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| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=17116 |  GX-Alan (78) Aug 27, 2007 - 07:09 am
| Transformers made >$660 million worldwide, more than any of us can ever hope to achieve. Why does TF make a ton of money? Cpmpare it to The Island. It's not the action sequences/explosions. It's not Megan vs. Scarlett. It's not even the license (look at Hulk). Most people were expecting Transformers to be bad too...
Turns out the difference is in the story *structure* more so than the story itself. It's not by random chance that a movie like that can pull in $660M, and every random writer wouldn't be able to pull that off. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=17116 | GX-Alan (78) Aug 27, 2007 - 02:22 am
| Suppose you and I are at war, and it just costs us $10/month to fight this war. I send two missiles across the border and you send one back. This can go on and on and on. Slowly but surely, I'm winning -- but the stakes are lower.
All of a sudden, you've launched a nuclear bomb across the bow. There is significant devastation. However, I can no longer continue to participate in this war by launching two missiles/month. In fact, your nuclear bomb also angered our powerful neighbor, who up until now had been someone ignorant of our war.
Your move has forced my hand to escalate the hostilities. I will have to strike back and instead of being a $10/month war, I'm looking at $10,000/month. Our neighbor may soon realize that if we keep fighting, he's going to be affected to and suddenly, he doesn't want to stay on the sidelines anymore...
There's no guarantee that this'll happen, but it's certainly an interesting possibility. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=15372 | GX-Alan (78) May 07, 2007 - 09:55 am
| | The "Xeon I4" is virtually equivalent to the Core 2 Quad. As before, if you're not memory bandwidth limited, the extra 4 cores improves performance. If you're memory bandwidth limited though, you cannot maximize the potential of those additional processing units. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=15016 | GX-Alan (78) Apr 14, 2007 - 10:41 pm
| After the competition is over, I'll go ahead and give my detailed feedback on how each of the individuals did.
In terms of scoring, the only reason we don't seem "worried" about users stuffing the ballot one way or another is the way the equation works. Reader scores count for a reasonable percentage of your internal score, but everyone's score ends up being pretty similar.
The other thing to remember is that there are two problems where this competition "could be improved" next time.
a) It's essentially single-elimination. A great writer can still have a bad-day. The scores get reset each round of the contest, so writers who did well in earlier rounds but stumbled in the later rounds ran into trouble.
b) The competition got really tough, really fast. We couldn't have imagined that the talent would be so high, so early in the round. Ideally, we could narrow things down to a top 10 and then eliminate one or two people each round.
REST ASSURED THAT THIS IS NOT THE ONLY CONTEST FIRINGSQUAD WILL RUN. Competitors in the first competition will still be able to participate in the next... Flag this | Edit this post |
| Matrix Blog Link » /matrix/blog.asp/17473/261 | GX-Alan (78) Mar 07, 2007 - 08:43 pm
| Good questions. Any reviewer can get a piece of hardware and then run a bunch of benchmarks on it and then post those numbers. It really doesn't tell the readers that much. Likewise, game reviews are easy in that you just write a paragraph about graphics, sound, gameplay, etc. and hope that you'll be OK.
What we're looking for is a writer who understands both.
It doesn't matter if you have killer equipment or crappy equipment. Here's some hints.
1) You have a crappy video card but want to upgrade to a better one.
Why do you want to upgrade? (Because there is some game that you want to play at maximum quality that you currently cannot). So, write an article about that. Tell the readers about that game you're playing or that game you want to play and show the difference between how you experience it and how you want to experience it.
2) You have a crappy video card but choose not to upgrade.
Why not? (Because you've figured out how to choose an acceptable level of quality settings.) Show us why the fancier video card doesn't help, or why going from "minimal quality" to "medium quality" just isn't worth it, and how you have to go to "high-quality" to get the results you want.
3) You want to show someone the difference between 512MB and 1GB of RAM. Which benchmarks do you choose?
4) You have a digital SLR and are trying to decide which RAW processor to use.*
The more ideas I throw out, the less valuable they are. You can use these ideas, but make it exceptional. Make it personal. You don't want to compete against 5 other people writing about the same exact topic.
Questions to ask yourself:
1. What are you trying to prove? What are you trying to discover?
2. Why should a reader care?
3. Have I presented the evidence in such a way that the "only logical conclusion" is your conclusion.
* In the past, FiringSquad has occasionally done non-gaming stuff. This is REALLY hard to do, and I'd caution you from doing this. That said, if you swear you have an awesome topic that's marginally related to gaming and you want to get it approved for Round 2, you can email me and we'll discuss it. Again, I strongly recommend against this due to the risk of having a dud article. Flag this | Edit this post |
| Matrix Blog Link » /matrix/blog.asp/61804/152 | GX-Alan (78) Feb 24, 2007 - 06:05 pm
| | Don't make it unprofessional. Make it personal and professional. Take a look at a magazine like Newsweek, Car & Driver, Vogue, Sports Illustrated, Gourmet, or Variety (there I think I've covered most things). These articles are well written in terms of grammar, focus, and style but they're not "stuffy" nor are they too formal. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=14420 | GX-Alan (78) Feb 22, 2007 - 02:44 pm
| | Lol. Only the payment is a $10,000 contract this time around. :) FiringSquad is definitely running on all cylinders right now -- but everyone still wants more and more content. More videos, more game reviews, more hardwaer reviews, more editorials, etc. The only way we're going to do that is to expand and bring in new writers... How do we find a writer that FiringSquad fans will like? We ask them. :) Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=14386 | GX-Alan (78) Feb 19, 2007 - 06:49 pm
| | I think this is one of those times where you fall between the cracks. Take a look back the editor's comments -- I really think that a polished version of your entry will work. Where the article stumbles imho is focusing only on the Wii. The social element of games is important, but you stop before you make the case about the social element of games by talking about games that can be fun to *watch*, the appeal of MMORPGs, or even the social element behind games like Guitar Hero or DDR. Flag this | Edit this post |
| Cluster Shout Box Link » /matrix/cluster.asp/3 | GX-Alan (78) Feb 05, 2007 - 03:31 pm
| As an addendum, if your entry is going to be "a daily blog", then you can have more than one entry...
Obviously, if you just blog news, it's no good. If you're blogging your Windows Vista experience each day, etc. that's potentially more interesting. Flag this | Edit this post |
| Cluster Shout Box Link » /matrix/cluster.asp/3 | GX-Alan (78) Feb 03, 2007 - 12:11 pm
| It doesn't have to be a novel. Some people will enter with traditional FiringSquad style articles, others may do a blog/vblog, etc.
If it's stuff that you've written before and you think it's still relevant, go ahead and use it as a submission. Remember, the readers are voting not just us. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=14175 | GX-Alan (78) Feb 02, 2007 - 09:40 pm
| Or maybe you're just opinionated and you want to video blog something every day based upon what you saw on the 'net, etc.
We've have very few rules in this competition, so the sky is the limit. Think about American Idol. The first season is always the easiest, so definitely give it a try... Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=14124 | GX-Alan (78) Feb 01, 2007 - 05:08 pm
| What about software copy protection? (MacroMedia, SecureDisc, or even old school DOS bad-sector approaches).
Copyright is a legal entity. DRM is about having an electronic means that "actively" prevents copyright from being broken while, in theory, allowing fair use to occur. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=13824 | GX-Alan (78) Jan 09, 2007 - 12:17 pm
| | Apple iPhone -- just as I predicted. Focused on iPod and phone functionality first. Class leading battery life. I did not anticipate the use of OSX, but that's telling us that the CPU in the iPhone is truly a next-generation device. It will be interesting to see what manufacturer is behind the core CPU... They didn't mention any company, so it might be an Apple-internal design. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=13824 | GX-Alan (78) Jan 08, 2007 - 09:45 am
| You should take a look at last year's 2006 WWJD article; those comments still stand. The "emerging markets" list hasn't changed in terms of mobile devices at #1, movies/film at #2, and medical imaging at #3.
NVIDIA's strategy is still active in #1, which is the focus of today's article. #2 is mostly status quo with NVIDIA pursuing Bollywood as well. When #1 stabilizes, they may go for Matrox or another similar company to grab #2 and 3. (For NVIDIA, PC consumer and consoles will always play the largest role in the near future). Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=13716 | GX-Alan (78) Dec 27, 2006 - 11:57 am
| Resolution has never been the issue with the Xbox 360, it's deinterlacing and poor inverse telecine. You can lose up to 50% of the resolution. Check out the PureVideo vs. AVIVO comparison.
With regard to Square-Enix, notice that I said the "Final Fantasy (core)" line-up. The DQ series and games like Kingdom Hearts aren't in the same class.
I don't underestimate the Wii -- the most popular video card in the world is the Intel integrated. Even then, I'm calling it how I see it: PS3 as #1, Xbox 360 as #2, and Wii as #3 by the end of the console cycle. Flag this | Edit this post |
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