Barty’s Weblog

The NZ Herald has published an article in which Bill Hastings, the chief censor, wants to prosecute some parents over access to restricted video games.

Now, as a parent and a retailer of video games, I whole-heartedly agree with what Mr Hastings is hoping to achieve. But I believe his approach is possibly wrong. Prosecuting some parents (who may or may not be aware of their responsibilities) doesn’t seem right.

I’d suggest (again) that a lot of parents would be completely unaware that they are breaking the law when they allow their children to play R-rated video games. In my opinion, the government needs to educate parents before prosecuting them. They need to get some advertising campaigns in the mass media to educate parents on what their legal responsibilities are and how to monitor their children’s internet activities. This would be more effective than any law suit… and yes it would cost more. Give Bill Hastings an advertising budget.

Another concern I have, is that in the past, Internal Affairs have been very focused on packaged goods, yet its getting easier and easier to access R-rated games via the internet. Possibly the best way to enforce censorship over the internet, is to educate parents & caregivers. Parental censorship is getting more and more important by the minute (broken record syndrome is kicking in!).

Bill Hastings also wants to have all video games rated, which I believe would be a disaster for the local gaming industry.

Here’s why:

1. For starters, its costs $1450 to get a game classified — this will lead to higher prices & some games not being released (officially at least)
2. It takes at least two-four weeks to get a game classified – this will lead to slower release dates & more overseas buying
3. There’s a massive trade on Trademe that would need to be controlled (controlling this may lead to the cost of classifications rising further? The extra enforcement has to be funded somehow?)
4. It would be cheaper and faster to buy games from other countries via the web.

The obvious question I have is… will requiring a kids game to be rated a “G” help address the real problem? I can’t see how? Can you?

In my opinion, the local video game industry doesn’t need more regulation to fight against. It needs less. The industry is already struggling to compete with overseas imports and New Zealand is doing poorly compared to markets like Australia (we had an estimated 7% growth from 2008  vs 30% growth in Australia).

Personally a classification system similar to Australia may work. Across the Tasman, the distributors “submit” the rating — meaning its cheap and fast to execute. Implementing such a system, while retaining the strict classification of games likely to be R-rated, may well work.

But I believe expanding the current system to require official classification of all games will make the local game industry uncompetitive and the result would be more imports, more internet purchasing and an even greater reliance on parents.

The government needs to get educating. Not legislating. And definitely not prosecuting… yet.

Last week I finally caved and bought myself my first ever Apple Mac. I was originally going to buy myself a decent PC laptop to get myself a little more mobile around the house, but I ended up going for a MacBook Pro on a hunch.

My initial impressions are all good. The packaging was first class, the initial experience was excellent and so far the performance has been top notch. I’m mainly using the MacBook for mail, internet and World of Warcraft (which actually helps the MacBook double as a heater — good for winter, not so much for summer!).

My initial fears of running two different Operating Systems have been unfounded as the brain seems to adapt to each environment really quickly (but I’m happy to admit I’m still a complete Mac newbie). Its susrprising how adaptable the human brain can be.

Interestingly, within hours of getting my Mac, I was getting the Mac jibes…  “silly mac users”, “noob” and “mac user haha”.

But I’m already starting to wonder how long my home PC desktop will last… the MacBook is a real pleasure to use. Highly recommended.

There’s something that has been bugging me for a while. Each week the NZ Herald publishes their weekly Timeout Guide which covers new releases and news for Film, Music, Books and Television.

I’ve often wondered why don’t they include video games in this section?

While its nice that The Herald files gaming under their Technology section on their web site, perhaps it’s time that gaming was included in their weekly Timeout publication?

Not only would this mean that the Timeout publication would appeal to more people, but it also opens up avenues for more advertising revenue (todays guide includes a full page ad for a DVD release, a 1/3 page ad for a Film, the usual theatre ads and no music ads whatsoever).

Just how big is gaming getting? The Age posted a news article this week headlined: Video games thrash movies and DVDs

This article highlights that gaming is now a mainstream activity (as if the recent Oliver Newton-John ads weren’t enough of a hint). The article goes on to mention:…

“The video games industry is now double the size of the box office and more than 40 per cent larger than the movie disc industry in Australia, thanks to explosive growth in social games that allow the whole family to play.

The Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia (IEAA) today released figures showing games industry revenue was $1.96 billion in calendar year 2008, an increase of 47 per cent from the previous year.

Sony Computer Entertainment managing director Michael Ephraim said: “It’s clear now that the [games] industry is the nucleus of entertainment – it has come out of the bedroom, into the living room, and on to every kind of device, and we’re going to see another few years of considerable growth.”

Video games are no longer confined to the  bedroom. I believe its time the folks at The Herald get with the times. Video games thrash movies and DVDs…

Get gaming into the Timeout guide!

I must confess that I have a pretty good home theatre set up for video gaming and for watching the odd movie.

The whole set up is powered by a Sony amp and everything (literally) runs through the amp including all the video and sound. Unfortunately one of the down sides with using an amp for video is that TV’s with Freeview built-in are pointless, so last year I purchased Freeview HD to enjoy television in high definition.

But overall, I was disappointed with the lack of HD programs that were broadcast on the Freeview channels. TV3 was excellent, but most of the TV1 and TV2 programs weren’t high definition at all. After a while I began to leave Freeview turned off and just reverted to using the old trusty Sky TV decoder. It just wasn’t worth the hassle of using an extra remote and changing the input on the amp just to watch something in slightly better resolution.

But I recently upgraded our Sky decoder to the My Sky HDi decoder and I’ve not looked back. With My Sky HDi you get SKY Sport 1, SKY Sport 2, SKY Movies, SKY Movies Greats and TV3 in proper high definition. It’s beautiful.. and watching the Black Caps in high definition has been nothing short of brilliant.

On top of the “high def goodness” you get cool features like recording your favourite programs and the live pause (which gets handier every day). You can even record two channels at once and watch a third and I must confess to even achieving that feat once so far.

My Sky HDi is so handy, it has changed my TV viewing habits. I no longer sit down at scheduled times each week to catch my favourite shows. I use MySky to record the series each week and leave it to it.

When I want to watch some TV, I don’t channel surf or settle for whatever is on — I flick through my recorded programs and watch something I really wanted to watch. The result is that I now watch less TV.

Kudos to Sky TV… My Sky HDi is a great piece of technology that makes life easier.

It was sad to see the Warriors great finals run come to an end last night… but Manly were red-hot. At least the grand final rematch next week between Manly and Melbourne should be a cracker.

Sea Eagles 32
Warriors 6

“After 16 years and 312 first-grade games, it was the end for a rugby league legend.” – NZ Herald.

Gillette time anyone?

I can’t believe another month has all but disappeared. We’re still slaving away on our new site… but thankfully we can finally see a bright beam of light at the end of the tunnel!

Our new project has been a long time coming and we even ignored my own advice recently, when we redesigned the site before it was even released. While “to redesign” was a difficult decision, we believe the extra time spent will eliminate a lot of the risks associated with the new project (and of course the new site will also be a lot better than it was going to be).

I must say that working on a new site for such a long period is like an artist working on a painting for too long. There comes a point where you don’t appreciate the good, as you are constantly focused on the not so good.

According to Firefox I have visited the new site 9,230 times… ouch?

Lets face it. The Trademe design is ugly… no really. Well okay, it’s not really ugly. It is pretty good these days, but it’s not exactly a work of art.

A lot worse could be said about craigslist and many other successful web sites.

Its funny how we can become so obsessed with creating great looking web sites, when a lot of successful sites are on the verge of being ugly (actually the same could be said for many successful people… such as our recent prime ministers: Muldoon, Lange, Palmer, Moore, Bolger, Shipley, Clark… spot the common link?).

So if web sites like Trademe and craigslist don’t have pretty designs and prime ministers don’t have pretty faces, then just how important is the “look” of a web site?

Over the years we’ve pondered this question over more glasses of wine than Dan Carter has French Francs.

In my opinion, a good graphic design will get visitors in the door. While being ugly… well not so much! The good news is that if your design is good enough to get users beyond your front page, then it should be mission accomplished. Your design is doing its job. So why over do it?

A great design on its own isn’t going to make a web site successful. Once people are using the site, the other factors (such as usability, content, and customer proposition) become far more important.

The key is to get people in the door… and then provide the substance they are looking for, so the web site actually works for the users.

I’d suggest our recent prime ministers are the pudding — good looks don’t count for much in the real world either?

Since starting my “no-news” diet I’ve been doing pretty well. I’m avoiding the newspapers. I’m avoiding the 6pm news. I’m avoiding the late night news (its interesting that the late news used to be somewhat compelling, even though it was the the same news… with a bit of new packaging).

And this week I’ve really improved my diet by making better use of Google Alerts. We’ve all probably used Google Alerts to keep track on articles relating to various web sites at some stage, but I’ve now fine-tuned my alerts. Google now forwards me all the exact news that I want to consume — therefore I can skip everything else.

Where’s the benefit in knowing everything going on the world? What’s the point in consuming more information than you can ever digest?

Google Alerts can provide you with an exact information diet. Not too little. Not too much. It really is the ultimate tool for any media diet.

The NZ Herald reported last week that Chris Caddick, the Managing Director of EMI Music New Zealand will be leaving EMI, as the global company is downgrading their presence in New Zealand. The moves are part of an on-going crisis at EMI and the continuing decline of the global music industry.

Its bloody sad to see EMI NZ becoming a marketing-office run from Australia and from our experience, we’ve yet to see any company benefit by from this structure. (Actually that’s not entirely true — the companies that do benefit are the Australian-owned retailers, who have relationships in Australia, that simply can’t be matched by New Zealand owned companies).

EMI have dealt the New Zealand music industry a heck of a blow. Chris has been hailed as one of the best talent scouts in the country and has been credited with promoting some great local talent including the likes of Salmonella Dub, Hollie Smith, Golden Horse and Opshop. Its likely that NZ artists are going to find it harder and harder to break-through into other countries, as more decisions are made in Australia.

The last couple of months have been very interesting for us as we’ve met with all the big music companies and we were very impressed with EMI and how they were identifying the local opportunities online. In fact, we found it difficult to not be infected by Chris’s passion for music — very few people work where there passion is, but Chris and his team definitely do.

The EMI downgrade is definitely… “not cool”.

This week I’ve decided its time to stop watching the news and stop reading the newspapers. All the talk of tightening credit, high petrol prices, high interest rates and retail sales dropping, is starting to affect our thinking and decision making. Is it just me… or is all of the economic news doom or gloom? Things do look tough out there, but should we really care at a company level?

For example, GPstore is still growing and we’re in need of a bigger premises and more staff. But if I listen to the economic data, I start to feel just a little crazy for thinking about investing for the future in the current climate. All the “tough times” talk does create some hesitancy.

So I’ve been asking myself… “How big a role should national economic data play in the short-term decision making process?” Well I’ve decided the answer is… well, none.

After listening to the gloom, we’ve been expecting GPstore’s sales to slow. But thats not happening — April sales were up 148% on last year (thanks GTA4) and we expect the next 2 months to be well-up on last year too. Our data is very different to what we’re seeing on the news every night.

Some people would suggest there’s a fine line between listening to the economy and burying ones head in the sand… but I think its time we lived like ostrich’s. No more caring about the economy. No more watching the news and no more reading the business section (in reality its going to be about as hard as going on a diet, but I’ll give Mr Cold Turkey a try anyway).

Overall I’m confident we’ll make better decisions by focusing 100% on our own data… and we can react when we start seeing trends that suggests something other than growth.

This topic does raise an interesting question… are economic recessions self-fulfilling prophecies? Does all the negative “reporting” create negative thinking, that leads to negative decisions, that lead to the negative result that was originally talked about?