Aaron Hoffmann Principal UX Product Designera few conceptual illustrations just added to my galleries, intended for use in a national holiday campaign, now relegated to the cutting room floor, unfortunately. two sheets of stylised silhouettes, and one sheet showing how they might be used in a more finished design. enjoy.. it’s the only time and place you’ll get to see them!
thought of the day: i wonder if the the inventor of the hard-boiled egg’s next experiment involved watermelons?
in case anyone hadn’t noticed, i’ve ditched the moody, gothic black and red design for something a bit more light-hearted, not to mention inspired; the previous design was pretty dull in my opinion. this time around, brighter tones everywhere, as well as some more organic elements give a more accurate representation of my personal design style and skill.
replacing the branching tree animation of the previous header are the row of navigational buttons just beneath the header, each with a small, subtle animation. it’s probably my favourite new element to the site, followed by the new image viewer. click almost any image from a post or gallery to have it neatly presented in a larger format, scaled to your window.
one disclaimer: the site is designed to work in all modern browsers, which contrary to some beliefs, does NOT include Internet Explorer 6. i have done my best to keep things reasonably designed and functional with IE6, but the truth is the program is old hat, and was never very good to begin with. it’s an anchor this boat isn’t interested in dragging anymore. so you can do your best to enjoy the site with IE6 minus the full experience and plus a few layout quirks, or you can do the internet a favour by joining the rest of 2008 and using Firefox or Safari.
it’s my hope that people enjoy it; if you experience any issues or just totally hate it, leave a comment. in the coming days, i’ll be refreshing/streamlining my portfolio images to be more concise and current. thanks for stopping by!
listening to:
Modern Guilt
Beck
thought of the day: sometimes, when i swat a mosquito, for a moment i feel like a vampire slayer.
So last week marked the beginning and end of the E3 2008 expo in Los Angeles, California. Traditionally, each of the main gaming platforms holds a pre-show spectacle to kick things off, and this story’s title suggests the chronology of how the three shuffled out this time around. But how did things go down? Nearly like a page from Goldilocks and the Three Bears: one was too hot, one was too cold, and one was just right. Here’s part two of three…
I’ve kept it no secret among friends and other gaming journalists that my opinion of this year’s conference comes somewhere between a papercut and genital mutilation on my scale of things I’d rather not endure; it was bloody painful — not just to watch, but also to listen.
From mommy dearest’s fake, over-enthusiastic stage presence to the contrived duel of the executive fates, to Ravi yes-my-last-name-is-“Drums” awesomest gig ever warming up for the Shiggy All-Star Band and their audio-in-audio (picture-in-picture) deaf-mute sound of Wii Music… I couldn’t tell if (EVP of Sales and Marketing) Ms. Dunaway was trying to teach me my ABC’s, or if my vast collection of Koji Kondo, Yasunori Mitsuda and Motoi Sakuraba had spoiled my taste in good game music.
Sadly, while the overall content of their show didn’t turn me off completely, it was the presentation that was just a little too Humpty Dumpty having a great fall for my preference. It was a sloppy, disorganised mess with very little structure…the little info they DID have was scattered and discombobulated. Compared to the slick shows put on by the other two giants, Nintendo’s was left looking like the slacker in class who turns in their homework as a pile of crumpled papers.
I can’t say I was surprised by any of the announcements… or lack thereof as it was. While E3 may tend to be the show–at least traditionally–for the real gamers out there, Nintendo’s conference was clearly a photo op of sorts… a flim-flammery of soundbites intended for The Today Show, Ellen, Oprah, and other similar demographic shows. Perhaps they’d have done well to focus more on real announcements and information, instead of spending nearly 2/3 of the show spouting the same tired braggadocio anyone who’s seen the empty store shelves could already tell you.
A few of the puzzling details:
- a 2-minute video for the major Animal Crossing title on Wii, and then it’s all but ignored?
- an awkward 5 minute tease of Wii Sports 2? And what exactly about this title requires development until 2009?? It appears that between the original title, Wii Play, and Wii Fit, all the assets exist.
- 5-10 minutes talking about a Guitar Hero DS sequel when the original is barely two weeks old?
- hearsay about experimental DS technologies in airports and kitchens, but zero proof of any of these wonders?
- not even a mention of the new kick-ass Wario platformer coming to Wii soon?
- the ungodly mess that is Wii Music–or as i have dubbed it, Wii Cacophony? I had to put that rubbish on mute and look away. I love Shiggy to death, but that “game” is missing something…a whole lot of something that curiously should have been added after over TWO YEARS of development. Rhythm is a vital component of music, and to ignore that in lieu of freeform pretending is clearly not good. I may as well turn on MTV, iTunes, and my clock radio to all different channels. Same difference.
They showed software for everyone, but didn’t show stuff for everyone, if that makes sense. Nintendo has built itself up as a company of innovation and leadership in the industry, and that’s just not what anyone saw this year—casual, hardcore, or otherwise.
If Nintendo is a TV channel, it seems they’ve been airing reruns from the Home Shopping Network lately. Infomercials are fine to fill out the schedule, but we need regular programming too. Which leads me to wonder… if it’s Nintendo’s aim is to bring everyone into the “gamers” fold, what are they going to do with them once they’re there?
They might just wind up with a growing base of “core” gamers as people expand their tastes beyond the Game & Watch or Tetris varieties, and then have an army of unsatisfied customers on their hands.
One thing they need to understand is that as people are diverse, there’s no one thing that can appeal to everyone, and as a business, diversity is always key. If GM were to have turned 100% of their focus to SUVs a few years back because everyone can fit inside one and they sold like hotcakes, GM probably wouldn’t exist in today’s market at all. If Nintendo wants to include everyone as a customer, they can’t be excluding anyone.
Sure, they’ve had a good track record so far by releasing their flagship franchises in champion time, but unless the Wii has been officially declared dead, they still have work to do, and games to release. There’s plenty of time to improve what they did show or to announce new surprises to catch us off guard. And if Nintendo fans like me are good at anything, it’s holding out hope.
May 7, 2008: the day America took one step toward parity with our Japanese Wii-playing friends as the Nintendo Channel goes live. An occasion I–and many other gamers–have been eagerly awaiting for not just the past six months, but since the launch of the Wii itself almost three times as long ago. But now that it’s live to enjoy, some of us are left wondering, “Is this IT?” A few videos and some DS demo downloads. Isn’t there a bigger opportunity for both Nintendo and gamers alike here? I’m not entirely sure Nintendo is interested in that kind of symbiotic relationship anymore, as this new channel is clearly not aimed at their core fan or the core gamer.
“How do you figure, mr. jezter?”, I hear it, I really do. The proof is in the pudding, so to speak. Just the other day, Satoru Iwata marginalised Nintendo’s core audience and the core gamers as a “small number” of their customers. Not fans, supporters, pillars, or even informed enthusiasts. We’re customers; and a statistical rounding-error to boot. While image, reputation, and customer service are important to any company’s business, the core gamer is already a tiny piece of the pie compared to their current and potential demographic (of everyone); and Nintendo has bigger fish to fry than appease us, the vocal minority. They could likely cut out all of us and still be ahead of the game, no pun intended. So we can whine all we want, it’s just becoming less and less relevant to their strategy of assimilating the entire world’s population into gaming.
Plus, it’s no secret that the company’s marketing of its software is and has always been rather poor, if nearly non-existent. For the sake of this discussion, their “biggest ever marketing push” surrounding Wii Fit is excluded, because it’s primarily a hardware offering, and also being targeted at everyone, of which core gamers are again a small subset.
Now I consume a lot of media–a LOT–and can honestly say that except for a Mario Kart Wii spot last week, the last TV commercials I saw for any Big-N game was one of two, both about the same time frame last fall: Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, and Brain Age 2 DS (with the Crimson/Onyx DS). Either Nintendo isn’t marketing its software in venues the core gamer resides, or they’re not doing it at all; another unfortunate sign of our clan being marginalised. The Wii system hardware really needs no advertising…the thing sells itself. But with so many non-core gamers buying the system and no real marketing to support its games, how on earth does a company expect to rake in the recurring revenue? Enter the Nintendo Channel.
What better way to create a marketing campaign for a very captive audience–just the Wii owners–for free, or at least very cheaply? Give the people who might only be playing Wii Sports a chance to see what other games are out there. Of course, only show them the commercials and other marketing assets, because seeing is believing. Wait…I specifically remember seeing and hearing first-hand both Reggie and Iwata two years ago this week at E3 2006 and their pre-show bonanza touting “Playing is Believing”.
Obviously I think the biggest missed opportunity with the Nintendo Channel is the lack of Wii demos. Granted, that would put additional focus on the whole storage dilemma, but wouldn’t that really only affect us small percentage of avid gamers? We ought to be used to struggling with our makeshift solutions by now to make do. Perhaps the storage issues really aren’t issues at all. The DS doesn’t have a hard drive, but it has downloadable demos. How is it that the superior specs of the Wii make it less capable of doing exactly the same thing? If kid brother can do it, big brother can too. Or perhaps offering demos will only expand the storage needs and concerns out into the mainstream, and create the need for an internal system of rating, testing and approving the additional content; both solutions they want to postpone? That’s a lot of rhetoric…best pull myself back to reality.
For me as the quintessential Ninty fan and avid gamer, a channel on the Wii to view game footage is going to be precisely 44 steps behind my web browser in both timeliness and amount of content available. I guess there’s always the DS demos…but if I didn’t already own one, it’s nothing more than a lure for me to buy one. Since the DS and Wii have virtually no other connectivity between one another, the demos almost seem off-topic. But as a core gamer, I do have a DS and will gladly accept the bones thrown my way.
In the end, the Nintendo Channel fits nicely with my weather and photo channels as novelties to show my non-gaming friends, propagating the expanded audience philosophy. It’s like one of those infomercials you hate clogging up the airwaves, but you just can’t resist tuning in. Maybe some megaton announcements in the coming months will prove me completely wrong; I sincerely hope that’s the case. Or maybe once Nintendo has converted all of humanity into core gamers, they’ll have no choice but to listen to us. But in the meantime, I can’t help but feel like the cuckold whose wife is sleeping with everyone in town, yet I put up with it because dammit, I still love her anyway.
[singlepic=879,200,right]thought of the day: realising that it would be cheaper to run my auto on a gallon of milk than petrol and pondering the organics of it all, i sort of wish fuel efficiency were rated in dinosaurs per gallon. just how many brontosauruses are sloshing around in my tank?
just wanted to share one of the many pieces that fall through the cracks. it’s something i’ve sorted into the ‘rough sketches’ bin, and it certainly looks the part.
i wanted to do something with arrowheaded lines. as it turns out, i started with one continuous yellow line, then a single brown scribble for the mouth, and finally filled in the shapes with a smattering of dark scores. not the most incredible piece of art ever, but i like it, and hopefully this glimpse into my unpolished world is interesting to someone outside of it 😛
thought of the day: one holiday we need is “calendar day”; a day you can mark on your calendar with utter redundancy and superfluity.
ok strangely enough, i had been working on a little opinion diatribe about how the world seems to be on a hedonistic binge of gorging itself with stupid people, and that has in turn distorted the modern higher education system into a dysfunctional, ineffective, if not completely obsolete relic which has creeped into our economy and perverted what used to be a capable and robust professional workforce. the college degree is now nearly a parody of itself, becoming the thing it was originally created to do: certify that you in fact have intelligence and skills worthy of positive contribution to society.
as it turns out, someone already went to the trouble of writing such a piece, mostly. it focuses more on the problems of the higher education system and how the “pursuit of a college degree” part of the contemporary american dream is becoming increasing futile, and less on stupid people and their effects on the economy, and without my cute attempts at humour that writing about idiots ought to invoke.
