Tag Archives: video games

The Scary, Secret Life Of A Client 

Posted on by
1

Dale Leary

You never really know who is sitting on the other side of a table, I thought the gentleman I was being introduced to that night at Smith and Wollensky in South Beach two years ago was a video games developer. 

He certainly acted like it. We spent the night talking about how we were going to introduce the new product, who would be the spokesperson, where we would go for editorial reviews, and which publication would get the exclusive. 

Dale Leary was just one of the guys making the decisions that night. The table was filled with the owner of the company, his wife, the Italian creator, the marketing executive,  two investors, Eliot and myself, and Dale, who as it turned out was not only a video games producer but a reported child molestor. 

He certainly didn’t show any signs of weirdness during a two hour meeting. There were a number of product development discussions and Dale acted totally professionally. He gave no clues that he had a whole other despicable life behind the scenes. I talked to him a number of times on the phone and he was a talented member of the team.

For a number of typical business reasons, the video game never came to market and I forgot about Dale Leary.  At least, I thought I did. One night Eliot and I were watching the evening news and the anchors start talking about some guy who committed suicide after being accused of molesting his wife’s teen sister. 

My eyes were focused on my iPhone during the broadcast. Eliot didn’t recognize him. Something made me look up at the TV screen. I immediately thought it was Dale but it couldn’t be possible. I was flabbergasted. I needed to know more. 

I emailed one of the executives on the team who confirmed Dale was the guy on the nightly news, He had no explanation other than to say the entire situation was very upsetting and unthinkable. He had no clue that Dale was involved in these terrible acts and it was unnerving not to know the truth. 

I have enclosed several stories about the case. I thought writing about the case would give me some closure. While I still wonder what makes a man commit such heinous crimes, I still have the option of  believing it was all one big mistake. Not likely.

I hope this blog post reminds us all that we can never be too careful knowing others. It’s a very scary world. 

Click here for the Miami Herald story  

https://youtu.be/D4j-EM5mxW0

The video below featuring Dale was a promo piece for the game. 

Someone Tell Jack Nicholson to Start Playing Video Games

Posted on by
Reply

20130905-200803.jpg

The other day there was a rumor that Jack Nicholson, age 73, was a retiring from the movies because he had a difficult time remembering lines. He hasn’t acknowledge the report yet. He also hadn’t denied it either.

He needs to read the recent NY Times article that says the challenges of certain video games can improve short-term memory and long-term focus of people who are as old as 80. The findings just got published in a scientific journal called Nature. The article is appropriately named, “Game Changer.”

The gist of the article says that recent research “shows you can take older people who aren’t functioning well and make them cognitively younger through video game training.” That may mean a whole new market for video games: octogenarians.

A study from the University of Rochester shows

“Heavy use of certain off-the-shelf, intense shooting games can lead to improvements in a user’s ability to ignore distractions, and even learn. Brain scientists have discovered that swerving around cars while simultaneously picking out road signs in a video game can improve memory.”


All the researchers quoted in the story admit that the study is very young and still in the very stages. However, we all know that active minds stay fresh and vibrant. If video games and other intense mind games, help the cause, I say “Shoot away.”

If You Want to Impress the Kids

Posted on by
Reply

20130221-224625.jpg

The most advanced video game system was introduced yesterday. All you have to do is read a few sentences, watch the video demo, and then casually talk about the new Sony PlayStation 4 to the younger folks in your life.

They will be so impressed. Sony designed the PlayStation 4 with S.I.S.I.P. which stands for Simple, Immediate, Social, Integration, and Personalization. Each of these areas make the PlayStation 4 stand out from everything else in the video game market. To learn more about it, click here.

The Museum of Modern Art Exhibits Video Games As New Art Category

Posted on by
2

video games

Pac-Man

I am so happy that the Museum of Modern Art in New York is adding video games to its collection. Some of the games I have seen over the years contain the most dramatic and imaginative art. Finally they are going to get the recognition they deserve. MoMA is going to start with 14 games and then increase to 40.

Paola Antonelli, a senior curator at the museum, said, “The list of video games were selected after evaluating each work based on “behavior” (the behavior a game elicits from a player), aesthetics, space (physical environments built by code), and time.

MoMA is not the first museum to honor video games. The Smithsonian Museum just showcased “The Art of Video Games,” an 80-title exhibition. MoMA is proud to join in. Most of the games were donated.

This initial group will be shown in the Museum’s Philip Johnson Galleries, March 2013. The lineup is:

• Pac-Man (1980)
• Tetris (1984)
• Another World (1991)
• Myst (1993)
• SimCity 2000 (1994)
• vib-ribbon (1999)
• The Sims (2000)
• Katamari Damacy (2004)
• EVE Online (2003)
• Dwarf Fortress (2006)
• Portal (2007)
• flOw (2006)
• Passage (2008)
• Canabalt (2009)

Over the next few years, MoMA would like to complete this initial selection with Spacewar! (1962), an assortment of games for the Magnavox Odyssey console (1972), Pong (1972), Snake (originally designed in the 1970s; Nokia phone version dates from 1997), Space Invaders (1978), Asteroids (1979), Zork (1979), Tempest (1981), Donkey Kong (1981), Yars’ Revenge (1982), M.U.L.E. (1983), Core War (1984), Marble Madness (1984), Super Mario Bros. (1985), The Legend of Zelda (1986), NetHack (1987), Street Fighter II (1991), Chrono Trigger (1995), Super Mario 64 (1996), Grim Fandango (1998), Animal Crossing (2001), and Minecraft (2011).