New Project: Leet Media

There haven't been many updates on PokerRPG [http://pokerrpg.com], BC Wars [http://bcwars.com], or this blog for much of this month, but that is for two main reasons. The first of which is that I started a new project that I've been alluding to for the past month

First day in the office

The days of working out of my bedroom (at least during the daylight) appear to have come to an end. Yesterday I signed up for some shared office space in downtown Oklahoma City, and today is my first full day to work here. While this isn't a dedicated office space

Decision time: NoSQL

I've spent the entire weekend reading countless articles and Quora/Stack Overflow Q&A's about the vast array of so-called NoSQL databases that are now available. I've always been a MySQL guy myself, but I had never before looked into the other options available. Since I am working on a

Class of 2011

This post is somewhat belated since I've been so swamped with trying to get back on track after finals week last week. Graduation was this past weekend, which included commencement on Friday night (Robert Gates was the speaker and was accompanied by a fair share of secret service and "hidden"

Cover story for Price Magazine

I've done interviews for blogs, newspapers, radio shows, and television, but I've never been in a magazine. I'm now lucky enough to say that I've graced the cover of one in fact. While Price Magazine is no major publication, it still goes out to thousands of alumni of the Price

Interesting effects of FBI shutdown of PokerStars, Full Tilt, and Absolute

Unless you've been under a rock for the past 12 days, you've undoubtedly heard the news that sent shockwaves through the online poker world -- the shutdown of the three biggest poker sites [http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9MKGEDG0.htm] in the United States: PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and

PokerRPG hits 10 million hands milestone

It is pretty surreal to think back and realize that it has been almost 5 years since I first launched PokerRPG. The game has come a long way since then-now on its fifth version of the table system-but one thing has remained constant, the community. The vibrant community that has

Games are the ultimate art form

Far too often do I hear the words "games can never be art." It is a shame that people believe this because in my eyes games are the ultimate art form. Game creation challenges the artist to reach for every region of their brain. You don't simply go for the

State of Security

A week ago today, both BC Wars [http://bcwars.com] and PokerRPG [http://pokerrpg.com] fell prey to a security breach. Thanks to a quick response by the great moderators we have, I was alerted of this event and was able to quickly take care of the situation without much

Anti-Senioritis

It is currently 70 days until graduation at the University of Oklahoma, but that all-too-common "senioritis" has yet to set in. Being an entrepreneur while being an Entrepreneurship major doesn't really allow for such excuses to be lazy, and this is a good thing event hough it may seem like

Next Xbox to be called Xbox 3D

I know console gaming isn't really my field (who knows, it could be down the road), but that doesn't keep me from making my opinion known about topics in other areas of the gaming world. A lot of talk and speculation has been made about the next generation of consoles,

Renewed Web Experiment

Around 6 years ago I made a site called the World's Largest Petition [http://worldslargestpetition.com]. The idea was to get enough digital signatures to break the world record for, you guessed it, the world's largest petition. Without the social connections of today like Facebook and Twitter it didn't really

An examination of core values

I was recently reading an article for my Capstone class titled "Building your company's vision" by James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras, and it really got me thinking about the vision for GoldFire Studios. Collins and Porras highlight the fact that every successful company has at least 3 core

Follow me on Twitter

So I finally caved and made a Twitter account.  Actually, I should rephrase that.  I created one back during the initial hype around 2 years ago, but I never used it.  The other day a friend convinced me to try it out again, and the new Twitter is actually nice.

Delayed New Year's Resolutions for GFS

I know it is already twelve days into the new year, but it is never too late to lay out goals for the new year.  I figure if I lay out my goals to the world I will be more inclined to follow up and work towards them, so here

GoldFire Studios Nominated for Favorite Gaming Company

I just got word that GoldFire Studios got nominated for "Favorite Company" in BBGSite's Best Browser Games of the Year 2010, click here to vote for us [http://contest.bbgsite.com/gameprize/webapps/index.php?controller=prizeitem&id=10] ! In addition to the company getting nominated, both BC Wars and

How to make your first game (or website)

Probably the question I get asked most frequently is "how did you get started in this business" and "how can I learn to do the same thing" (in reference to making games and websites)? How did I learn to do this? To give a brief answer to the first question,

New Look and More for GFS

It has been a whopping 2.5 years since I last refreshed the look of the GoldFire Studios website (wow!).  I didn't actually realize it had been that long until I started typing this post and went back to check, so this new look should definitely be welcomed. You may

New Site - MGPoll

It has been over a year since I sold Apex Web Gaming, and I\'ve decided I miss being part of the \"top game sites\" area, so I\'ve made a new voting site, MGPoll.  This one is quite a bit different from AWG.  I tried to make a quality,

PokerRPG v5.0 Released

If you check this blog with any frequency (at least once per you), you probably will have noticed that I haven\'t updated in a while.  This isn\'t because the company has been inactive, but rather because I\'ve been so busy improving our current games and planning for

BC Wars Goes Gold

After a year and a half of development and a year of alpha/beta testing, BC Wars is now gold! Now all clams in the game are backed by real money and you will now be able to make withdrawals. This doesn\'t mean that development on the site will

Tentative BC Wars Gold Date

I am sure many of you are wondering how much longer beta testing is going to last with BC Wars. I\'ve had a date picked for a few weeks now that I\'ve been working to, and I think making that date public not only helps all of you

Updates from 2009 So Far

Yeah I know, I\'m bad at keeping a blog up-to-date.  2009 has been a busy year already, and I should have been posting about it, but I\'ve been far too busy and it just slipped my mind. Early in the year I sold Apex Gaming Ads.  A few

BC Wars Alpha Begins

This has been a long day in the making, and now alpha testing has finally started! In case you are unaware, during this stage of the game, the site is in its very early and very first public stage. This means the features aren\'t fully fleshed out yet and

BC Wars Update

Good news everyone!  I have finished all major features on the slate early, which means BC Wars will be going into public alpha mode around 12:00 am CST on Sunday, December 28th (if not a little earlier).  No more delays, thankfully!  Everything is looking good and I\'m excited