Ten slices of crackling content  for your weekend platter  including, the best snow games ever, why the number four is gaming magic and a tale of MMO treachery.

1) Corporate Loyalty is a Lie

Feeling bitter about your heartless and incompetent bosses? Have a read of Rituals of the Betrayed, which, despite moments of melodrama and overwrought prose, is a fair summation of how the cardboard box carriers are feeling at EA, THQ and all those other places today, as they shuffle miserably down the glum corridors. "Corporate loyalty is a lie," says the author.

Who, in their right mind, ever thought otherwise? Welcome to capitalism, chum.

2) Bruce On Bruce Action

I want to declare my love for Bruce on Games. Bruce is a game exec of 20-odd years standing. He rarely fails to make me laugh in his blog (except when he's ranting about the shortcomings of my employer, which I find deeply disgraceful).

Here he is talking about how you, as a marketer of games, should suffer manfully the slings and blah-blahs of online hostility. He illustrates his point using a picture that one of his "fans" posted setting His Bruceness alongside a gallery of convicted paedophiles, child-killers, mass-murderers and, perhaps most damningly, Michael Jackson.

Bruce takes it on the chin. As he rightly points out - even Mother Theresa and Nelson Mandela have suffered online vilification. So it was only a matter of time before the haters caught up with Saint Bruce of Imagine.

"We live in an age where the reality of the matter is that internet abuse is ubiquitous. It is an inevitability that comes just from being well known. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, there is only one thing worse than being vilified on the internet and that is not being vilified on the internet."

3)  Post Mortem of A Kingdom for Keflings

I totally loved this game. Good insight from NinjaBee on the concept and execution, as well as some honest notes on the game's shortcomings.

4) How a Guy's Download Game Made Him $27K

Riv Celso of Winter Wolves is responsible for a downloadable game called Magic Stones. Here, he outlines his expenses and income for the product, and offers some essential tips for anyone thinking of making a few bucks in the download space. A must-read for aspiring entrepreneurs in this space.

5) Tale of a Bungie Job Interview

Christian Allen is a Design Lead at Bungie, currently working on the company's Super-Secret Next Project.. In this enjoyable piece over at  Bungie.net, he talks about the interview process that got him through the door at Bungie. Fascinating insights here.

"During one phone interview, on a Friday night, Jason [Jones] had asked me which project I had worked on that I thought was the best single player game, and I mentioned GR2: Summit Strike for the Xbox. Jason hadn’t played it, so he said he’d check it out. The next Monday, he called me back, having played the entire game, and had detailed questions about the direction of the various gameplay elements. I was impressed that he would take the time to go to that length, especially as this was in the middle of Halo 3 crunch."

6) This Indie Won't Be Pushed Around

Inside the life of another developer, this time Cliff Harris, sole proprietor of Positech Games. He says a new and savage price war among certain portals - prices slashed by $3 each - is having its effect on indies. It's not just the crappier margins, but also the lack of respect for products which deserves a higher price-point, he says.


"I’ve sent out the emails that remove my games from that [price-cutting] portal. I know another indie dev has done the same thing. We have decent direct sales, and we base our businesses on selling through multiple channels at the same time. This is true independence, when nobody can tell you what games to make, or dictate terms to you."

7) Investigating Game Spaces

Henry Jenkins (Director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program)  is always worth a look. Here he is, interviewing, Michael Nitsche, author of a new book, Video Game Spaces: Image, Play, and Structure in 3D Worlds.

'Space is certainly not the single answer to all of our problems but it surely predates play as well as narrative. We learn how to deal with space before we start to tell stories or play games. If we translate this into video games,

8) Eve Online Treachery

Zen of Design is discussing the intriguing betrayal of Eve Online guild Band of Brothers. One of its alumni was recruited by a rival to strip the guild from the inside, breaking down a once-powerful corporation, and creating a land-rush of speculators. The intrigue does not end there, as the traitor has, apparently, been stitched up. Alas, I don't play Eve, but it sounds deliciously devious. Not surprisingly, the Eve forums are buzzing.

9) The Magic of  '4'

Brainy Gamer says the number 4 has some mystical connotations of goodness in the game arena. Here are a few fourth iterations that were landmarks.

Metroid Prime
Call of Duty 4
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
World of Warcraft
Civilization IV
Metal Gear Solid
and, of course, Super Mario Bros. 3, which is actually the fourth console installment in the Super Mario series.

More fours here.

10) Best Snow Games Ever

The English suffered a sprinkling of snow this week which, in the time-honored tradition of that country, brought everything to a standstill. Not though, the musings of The Guardian in London, which celebrated the eight best snow games ever, from Lords of Midnight through to Fallout 3.