OK, so I guess I should mention this... the official website for The Beatles: Rock Band, the site I busted my ass on all last summer, is up for a Webby for Best Games-Related site. We worked really really hard on this site -- my mantra throughout the process was "Yes, but will that (whatever detail was being discussed) win us a Webby?" I can say that yes, it's awfully nice to be nominated... but it would be even nicer to, y'know, win. I would love to be able to say I was Lead Developer on a Webby-Award Winning Website™. My resume would love it, too (not that I'm looking for a new job anytime soon).

We're really close right now -- we're down 28% to 27% to Game Informer magazine. If you'd like to vote for me/us/The Beatles, you can go to http://www.votefab.com/, which is a shortcut right to the page for voting for us. Warning: you'll have to register with the site, which I admit is kinda sucky.

So... yeah. Vote please? It would mean a hell of a lot to me to win this thing.

Hey, look!  http://www.thebeatlesrockband.com is now live!

Yes, there's not much there yet.  It's just a teaser site, and I hope it teases you into really really wanting to buy The Beatles: Rock Band (yes, that's the offiical title).  For a little more info, you can also read our press release.

I know I've been pretty quiet around here lately, and I've been mostly absent from social activities for which I'd have loved to have been not-absent. But I've had my head buried in work, and after four months of sometimes strenuous development, I'm proud to officially show off that thing which has sucked up most of my brainpower and sociability for so long: the brand new version of the official Rock Band website.

Overall, I've gotta say that I'm pretty proud of the site. I didn't do the visual design, so I can't take either credit or blame there (though I'll say that I like the overall look our designer came up with). What I did was — well, for lack of a better word, I'm the glue. One of our other developers built out the database components and the other did some of the back-end architecture-y stuff for some of the features which will get the most attention, but I'm the one who took everything, slammed it all together and built out all of the stuff needed to make all of these pieces talk to each other. And I'm the one who integrated all of that into the visual design and built all the stuff to let users actually do stuff on the site. My fingerprints are all over this thing.

Now that this thing's done, I've still got a whole lot of work ahead of me — plans to add way-cool new features to the site, plus some other top-secret stuff I can't even slyly hint at. But I'm hoping that now that the site launch is behind me, I can start thinking about having a social life again and having time to get back to doing some personal projects. Oh, and actually, y'know, spending more time with my family, who've had to put up with way, way too much of my absence over the last six weeks or so. rintrahroars has been an absolute saint about all the overtime I've had to put in, and I've tried to let her go out to social shindigs in my place when possible so's she could get some kid-free time. Soon, baby, we'll have some time together away from the kids, which will be simply fantastic!

Anyway, I hope to be able soon to get my head back out into the world instead of stuck inside this website-full-of-rock. It's going to take some readjustments on my part, I'm sure — always does when I've had an extended introverted period — so I hope all of my wonderful friends can help pull me out of it!

(Also, Terry and I (and, far too briefly, fraterrisus) got to attend the Offical Rock Band 2 Release Party at the Hard Rock Café in downtown Boston on Friday night. Easily the coolest corporate party I've ever been to — the Hard Rock was rented out to us exclusively that night, and the free drinks and food just kept on coming. Live-band karaoke, two Rock Band 2 setups on huge flat-screen TVs and 300 or so Harmonix and MTV employees and guests. Thanks ever so much to wiley_b and mittere for watching our li'l rockers so we could go!) 

Since it's now on Entertainment Weekly's website and the Rock Band 2 teaser site is now live, I think that means it's safe to point you guys at the long-awaited track list for RB2. 

(I had absolutely nothing to do with picking the songs, though I will say that several of my all-time favorite songs are represented in the list!)