Apologies to anyone waiting re: my speaking gig in Edinburgh – it's tomorrow but I can't make it in person because of the still-pending baby. I hope to be able to attend via Skype and say a few words about games and art, and am disappointed I can't be there. The event is called Sandbox, part of Fair at the Talbot Rice Gallery.

My Paternity Leave has begun, so nothing more from me until May. Enjoy the silence!

Just a quick note to say that I appear to have hurdled the final step of the bureaucracy required to complete my Doctorate… thus unlocking additional bureaucracy pertaining to storing my doctorate in the library system. It would be nice to feel some sense of achievement or triumph at becoming the first person to have a doctorate in the aesthetics of play but it is more akin to that frustrating boss that you finally take down hours after it ceased to be fun…

With a new baby approaching at the end of this month, I am about to go on Paternity leave. I will tie up the blogs when my leave begins, for now I am working hard on finishing up the script to Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms, and arranging the first voice recordings (more on this soon!). Here’s a few snippets to keep you going:

• I am giving a talk on games as art at a gallery in Edinburgh on Thursday 1st May. The details are not confirmed yet, I will promote it here once the ink has dried.
• Chaos Ethics is in production, and I expect to have galley proofs within a month – the PDF will then be available to reviewers, academics and bloggers.
• From May, I will be running the largest Game Design internship programme in the world (40 interns!) – sorry, there is no availability remaining for new applicants.
• My defection from Google Drive to Copy.com has been a success (see Defecting from Google Drive for the background and a referral link). I had to use their customer support the other day – they replied within 12 hours, two humans assisted me, the problem was solved within two days. Compare this to Google’s policy of ‘you can complain, but we won’t listen to you because we always know best’.
• My backlog of games now includes Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs and Dominique Pamplemousse in It's All Over Once The Fat Lady Sings!, both of which I’m looking forward to playing when I have time. If anyone has any time to give me, do let me know!

Something to say to me? Comments and blog-letters are always welcome!

Cross-posted from Only a Game.

Nicholas Lovell and I continue our debate about the future of games pricing in Shoes are not Shoes.

After Google Drive decided I could choose between having duplicates of all of my folders or deleting all of my files, I decided to defect. I plan to be free of Google for productivity software in three years, if I can.

My new choice for cloud storage is Copy.com, which starts with 15 GB (+5 GB if you sign up with a referral link). Two features I really like:

1. Backup Shortcuts: you can drop shortcuts/symbolic links into the folder to automatically arrange for the originals to be copied onto the cloud as a backup.
2. Human Service: you can email the support desk and eventually summon a human. This beats Google’s method of “compete to see if we care!” approach to support.

If you fancy trying Copy.com for yourself, here’s my referral link.