Posts by Allen Cheung
The Indie Game Bubble
I've been meaning to write down my thoughts about the state of gaming and where we'll go as an industry for the next few years. As we're in the annual post-E3 lull, this is…
The Troublesome Portrayal of Women in Video Games
Video games are notorious for catering to teenage boys. Puzzlingly, it's an increasingly outdated focus, persisting mostly in the creative direction and subsequent marketing of games reflected in big-budget titles more than in general-appeal casual games. The recent…
The Big, Slow Company Stereotype
The playbook for “startup disruption” has remained the same for a while: the small startup moves faster than its much larger competitor, hustling out new features, products and markets at a much higher clip. Raw speed and iteration overcomes money…
The Risk of Failure
Silicon Valley is often derided as a place that non-ironically accepts and celebrates failure. For people who have not bought into this culture, it’s natural to make fun of the notion that people are failing their way to success,…
Developer Ageism and the Escape into Management
Is the software development industry ageist? For some industries, this is not an unreasonable proposition. Professional athletes peak in their late 20s[1]; professional gamers (e.g., e-sport atheletes) peak even earlier, in their early 20s. If you were to…
Misusing Apple Design as a Shortcut to Success
About a month ago, there was some discussion over this provocative Quora post on how design-lead products have not worked out as well as the industry has hoped. That is, despite design's elevated status the last few years,…
