sequences lies a combat system similar in style to 2001's third-person action game Max Payne. But make no mistake - the moves are firmly grounded in the Matrix universe: Players battle Agents by pulling off physics-defying stunts (running up walls, slowing down time) and using martial-arts moves designed by the movies' fight choreography, Yuen Wo-Ping." [February 7 issue of Entertainment Weekly, sorry but the article is available online to subscribers only]
This is such a brilliant move. The movie AND the video game are going to be so huge. There will now be hundreds of web sites devoted to the game, and the gamers will spend even more time trying to tie together all of the ways in which the two intersect together. And all of this using supporting characters in the film. The game will instantly be the fastest-selling one to date, and the DVDs should be beyond incredible. The Wachowski brothers are the leading edge of the new directors that think and film in terms of video games. And after all, their entire story line depends upon always-on connectedness - in the Matrix's "real world" you're "always connected! [The Shifted Librarian]
4:53:16 PM 
|
|
What is a team? Are there thresholds for effective team size? The growing science of the understanding of Magic Numbers suggest that there are. If we breach them we lose trust and we increase social friction.
If we were to understand these team size thresholds better - we would need less "management" and we would have more collaboration. If we understood them better we could implement supporting technology such as weblogs and Groove better as well.
This series of linked articles is derived from work by the late John Pfeiffer, Robin Dunbar and Malcolm Gladwell
3:26:05 PM
|
|
Valdis Krebs maps the Sept 11 team into a network showing the key hubs and nodes
11:53:18 AM
|
|
What is the world of Cool and Pattern really like? Pattern Recognition by William Gibson - Reviewed by Salon
Cool hunting, advertising, and marketing pervade Pattern Recognition - the book's acronym is PR, after all. Pollard "knows too much about the processes responsible for the way product is positioned in the world, and sometimes finds herself doubting that there is much else going on." But The Footage is there to prove her wrong. The Web makes it possible for an independent artist to gain a global following for no commercial purpose whatsoever. Gibson exploits the inherent tension between the monoculture and the emergence of novelty. On one hand, the monoculture lives by assimilating originality. On the other, new art has nothing but the monoculture to launch itself from. It's one of the happy paradoxes of modern life.
11:35:23 AM
|
|
I don't think that the traditional airlines have a response to the discounters - the discounters have a different model which the traditional airline cannot copy as they are bound by who they are. They would have to die to give up their existing structure but will die anyway. Funny isn't it. We would rather die that give up who we are. Now this is a new type of business competition: not about being more efficient but by giving your competitor an impossible emotional choice!
9:48:18 AM
|
|
College Students Riding the "Connected" Wave.
How College Students Shop and What They Buy
"According to a survey of college students in the US, conducted by Harris Interactive for Alloy 360 Youth, 93% of college students go online in a given month. Harris surveyed over 2,000 college students between the ages of 18 and 30 and reported that college students were responsible for $210 billion in sales in 2002. As for their shopping behavior, Harris finds that 94% think that a good selection is important when shopping whereas just 27% are looking for specific brands....
College students are also highly likely to own a number of consumer electronic products. Harris determined that 88% have a personal computer (PC), 67% have a cellphone ad 85% own a television." [eMarketer Daily]
Even though this report was done for marketers and I never fully trust numbers that come from such studies, I'm fascinated by the statistic that more college students own a personal computer than own a television. And 67% of them have cell phones. In fact, if you visit the Harris Interactive summary of the survey, it elaborates on that last point to note that 67% of them have cell phones and 36% use them to access the internet. Do you know anyone that uses their cell phone to access the internet? I don't, and that includes me (yet).
Today at lunch, Diane, Kate, and I had an interesting conversation about when "instant gratification" became such a cornerstone of our society. Kate says it was the remote control, while Diane thinks it was computers. I brought up James Gleick's book Faster (which I highly recommend) and decided on the telephone. But imagine the changes we're going to witness when the current 67% of college students with cell phones enters the work force. As Carrie Fisher noted in Postcards from the Edge, "instant gratification takes too long."
These days, when I walk around the building at work or help staff members with computer problems, I see a lot more chat programs on their desktops. Chat programs that they've installed themselves in order to stay in touch with friends and family. Cross Baby Boomers, Gen-Xers, and NetGens with chat and cell phones and you'd better fasten your seat belt over the next couple of years. [The Shifted Librarian]
6:21:37 AM
|
|
Moore's law in action - the mainstay of getting data in and out of our PC's is now a Dodo - USB ports and CD's take over for now. What next?
4:43:23 AM
|
|
Huge loss and signs that a traditional airline has no moves that make sense when competing against the new style carrier
4:41:22 AM
|
|
© Copyright 2003 Robert Paterson.
|
|
|
