What Should People Who GeekStack Be Called?
Posted on | October 7, 2009 | 1 Comment
Click Here to tell us what members of the GeekStack community should be called!
Avatar toys go augmented-reality, courtesy of Mattel and Total Immersion
Posted on | October 7, 2009 | No Comments
I just added this to my wishlist for version 29 of GeekStack cards!!
Avatar toys go augmented-reality, courtesy of Mattel and Total Immersion.
What’s the Opposite of a Dumb Toy?
Posted on | October 6, 2009 | No Comments
Deep inside my head, there is a reasoning and justification behind every major decision in GeekStack. For instance, my personal vision for the future is a culture where education is revered and valued, not because of external pressure but because people have found joy in the challenge of thinking and creating. But that’s way, way to big to pull off in my spare time with no money. I had to narrow that down to something limited enough that I could actually accomplish but powerful enough to influence people.
That was the appeal of the trading card game model. It’s great as a business because you can offer people exactly as much engagement as they want or can afford (with online, there are even ways to engage players that don’t have or want to spend money). But it’s also a great medium for education. Aside from the obvious approach we’re taking of putting science heroes on the cards with facts and blurbs about their lives, actually playing the game teaches math and critical thinking skills.
A recent article called “Why Dumb Toys Make Kids Smarter” told a story about just that point. The author Po Bronson’s wife said while his son was small that he wouldn’t be allowed to play violent video games or Pokemon. They stuck to that pretty well until his friends started playing and he got hopelessly pulled into it. The parents were still reluctant until he learned showed fast math skills from calculating damage and resistance and improved reading skills to find out what’s on the cards. Then, just as quickly as he got into it, he dropped Pokemon as soon as he found about sports a few years later. The parents were originally worried about their son getting obsessed with a game, but eventually found out that it’s in kids’ nature to be obsessed.
The only problem I have with the article is the title. The dumb/smart contrast in the title is nice, but the author never defines “dumb” toys. I kept looking for the meaning, but had to figure out that “dumb” was a euphemism for non-educational. Dumb in contrast to feel-good toys like Baby Einstein. Let’s stop this tendency. In order for something to be called educational, it should be engaging, reward practicing, provide feedback, and teach something. Pokemon fit the bill, video games fit the bill, and let’s hope GeekStack does too.
Update for TWiSTers Plus Get A Limited Edition GeekStack Card
Posted on | October 1, 2009 | 4 Comments
Since calling in to This Week in Startups on August 14th a lot has happened. The advice given plus the power of Jason’s voice helped me move GeekStack along nicely.
Design contest on 99designs – This was a great success! I got several very good entries and was wowed by the winner. I’ve used the heck out of it since then, putting it on the website, making a t-shirt of it, and printing trading card mockups with business cards on the back. (See the end of this post for more about that).
People – First, I’ve had about 100 people follow me on Twitter since then. (If you’re not already, you should follow me on Twitter here). I had several people email me to talk about working together and several others offering advice and encouragement. I ended up finding a great partner who I’ll talk about in the next section.
At TechCrunch50, I got to meet people that I want to have on cards, and there’s one I’m working with to refine the collaboration process. I also met several investors. All of them loved the idea but wanted to see a demo, so I’ll be getting back to them in a couple months. Besides that, lots of people I talked to loved the idea and were very encouraging, especially the guys from Spawn Labs. (BTW, if you love console video games, keep an eye on Spawn Labs – their product lets you play console games on any internet-connected computer).
I’ve also found a couple people with a gaming background and current game ventures who’ve agreed to be advisors to us on the game aspects.
Partner – of the people that contacted me about working with me on GeekStack, I chose to work with Michael Pavelich, a senior at Illinois State. He’s a total package of web development (Python/Django especially), graphic design, and art skills. Not only that but he knows artists and art students as well as people in Chicago that invest in startups (apparently they do exist!). All of this would be enough but he’s fairly close by, he’s from outside Chicago and comes back frequently so we can meet in person, and he’s working on GeekStack for his senior capstone class so his diploma depends on doing a good job! I couldn’t be more pumped and we’re going to tear it up together.
Project Status
Website – Michael is working on it. The inital version will let you manage your decks, acquire cards, and play against other players. The immediate next feature planned after you can actually get cards and play will be a trading marketplace where you can fill in the holes in your collection and get the most from each pack you buy. So far the registration part works and deck management is under construction. We’re still working on defining the right way to interact with the game engine.
Game Engine – I’m on the fourth rewrite of the game engine and each time the code gets shorter and clearer. The initial launch will include a subset of all card actions that will be eventually available – certain basic actions open up a ton of design space and we want to make sure we get playtesting feedback as soon as possible. We’ll continue to add planned actions and other ideas that come from playtesters and early adopters. If you’ve ever wanted to shape a game in progress, look for the forthcoming “Playtesters Wanted” announcement on Twitter or subscribe to the blog.
Game Design – The game design is open and flexible. I’ve read millions of words (no, really, millions) about game design in general and trading card games specifically, and I’ve studied and played some of the major games so I have a good idea of the design space, pitfalls, and strategies. I also have a couple twists on common patterns that I can’t wait to see how they playtest. We want the game to be as fun as possible so we’re making the game design as easy as possible to modify.
Goodies For People That Read This Far – As a concession to everyone who has persevered through my wordiness, you have your chance to get a free, real life, fake GeekStack card!! Real life because it’s a physical printed card, but fake because it is a mockup that has no relation to how the actual cards will look and can never be used in a real game. Yes, I will mail a free copy of the limited edition John von Neumann GeekStack prototype card/business card to anyone that does the following:
- Write a blog post with your opinion of GeekStack so far OR
- Tweet your opinion of GeekStack so far OR
- Sign up for the mailing list
and email the URL of your blog post/tweet or the email you signed up with along with the mailing address where you’d like me to send your card to peter@geekstack.com.
So that’s it! Progress, People, and Prizes (does anyone know a synonym for alliteration that starts with P?) Thanks to Jason and the This Week In Startups community for your support and enthusiasm!
Attract Mode Store – Geeky Stuff!
Posted on | September 15, 2009 | No Comments
Shop << Attract Mode.
Presenting the GeekStack T-Shirt!
Posted on | September 10, 2009 | 4 Comments
Just got a custom GeekStack t-shirt from Printfection.com – pretty snazzy if I do say so myself!
What do you think? The colors are a little funky (the evils of a built-in flash + incandescent bulb) but it’s supposed to be a gray shirt.
If anyone likes this and is interested in getting one of their own, I can setup an order page at Printfection. Otherwise, I’ll be wearing this one-of-a-kind bad boy to TechCrunch 50 next week!
Science Literacy Taught By NBA Cheerleaders
Posted on | September 1, 2009 | No Comments
Brain Makeover | Science Cheerleader.
Easy science literacy lessons by the Philadelphia 76ers cheerleaders
Take the quiz here. I got 23/26 for 88%. Average so far is 22%. Shame on you, Internet!
Lego Car Engines Pass 1000rpm, Have Automatic Transmissions
Posted on | August 27, 2009 | No Comments
Heavy Duty Automatic transmission 1.0 | THE pneumatic engine shop.
So powerful it crashed (pics).
How Will Kids Pay For GeekStack?
Posted on | August 24, 2009 | No Comments
I got an insightful comment from Eva on my previous post:
just wondering what your revenue stream would look like. If you are focussing on online, how are you going to get your target audience to pay?
I think the reason traditional cards are so successful is because they are cash purchases – those kids don’t have credit cards.
I guess you could sell “credits” for the online game in stores, but it does add a layer of complication.
Here’s my response.
First and foremost, the goal is to make the game ridiculously fun and engaging. If I can accomplish that, people will be happy to find a way to pay for it.
Second, having said that, I want to make it as easy as possible to pay for. Credit card, PayPal, whatever the Facebook currency ends up being, one time purchases, subscriptions (“Johnny, you can have 2 packs a week”), etc. I certainly don’t want payment friction to prevent anyone from buying.
Third, I’m relying on the fact that it’s education to reduce the parental aversion to shelling out for a game.
Fourth, while I believe there is a big market for an online game, the physical world is a large and proven market and I’d be silly to ignore it. I fully intend on printing cards when the game is proven fun (and has earned enough money to pay for all the art and printing). I can release a game with no art, filler art, or art only for certain cards and then upgrade people’s experience as playtesting, beta, and early gaming is going on, but I can’t upgrade a piece of cardboard once it’s out of my hands. There will also be a connection between virtual and physical cards that I’ll talk about more later.
So to recap, I’ll make it too awesome to not buy, super easy to buy, appealing to parents and available in whatever format works best for each person.
Thanks for the question Eva!
Do you have a question? You should ask me on @geekstack or at contact@geekstack.com
Open Source Textbook Company Serving 400 Colleges, 40,000 Students
Posted on | August 20, 2009 | 2 Comments
This is only the beginning:
Flat World is set to announce on Thursday that over 40,000 college students at more than 400 colleges are going to be using their digital, DRM-free textbooks in the Fall semester, up from 1,000 in 30 colleges in the Spring.
Digital textbooks remain a nascent business and a tough market to enter. At an average cost of $100, textbooks command the highest cover prices in publishing, outside of only some art and coffee table books. Demand is artificially inelastic as students are indentured to cost servitude at the whim of college professors who blithely assign titles a student must own if he or she hopes to do well in a given course. Now, multiply that by 4,5, or even 6 courses per semester and you are talking big bucks.
By comparison, Flatworld has a pricing scheme that starts at zero for online access via a browser and $20 for a PDF, which they believe will be the most popular format. Printed versions of their textbooks cost up to $60.
Perhaps best of all: textbooks are available a la carte, per chapter.
via Open Source Textbook Company Now BMOC At 400 Colleges | Epicenter | Wired.com.
I believe education and health care are the two industries with the most inefficiency to unleash. There’s such a wasteful value capture by the incumbents, but health care is so highly regulated that it’s unlikely to get more efficient any time soon. The educational-industrial complex is much more open (who thought those words would ever be uttered) and it will get attacked from above by things like Flatworld and from below by things like GeekStack. As people are more motivated to learn and have cheaper, more plentiful resources for learning, we’ll see a big change in the way people value and consume education.
