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Somebody set the way back machine

Somehow the Adrenium.com web site (and the other Amaze Entertainment web sites) got set back to about late 2001. (No, I didn't do it. Give me a break.)

Adrenium News

2/11/02: Adrenium Games Nominated
Adrenium Games nominated for "Rookie Studio of the Year" by International Game Developers Association.


11/20/01: Azurik: Rise of Perathia Ships
Azurik: Rise of Perathia ships into stores in time for the holidays (visit Microsoft's official Azurik site at http://www.azurik.com)


5/16/01: Azurik: Rise of Perathia featured at E3 in the Microsoft Games Pavilion.


3/13/01 Azurik Featured at GameStock
Adrenium’s epic adventure “Azurik – Rise of Perathia” will be shown publicly for the first time ever at Microsoft’s GameStock today. Microsoft and Adrenium will unveil Azurik during a featured on-stage presentation to over 170 journalists. And now the fun begins…


9/1/00 Microsoft Announces Official List of Xbox Developers
In an announcement made at ECTS in London this week, Microsoft officially announced Adrenium Games in its list of “Top Development” studios currently working on 1st Party Xbox games.


12/21/99 Adrenium to Develop Xbox Game for Microsoft
Adrenium Games entered into an agreement today with Microsoft to create an original content action/adventure game specifically designed for the Xbox. Details of the game will be announced at a future date.


12/16/99 Adrenium Games Launched
Seeking to create a studio to take interactive gaming to the next level, industry veteran Dan Elenbaas joined with Dr. Stephen Clarke-Willson (former VP of Worldwide Product Development, Virgin Games, and Executive Producer, The Seventh Guest), Jeff Petkau (AI Programmer, Total Annihilation and Secret of Evermore), and Jon Mavor (Graphics Programmer, Total Annihilation), to build a world-class team from the ground-up dedicated to maximizing the performance of the latest generation game platforms. The new studio will be called Adrenium Games, and is located in Kirkland, Washington USA

Frozen Water 08

© 2005 Stephen Clarke-Willson - All Rights Reserved.

How To Finance a Hollywood Blockbuster - Start with a German tax shelter. By Edward Jay Epstein

How To Finance a Hollywood Blockbuster - Start with a German tax shelter. By Edward Jay Epstein:

"Of course, it's not only Paramount that employs these devices every studio uses them to minimize risk. Remember all those stories about how New Line was betting its entire future on the Lord of the Rings trilogy? Not quite. New Line covered almost the entire cost by using German tax shelters, New Zealand subsidies, and pre-sales. If studio executives don't crow in public about such coups, it's probably out of fear that such publicity will induce governments to stiffen their rules as, for example, Germany periodically does with its tax code. When you've got a golden goose, you don't want to kill it while it's still laying eggs."

A fascinating article about how many big Hollywood blockbusters are financed.

Digital Seattle

Weed is an online music sharing service that encourages viral marketing of music and minimizes bandwidth usage by allowing people to share files. After a file is played three times, you need to buy the tune. So you can easily 'try before you buy'.

The cool thing is that the service has been developed here in the Seattle area. (I learned about the service from my Internap salesman who told me about John Beezer, the president (and founder I think) of Weed.)

There's so much digital music work going on in this area of the country! Real, located in Seattle, just announced today a big upgrade to their Rhapsody music service that lets you listen (stream) 25 free tunes a month. Free samples! Excellent!

Microsoft of course continues to move their DRM platform forward.

I attend Audio Engineering Society meetings from time-to-time and guys like JJ Johnston who did the early research at AT&T on psycho-accoustic modeling show up.

And of course the Mackie guys who know everything about digital mixing are in this area. (Update: I just went to an AES meeting at Mackie and learned about Rane which is also local here. They publish a series of white papers called Rane Notes (scroll down for the white papers) which are quite interesting.)

Cool beans!

ISP Bandwidth Billing

ISP Bandwidth Billing - How To Make More Or Pay Less

An excellent article about 95p bandwidth pricing.

In summary - it's a pain in the ass. Basically you pay for your peak usage - so if 36 - 38 hours out of the month you have huge bandwidth needs, then that is what you pay for, even if the rest of the month your bandwidth needs are zero.

The article explains how the bandwidth calculations SHOULD be made.

But there is a lot more to it ...

Consumers don't worry about 95p billing - they get a flat rate from their ISP and if there is too much going on then things just slow down a bit.

Producers of web content do need to worry unless they manage to find someone who will let them pay by the gigabyte. It is mind-boggling difficult to predict your bandwidth usage.

Which is why commercial ISPs love this - they can't predict your bandwidth usage either, so they dump the burden on you. The trick is this - you have to guess in advance what you bandwidth needs will be and if you go over then they charge a 2x or 3x overage fee. That could get painful.

You can get a continuous 100 megabit connection (billed using 95p) for about $3,500 a month (less if you shop around, more if you want high-quality Internap bandwidth). If you sign up for a 2 megabit continuous connection for $150, and get swamped with requests, and send out 100 megabits for 36 hours of the month, then you might get charged $10,000.00 in overage fees.

Ouch!

Tom's Hardware Guide Mobile Devices: Sony PSP: Frustratingly Beautiful - The Good, The Bad, And The Beautiful

Tom's Hardware Guide Mobile Devices: Sony PSP: Frustratingly Beautiful - The Good, The Bad, And The Beautiful

An enormous and detailed article about the PSP. It reinforces my happiness that I didn't waste any money on it, cool as it is. It's not compelling enough given the line up of games and the current price point.

(I also didn't get a DS. I am fascinated by the touch panel as a UI interface device where you can sort-of make any kind of physical user interface that you want. The big rumor is that the Nintendo 'Revolution' will have the same kind of touch pad controller when it rolls out next year.)

© 2005 Stephen Clarke-Willson - All Rights Reserved

Frozen Water 07

Hold mouse over image for caption.

© 2005 Stephen Clarke-Willson - All Rights Reserved.

Fence

Our neighbors had put up a chain-link fence between our house and theirs.

Finally it had to be replaced and so we put in a new wood fence (which is better for keeping a dog in the yard).

Before we had the fence installed I photoshopped an image (1) to see how much a new solid fence would obscure our view.





It turns out the chain-link fence was substantially covered in plants so the change to the view wasn't too great. I knew how high to draw the fence because the nice people from the fence company came out and strung a thin red line at the height of the new fence.

Here's the actual fence:





The 'pre-viz' as they call it in the visual effects business came out fairly accurate and helped us make the right decision about the fence height, which was a trade-off between taller (to keep dog in) and shorter (to maintain as much view as possible).

© 2005 Stephen Clarke-Willson - All Rights Reserved.

(1)
http://www.adobe.com/misc/trade.html#photoshop

Trademarks are not verbs.

CORRECT: The image was enhanced using Adobe® Photoshop® software.

INCORRECT: The image was photoshopped.

4.2.2.1

Comcast had a DNS outage a week ago. And I've noticed sporadic DNS failures in general. Comcast has grown really big as a network and so perhaps it's just growing pains.

Anyway, if you find yourself DNS-less, you can easily remember this number: 4.2.2.1. You can also remember 4.2.2.2, which is a secondary DNS server. These are servers from GTE I think.

You can plug them into your router or computer DNS entries and get right back in business.

I used to know Microsoft's DNS servers which are quite reliable but I can't find the numbers anymore. So I'm going with 4.2.2.1 and 4.2.2.2 which are very easy to remember in a pinch and are working fine for me.


© 2005 Stephen Clarke-Willson - All Rights Reserved.

Dilbert.com - DNRC

Dilbert.com - DNRC:

"Alert readers have noticed that Dilbert looks different lately, almost as if someone else is drawing it. Well, it's still me, but here's what's happening: I lost the use of my right hand for drawing, thanks to overuse. Technically, it's called a focal dystonia. It's essentially a brain-mapping problem caused by overusing the hand. The hand is structurally healthy and perfectly fine for every possible use EXCEPT drawing. It's very specific. My brain essentially removed from me the ability to do the thing that was hurting it.



One way I can confirm that it's a brain issue is that when I try to draw with my LEFT hand, my RIGHT hand spasms immediately. Some part of my brain doesn't want me drawing because that's what caused all the discomfort.



For a few weeks I worked left-handed. I'm not quite ambidextrous, but if I work slowly, it looks about the same. Some of the lefty ones have a 'L.H.' on them to tip you off.



Left-hand drawing was too slow, so I looked for, and found, a technical solution. Wacom has a product that allows you to draw directly onto a special flat computer screen that tilts and turns just like paper on a drawing board. It's called the Cintiq 21UX, and I've been using it for the past several weeks, with much success. It will take a while for my characters to look the same as old, but I'm closing in on it.



The reason I can draw on the computer, but not on paper, is because now I work at a different scale (larger), and the feel of the stylus on the screen is so different from pen-on-paper that my brain doesn't think I'm drawing, so it doesn't trigger the hand spasms.



Brains are funny. "

PMA 2005

PMA 2005



This is a terrific article summarizing the state of things with digital cameras, digital playback devices, and small-form-factor digital storage.

MiceAge.com

MiceAge.com: "Hong Kong Disneyland Preview "

Apple Japan 'will' open Music Store - chief | The Register

Apple Japan 'will' open Music Store - chief | The Register:

"To date, it's proved very hard for companies to launch digital music services in Japan, thanks to the power wielded by recording companies, most of who fear declining CD sales if this downloading thing takes off. Never mind that digital music actually offers them better margins, they're not at all keen on it."

Frozen Water 05 and 06

These Salmon are swimming in circles and not getting anywhere.






The water is getting circulated clockwise while the baby Salmon swim counter-clockwise. Well, it keeps them happy and healthy.

I used to be against 'make work' but if you're smart about it, it can keep your staff healthy and happy too.

Check this out:





It looks like I'm swimming with the baby Salmon but I'm under an aquarium with a glass bottom.

© 2005 Stephen Clarke-Willson - All Rights Reserved.

Napster DRM Cracked

Neowin.net - Where unprofessional journalism looks better - Exclusive -PyMusique Creator : Napster DRM Cracked:

"Amazingly, Brocious says the DRM crack could be applied to other stores (MSN Music, Napster, Wall mart [sic]) using the WMA file format; 'we would have to figure out how to get their license keys, which is a relatively trivial process'. The origins of the WMA DRM crack are Beale Screamer's code which was released in late 2001."

Well, once you get someone's private key, you can in fact remove the licensing without any trouble. Once you get the key to my house, you can come in. That doesn't mean you should go out of your way to forge a key to my house.

I think everyone that buys online music ends up burning a CD of it - it's the only reliable way to make a backup of your music. Once it is on CD, you can easily re-rip it back onto your computer as an unprotected MP3. Other easy ways around copy protection including simply recording the music as it plays. The quality doesn't go down that much. But it does take a lot longer and that extra 'friction' in the process is enough to keep many people from doing it.

(On the other hand it is easy to automate your PC to record Internet radio stations while you aren't even there so that is growing in popularity.)

I don't personally see the challenge in cracking these music formats. I guess, if you are Linux die-hard and you resent having to have a Mac or a Windows PC available to buy online music, then there would be some emotional reward for figuring out how to get the downloadable music services to work on your Linux PC box.

We all have locks on our doors at home and some of us even have an alarm system. I am sure one of those guy's from Ocean's 12 could break into our homes if they wanted to. That's not really the point of the alarm or the door locks. The point is to (1) remind people of the boundary between our house and the outside, and (2), remind them that they need to ask permission to come in, and if they don't ask permission, they are breaking and entering.

My feeling - and I really hope I'm right about this (and the success of iTunes certainly supports the notion) - is that once people buy music online they are less-inclined to share it with friends. Since you have to take extra steps to decode your music (if you want to) I think it makes it clear in most consumer's minds that whatever they are doing should be for their own personal benefit only and not so they can post it on the Internet.

Ripping CDs (and who came up with that brilliant moniker?) is just too easy and with a little P2P action - simply sharing out a folder on your drive in a P2P program - sharing became a little too easy.

Somebody can always steal your music - you just want them to know that they are stealing and not simply "sharing".

© 2005 Stephen Clarke-Willson - All Rights Reserved

[print version] Music moguls trumped by Steve Jobs? | CNET News.com

[print version] Music moguls trumped by Steve Jobs? | CNET News.com:

"Bottom line:

Frustrated at what they see as Steve Jobs' intransigence on song pricing and other issues, some record executives are now turning their hopes toward other partners, such as mobile phone carriers. "

Never underestimate a music executive's desire and ability to kill a good thing.

iPod Killers?

iPod Killers?:

"International wireless operators provide a sense of what's possible at the edge of this frontier. Korea's SK Telecom Co. (SKM ) offers a $5 a month music subscription that allows customers to download any of 700,000 songs to a phone, PC, or music player. That makes the subscription much more convenient than similar services in the U.S. because Korean customers can get any song they want, wherever and whenever they want it. Since the November launch, 300,000 people have signed up. 'We are not yet making money, but we see a big potential for profits from music,' says Shin Won Soo, a senior manager in charge of SK Telecom's music business, which is expected to go into the black with 800,000 subscribers. That conjures up the possibility that with music phones, consumers around the world could opt to pay a monthly fee for all the new music they desire, rather than buying individual CDs when they debut.

...

The wireless companies are coming from far behind in setting up their music stores. Apple spent years refining its iTunes site and already has sold more than 300 million songs. Yet the wireless companies may have one advantage if they compete against iTunes on price. Because they already bill mobile customers each month, they wouldn't have to pay credit-card charges to Visa or MasterCard. That's not much of an edge over iTunes when customers buy a $9.99 album. But if they buy single songs for 99 cents at iTunes, the fees total a significant 17 cents to 20 cents. Bottom line: Verizon, Cingular, and Sprint could end up lowering their prices to $1 a song and still make more profit than Apple does. "Business models will absolutely change," says Richard S. Siber, CEO of wireless consultant SiberConsulting.

Actually, what Apple and most online stores do to make the credit card fees workable is to aggregate several purchases into a larger purchase. I recently bought a song for $.88 from Wal-Mart and I wasn't charge for a day or two - that is so that if I decide to buy something else, Wal-Mart can aggregate the two charges together and lower the overall credit card fee. As it is, I didn't buy anything else, for the profit-margin for Wal-Mart on my one tune was quite a bit lower than they would like. It's much better if you buy for the online music stores if you buy even two or three songs at a time.

Original text © 2005 Stephen Clarke-Willson - All Rights Reserved

PlayStation Portable: Three for the Road

PlayStation 2: Three for the Road:

"Three for the Road -- GameSpy compares and contrasts three video-conversion utilities for the PSP. Find out which one is right for you."

[later in the same article]

PSP Video 9

While the interface isn't as slick as iPSP's or as simple as Mobile Media Maker PSP's, Sajeeth Cherian's PSP Video 9 is still an easy program to use. It also allows you numerous video and audio quality settings, making it the app of choice for power users. Though it was a bit on the slow side, the program converted all three of my test files without a hitch. I don't mind sacrificing time for a program that works well, so the speed didn't bother me.

I really appreciated the numerous, precise settings PSP Video 9 allows you to select. That combined with its broad file support made it my favorite app of the three I tested. If it ripped DVDs directly, this would be the perfect PC program to use with your PSP. As it is, it's still an excellent choice.

Congrats Blogger

I don't know what they did, but after a rough couple of months, Blogger is smokin'!

Thanks Blogger staff!

© 2005 Stephen Clarke-Willson - All Rights Reserved.

BetaNews | Virgin President Zack Zalon on Digital Music

BetaNews Virgin President Zack Zalon on Digital Music:

"BetaNews: Let's start with a conversation about Virgin's goals. Is it feasible that Virgin wants to compete on the same level as iTunes or Napster? Apple surpassed 250 million iTunes downloads in January.

Zack Zalon: I should start by saying that it is and isn't. Virgin Digital is really an extension of the very platform that launched Virgin over 35 years ago, which is delivering innovative and entertaining music experiences to consumers. We began in the late 1960's by setting up a retail shop in Central London and our goal at the time was to be able to bring music fans closer to music.

One of the ways that Richard Branson did that was by setting up beanbag chairs all around the store and allowing customers to listen for absolutely free to everything that they had in the store. At the time, that seemed counter intuitive to doing business successfully. In fact, everyone -- both his competitors, friends and people in the record business -- were absolutely shocked by it and asked him the question: 'Richard how do you expect to make a dime if you are giving everything away for free?'

And of course time has shown that in fact listening stations are one of the greatest drivers to in-store retail sales that have helped substantially to increase sales and repeat traffic in almost every music retail location around the world. So, that very counter intuitive and extremely innovative way of providing music entertainment to customers worked really well for him. "

Free samples - it worked for Mrs. Field's Cookies.

Frozen Water 04

This is "Frozen in Time" Water Vapor or a "Contrail". I think this was taking off from SeaTac on a trip to Japan. (Of course, click on the thumbnail for a bigger better picture.)





© 2005 Stephen Clarke-Willson - All Rights Reserved.

TIME 100: Bill Gates

TIME 100: Bill Gates:

"But the Microsoft Windows world view is dead in the water, and Microsoft has nothing to offer in its place. Windows is a relic of the ancient days when e-mail didn't matter, when the Internet and the Web didn't matter, when most computer users had only a relative handful of files to manage. Big changes are in the works that will demote computers and their operating systems to the status of TV sets. You can walk up to any TV and tune in CBS; you will be able to walk up to any computer and tune in your own files, your electronic life. The questions of the moment are, What will the screen look like? How will the controls work? What exactly will they do? and Who will clean up? "

I guess Time Magazine was wrong. (The article was written in 1999.)

Frozen Water 02 and 03

I've always thought that Salmon should be the symbol for programmers. They work their asses off swimming upstream and then die.

Game programming is especially hard and console programming is even harder. Console programming is embedded systems programming, one of the most difficult types of programming there is, plus it has to be fun. Plus you have to write a bunch of tools that artists, designers and sound/music people can use. Wow.

Anyway, here's a picture of some Frozen in Time Water from the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery. Notice the Salmon trying to get upstream to the nice peaceful waters above the short waterfall. It's just like game programming.





Check out this next guy: He is so close! But I can tell you he didn't make it (at least on that jump). That's also what game programming and production is like: you can get so close to being successful and just miss. And in show biz a miss is as good as a mile.





© 2005 Stephen Clarke-Willson - All Rights Reserved.

Jack Bauer and Fifty Guys

I had a chance to meet Jonathan Frakes once. You'll remember him as "Number One" on Star Trek: The Next Generation. He's a film director now. He's directed a couple of Star Trek movies and some kids movies.

I was telling him about "red shirts" which is a term I've used since 1993 for the general fodder bad guys in games (the term has caught on somewhat). The term comes from a Star Trek joke, which I told Frakes. The joke is:

Spock, McCoy, Kirk and a guy in a red shirt beam down to a planet. Which one isn't beaming back up?

Yeah, that's the whole joke.

Well, tonight, while watching 24, I thought of a variation on that:

Jack Bauer, in a T-shirt, and carrying a pistol, along with fifty guys with heavy battle armor and automatic weapons, storm an enemy stronghold.

Which fifty guys aren't gonna make it?

© 2005 Stephen Clarke-Willson - All Rights Reserved.

Frozen Water 01

I have some really cool digital photos of "Frozen Water." In this case, I mean "Frozen in Time," although I have some great photos of "Frozen Water, i.e., Ice," as well.

It's going to take some digging since I have over 25,000 digital pictures to sift through.

But here's the first one - a water outlet at the Salmon Hatchery in Issaquah. (Click on it for bigger version.)




I love this stuff - it would have been so hard to get this picture before the invention of the digital camera.

© 2005 Stephen Clarke-Willson - All Rights Reserved.

The Walt Disney Family Museum

The Walt Disney Family Museum

Privacy Test

This is really frightening:

The Anonymizer Privacy Test

The creepy part for me was that it can read the contents of your clipboard!

That really sucks.



© 2005 Stephen Clarke-Willson - All Rights Reserved.

Keep your kid happy for two minutes ... (maybe)

Keep your kid happy for two minutes...

Well, maybe only a few seconds. It depends on the age of your kid.

Broadband has its biggest year to date

Broadband has its biggest year to date

PC: The EA RTS Philosophy: A Conversation with Louis Castle

PC: The EA RTS Philosophy: A Conversation with Louis Castle:

"As a team leader, my management style is based on my personal career and is influenced by the work I have done for charities over the years. I seek to inspire the people around me with a shared vision and I treat all the people I work with as volunteers. I see every layer of management as the service organization that allows those who have a specialty or craft to do their best work. You can visualize this as in inverted pyramid where the tip is at the bottom and any person entrusted with the single point of accountability needs to see themselves as the ultimate servant to the team they are managing. I believe strongly in setting, achieving, and reviewing goals as a measurement process for personal and professional development. I feel strongly that aptitude with passion trumps ability with complacency. I'm still in this business because I love the games, the people who make them, and the fans that enjoy them. I want others around me who feel the same."

I have fun watching the people that worked with me at Virgin who have continued to have a life in the corporate world.

I particularly like Louis' attitude about the inverted pyramid style of management. Good managers know they are providing a service and are not simply there to boss the minions around. That latter attitude is very dangerous. (I'm not sure all EA execs share his attitude.)

And I know from personal experience that working for someone who doesn't understand games is very difficult. Making games is so frickin' complicated that trying to explain to someone who doesn't understand the process or the market why X or Y is happening is very hard.

© 2005 Stephen Clarke-Willson - All Rights Reserved

Faeries

You never know what you might find (or have pointed out to you) on the World Wide Web.

win32gui magic

I've been using the amazing win32gui by John Torjo.

I was confused by the magic way he registers his event handlers, so I wrote to him, and he responded. He said he should add his response to his FAQ, but until then, here's the question and the answer:

Hi,

I love your library. There is one thing I don't quite understand. How do you create the correspondence between events and event handlers? I see that event handlers tell the library what event they have handled once they have done so, but I don't know how the library knows which ones to call in advance - or does it call all of them every time?

Thanks in advance,

Stephen Clarke-Willson


Dear Stephen,

I guess I should include this question in the FAQ ;) It's been asked by most dilligent readers ;)

I will avoid a detailed explanation (it would be pretty large), but in short is this:

When you say something like:

handle_event on_size() {
   ...
   return event_ex ().HANDLED_BY(&me::on_size);
}

This invisibily registers your on_size() function for the wm::size event. It does so (the event_ex class, that is), by having a static variable, which makes sure it's initialized. Thus, before main(), the on_size function is registered to handle the wm::size event.

That's it!

Best,
John


Ah, nothing like code that doesn't execute in any obvious order.

Land Walker

Land Walker

A guy in Japan built a mech that he can ride around in.

Kundalini

Kundalini is supposedly a mystical power that resides at the base of your spine. When it 'rises up' it means you are becoming enlightened or at least more enlightened as a being.

Well, my experience is that Kundalini rising is the same as sleep deprivation.

When I was tired I could sit and meditate and suddenly brilliant flashes of light would illuminate my skull and electrical charges would cause my body to twitch.

Hmm.... sounds cool! But I think it's just a shot of adrenaline blasting through your sleep deprived system.

I suspect with more research many mystical experiences will have less profound explanations.

© 2005 Stephen Clarke-Willson - All Rights Reserved.

IGDA - Famous Last Words - Mar05

IGDA - Famous Last Words - Mar05



A patent from 1988 on 3D virtual cameras? Ouch.

Valve Survey Summary

What the hard core gamers have ....



Valve Survey Summary

Technology News Article | Reuters.com

Technology News Article | Reuters.com: "'The PlayStation Portable (PSP) has been solid but not spectacular. We believe that the PSP launch, while not the blow-out event expected, will be considered successful as retailers continue to sell through existing inventory levels,' McNealy said in a note."

My feeling is ... what's the rush? There is no "must have" game. Getting a free Spider Man 2 movie to show off your PSP display is cool but not overly compelling.

Over time, PSP will kick ass, since it is a complete media solution, and pretty cheap considering. The real test will be if Sony truly moves away from too much proprietary formatting and for instance it is pretty easy to put a TivoToGo movie onto a memory stick and watch it on a plane - without downloading all kinds of hacked and/or shady software.

© 2005 Stephen Clarke-Willson - All Rights Reserved.

Cool new Google Maps feature misses Microsoft

Google Maps - microsoft corporation corporate offices

It's so cool - now you can switch to "Satellite Mode" and look at locations from Maps.Google.com via satellite imagery.

Except - it seems to get the location of Microsoft wrong. I don't think Microsoft is located in that little cul-de-sac.

You can scroll with the mouse just as with their regular map view.

Very cool!

© 2005 Stephen Clarke-Willson - All Rights Reserved.

Credits

I worked with a talent agent for a couple of years (we were business partners). That was Bill Block, who was head of ICM's west coast office, the Hollywood office, and he said he only worried about two things: money and credit. Everything else he left to the lawyers.

I had an agreement with Amaze Entertainment that I would be listed as an executive producer for the Lemony Snicket game. Even though I wasn't at Amaze for the entire production of the game, this seemed only fair, since I hired the entire team that made the game.

But Amaze couldn't manage it. There was a "breakdown in communication." Instead, I was given the credit of "Head of R&D" for all of Amaze! This was a rather extraordinary achievement! I was promoted into a company-wide position after I had already left!

I'm trying to figure out what to put on my resume. I'll probably just leave it the same since (1) nobody really cares and (2) I have an email saying I would get the original credit.

You know, maybe the 'improved' Head of R&D credit is a better credit anyway, since a large portion of Amaze is using the engine for which I supervised the development.

© 2005 Stephen Clarke-Willson - All Rights Reserved.