success Archives - Steven Savage

All Hail Inconvenience

October 9, 2014 by Steven Savage

Org Chart

There’s a peculiar thing to we humans when it comes to inconvenience. We will seek to avoid inconvenience, crave convenience like a drug, and will gladly take it too easy. Yet, strangely, people often crave challenge, the unknown – and dare I say inconvenience? We will give up easy on challenges if presented with an easy option, then go out of our way to seek adversity.

Now I could examine this from many perspectives, some of them actually insightful and rational, but I’d like to focus on geeks and careers. That’s what I do- that’s my challenge (or perhaps my comfort zone, we can discuss that elsewhere).

The Hunger Games Takes in $155 million this weekend.

March 26, 2012 by Steven Savage

The story is here.

First, from everything I’m hearing, this shouldn’t be surprising as the books are popular. In fact, as we’ve seen movies can get panned and still do well if tied to a popular property. I just saw “Transformers” this weekend (don’t worry, with Rifftrax) and it was dismal – but still made money.

However, the reviews of Hunger Games paints it as an actually good film with an exceptional lead actress, and a film that overcame narrative challenges. It’s sounding like an adaption done right – and an adaption to learn from.

My Takeaways:

It’s pretty clear we’ll get a sequel. The timeliness of some of the issues may also help.
I think this gives a boost to the YA/Teen adaption genre again since it sounds like an authentically good movie, thus winning over skeptics. Of course this also means another round of development hell for the various licensed properties out there (I, myself, think Incarceron has a shot at being impressive).
This is also a boost for adaptions/remakes in Hollywood, which is A) out of ideas, and B) glad to adapt stuff that definitely will sell. So, an odd side effect I see of this is less true originality.
The rather brutal nature of the subject matter may actually be refreshing in Hollywood and it’s weirdly sanitized violence.
Though it sounds like “Hunger Games” has a chance to rank up there with the Potter films in the “Holy crap, it’s a good adaption” category, I still am not sure any of the lessons of good filmmaking with percolate into film culture. I’m a cynic.

– Steven Savage

The Value Of Cultural Engagement

October 25, 2011 by Steven Savage

Here's what I learned from Angry Birds, beyond the fact you can weaponize fowl and where the Green Ham part of "Green Eggs and Ham" comes from.

I really learned about creating cultural engagement.

Just look at how Angry Birds is everywhere. Its in merchandise, its in jokes, it's in the news. It's on a bunch of platforms. There's talk of movies and cartoons – which seems weird because, let's face it, we're kinda facing limited characterization and specialized elements.

It's part of our culture when, truth be told, we're not exactly talking a deep concept here.

That's something to learn for those of us working to create new tinges.

Cultural engagement, truly becoming part of the culture, is an important path to success for anyone promoting a professional creation, be it software, a clothing line, or video games. You don't just want to sell to people – you need to become part of the way they think. You want to make it cultural.

Just look at Apple. There, enough said.

A lot of creations do not just fill their specific need – a need for shelter or entertainment or word processing software. They fill a cultural need as people are creatures of shared identity and references – if you can give them that, then you have vastly increased your chance of success.

Angry Birds. Apple. Linux. Star Wars. Star Trek. People bought not just products and watched more than television and films – they went for meaning and shared experience.

So, in your endeavors, you want to provide that. For those of us into the geeky scene, we're probably working on something like that professionally or on the side anyway – geeks are beings of shared information. Anyway, shared culture means success.

I also mean this in more than a mercenary way – if you realize that selling meaning is important, you can focus on delivering real value culturally. If your novel is meant to inspire, go all out to make a classic for the ages that will have true meaning. Your game can set the stage for new mechanics or social bonding. Your simple piece of software can introduce useful new terms.

So you want to sell your product, and to do that you need to make sure you become part of people's culture – and if you do that responsibility, you'll do a lot of good, as well as making money. That's a pretty nice win-win.

– Steven Savage