New York skilfully demonstrates how not to launch a new soccer team

New York City FC was supposed to be a new chapter for soccer in the US, and New York in particular—a powerhouse new Major League Soccer club owned by Manchester City and the New York Yankees that could give soccer in the US that glamour it’s been missing. Since it was announced last year, expectations have been raised further by NYCFC signing up Chelsea legend Frank Lampard and Spanish striker David Villa to help lead the new team.

Since August, Lampard has been playing for Manchester City, supposedly on loan from his new club (we’ll get to that in a minute) through Dec. 31, and then he would begin a pre-season in the Big Apple. On New Year’s Eve, though, NYCFC fans got deeply unwelcome news—Lampard will now extend his time at Man City to the end of the English season, meaning he will miss half of the debut season of his new club.

Where’s your Lampard?

Where’s your Lampard?

Where’s your Lampard, NYC?

Never got one, never had one!

You’re a joke, ManCity-B!!!
#NYCFC

— FCDrunk (@FCDrunk) December 31, 2014

Just how angry are New York soccer fans? Very angry. 

Especially the 11,000 who already have signed up to be NYCFC debut-season ticket holders at Yankee Stadium. When NYCFC wished its Facebook fans a happy new year, almost all the replies concerned the lack of Lampard. Patrick Fin wrote: “Who do I speak with regarding a refund on 3 season tickets? Fraud in Factum.” Another commented: “Lol NYCFC you guys lost probably more than 50% of your fans now that lampard resigned.”

Sports Illustrated’s Grant Wahl said that NYCFC “might as well buy signs around Gotham showing Lampard, Man City chief executive Ferran Soriano and Man City owner Sheikh Mansour flipping the bird to New Yorkers.”

https://twitter.com/GrantWahl/status/550405603634712576

The Third Rail, the 1,500-member NYCFC independent supporters group—exactly the kind of people you need to grow a sports team that doesn’t yet exist—quickly denounced the move and said many fans were showing up for Lampard. “We support any course of action they take to voice their discontent over this decision,” it added.

The backlash will include a lot of lost revenue—some shops already are offering refunds for replica Lampard kits sold—and a lot of lost goodwill from nascent American soccer fans. It also will add to the feeling that the biggest foreign stars in the MLS would still rather be somewhere else. Essentially, the team’s owners are saying Lampard, at the age of 36, has turned out to be too good to be sent to the US.

In another bizarre twist, while Man City said at the time that Lampard’s move was a loan from NYCFC, it turns out that Lampard signed a short-term deal directly with Man City. (The original announcement on Man City’s website of the “loan” has been removed.)

So despite being marketed as such, Lampard never was a NYCFC player. And now NYCFC doesn’t even know when he will start playing for them.

Suddenly and swiftly, New York soccer fans have just learnt what it feels like to be at bottom of the food chain.

New York skilfully demonstrates how not to launch a new soccer team

Millennial investors take big risks, but it’s older folks who see the biggest gains

No risk, no reward—at least, that’s how the saying goes. Though millennials have larger appetites for risky bets, a recent report finds that their returns pale to the more conservative portfolios of older investors.

New York City-based Openfolio, which offers a platform for users to share details of their investments without revealing actual dollar amounts, analyzed the one-year performance of 2,500 portfolios spread across four age brackets. Millennial investors, those younger than 25 years old, on average saw a 2.2% return in the 12 months ended Dec. 17. In contrast, older investors gained 6.9% on average, including an 8.6% pop for baby boomers, the oldest age bracket in the sample.

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The reason for this discrepancy lies largely in the distribution of assets, according to David Ma, who heads business development at Openfolio. Millennials primarily invest in single stocks, comprising 61% of their portfolios, instead of funds and ETFs, which offer the benefit of diversification. For investors over 25, the distribution is 49% stocks and 51% funds and ETFs.

Younger investors, who Ma notes are more wary of traditional financial institutions, also have been more bullish on bitcoin, which made up 3.3% of their portfolios, compared with 0.2% for older people.

“Three percent of your portfolio directionally is not huge,” Ma tells Quartz. “But if you look at it speculatively—because bitcoin is very volatile—to have three cents of every dollar in bitcoin is not insubstantial in terms of an average.”

As it turns out, older folks had good reason to be cautious. Considered one of the worst investments of 2014, the virtual currency lost more than half its value this year.

Millennial investors take big risks, but it’s older folks who see the biggest gains

You’ll definitely break your New Year’s resolutions, but it doesn’t matter

I hate to be the one to tell you, but you know that New Year’s resolution you just made? You’re almost certainly going to break it.

We don’t like to think about failure. We desperately want to believe that this will be the year we stick to a diet, go to the gym every day, or quit smoking. Each year, we make resolutions with a renewed sense of hope, that this is the year that will be different, that failure is in our past.

But this just isn’t realistic. If changing your habits was easy, there would be no need to set resolutions. You’ll almost certainly slip up at some point, and that’s OK. If you accept this, then failures can be useful—rather than being discouraging: failure is something you can prepare for and learn from.

Why you’ll almost certainly break your New Year’s resolution

First, let’s talk briefly about why I’m so confident you won’t keep your resolution.

The numbers aren’t on your side. Research from the University of Scranton suggests that only 8% of people who make New Year’s resolutions actually achieve their goals. Think back to previous years—how many resolutions have you made that you’ve actually kept, long term? For most people, the answer is not many.

Your brain isn’t on your side, either. The things that we resolve to do—exercise more regularly, eat a healthier diet, save more money—are exactly the habits psychology tells us are most difficult to adopt. They’re the kinds of things we know we should do but struggle to motivate ourselves to actually do in the moment: I know I’ll feel better if I go for a run this morning, but it’s cold and rainy outside and my couch is just so comfortable. This paradoxical failure of will—“I know this is good for me but I don’t want to do it right now”—is what psychologists call akrasia.

Psychological research has found that akrasia occurs particularly when activities have a delayed benefit. You won’t notice the benefits of resisting that cigarette today—in fact you’ll probably be struggling with cravings—but over time, your lungs will thank you. It’s incredibly difficult for us to be motivated by delayed consequences precisely because they’re not there clearly in front of us (whereas those pies left over from Christmas are right in front of your nose…).

Setting resolutions at the beginning of the new year can help you to see the benefits of changing your behavior more clearly, and give you an extra boost of motivation. But that boost is unlikely to last, because everyday life gets in the way. One day soon you’ll be tired, hungry and craving cake and think “Screw you, January-1st-me—why did you think a gluten-free diet was a good idea again?!’

How failure can be useful

So far it might seem like all I’ve done is bring bad news. You’re going to fail, here’s why, life is hard, sorry. But there’s also a positive spin we can put on this. Accepting that you’ll likely slip up at some point doesn’t mean you’re a catastrophic failure. In fact, these small slip-ups can be useful in a number of ways:

1. Failures provide feedback

Failures provide valuable feedback. When we fail, we learn more about what we need to achieve our goals, and the things that stand in our way. Suppose, for example, your resolution is to stop eating sugary snacks. It’s going really well, until one day you go to a friend’s house for tea and she’s already got a delicious-looking slice of chocolate cake laid out specially for you when you arrive. Unsurprisingly, you can’t resist.

You could spend the rest of the day feeling badly, or instead, you could ask yourself “What can I learn from this, and how can I prevent this from happening again in future?” You might realize that it’s much harder for you to resist a treat when it’s put right in front of you, and kindly ask all your friends to serve you crudité in future.

2. People who anticipate failure are more likely to reach their goals

Research in the psychology of motivation actually finds that the ability to anticipate failures is crucial to eventual success. Whilst a certain amount of positive thinking can help provide motivation, too much positivity can blind you to the obstacles you’ll face.

Gabriele Oettingen, a psychology professor at New York University, suggests using a technique known as mental constrasting: first focus on your goal and why you want to attain it, and then turn to think about the obstacles standing between you and that goal. In recent studies on healthy eating and exercise, Oettingen and colleagues found that people who performed a planning exercise designed to identify and overcome possible failures were twice as likely to stick with their goals as those who did no such exercise.

Julia Galef, president of the Center for Applied Rationality, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that runs workshops to help people better achieve their goals, suggests using a similar technique called “pre-hindsight” to identify and avoid possible failures. When you make a resolution, imagine yourself in six months time having failed to meet your goal. First, ask yourself: How surprised would I be in this situation? The less surprising it is, the more likely you are to break your resolution. Next, ask: What might be the reasons for my failure? Having identified these possible failures, you can make plans to prevent them from occurring. Ideally you then iterate this process until your answer to the question “How surprised would I be if I failed?” is “incredibly surprised,” because you’ve prepared for the biggest obstacles in your way.

3. Anticipating failure makes it less devastating

If you’re expecting to keep to your resolution perfectly, and you inevitably do slip up, that small failure can feel pretty devastating. This can lead to reduced self-efficacy—the feeling that you can’t really achieve your goals—which in turn decreases your motivation. It can also lead to what’s known as the “what-the-hell effect”: “Oops, I didn’t mean to eat that piece of chocolate cake—there goes my diet! What the hell, now I might as well eat the rest of the cake.”

Being realistic about failure makes it much easier to pick yourself up and carry on. Yes, you ate that one piece of cake—but you knew this diet was going to be hard, and one brief moment of weakness doesn’t mean throwing everything away.

4. Failures provide an opportunity to reassess the value of your goals

Finally, failure gives you the chance to step back from your goal for a second and reflect on whether it is still important to you. As well as asking, “Why did I fail, and how can I prevent it from happening again?” sometimes it can be helpful to ask yourself, “Why did I want to achieve this goal, again?”

Reflecting back on why you really care about this goal can be helpful in one of two ways: Reminding yourself why a goal is important can help renew your sense of motivation. But sometimes our goals change, and the reason we’ve failed is that we don’t really care about the goal anymore. Sometimes we realize that our goal isn’t benefitting us as much as we thought, or it means making more sacrifices than we realized. Being able to identify this, and stop the pursuit of a goal that isn’t worth it, can be as useful as reaching a desired goal.

In all likelihood, you’re going to fail at keeping your New Year’s resolution. I am too. And that’s ok—if you ever try to do anything hard, you’ll inevitably have moments of struggle. The important thing is how you react to those failures—seeing them as an opportunity to get feedback, learn, and make a better plan in future.

You can follow Jess on Twitter at @jesswhittles. We welcome your comments at ideas@qz.com.

You’ll definitely break your New Year’s resolutions, but it doesn’t matter

Here is what world leaders would look like if they were hipsters

What if Mahatma Gandhi was fond of tie-dye shirts or if Nelson Mandela wore his hair like the Fresh Prince of Bel Air?

HIPSTORY, a series by designer Amit Shimoni, reimagines famous world leaders, from Gandhi to John F Kennedy, as if they were modern-day hipsters. That means branded beanies and flannel shirts in the unlikeliest of places (on Che Guevara) and a vision of Vladimir Lenin in biker get-up that you’ll find hard to unsee.

“I often find myself imagining a world where some of these leaders are less interested in influencing lives, and more focused on their own persona,” Shimoni said in an email. “Imagine Gandhi obsessing about his looks, and not about releasing India from the British rule? Or Abraham Lincoln searching for a hip bar, instead of abolishing slavery?”

Shimoni insists his work is not aimed at criticising hipster culture and instead is simply intended at changing perspectives so we see things from a different light. But his very approach to the HIPSTORY series suggests something of a questioning stance.

“In our time and culture, the ‘big’ ideologies are lost ‒ we have grown tired, or perhaps too smart, to follow big systems of absolute ideas and beliefs,” he wrote, by way of explaining the series of illustrations. “But have we lost something in this process? With nothing to hold on to, we are becoming global beings ‒ focused more on our individual selves and less on society and ideology.”

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Gandhi with a pair of John Lennon glasses.

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Coiffed JFK.

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Che Guevara rocking the branded beanie.

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Biker Vladimir Lenin

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Winston Churchill embraces the French look.

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Abraham Lincoln looking fresh.

 

This post first appeared on Scroll.in. 

This article is a part of Quartz India. For more, follow this link.

Here is what world leaders would look like if they were hipsters

The psychology behind New Year’s resolutions that actually stick

According to a Marist Poll, 44% of us will make a resolution for 2015. Like previous years, we will once again resolve to lose weight, get organized, save more money, and enjoy life to the fullest.

For real, this time.

But have you ever wondered why new year’s resolutions fail despite your best intentions?

The pattern is dismally familiar. You promise yourself that “I am going to lose weight next year.” You eat nutritiously for a few days and start going to the gym. Then, in a moment of weakness, you binge on leftover cake and chocolate-chip cookies, feel bad about your lack of willpower, slip back into old habits and give up.

Now, thanks to advances in brain science and behavioral research on motivation and habits, experts understand these frustrating patterns of our behavior better than ever before. By putting their insights to work, you can build more willpower and achieve more of your goals over time.

So what does science tell us about goals, motivation and how to stay on track?

First, writing down your goals is critical if you want to accomplish them. Then comes the harder parts:

Tip #1: Connect your goals to something personally meaningful to you.

You are more likely to stay on track with goals when they’re important, interesting or enjoyable for you. This happens when you connect your goals to your deepest values and aspirations.

Why is it really important for you to lose weight? Is it because it improves your feelings of self-worth and gives you energy to do other things; or is it because it allows you to be more active and makes you feel more attractive? Whatever it is, connecting your goals to these personal and emotional benefits are important in achieving them.

Tip #2: Break your goals into smaller milestones

Longer-term goals are never achieved in one go. You need to break longer term goals into smaller tasks or milestones. Accomplishing these milestones will give you a clear sense of progress, let you celebrate small wins and keep you motivated.

Tip #3: Make your milestones immediate and specific

Remember the motivation you have just before a deadline? Milestones should aim to create a similar sense of urgency in you by making them as immediate and specific as possible. Getting started is one of the hardest things in accomplishing a goal. Therefore, the most important task to make immediate is the first. “Lose on pound this week” is good but “Consume 2,000 calories or less today” may be even better.

Goal example: “Lose 15 pounds by June”

Milestone example: “Lose one pound this week”

Tip #4: Let others know about your specific goals

Letting your friends, family or co-workers know about your goals make it more likely that you will succeed. Research shows that this works only when your goals are verifiable. “Write more” is vague but “Write 500 words every week” is verifiable. No one likes to be seen as weak-willed so committing to goals in front of others increases your motivation to achieve them.

Tip #5: Make a “Fresh Start” in case of setbacks

Wharton business school professor Katherine Milkman and her colleagues have done research on the role timing of resolutions plays in building up motivation and overcoming inertia. They have labeled it the “fresh start effect.”

In an interview with Strategy + Business, Milkman says:

“at the beginning of a new week, the start of a new month, following a birthday, or after a holiday from work, people redouble their efforts to achieve their goals.

Why? Because … we’re always striving to be better. And when we can wipe out all those failures and look at a clean slate, it makes us feel more capable and drives us forward.”

According to the University of Scranton Journal of Clinical Psychology, people who explicitly make resolutions are 10 times more likely to attain their goals than people who don’t explicitly make them.

So go ahead. Make a fresh start and commit to a new year resolution. Make allowances in your mind that failure and setbacks can occur but that you can always start over—and resolve to succeed.

You can follow Fawad on Twitter @FZakariya. We welcome your comments at ideas@qz.com.

The psychology behind New Year’s resolutions that actually stick

Himax Pure III borrows ideas from Xiaomi and Oppo (REVIEW)

Indonesia’s gadget market is very hot. It’s not only foreign smartphone manufacturers making their mark in the country; local phone brands are also turning up their “A” game in the face of serious competition. One of them is Himax.

Himax is gaining strong traction in its native Indonesia because it’s emulating Xiaomi’s tactics – making good quality products at prices that a bit lower than you might expect. And it’s also using Xiaomi-style online flash sales.

A couple of months ago, we reviewed one of Himax’s most popular smartphones, the Polymer (see the review here). The phone looks to be the closest rival to the Xiaomi Redmi Note, with almost identical specifications and price. And now we’ve got our hands on another Himax phone. Meet the Pure III. At a glance, it looks similar to an Oppo N1 Mini. Both phones have a 200-degree rotating camera. But that’s where the resemblance ends, as the Himax Pure III is sold at Rp 2.4 million (US$195), less than half the price of the Oppo N1 Mini at Rp 5 million (US$407).

The Himax Pure III has a 1.7GHz octa-core MediaTek processor complemented by 1GB RAM, Mali-450 GPU, 4.7-inch 720p screen, and a 13MP rotating camera. The phone uses the company’s Amigo OS (version 4) running on top of Android 4.2 Jelly Bean.

Design and hardware

The Pure III’s body feels sturdy and premium thanks to its polycarbonate body. The company emphasizes that the material originates from a Finnish company called Perlos. When getting my hands on the Pure III for the first time, I thought it was one of Himax’s pricier models, but it turns out the phone is aimed at mid-level consumers.

The polycarbonate unibody looks elegant and premium. You won’t feel any plastic rubbing or moving when you put pressure on it. Its bezel is not too big nor small.

The phone’s dimensions feel good in my hand – although I have a bigger-than-average hands. Weighing in at 149 grams and 8.6mm thick, the Pure III doesn’t feel too heavy for a 4.7-inch-screened phone.

You’ll find speakers on the front and back side of the rotating camera module – which is different than Oppo’s speakerless rotating camera – as well as a flashlight and the camera itself. Pure III can detect which side is looking at the front and will automatically adjust the speaker function between loudspeaker and phone speaker. You won’t need to worry about answering a call when the camera is facing frontward after taking selfies.

Along the bottom of the front side, you will find three soft keys: menu on the left, home in the center, and back on the right. Unfortunately, these soft keys will only light up after you press them, which is different than the Redmi Note’s soft keys that light up whenever the screen is on. You will find the power/wake/standby button and volume buttons on the phone’s right edge. As for the headphone jack and battery port, Himax puts them on the phone’s bottom edge. This placing is a bit awkward because when you’re charging, it can be difficult to connect to the adjacent headphone jack.

There’s a SIM slot on the phone’s left side. To open it, you must stick a needle or paperclip in it, and you will find two micro SIM slots on the tray. Unfortunately, Pure III doesn’t have any expandable storage slots for a MicroSD card, leaving you with just 16GB of internal memory.

Himax Pure III uses an octa-core MediaTek processor, which is roughly equal to a quad-core Qualcomm processor. Pure III can hold its own when used to play light games, but playing heavier games like Despicable Me: Minion Rush or Spider-Man Unlimited makes the phone lag a bit when a lot of things are happening on the screen. Batman Arkham performed very well without any significant lags.

See: Oppo R5 is one of the world’s thinnest smartphones, but makes compromises to stay slim (REVIEW)

Screen and sound

The Himax Pure III has a 294ppi (pixels per inch) screen. Though it’s only 720p HD, the phone can produce sharp-looking pictures, even when watching HD and 3D videos. Pure III has speakers at the top and back bottom side, which help produce stereo sound. However, the placement of the bottom speakers is a bit weird because your hand tends to cover up the back speakers when watching movies in landscape orientation.

When the smartphone is laid face down on a flat surface, the sound is amplified to produce audio at a higher volume. Sadly, the higher-pitched audio doesn’t sound very clear.

The screen’s sensitivity bugs me a bit. I constantly mistyped when using the touchscreen keyboard, and even the slightest touch from my palm can open an app; this issue happens for both the screen and soft keys. Even worse, the phone sometimes dials a call on its own while in my pocket. Because of this, I always have to make sure I lock the phone beforehand. As a person who rarely locks my phone manually, this gets aggravating. Most phones are smart enough to avoid these kinds of accidental inputs.

Pure III’s native keyboard is flat out annoying. I constantly double typed characters when using it. I tried solving this issue by installing third-party keyboard apps like Flexy, but I still constantly double typed things.

Software – outdated and stuck in the past

Himax Pure III runs Android 4.2 (yes, not 4.4) with a skin called Amigo OS. Not only is Himax’s online sales system and packaging very similar to Xiaomi’s, but its Android skin appears to be mimicking Xiaomi’s MIUI as well.

Amigo has the same feel as MIUI, which is influenced by iOS. So you won’t find an app drawer. Amigo has easily customizable themes, just like MIUI, but there are only four themes available, and you can’t find any more themes in the app store. This might change over the course of time, but don’t bank on it. Himax could create an app and theme ecosystem just like MIUI in the future. But for now, this limitation irks me more than it impresses.

To open task manager and switch between apps, you need to double tap the home button. The card-like display reminds me of the task manager used on iOS 7. Fortunately, Himax executes this concept quite well; I enjoy the animation and functions.

I was excited to experiment with Himax’s new Android skin, but that excitement went to dust when I learned that Amigo OS doesn’t have an update feature. This means that you will be stuck with that skin without any updates from Himax.

Without the ability to update its OS, you will be stuck on Android 4.2 OS with no hope of upgrading to Lollipop 5.0 – unless you root the phone and flash a new OS manually, which few people are going to do.

Another feature that looks similar to MIUI is its privacy and security app. With it, you can set the permissions for each app, like whether the app can use the phone’s location, send SMS and calls, or access your storage. So you will have full control of what each app can do on your phone.

See: Here comes Android One: Micromax Canvas A1 arrives to challenge Motorola and Xiaomi (REVIEW)

Camera

The camera is arguably Pure III’s most powerful weapon, and you won’t be disappointed with it. The camera can take sharp pictures even in dim lighting. A few camera adjustments are at your disposal, like photo size and HDR.

The camera’s autofocus works well and snapping is quite quick when hitting the shutter button. The colors on the camera’s default mode may not look quite accurate though, as it tends to favor deeper colors. When taking photos directly in front of the sun, some of the white still spills out to the foreground.

Thanks to its rotating camera, you won’t need to worry about taking selfies with an front inferior camera. To take a selfie, you just need to rotate the camera to the front and the Pure III will automatically open the camera app, ready to snap away.

Pure III’s camera also takes solid 1080p HD videos. Although the quality is decent, Himax doesn’t offer additional video features like iPhone’s slow motion or hyperlapse.

Here are some photos taken using the Himax Pure III:

Battery

The Himax Pure III delivers enough juice for my daily use. Even with above-average usage like actively using social media apps, chatting, and opening emails, I could still rely on Pure III for one full day.

But when playing a lot of games, the Pure III can only give me about six hours of battery. The same thing happens when I shoot a lot of photos and video.

Alternatives

In the same price range, the Himax Pure III is competing head to head with phones like the Xiaomi Redmi Note (2013), Motorola Moto G (2013), K-Touch Octa, and Huawei Honor 3C. Here is the comparison table for all five phones:

	Himax Pure III	Xiaomi Redmi Note (2013)	Motorola Moto G (2013)	K-Touch Octa	Huawei Honor 3C
Screen size	4.7 inch	5.5 inch	5 inch	5 inch	5 inch
Screen resolution	1280 x 720	1280 x 720	1280 x 720	1920 x 1080	1280 x 720
Rear camera	13MP (rotating camera)	13MP	8MP	13MP	8MP
Front camera	13MP (rotating camera)	5MP	2MP	5MP	5MP
Processor	1.7GHz MediaTek MT6592 (octa-core)	1.7GHz MediaTek MT6592 (octa-core)	1.2GHz Snapdragon 400 (quad-core)	1.7GHz MediaTek MT6592 (octa-core)	1.3GHz MediaTek MT6582 (quad-core)
RAM	1GB	2GB	1GB	2GB	2GB
GPU	Mali-450	Mali-450	Adreno 305	Mali-450	Mali-400
Battery	2200mAh	3100mAh	2070mAh	2000mAh	2300mAh
Android version	Android 4.2	Android 4.2	Android 4.4	Android 4.2	Android 4.2
Price in Indonesia	Rp 2,400,000	Rp 2,000,000	Rp 2,300,000	Rp 2,300,000	Rp 2,200,000

When looking purely at the specifications, the Pure III has the best camera than the other four phones. Xiaomi Redmi Note looks very appealing with its affordable pricing and strong performance. Bear in mind that the Moto G is the best bet in terms of timely Android updates.

K-Touch Octa has the sharpest screen out of the bunch. While Huawei Honor 3C may not look too appealing among its rivals on the table.

Conclusion

The Pure III is a decent smartphone with nice specifications and a solid camera. But the touchy touchscreen threw us off, and the non-upgradable software is a big disappointment. A smartphone is supposed to get updates – it’s not rocket science. We wouldn’t recommend this phone.

Pros & cons

Pros

• Sturdy and solid design


• Very good camera


• Good battery life

Cons

• OS can’t be updated


• The screen’s too sensitive


• Amigo OS has too few customization options

See: Inspired by Xiaomi, the budget Himax Polymer is ready to shake up the market (REVIEW)

This post Himax Pure III borrows ideas from Xiaomi and Oppo (REVIEW) appeared first on Tech in Asia.

Himax Pure III borrows ideas from Xiaomi and Oppo (REVIEW)

12 Asian indie games to look out for in 2015

Game development has come a long way. No longer just an arena for the big players, it is now accessible to small businesses and even individuals as app platforms and development engines and assets get more accessible.

The quality of games produced in Asia, be it for PC, mobile, or console, has also been rising. I’m cheered by the thought of never again seeing a badly rendered 3D sheep try to pick words out on a screen while jumping across platforms (this game is from Singapore, if you are wondering).

2015 is sprawling out before us and it’s going to see a ton of great games. Here are some you should take note of in the new year.

Tiny Guardians (Malaysia)

Developed by Kurechii studio, best known for its midcore strategy/management game King’s League: Odyssey, Tiny Guardians is a strategy adventure that plays like a modular tower defense game. You’ll be able to take control of cute little fighters and move them across the map to wherever they are needed. It’s reminiscent of Droidhang’s Pocket Heroes.

Age of Bayintnaung (Myanmar)

Age of Bayintnaung, from Yangon’s Total Gameplay Studio, is really something. While we haven’t been able to see gameplay screenshots, its concept art looks really solid. Age of Bayintnaung follows Burmese history and allows players to step into the shoes of the ancient Burmese king, Bayintnaung, in a Clash of Clans-esque strategy adventure.

Holy Potatoes! A Weapon Shop?! (Singapore)

What do you get when you combine sentient potatoes with blacksmithing? Holy Potatoes! A Weapon Shop?! is a weapon shop simulation game from Daylight Studios that will let players manage a team of blacksmiths – who are also potatoes – inspired by pop culture. Players can use these smiths to forge magical weapons which they can then sell to villages across the land. The ultimate goal here is to become the best blacksmith shop ever – and to do so using potatoes. (Disclosure: I am in a committed relationship with a co-founder of Daylight Studios.)

Masquerada: Songs and Shadows (Singapore)

Witching Hour Studios is well known for the vast world it has created for its Ravenmark series of games, and fans of the RPG genre will be excited to know that it’s now going a step further to develop Masquerada: Songs and Shadows. Meant for PC and consoles, Masquerada is an “isometric RPG in the veins of Neverwinter Nights and Baldur’s Gate,” with players being able to pause action to give commands.

It will also take a leaf from the MOBA genre, with an emphasis on timing and positioning. In all, Masquerada is expected to have about 12 to 15 hours of gameplay, with more details to be revealed at PAX East 2015. Sadly it has a 2016 release, but don’t let that dampen your enthusiasm for it.

Drift Rebels Japan (Thailand)

Remember Initial D? Now how about experiencing that just like Takumi did? Drift Rebels Japan from Hydraulic Games will be a racing game focusing on illegal drift racing in the Japanese mountains, with novel visual elements taking players from race to race. Right now, it’s being planned for just iOS and Android with both paid and free versions, and is still in very early development stage.

But if it’s successful at launch, Drift Rebels Japan may get ported to the PC platform and include more Eurobeat music. Hydraulic Games is being transparent with the development process and fans of the genre will be able to submit ideas for characters, stories, and even music.

Dusty Raging Fist (Singapore)

Those of you who enjoyed beat ‘em up Dusty Revenge from PD Design Studio will be pleased to know a prequel is coming. Dusty Raging Fist for the PC is set in a time before Dusty goes on his rampage and features three-player co-op.

While its official website has little in the way of details, I’m hoping that Dusty Raging Fist will play up the strength of the world it’s set in.

Straw Hat Samurai Duels (Singapore)

Straw Hat Samurai was a Singapore-made game that gave me tons of fun while growing up. In it, players would slice at incoming enemies with the cursor so they could progress through the game. Straw Hat Samurai Duels is a larger multiplayer version of the game, including player-versus-player combat, quests, and loot drops. It has been in open beta for a while now, and developer Explosive Barrel will launch its final build for the web first, before doing so for Android and iOS. In the meantime, try the beta version out here.

Pale Blue (Indonesia)

Pale Blue, a sidescrolling beat ‘em up from Tinker Games, is an ambitious project – not just because it tackles subject matter like putting players in the shoes of a willing villain as opposed to a hero, but also because it’s the first core PC game that the development studio will be working on.

Tinker Games’ last release was a casual running game for iOS, but Pale Blue looks really good and even smashed its crowdfunding target by a cool US$10,000.

Project Echo (Singapore, working title)

Remember Lurking, the award-winning game from a group of Digipen Singapore students? While the Lurking IP belongs to the school, the genius that came up with it does not, and the group – now Gattai Games – is hard at work on a spiritual successor called Project Echo. The first-person horror game will employ Lurking’s infamous sound-based concept, and explore concepts the team did not get to do while in school. It’s still in early development, but that gif already looks pretty heart-stopping.

Battle Spheres (Singapore)

Battle Spheres from Ixora Studios looks like it’s most definitely a clone of Mixi’s Monster Strike, but don’t let that stop you from trying it out when it launches. The slingshot card-battle game, which involves players destroying each others’ characters by knocking into them, still isn’t available outside of Japan. Hopefully Battle Spheres will at least be as entertaining as its direct inspiration is.

Zero Legend (Indonesia, working title)

Now Alkemis Games is a very recent entrant in the industry, but it undoubtedly has some of the best art I’ve seen come out of an Indonesian indie game studio. It recently received an undisclosed round of seed funding from East Ventures to work on the project code-named Zero Legend, a free-to-play mobile fantasy RPG. (Disclosure: East Ventures also invests in Tech in Asia. See our ethics page).

Zero Legend will revolve around collecting and growing over 100 characters and taking them dungeon diving. There will a focus on in-game communities and events as well, allowing players to take part in quests and tournaments with friends. It’s set for release as early as spring 2015.

That War Game (Singapore, working title)

Springloaded Games was pretty secretive in the last half of 2014, and it’s for a good reason. The indie studio is planning a slew of game releases this year, one of its most notable being a quirky pixel-art game set in the past of the same universe as Springloaded’s humorous Tiny Dice Dungeon. This as-yet unnamed project will be a combination of management and multiplayer battles, and will give hints as to how the Tiny Dice Dungeon world regressed to what it is today.

Bonus: Pokemon Asia Cup

Asia finally has an official Pokemon tournament, where winners will be able to earn points to compete in the international Pokemon World Championships. Starting with country qualifiers in early January (actually, as early as this weekend for Singapore), the Pokemon Asia Cup will have two more regional stages before sending players into a grand final against Japan and Korea. This is the first official Pokemon tournament in Asia, and is the brainchild of the long-time competitive Pokemon player and community leader Ng Soon Aik.

This post 12 Asian indie games to look out for in 2015 appeared first on Tech in Asia.

12 Asian indie games to look out for in 2015