2013-05-25T04:49:01-04:00 Patrick Garratt http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=patrick-garratt Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Patrick Garratt Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2780023 2013-02-28T11:44:25-05:00 2013-04-30T05:12:01-04:00

Patrick Garratt http://www.huffingtonpost.com/patrick-garratt/
The problem with traditional games is the controller, be it console pad or mouse. Lloyd is a little chap with little hands. You may as well hand him a dinner plate as a DualShock 3. While he yearns to monopolise the on-screen action, he's physically incapable of doing so. He crumples in frustration ever time he tries. It's baffling to Lloyd that the item he's lusting to hold - the controller - should be the very thing that scuppers his dreams of enabling Pac-Man to eat the blue ghosts. It doesn't make sense to him.

Never more. Apple sent me an iPad on loan a few weeks ago. Lloyd, as a result, is now the gamer his blooming brain imagined him to be. The tap-and-swipe interface for children's games is a revelation.

Lloyd knows how to touch things (watch any pestered parent dragging their youngster away from shelves in a supermarket for collaborative proof), and he had no problem understanding the concept of slicing through pomegranates with his fingers. The speed at which he became au fait with iPad's interface, in fact, was astonishing. Lloyd can now play games.

iPad has allowed Lloyd to interact with the content himself. While you can accesorise Robert the Robot on your PC, you have to do it with a mouse. The iPad version - the CBeebies website automatically detects the device on which you're viewing it - is controlled with touch. Which means Lloyd no longer needs me or my wife to help him create his pirate-caveman ensembles.

While the interface makes iPad more suitable for young children than traditional platforms such as PlayStation and Xbox, a format is nothing without games. Thankfully, enough of the content on the App Store is tailored to infants to justify the expense (warning: iPads aren't cheap). You'll find games based on Fireman Sam, Little Princess and more for just a few quid. If you don't want to spend anything at all, there are loads of free apps available for basic games such as matching pairs. Have a look at this LEGO 4+ thing. You make vehicles, slide models together and drive around unlocking new blocks. It doesn't cost a penny.

Lloyd's happy, then, but iPad isn't just for children. The amount of games on the App Store focused at adults has now increased to a point where I'm never stuck for something to play in the evening once everyone's trotted off to bed. Try the Room, Heroes of Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes (this is brilliant: I've somehow managed to drop more than 35 hours on it in the last few weeks), RAD Soldiers, Plants Vs Zombies and Azkend 2. Have a look at the App Store's game collections to get an idea of what's on offer for grown-ups.

Sony and Microsoft have made valiant efforts at creating family-friendly PlayStation and Xbox content with initiatives like Kinect and Move, but none of it works as well as kids' games on iPad. Little Lloyd will be happy to know I'll be instantly replacing my loan model with a personal one when it goes back to Apple. The cost of entry may be relatively high, but it's allowed my entire family to play games together and made one small boy very happy indeed.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2660261 2013-02-11T05:23:23-05:00 2013-04-13T05:12:01-04:00

Patrick Garratt http://www.huffingtonpost.com/patrick-garratt/ an event in New York on February 20 at which it is expected to announce PlayStation 4, starting the next video gaming console generation in earnest. The machine, according to rumour, is to release this year.

These will be the first official details of Sony's next gaming machine, but we already know a great deal from leaks. It will be "better" than PlayStation 3, of course, but the pertinent question regarding PS4 is about relevance rather than technical advancement.

PlayStation 4 (or whatever it's going to be called: it's internally codenamed ORBIS) will be powerful. But brute force plays a less important role in gaming today, and a focus on computing ability could be seen as diversionary. The modern market is one of vast choice of content, platform and business model, with some of the world's most successful games available for free on the cheapest Android handset.

While PS3 and Xbox 360 were two of a limited array of choices for those wishing to play away from a PC in 2005 and 2006, today anyone can consume games on phones and tablets, and soon we're going to have a range of cheap, TV-side PCs which will bring Steam and its monumental library to the living room. No discs, no boxes, no postage. And, for many, no PlayStation. Steam boss Gabe Newell has already written consoles off.

To make matters even worse for Sony (and Microsoft, obviously), Apple is widely expected to announce and release Apple TV this year, which will bring the App Store and its huge range of games to the home's big screen. This is highly significant, and may well indicate the direction of the games industry as a whole in the mid-term.

Google, too, is about to impact gaming in the living room. We will also see the release of Ouya in 2013, a quirky box which plays Android games and will retail for $99. Whether or not Ouya will have a lasting impression on home gaming itself, its significance will be as a pre-cursor to Google Play - the Android version of the App Store - being accessible through your television.

Both the App Store and Google Play feature large amounts of game content. While many of these titles are clearly pitched at the light user, it's easy to see why Sony and Microsoft are going to find things much tougher with their next launches.

PlayStation 4 is being announced against a backdrop of change. As we move through the console's life-cycle we are likely to see the trivialisation of the generational concept on which it is built. The lines between PC, console, mobile and tablet will eventually be irreversibly erased, and you will soon expect to access your games anywhere and at any time. Services which offer extensive libraries of content will be the new games industry, and Sony must prove that PlayStation Network - its App Store for games - is capable of providing a compelling experience for gaming consumers on every screen they use.

The PS4 reveal in New York cannot just be about putting a disc in a box and making whiz-bangs happen in front of your couch. We need to see a pitch encompassing HD TV, tablets, the cloud, the desktop, mobile phones, Vita, motion control, the next evolution in disc-based content delivery and, finally, a common sense solution to digital distribution for consoles. If we don't, charting a future for PlayStation beyond the next five years is going to be difficult.

February 20 may not provide all the answers - a lot of information is bound to be released during Sony's press conference at LA gaming show E3 in June - but we must see Sony now present an arresting case. The games industry can be like a sugar-fuelled game of musical chairs at a four year-old's birthday party, a brutal amalgam of fun and tears. Sometimes it leaves the nicest, best-meaning child stumbling at the edge of the central cluster, eyes welling, while the ruthless winners triumphantly hyperventilate in their seats.

Sony must show next week that is has the vision to reinvent PlayStation for the modern market, or PlayStation 4 may well find itself the red-faced infant left standing when the music stops.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2567555 2013-01-29T19:00:00-05:00 2013-03-31T05:12:01-04:00

Patrick Garratt http://www.huffingtonpost.com/patrick-garratt/ Vine gave me some problems last week. The Twitter-owned video service, which allows iPhone users to easily post six-second clips, struck me as plain odd. I didn't know what to think about something so banal, how to even consider it as important enough to write about. Because it isn't.

And yet here I am. Vine is a natural extension of the sharing impulse. It's "Instagram for video," as we've been told by everyone with a keyboard since it launched on Thursday. It probably is, but that just means it's another outlet for people to show you their name on a Starbucks cup in a manner that makes them feel important. Ergo, it's likely to harbour as much value as wrapping a baby's backside in shiny toilet paper. Vine is hairless baboons showing their glowing posteriors to other hairless baboons. It is a group of rich goldfish endlessly looping their crystal bowls with dizzying stupidity.

The problem with Vine - and therefore with Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest - is its nauseating mundanity. A friend of mine went as far as to describe it as "unhealthy," in that this type of social media allows the ordinary person to believe in their personal ability when they are, in fact, as adept at artistic production as George Osborne is at finance. People honestly believe - get this - that their lives matter. They believe their realities are deep, rich, fertile oceans of ideas and creative fluidity, that they wake up to days to which they're individually entitled. They don't consider for a second that the closest they will ever come to "creative fluidity" is mopping up after one of the pets they're so fascinated with showing to the world. While making a vine of the process, obviously.

People share the aspects of their amazing lives they consider most enriching in an effort to gain congratulation from their peers. Their existences have meaning, yes? Well, "friends," this is why! Here is my baby, my coffee, my dog. Here is some snow in a carpark. Here is my computer. Here is my garden. Here is the vacuous reality of my biological imprisonment: I believe that creating a six-second video of my child's face on my iPhone is in some way viable. My life is viable. Vine proves it.

You all follow Instagram-My-Expensive-Food-Guy, right? And Blog-My-Baby-Woman? How about Here's-All-My-Work-This-Week-Writer? You'll soon be blankly consuming Vine-My-Walk-To-Work-Dude. They're people telling you their lives have depth, that they're fabulous. Giant. Baboon's. Bottom.

Vine panders to the human ego sickness, the digital equivalent of hanging a mirror above a urinal. I'm as guilty of this as anyone, what with my Twitter followers, my Facebook friends and my personal blogs. Me, me, me. Vine is just another me-app, a glowing red herring to prevent some of us from achieving anything while the world burns.

Mankind stands vis-à-vis with global crisis. Mali is at war. Syria spews endless atrocity. Our grandchildren's generation will most likely be starved or bombed from the face of the earth. Just watch this. Hit this link and watch the video. Congratulations, Vine. I wish you every success.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2484994 2013-01-16T19:00:00-05:00 2013-03-18T05:12:01-04:00

Patrick Garratt http://www.huffingtonpost.com/patrick-garratt/ saying, "A high street without HMV is not as attractive as it is with one. We know our customers feel the same way."

Good luck with that, Trevor. The British consumer isn't loyal, and news of HMV's woes surprised no one. Now is a bad time to be selling boxes in shops.

While executives are still claiming there's a future for the chain, collapses of other high street specialists in the UK, such as Jessops and video game retailer GAME, draw a clear picture. It's all very well putting your hand on your heart and claiming town centres are worse off without these shops, but it's for nothing if the public and business climate don't grant them profits.

GAME was rescued by a banking consortium, as will be HMV, no doubt, but it's obvious the concept of buying a disc in a shop is one of yesteryear. Media store retail is an AK-47 tickling the sky with bullets as the ICBM fleet of "the internet" burns it from reality. If someone has the choice between paying £40 or £45 for the same product, they will pay £40. And that's that.

HMV couldn't compete with the tax wrangles of the likes of Amazon. Play.com managed by housing itself on Jersey, but the British government put an end to the loophole it exploited (Low Value Consignment Relief allowed for products under £15 to be sold to the UK VAT-free) in April 2012. Play confirmed last week it will stop selling directly to customers. Over 600 people on Jersey have lost their jobs as a result of the change in the law.

Amazon is under no such threat, at least not immediately. While governments in rich countries continue to try to snag the mega-seller on tax avoidance, the US company's Luxembourg structure in Europe allows it to keep corporation tax payments well down. There is no suggestion that laws are being broken. This is the new retail landscape for music, books, movies and games. And the place HMV holds in it is one structured from sentimentality.

High street media retail is on so many back feet it's fallen on its back. Its locations are expensive. Its music can be streamed. Its DVDs are cheaper elsewhere. Its range is pint-sized compared to its competitors.

How should we feel about HMV's troubles? Job losses are always awful, and now is a terrible time to face unemployment, but emotional pleas will makes no difference. How you feel doesn't matter. In an economy as brittle as biscuits, it's easy to see how an inconvenient, expensive service would fail. Trevor Moore can appeal to the UK consumer's sense of nostalgia all he likes; he isn't going to stop people wanting the largest choice of media as inexpensively as possible -- something only the internet can now provide.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2423361 2013-01-07T06:02:21-05:00 2013-03-09T05:12:01-05:00

Patrick Garratt http://www.huffingtonpost.com/patrick-garratt/
One of the more telling directions of 2012 was the emergence of Kickstarter as a funding option for developers. Kickstarter allows anyone to put together a pitch, stick it on the internet and ask for money to transfer an idea from whiteboard to product. Double Fine, led by well known adventure game creator Tim Schafer, started the "revolution" by drawing $3.3 million for an unnamed point-and-click game, following which many developers took their ideas direct to the public. So rapidly has Kickstarter matured as a tool in games creation that we've already seen moaning about how it's now being used to fund larger games which probably should have got a publisher deal, potentially shifting attention away from smaller, younger teams in greater need of a break. Whatever your view, there's no question: as far as games are concerned, Kickstarter is here to stay.

Why has Kickstarter become so popular so quickly? It's largely thanks to another trend we saw in 2012, namely that of the "double-A squeeze". As the business model surrounding selling discs in shops inexorably collapses, publishers are becoming ultra-conservative in the products they greenlight as they transition from physical media to streaming and downloads. While this is forcing indies to move to alternative methods of funding, for the bigger publishers it's either blockbuster or, simply, bust. Triple-A games such as Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto are increasingly becoming the only products to really make sense as traditionally published games, and "double-A" is being mercilessly killed off on disc. Long-standing publisher THQ filed for bankruptcy protection in December, following years of trying, and mainly failing, to create its own mega-hit. The giant, premium games for which you pay £40 on a disc aren't going away, but 1 million sales isn't enough any more: you need at least 3 million, and preferably twice that. Saints Row 3 reached 5.5 million people in total, but it was too late.

Double-A hasn't vanished, thankfully. The million-ish sellers squeezed out of the traditional model have had a cheery habit of appearing online, and the continuing shift to digital downloads was one of 2012's strongest trends, at least on PC. Steam boss Gabe Newell checked in on billionaire's row over the summer, and publishers EA and Ubisoft both launched sturdy, if relatively microscopically endowed substitutes - Origin and Uplay - before the end of the year.

And it's with Steam and owner Valve that we get a sense of the themes likely to dominate gaming in 2013. There's strong talk of Valve readying its own hardware, a "Steambox," for announcement at Los Angelian trade event E3 next year, which is also sure to host showcases of the next Xbox and PlayStation consoles.

Wii U, Nintendo's latest effort, launched towards the end of 2012, and makes a strong point of what's to come next by including a touch-screen on the controller. This year will be ruled by the concepts of asynchronous play - whether it be through controller, smartphone or tablet synched to the TV or monitor - and potentially the Tsar Bomba news that Valve is about to enter the main industry's A-game. If that does happen, the games console business, and specifically its reliance of discs and brick-and-mortar retail, could be altered for good.

Whatever happens with Steambox, though, it's going to be an explosive year in video gaming. Watch for the reveals of the new PlayStation and Xbox machines in May and June.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2393256 2013-01-01T16:37:37-05:00 2013-03-03T05:12:01-05:00

Patrick Garratt http://www.huffingtonpost.com/patrick-garratt/
My six year-old daughter's eyes saucered in horror. Grandma was explaining that after the Second World War ("Has daddy told you about war yet?") food was rationed in Britain, and that sweet afterthoughts to meals in her young world were rare. The idea that cakes, chocolate and sponges could ever be restricted was, to one little girl at least, honestly shocking.

I laughed at her naïvety, but I was just as guilty. I added that petrol was also rationed after the War, to which Meredith asked, "How did anyone drive?" When I said people couldn't and they had to get the bus, grandma noted that people, in general, didn't have cars in the forties. That there was a recent time in Britain where private vehicles weren't freely available hadn't even occurred to me.

This was over the Christmas break, and my stupidness gave me pause. I consider myself to be relatively mindful of my wealth in global terms, but I've apparently been so lavished with middle class luxury that I've started to take the near-lunatic comforts of my life for granted. I'm far from alone.

The holiday period is one of unbridled excess in many western households. The present-opening sequence of Christmas morning, in particular, can take on a gruesome air. I love my children dearly (I have three kids, my daughter and three year-old twin boys), but the depredation of their attack on the obscenely large pile of glittering boxes under the tree made me wince this year. A friend confessed the same misgivings in a call a few days later, saying his son goes into a pseudo-intoxicated greed-loop, asking for more and more presents while the gifts he's just opened are left on the carpet and ignored.

Our commonplace privilege is ludicrous. Will Self, writing for the BBC over the break, noted quite correctly that many people in the UK have forgotten what hunger even is. When was the last time you were hungry, when your tummy rumbled and your head lightened? When was the last time you missed a meal through anything other than busyness?

Other aspects of our entitled lives should be causing us a similar disquiet. In the main, we're warm, clothed, drunk, stoned, wealthy, fat babies who have nothing better to do with our time than to whine about not getting an iPad on December Present Day. Many middle-classers consider themselves poor if they can't have exactly what they want whenever they want it. Contemporary western society has extrapolated the consumeristic exuberance of the fifties to abstraction: our general impecuniosity is now measured in terms of whether or not we can cherry-pick our vapid whims anywhere, at any time, at will.

War, I told little Meredith, is when countries, or groups of people, fight and kill each other. War, I said, is really bad. The reason there were few puddings on British tables in the late forties is that sugar was rationed from 1940 to 1953 thanks to a principal Axis strategy of attacking food imports. I explained that families lived on a small, allocated amount of food. "I don't like" didn't feature. My mother-in-law ate what she was given or she was hungry.

Less than 70 years ago, putting a spoonful of sugar into a cup of tea was a luxury in Britain. Today, a great many of us westerners have everything we could possibly want, but have been so numbed by money and peace that we have little frame of reference for the concept of "need".

I'm not suggesting parsimony, but maybe one could occasionally check on the fact that many of us strut around in Blade Runner suits bawling our recalcitrant toddlerisms into magic smartphones, and imagine a world where you walk into a food shop and there is no food. If you haven't explained the notion to your middle class children yet, middle class parents, you probably should.

Because if spoiled brats are invisible in the west thanks to spoiled brattish normalism, the needs of the less fortunate will never be understood. Don't give up the puddings, but at least recognise how lucky you are to be able to eat them.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1589356 2012-06-12T19:00:00-04:00 2012-08-12T05:12:06-04:00

Patrick Garratt http://www.huffingtonpost.com/patrick-garratt/ according to Labour leader Ed Miliband, with a boss-eyed public munching its way through a series of flag-waving exercises birthed last year by a royal wedding, fattened by the Diamond Jubilee, shipped off to the abattoir by Euro 2012 and unceremoniously slaughtered by the Olympics. All we need now is another lovely war and we'll be gorging on the entire nationalistic herd.

My peers indulge in this nonsense like bullying seagulls pecking each other for chips thrown on the prom, blindly tearing at whatever artery-plugging junk they're fed by people bigger than they. What really galls me is that so many people excuse it as "a bit of harmless fun". Why fear the Jubilee? It's just a few days off with a "cheeky" lager and a calorie overdose. Why not celebrate our nation?

The biggest problem with patriotism is that it enforces a sense of national identity, that it is, literally, nationalistic. As we move forward into the 21st Century, the problems we face are global, and this "convenient fiction," as Joyce had it, hinders our ability to unite on a planetary level by dividing us and encouraging us to think - and act - on a local one. In a time where national identity should be being resigned to the foreign country of the past, patriotism promotes it. Want the coming generations to face a nightmarish environmental scenario? Keep up your steady diet of pride.

When we group under a flag we define ourselves in opposition to others; we display intention to win rather than solve. The ecosystems on which we depend are collapsing, in case you hadn't heard, but time and again international committees fail to reach accord on climate change, deforestation, over-fishing and the like because the nations involved are duty bound to represent the commercial interests of their people. Their people; not people. David Cameron couldn't even be bothered to turn up to Rio+20.

Nationalism has failed in a real sense, and unless we seize the vision to move beyond it global society may very well fail with it. As a concept it cannot fulfil global environmental needs or those of worldwide trade systems: we need a global system, not a national one. We're seeing the nationalistic end-game, as the dinosaurs of conservatism attempt to convince the public that the way forward is backwards. If the euro is experiencing problems, France must revert to the franc. If the euro-area shudders, Britain may consider an exit. National interest must precede the interest of humanity, we're told.

Of course, patriotism suits our rulers very well. It keeps them in power. Tough economic times allow the establishment to offer nationalism as a comfort food, an overdose of bird-baiting stodge to lure us away from the the fitness regime we hope will eventually prevent a middle-aged heart attack. Haven't got enough money? Wave this. Happy now? Good. "We're all in this together".

But patriotism, now matter how "gentle," nooses our necks and pulls us, blindfolded, to the right. When we allow our leaders to capitalise on nationalism, instead of supporting those who demand greater unity, we invite extremism back into mainstream politics by saying we want to be bound by our physical borders and those that would further close them. By painting a Union Jack on your face, by indulging in displays of national pride, you're perpetuating the stench of UKIP, the droning fart in Europe's political spacesuit, and offering a bunk-up to fun-loving racists like Nick Griffin and Marine Le Pen. You're allowing Theresa May to ruin people's lives. You're showing presidents that they must push to the extreme right in their search for popularity.

You do this by saying you believe in the flag.

While you cheer "the boys" on the TV, dressed in your England shirts, you're supporting a system of politics that will eventually destroy our ecology. While you prise grease-sodden sausage rolls away from your Union Jack paper plates and swill beer in honour of the Queen, you allow fascism to, yet again, root in the paving stone cracks of Europe's national borders. By being patriotic, by feeling pride in "your" flag, you are encouraging racism and pushing life as we know it towards further crisis.

God save the Queen. Just a harmless bit of fun. At least try to think about it the next time you go to string up the bunting.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1305760 2012-02-28T19:00:00-05:00 2012-04-29T05:12:01-04:00

Patrick Garratt http://www.huffingtonpost.com/patrick-garratt/
Twitter, we are told, can be as addictive as drugs. I've taken a lot of drugs. They are, indubitably, fairly moreish. Addiction was my thing. I'm a teetotaler of eight years thanks to my imbecilic propensity to excess, and since I stopped drinking and ingesting whatever stimulant I could get my hands on, the only narcotic I've allowed myself to consume is caffeine. I got married, had children and quit my youth's idiocies; what I hadn't banked on was electronic dope.

I've always liked online socialising. I started using the internet in my first job as a games journalist in 1998, and one of the first things I did when the boss's back was turned was to register for Loaded's chat room and start wasting time. This was back in the days of real-time chat' on a webpage. It felt underground. Since then we've seen the internet revolutionise the way we interact with one another, with Facebook emerging as the global connectivity poster boy, but nothing else matches the pure buzz of Twitter.

I use Twitter constantly, all day, from the moment I wake up to the last minutes before I go to sleep. It's not unusual for me to check Twitter on my phone before I turn on the light in the morning, and I usually do a few last refreshes after my wife plunges our bedroom into darkness at night. I have a Twitter app open on at least three devices in the house at any one time: on my PC in my office, on a laptop in the kitchen, on my smartphone or on my Vita. I use Twitter during meals, before I start my car's engine, when we go for family walks and when I travel on trains. I don't read when I sit down to 'relax': I tweet.

If Facebook's the mainstream social gateway, Twitter's the hard stuff. Everything about it provides instant, constant gratification. Nothing epitomises 'f5 syndrome' - the desire to repeatedly refresh a webpage or app - better than Twitter. The 140 character limit on tweets means it takes seconds to contribute or notify, and the codification of posts, with their insignia for replies, direct messages and hashtags, gives a seductive, cliquey impression. When you stand on the outside and watch people voraciously using something, the urge is to join. Once you've on the inside of a universally addicted group, leaving can be very difficult.

Even worse, it's a professional addiction. The biggest problem with Twitter, for me at least, is that it's become a standard for the transmission of news of every type. My main business is running VG247, a video games news site, and Twitter is an intrinsic part of that community. Aside from being a bullet-fast delivery medium, Twitter is a no-man's land chatroom between journalists from opposing sites and magazines, and more often than not engaging VG247 readers happens on Twitter as opposed to the site itself. How am I supposed to stop using it?

A key test of whether or not you're addicted to something is to judge how it impacts your everyday life. Anyone with a drink problem will tell you that when they finally decide to do something about it, one of the first questions they're asked by whoever they stumble to for help - a Google search in many cases - will be to answer honestly about how their habit is affecting their day-to-day existence, specifically factors such as relationships and work.

Twitter certainly affects my work. It fractures my concentration and gives me a depressing feeling I know only too well from my "other life"; the desperate, hollow pressure of waste. If I'm checking Twitter every few minutes I can't write or edit properly. Does Twitter affect my relationship? Probably. When I spend time with my wife at the end of a day and the children are asleep, we usually collapse in front of a TV only one of us watches: I'll be staring at my phone until bedtime. I don't know if it has or not, but could Twitter be affecting my marriage? The answer's obvious.

Of course, Twitter doesn't have to be used in this way. It can be a hugely positive thing, a universally-used system by dissidents, journalists and those seeking to break a wide expanse of official evil. Twitter can be a force for good.

Not for me. People can become addicted to anything, but there's certainly been enough written about the addictive attributes of Twitter recently to make clear it's something I need to be careful with. The enjoyment I get from Twitter has evaporated, a classic sign of overuse. I don't really like it any more. I want to do other things with my time. My worry is that to stop using it completely could impact my business. Once I'd made the decision to stop taking drugs, the next steps were relatively easy as I made my financial living elsewhere. To stop using Twitter isn't so black and white, and my "all or nothing" personality means I can't just use Twitter "a bit".

But it's stupid to even believe that. Maybe I can. Maybe I have to. It's as much a part of my world as the internet or computers. Maybe if I spent more time writing about Twitter than actually using it, it can become a positive part of my life instead of threatening to envelope it.

Either way, it's clearly time to make some changes. Drugs are drugs, virtual or otherwise.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1290173 2012-02-21T19:00:00-05:00 2012-04-22T05:12:01-04:00

Patrick Garratt http://www.huffingtonpost.com/patrick-garratt/
Games pundits love to kill things. Much has been written in the past year about the need for dedicated gaming handhelds in the post-smartphone era, as Nintendo and Sony both readied next-generation devices.

It seemed as though capital punishment wouldn't even be needed for Nintendo's 3DS as it lurched close to suicidal disaster last year in an attempt to follow the lunatic success of the preceding DS.

Now it's Sony's turn. PlayStation Vita launches in Europe and the US today, and has also been condemned by many for summary execution, a needless update to PSP destined to swing from mobile gaming's Applewood gallows by its conceptually broken neck. There's no place for Vita in the lives of the modern goldfish-person, the black-cappers have been saying. Off with its head.

That was, of course, until they actually got their hands on it.

Vita is the world's first portable games console, your honour. We now have a beautifully constructed device that plays startlingly attractive software with two thumbsticks. As insane as it sounds, Vita is an 18cm PS3, with games that look just as good as their big brothers. The new versions of future-racer WipEout and seminal adventure Uncharted, both of which ship alongside the machine at launch, look as though they're playing on a small HD TV. It should be made clear to the jury that neither of these games could ever work on an iPad or iPhone: they need physical controls.

While games are this case's main piece of evidence, Sony's desire to keep Vita from the disgraced section of the graveyard is also apparent in that it's crammed full enough of features and openness to keep even the most cynical happy. There's a touchscreen, a touchpad on the back, two control sticks, six control buttons, an accelerometer, front and back cameras, a d-pad, physical volume control, Bluetooth, 3G (if you want it - you can buy it without), a memory card slot, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and God knows what else.

If Vita's on trial, the system's designers are the sort of quickfire witnesses that leave prosecutions wobbling their reddening jowls in dismay.

But the games are expensive, the lawyers dribble. No they're not. Sony understands that not everyone wants to pay £40 for a handheld game, especially when they can buy Angry Birds or Tiny Tower for a few quid. Motorstorm RC costs less than a fiver and you get both the Vita and PS3 versions in the same pack. That's new. It's true cross-platform innovation.

And if you do want to pay £40 or £30 for something like WipEout or Uncharted, you're going to get a standard of software previously only playable on a PS3, Xbox 360 or PC. These aren't 'mobile games'. Other titles - such as the gloriously stupid Gravity Rush - focus on tactility and movement. You can touch everything on Vita.

And you'll want to. It's a breakthrough games device in a way 3DS never was. It links up with your PS3 friends list on PlayStation Network and provides a competitive framework that has never existed across mobile and static games platforms before. It will succeed, m'lud, because it does a great many things a mobile phone cannot.

Despite all its problems, 3DS has become the fastest-selling console of all time in Japan, reaching five million sales in a year. Vita has had a slow start in the east since its December launch, but a version of Capcom's Monster Hunter will fix that.

People do want handheld games consoles, iPhone or not.

Then you have games like Call of Duty and BioShock on the way for Vita, real console versions of true gamer games. The core community is becoming as excited about these new additions as they are for the next instalments on PS3 and 360. As BioShock developer Ken Levine said recently, Vita offers no compromise in terms of gameplay for the sort of action games many thought would never be possible on a mobile device. Having two thumbsticks and a practically absurd level of power is a game-changer.

Vita has its place, and it's not swinging in a gibbet. Take the wig off and try one for yourself.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1111862 2011-11-27T09:42:12-05:00 2012-01-27T05:12:02-05:00

Patrick Garratt http://www.huffingtonpost.com/patrick-garratt/
The bestselling games this Christmas are so entrenched in sequelisation as to border on ridiculousness. We have the Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, the 14th Elder Scrolls release since 1994; we have Battlefield 3, the 19th Battlefield product published since 2002; and, most obviously, we have Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, the Vaz-baiting, industry-crushing super-game built on seven previous releases in the Call of Duty franchise since 2003.

Skyrim is a role-playing game in which you hit wolves and dragons with fireballs and axes. Call of Duty and Battlefield are separate takes on contemporary war: you shoot the bad guys with guns.

Orcs and bullets. How depressingly video-gamey. Ed Vaizey, Britain's creative industries minister, pointed out last week that the games trade has "grown to rival any entertainment business" on a sales level, but why isn't this success being matched by daring expansion into creative realms unknown? Just how many times can video games get away with hitting a goblin in the face with a magic stick?

The short answer is that big budget fantasy and shooting games will continue to be made for as long as people pay for them, which will no doubt keep the likes of Mr Vaizey in hand-rubbing for many years to come. Fortunately, though, the insatiable need to cash in on the public's apparently endless desire to shoot Russian, German or Middle-Eastern gentlemen in the face doesn't begin to describe the lapping edges of the games trade's creativity pool.

Two things have happened in recent years to enable an explosion in ingenuity in the games business. Just because you might not see it on the shelves of your local games store doesn't mean it isn't there. For a start, the internet got faster. This means that games don't specifically have to be delivered on discs any more, opening up retail channels that skirt the traditional high street shop and removing the need for lofty prices and long games. You can now buy any number of tiny, cheap games through Xbox Live, PlayStation Network or PC- and Mac-facing services like Steam.

We've re-entered the realm of the bedroom coder, and the results, in the main, have been fabulous. Indie development has never been so vital, with studios like Jim Rossignol's Big Robot and Dejobaan Games creating games like AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! - A Reckless Disregard for Gravity and Fallen City with tiny teams. These projects would never be released on disc.

On top of that, we've seen a spread in the platforms available for games, with mobile phones and the PC becoming near-limitless formats for play. Thanks to iOS and Android, the speed at which mobile gaming has accelerated has taken the "traditional" games industry's breath away. The days of games being limited to consoles and disc-based PC releases are long gone. It's now estimated that the leaders of mobile gaming in the US are not Sony and Nintendo with PSP and DS, but Apple and Google with iOS and Android. Over 250 million iOS devices and 190 million pieces of hardware running Android have now been activated: they all play games. Serious questions are being asked as to whether Nintendo and Sony can even exist in the handheld space in the coming years with the upcoming Vita and struggling 3DS, a situation unthinkable even two years ago.

While Sony and Nintendo traditionally rely on selling physical media for handheld systems, iOS and Android are home to the 99p download, short bursts of fun for pennies delivered to millions of people. The result has been devastating. The prime success story of the mobile gaming revolution is Rovio's Angry Birds, with its mind-numbing 500 million downloads. The App Store concept has allowed thousands of pocket-sized games to flood the market, and the resulting creativity has been bewildering.

Similarly, PC games are now so varied it's impossible to seriously catalogue genres. Computer games used to be first-person shooting and strategy, but the bite-sized approach afforded by internet delivery and the PC's open nature has recently seen some gigantic hits emerge from even single coders. Minecraft, a freeform world in which you can build whatever you like, has sold over 4 million units since 2009. Developer Markus Persson made the initial release by himself.

This diversification of both platforms and delivery methods means you're no longer limited to £40, Hollywood-style games. The next time you get bored of playing soldiers or wizards, try checking out Android Market or booting up Steam: you may well be delighted by what you find.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.998090 2011-10-06T19:00:00-04:00 2011-12-06T05:12:02-05:00

Patrick Garratt http://www.huffingtonpost.com/patrick-garratt/ Steve Jobs resigned as Apple's CEO in August, it seemed he would remain involved for an extended period as the company's chairman. It was said at the time that he would be a hands-on, God-like figure, still very much involved in product development and a guiding hand for his apparently capable replacement, Tim Cook. Apple's prospects, as I said at the time, seemed solid.

That future is not so certain today.

The world ground to a halt yesterday with news that Jobs died after a battle with cancer last night, his passing prompting vigils at Apple stores and the release of statements from the likes of Barack Obama and Bill Gates.

It would be pointless for me to recount a tale now being told by every news outlet in every country on the planet, of a man who dropped out of college, made a computer and changed the world. Jobs was a genius, and his impact is severe. As Obama said this morning: "The world has lost a visionary. And there may be no greater tribute to Steve's success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented."

While it's right to remember Jobs' life and legacy, what matters is understanding what this giant brought to the modern world. His true success was in transforming pure capitalism into a force that touched people's lives and changed them for what they perceived to be the better. He created a vision of the present that, for many, eclipsed money. Steve Jobs was a leader. That he was, when all's said and done, a computer manufacturer, is completely irrelevant. Jobs and the glossy veneer of his Apple world were a way of life.

The terrifying prospect facing Tim Cook and the rest of Apple today is that the illusion may have been shattered.

Jobs' death arrived merely a day after Apple announced iPhone 4S in Cook's first press conference as boss. The news was met by a muted response: there was a wide expectation that iPhone 5 would be shown for the first time this week, and that Apple instead chose to reveal an iPhone 4 upgrade has been tough for many to swallow. Even the BBC questioned whether or not 4S is "quite different enough" to keep Apple ahead in the increasingly bitter smartphone wars.

The fear is that we are now starting to see Apple iterate with no hint as to what its next shock innovation may be. Had Jobs remained in his overseer position for many years, there would have been little question that Apple could spot gaps, create trends and continue to capitalise. With Jobs dead, it's impossible not to question whether or not Apple will sink back into the fight against other manufacturers instead of leading the way.

When Jobs resigned I said it was "time to accept reality: Apple is more than one man." That's an inarguable fact, but it's one with a caveat: that Jobs would be standing in the wings as Cook grew into the role. The panickers quickly asked who'd be responsible for the sort of breakthrough tech Jobs brought to market in iPhone and iPad, and the answer was simple: Steve Jobs.

But Jobs is now dead. There will be no hand-holding. What is impossible to confirm is whether or not the thousands of men and women that form Apple can ever bring the spark needed to lead not only the tech industry but a global nation of connected followers. For Apple's shareholders, fans and employees, that's a question that needs to be answered very quickly indeed.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.993114 2011-10-04T19:00:00-04:00 2011-12-04T05:12:07-05:00

Patrick Garratt http://www.huffingtonpost.com/patrick-garratt/ Rudy Guede of killing Briton Meredith Kercher in 2007, had their convictions overturned.

While the surreal scenes in and around the Perugia courthouse after the appeal decision resembled something out of a TV legal drama, replete with crowds hurling insults at lawyers and the stunned defendants being led through packs of suited men by the police, the chaotic case highlights again that miscarriages of justice do happen in the west, and that the lobby pressing for the resurrection of capital punishment in European nations should be held at bay.

Political blogger Paul Staines, who goes by the moniker of Guido Fawkes, recently came out of the closet as a keen supporter of the resurrection of hanging in the UK, and said he would "put all the resources at his command into a campaign for a vote on the restoration of capital punishment for child and cop killers," following the launch of the British government's e-petition site.

He said that public opinion supported hanging as a deterrent for murder, citing a YouGov poll that found 50 percent of those questioned would reinstate it.

Tory MP Philip Davies said of the campaign: "It's something where once again the public are a long way ahead of the politicians. I'd go further and restore it for all murderers."

Knox and Sollecito's total acquittal in the Kercher case is evidence that people that harbour these views are, very literally, dangerous. Italy banned capital punishment in 1948, but had it been in place for murder in the present day, the end result of what has now been decided as an error of Italian justice may have been far more morbid.

Miscarriages of justice at the highest level are not restricted to Italy; of course it happens in Britain. A recent example is that of Stefan Kiszko, a Ukranian tax clerk, convicted of murdering the 11 year-old Lesley Molseed in 1975. He spent 16 years in prison before being completely exonerated of the crime, being released in 1992 only to die a year later.

Britain effectively outlawed hanging for murder in 1969. Law in both Italy and the UK contained instances where capital means could theoretically be used until much later; the last vestiges of capital punishment weren't abolished in the UK until 1998, and death by firing squad was a technical possibility in Italy until 2008. Both countries revoked these laws to come into line with the European Convention on Human Rights.

That societies with mature legal institutions should adopt a stance that protects individuals from state murder by miscarriages of justice is correct. Whatever your views on the Kercher murder, there is no question that the evidence against Knox and Sollecito was, under scrutiny, flawed. As such, they should never have been convicted, let alone shot or hanged.

Knox's lawyer, Carlo Vella Vedova, told the BBC after the decision: "In this case there is no winner." Meredith Kercher is still dead. Rudy Guede is still in prison for the killing. The entire affair is still revolting.

But at least the cases against Knox and Sollecito were proven shoddy and overturned, and the pair weren't wrongly executed in the meantime: hopefully that's something the likes of Paul Staines can remind themselves of the next time they claim taking human life should be a matter for the courts to decide.
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.961470 2011-09-20T10:36:35-04:00 2011-11-20T05:12:02-05:00

Patrick Garratt http://www.huffingtonpost.com/patrick-garratt/ a date for PlayStation Vita - its next generation take on hugely successful gaming handheld PSP - may have been the flashy headline from the firm's Tokyo Game Show keynote this morning, but it wasn't the most important.

Vita, a powerful device easily capable of delivering PlayStation 3-level graphics, will release on December 17 in Japan in two versions ahead of a western launch next year.

You'll be able to buy either a unit with both 3G and WiFi connectivity, or one with no mobile connection. More interesting than the date itself, however, is how Vita's remote connection will work.

Sony surprised the gaming world today by confirming a pre-paid system for Vita's 3G component with partner NTT Docomo in Japan, by which gamers will pay for time up-front for both games and any of Vita's wide array of social networking applications.

Data pricing was also confirmed. It's to cost ¥980 (£8/€9.30/$12.70) for a 20-hour pre-paid card, and ¥4,980 (£41.10/€47.50/$64.70) for 100 hours pre-paid.

The ramifications of the move are huge. Up to this point, dedicated handheld games devices have been either WiFi-only or mobile phones and tablets, tied into data contracts with traditional carriers.

Pre-paid iPad data is available, but you pay by the megabyte - and there's not much chance of fitting an iPad into your pocket.

But Sony has skirted the default method of data delivery, allowing for anyone to play online, anywhere, with no expensive data contract.

The social networks instantly fired up as to whether the system will be replicated in the West, but given Vita is an intrinsically online device it seems likely that Sony will adopt the same model in the US and Europe.

The big question now is who will win the local 3G contracts.

This pre-paid system will directly pressure mobile phone companies in the games space. As Sony and Nintendo moved into the next generation with their mobile games offerings this year, there appeared to be a deadlock between the old schoolers and the new kings of handheld games, Apple and Google, with the phone-makers storming apparently unchecked into the world of mobile gaming thanks to their ubiquity.

Now, though, people have Vita for their pockets. Yes, Vita will provide a very high-end mobile gaming experience - technically superior to that of an iPhone or HTC handset, with physical buttons and joysticks - but it will also give users something that Apple never can: pay as you go online mobile games based on time.

And no: iPad doesn't fit in your pocket.

Sony demonstrated brains today. Nintendo has made some shocking errors with its latest handheld games system, 3DS, and probably the worst of them is a failure to understand the modern handheld landscape's insistence on connectivity.

There is no 3G version of 3DS; it was a puzzle Nintendo couldn't solve.

Many had sneered at Vita, too, saying it was impossible for it to compete with always-on iPhone and Android systems and their dollar games, but we are now looking at a device that can deliver a dedicated, top-drawer gaming experience; can fit in your pocket; can support online play anywhere via 3G; and doesn't need to be tied to a contract.

It's unique, and it has its place in the hideously competitive world of modern mobile games thanks, in part, to offering easy 3G access to all. Vita's success isn't assured, but that Sony has managed to steer the console into a position where it has the best chance is to be lauded.

PlayStation Vita will launch in Japan on December 1, priced ¥29,980 (£248/€286/$390) for the 3G version and ¥24,980 (£206/€239/$325) for the WiFi-only machine. It's to release in Europe and the US early next year.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.967631 2011-09-20T10:32:30-04:00 2011-11-20T05:12:02-05:00

Patrick Garratt http://www.huffingtonpost.com/patrick-garratt/
Vita, the successor to portable gaming device PSP, was confirmed for a December 17 release in Japan at TGS, with two Sony presentations showing the company understands fully what a portable gaming device needs to be in the post-iPhone world.

Firstly, there are two versions. Both have WiFi, but the more expensive - £30 pricier at about £230 - has a 3G connection. Sony announced at the show that Vita's 3G, in Japan at least, would adopt a pay-as-you-go model, skirting the need for expensive user contracts.

The move differentiates the machine from iOS and Android phones, meaning it can be always-on in a way perfect for games: you pay up front for time online, not for data used.

Vita can be connected always and everywhere. 3DS has no 3G option at all.

Secondly, Sony has gone to great lengths to ensure Vita has a full suite of social networking apps, showing it's cognizant of the expectation to be able to tweet or update Facebook from any mobile device.

Thirdly, Vita is extremely powerful, far more so than iPhone 4 and competitive gaming handsets, and comes replete with just about every input imaginable; it has twin thumbsticks, physical buttons and even a laptop-style trackpad on its rear.

It clearly provides an experience you'll never get on a mobile phone, and in the current handheld gaming market that means everything in terms of survival.

Sony was strong in Tokyo this week, showing it's developed a strategy to enable to Vita to exist in a brutal market opposite the likes of Apple and Google.

Nintendo, on the other hand, has been caught woefully short in the mobile games space with 3DS, it's current console, and its TGS presentation did nothing to allay fears that the Japanese giant is facing a real disaster with the machine.

Following news that 3DS sales have tanked since it launched in March and Nintendo was to slash its price as a result, both gamers and the trade alike were looking to company president Satoru Iwata to announce game-changing moves in Tokyo: instead we saw the leader attempt to fix the broken handheld with lick and spit.

3DS only has one thumbstick compared to Vita's two. This means it's ill-equipped to play modern 3D games, which traditionally use the left stick to move the on-screen character and the right stick to move the game's camera. Following considerable push-back on the decision to leave off a second stick, Nintendo announced at TGS a frankly hideous plastic add-on, called the Slide Pad, in an attempt to bring 3DS up to date.

This won't work. Adding functionality to games machines in this way rarely does. The major problem with augmenting games hardware post-launch is that software developers can never be certain the player has bought the peripheral. From a business perspective, developing a 3DS title with two thumbsticks in mind makes no sense: what happens if the gamer only has one?

The rest of Nintendo's conference was terrible. Iwata and friends announced a Misty Pink 3DS for release in Japan in October, and showed off a couple of "girl" games. Not even the Nintendo faithful were convinced.

Iwata's TGS trump was confirmation that the next in the Monster Hunter series - an 18 million unit-selling handheld phenomenon in Japan traditionally played on Sony's PSP, will release apparently exclusively on 3DS.

Shares in Capcom, Monster Hunter's publisher, cratered as a result.

If there was ever a clear indication that 3DS's time has already passed, it was that the crowd refused to even applaud Iwata until the Monster Hunter announcement. Conversely, Vita was so popular at the show that organisers were forced to close down demo queues due to demand.

Nintendo may have ruled the current hardware generation with Wii and DS, but it's terrifying to see just how quickly stars can rise and fall in the video games space.

3DS imploding, Vita burning bright: expect Sony to confirm western launch details in the coming months.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.952917 2011-09-07T19:00:00-04:00 2011-11-07T05:12:02-05:00

Patrick Garratt http://www.huffingtonpost.com/patrick-garratt/ in its first 60 days on sale late last year, with Guinness World Records branding it the fastest-selling consumer electronics device of all time as a result.

Kinect has been pushed as the next big thing in games from the very top of Microsoft, with CEO Steve Ballmer himself saying the device makes Xbox 360 more than a games console.

But despite the attention, one thing has been glaringly missing from the entire Kinect program: it has no core video games.

In the games trade, "the core" occupies what you might think of as traditional games: shooters, driving and fantasy titles all fall into the category. The people that play this content - 18-35 year-old men, largely - are Xbox 360's mainstay, and one of the biggest reasons Kinect ever existed: the camera's so far been aimed at the casual and children's markets, giving 360 more overall reach.

The core, however, isn't happy with its lot. Microsoft knows it, and thus Kinect is about to begin its trip into the more involved games space with Fable: The Journey, the latest from celebrated British developer, Lionhead Studios.

The Journey, the fourth Fable game and the first for Kinect, sits the player in a horse drawn carriage, using arm motions to cast spells and smack reins in a free-roaming adventure spanning hundreds of miles.

It's a fantasy game set in the world of Albion, a land well-loved by enthusiasts, and it's one of the first titles to solve Kinect's greatest problem: that of allowing players to sit down.

This has been one of the primary factors Kinect titles have leant so heavily on the family dancing or jumping in front of the TV up to this point. So far, Kinect has not been able to properly recognize players in seated positions.

A stepping stone game to Fable: The Journey, a quirky Old West shooter called The Gunstringer, releases next week and will, finally, allow Kinect players to sit.

Speaking to me at German games show gamescom in August, Microsoft Kinect evangelist and studio manager Shannon Loftis explained why The Gunstringer is such an important bridge game for Kinect's stab at the core.

"First of all, it's a shooter, but the shooting mechanic has been reimagined from the ground up for Kinect," she said.

"But the thing that nobody's talking about, and yet it's a critical piece, is that you sit down to play The Gunstringer.

"Core games are deeply immersive and they last for a really long time. People play for many, many hours, and that's a difficult thing to do when you're up and jumping around."

The Gunstringer, though, is a lead into 2012's main events for Kinect's core initiative, more of a test than a serious effort to sell Kinect to traditional gamers. Fable: The Journey will be the first real mark of Microsoft's commitment to the core. It's not for kids.

"Like everyone else, I want a game that will make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up," said Lionhead boss Peter Molyneux in an interview earlier this year, speaking after the game was announced at the E3 games show in Los Angeles.

"That's what the potential is here. I predict this time next year at E3, people will be saying completely different things about Kinect. It wasn't that long ago we all thought that mobile games were rubbish."

And Fable isn't the only upcoming Kinect game to be aimed at the less childish gamer. Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor was announced over the summer, planting the player in a giant robot in what was described to me at the time as a "gory, human drama".

A far cry from mums and dads playing cartoon football with the kids. Kinect is coming to the core. Who knew sitting down could be such a plus?]]>