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Stadia Makes Gaming More Affordable than Ever

Stadia is the most accessible, affordable way for a new player to get into gaming. While plenty of games exist on phones, non-gamers aren’t going to pay money for new gaming experiences when they don’t really understand what they’re getting. When they download a free title, consumers have learned to expect being nickel-and-dimed every time they engage with the game. Mobile games might be free, but most of them are also trash.

To the point, REAL gaming has always required a significant upfront investment from the player. What’s more, the initial cost of the game on top of that investment. Game consoles have always cost what is typically equivalent to a day’s wages or more. This has even been true of hand-held devices like the Game Boy or PSP. The cheapest the gaming market has ever seen consoles was the Nintendo 2DS at a mere $79 at retail. For the titles that released on the 3DS, that was bargain bin pricing for a fantastic console. But $79 is still nothing to sneeze it, especially since you’d need to buy a $40 Nintendo game to play on it. 

Stadia is the first platform that has ever allowed the consumer to play console-quality games at no up-front cost. Almost everyone in Western society owns either a tablet or a computer. In the off chance they don’t own one of those, they still likely have access to a smart-tv or a smartphone. Stadia being accessible on essentially any computing device means gaming is now just as accessible as tv or radio, on devices that consumers already own and are familiar with. AAA gaming experiences that used to cost hundreds of dollars before the game was even turned on are now playable without so much as having to watch an ad. That’s immensely powerful stuff.

While the free-to-play movement in gaming has caused some harm to long-time fans it has also lowered the barrier of entry for video games to practically nothing. Ironically, games are now almost MORE accessible than tv or radio, because console free-to-play games rarely have any ads at all and the play session can continue indefinitely without interruption. While free-to-play games on mobile are often predatory, it at least has allowed consumers to become familiar with the idea of games being free, and that’s especially useful for users that are brand new to Stadia. Top quality F2P games like PUBG and Destiny 2 are great entry points for building a sense of value in the casual gamer, and can help convince them that paying $10 or $20 for a “premium” game isn’t just a great experience, but also a fantastic value long term.

Stadia Pro is well witin the price range of other subscription services like Netflix and Hulu too. With over 50 games in the library, a new player could spend a great deal of time exploring the world of gaming for an incredible price. Pound for pound, no other subscription service gives away more games at the $10 price point. While competitive, Playstation Plus Extra is $13 and Xbox Game Pass is $15. At this point in time, neither of those services provide options to buy games and continue to play them in the cloud without a subscription. In addition, those services require the use of proprietary controllers, which add an upfront cost to the experience. On Stadia, the player has a wide selection of compatible control styles, including their mouse and keyboard.

Finally, multiplayer is something that other consoles require a subscription for. On Stadia, multiplayer is completely free. That alone gives Stadia a $60 annual savings over Playstation and Xbox and a $20 advantage of Nintendo. Added up over 5 years, it equates to half the price of the console or more. Stadia’s multiplayer features aren’t just simple and intuitive, but a multiplayer session is never going to cost more than the simple effort of starting the game. 

In a free market, the best value typically wins. In the gaming market in 2022, Stadia is hands-down the winner here, even before game discounts, subscriptions and free trials are factored in. All that’s left is educating the public on how easy it is to start enjoying some of the best games in the world.

Sony's Live Service Play

Sony knows the future of interactive entertainment is turning games into hobbies. In the near future, most gamers will likely only be playing 2-3 games (if that) and they will be coming back to each game on a regular basis as new content is released. Destiny, Gran Turismo, League of Legends, Warzone, Fortnite, Rainbow Six Siege, ALL of these games are hobbies for the people that play them. Earlier this year, Sony confirmed that they have 12 of these games in development. Why such a large number? The executives at Sony know that their audience isn’t going to keep playing all 12. There’s a very good chance that more than half of those games will fail, build a very tiny audience and will get minimal support for years. That’s fine. All Sony REALLY needs is one game like Fortnite. Or Warzone. Or Destiny. One game, carried out over 5-10 years, will pay for every single game that Sony develops in the interim. Sony is making 12 games because they know the more they make, the more chances they have at striking gold. 

Let’s be clear about this, because it bears repeating. No executive at Sony expects all twelve of those games to be successes. Sony is entering the live-service market late, and there are simply too many dominant players taking up mindshare in the space. The average Playstation user already has their favorite game that they have poured months or years of their free-time into. Sony’s challenge will be to not only make amazing live service games, but actually pull those players away from their favorite games to try a new one. Perhaps what Sony may not realize is that although free games will often get downloaded, it's a much bigger task to actually get a player to invest in the universe. That investment by the player involves learning the game's controls, economy, gameplay structure, social functions and seasonal structure. Because live service games are systems built upon systems (battle pass, crafting, grinding, etc), The intellectual investment from the player is considerable. Players know this and it makes free games intimidating. There’s a reason that a large group of hardcore gamers don’t play mobile games; one of those reasons is them knowing the significance of the investment and the payoff of enjoyment. The payoff would be worth discussing later. For now, we can focus on the time investment.

 As a hardcore gamer myself, I find investing in most AAA games that I purchase to be very doable, while trying out a live service experience fills me with suspicion and dread. I go in knowing I’ll need to memorize a complicated economy, deal with advertisements and “sales” and spend a dozen hours figuring out if I’m actually having fun or just satisfying my lizard brain. Even if I decide that I am having fun, I’m then going to do the research to see if the game actually has a healthy player-base and has a chance of surviving the next few years. If I think it doesn’t, I’ll drop it like a parking-lot tv purchase. Even someone like me, who is passionate about the games industry and the different models of payment and financing games have, 6 games in a year is a big ask. Especially from only a single company. 

I don’t blame Sony for wanting to do it. I don’t even think it's a bad idea. But twelve is simply too many. The reason is that their fanbase is eventually going to stop listening and stop trying new products altogether. You can’t just launch an infinite number of games and expect the consumer to pay equal attention to all of them. There is such a thing as attention fatigue, and by releasing that many new free games over the course of a two or three year period, the average Playstation user is going to get sick of hearing about new “free” games and they’re just going to stick with what they know. 

There is also the perception of quality to consider. If Sony has released its 4th live service game, but the last three have been trash, why should I think this new one is going to be any different?  Over the course of a year you might get a customer to try one or two brand new games. There’s no way you’d ever convince them to try all six, and that's especially true if there are six more the next year. Even if these games were released at a cadence of once per quarter, that still only gives the consumer three months to try the game before the “new hotness” is out. For many live service games, that's barely a single season of content. With that kind of timeline, the player barely has a chance for the game to actually become a proper hobby. I suppose a great way to space these titles out then is to alternate their releases by platform. For example, Release a Playstation game in January and then release a mobile game in March.

One of those live service games, I anticipate, is the new Wipeout game. I’ve spent some time watching gameplay videos and reading some preview material for it. This game is going to flop so hard. I doubt it will make gaming headlines. It looks like common, generic, mobile trash, and I say that as a fan of mobile and idle games. What little press has covered the game is unimpressed with the offering, and I fear the game is destined for the bottom half of the 20 million other games on the App Store. This is an important point, however. Not all 12 of those games have to be console releases; in fact it's better if they aren’t. 

Sony is getting into the live service game for the same reason that everyone else is. They want the money. They may not necessarily want a live service game taking wallet share away from their AAA single-player exclusives like God of War or Horizon. They are already getting that money and they want to continue to get it. In contrast, they’re making almost nothing from the mobile space. Finding a revenue stream from the App Store wouldn’t threaten Sony’s current model at all, and it wouldn’t threaten their fan base either. In fact, it likely wouldn’t even upset their fanbase.

Mobile offerings in the gaming space are ignored by the hardcore gaming public. Final Fantasy has been bastardized to hell and back on mobile, but fans don’t seem to care. No one seems to complain about the GTA ports, Dead Cells or other mobile adapted indies. Diablo got crucified, but I suspect that’s mostly because fans haven’t gotten a new diablo game in nearly a decade. Once Diablo 4 comes out, Immortal will be sidelined by gamers and it will continue to have its mobile-centric fanbase. 

Last of Us Factions will of course come out on Playstation 5, and perhaps one or two others. The rest will be mobile adaptations of popular Sony franchises. That keeps hardcore fans from being overwhelmed, and keeps the drama away from the console space. On the other side, it opens revenue streams for Sony on mobile, advertising their franchises to the general public and getting them familiar with franchises that are going to turn into movies.

The best strategy for Sony, then, is to keep most of their live service ideas off of their consoles, and instead seed those ideas in the mobile space. That way, they let their juggernaut exclusive franchises have their spotlight, allowing them to continue charging full prices for premium content. This will make third parties happy too, as they feel they won’t have to compete with the giant budgets of Sony’s AAA first-party games.

3 Ways Apple Arcade Threatens the Gaming Industry

 Its no secret that the new hotness in marketable growth over the last few years has been subscriptions services. We’ve seen the gaming industry jump in to grab their share of the consumer’s wallet through Game Pass and PS Plus, and to a lesser extent Nintendo Switch Online. We’ve also seen big tech jump in too. Google, Amazon, Nvidia and reportedly even Intel are now trying to capture a piece of the gaming pie using their own methods. 

In the world of gaming, the big established players have acted predictably. Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo create benefits by giving away games from an already established library of games that have been out for some time. In essence, they’re giving you old games and sugar coating it as a benefit. There are plenty of other benefits like cloud saves, online play, and discounts, but the services are primarily advertised as methods of receiving “free games.” In practice, it means gamers are being given mediocre titles most months that they probably won’t play. Stil the service  will get the occasional AAA experience a couple times a year to justify a continued subscription. Although the conversation month to month with this model can be interesting, seeing which platform is getting a desirable title that isn’t actually trash is most of the conversation. Most of my friends are Playstation Plus subscribers. Almost none of them care what the free games are month-to-month.

On the other side, we see market incumbents like Stadia and Luna establishing themselves through streaming. The biggest issues these digital platforms are having, at least in the short term, is establishing a solid library of titles and getting consumers to recognize that they exist. Streaming will be a viable option for most people in the future. For now, most consumers don’t see the value in it. There are issues with internet providers through data caps and download speeds all over the world and especially in the U.S. There is also a big problem with competitive advantage. If these streaming services don’t have exclusive games (most of them don’t) then there is nothing to distinguish them from the competition, and they risk being perceived as a pipeline through which they get their entertainment products rather than a provider (not unlike gas stations and phone companies).

One new company is doing things its own way. No, not Nintendo (although they are certainly approaching this new problem in their own antiquated way). Apple is actually the unique player in this space. It is the only new gaming platform provider that allows games to be played locally on the device. It is also the only new platform to provide new, exclusive games to its service. Apple’s model most closely resembles Microsoft, but Apple Arcade has its own advantages over the Xbox ecosystem. 
Firstly, it's available locally on phones and tablets. I can play Grindstone offline anywhere, and since it's downloaded on my phone, it will always be with me. Everywhere. Xbox couldn’t match that availability unless they made their own portable gaming system (unlikely). While the Xbox platform is certainly doing well in its own right, it struggles to compete with the portability of Switch, phones and tablets. Cloud streaming is a great long term bet, but let's be honest about the reality of that option. An Xbox owner would likely only be streaming if he was away from home. So he would likely be streaming to a phone, where his console game isn’t optimized for a 6 inch screen. He’s going to have a poor experience, assuming the network isn’t clogged and he has unlimited data. To say nothing of the impractical controls of a console game on a touchscreen. He would need to be carrying an Xbox controller with him, which wouldn’t happen unless he was on a long distance trip. It’s a neat solution but ultimately an impractical one.

Secondly, the game library on Apple Arcade appeals to hyper-casual gaming, which makes up the bulk of market growth and current user base among “gamers.” No other modern gaming platform is taking casual games seriously. “Gaming” on traditional platforms is only becoming more hardcore, and Apple is presenting an ecosystem that will actually be accessible to new gamers, at the most attractive price point to boot. The industry’s revenue in mobile far surpasses traditional console gaming, indicating a far higher number of users and better long term opportunities. Gaming on the phone is something most people do, even if it's something as simple as solitaire. Those numbers are important and those casual users are important in a service focused ecosystem, where the size of the user base is the best indicator of health and sustainability. 

Thirdly, Apple commits longer and harder to its services than any other company. Even if Arcade has poor subscription numbers and slow growth, Apple is bundling Arcade in with their other services as a “bonus” to tiers that many families subscribe to, including their music and TV services. That Apple intelligently bundles Arcade with its other services at the lowest paid tier is a fantastic strategy for getting normal non-gamers to try Arcade.

Arcade has a unique opportunity to create a walled-garden of high quality hyper-casual games. If they can successfully corner the market with smart gaming partnerships, they stand a great chance at building a lasting legacy here. Additionally, the reasons listed above make a strong case for why established gaming companies should be worried about Apple’s future strategic moves. Arcade has had a rough start, but it also has a long road ahead of it.

Apple Arcade Needs a Title Like Elden Ring

In its first 5 weeks on the market, Elden Ring sold over 13 million copies. It's a staggering number in a market that has steadily worked to make games easier and more accessible. It’s a figure that flies in the face of analyst predictions and armchair investors. No one could have predicted the success of a game that works so hard to punish it’s players. Hardcore gaming isn’t just alive and well, but fans are hungry for more. As inspiring as this is, it  isn’t the first time this has happened in the gaming world.
In the early days of gaming, most titles were staggeringly difficult. Compare Super Mario Odyssey (2018) to the original Super Mario Bros. (1985). For a casual gamer, it's very common to die on the first level of the original, whereas you’d have to be completely inept to die in the first world of Mario Odyssey. Part of the reason for that was that early designers recognized that one of the joys of gaming was overcoming the difficulty of the challenges. On top of the joy of overcoming the difficulty, working up the skill to overcome it was also time consuming, creating a perceived sense of value in the player. Games lasted for months in those early days because they were hard, not because they had a lot of content. Now in 2022, most games are built to create value by creating a wide breadth of content to extract the same amount of value. The tradeoff creates accessibility and ease of use at the cost of challenge and commitment. 

Difficulty adds value to video games and it also creates opportunities for the player to bond with the game. Although the original Super Mario Bros can be beaten in around two hours, most people wouldn’t beat the game within two hours of owning it-they would take months mastering the game, playing it over and over again to master the more challenging levels. I suspect thats one of the reasons Mario became a beloved mascot. The game being bundled with the Nintendo made it accessible to every console owner. The catchy music and colorful graphics made the game inviting, but the difficulty made the players come back again and again. The difficulty allowed the players to be frustrated and talk about the game, and then create stories about their triumphs. Among mascot platformers, Mario is the most well known and beloved, and I think the difficulty of the original trilogy has played a huge part in that.

Elden Ring has created a similar phenomenon. Players were attracted by the mysterious and dark tone of the graphics and the writing of George Martin.They have committed tremendous numbers of hours mastering the game in its high difficulty level, which allows them to create stories to share with their friends and colleagues, which creates future sales and a larger fanbase. Elden Ring really has stolen the show in 2022. It has dominated the gaming conversation even for people who aren’t playing it. It's a hit. Apple Arcade needs a hit like Elden Ring.

Thus far, Arcade has created its own value proposition. No ads, no microtransactions, all you can eat buffet. That’s something even hardcore console games don’t have. The weakness in Arcade’s library however is that all of the games are accessible, casual or have no sense of wonder. While there are certainly some quality titles, there is nothing AAA to speak of in Arcade. Nothing that sparks the imagination and gives the play a desire to search out and discover the hidden depths and secrets of the world. Even Arcade’s best games are either too easy or lack real depth. Sasquatch has a ton of content and secrets but the game is dreadfully easy. Bleak Sword is tough as nails, but it doesn’t have a world to explore or secrets to uncover. Grindstone is both fun and difficult, but there’s nothing to see beyond the main path: its a puzzle game. 

If Apple wants their service to really be a part of the gaming conversation they need a big, quality, deep AAA experience that will actually give players an experience worth talking about. Arcade can and should have casual games to appeal to gamers of all ages and experience levels, but it also needs a conversation piece. Gaming has always been a social pass-time, even if the games are played alone. Apple needs to recognize the importance of that. 

For that to happen, Apple needs a game that embraces difficulty and obtuse objectives. Something that has tight gameplay but countless secrets and easter eggs. Something that has depth and an explorable world. It also needs something that will benefit from frequent updates and future content. That’s a game that will get someone to pay $5 a month for a whole year so they can experience everything in the game. That’s why it behooves Apple to invest in something like that: because a game like that will keep its players coming back month after month. Call of Duty, Gran Turismo, League of Legends, Hearthstone. All of these games have literally become hobbies and lifestyles for the people that play them. No game on Apple Arcade boasts that kind of identity. Even Grindstone, arguably the best Arcade game, would not qualify as much more than a really fun distraction that lasts a few months.

Stadia Was Right to Close Their Internal Studios

 Stadia’s first two years on the market have been less than stellar. Before Google launched the cloud-based game streaming platform, there were plenty of hopeful headlines and curious, speculative editorials. To their misfortune, the biggest headline that could be drummed up about the platform was their recent closure of their internal game development studios. Way back in February of 2021, Google announced that they would be shutting down development of Stadia exclusive games, that they would instead be focusing on their partnerships and using third parties to bring games to the platform.

In hindsight, that might not have been a terrible idea. Stadia isn’t courting gamers. Not really. During their initial launch, they spent plenty of time bragging about it, but the truth is that (most) gamers are never going to prefer cloud platforms to local hardware. Cloud is a nice thing when there aren’t other options, but a real gamer that actually spends money on the hobby will make sure they have a gaming system in their lives most of the time. This means Stadia will remain a casual interest for gamers, and perhaps a light investment from casual gamers

So if Stadia is going after casual gamers, who don’t pay attention to the industry or the latest titles coming out, why have internal studios developing games for a platform most people aren’t interested in most of the time? Better to pay a well-known developer a lump-sum of cash for a well-known game and then use the accessibility and convenience of Stadia as a selling point for someone to be able to play their favorite game anywhere. It’s also the path for getting the casual gamer, who will only have heard of the biggest titles in gaming. Even if you don’t play video games, you’ve heard of Assassin’s Creed and Red Dead Redemption 2. A casual player will recognize those names, realize they can play right away without any hardware investment, and give the game a whirl on their home computer. That wouldn’t happen with an internally developed, Stadia exclusive game.

Google has the best cloud gaming platform. Tech enthusiasts and websites have concluded as much. So for serious gamers who want to be able to play on the go, Stadia is the best option. Their path forward is to position themselves as the sometimes-necessary service for hardcore gamers, and the easiest go-to option for the biggest AAA titles for casual gamers.

Stadia’s path forward is courting third parties to bring ports of their games to Stadia, and Stadia’s development budgets should be allocated ton incentivize those developers. Its the path of least resistance, and for Google, likely the path with the highest return.

The Promising Future of Microsoft Office Online

When Nadella took office seven years ago, he emphasized immediately that the future was in the cloud. At the time, it was an interesting but understandable ambition. Azure was killing it, services were continuing to grow, and it was obvious that Microsoft was positioned as the dominant player in the space. Everyone took what he said a little bit differently though. We all kind of knew what he meant, but not exactly.

 

In 2021, the cloud is doing way more than it was doing when Satya stepped in. This year, Microsoft hasn’t just added powerful cloud features to its existing platforms, it has taken everything to the cloud, including Windows itself, the bread and butter of the company. Office has been in the cloud for years, but it's cleaner than ever now. Xbox has been promising cloud features since the launch of the Xbox One eight years ago, but now with Xcloud, it's finally a reality. Everything Microsoft does is in the cloud now. Everything. 

 

Its a shift we can all claim we saw coming, but to be honest, I couldn’t have imagined it happening this cleanly. During the highs and lows of the last five years, Microsoft has shown consistent, steady progress in their vision of the cloud, and barring a couple of security breaches (who doesn’t have those, these days?) they somehow haven’t really pissed off most of their customers. It’s surprising that no one has climbed on top of the hill and shouted it to the masses yet, but Microsoft has once again won in the business world, and looking ahead, they’re stronger than ever.

 

No one likes learning new systems, but the comfort and familiarity of Office in the cloud is astonishing. When I committed in 2021 to switching my file keeping over to Office online, I expected to have to fight with it more. I didn’t expect to actually prefer the UI over the one built into my desktop. The interface of Office online is exactly what it needs to be, without the extras that most people don’t use but a few people really need.

 

Put simply, Office online is cleaner than its desktop counterpart. Not just the UI, but the bloat. As much as Windows has evolved over the last few decades, the fundamentals of file organization have been the same since the 90’s. File Explorer is essential to Windows, as well as the way it operates, but its function allows it to become a cluttered mess through everyday use. Keeping a clean file system takes active, intentional work in Windows. Installing a new app, even in Windows 10, will often create a folder in my Documents folder without any input from me. Sure, I can hide it, or manually place it somewhere I would prefer, but if we are honest with ourselves a new operating system released in 2021 would be criticized for this. When a person uses any computing device, they expect the app they’re installing to do the organization for them, in a way that they like, without them having to think about it. Yes, mobile apps normalized this, and it's a good thing too, because the new way is better.

 

Microsoft putting Office and Windows in the cloud allows for cleaner file organization for normal, everyday users. If Microsoft incorporated Onedrive subtly enough, I doubt most normal people would have any use for File Explorer. Onedrive does everything most working professionals would want from their computer. The organization isn’t the only aspect that is beneficial here though.

I only use about a dozen of the apps built into Windows, and I would call myself a power user as well as a Microsoft fan. So if I as a fan am only using a fraction of the stuff that is built into Windows, why can’t these stock apps be deleted? I won’t belabor the point, plenty of people have been writing about this for years. I bring it up because Office online doesn’t have Paint. The fresh start that Onedrive and the rest of the suite has afforded Microsoft is a breath of fresh air for their user base. Today, the web browser is the default, necessary app on the computer, so much so that it can get away with being the only app open, and a professional can still get all of their work done. Many of the highest quality applications that professionals use are cloud based. Google understood this very clearly, and they used that idea to justify ChromeOS. It was a genius, forward thinking move. We were all moving in that direction anyways, and it provided incentive for the industry to double down and keep moving in that direction. Now, Microsoft users are benefitting from it. As Edge has adopted Chromium, Microsoft has now levelled the playing field for their users, making cloud computing a much easier default. Since cloud apps have become the default, Office Online doesn’t need to have thirty apps that most people don’t use. If a user wants a particular tool that isn’t included as part of the “Office” package, they can just open a new tab. They have access to the tool they want without the baggage of installation packages and UI clutter.

There is still plenty of work to be done. The platform in general just isn’t as snappy as Google’s G Suite. The big apps like Word and Excel are missing plenty of tools, and of course the offline counterparts of the apps just feel better. It's a curious thing that Microsoft isn’t adding these tools in at a faster pace. It could be because the users they care about are running Windows anyways, and these apps all run great even on budget machines. Office online, for now, only needs to be good for Chromebook users, and those users probably aren’t bothering to use Microsoft software anyways. For now, as we are still in the early days of the cloud transition, its enough that Microsoft absolutely nailed the file system in Onedrive. The file system is fundamental on any computing platform, and it shows a promising future for cloud productivity going forward.

 

The Confusing Direction of Apple Arcade

What is Apple's aim with games on Arcade? With Apple being as secretive a company as they are, bite sized info in interviews is the best we can do to find answers on what Arcade is for, how it makes money and what the incentives are.

It’s easy to determine that Apple just wants as many subscriptions as possible. Apple wants everyone on their devices, for as long as possible, because that assures them of future sales of their devices. So broadly speaking, it's an easy question to answer. More specifically though, what kinds of games is Apple trying to court? Apple wants subscribers and it wants those subscribers to be moderately engaged. So then what games are going to help drive that objective? In short, all of them. Whether it makes sense or not.

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The service started with a broad selection of genres. In the first year and a half, they even got a few games that seemed to be more at home on consoles than phones. In the last year, we have seen a deluge of classic phone games returning like Angry Birds and Cut the Rope. We’ve gotten some proper AAA treatment as well (at least, when you compare them to other mobile games), games like The Pathless and Beyond a Steel Sky are truly incredible on a mobile device, and the fact that they save data is shared across Apple devices makes them among the most convenient games in the world. It really is a selling point that I can play almost any Apple Arcade game on the phone, and then load my save file on a tv later and continue where I left off seamlessly. In some ways, its actually better than the Switch, because as portable as Nintendo’s handheld is, I can’t keep it in my back pocket like I can with my phone. I ALWAYS have my phone with me. Always. So being able to make progress on a game there, and then really enjoy the game later on the big screen is a gigantic selling point, and I can’t believe Apple hasn’t been bragging about this.

But I must admit I’m confused by some of the offerings on Arcade. Not every game needs to be a statement of Apple’s objectives. Not every game needs to be a flagship. But what is the purpose of putting another version of Crossy Road on there? Or Altos Odyssey? These are fine mobile games, but the free versions are also fine. In some cases they don’t even add anything to the game. They just move it over to Arcade, put a + on it, and take away the ability to spend money. The unlockables are still there, but they are placed behind 60 hours of grinding just like the free version. Is this a feature now? Annoying me with an incredulous grind, but taking away the temptation to spend money? That’s good design now? In the case of Simon's Cat, an Arcade exclusive, the game is fundamentally designed around microtransactions. It smells eerily like Candy Crush, and the “boosters” that you can bring into each level are as present and useful as ever, but now there is no way to buy them, and they are notoriously difficult to obtain through grinding. It’s almost like the game was finished, and then a month before release Apple comes in, offers them a check, and they decide to just release the game as-is. “Oh yeah, don’t forget to remove the microtransactions, boys. Isn’t this great? It’s a fun mobile game with no microtransactions or ads! What value!” 

That's cute, except that since the game was designed around milking money out of people, the fun that you had to pay for before, now isn’t even readily available in the game. So guess what? The game isn’t fun now. This serves a fantastic point, that many of the most popular games on mobile aren’t just badly designed because of the gameplay systems designed to rake money out of people, they’re badly designed even if you take money out of the equation. It’s fine for this to happen on a few releases. Again, not every game needs to be a masterpiece, but Apple can’t keep buying free-to-play games and putting a sticker on them to satisfy their audience long term. Not only is it bad business for keeping players engaged, it also just looks tacky.

I’m not necessarily mad that this is happening, mostly I’m just confused. Apple doesn’t talk about Arcade at all. Their press conferences barely mention any of their services besides Apple TV+, and even that gets little more than a paragraph. If their PR is anything to go on, it seems like Arcade is just an expense that they can write off during tax season, and another means of keeping their customers glued to their Apple devices. Maybe that’s the point. What’s humiliating is that if that’s true, the entire gaming industry still needs to look at Arcade as a threat. if Apple wanted to, they could easily fund 4-5 AAA experiences from major 3rd party studios and it would barely show up on their quarterly report. If these casual, cheap handout gaming experiences aren’t doing it for Apple’s Arcade customers, that might be what we see next.

Apple has already won the hardware business. In most major first world countries, they make up half of the phone market. In tablets, they are utterly dominating. In wearables, they have almost no serious competition at all. They already lock their customers in through iMessage, Facetime and other exclusive apps (personally, I am obsessed with their Notes and Reminders) and Arcade is the next significant means of doing that. Apple is well aware of the loyalty that comes from major exclusive releases in the gaming space. Mario, Zelda, Halo, and Gran Turismo are all major franchises in gaming that fans buy consoles for exclusively. Apple doesn’t have a big, hype-inducing, fanbase on an Arcade franchise yet. That doesn’t mean it isn’t coming. Since every game released on Arcade is exclusive, whenever they find that big hit, whether intentionally or accidentally, the paperwork already allows them to control what platform it winds up on. Arcade being a smash success isn’t a question of if, but when.

Remakes

 I don’t need to tell you how many remakes have been coming out over the last few years. You already know. You won’t typically see them crack the top ten list, but if the games weren’t selling well, you wouldn’t be seeing them remade like they are. A recent one I noticed is Ty the Tasmanian tiger. That game didn’t sell well when it initially launched back in(2003?) Although I suppose it sold well enough to earn a single sequel, the game never found a legacy beyond that. It was a respectable, decent platformer at launch, but even back then it wasn’t considered groundbreaking, and certainly didn’t seem to have much of a fanbase. A few months after the game launched, I never heard about it again…

Yet here we are 20 years later and Ty makes a triumphant return. This article isn’t about him or his game. He’s just an example. What I find interesting is that although Microsoft and Nintendo seem keen to lean into it, Sony pumped the breaks on bringing their old titles forward into the new age. In 2015 they began releasing a steady stream of PS2 classics, upscaled to 1080p for the PS4. But after about a little over 50 titles across a couple of years, the stream dried up, and we are left with a long wish list of PS2 exclusive games that remain on that old system. Even some of the all time greats, like Metal Gear Solid 2, or Spider Man 2. Not only the greats, but many of the B games from that era were good enough to warrant a modern play through, like Maximo or Way of the Samurai. 

Even playing these games in an illegal way is difficult. PS2 era emulation is imperfect, and lets be honest, as easy as emulation is, it would be much more satisfying to play it on a a legitimate platform and spend real money on it. Some of my favorite games of all time are stuck on the PS2, and even though the companies that made them are still around, the effort to preserve them isn’t.

Its strange how this lack of preservation compares across hardware platforms. Sony seems to care very little (unless the game is going to get completely remade), Nintendo has a long history or SORT OF preserving their games, and Microsoft, strangely enough, seems more driven to keep these games alive. Although they announced in 2019 that they were done adding title to the library of backwards compatible games, they showed a strong effort compared to their competitors. All told, Microsoft brought forward 42 original Xbox games to work across all of their modern console platforms. 42 is a paltry number compared to the 996 titles released in total for the system, but it is still far more than Sony or Nintendo have brought forward from that generation. I have trouble holding Microsoft to the fire on this one, to be honest. There were very few excellent Xbox exclusives in that generation.

They performed far better with their Xbox 360 library. They brought forward a total of 577 games from that system to their modern platforms. Xbox 360 had over 2000 games total, but we as gamers can be honest, no console has more than 500 truly good games. What Microsoft did was select the top 25% of the titles from that generation and bring them forward. I think that’s a hugely respectable effort. As a casual student of history, I understand that most of what we do as people doesn’t get passed down through the ages. As cruel as it sounds, not every poem deserves to be preserved. Not every book, not every movie, not every play. People and time both passively work together to weed out the not-so-great works that we as a society make. The greatest works among us are preserved. Thats ok. Some video game historians believe everything should be preserved. I understand the thoughts and intentions behind that, but it goes against human nature. If we are honest with ourselves, we don’t want EVERYTHING preserved, we just want the things we love.

A lot of people like to vent their frustrations with Nintendo about preservation, but they are actually doing the same thing with their libraries. The truly good games from the NES era are playable. There might be a total of 25 games from that entire era that actually hold up and are fun today. Even among that list, which should include The Legend of Zelda and the first Mario Bros, those games barely hold up today. Don’t get me wrong, they’re still fun, but they hardly compare to any respectable modern indie effort. The Super Nintendo library is the same. There were a lot of games that came out for that system, and many of them are being lost time. But the truly great among them, Nintendo has very lovingly preserved. A part of me balks at Nintendo hiding these behind their online subscription service, but I think that's actually the best path forward for something like this. Even as a huge Super Mario World fan, I don’t know how motivated I would be to actually pony up $5 to own that game on my Switch. I much prefer to subscribe to their service and get Super Mario World and the rest of that respectable Super Nintendo library available to me as an added bonus. It makes those games wonderful little experiences to play on the side, to revisit and appreciate, rather than invest actual money and sink in gobs of precious time.

I can’t end this article without mentioning the PC. Obviously, the best efforts are being done there. I can’t be bothered to list the number of emulators and classic stores that offer many of the games from every possible gaming era. It’s an embarrassment of riches if you know where to look. That presents its own problems, of course. Its like venturing into deep space. Windows is a wild west or compatibility, drivers, and ecosystems and perhaps always will be, but in an era where everything is becoming a closed garden, having a wild jungle nearby feels refreshing. 

The PS2 is one of my all-time favorite systems, and home to some of the best games I will ever play. Some of those games are being lost to time. But maybe thats just part of this whole process. Maybe some of this isn’t supposed to last forever. Maybe some it will get passed on to my kids through a simple story and description from my own mouth over a nostalgic dinner conversation, and then maybe they won’t remember cause my kids couldn’t care less about the games I used to love. But if I look at the big picture, thats what time is doing to all of us. Our own bodies and everything we make, only the truly great things remain. 

Thoughts on Matthew 6:21

 Matthew 6:21-“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also,”
What we spend money on tells us what we value. We spend money on our hobbies. the things that decorate our home, on enjoyable weekends, on the bills we need to continue to live comfortable lives. 
Money is the oil that keeps life moving. It unlocks fun and opportunity, its the universal trading mechanism. Money is important. And money is something you will never have enough of. 

Whether you have an hourly or salary wage, the time you spend on work still matters. You have a finite number of hours that you can work in a day, and you trade that free time for money. Money that you spend to continue to live, and maybe to have a little fun while you're living.

In short, money is needed to live. A LOT of money is needed to live. Around 80% of household income is spent on bills and living expenses. Most Americans work 40 hour weeks. Which means if you are like most people on the planet, you're working 32 hours a week to pay your bills. The last 8 hours that you work is for you to spend money on you. Its for your hobbies, your downtime. Your interests. You. It can be spent on anything you want. And this might sound harsh, but you're going to spend it on the things that are most important to you.

When you spend money on something, not only are you assigning extrinsic value to it (what its worth, in dollars) you're creating intrinsic value as well. The item becomes the product of the hard labor you put in to afford that item. It becomes a product of your sweat, of your time, of your being. You create an emotional attachment for it. You become a fan of it.

Tribes that align themselves with particular products or brands exist everywhere. There is PlayStation vs. Xbox, Apple vs. Android, Ford vs Chevy, Coke vs. Pepsi, and so on. When you spend money on something, you create internal values for it. You create a love for it.

 
When you love something, you think about it. It consumes your thoughts. It drives you, compels you. 

Where your treasure is, that's where your heart is.

When you spend money on someone you love, you strengthen YOUR love for them. You reaffirm your commitment to them, you lift them above your hobbies, interests and your own personal desires. You elevate them even above yourself, because the money that you would have spent on yourself is now being spent on something entirely outside of yourself.  

When you spend money on someone you love, you take the love that you had for them and elevate its importance. It creates in you a desire for them.

Spending money on your spouse is important. Not just in the sense that it makes them feel special. Because if often can, but because it makes them special to you. When two people spend money on each other, they're investing in each other's lives. That makes meaningful gift giving really important.
Its important for both partners to spend money on each other. I think its often assumed that the breadwinner in the relationship is the only one that is expected to spend money on dates and gifts. But if both partners make regular significant investment in one another, they help their chances of a longer and brighter future.

Word Laces Review

 When Apple Arcade originally launched in September 2019, it had 71 games to download and play. When you open the app store today you can pull up the full list of games in their original release order. If you scroll to the VERY bottom of the list, you'll find Word Laces, which in my estimation makes this the first game released for the service.

It seems somewhat symbolic actually, that a casual, innocent, lighthearted little word game would be the first that Apple put on the list. It seems like it almost communicated the intent of the service itself. 
Apple launched their Arcade service at a time when mobile gaming had long since become a cesspool of micro-transactions and ads. If you look carefully, it almost seems like Word Laces was sort of designed to exist in that kind of world. The game as it exists now is beautiful, simplistic and minimalist...and it actually feels kind of weird. There are only two game modes here, one of them offers 1 puzzle per day in the form of a daily challenge, and the other is just the normal mode you'll play, going level by level, solving the word puzzles. No fluff. Once you complete a puzzle, there's no ads or stupid fake money to spend. You just go to the next puzzle.

To look at the gameplay, Word Laces sums itself up exactly. You combine words using shoe laces. You'll see a variety of letters on the screen and sometimes combinations of letters, and you tie them together, in a string, to produce a word that represents or describes the picture you see on the screen. Within five seconds you'll know EXACTLY how to play this game. 

The puzzles are short and sweet, normally lasting about a minute or two. and once you finish you'll earn stars based on how many hints you used, not necessarily how efficient you were. I really liked that the game didn't pressure or rush me. After completing a puzzle you can always go back and do it again, should you so desire, and to compliment the main 1200 puzzle campaign mode, there is a daily puzzle as well, which I found to be much trickier than any of the 50 puzzles I've completed in the main mode.
For being such a simple game, I have to admire its breadth. 1200 is a LOT of puzzles. I've been playing this game with some intensity for over a week. I feel like I've been mainlining it in my spare moments. Having completed 50 of the 1200 puzzles, I feel like I've done a lot, though in the grand design of the game I haven't even hit 10% That might seem like a low number to justify a review...but honestly, I feel like I've seen enough of this game to know what it is. That doesn't make it bad. But it does make it kind of basic. 

I don't want to sound harsh. This is a pleasant little puzzler. I'm legitimately going to keep this on my phone. It's one of the best games I've seen on Apple Arcade that will start up in ten seconds, and lets me complete a puzzle in a minute or two. Play sessions in Word Laces can be REALLY short if you want them to be. On a computer or a game console that might not seem attractive, but on a phone, its awesome. This is a GREAT toilet game.

The stars you earn can be used to earn shoe boxes. When you finally earn a shoe box, you'll be rewarded with a random shoe, which has a corresponding lace for you to wrap your words with, and it also slightly changes the color of the background to add some variety. Its essentially a little bonus to change the color scheme and style of the game board while you play. Its a cute addition, as it always feels good to be earning something, but it really doesn't amount to much, and it certainly won't be the primary motivator to your continued play experience. The reason you will start this game up is the pleasure you get out of the puzzles, and that alone. 

Its worth saying before we end this conversation that I started playing this game on my iPhone. The next day I downloaded it on my Mac to see if it played any differently. I expected to start over, but actually my save file was perfectly synced with my phone, without me doing anything, or really even knowing that it was happening. Heck, I didn’t even know that was a feature. But as soon as I started the game on my Mac, the game started on the exact same puzzle I had been working on on my iPhone. I’m not sure how many Apple Arcade games do this, but if this is a feature that is common, its a really fantastic quality of life feature. But I digress, lets get back to the review.

Word laces is a little treat, neatly wrapped and thoughtfully presented. It's not the greatest word game ever made, but it doesn't have to be. Its a bite-sized shoebox of clever fun, and if you're even a casual fan of puzzle games, this one is worth a download.

Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain

Metal Gear Solid V is a game with weight and great significance. It has been, up to its release, a clear final hoorah from Kojima and team. It has been years since a game with such significance is accompanied by headlines of a parent company giving a big middle finger to their developers. But then you must consider that both sides are undoubtedly jaded. Konami has reportedly spent 5 years and 80 million dollars on the project, and Kojima and Team are working around the clock to deliver an experience that ultimately makes their mother company more money than it does them, while also trying to remove the credit of the game to whom it is due. Being so close to launch and the biggest project any of them have undertaken, its only natural that tensions would be high.

Still, it takes pressure to make diamonds. Metal Gear Solid 5 has escaped development and has been released with celebration and accolades. There has never been a stealth or action game like it. What it accomplishes in its presentation and in its moment to moment gameplay isn’t just an achievement. It is a milestone for storytelling and for gaming in general. In a few years time September 2015 will be remembered by gamers and the industry as a turning point in the PS4 and Xbox One life cycle, not just for the benchmarks in next generation technology, but for a new standard of greatness in videogames. It is a game that suggests conversation now, as well as a few years from now, when we can fully understand its impact on the medium. Already, MGS5 has soiled the experience of what would otherwise be considered fantastic AAA titles of the holiday season, because there just isn’t any way this experience is going to be topped.

Afghanistan, the game’s first setting, is a beautiful country. For Veteran MGS players, it presents a battlefield that has never been fought on. For newcomers, it's recognizable and accessible. But no matter where you’re coming from, it feels fresh.The mountains block off wide open areas, every one subtly leading to a choke point that becomes an enemy check point or base. No matter where you’re going in Afghanistan, you’re always headed toward action. That’s one of the great accomplishments in MGSV’s design: there is always something happening right in front of you and everything you take away from the enemy becomes something that you can use against them. I can steal a jeep from them and move around the countryside ala GTA. But once I’m done in Afghanistan I can also ship that jeep out and use it back at my base, and then when I return to the field of battle I can re-deploy it.

The last couple of years have been filled with open world games. And here we have yet another. But what MGSV does different is how the open world continuously directs you and then frees you to play the game how you want. As you travel, you will inevitably travel toward the enemy. The game almost MAKES you infiltrate bases. When you arrive at the base, however, the cuffs come off and you’re free to do as you please, whether you want to play this game like a shooter or a stealth/action thriller is entirely up to you, and both choices are going to work out pretty well for you. Perhaps the finest topping on the cake is that the decision to go loud or quiet is often made on the fly, and can change multiple times throughout the mission. What makes that fun is that the game doesn’t punish you for it, it just asks you to improvise.

When you do improvise, you will find a deep, glorious bucket of variety; the kind you can sink your teeth into. Its very reasonable to expect to do every mission in the game two or three times. And since the missions are varied, with wildly different objectives, all taking place at different bases with different variables and obstacles, the gameplay is a virtuous cycle of creativity, improvisation and fun.

There are kinks in the armor. It should be brought up that the game’s portrayal of the “main” female character is adolescent and unamusing. At every chance, the camera focuses on her feminine body, and has a poor excuse for making her walk around in a slim bikini. For a soldier, she has an awful lot of swing in her hips, and the scenes she stars in limit her to being a caged pole dancer. On the battlefield, she is a worthy foe. Off the battlefield, she is a sex symbol. I really wish that in 2015 we could get passed something as simple as this. But every time she comes up, it is a scene with missed potential. For a game that is so skilled at discussing adult topics, seeing Quiet onscreen just brings me back to high school, when my friends and I gawped at anything that had legs.

The disappointment that the character Quiet carries is a similar downer that you’ll encounter when your expectations for the game’s story are dropped into a mud pit. It begins with Hollywood bravado and then evolves into a sort of nuclear-soup; a by-product of something that was supposed to be powerful and threatening but now just takes up space in a warehouse. Sickening as the thought is, Metal Gear Solid 5 won’t be remembered for it’s story, yet it may be remembered as the greatest Metal Gear Solid game.

The Metal Gear Series has always excelled at storytelling-off the wall as they all may have been. Yet in telling their stories, they also sacrificed good design. After all, people may remember MGS2 fondly, but the fact of the matter is that you couldn’t play the game for ten minutes in any capacity before coming across a cut scene that led to an urgent and mandatory objective. Metal Gear Solid 3 forced a stealthy slog through the forest, transitioning to a pause screen where you equipped some new clothing so you could cross a river and then repeat the process after you’ve crossed said river. Metal Gear Solid 4, as much of a masterpiece as that was, was a movie. Period. They were all excellent games, but  They were games that pushed you forward. In doing so, they each killed all the motivation of returning to the story for multiple play-throughs.

The Phantom Pain takes a left turn that no one suspected; it finally embraced that fans weren’t interested in watching Snake anymore-they just wanted to play as him. It comes as perhaps the simplest of all video game design decisions, yet the impact that it has had on this game is astonishing. It’s finally fun to PLAY metal gear. “Play” is the perfect word for it too, because once the story is completed and you’re left with nothing but the ambition for growth, the game becomes a playground that you want to return to every Saturday. You know those monkey bars that you swung on all the time? It was fun to just go across them the way they were intended, but on the second week you started skipping bars. On the third week you were hanging upside down, and on the fourth week you started jumping off of them.

Each base in The Phantom Pain will be revisited multiple times, but each time you come back you’re going to do things just a little bit different-just to shake things up. When you do, you’ll find that the gameplay continues to become deeper and more creative than you originally gave it credit for, even 100 hours in.

The good far outweighs the bad. Mostly because the way fans will remember this game as the best in the series has very little to do with the story. It is the finest culmination of the ideas and gameplay innovations that has characterized Metal Gear Solid in the last 30 years. It is the ultimate realization of the tactical/espionage/action gameplay. Maybe it wasn’t what I wanted; But I think what I wanted wasn’t really what I needed. After all, the real story of the Metal Gear Solid saga ended with 4. We all knew it. When the fifth entry was announced, the last thing on our minds was the story. So it was before we ever played it, and so it will be long after we put it down-but that gameplay-man, that was something special.

The Real Value of PS Plus

You've been told to put your money where your mouth is. So you do, and before you know it, you're investing your life savings in renewable diapers.

Seriously though, crappy jokes are one thing, but there is a lot of merit to the idea of "putting money" where one's pie hole is. Behind the saying is the idea that if you REALLY believe in something, or you REALLY want something to happen, you'll actually throw money at it. That's significant because money is the one thing most people have a hard time giving up.

And the value of money, while different for everyone, is also significant to everyone. So when someone tells you that something is "free" your ears are of course going to perk up. Everyone's ears perk up at the idea of getting something for free.

Playstation Plus gives players free games. Sony very cleverly shrouded PS Plus by first providing it as a perk for loyal customers, but then eventually made it mandatory for playing online. Most gamers aren't worried about the idea, because Sony butters up the situation with some legitimately good games every month at no charge.

Most of my Playstation library is made up of PS Plus games because I'm one of those guys who works a retail job and barely has any expendable income to pay for a full priced retail title. To me, PS Plus is a great opportunity to have fresh games coming in all year that can keep me playing, interested, and challenged for less than the cost of a full priced game. It's almost the only way I can get new games under the income bracket I live on. Even when I come across more money, I put it toward real things that matter-like working on a broken car or buying necessary things for my wife and children.

As it happens, as much as I enjoy games on PS Plus, I also don't play them that much any more. I have had to think long and hard about how I love Spelunky so much, and admire the storytelling of Ether One, and love the gameplay mechanics of Rocket League, and appreciate the efforts of Never Alone. Truth is, when I have a couple hours to enjoy a game, I don't want to play any of those. The only reason I can come up with as to why I'm not interested in picking them up is because I actually invested nothing in them in the first place. I got all of those games for free. Because of that, enjoying them or getting something out of them doesn't create any consequence.

To nail this point down, I purchased Guacamelee: Super Turbo Championship Edition from Nintendo's Humble Bundle for $1.00 (I know, I'm a cheapskate. But I made sure every penny went to the developer.) I played it for an hour, enjoyed it and then set it down so that I could focus on beating Splinter Cell. One month later, the game came out on PS Plus. I downloaded it for free, and I never started it up. I never have any INTENTION of starting it up.

I like the game. I'm actually looking forward to playing it on my Wii U. But I still won't play it on my Playstation, even if the Playstation version allows me to earn trophies and play online with my friends. I don't care. I actually paid money for the Wii U version. I invested in it. I put my money into it. In my mind, the Wii U version is worth more.

I know that we are technically "paying" for PS Plus games because we pay for the membership and the games are part of a membership. I understand that. But the fact of the matter is that Sony actually just wants money to support their network and they use the games to sweeten the deal and keep people subscribed. If PS Plus money only went toward online play and data backup features, the majority of subscribers would drop their subscription for 6 months out of the year.

The truth is that with any game, or any item for that matter, we value things more when we actually pay for them. Free things might be cool, but they're also worthless, because you didn't assign any value to them in the first place.

I have always enjoyed Mario games. I loved Super Mario World and Super Mario Sunshine and the New Super Mario Bros on Wii and DS. More than any of those games, I've played and loved New Super Luigi U, and Mario 3D Land (on which I obtained 5 stars on my play file). The only reason I love those games more is because I paid for them. And I want to keep returning to them because, in a way, they are giving back to me what I put into them.

Playstation Plus is still cool, and I will still subscribe, but I don't really value the idea of free games like I used to. The fact is that I want to put my money in the things I REALLY want and REALLY believe in. And those are the games that I forked over money for.

Growing Up Slowly

I wouldn't call myself a baby Christian anymore. I've seen enough, heard enough and read enough to be well-versed in the Christian life.

That's what I want to think. It's what I want to believe.

Then, as I was driving home from work, I realized that I actually haven't lived an independent Christian life. Throughout my growing years I was always living with another Christian who was spiritually older then me. They were the ones who would remind me that Sunday was coming up and that I should go to church, or that it would be ideal to attend to Wednesday night prayer service.

When I was actually alone, with no other Christians to remind me of how Christian's ought to live, I would go back to my old ways and forget what day it was. I would forget to read my Bible and pray, I would forget about the Christian artists that I would listen to all the time around my Christians brothers and sisters. I would ALMOST act like I wasn't saved.

When I first realized how I had been living for the last 4 years since I've been out of college, I actually wondered if I was legitimately saved, but I remember so clearly the day I prayed and asked for salvation. Just as clearly, I remember a few times where I prayed the salvation prayer again, just in case I wasn't authentic the first time. I'm definitely saved. I think what I have been living is just a lack of personal accountability to my own self. It's a lack of spiritual maturity.

Punctuality is extremely important to me, especially when going to work or arriving at a meeting. That is a grown up feeling and a mature sense of responsibility. Strange then that I have always felt almost zero pressure to be at Sunday School on time, or to even attend at all. It's just a lack of maturity because, spiritually speaking, I've never seen the big deal about being late.

It only hit me because I just got done visiting my best friend Tim Cunningham. He has always been an old soul, but his spirituality is also far ahead of his physical age. Seeing the leadership and focus that he brought to his family was inspiring, especially since the full credit could be pointed to God before Tim even said anything. He has a career that would drive any woman insane, especially considering the time he puts into it, but his relationship with God seems to trump any negative aspects it could have on his relationship with his wife, Julie (also a dear friend to me).

I won't get into too much detail about Tim's life. If you want to know more you can visit his website at www.cunninghamfineart.com. But I say it all to say that everything that I lack in my life compared to Tim is entirely because Tim has a closer relationship with God than me. And the only reason Tim has a closer relationship with God than me is because, up until this point in my life, I never embraced my Christian walk as my own personal responsibility.

I hope I can turn this responsibility into a real relationship with God that is independent, self evident and real. I also hope God will unite my family and draw them closer to Him through my relationship with Him.

Here we go.

What I think about: The Carpenter by The Avett Brothers

The Carpenter is my first experience of the Avett Brothers. It is far from their first album. At the time of this writing, it isn’t even their most recent, but my experience of this album comes as a complete surprise to me. I first heard of them at Best Buy as they played on the video loop. I tried the album out and found that I didn’t really care for more than a couple songs. For some reason, a year later, I returned to it and found that I liked almost every single song.

What stands out to me most in the collection is that that lyrics complement the melodies absolutely perfectly. The instruments create very exact feelings and the lyrics accompany them like its some kind of science, So much so that you could probably guess what the song is about before hearing a single word. In the best songs the lyrics are timeless. In most, they don’t stand above simply being clever. Still, each song is a distinct experience. For that, these guys deserve some kudos.

It seems clear though that these guys can only go so far in the composition of their lyrics. Impressively, they seem to know that. At key points in some songs, they will stop singing and simply let the instruments do the talking. Each time in happens through the album, the timing seems perfect. It’s clear that the songs written here came from the heart, but when they couldn’t find the right words for a topic, they just play the song and expect the listener to just get it from the melody. Luckily, they nail it.

The Once and Future Carpenter is the first song and so happens to be my favorite. It tells the long story of a wanderer, not really coming to any conclusions except “If I live the life I’m given, I won’t be scared to die.” The carpenter (the subject of the song) seems content with wandering, and has his mind made up about every possible scenario that could come. The melody carries the sense of conclusion, ongoing journey, and resignation. Its odd; as well as this song fits at the beginning of the album, it could just as easily fit at the end of it.

“And now I spend my days in search

of a woman we call ‘purpose’

and if I ever pass back through her town, I’ll stay.”

February Seven If a mysterious entry that seems to be about recovering from a variety of events. The chorus communicates a lesson learned, but its hard to tell what the conclusion of the song really is, leaving an absolutely beautifully written lyric wide open for interpretation, which is one of the things that make the song easy to return to.

“I found as I regained my feet

a wound across my memory

that no amount of stitches would repair

but I awoke, and you were standing there.”

A Father’s First Spring really hits home for me. The title says it all; a new father singing about his experience of becoming a parent. Being a new father myself, this song is coming to me at a perfect time. I can’t help but think of my little girl when it plays. The lyrics aren’t genius, but again the simple melody complements the subject so perfectly. It rouses emotions in me as much as it seems to the singer.

“The realist thing I ever felt
was the blood on the floor
and the love in your yell
I was a child before
the day that I met Elanor.”

The topics of the album bounce around wildly, seemingly covering way more than they should in a single effort. That’s a knock at them. But then on the other hand, it lends itself to astounding variety from song to song. The album will end before you feel like you’re done exploring it, and then you’ll start it over, realize you’re hooked and now you look like a sucker.

I liked 11 of the 12 songs, giving this album a 92%

What I think about: The Lumineers

The Lumineers exist in a genre that is tough to define. I suppose they are mostly folk. But then they take the stories from country and combine them with the simple melodies of a coffee house scene. In many songs, the band seems to hold back so much for the sake of being catchy, memorable and ultimately better; it is evidenced in short choruses, short songs and genius lyrics.  Being their first CD, the taste of their music is refreshing and exciting. Being as it borders on being overly simple, I wonder if they can carry the catchiness of their tunes into their second album, whenever they decide to release it. Oh well, let's get into the standout songs.

The album begins with "Flowers in Your Hair" a steady, slightly upbeat tune that contrasts childhood and adulthood. It explores memories and the emotions that they associate, coming to the chorus "Be in my eyes, be in my heart.” It repeats once and then moves to the next verse. The simplicity and short breadth demonstrates the restrained creativity that makes up the album.

“All the things we said, we were self assured.

Cause its a long road to wisdom, but a short one to being ignored.”

Classy Girls is a song rooted in country music, and opens to the sounds of a small town bar scene that continue to play through the first verse as he sings out the story of trying to pick up a girl from a bar who is continually rejecting him physically, but continues to spend the night hanging out with him. It starts out chill, then just turns into a cheerful comedy of sorts. The song is more humorous than it is anything else.

“I made her laugh, I made a pass, I showed her my half dollar ring, she said that's pretty cool. But classy girls don’t kiss in bars, you fool.”

Submarines is my standout favorite. it uses the piano as a percussion instrument, a guitar strum that is barely noticeable and a heavy drum that continually tries to outbang the piano. The lyrics, clever as always, tell the story of a boy who spots a submarine during wartime. The catchiest song of the album, this one continually changes. You won’t have the structure of the song down until you’ve listened to it a few times.

“ran back to town bar and I told the people how

I had seen a submarine and everyone laughed aloud.”


Though the majority of songs are upbeat, the album has its share of sadness. Dead Sea is a song with a story I haven’t quite figured out, but carries a tune that makes it worth listening to again and again. Stubborn Love has the common idea of a girl who continually hurts him, but he can’t let go because he loves her and its just that simple. They aren’t my favorites, but unlike most sad songs, they play very well in the background of a social event.

Flapper Girl somehow creates the sense of childhood with a simple piano melody that repeats and repeats, being carried by, again, the songs clever lyrics. The song stands out because of the imagery it creates. It tells multiple stories and in the chorus, asks the question “Would you call, would you write back baby?” It is the final joyful song in the album, being followed by the only song in the album I actually dislike, Morning Song, which lacks the characteristics of all other songs on the album, playing a bitter, darker melody that puts a sour final taste on the album.

“Local boy, local news

Power lines, hanging boots

firemen in the trucks cut loose

a local boys shoes.”



I like 10 of the 11 songs, giving this album a score of 90%

Being a New Dad

Parenting is one of the greatest mysteries of life. Both to a parent and non-parent, the scope of the differences between being a parent and not being one is as wide as the gap between men and women. I knew before my little girl was born that I was going to go through some changes in my life. I had no idea it would be this significant. Talking is a common mistake ignorant people make. Like most ignorant people, I did plenty before I was a dad, and I do plenty still. I remember making all kinds of claims about how I would be emotional but not that emotional, how I would do this or that and teach them this is that or make them do that one thing that I never got to do growing up. Its not wrong to make assumptions about your ideal self, but it can hit hard when you find how wrong you were. Besides all of my talk, I also had a lot of fears. I was scared that I wouldn't be able to love my child the way other parents loved theirs. I was worried I wouldn't connect with her, that I wouldn't be comfortable holding her or that I would be driven mad with her constant crying. Strange how all of those things are true about other people's babies, but not my own. I felt a part of my mind being unlocked: Like I gained access to a small portion of that supposedly untapped 90% of the brain everyone has.

Im still in the early stages of this new chapter, yet I am already discovering things about myself that I never knew I was capable of. I can feel myself growing out of bad habits that used to haunt me. I have even less interest than before in the ways of the world; the hip, modern, stylish and new. I care less about movements and the latest gossip. In contrast, I find myself more and more concerned about where our government is going, how our education is lacking, how the economy is doing, and where our nation as a whole is headed.

The person I want to be now for my little girl and for my wife is becoming an even more difficult goal, but again, there is a sense of urgency and resolve welling up inside me that simply didn't exist before Peighton was born.

Also, I never quite understood what it was for parents to "have joy" in their kids. Now it makes perfect sense. When an older person would tell me about the "joy of parenthood" it sounded like some intentionally vague description to avoid sounding like they hated it. I understand now that it is the most perfect way to describe it. Being a daddy just makes me happy.

It's still early to say definitively, but I now have a renewed zeal in Christ as well. There are plenty of things happening that could just as easily be attributed to this however. Nonetheless I am excited that I have a growing concern for the things of God, and I hope it becomes a bigger deal in my life as I continue to grow as a Christian, husband and parent. As I see some of my closest friends becoming or expecting to be fathers, I get happy for them. They're about to enter a whole new life. One that's grand, life-altering and ultimately happier than anything they've yet experienced.