SiliconSurfer

Hollywood and Games Summit, June 26-27, 2007. It’s interesting, one of the first things that the publisher of the Hollywood Reporter, John Kilkullen said here at the conference is that games are a larger industry than movies. I think we’ve known that for a while, but I think it’s interesting that it would be one of the first things mentioned here in the heart of Hollywood by the Hollywood Reporter.

Clive Barker was fun to listen to. The big thing I took away from what he said is: “I believe in games. I believe in what games can be.” After his presentation I talked with CanalPlus and one of the things they asked seems to be something that people who are less familiar with the games world seem to worry about: Will games kills Hollywood? They didn’t ask it like that, but that seems to be the underlying theme. Well, I think there are some analogies with ‘new media’ and ‘old media’ back in the early days of the Internet. How I see it is that discovering strawberries doesn’t mean the end of banana smoothies, it means the beginning of strawberry banana smoothies. Yes, maybe people will spend less on bananas as the strawberry craze gains steam, but it doesn’t mean the end of bananas, and there is actually a real opportunity to grow the whole market for everyone.

Since the days of Virtual Vegas I have been saying: “If content is King, then context is Emperor.” And, I think the exciting thing here is the MMO aspect of giving people a fantastic, exciting and compelling context within which they can play and create their own content as they make their choices. I see this as being the ‘interactive movie’ people were tying to capture back in the day. But, rather than letting the audience vote on which way to branch at some scene or another in the movie the MMO game context allows for Massively Multiplayer collaboration in the creation of an ‘interactive movie’ ongoing and in real time.

Goldstar Events is a company of which I am a part owner. I was the first employee, thanks to my mentor and very dear friend Dick Hackenberg. Dick is the gentleman I hired him to be my boss at Bigwords.com and I firmly believe he is a huge reason we achieved the successes we did.

This article in the Wall Street Journal is by Terrie Teachout, a very respected arts critic and I believe it captures Goldstar Events well. The only things I would change are: #1 we now have 400,000 members, notably more than the 315,000 cited in the article; and #2 much of our inventory is not actually from things I would call “undersold” performances. Most venues operate like 80% sold is pretty strong, but that still leaves 20% of the house for us to work with. So, although there are undersold performances on Goldstar Events, to think that they’re all undersold is a mistake.

As a final note, I was recently out at a play here in Los Angeles and although I won’t name names, someone who can be counted on told me that the conversation here in LA about Goldstar Events is that we have dramatically impacted the LA theatre scene and infused a whole new level of vitality and interest into it. I was very proud and grateful to hear that.

Here is the full PDF of the press release. And below are the winners of the auction.

• Avatar Janus JD D’Arcwire, representing a real life bank, (more information to follow) - paid $59,060
• Russian Internet Payment Provider MONETA.ru, by avatar Yuri iNTellect Efremov - paid $99,900
• Entropia celebrity and famed virtual night club owner Jon NEVERDIE Jacobs -paid $90,000
• Famous cross-world virtual celebrity and entrepreneur Anshe Chung - paid $60,000
• The avatar “Jolana Kitty Brice” (veteran Entropia Universe participant and entrepreneur who wishes to remain anonymous at this time) - paid $95,000

Janus represents a German Bank. More information to come.

And here is the press release regarding our recent announcement about entering China. And the short version, below.

Swedish MindArk and Chinese Cyber Recreational Development Corp. sign Agreement to Create the Largest Virtual World Ever
MindArk’s CEO Jan Welter and CRD’s CEO David Liu sign the landmark agreement to create a cash-based virtual economy for China. Goteborg’s Mayor Göran Johansson was also present at the ceremony, as were leading officials from MindArk and Business Region Goteborg.

The new project will permit up to 7 million concurrent users logged into the virtual universe with an overall aim to attract some 150 million users from all over the world. Entropia Universe, a three-dimensional universe on the Internet intended for entertainment, work, commerce, community building, culture, and much more, is expected to generate over $1 billion annually in commerce from this partnership.

It will be happening October 10-11, 2007 in San Jose. More as it happens. . .

Things from the Virtual Goods Summit on the web/blogosphere will be tagged vgsummit2007. That will help you find things out there about this. I will post as I am able. And, they have created a Twitter stream for this conference. If you’re a current Twitter user, you can either text ‘follow vgsummit’ to 40404 from your mobile phone or click the ‘add’ link on http://twitter.com/vgsummit so that your twitters will be broadcast to our VGSummit channel. If you can’t be there, but have an interest in the day’s events, you can check this out.

As well, I am hoping my friends Tony Parisi of Media Machines and Josh Crandall of Media-Screen will both be coming. Media Machines is the creator of the Flux player web brownser plug-in which brings virtual worlds right into the browser. Media-Screen does excellent strategic market research and consulting.

I was recently interviewed on MN1.com - Market News First. They are an IPTV channel about breaking market news.  Their tagline is: The exclusive IPTV source for the microcap markets!

It was fun! Kate Delaney is a fan, she loves this stuff.  Click here to get to the blog and then click on Podcast to watch the clip.
I visited a second time two days later and we talked about the China announcement, as well.  Click here for that visit! Click on Podcast to watch the clip.

Virtual Worlds Weekly just arrived in my in box containing this interview from June 8th with David Simmonds and myself regarding the China announcement. As usual, it ignites passionate debate!

This is just a short post to say that I will be at the Virtual Goods conference at Stanford University representing Entropia Universe on June 21st and 22nd, 2007. Drop me a line if you’ll be there and let’s hook up. If you haven’t registered yet ask me for a discount code. I will be speaking on Friday, June 22nd, 2007 at 1:30 pm. The panel is titled: “Making Virtual Economies Work: What Does it Take to Get it Right?” I am excited about that! I think that Entropia has an excellent contribution to make to this panel with over $1M a day going through the economy and a Guiness World Record for the most expensive virtual item ever bought/sold. The entrepreneurial possibilities, the in-game auction system, the real cash economy are all relevant and exciting. I am looking forward to the new ideas and conversations that I anticipate will be present at the Virtual Goods Summit.

The event on the evening of the 21st at Blue Chalk Cafe from 8-11 should be fun, as well!

I won the SurfCo Wipeout contest at Surfpulse.com…

1st Place - JOHN BATES - “No, No = Go, Go”
(receives $100 worth of SurfCo merchandise)

In about 1990-1 I was traveling and surfing around Southeast Asia for about a year. It was totally fantastic. I loved it. Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore were all wonderful in their own rights. However, for surfing, none beat Indonesia. My best friend and traveling companion, Matt and I had ‘Zenned’ our way into a free stay at Grajagan, which is a surf camp located on the Southeast tip of Java in the middle of a huge and very wild National Park. (Fishermen still sometimes get eaten by Tigers there, no kidding. That’s another story.) Anyway, with a huge amount of going with the flow and some heavy duty letting go we had gotten an invitation to come stay for free at the surf camp. Now as we pull up to the camp in the colorful wooden fishing boat that has been chartered to deliver us to Grajagan we see that the waves are coming in like big, light green, freight trains - just zippering and barreling down the shallow reef.

We meet our hosts, exchange pleasantries in the stiff offshore breeze. And then, as they can see we’re just aching to get out into the green rolling hills breaking a few hundred yards from where we are talking, they invite us to go surfing. And they even offer us a ride out to the break.

Now, if you’ve ever surfed places besides CA you have probably surfed with Brazilians, friendly fun people. Today, Grajagan is inundated with Brazilians. They are usually really good surfers (which I am not) and they don’t seem to mind surfing waves together. Even if it means running into each other, breaking their boards, cracking their heads open and so on. They’re pretty tough. In fact, they act like that is how you’re supposed to surf and they are often friendly and fun while turning everything that rolls through into a party wave. Well, I suck at surfing at this point. And, I am extremely ‘haired’ out at the sheer size and ferocity of these waves. They are well overhead and throwing out hard. Unlike the Brazilians, I am not having a good time. In fact, I probably shouldn’t be out here. But I am. And, I am determined to get a wave. So, I paddle even further out towards the furthest breaking point of the reef. I am figuring that I will grab a big wave as it rolls in and be up and riding before any of the Brazilians can even start to paddle for it. I will then scream bloody murder at them if they start to drop in on me.

I am paddling hard and finally I arrive in the spot I’ve chosen. I sit up on my board and survey the scene. I am thinking about the fact that I am on the very edge of the open Indian Ocean and the reef drops off very sharply right here. Out of the deep green water, sharks cross my mind. But then, as if God is validating my tactics, a huge wave starts to stand up. It is definitely a clean up wave and I am determined to catch it. My heart is pounding. I turn and I am paddling with all my strength. To my joy Matt is watching from about fifty yards away. I pull hard for the wave and I can see him hollering “GO! GO! GOOOOO!” at the top of his lungs and with real enthusiasm.

All of a sudden the wave is picking me up. For a moment I am weightless. But, to my great chagrin, I am not zooming down the face of the wave. I am not even close to catching this demon from the deep. All of a sudden I am flying. I am free falling. I am about 14 feet above the shallow water covering the reef, in midair, looking down at my board, which is below me and slowly spinning in midair, deep in the opening wave. I manage to somersault on the way down and I land hard on the reef on my ass as the entire weight of the wave comes down on top of me (resulting in a black and purple bruise that will extend from the bottom of my ass to the middle of my back). Then, I am trapped in the wave like a rolling tire. I go up and over again, landing on my side (I will have the scars on my lats and my ribs), up and over again landing on my back (more scars) and then I am rolling up onto dry reef. Of course, I am now in real scary territory and struggling to get my board untangled from the reef as the set waves start to stand up on their way to pulverize me. I feel my stomach to see if any coral is protruding, fearing I will find an entire hand of coral sticking out. No, nothing is sticking out. Taking stock of my situation I realize that paddling back out is the only option. So, I throw myself into the beautiful light green waters that are exploding on the reef and I am filled with adrenaline and paddling like absolute hell.

It takes me about 45 minutes to get out again. I am bleeding all over, and I am in serious pain. Finally, back out in the line up, I paddle towards Matt, feeling victorious for being alive. Matt, white as a ghost and obviously worried is paddling toward me with strong deliberate strokes. As the distance closes he is yelling at me in ill-concealed rage. “What the F%^& were you THINKING!?! That was the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen! You could’ve KILLED yourself! I can’t BELIEVE you just did that!”

I am totally surprised, since he had urged me on, “But Matt,” I am saying, “You were the one yelling ‘GO! GO! GOOOOO!’”"NO, YOU IDIOT!” He is screaming shrilly, “I wasn’t yelling GO! I was yelling NOOOOOOOOOOO!” Looking back on it I guess that was about one of the dumbest things I have ever done. But the school of hard knocks is a fine teacher if you make it through. - JB

SSSSSSSSSSSSSS! RATTLESNAKE! If you’ve ever heard one you know how spine tingling the sound of a large rattlesnake is. It sometimes takes a moment to realize what you’re hearing… The sound of something frying. A hissing sound. A rapid crisp rattling vibration. A sound like an angry cicada. Whatever it sounds like to you, it means don’t tread on me.

Your dogs don’t speak Rattlesnake, however! They’re much more likely to be intrigued than intimidated. Domestic dogs do not know the danger of rattlesnakes and every year over 15,000 dogs are bitten by poisonous snakes. 70-80% of these bites occur on the face and head which says that the dogs are mostly satisfying their curiosity about this strange, hissing creature.

Last year I took my two dogs to the Mountains Restoration Trust to attend Patrick Callaghan’s Rattlesnake Avoidance Clinic for Dogs. This is a great fund raiser for the Mountains Restoration Trust and is now in its fourth year. The Mountains Restoration Trust purchases sensitive ecological areas and restores the native plants and wildlife habitat. This year’s Rattlesnake Avoidance Clinic with Patrick Callaghan happens on May 4, 5, & 6, 2007 at Headwaters Corner at Calabasas – you will need reservations, so read on.

Patrick Callaghan, the gentleman who personally trains all the dogs who attend, has over 20 years experience in training dogs and his clinics sell out all over California. Puppies as young as 3 months can be trained to avoid rattlesnakes and a dog’s trained behavior can alert the owner, as well. Patrick is a large, jovial man who takes his mission seriously and has quite a sense of humor, to boot.

I take my dogs hiking nearly every weekend, and just a few months after we’d gone to the clinic my dogs alerted me to a 5-6 foot rattlesnake coiled at the edge of the trail we were on. I was extremely thankful that I didn’t have to worry about keeping them away from it. That left me free to concentrate on finding a very long stick to shove the snake off the trail and down the hillside where it quickly slithered away.

The clinic is very well run. The enormous Texas rattlesnakes Patrick uses are truly beautiful, if a bit sinister. They’re wearing snake muzzles, so they can’t bite, and Patrick uses live rattlesnakes to train dogs in avoiding not only their appearance, but their movement and most importantly, their scent, as well. The clinic fills up fast, so if you’re interested in giving your dog and yourself a great gift call the Mountains Restoration Trust at 818-591-1701 x 189 or visit their website at http://www.mountainstrust.org, click Current Projects and Events and scroll down to find the flyer. If you have an interest, they are in dire need of volunteers for this year’s clinic. As a volunteer your dog receives training for half price in return for a half day shift. To volunteer email shaugland@mountainstrust.org or at 818-591-1701 x 212 and mention where you read this. For more information on Patrick Callahan visit http://patrickcallaghan.com