Fatbob

After Markus "Notch" Persson's development and eventual cancellation of 0x10c, it sounds as if he'd just as well stick to smaller-scale games. "I think when it comes to game development I would prefer it if we did it in more the style I'm comfortable with, just experimenting," the designer said at Minecon.

"So we could just do prototypes, hopefully, and see what sticks," he said. "And then whether or not we want to talk about it publicly depends on the team who's working on it -- because sometimes there's a little bit too much pressure and it doesn't feel as exploratory any more."

Persson explained that he "just kept comparing everything to Minecraft, and that's how 0x10c came to be, but I think it was too big for me at the time to do. Maybe in the future when I don't feel that burden, I might do it. But then I kind of thought about it for a while and decided, 'No, I'm just going to do the small prototypes for now,' and it feels better."

As great a position as he and Mojang are in given the breakout success of Minecraft, it's certainly proven itself to be a tough -- some might even say impossible -- act to follow.

Notch on 0x10c and the future of Mojang; "We could just do prototypes and see what sticks" [PCGamesN]

Do you ever get tired of holding your phone to your face? How about trying to chat in loud, crowded places?

Read more...

Look around any toy store and you'll see hundreds of Disney characters sold as action figures and stuffed toys, so it's quaint to think that there was actually a time when Disney had trouble selling stuff. But there was.

Back in 2000, Disney's consumer products division was overstretched and underfocused, according to Peggy Orenstein in her 2006 New York Times article "What's Wrong with Cinderella?"

Disney had mistakenly triggered price wars by granting multiple licenses for their core characters, and sales were dropping as much as 30 percent a year. Adding to their problem was the 1998 "A Bug's Life" movie had trouble translating to merchandising opportunities. "What child want[ed] to snuggle up with an ant?," wrote Orenstein.

A new Disney executive named Andy Mooney, who came over from Nike, was checking out his first "Disney on Ice" show in Phoenix, when he came to a solution that would save Disney from its woes.

"Standing in line in the arena, I was surrounded by little girls dressed head to toe as princesses," Mooney told Orenstein, "They weren't even Disney products. They were generic princess products they'd appended to a Halloween costume. And the light bulb went off. Clearly there was latent demand here. So the next morning I said to my team, 'O.K., let's establish standards and a color palette and talk to licensees and get as much product out there as we possibly can that allows these girls to do what they're doing anyway: projecting themselves into the characters from the classic movies.'"

Mooney and his team picked Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, Mulan, and Pocahontas to be in the new Disney Princess line. It was the first time that Disney marketed characters separately from a movie release, and it was also the first time that different characters from different movies were lumped together.

Orenstein wrote that to "ensure the sanctity of what Mooney called their individual 'mythologies,' the princesses never make eye contact when they're grouped: each stare[d] off in a slightly different direction as if unaware of the others' presence."

What Mooney did worked: As of 2006, there were 25,000 Disney Princess items. Sales shot up from $300 million in 2001 to over $3 billion globally. And to this day, no Disney princess has ever looked at one other's eyes when they're displayed together as a group.

This week's Steam Midweek Madness sale is for Super Meat Boy. The game has been discounted by 80% off it's normal retail price, so you can grab it for $2.99. The amazing soundtrack is also on sale, and that's going for $1.19. You have until Friday at 10AM Pacific to nab both discounted items.

Oh, and Super Meat Boy just released on Linux. So there's that news too.

Skunk Works, the semi-top secret military aircraft development arm of Lockheed Martin, is looking into a follow-up to its infamous SR-71 Blackbird.

Something wrong with some numbers in that spreadsheet? Here's a shortcut that displays all the formulas in the sheet at once:

Read more...

Save 50% on Call of Juarez Gunslinger + Far Cry 3 - Blood Dragon as part of this week's Weekend Deal*!

From the dust of a gold mine to the dirt of a saloon, Call of Juarez® Gunslinger is a real homage to the Wild West tales. Live the epic and violent journey of a ruthless bounty hunter on the trail of the West’s most notorious outlaws. Blurring the lines between man and myth, this adventure made of memorable encounters unveils the untold truth behind some of the greatest legends of the Old West.

Far Cry® 3: Blood Dragon is THE Kick-Ass Cyber Shooter.
Welcome to an 80’s vision of the future. The year is 2007 and you are Sargent Rex Colt, a Mark IV Cyber Commando. Your mission: get the girl, kill the baddies, and save the world.

Get them together during this week's Weekend Deal.

*Offer ends Monday at 10AM Pacific Time

Arden Hayes, the a 5-year-old boy who demonstrated he knew more about U.S. presidents than you ever will during a guest appearance back in July, is back on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, with a new area of knowledge.


Jimmy Kimmel Live

Stand-up comedian Brent Weinbach brings you a faux late night TV advertisement for an adults only chat line where you can call and argue with any type of "gangsters."

(Warning: strong language)


BrentWeinbach | via

Chrome/Firefox/Opera: Just in case you weren't completely overjoyed with Steam (and similar sales) already, previously mentioned Enhanced Steam is a browser extension that adds a ton of extra info to Steam in your browser.

Read more...

O inimigo mais duro que o James Bond já enfrentou

People take their scary movies pretty seriously. I once saw a guy run out of Paranormal Activity screaming. So if you were to, say, see someone doing scary movie shit in real life, you could conceivably lose your fucking mind.

The advertising team for the upcoming film adaptation of Stephen King’s awesome first horror novel, Carrie (about an awkward teenage girl with telekinetic powers who violently loses control), decided to scare the living bejesus out of total strangers by having an actress pretend to have telekinetic powers and then lose her mind. Let’s just say that if I saw this in public, I would run out of the shop screaming so fast that they wouldn’t have time to make me sign the commercial release form.

This is what happens to the video stores after they die. We will miss you.

reddit user and Dota 2 player PAADA has successfully sold a courier for $38,000. I'm not currently drinking anything, but I want to take a swig just so I can do a spit take.

This particular War Dog is a legacy courier which features a rare pink look and ethereal flame. According to redditor ColtonisWright, there are thought to be only four other couriers exactly like this, although it's possible more Dota 2 players have one and are unaware of the value. Maybe these five-figure auction headlines will change that.

Dota 2 courier fetches $38,000, partly because it's pink [PCGamesN]

Truly, I wish to do this with my laptop. A lot. The actual point of this video is to promote an imminent Kickstarter for a computer that anyone can build, called the Kano. Now, why they'd name it after the most annoying character in the first Mortal Kombat game, I do not know. I just hope it doesn't make you want to claw your eye out.

YouTube's comment system is getting a big overhaul today and they're getting integrated with Google+ to create conversations and better moderation.

Read more...

Twitter has set its final IPO price at $26 a share ahead of its first day of trading on Thursday.

The final price is slightly above Twitter's previous price range of $23-$25 a share, though some had expected Twitter might end up pricing at as high as $28. At $26 a share, Twitter would raise around $1.8 billion and be valued at around $18 billion. By comparison, Facebook went public at $38 a share and raised $16 billion from its public offering

In a fitting move, Twitter tweeted out the final pricing late Wednesday:

We just priced our IPOpic.twitter.com/NWXaO4Myq0

— Twitter (@twitter) November 6, 2013 Read more...

More about Twitter, Business, and Twitter Ipo

tastefullyoffensive:

[video]

weatherstaff:

walkingthenarrowway:

negro-pleaase:

Literally.

forever reblog. 

Where is the lie?