Games:

• Castlevania: Lords of Shadow
• God of War 3
• Mass Effect 2
• Starcraft 2 Wings of Liberty
• Vanquish
• Bayonetta
• Darksiders

Comment: Like last year the favourite was a game that came and took me by surprise. God of War 3 was excellent, but Castlevania Lords of Shadows just came and took my breath away. Therefore Castlevania, like Batman last year, is the game of the year for me. Mass Effect 2 was way better than the first one, and I really enjoyed it. StarCraft 2 was better than expected for me, had a blast with the biggest PC title of the year. Both Vanquish and Bayonetta, both from the same studio, just came and was really fun and excellent.

Music:

• Equilibrium – Rekreatur
• Heaven Shall Burn – Invictus
• Swedish House Mafia – Unit One
• Parkway Drive – Deep Blue
• Raunchy – A Discord Electric

Comment: Here we find a couple of surprises as well! First the release of a new Equilibrium album, which just appeared! If not as classic as the last album its definitely the most played this year. Heaven Shall Burn also just released a new album, and man what energy! Then we have Swedish House Mafia… House music. After our Ibiza vacation were there were SHM merchandise all over the place and getting back to Sweden their were everywhere.

Movies:

• Inception
• The Social Network
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
• Machete
• The A-Team

Comment: Not a very impressive year when it comes to movies. Don’t really recall any extraordinary movies, but hope for the end of Harry Potter next year.

2010 for me have been quite much about work and traveling. E3, GamesCom and Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. It seems 2011 won’t be less work though. I am very excited what 2011 have to offer. The big thing I look forward to is for Anna to move here (Stockholm) and we will move to a bigger apartment, hopefully.

Also, one of the big thing for me in 2010 is how my interested in Stocks and the Finance world really have increased. I started already in 2009, but this year its starts to become even more important. All the money I save I try to invest in a smart way in stocks. Following the stock market is also a way for me to learn about corporation, business ideas and generally how business works. Hope for better investments in 2011!

And this special Wario youtube site is exactly that! Just check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/experiencewii

Maybe its the smartest move for Michael if he truly want this new movie to be viewed by as many teenagers in the right age to vote. To meet them on their own level and not make it complicated or illegal to download the movie. He want people to listen and understand, and what better way to reach and appeal to young people than through making it Free for them to download. He only want young people to be enlighten and to vote, upholding democracy so the republicans or what ever corporate-Mafia sitting behind the wheel know we won’t tolerate how they try to hold on to the power.

“This is being done entirely as a gift to my fans. The only return any of us are hoping for is the largest turnout of young voters ever at the polls in November.” – Michael Moore

Another way the reach the young audience and make them vote will be through Xbox Live. To get gamers to vote really. We all want it to be as easy as possible when we’re voting. And maybe this is the way for the future when it comes to voting, as long as its secure and accurate. We don’t want any bad guys in suites to fool us for their own bloody profit!!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Now they mirror this concept to the TV medium, and I’m looking forward to follow if this will change the traditional tv-ad model.

It have been some controversies surrounding Youtube concerning Copyrighted material thats being uploaded without permission. Videos have been deleted and users baned. And the question how Google (the owner of Youtube) can profit from the site is still unanswered.

But what I find more interesting is how Youtube have become a business tool and marketing channel. If companies produce a new commercial, its only natural to upload it on Youtube and start distributing it. The platform offers statistic like numbers of people watching the video and enables the ability for comments, and easy distribution. Here you basically get a free complete marketing tool with millions of users. On the contrary, if you upload shit, the probability is high it will get a very low view “score”.

The same can be said about Facebook. It started as an easy, closed community in the US, and is now a worldwide business. Here in Sweden we have some Universities that offers courses in Facebook Marketing! How sick is that? Facebook, like Youtube, build much of its foundation on the user activity. And the more content and user a services get, the more buzz it will create that result in companies, corporations and organizations start looking for ways to profit from. Whether as a new marketing channel or business platform, when the number of users rise, you can bet your ass that the people in businesses start looking for a way to use the service to their own advantage.

Its interesting how a service must expand to a certain volume of content and/or users for the business sector to discover them at all.

Only chase the popular one. But when the numbers starts falling, move on to the next one.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Last night on Swedish tv-channel TV4, there were a debate about the subject with representative’s from the record industry (Bert Carlsson, who doesn’t even have a computer) and a spokesperson from The Pirate Bay. And frankly I was really pissed at the low state of the discussion. They just nagged on about the usual stuff concerning piracy. The record labels still nagging about how piracy is the reason for the declining in record sales and the music industries profit. And Pirate Bay still claims they don’t see any moral problem wih their site and the BitTorrent technology. Yes the technology isn’t illegal, its what people use it for is.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Again I say it, I’m not for stealing and people who do honest work should get paid. But I simply can’t stop wondering who cares about us common people? The industries (videogame, movie and music) is only interested in making as huge profit as possible to then place these back in to new productions. And the Torrent-”industry” defend their right to continue to develop their technology and sites. Sort of a statment against the entertainment industry…. I don’t know.

But the reality is that lots of people download copyright material for free, rather then buying it. And this have been going on for years! I remember in the late 90s then the Mp3 format came, it was a revolution, and it took the music industry years to realise the potential. Some of my old friends asked me last year when I would go work in the music industry, apparently it was written in the stars according to them. My answer still is probably never and if so not until the music industry get their shit together. They still hang on to the CD format and want people to buy their music over and over again! And they release many versions and some times add new tracks so people will buy the CD again! Again… many people download music for free, and what does that tell you? That people don’t like music? People love music and with the technology of the modern day (read Internet), they have new was to discover new  and more music than before. And they want the music to be theirs and to be able to do what they want with it. But the record labels haven’t been keeping up with their most important client, their customer! Their just interested in getting the best artist who will create best music to earn the record labels the most amount of profit. Have they ever asked us consumer how we want our music? Most of the people downloading music isn’t bad guys or criminals, but average people! That should be an indication to the music industry to try to change it self instead of just holding on to the past and the old business model that obviously doesn’t work in today society.

And if Pirate Bay should be convicted or even shut down, many other stand waiting to take over. The new distribution of media and files can’t be stopped…  so try to see the possibility’s and use it right! So many attempts have been made from the entertainment industry, some managed to make it work, many many failed!!! In music one could say that the first real “success” was Apples iTunes, and yet again the record labels and movie industry isn’t happy and just want more money. NBC Univeral wanted more, Steve Jobs said that the people don’t want to pay more and NBC Universal couldn’t accept that. So they went to Amazon, (but now it seems they going back to Apple after all). The failure of locked CDs and DRM protected MP3 took the music industry years to understand wouldn’t work. Again… maybe just try to listen to what people want and don’t treat them like criminals or idiots. They are the most important thing for corporations, they decided the future of entertainment industry’s. I really think that the music industry’s executives should get down from their high horses and face reality. They have lost power, so live with it.

Click here to view the embedded video.

One of last years best books jPod by Douglas Coupland have been made into a TV Show and will be aired on CBC in Canada now. I sure didn’t expect to see a show on the book so soon. But the books was great. Just hope the TV show can deliver the same greatness .

Click here to view the embedded video.

Yes the future is in digital distribution, but not just yet! The Internet connection isn’t sufficient yet in my opinion.
But if its true that Microsoft try to mess up the format war, shame on them! But why I am even surprised, it Microsoft!!!

In any case, så gick jag in på hemsidan till I Am Legend, och där såg jag att man kan spela ett spel som heter I Am Legend – Survival. Det intressanta med detta när jag tittade på det, är att man spelar det över Second life! De använder Second Lifes motor och värld för att bygga ett spel. Jag har inte provat spelet så jag vet inte hur det är eller fungerar. Rent grafiskt är det inte så märkvärdigt, nästan gammalt, men själva konceptet med att använda befinliga virtuella världar för spel tycker jag är intressant.

Denna kombination för att marknadsföra sig tycker jag är spännande. Genom att göra filmen till ett spel som folk kan spela, utforska den “värld” som filmen utspelar sig i, och de kan göra de tillsammans med andra. Man bygger förväntningar inför filmen. Och Second Life får bra uppmärksamhet, och det visar på möjligheterna för vad man kan bygga med plattformen. Möjligheterna blir ju otroliga om Second Life öppnas upp för dessa typer av utvecklingsprojekt.

IGN artikel om spelet.