Comments on a Post

Imagine my surprise when I received an e-mail from another blogger commenting on one of my posts. I think in the entire time I have been posting, I have received maybe a dozen comments. She liked my posting on how to keep your mind active. As someone that is an advocate of music, she asked that I pass along a link to her site extolling the virtues of music lessons as a young adult. Perhaps you will find it useful.

Report from GDC 2018

Once again I attended the Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco. This year's conference seemed to have a lot more energy than last. I also found a number of new technologies to be very interesting. While Unity didn't have a large presence, Unreal did. For those that don't know, both are makers of video game engines used by many developers around the world. In fact, if I had to give an award for the best booth at the show, it would be the Unreal booth. They actually had 2 booths and the one showcasing a number of games written in Unreal is my favorite of the show. This is significant because my company had a large booth but I liked Unreal's more.

Another booth, other than my own, that I enjoyed stopping at was from Amazon. They seem to have some pretty interesting technology that others can use to help create games. I stopped and talked with them for a bit and am impressed. Of course, I think my ideas are light years ahead of theirs but I might be a bit biased.

Virtual Reality continued to have growing representation and I am interested to see how that part of the market evolves. Right now I think we have some great technology with high-end hardware from Oculus, mid-market technology from PlayStation, and ubiquitous entry-level hardware with the smartphone manufacturers coupled with Google hardware . All we need is great content. Some new games have recently been released and I look forward to the E3 announcements this summer.

It pleased me greatly to see that this year's GDC seemed much better than some of the more recent ones. It gives me hope that the industry is healthy and picking up momentum again. Perhaps video games are just the distraction we all need to keep our mind off politics. I know it helps me.

Hardware is No Longer Enough

I went to a company's presentation on Tuesday where they talked about how well sales are going. This company is known for producing hardware but have discovered that hardware needs infrastructure. Now half of the company's sales are for online services. That is a big shift in business.

The Apple iPod is probably one of the first instances where it became clear that hardware is no longer enough. When they released the original music player, Apple knew that they also needed a marketplace where users could go to buy content for the new device. They then invested in the infrastructure necessary to create an online music store. Furthermore they did the job well and have grown it to also include software for their mobile phones. Google had no choice but to match that investment in order for Android phones to even be considered an alternative to the iPhone.

Now we see the same thing happening for other consumer electronics companies. When video game companies released the first versions of consoles, all games came on some sort of media. Nintendo created cartridges while Sony started with CD ROM's. The latest versions of video consoles continue to support Blu-ray disks but both Microsoft and PlayStation have online stores where you can purchase digital copies of games.

Think about other consumer-electronic devices. How long will it be before Cannon and Nikon create online services that interact with the next-generation camera equipment? Companies should be looking at this new revenue stream and embrace it. Those that do will succeed while those that don't will cease to exist.

Bitcoin, IPOs, and Tulips

Recently bitcoin made the news because of its meteoric rise in value. Naturally that followed with a less dramatic fall. One bitcoin is currently valued at around $11,000. So what is bitcoin and should you be investing in it? Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency that is similar to a form of money that you would use in another country. The big difference is that there is no central bank controlling the exchange rate. That means bitcoin is worth exactly what people are willing to pay for it. If everybody wants to buy bitcoins, the price goes up. If everyone wants to sell, the price goes down.

Bitcoin reminds me of investing in dot-com IPOs in 1999 and early 2000. You could put a few thousand dollars in the stock market on Monday, sell off the stock on Friday, and pay cash for a brand-new Mercedes on Saturday. The rise can only last so long before people lose interest and stocks come crashing back to reality. There were some dot-coms that did absolutely nothing yet had higher valuations than Boeing which actually makes airplanes, a tangible product. At the end of 2000, prices corrected and people realized a lot of the stock out there wasn't worth much. The downside is that a quarter of a million jobs in Silicon Valley disappeared seemingly overnight.

Dot-com IPOs are not the first speculative bubble. That honor goes to the Tulip mania that happened in Holland during the 1600's. I remember hearing about it in one of my history classes where certain designer Tulip bulbs became worth more than a home. Naturally that all came crashing down in February of 1637.

So do I think you should invest in bitcoin? There are a number of companies that accept bitcoin as a form of payment and so for the moment it is not worthless. There are also some financial institutions looking at using bitcoin to reduce auditing costs. There are a network of bitcoin miners that verify transactions for less money than current financial auditing costs. That could lead to some longevity with the cryptocurrency. Then of course, everyone could decide it has no value at all and the value of bitcoin could fall a lot. As I have no need to trade in bitcoin, I am going to avoid it for the time being. If you feel differently, feel free to invest away.