Double Fine Kicks Ass at Kickstarter to Fund New Adventure Game

Double Fine is the game developer behind great games like Psychonauts and Stacking. It’s also the brainchild of Tim Schafer, a former LucasArts employee who created Day of the Tentacle and Grim Fandango, two of the very best games ever made. Now Tim has teamed up with Ron Gilbert, creator of Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island, to create a brand new point-and-click adventure game. They’re doing it small-scale, with a planned Fall 2012 release. I can’t wait.

What’s more, Double Fine has decided to forego seeking a publisher. Publishers are a waste of time, and if Double Fine pitched a point-and-click adventure they’d get sent packing. Adventure games are dead! Tim and his brethren have taken the case to the fans instead. They’re going to fund the entire game development through Kickstarter.

The Wii U, 3DS and How Nintendo Went So Wrong

Yesterday, Nintendo stock tumbled 12% after the company posted a quarterly loss of $324 million and a 50% decline in sales. Along with the losses, Nintendo responded to poor sales of their latest flagship mobile gaming device, the 3DS, by cutting its price from $250 to $170. For a company that a few years ago was setting the world on fire with incredible sales of the Nintendo Wii, DS and its variants, this has to be a huge hit to morale.

But where did Nintendo go wrong?

I think the answer is quite simple: the iPhone. Nintendo completely failed to envision the impact that the new generation of mobile phones would have on their bottom line. And no, it’s not just because people prefer and iPhone to a 3DS, or even DS Lite. The rise in the iPhone doesn’t alone account for troubles with the future of the Wii and the utterly confusing Wii U, which Nintendo unveiled at this year’s E3 expo. No, the iPhone is simply the device that proved Nintendo fallible; Nintendo’s was a self-inflicted wound right from the start.

Google+ Puts Facebook on the Defensive and in Partnership with Skype

Google+ has only been out in the wild for a week, and even then it hasn’t really been in the “wild” considering invites have been closed for days now. That hasn’t stopped Facebook from realizing the potential of the Google+ system, and more importantly its so-called “killer app”, Hangouts. Today, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook will be partnering with Skype to provide video chat right through the website, using a simple plug-in. This is not far off from what Google+ currently offers with its Hangouts feature, and I’m sure Facebook hopes this addition will slow, or even kill any momentum or buzz Google’s new social network has picked up. For now, Facebook and Skype will only offer one-to-one video chatting, though I’m sure we can expect multi-user capabilities in the future, otherwise it’s not exactly on par with Google+.

Along with the Skype video chat, Facebook has also introduced group chat, which allows groups of people to, well… chat. Simple enough, but a feature that’s been a long time coming and welcome now that it’s here.

Finally, Facebook has also announced that the entire chat interface will have a new design to better incorporate these new features.

What’s clear in all of this is that despite the official status as king of the social networking world, with over 750 million users, Facebook sees the heat of competition coming its way. As long as that means new features and more innovation, that can only be a good thing for everybody.