GDC is the annual Game Developers Conference that usually takes place in San Fransisco. Each year, thousands of game developers–large and small–attend the show to learn, see new things, and network. Some companies

take this time to make big announcements and show off new games. Rarely does a GDC come and go without notable announcements that will shape the rest of the year for games and this was not a rare year.

As a fan of games and a game developer, here are the announcements that were most notable at GDC 2010.

Playstation Move

Sony had originally shown off their answer to Nintendo’s Wii at E3 2009. At GDC 2010, they announced an official name, relative price point, and a release window. Sony’s motion controller has been named the Playstation Move. It will be under $100 and scheduled for release this Fall. Microsoft’s answer to motion gaming–Project Natal–is also scheduled to be released during the same window.

In all of this, Nintendo of America’s President and Chief Operating Officier, Reggie Fils-Aime, used the word “embarrassed” to describe what Sony and Microsoft are doing. Competition in the games industry is as tough as ever.

The Playstation Move uses the existing Playstation Eye camera with a wand-like controller–similar to the Wii–to detect and translate a player’s motion into a game. The Playstation Move is much more accurate than the Wii remote and should allow for interesting new game play mechanics originally dreamed up by the Wii like 1 to 1 sword control–or light sabers, whichever.

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This might make sense for music where a CD traditionally cost $15 – $20 so the average price per song is about $.99. Take away the cost of producing CD’s, cases, and the label’s cut and the artist is probably better off. Games have traditionally had double digit prices depending on it’s platform and scale. PopCap sells Plants vs Zombies as a PC downloadable for $19.95. The same game on the App Store is $2.99.

When Super Monkey Ball was released on the iPhone, it came with a $9.99 price tag. It is now $3.99 and the price range for high quality premium games have settled to around $6.

While the low expected price of games on the App Store is a problem for game developers, there is little good in complaining about it. The initial rush to iPhone game development was spearheaded by hobbyists and small game companies that had low costs and seemingly infinite upside. Almost any game could have succeeded by just being available on the App Store. Times have changed and the pricing strategies have to change with it.

The $.99 price point is not going to work for 99% of game developers. The quality bar has been raised so high that it is impossible to break even at $.99. Losing money on every game you make is the fastest way to no longer be in the business of making games. The App Store is not exempt from traditional pricing strategies.

Virtually every pricing strategy that has ever been developed in marketing apply to the App Store as they do to the sale of all products and services.

Competitive Pricing

The simplest and most logical pricing strategy is competitive pricing. This means you are going to set a price similar to or exactly the same as competitors in the market. This has been the predominant strategy applied across the board in the App Store.

Smart marketers who use this strategy don’t apply it across the industry. You will notice that not every beer is priced the same or every shampoo, detergent, orange juice, deodorant, etc. This is because each product is not the same. There are some products that are virtually identical and in those cases, you either need to differentiate or you match prices. Generally speaking, when a customer has to choose from two identical products, price is going to be the determining factor.

Cost/Economy Pricing

Cost pricing is coming up with a price based on your cost to produce plus a suitable mark up. This is a strategy that generally ignores the prices set by competitors in the market and is derived solely based on the company’s cost structure and goals. If each product costs $5 to make and you want a $2 profit on each sale, you would set a price of $7.

Loss Leader

A loss leader is a product that sells at a loss to spur customers to buy other higher priced items. This is usually done to bring customers to a store hoping they will also buy other things. Big chain stores do this often in their circulars and usually only have a limited amount of the advertised product.

Penetration Pricing

Penetration pricing is usually used to break into a new market or gain market share. Prices are set lower to attract customers and then raised later once significant market share has been gained. This happens a lot in cable TV where companies offer a low price for 6 months and then changes to the regular price thereafter.

Premium Pricing

This is the general pricing strategy for high end luxury items. This is also the most desirable pricing strategy as it has the highest profit potential. It is also the hardest to achieve because the product needs to be seen as highly unique in the eyes of the consumers. This also happens to be the traditional pricing strategy for Apple. Their products are built with a unique design and experience that can command generally higher prices.

Price Skimming

Price skimming is the act of releasing a product at a relatively high price where only a small percent of the market is willing to afford it. This is usually because it is the only product of its kind at the time and competitors have not yet entered the market. Once more competitors offer the same or similar product, prices start to come down. This is the general pricing strategy in technology and electronic products like flat screen televisions.

Determining Price

There are literally tons of other pricing strategies and hybrids of each other. These are the basics for a general understanding of pricing. The best pricing strategy for the App Store is going to depend on the company and the products. EA’s pricing strategy is not going to be the same as a five man game company.

It would be safe to say that you do not want to price at $.99 as there is no where left to go after that and as more premium titles are released, $.99 is going to come to mean low quality. When you don’t know much about two similar products, the higher priced one is assumed to be the better one.

A pricing strategy should fit within an overall marketing strategy. It is impossible to come up with a good pricing strategy without knowing what the marketing goals are. Prices that are too high or too low can derail an entire marketing plan from achieving business objectives. Poor pricing can also make or break a business.

Luckily, in the App Store, prices can be easily and quickly changed. A poor price may not be terminal but, there are still lost profits at stake.

Know your product, marketing objectives, and then determine a price.

A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer. -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Often times, the difference between success and failure can be five minutes or just 5 seconds. You were right there! You just called it quits too soon.

Sometimes, victory isn’t about beating your opponent. Sometimes, it’s just a matter of outlasting them.

So hang in there. You won’t fail until you decide to. Failure is in your control.

You can give up at any time. There’s no need to rush into it. Hang in there a little longer; the results may surprise you.

Online social networks changed the world. King of thee networks is Facebook. Facebook’s user base is greater than the population of the United States and they have overtaken MySpace in popularity. Entire companies have been built on top of Facebook’s platform. Facebook changed the world in the last decade.

The popularity of Facebook Applications has spawned a ton of games that currently flood our Live Feeds. Few days pass without a mention of a quiz result or a lost brown cow. The early days of Facebook Applications allowed for successes like Vampires and Werewolves. Those were Neanderthal apps. Apps can no longer become successful by being incredibly annoying.

The Facebook audience has evolved.

Facebook Applications are only going to get more complex as features become standard. People expect to see their friend’s high scores and how they rank. They expect to be able to interact with their friends. Zynga’s model has become the standard for what a Facebook game can do.

This makes success for new apps more difficult. A couple of guys in their spare time can’t make a game on the scale of FarmVille. Zynga and other large social network game giants can only be defeated at their own game by each other. The little guys trying to break in will need to find a road less traveled.

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No one will blame us for avoiding fear. It’s bad. It’s sound advice to avoid bad.

But, fear tells us something. The more we fear something, the more we know we need to do it.

We don’t fear the things we know. Why would we? If we know we’ll perform fine, what is there to be afraid of? We can handle it. We only fear what we don’t know. We don’t know we’ll perform well. We don’t know we can handle it.

The catch-22 is that we’ll never know we can if we are always in fear. We fear, we avoid: nothing changes.

Right now, fear is telling you this is ridiculous. Fear wants you to think there is danger. Don’t listen. There is always danger. Going from crawling to walking was dangerous. Much safer on four limbs than two.

Fear is how we know what we need to do. What we know is safe. We might hate it. It might not be for us. But, we are familiar with it. There’s no surprises. It’s safer to complain about it than change it.

Fear makes the unknown look dangerous and the known look safe.

Once upon a time, the known was unknown. They are both dangerous. It’s a frame of mind. Change your frame of mind. Change your world.

Fear is good.

Brands are like people. They take on personality traits and we like those traits or we don’t.

This means you are a brand. You evoke certain feelings when people think of you. The entirety of who you are, is your brand. Your beliefs, likes, dislikes, attitude, personality, style, etc. are all things that create you. These same things make up a company brand.

We all have distinct feelings about each of the top ten brands in 2009. Some brands you know better than others; some brands you like better than others. It’s no different than friends compared to acquaintances. Being everyone’s best friend is being no one’s best friend.

Building a brand for a game company is the same as for a car company, beverage company, restaurant, or any business. The major game companies don’t need a lesson in the importance of branding–they already spend millions a year doing it. That’s why their games sell so well. Consumers know their product. We know what to expect from a game with the EA logo on it.

When your target audience sees your game with your logo, do they know what to expect? They should. A company name should sell itself. That’s the power of a brand.

Your company needs to have a brand as much as you need to have a personality. It doesn’t matter how big or small: a one man show or a thousand man spectacle. You need a brand.

Your customers will develop feelings about your company based on points of contact. These experiences can be influenced or the chips can fall where they may. There are brands that people want to evangelize and tell their friends about. That brand makes a top ten list. That’s a brand you want. That brand didn’t happen by accident.

A strong brand allows for competition on more than price. Competing on price is the weakest competitive advantage. Anyone can lower prices until they go out of business. That’s not smart business. Smart businesses create their own market with few competitors. You can’t achieve this without a brand.

thatgamecompany, the makers of the popular flOw, has a distinct brand. Their games are truly unlike any others in the industry. Their games won’t be a fit for everyone and that’s okay. They call their games “core games”. They are in their own market with few competitors.

So how do you build a brand and benefit from it? First, your company needs to know Who am I?

You have an identity. The people who make up your company have an identity. What are they? What makes you tick? What makes your employees tick? Why are you in business? What do you do? Why do you wake up every day? What is your passion? What do you offer your customers?

Don’t try to hide your identity. It is a fools errand to pretend being someone else. Take the example of Superman and Clark Kent in their quest for Lois Lane’s affection.

Clark Kent hides his identity. He pretends to be someone else. He is not a run-of-the-mill small town boy looking to make it in the big city. Clark fails miserably to court Lois. On the other hand, Superman knows who he is. He doesn’t hide his otherworldly origin or his super powers. He saves people from danger because he believes he should. It’s not an act, it’s who he is. Superman wins.

Clark Kent and Superman are exactly the same person. One is true to himself and the other is not. A brand that attracts people is like Superman.

A small game company with a few employees should not be ashamed of being small. That is who you are. Don’t pretend to be bigger. You cannot build a brand on a foundation of lies.

A large game company shouldn’t pretend to be an indie shop. It isn’t you. People will see right through it. No one likes a liar. No one wants to do business with a liar.

The goal of a brand is not to be a fit to everyone. Not a single successful brand does that. Successful brands are like successful people. They know who they are and believe in their work. People are attracted to them because they are real. Not everyone will like them but, those who do will make a real connection. That’s a fan for life. Lifetime profitability is the lifeblood of long term success.

Every point of contact with customers need to be congruent with your brand. The only way to do that is to be able to communicate who you are to your employees. Your brand starts with your employees. You can’t communicate that you are a friendly, loving, smile-flashing company and have employees who are rude to customers.

The people responsible for direct interaction with customers should exemplify your brand. If your brand is fun, social, helpful, and out-going then you need people who have those qualities. Best Buy’s Geek Squad needs technology and gadget lovers working for them or there will be a brand disconnect.

The quickest way to communicate your brand to employees and customers is with a tagline.

A good tagline is essential. Potential customers should know what you do and who you are in a blink of an eye. Your tagline needs to tell them everything they need to know in a few words. A tagline is like a signature, it should be distinctive. Once you come up with a good tagline, use it on everything. There is no point in having a tagline if you aren’t going to use it.

Take the time and effort to come up with a great tagline. It may seem useless to put so much effort on a few words but, you need those magical words that eloquently consolidates everything you are. It’ll help keep everyone in the company focused and on the same page. That is priceless.

Everything about your company needs to be congruent with your brand: company logo, mission, employee attitudes, website, advertising, story, etc. All of it. Every inch of your company needs to reflect your brand.

Building a brand takes time and effort. Two people can’t become great friends in one sitting. It takes a series of meetings, activities, conversations, cups of coffee, pints of beer, etc. Every contact builds the relationship. Every contact provides more information about each other. Showing up as a different person at each contact will never create a strong relationship. Building a brand is like building a friendship.

Brands are like people.

There are past accomplishments that hold a special place in our minds. We were awesome then. These are the stories of great triumph. They make us feel good. It’s nostalgic. And why not? It is always nice to look back and know that we’ve done something.

We were awesome yesterday but, that doesn’t make much of a difference today.

There are moments as we live them that we know are awesome. Lives are changing right before our eyes. Someone is better off. This feels even better than being awesome yesterday. We can confirm that we are still awesome. It’s nice to know that.

We are awesome today but, it’ll be yesterday tomorrow.

Then there are moments we haven’t lived. Will we be awesome then? Or did we already live our last great feat? Is greatness going to be a tease now? The unknown is scary–maybe our best days have passed.

Or our best days have yet to come. We might look at yesterday and forget that awesome took work. No great accomplishments happened by pure chance of luck. We were awesome because we chose to be.

Choose to be awesome tomorrow because that’s the one that counts.

 

You name it, there’s an app for that. A year from now, you name it, and there will be apps for that and the ten other things you didn’t think of.

These are all conveniences iPhones owners have enjoyed. I have taken these services for granted. I don’t worry about where anything is anymore, I can find it on Google Maps. All of this convenience is fantastic for the consumer, while those trying to sell apps on the iPhone are finding it harder to stand out.

The most competitive category is Games. There are few categories as popular as the Games section of the App Store. There are more Games than any other category. At over 20,000 strong, avoiding obscurity will be a challenge.

But not only that, you need to have a lasting impression. You may have created the hottest iPhone game to date but, what is going to stop someone from releasing a $.99 clone? How do you ensure a cheaper clone isn’t going to eat away at your sales and market share?

Take the once popular iShoot. It made $800,000 in five months and prompted its creator, Ethan Nicholas, to leave his job at Sun Microsystems. iShoot has since been buried by competitors and copycats. Nicholas says it’s “terrifying” and that iShoot’s success was “pure luck”.

Pure luck is not going to work for a business selling games on the App Store. Relying on luck to run a business is the surest way to the land of businesses-that-were. And I’m not sure all businesses go to heaven.

Luckily, the solution is as old as time: marketing. Why do you buy Tide instead of Acme Brand? They may have exactly the same quality and stain fighting power but, Acme Brand isn’t going to hold a candle to the power of Tide.

There was a time when only a handful of games were on the App Store. The best games sold well in those prehistoric times. Those days are long gone. You can release a game on the App Store tomorrow and it’ll be in the company of a hundred other games. Only a small fraction of all iPhone users are going to know your game came out. People can’t buy what they don’t know about!

This is logical reasoning but, not everyone is on board. In an interview with Wired, Austin Sarner, CEO of Design by a Knife, said this:

“Basically everybody’s on the same level once they submit an iPhone app. Unlike traditional marketing, there’s no ad campaign: A user just sees what he sees in the iPhone store, and the applications kind of have to sell themselves to some extent.”

Sarner’s philosophy is that great content drives App Store success and not “marketing”. Sarner is a developer by profession so this an understandable point of view. Sarner confuses advertising with marketing and doesn’t realize that developing a great product is a fundamental function of marketing.

It is inaccurate that there is no advertising behind iPhone games. EA didn’t come to the party without their advertising muscle. And with hundreds of games being added to the App Store every week, the clutter alone will make you invisible no matter how good your game is.

It is suicide to release an app and hope it will be magically discovered. Only 7% of iPhone users download through iTunes, 62% knew what they wanted, 60% browsed the top lists, and 46% were from word of mouth according to AdMob. The 62% who knew what they wanted heard it somewhere first. It didn’t come to them in a dream.

If you are convinced that making the greatest iPhone game in the world, releasing it to the App Store, and then praying it will sell is a viable strategy, I have two words for you: good luck. You are going to need it.

However, if you want a viable business, there is a better way.

Game developers worldwide will disagree and hate this but, marketing has to be part of the development process from day one. You can’t create a game and then sprinkle some marketing pixie dust as an after thought. That’s the equivalent of wearing a blindfold, spinning around a few times, and then trying to hit a pinata. You have no idea where the target is. You are going to miss.

The development process starts with an audience. You need to target someone. You don’t need to go after the same audience as everyone else, but you need an audience. Who is going to buy your game? You need to make a game for them. You can make a game for yourself, but that’s not a business–it’s a hobby. Doing things in that fashion means it’ll always be a hobby.

Your game needs to be characteristic of your company brand–your company does have a brand right? There is a reason EA has multiple brands. Each brand has its own image and their games reflect that. EA Games caters to a more traditional audience, EA Sports develops games for the sports audience, and EA Play is solely focused on the casual market.

Engage with the community. If your audience is there, you need to be there engaging them: blogs, forums, YouTube videos, LinkedIn groups, Facebook groups, etc. If your audience is there, you need to be there. Being engaged does not mean spamming. Join the conversations and use your company as the name of contact or end each comment noting your company. Don’t be obnoxious. Be informative, helpful, and provide useful discourse.

Marketing your game is a full-time job. People who solely work on the development side find this difficult to swallow. In their world, they are doing the hard work. Their point of view isn’t without merit. Without them, there would be no product at all.

To make things worse, it is difficult to accurately measure the impact marketing has on your business. You may never know how or if someone who interacts with your marketing ends up buying your product. In fact, they might not buy your product at all. They might talk to ten other people about their experience with your company and then one or more within those ten may end up buying. We cannot accurately measure this.

For people who are used to concrete and visible patterns, marketing may as well be voodoo. However, this doesn’t make marketing less important. It does mean marketing requires a different mindset than that of development.

Social medias has allowed us to monitor our audience’s thoughts, concerns, and feelings in real time. This lets us adjust our marketing efforts on the fly if it isn’t working or is having a negative effect. You need to be constantly monitoring your audience. It isn’t just a matter of marketing during a release–you will end up like iShoot. Cultivate your audience and develop a community.

Infinity Ward, the makers of Call of Duty, understands the importance of a strong community. They have a community manager, Robert Bowling, whose sole job is to monitor the Call of Duty audience. Without him, Modern Warfare 2 may not have become the highest grossing entertainment release of all time. The game would have done well no matter what. Call of Duty has a history, the first Modern Warfare was excellent, the hype surrounding Modern Warfare 2 was spectacular, it was a high quality product, and Call of Duty is a known entity–a brand. But, would it have done as well without marketing? Of course, we can never actually measure it but, I’m willing to bet marketing made the difference between one of the highest grossing and the highest grossing.

2010 is going to be different. For starters, we can’t call it “oh-ten”. That doesn’t make sense. Are we going to call it “ten”? Maybe we’ll need to actually say the entire thing: “twenty-ten”. No matter what becomes the accepted way to say the year, it is a change from the last nine years.

And change is something we are all dying for. We thought we were getting change in 2008 but, 2009 has shown us that it was just wishful thinking. No change to be found! So that begs the question, are we looking in the right places for change? Maybe we shouldn’t be looking to others. Afterall, the late King of Pop told us to look at the Man in the Mirror.

And we all know a mirror shows us everything in the opposite. Maybe 2010 is the year to take a look at ourselves and see if our lagging endeavors need to be evaluated in a completely different light. Perhaps, we need to do the opposite.

The economy is suffering the effects of being stabbed a thousand times by a toothpick. You wonder if now is a good time to make radical changes. To that I ask, would it be a good time if we went back five years? We all know it’s not about the times–there is never a good time. There is only now.

Now is as good a time as any! And if not now, when? If there is never a good time, perhaps that’s the first thing we need to apply the opposite to: it’s always a good time.

Besides, the economy can use some opposite thinking right now. The old ways of thinking have sunk the Titanic. And as everyone carries on thinking the same way and doing the same things, the water keeps climbing!

We think what we know is safe. It could be killing us, but it’s familiar so we stick with it. Well, it’s time to do the opposite. Take the plunge. Take the leap. Just do it. Whatever jingle you like.

It could be the best of times or it could be the worst of times. It’s impossible to know. But, we do know what doing the same will result in: the same results we’ve always gotten.

Some of us will choose to do the opposite. Things are going to change. Some of those changes will be so dramatic that we will all feel it. We’ve already seen it in the past decade. Ask someone about Twitter or Facebook in 2000 and you’ll get a blank, puzzled stare. Social networks have become a part of everyday life and used in everyday language. And it took less than a decade.

We know one giant is opting to do the opposite in 2010. Pepsi is foregoing advertising during the Super Bowl to focus on social media. This could go terribly wrong or it could be a banner year for Pepsi.

Take Pepsi’s lead and do the opposite. At least you don’t have $20 million on the line.

It has been almost two years since I’ve had any type of television programming fed to me through an actual television set. This doesn’t mean that I’ve watched any less television programming. I think I may be watching even more TV shows than I did before.

However, I am still getting more done and doing more productive things even though I may be watching more TV shows. Before Hulu had mountains of shows available, I was watching TV shows from the network’s websites. Any shows that I used to watch on TV and are not online, I have simply stopped watching them. I was a fan of SmallVille but, it is no where to be found online.

If it can be found, it is more work than it’s worth. I can live without the show. The networks that have decided to put their shows online have been able to reach me and sell advertising at the same time. There is little drawback for them. Either they were not going to have as an audience at all or have me as an audience online.

Being able to watch shows when I wanted to really helps with being productive. I don’t have to schedule my time around when a show is on. I can do the work I need to do and when I want downtime, watch all the episodes I missed. Sounds like a great deal for everyone!

I think it is fantastic and Hulu and YouTube are offering shows of all kinds. I feel the TV and cable model is a thing of the past. I don’t want to plan my time around the network’s schedule and I don’t want to pay for channels that I’ll never watch.

I would much rather pay HBO directly to watch their shows over the internet, on my time, than to pay for cable.

TV is so yesterday.

I don’t normally do games for such a young audience so it was interesting. The game mechanics were quite dumbed down. The games themselves were pretty simple: counting, pattern matching, etc. There should be a desktop game coming out for PC and Mac–that is where the bulk of the work is.

I think the game turned out pretty good. It was games like this one that has had me so busy the past several months.

I’ve known of Scribd for a while as the Mises Institute has put a great deal of their collection online for free. Even though I have known of Scribd, I have not really read any book available on there in great depth–until now. I had read Malcolm Gladwell’s review of Chris Anderson’s Free and Seth Godin’s rebuttal to Gladwell’s review. I have my own opinions on the idea of Free so this was a topic that I am fairly interested in.

I really did not expect to read this book online for free as I didn’t really expect it to be available online for free. I own Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail and loved that book. It is entirely possible that I will eventually buy Free just to have on my bookshelf as digital books just aren’t the same.

Having discovered Free was available for free I decided to read a few pages–perhaps a few chapters–to get a taste of the book. I generally do that at Barnes & Nobles anyway. I am now 205 pages into this 288 page book. In all likelihood, I will finish reading this book as I have less than a third to go and it is pretty damn interesting.

My intention isn’t really to review the book but, to talk about reading an entire book online on a computer monitor. I have done a lot of reading online but, I have never read a book on a digital screen. The experience so far as been satisfactory. It wasn’t as terrible as I had thought but, also not fantastic. I still prefer to have the physical item.

Scribd is great. When I started reading for the first time I wondered where the bookmark tool was. I didn’t find out until I returned to the book at a later time and discovered that Scribd knew where I had left off and suggested to me that I could start from there. Marvelous.

Their service is definitely something I’ll explore further.

I’m not super sure what I intend to do with those domains yet. They just point to here now. More options for self-branding!

Since I wrote about my near death experience via bench press, I have joined Planet Fitness. I was making do with make shift workouts for a while–body weight exercises and the such. I can create a pretty good workout anywhere but, there isn’t a real substitute in the modern world for good old iron. I don’t spend my day hunting for my food. Most of my day consists of being seated in an office.

Planet Fitness isn’t the bodybuilder’s gym or the gym for the serious athlete–they just don’t have enough free weights. I’m not a bodybuilder or professional athelete so it’ll do. They are cheap at $20 a month for their premium plan and they are running a deal now for $199 for two years.

I usually have a whole plan of exercises and all that stuff. I decided to forgo all of that this time and aim to accomplish two things while I’m at the gym: work my entire body and be dead tired when I’m done. Of course, I also limit my workouts to around 60 minutes–the shorter the better. Some people swear by split routines and spend hours at the gym. I need the greatest gains in the shortest amount of time–efficient.

My main motivation to go back to the gym was when my good friend who saved me from my bench press death said my arms were bigger back in high school. What?! I was online that night researching gyms! I’m a little vain. It was good motivation at a good time. Doesn’t hurt to be in better shape when summer really rolls around.

The majority of my weekends of late has been filled with looking for a new apartment so that has taken away time from writing. I’m likely going to be a residence of Queens, NY soon. Moving is going to be a pain in the ass–it always is.

Image via Wikipedia

Aside from apartment searching, I also saw some of my friends on Pace University’s Advertising Team compete in the NASC. They were amazing and put together a fantastic plan. I’m going to write about it on my marketing blog, it’s just going take some time. Any ad agency or marketing department would do well to have any one of them working for them–the economy is making hiring scarce but, they are good and persistence will win out.

In other news, I’ve also “officially”  graduated from Pace University. I’ve had the degree for months but, I went to the ceremony and all that. They really need to not do graduation ceremonies so early, I’m not awake yet. I was almost a zombie going through the whole thing and then seriously just went to sleep after it was all said and done.

I will definitely write a little something about this Dora the Explorer game I’m working on once its finished and available on Nickelodeon’s website. This game is supposed to be on sale at retailers too–fancy. Now hopefully, I can find more time to write while work is keeping is busy. I’ve been restructuring my life a little recently as well so that hasn’t helped keep my entries consistent!

This near death experience happened to me a long time ago. Back in high school, I often took Coed Advanced Weight Training. The other option involved a lot of mindless running around a track–they called that class Track. I don’t really like running and I do like weight lifting so that was a no-brainer. Did I mention it was coed?

So one day, it was after class and people had left. A friend and I stayed behind to do some more lifts. We had competitions in this class for max bench press, number of push ups, pull ups, dips, etc. Now this was a class near the day of the competitions so we wanted to work on the bench press.

I was never a monster bench presser. I was only about 155lbs and my max bench was at 185lbs. However, on this day, at this particular moment, I was not able to bench 185.

We did some warm ups and it was fine. We then proceeded to just do max lifts. I’m lying on the bench and have my hands on the barbell. My spotter is a good friend who has become more of a gym person than me. We pick up the weight and I proceed to do the lift. All of a sudden my arms just give and 185lbs of iron complied with the forces of gravity.

The bar dropped in line with my neck and at one moment I felt the cold metal of the bar touch my neck. At this same moment, my spotter grabs the bar and saves me from a beheading.

I don’ t know for sure if I would have died but, it was certainly not going to be pretty. There is no shortage of bench press accidents online and none of them look fun. To this day, I am still very cautious about doing bench presses.

I did lift 185lbs on the day of the bench press competition. That was not a winning lift–I believe it was closer to 215. I was happy that I did 185 that day. It was more about overcoming the fear than how much weight it was. You never really lose the slight dread that overcomes you when you lie under the bar to do a bench press.

I certainly do not try to do max bench presses anymore. The last highest weight I’ve benched was 215lbs a few times. I increase the weight of my bench at very small increments. I like to stay alive more than I like to have a high bench weight!