Online passes are becoming more and more ubiquitous in the games industry. For those who aren't familiar with the terminology, an online pass is essentially a form of digital rights management designed to discourage and devalue used game sales by tying some game content to unique, one-use codes packaged with new copies of games. Online passes are a contentious issue. Some feel that they're a perfectly legitimate way for developers and publishers to ensure that they get their cut of each sale, and to reward those who purchase games new. Others see them as a violation of consumer rights or contend that they inconvenience customers who do buy new (by requiring them to type in long access codes on game controllers) while being of only dubious value to publishers and developers.

Most recently, there's been a bit of an uproar over the inclusion of an online pass in Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, a single-player RPG with no online component. The pass confers seven extra quests on those who purchase the game new, or deprives those who purchased used of them, depending on your perspective.

I came across a couple excellent articles on Gamasutra which I want to share here. The first, "Contrivance and Extortion: In-App Purchases & Microtransactions" is by Adam Saltsman, creator of Canabalt, among other games. He argues that in-app purchases and so-called microtransactions are being abused by some game developers, "deliberately contriving their designs in the worst way in order to extort money from players, which is unethical and unacceptable design practice." I'll lay my cards on the table and say that I am in complete agreement with Adam.  As he does in his explanatory follow-up, I acknowledge that there are benefits to the "freemium" model, but the techniques commonly associated with that model are often used in a cynical, manipulative and profit-driven manner which I feel is harmful to consumers and the industry. Whether or not you agree, Adam's thoughts on the subject are certainly worth reading.

"Radical Plagiarism: The Ethical Lessons of the Gamenauts Controversy," by Evan Jones, is equally thought-provoking. Evan recounts the cloning of the indie game Radical Fishing by the more established indie studio Gamenauts, and adds his perspective on the cultural impact of the rampant cloning that takes place on mobile app stores. Returning readers may recall that I've previously defended the practice of cloning games. My defense excluded the cloning of smaller titles by established studios, which I've always viewed as morally questionable at best, but Evan's article nevertheless gave me pause. He provides a strong counterpoint to my own thinking on the matter, and while I'm not yet ready to reverse my position, his argument has undeniable weight. If you're at all interested in game development, both articles are well worth your time.

My internship recently ended, and as such, I had to move from Calgary back to Edmonton, where I'll be completing the fourth year of my Computing Science degree at the University of Alberta. I hope to be able to write more about my internship later, but at the moment I want to share a handy trick I discovered for reinstalling OS X. The reason I bring up the move is that after I arrived in Edmonton, I found myself wanting to reformat my Mac Mini and re-install Snow Leopard, but my Snow Leopard disc was nowhere to be found. Luckily, as a semi-paranoid computer scientist with an abundance of disk space, I keep images of important discs on my network-attached storage device for just such occasions.

Unfortunately, however, the Snow Leopard disc image is large enough that it can only be burned to a dual-layer DVD. I don't tend to keep writeable dual-layer DVDs lying around, so I needed a solution which required only the disc image itself. There are a number of methods available for installing OS X over the network, but none of them seemed to work for me—perhaps owing to the fact that I had only one Mac. Luckily, I discovered that you can install OS X from a separate partition on the same disk. Here's how:

1. First, you'll need to re-partition your disk. Open Disk Utility and select the disk you want to use. Be sure to select the disk itself, rather than one of its partitions, which are indented beneath the disk.
2. Click the + button to add a new partition, and drag the new partition's section in the disk layout graph upwards until it's large enough to store your operating system disc image. Apply the changes. It may take some time for the disk to be re-partitioned.
3. Now, select the new partition from the list on the left. Go to the Restore tab, and restore your operating system disc image to the new partition.
4. Once the restore is complete, restart your computer, holding Option (Alt) at start-up. This should bring up a list of available start-up disks. Choose your new partition.
5. You should now be at the installer, and you can re-install to your primary partition. Once the installation is complete, delete your installation disc partition to and resize the primary partition to reclaim the extra space.

That's it! In retrospect, it's completely obvious, but I haven't seen these instructions anywhere else on the web. This technique might be particularly useful for owners of Macs without disc drives.

[2015-10-10]: I made some minor edits to this post to remove some content that I now feel is superfluous. These edits did not change the substance of the post.

With the phenomenal and growing successes of the iPhone App Store, the Android Market, and the Xbox Live Indie Games marketplace, gamers have seen an unprecedented number of titles which could be described as "clones" of more successful games—or rip-offs, if you're feeling less kind. Along with these titles has come a veritable tsunami of hatred for their developers, from game critics and anonymous Internet commenters alike. The commercial success of some of these titles, such as Angry Birds,¹ has shown that average gamers are happy to patronize any developer who can provide a fun experience, regardless of originality. However, any mention of a new clone on a gaming blog or podcast inevitably brings about a stunning amount of vitriol from gamers who, presumably, are upset that their favorite megacorporations aren't getting their due.

In September of last year I ditched my iPhone 3G and switched to the Android-powered HTC Desire (which I later sold in order to purchase a Desire Z, which sports a physical keyboard.) I'm sad to report that I'm now considering switching back to iOS, after less than a year on the Android platform.  The following is an excerpt from an e-mail I wrote to a friend of mine whom I'd describe as a fervent Android evangelist, detailing some of the frustrations I have with the operating system and why I feel that I might be better served by iOS.  I've edited it slightly to make it more readable for anyone who might come across this blog.

I really want to like the Android platform, and writing this gave me no joy. There are two reasons I'm posting it here, though. The first is simply that the purpose of this website is for me to post about my programming and my experiences with technology (as well as whatever else catches my fancy.) The second is that I hope that sharing my honest opinion about Android might be helpful to anyone considering a phone purchase.

The week before last, whilst browsing Reddit I came across a blog by the name of "Android Gripes." The name is perhaps a bit misleading, as it's not actually a blog by an Android user hoping to spur Google into making UI improvements, as I would have expected. It is, rather, a blog by a self-proclaimed Apple fanboy (though he's recently edited his about page to remove that admission) complaining about Android for the sake of... well, complaining about Android.