musings

As of this afternoon, Toronto independent game developer SilverBirch Studios is no more. Two and a half years ago, my company, Electron Jump Games entered into a buyout agreement with SilverBirch. All seemed well ’til this past September when the proverbial crap hit the fan. Rapid overexpansion (read: buying companies without any money to pay for them) finally bit us in the ass. We’ve spent every day since in agonizing limbo, not knowing if we’d survive. A last minute buyout collapsed today and the studio’s creditor finally pulled the plug. I’ve got mixed feelings about this – it was really nice knowing I has a steady paycheck, but the past three months of Hell really took a toll on all of us, so it’s a relief to know. On the up side, SilverBirch defaulted on its commitment to Electron Jump, so all our tech is still ours, and many of the people involved are interested in trying to keep the staff of the studio together. Anyone interested in investing in a skilled and experienced team?

I went out on Boxing Day to take advantage of the excess inventory fire-sale prices and realized that I no longer knew all of the movies I owned, so I wound up not buying stuff in case I already had it and realized I’d acquired enough media that it was impossible to keep it all in my head. So I bought Delicious Library 2, because it will scan UPC symbols using the built-in webcam on my MacBook and download all the important info about what I’ve just scanned – covers, metadata, even current value. I’ve been slowly but surely cataloguing my media, starting with movies and games. I’ve managed to get all of my PS2, Xbox, Xbox 360 and PS3 games catalogued, as well as all my Blu-Ray discs and most of my DVDs. A really neat feature of DL2 is the ability to publish the collection to the web – you can see my in-progress catalogue at the library link in the sidebar. If you’ve got a Mac, I highly recommend Delicious Library 2 – it’s fast and easy and has a million useful features.

I still have to add my PS1, Saturn, Dreamcast, GBA, PSP and NDS games, and the rest of my DVDs. And then the monumental task of my CDs and books. Even with DL2, it’s a daunting task.

That’s it. Just “Happy New Year!”.