“Thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty quarters, this better be good.” – Milhouse van Houten
“Game over. Please deposit forty quarters.” – Waterworld Game
“What a rip!” – Milhouse van Houten
This week we’ve got four different links about the Tapped Out game. Three of them are about how damned annoying and greedy it is when it comes to squeezing you to keep putting in virtual quarters after a minute or two of gameplay. We’ve also got a couple of great pieces of fan made photography, the Bill Plympton opening from this Sunday’s episode of Zombie Simpsons, a boss Bart tattoo, two different respectable media outlets mocking the show for their Harlem Shake entry, a rather obscene car decal, and a truncated Wall Street Journal article that says the Simpsons are about to go Lego.
Enjoy.
House of Simpson family – Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week is this fan made drawing of the Simpson home. Reader Sam, who sent this in, described it as “lovingly detailed”, and that it is. The attention to detail is just wonderful, and you can buy prints. Thanks, Sam!
60/365 – Close up artsy picture of Lisa and Bleeding Gums figurines jamming under a starry sky. The musical notes in the air are a nice touch.
Be Who You Feel You Are – From a different photographer (assuming that’s not photoshop) comes this picture of Homer imagining himself with Herb’s hair and Flanders’ stomach. Damn well done.
Mega Homer – Fan made drawing of Homer as Mega Man riding Santa’s Little Helper as Rush. Cool.
Exclusive Sneak Preview: The Simpsons Go Noir – Sunday’s episode of Zombie Simpsons is getting a nicely stylish opening courtesy of Bill Plympton. You can watch it here on-line so you don’t have to watch in on TV. The future!
Matt Groening’s Artwork for Apple – Groening’s Life in Hell style brochure for Apple from 1989. (I’ve linked it before, but it makes the rounds every now and again, so why not link it when it does?) (via)
Dag 030 – A joke t-shirt with Homer sitting on a chair captioned “Perseverance” with the punchline “If something is hard it’s not worth doing”. The actual quote, of course, is “If something’s hard to do, then it’s not worth doing”, but it’s still a cool shirt.
Missed Opportunities: Freemium Subtlety – A less than enthusiastic report from the Tapped Out game:
When creating a freemium app game, where you need to encourage players to spend money, it’s important not to beat them over the head. The Simpsons Tapped Out doesn’t seem to get this, and constantly badgers the player to cough up some dough.
Poorly made micro-transactions are killing gaming. – More in that vein:
To speed this up, they include the use of “doughnuts” a form of premium currency in the game and the thing that irks me the most has to be the fact that they don’t even state a price before you buy it, the game pushes you to buy them through impulsive purchases because they know that people will buy them because the game takes so long for everything to even happen you’re forced to through pure impatience, this means less gameplay and more sitting around and waiting unless you choose to buy their premium currency, what’s the point in that? I’d rather you not let the game go free-to-play if you’re just going to cover that up through a horrible form of in game currency which we are forced to buy.
The future of gaming, micro-transactions – And why they do it:
Star Trek Online, Lord of Ultima, Dungeons and Dragons online and The simpsons What’s the common thread? You can play them but if you want to see the closing credits you’re going to need to peel off some green.
It’s become a very lucrative space with $25 million made by EA in the last quarter of 2012 just on their Simpsons mobile game alone.
[…]
Of course you don’t have to purchase the extra content but your experience will be diminished compared to those that do. EA’s Blake J. Jorgensen thinks that’s where the money is.
“The next and much bigger piece is micro transactions within games… we’re building into all of our games the ability to pay for things along the way, either to get to a higher level to buy a new character, to buy a truck, a gun, whatever… and consumers are enjoying and embracing that way of the business“
I’m not so sure consumers are “enjoying “micro-transactions as much as they’re just tolerating them at this point. The model can work if your upfront investment is minimal but the future may not be so certain if we’re still paying triple-A prices.
Indeed. And let’s not forget that EA’s SimCity release is going about as poorly as it is possible for something to go. (Also, nice WordPress theme.)
The Simpsons Tapped Out Android Hack | Unlimited Money & Doughnuts – Should ye be as frustrated as the above three, I present this without comment as I do not own an Android device on which to test it.
Lego Eyes Tie-Up With ‘The Simpsons’ – Speaking of merchandising money, this is behind one of Murdoch’s idiotic paywalls, so you can’t read the whole thing, but here’s the opening:
COPENHAGEN – Lego, looking to expand its string of partnerships with media franchises, is in talks with 20th Century Fox about making a toy set based on TV show The Simpsons, a spokesman said on Thursday.
A deal would pair the fast-growing Danish toy maker with what is believed to be the longest running scripted show in U.S. TV history. The Simpsons has a cult following and appeals to younger audiences as well as adults who have followed the show since they were children.
We’re getting ever closer to Simpsons the flame thrower.
Homer Simpson’s Poker Face – A nice little writeup of a small talk Simon gave to some students at Old Dominion last week.
Talk of the Town: These folks love animals! – A retired school teacher named Sue Simpson has dogs named Bart and Ralph. Ha!
100 More Simpsons Quotes, In Order Of Importance – Lotta good quotes here.
Quick Reviews: Oscar Nominated Shorts – Well, the Oscars are gone, but how about one more review:
Filled with visual gags and recognisable faces, Maggie Simpson in “The Longest Daycare” manages to impressively entertain audiences even whilst feeling no more original than an episode of The Simpsons. The choice to create the film from Maggie’s point of view with no dialogue is a respectable one, and the film’s plot is solid and witty enough to maintain laughter. The ending is surprising and you root for Maggie throughout, but this film ultimately falls flat and one can’t help but feel that a webisode is a more suitable format (legitimacy of web videos for this category aside) and one where the film would fit in with it’s peers much better.
Homer Simpson Bape Character – Just what it says.
“Die Bart Die” from the Tattoo Shooting Gallery – Awesomely grotesques tattoo of Bart with a knife through his head.
BOO-URNS – It’s another Simpsons Tumblr with lots of images and .gifs (and very little Zombie Simpsons). It’s maintained by this young lady:
When I was younger I could relate to it because my family was pretty similar. I was the (pardon my lack of modesty) smarty-pants little sister, my brother was more similar to Bart than anyone I had ever met, my mother was super-maternal and maybe a little traditional-housewifey. I can’t stress how different my Dad is from Homer, but you get the point.
I do. Well done.
Andy Wilson: Rich Moore: From The Simpsons to Wreck-It Ralph – Jebus, the Huffington Post sucks. This should’ve been an interview with Rich Moore, instead it’s mostly filler.
Homer Simpson: Trolling Jesus – I don’t think this really counts as trolling, it’s just a subtitled screen grab of Homer’s joke about Jesus needing better arch support. Still cracks me up every time.
Top 5 Best Beatle Album Covers – Includes the Simpsons parody of Sgt. Pepper’s.
My favorite TV shows, pt. 1: The Simpsons. – A fan of Zombie Simpsons writes:
The Simpsons will always have a special place in my heart. It is one of the most impressive shows on the air. It is in its 24th season with no end in sight. It isn’t quite as popular as it was during the first 10 or so seasons, but with its ability to poke fun at any current event without being quite as offensive as a show like South Park (love it, but it offends many), it is able to appeal to adults who want a bit more grown-up humor, as well as to their teenage kids. As such, it’s one of few shows that are still on the air that are viewed by the whole family together.
Obviously, I don’t agree, but that’s okay, everybody gets their own opinions. Here comes the funny part: the blog is titled “Zombie Love is Forever”. Oh, the irony.
Feeling Old? Ages of 90s T.V. Characters Today – They’ve got everything from Friends to Full House on here, and they’ve got the Simpsons at:
This doesn’t work so well, because the characters ages are constant, but as with Rugrats, I’ll act like everyone has aged in real time since season one. Bart: 33, Lisa: 31, Maggie: 24, Homer and Marge: 58-ish.
Seems about right.
21 & Over…In 10 Words – What better way to spread beer fueled mayhem?
Dallas…In 10 Words – That’s right, I shot JR.
The 2013 Sequester…In 10 Words – Looks like those clowns in Congress are at it again. What a bunch of clowns.
Fare thee well gym! – Quitting the gym with help from YouTube of Homer discovering what a gym is. I don’t know about the rest of you, but ever since that episode I mentally pronounce gym “gime” pretty much every time.
Introducing the blog to IE business school… – Well done:
Also check out my twitter @chizwozla
The word ‘chizwozla’ came from an episode of The Simpsons when I was 10 years old and making my first email account. Now that I have 5 email addresses, a twitter, a facebook page, (previously myspace and bebo and even more previously an Angelfire blog), a fantasy football team, 2 wordpress blogs, a flipboard account, a skype account, etc etc it has come in very handy in using one, common word that is never previously taken. I’ve never had to use Roboconnor123456 or similar because I was a visionary 10 year old…
The Simpsons – It’s a car decal on a gas tank cover of, I am not making this up, Maggie sucking Bart’s dick. The hell of it is, it looks like a real picture, as in that’s actually on the side of somebody’s car and they drive around with it like that in public. Huh.
‘The Simpsons’ voted Britain’s favourite TV family – This is about as meaningless as it’s possible for something to be, but it’s nice, I suppose:
The Simpsons have been voted Britain’s favourite TV family in a new survey from Channel 4.
Homer, Marge, Maggie, Bart and Lisa collected 45% of the vote, finishing above The Flintstones and The Royle Family.
So it’s come to this: The Simpsons do "The Harlem Shake" – The A.V. Club has it about right:
It seems like everybody short of the Vatican is sharing their take on the ubiquitous dance sensation that’s sweeping the nation. That now includes The Simpsons, who have entered into the fray with an exuberant clip that will undoubtedly age like a fine wine and not be something that everyone involved will be embarrassed by a week from now.
The Simpsons Attempt The Harlem Shake, Fail Miserably – The Mary Sue piles on as well:
I guess this means this whole thing is done now, right?
Heh, they wish they were relevant enough to make something uncool. Regardless, I’m confident something else will be along shortly.
SimpFail – And finally, I get to end the way I prefer, with someone who agrees with us:
Recently the Simpsons, my beloved and favorite show of all time, has been making me upset and disappointed. Since about season 10 the quality of the show has gone down. However within the last 5 seasons I will say it has really sunk quickly and I don’t know how much longer they can keep it up. Last Sunday’s episode featured an opening scene of the Simpsons doing the Harlem Shake, A fad that has really gone way overboard allowing people to go full retard for a minute.
Sadly, they’re not going to run out of hapless stabs at relevance anytime soon.
