Sore Thumbs

Bitmob is LIVE

Thu, 07 May 2009 23:34:06 -0700

Bitmob soft launched today. We are live! Please stop by!

And specifically, please check out:

Our welcome message explaining what the site is about.
Mobcast the podcast. (also on iTunes)
Cool interview we did with David Jaffe.

But there’s plenty more to check out on the main site.

And it’s not like I’ve been updating it lately, but this means Sore Thumbs Blog is at an end. This was more for fun, but Bitmob is my future that I hope will become a sustainable business really soon.

Soon, http://sorethumbsblog.com will point to Bitmob, but if you ever want to look at this old site, you can find it at http://sorethumbs.tumblr.com.

Thanks for all of your support here! Hope we can count on more of it over at Bitmob.com.

Bitmob letters

Sun, 12 Apr 2009 17:12:00 -0700

Want a chance to be in our first or future mailbags? Shoot an e-mail to letters@bitmob.com. Send us your game-related questions, rants, raves, recommendations, or random thoughts, and the Bitmob crew will take a look and possibly feature and answer your e-mails each week! Just make it interesting if you really want us to care….

Just stuff

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 18:47:40 -0700

By Shoe

Scary: Bitmob.com looks to be 1-2 weeks away from launch now. We’re nervous/excited/peeing our pants!

Sucks: I broke my thumb during a recent snowboard trip, had to go under and go under the knife for surgery, hurts a lot now, pain in the ass to type with a big cast on. But maybe it’s all worth it for all the “Sore Thumbs” jokes I’ve been getting?

Did you know: With a left thumb in a cast and a left index finger on the left analog stick, it’s still relatively easy to play Resident Evil 5? It’s because RE5’s not a twitch shooter — moving around like a human tank isn’t that bad with a gimped hand. I’m on my third playthrough of this game! (How come I haven’t gotten the “Who do you trust?” achievement yet??)

Fuck: Rhythm Heaven! It’s too damn hard.

Oh man: BioShock 2.

Funny: The hypocrisy

Thank you: Andre P. and Daniel C. for their recent donations to help us get Bitmob going!

Slightly sad: Retiring my Michigan-themed DS Lite in favor of my new DSi. Ol’ Blue will now sit on display in my bookshelf, alongside other comatose systems like the Neo Geo Pocket Color.

Cut Scene on the web

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 13:13:20 -0700

Cut Scene on the web:

In case you don’t have an iPhone or iPod Touch, you can view our Cut Scene videos here…usually a little later, though (they’ll normally hit the “GCHD” iPhone app first). I know our videos are a bit silly and casual…that’s what they’re meant to be. Just a light-hearted chat about videogames….

Cut Scene is live, Bitmob is not (yet)

Sun, 29 Mar 2009 14:42:58 -0700

By Shoe

Two updates:

“Cut Scene,” the low-key video series starring me and Raychul Moore from GameGirl.com (where we just sit around our apartment and talk about gaming stuff…very casual-like), is now live and ready for your portable viewing. Actually, it’s been up for a few days now, but I’ve been slow to everything because of GDC and my recently broken thumb and subsequent surgery….

To check it out, just download the free iPhone/iPod Touch app through the iTunes Store. Search “GCHD” (short for Game Cinema HD) or click here. We’ve covered Halo Wars, Sims 3, and Resident Evil 5 so far…with WonderCon, GDC, the DSi, StormRise, and more coming down the pipe. Hope you guys enjoy it — and give it a good rating in iTunes, why don’t ya?

Regarding Bitmob.com…of course it’s not ready like we hoped it would. It’s not easy launching a new website from scratch! But the good news is, it’s coming along very nicely behind the scenes, and we think it should be ready in about a week. Don’t set your expectations too high, though…this will be a scaled-down, prototype alpha site at first. A lot of the things we want to do we can’t do because we’re self-funding this, and we have very little money to work with. But we hope we’ll get some fans…a bit of traction with an audience who finds our work interesting enough, and we can grow from there. We’ll see.

Stay tuned…and thanks for all of your support!

Cool livecast from GDC right now

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 16:55:33 -0700

Cool livecast from GDC right now:

It’s kinda late to tell you this, since it’s already started…but if you happen to be reading this RIGHT NOW…click on the link above to watch some big-name guests talk on USA Today’s Game Hunter livecast from GDC.

Project P is now...Bitmob.com

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 11:30:00 -0700

By Shoe

What the headline said.

If you happened to have tuned in to the Big O and Dukes Show today, you might’ve heard the name of our new website, Bitmob.com (formerly known as “Project P”). You can go there now to see…not much at the moment. You can check out our logo, join our Facebook page or Twitter feed to get some updates, or sign up for our “Hi! We’re now open for business!” email list.

Assuming tech, design, God, and karma all cooperate with us, our scaled-down prototype alpha site should be live in less than two weeks. Meanwhile, please sign up for all the things above (it’ll help us pitch this thing to investors) and wish us luck! We broke open our own piggy banks to self-fund this thing and work for negative pay for the first few months, so we’ll need all the support we can get (and thanks again for all the donations you’ve given us so far via the button here on Sore Thumbs Blog — those will definitely help us pay a few Bitmob.com bills).

Xfire Debate Club

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 22:23:38 -0700

By Shoe

This Wednesday, I will be moderating Xfire’s Debate Club. Subject: The Future of Call of Duty and how this series impacts our industry.

Stop by if you get a chance…if you look carefully enough, you may be able to see my stress through the words that I type. Kinda like if I were public speaking. Plus…I’ll be managing five chat windows at once, audience questions, influential guests/participants, etc. Luckily Xfire will be supplying most of the questions and holding my hand through this whole thing….

By the way, I apologize if all I’m doing on Sore Thumbs lately is promoting stuff that involves me. I don’t mean to. I’m just saving legitimate content for Project P. Speaking of…more news on that this week.

P.S. No new news on Cut Scene. Sorry!

P.P.S. Late donation thanks to: Jason G.

Congrats, Area 5!

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 10:00:00 -0700

Congrats, Area 5!:

CO-OP, the new series from the makers of The 1UP Show, just got picked up by Revision 3. This is great news, and hopefully it means lots of heavy Hefty Cinch Sacks full of large-denomination cash for these talented guys at Area 5 (who unfortunately lost their jobs in the recent 1UP-UGO merger).

If you haven’t seen CO-OP yet, you’re missing out…it’s The 1UP Show 2.0. Here’s the latest episode:

Tell me your name!

Sat, 07 Mar 2009 06:33:00 -0800

By Crispin

No, I don’t care about your real name. I want to know the pseudonym you’ve used exclusively since the day you started gaming for your RPG elfkins, your Gamertag, your World of Warcraft gobloids, your forum blowhard personalities, your virtual petz—for any videogame-related activity that asks you, “Halt! Who games here?”

What do I care? I’m working on a little story about people’s funny play names and their funnier origin stories. So tell me your name and share its sordid history at sorethumbsblog@gmail.com, subject header “Hello, my name is…” And even if you don’t care about your game identity—even if you let in-game name generators do the work for you, you lazy, uncreative sack of lame—tell me why.

Thanks for helping. Please enjoy the creepy blockhead photo at this game school.

I heart X-Play. I hate Xbox customer service

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 13:47:00 -0800

By Shoe

First, Adam goes off on some fanboys. About time someone did this in a high-profile capacity!

Then, I get a funny shout-out from Morgan…in reference to this. Thanks a lot (for the bad memories)….

Speaking of…. I recently had another awesomely bad experience with Xbox customer service. Some buddies and I wanted to get back into Splinter Cell Chaos Theory…one of the best multiplayer games in the history of everything. I still have the original disc, which is supposed to be backwards compatible on the 360, but for some reason, even after installing all the necessary updates, it won’t let me hook up to any multiplayer games online.

Wanting to play it so badly (it really is that good, folks), I paid for and downloaded the Xbox Originals version, thinking maybe that’ll magically work instead. Nope! Still can’t connect online (though it works for my friends just fine). So I called customer service in the hopes of getting a refund for that wasted purchase (I don’t need two versions of a game that doesn’t work), and after explaining my situation and getting transferred a couple of times, I get the dreaded, “We can’t help you or talk to you” line followed up with a swift hang-up.

You see, if Xbox customer service somehow believes that you’re not who you say you are — that you’re not the owner of that Xbox Live account/gamertag — they are instructed not to help you and to hang up…literally (it happened to me once before when I was trying to recover my account when it got hacked). There are no other options for me to pursue, even though I’m me. I can prove I’m me. Just ask me!

I just have to eat the 1200-Microsoft points purchase. Thanks a lot, lady-on-the-phone-who-hung-up-on-yes-it’s-really-me-me.

Sadder than that, I probably won’t get to play multiplayer Chaos Theory ever again. It’d be way too much trouble to dig out my old Xbox 1, clean out all the gunky dust out of all those unnecessary groves on the machine’s top, get it all hooked up standard-def-style, recover my Xbox Live account to it, etc.

Unless…LAN party, anyone?

A Ziff-trospective, part two

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 09:42:03 -0800

A Ziff-trospective, part two:

Part two of former Official PlayStation Magazine editor Joe Rybicki’s Ziff-trospective series. In case you missed it, part one here. He recounts some hilarious, not-so-flattering stories from our past lives….

A Cut Scene is delayed

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 11:47:41 -0800

By Shoe

The video show I’m doing with Game Cinema HD, Cut Scene, is delayed for a couple of weeks or so.

Funny story (well, not so much for the GCHD guys): A while back, they created an iPhone/iPod Touch app for Ford Motor Company. Then last week, when they submitted their new, completely separate gaming-content app (which Cut Scene is a part of), Apple released it under “Ford” instead of “Game Cinema HD” because that’s how they’re listed in the system from their previous project.

Apparently, it’s not just an easy call to Apple to get that fixed. So the GCHD guys are going through the apple-red tape now. They got the wrong “Ford” app pulled and are in the process of resubmitting everything and getting it all approved again. The correct app should be up in two to three weeks…hopefully sooner.

The first two Cut Scene episodes should feature Resident Evil 5 and Halo Wars if all goes as planned…which so far, “all” hasn’t. I’ll let you know when the real app is ready and live.

Reminder: This is a completely separate thing from Project P. Cut Scene is a bit of an experiment for us…hopefully people will like it and we’ll get better at it (you saw all our mistakes in the first trailer….).

On a separate note: Check out our former co-worker Joe Rybicki’s retrospective on his early days working at Ziff Davis and the Official PlayStation Magazine. He provides a fun insider’s look at our insane and ghetto work environment.

Reviews Symposium, part two

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 10:15:37 -0800

Reviews Symposium, part two:

Here is part two of Shawn Elliott’s “Reviews Symposium” series. A long read, but lots of interesting perspectives from many different industry writers/editors/critics.

Dan Sock...found!

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 23:16:38 -0800

Thanks to Bill Mudron (of this fame) for the photos from Retro Game Challenge! I have to go out and get this game ASAP, even though Age of Empires: Mythology is currently superglued inside my DS….

A Project P sneak peek!

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 12:44:00 -0800

A Project P sneak peek!:

Not really. But this article is awesomeness nonetheless. Someone tell us how we can contact this writer to hire him/her/it.

Dan Sock?

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:07:28 -0800

By Shoe

People have been asking me if I’m the “Dan Sock” character in the recently released Retro Game Challenge (DS). Yup! They got my OK for that several months ago, but I haven’t bought the game yet to see for myself…mainly because I’m saving my dough for Project P…and maybe my current addictions to Fallout 3 (still) and Street Fighter IV have something to do with my lack of motivation for getting out of the house and into the store.

Can anyone send in a photo or screenshot of this for me? Email link is above in the header. Thanks in advance!

P.S. Donation thanks:

Thomas O.

It's been a little slow...

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 10:47:00 -0800

By Shoe

Hey everyone…posting here on Sore Thumbs has been a slow, sporadic thing lately, mainly because Crispin’s been busy with freelance (it pays the bills!) and I’ve rerouted what little brain electricity I have toward getting Project P launched. It ain’t easy!

Speaking of Project P….

1. We should have an update for you soon!

2. I might as well tell you the origins of this name now, because it’s ridiculous….

In the beginning, before we nailed down the company name and URL, we weren’t sure what to call our site. We just referred to it vaguely as “the new website,” which isn’t particularly elegant or fun.

One night, while I was writing an email to our group about our new venture, I just decided on the spot that I needed to give it an identity…something we can use and refer to in our internal correspondence, documents, spreadsheets, etc.

I like the word “panties,” and that was the first word that came to my mind for some unknown, totally random reason (I didn’t give it any thought at all, really). So then right then and there, I told the group we’re calling it “Project Panties” for the time being, until we sorted out its real name.

A bit later, when we started having professional meetings with professional people about our “professional” business, I had to change “Project Panties” to a more PG “Project P” in all our documents, file names, etc., so when I pulled out my laptop to give a presentation, viewers don’t get the wrong idea of what our business is about.

So there you have it. I think with me being a co-founder and now having exposed that thought process, that should fill a lot of people with a lot of confidence in this thing!

P.S. More donation thanks:

Matthew A.

Editing is a bitch

Sat, 07 Feb 2009 11:28:26 -0800

Editing is a bitch:

By Shoe

I was going to write an article here about how the editing process worked at EGM — it can get pretty insane at times (writers -> section editors -> copy editors -> section editors -> editor-in-chief -> managing editor -> printer) — but Gus over at GameDaily Biz’s Media Coverage sorta beat me to it. I say “sorta” because he actually interviewed me for this story, so it’s all from my mouth anyways. It’s a lengthy read cause I blabbered on for quite a bit. But if you were ever curious about how an article got written and published at EGM, you’ll probably dig it. And it may just convince you that you’ll never want to write for me, too….

Cut Scene

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 15:36:00 -0800

By Shoe

Please check out this new project that I’m working on with Game Cinema HD and my lady, Raychul: “Cut Scene” (please excuse my horribly lame “hot news” quote).

Note: This is a completely separate project from that other new project I’m working on with my ex-EGM/1UP buddies, “Project P,” which we project will launch in 2-4 weeks from now (we ran into some technical roadblocks). Projects everywhere!

We hope you’ll dig “Cut Scene” and will subscribe on your fancy-dancy iPhones and iPods. If not, no worries…we’ll still sorta love you.

Speaking of Project P…additional donation thanks to these folks! With your funds (and others before you), we’ll be able to host a (real) podcast soon and get some preliminary content up!

Graeme P
Matthew M
Jason H
Kai Y
George P
Jason Q