Conference exhibits ‘future of video games,’ industry

Wow. :D

Now, most blogs and websites are going to be focusing on the larger features, so I’ll try not to retread that same ground too much. I have an appreciation and respect for simplicity in design and a focus on usability, so I’m going to talk a bit about the small touches that I think make Google+ something to pay attention to.

Overall, I’m really enjoying Google+ so far. It still feels very empty and I’m sure it will for awhile since it’s such an early incarnation of the site, but there are a lot of well-designed little usability features I’m really happy with. For example…

• Circles. Absolutely brilliant. It’s like Facebook groups \ lists, except they’re not a huge pain in the ass and there’s actually a reason to use them. It’s immediately simple and obvious what to do, they prompt you to do it whenever you add a friend (which is the same as adding a friend to a circle, evidently), so your friends list becomes simply and easily organized as you add people. I’m probably one of the only people on earth that actually uses Facebook’s lists — and extensively — and I know all too well how unpleasant it is to use them. Also, finding new friends and adding them to circles is really, really easy. The interface they have for it lets you simply drag and drop them into different circles, and offer multiple selections!
• Straightforward privacy options. Underneath basically everything informational in all of Google+, there are extremely simple, clear privacy options instead of the weird ever-changing jumbled mess of Facebook’s. It’s completely unambiguous as to who is allowed to see what content in your profile and in your posts. Circles are so well-integrated into Google+ that it really makes it easy to target and focus your posts and information toward specific groups without it getting annoying like in Facebook.
• +1 Tab. You know the Facebook ‘Like’ button? Google has its own version called “+1″ that’s implemented the same way. On your profile, you can enable a tab that collects all the different things you’ve +1′ed on the web and puts them into a stream. You can choose whether or not to have the tab and with whom to share that information. Love it. I think that’d be amazing to have that on Facebook to track Likes across the internet.
• Stream + Circles. I can immediately filter my Stream (G+’s News Feed) into posts from my various circles. Technically I can do that with Facebook groups (not lists), but when you make a Facebook group, it tells everyone what the group’s name is and basically force-opts everyone in to this weird closed forum, based on my dinking around with it. If I could do that with Lists — or more easily, maybe you can and I don’t know how — it’d be great. But Google’s implementation here is super simple and exactly what I’ve always wished I could have in FB.
• Photo viewer. It’s very slick, responsive and well-designed. I love the way this works better than Facebook, and I’m pleased as punch that they were smart enough to put the comments thread off to the right of the image instead of below. A small touch, but it makes so much more sense than looking at the picture then scrolling off screen to read comments. I would be surprised if Facebook didn’t try to adopt something like this.
• Linking directly to status updates. This is so simple and so awesome. No more copying and pasting or screenshotting… two clicks and you’ve got a link to a status update or comment thread you can easily send to people. Again, a small touch, but really damn smart.
• Photo tagging. This has pretty solid face detection and can figure out facial borders automatically with a decent degree of accuracy. Makes tagging a little quicker and easier, and it also has the net effect of be able to tell exactly who’s who in a photo instead of Facebook’s weird fixed-size tag that’s useless for clearly tagging a handful of people any further than 15 feet from the camera.

That’s all I have for the moment. As I said, I haven’t spent a tremendous amount of time with it yet, but the more I see the more I like. Definitely sign up for this when it’s available to the public (I have no idea when) and give it a whirl. It’s not going to be a Facebook-killer, but I still think that once they fully integrate more of Google’s product line into Google+, it’s going to be something to watch. :)

Finally, if you’re on Google+ and want to make it easier to import your Facebook friends, check out the Facebook Friend Exporter linked in my article Cloud Living is the Life for Me #1 – The invincible contact list! The rest of the article could be useful as well if you want to loop in not only Facebook, but also LinkedIn, Outlook, Plaxo, and so forth.

Well, I didn’t realize it had been published online until now! You can check it out here:

Extrasensory, Extravagant, Exhausting by Jon Jones (pages 68 through 71)

Enjoy!

At this point, I’ve been making games professionally for 10 years. The job market in Austin is awful, especially for someone with a very specialized position like mine… art outsourcing manager \ art producer. I’ve moved from Oklahoma to Oregon to California to Austin, been through too many layoffs and I’m at the point now that — I kid you not — I had to sit down and think about how many games I’ve had a part in and write it down, because I couldn’t remember.

At this point, it looks like I’ll have to either a) go back to contracting so I can stay in Austin, or b) relocate for work.

I’ve been in Austin for five years now, and… I’m done. I have a lot of wonderful friends here, but unless something incredible happens here, I’m ready to move on. It’s a nice place to live for awhile, but I can’t see myself settling here. Out of the five years I’ve been in Austin, I’ve spent perhaps a year and a half of it actually being happy. As I grow older, I feel like Austin has less and less to offer me, and I want to start over somewhere else and do something new.

The problem is, I’m SICK of lateral moves. Absolutely sick of it. Whoop de doo… Portland, Irvine, Austin, Seattle, San Francisco, Baltimore, San Diego, LA, Raleigh, Dallas, Boston… all variations on the same theme. It’s all still the US and I’m really just trading one city for another. Yes, cities are different in many ways, but when it comes down to it, it’s all variations on the same theme. I want a change. I don’t want to just trade one city for another… I want to move UP. I want to improve my lot in life. I want to go on an ADVENTURE!

And that brings me to going overseas. I’m looking hard at Europe or Asia. Since my amazing trip to Shanghai I’ve developed a completely new perspective of the world and of the US in particular. Seeing how other countries view the US and how differently they live in so many ways I never imagined has just completely blown my mind. I’ve spent time in Mexico and a little bit in Europe, but aside from Shanghai that’s the most of the world I’d ever experienced. And like I said, they were all variations on the same theme (to some extent) until I went to Shanghai. Total mind-expander.

My immediate inclination is that, unless I find something sufficiently interesting and fun to do in Austin, I’m going to find work overseas and go live that life for a few years and see where that takes me. I’m very mobile and willing to relocate, so that definitely opens up my options. Life is exciting again!

Oh, and… *polite cough* here’s a completely unrelated link to my LinkedIn profile: Jon Jones, Art Outsourcing Manager \ Art Producer!

So, I spent a year running my own company, smArtist, contracting myself out as an art outsourcing manager as well as running a team of 2D and 3D artists. I worked on a lot of cool titles (including a Magic: The Gathering MMO, two Sesame Street titles, half a dozen Facebook games, a handful of iPhone games, and many, MANY game pitches), and got to learn and experience a lot of amazing, horrible, fascinating and terrible things.

In the midst of all my business development and travels, I stumbled into a pretty amazing opportunity. I was approached by Vigil Games who was interested in talking to me about managing outsourcing for Darksiders 2, the sequel to their 2010 surprise hit. I was perfectly happy running my company and initially didn’t intend to stop doing so, but I decided to feel out the opportunity anyway. I talked to them, felt it out, met people, and found out that the opportunity was — to put it bluntly — completely fucking awesome, and that I’d be an idiot to pass up on it. They’re an up-and-coming studio with a solid high-rated million-plus selling title under their belt, absolutely one of the very best art teams in the business, and have a hell of a lot of talented people overall, and they wanted me to be a part of it. I have SO MUCH to learn here!

So with that ni mind, I decided to take a hiatus from running my company and accepted the position in September! I’m currently working as an Art Outsourcing Development Manager, and I’m helping manage production internally as well, which I’ve never done on this scale. I’m in charge of outsourcing, running the concept art team, managing production for the character team, as well as a million other interesting, exciting little things. It’s incredibly invigorating and challenging, and I’ve never operated on such a high level before. It’s the largest and biggest-budget project I’ve ever been a part of, and I really think it’s going to be an outstanding game when it’s released. Preorder now! ;)

So, that’s what I’ve been up to! I’ve been completely absorbed in my work and haven’t been posting much this year, but I’m going to try to change that come 2011 and get back on top of generating content. I’ve never learned so much in such a short amount of time, and right now it’s simply a matter of letting my muse do her thing and wait for the words to come. Yay!

This looks to be a pretty solid list full of useful sites and really good people. I’m pretty flattered to be included in a list full of this much awesome!

If you’re a game developer and you deal with art production and outsourcing, come on by and check us out! If you can’t make it, drop me a line and we can meet for beers somewhere after. :)

Germany, here I come!