The plan for the Fall is to learn Stencylworks and watch it improve. If I feel confident enough, then I can publish another book — The Unofficial Stencylworks Textbook. While creating games for the Photics Arcade, I can gather good material for the book. The problem right now is that I’m burned out on game creation.
Experiment #4 – The Photics Store
If my content is on sites powered by Facebook, Google, Amazon or Apple, am I limiting the potential of Photics.com? I think so. The goal should be to build up Photics.com. To do that, I’ll have to be able to sell my books and games here. I’ve been researching options to manage digital downloads. I was using Lulu to sell my sound effects, but it seems that Lulu is moving away from CDs, DVDs and digital downloads. I’ve been looking for a new home for my digital content. I was considering the GameSalad Marketplace, but I don’t know when support for sound files will be included. It seems that a good experiment would be the return of the sound effects files to Photics.com. If this works out well, I could include additional content for game developers.
Enough work in these four areas should be completed by Christmas time. That’s when I can review the progress on these experiments. So the roadmap for the Fall of 2011 is to find the roadmap. Which direction will this website take?
Projections…
- More Novels — If Kindle project is successful, or the possible relaunch of Revisions on iTunes is successful, the focus will be on the creation of books.
- Photics Arcade Online —The App Store is great now, but I don’t know if it’s a long-term solution. At some point, HTML 5 and competitors will start eating away at Apple’s walled garden. That means the childhood dream of running an arcade might actually be the most logical move at this point. These games will most likely be portable to mobile devices, so I don’t have to abandon the App Stores. The point is to move beyond the app stores, or at least have a hedge against their potential collapse.
- Stencylworks Textbook — Stencylworks could be the tool that’s used to start build the Photics Arcade. If this is successful, it’s very likely that a new Photics textbook will be created. Again, this is another hedge. GameSalad is great software, but I can’t build my entire site around one SDK.
- Online Shop — The Photics Store could be a good idea, but it would have to be a good experience for customers. If I can implement the right e-commerce technology, I can bring a store online. If this is successful, then there will likely be more resources for developers at Photics.com.