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What’s Stopping You?

Chris Anderson’s “Next Industrial Revolution” article in Wired a few month’s ago is something that anyone who simply wants to CREATE should read. It’s inspiring, incredible and it’s happening right now. This video is like a highlight reel:

The single greatest thing about the techno-creative world that we live in – is that the only major barrier stopping anyone from creating and sharing is action.

Have you always wanted to make a book – an insane book, 300 full color pages of the photo’s from your childhood?

What if you wanted to make a font, out of your handwriting?

Or if you wanted to make custom pieces for your action figures?

Or are you crazy enough to make your own car?

The previously closed-off world of manufacturing, distribution and creation are available to almost anyone and are becoming more open each and every day.

Do you have a dream to create something?

What’s stopping you?

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AS3 Boot Camp – Learn to program Flash games in 30 days

“The best education in film is to make one.”
– Stanley Kubrick

On Dec 1st, 2009, I hadn’t written a line of code since high school, way back in 1992. High School computer programming was done in BASIC and was taught by the drama instructor. It wasn’t exactly a solid programming foundation.

I knew that 2010 was the year I would go full time with Ninja Robot Dinosaur, making Flash games on my own. But without the ability to program, there wasn’t a lot I could do.

I needed to learn how to program Flash games – and fast.
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Teh Hotness – Some BMX Insanity

I don’t post much BMX stuff on NRDland.com, but this was too good to pass up. Terry is an old friend who used to ride for my old bike company, Ronin, and this video is simply insane.

Keep in mind that most of these tricks are ridiculous on their own, but when you mix it with another ridiculous trick – well, that’s just not right. Not you mention that you can just tell they had a blast filming this.

TERRY & AARON MIX FROM ODYSSEYBMX.COM

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Flash Tactics #2 – Making money from a free Flash game

The the most common question I get after “You’re doing WHAT?” about why I’m making Flash games is ‘Can you make money doing that?’, or even funnier is when a hippie artist type asks me ‘How are you monetizing your content?’

In the traditional games industry, we are so tied to the business model of “Putting a game on a box on a shelf” that the simple idea that money can be made from games in any other way is completely outlandish. The real “radicals” in the traditional industry are doing ‘digital download’ on XBLA and WiiWare.

But the times, they are a changing. And I love free stuff and I believe that the future of entertainment media is that everything we create will ultimately be available for free in some way, shape or form.

Free: The Future of a Radical Price

While I was on the free bandwagon long before Chris Anderson released his book Free, Anderson helped me cement my ideas and gave me the courage to move forward with my dream of being an indie developer.

I believe that the future of digital media is free. I make digital media for a living and also like having a roof over my head and food in my belly. WIth all of this considered, I decided it was time for a change of tactics in how I approach the business of video games.

I asked my self (and continue to ask myself): What can a game developer do to make a living if their games are free?

Flash and the web are wonderful and fantastic in this regard and in this article I’m going to dip my toes into a few different ways a free Flash game can make money.
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