Slashdot Mirror

• World of Warcraft generates almost $2.15 billion in revenue per year.
• Venezuela's nominal GDP was $333.7 billion in 2016 at the official exchange rate. But the official exchange rate is about 4.2x higher than the black market rate. So at the black market exchange rate this works out to a nominal GDP of $79 billion per year.

If you look at it per capita:

• According to the previous link, WoW has about 9.5 million players. For a per capita revenue of $226 per person per year.
• Venezuela's population is 31.6 million. For a per capita nominal real GDP of $2500 per person per year.

Kinda staggering if you consider that Venezuelans live there 24/7, or 168 hours/week. Meanwhile the average WoW player plays 22.7 hours/week. So normalizing for amount of time spent in the "realm":

• WoW per capita revenue per hour of play = 19.1 cents.
• Venezula per capita GDP per hour = 28.6 cents.

So while the units are pretty meaningless, the actual value of time spent in the game/country turn out not very different.

We've almost reached the limits of physics and there's basically no viable competition because modern technologies require capex in an order of billions of dollars. What's there to marvel at or be happy about when, for instance, we've had a stagnation in the x86 CPU market since the introduction of Sandy Bridge (don't remind me of Ryzen: AMD has just reached IPC parity with two years old Intel CPUs)? Also GPUs don't grow as fast as they used to in the past, and even then in the past GPUs required passive cooling while certain modern GPUs have three slots cooling solutions with over 200 watts of power dissipation and have billions of transistors (NVIDIA Pascal Titan X has 12 billion transistors working at roughly 1500MHz).

However in my opinion it's astonishing what we've reached so far: certain modern computer games are just breathtakingly beautiful while not being too far off from being photo realistic: Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Battlefield 1, The Division, Quantum Break and others. Recently, I just gave up on playing in The Division for two hours and just roamed NYC and enjoyed the scenery.

Just look at this and compare to this.

Forget about sharing gaming videos.

What really matters is which one is better for sharing video of your drunk naked wife.

don't forget Stefan Eriksson

Oops, I seem to have messed up the link to the map. Here's a link to the FFXIII map.

* I apologize that this websites formatting squishes all my writing together and does not allow paragraphing.* I'd like to call everyones attention to this article: http://www.gamerevolution.com/features/violence_and_videogames In the article, the author explains that the current time we live in, the early years of this century and now, has seen a DECREASE in violence among youth, in fact there was a sharp rise in violence after the release of the NES, and a decrease in violence after the release of the Playstation, which was home to misinformed mothers' favorite scapegoat, Grand Theft Auto. So if we take violence in correlation with video games, what we need to do is get Mario off our children's game consoles. In 1985 violence among people aged 18-24 years began to rise significantly. What happened in 1985? - May 15 – An explosive device sent by the Unabomber injures John Hauser at UC Berkeley.July 10 - The Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior is bombed and sunk in Auckland harbour by French DGSE agents. in 1991 violence among people aged 18-24 was at it's highest. What happened in 1991? - Video games in their current form -DO NOT EXIST- - March 3 – An amateur video captures the beating of motorist Rodney King by Los Angeles, California police officers. - Jully 22 – Jeffrey Dahmer is arrested after the remains of 11 men and boys are found in his Milwaukee, Wisconsin, apartment. - August 17 – Strathfield Massacre: In Sydney, Australia, taxi driver Wade Frankum shoots 7 people and injures 6 others before turning the gun on himself. - August 23 – The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (or "Super Nintendo") is released in the United States. The most popular games on this console include various Mario titles. If we call Mario violent, we should keep children far away from Tom & Jerry! In 1994 violence among people aged 18-24 years began to decrease. What happened in 1994? *- December – The Playstation video game console was released. - January 14 – U.S. President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin sign the Kremlin Accords, which stop the preprogrammed aiming of nuclear missiles toward each country's targets. - September 19 – American troops stage a bloodless invasion of Haiti in order to restore the legitimate elected leader, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, to power. In 1997 violence among people aged 18-24 continued to decrease. What happened in 1997? !!!*** GRAND THEFT AUTO WAS RELEASED! -- 1994 theft of automobiles in California - 308,205 -- 1997 theft of automobiles in California - 228,722 -- 1998 theft of automobiles in California - 195,517 - A similar decrease in those numbers were seen in New York, Illinois, and Texas. Despite the name, the game also features gun violence. -- 1994 murder and aggravated assault in California - 3,703/191,548 -- 1997 murder and aggravated assault in California - 2,579/81,468 -- 1998 murder and aggravated assault in California - 2,171/68,782 - A similar decrease in those numbers were seen in New York, Illinois, and Texas. Documents as of 2009 shows that we are seeing continually decreasing numbers of violent crimes including murder and aggravated assault. The lowest we have seen since 1967! Now obviously, these numbers have gone up along with the population, the era of violent video games has caused us to break this correlation, and despite the increasing population, we are decreasing violence. (http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/cacrime.htm) These numbers explain how, if any correlation exists, video games actually cause our people to be LESS violent. Let's put a warning label on video games that says this: "PARENTS: Allowing your child to play video games may cause them to take out their aggression via the game instead of in the real world."

You are more than welcome to think what you want. Please explain this: Youth violence is at its lowest levels in a long time.

where's the evidence? Violent crime among teenagers in the USA has gone down consistently since the early 1990s http://www.gamerevolution.com/features/violence_and_videogames

If violent videogames are bad then where is the violence?

If there is a technologically viable reason...

...DON'T FUCK WITH BASEBALL.

I don't get it.

If there is a technologically viable reason...

...DON'T FUCK WITH BASEBALL.

Psychology studies of the effects of playing video games have found emotional responses and physical reactions associated with reinforced violent and anti-social attitudes. It is not clear, however, whether these markers are associated with increases in one's preferences for anti-social behaviors or whether virtual behaviors act to partially sate one's desire for actual antisocial behaviors. Violent or criminal behaviors in the virtual world and in the physical world could plausibly be either complements or substitutes. A finding of one versus the other would have diametrically opposing policy implications. I study the incidence of criminal activity as related to a proxy for increased gaming, the number of game stores, from a panel of US counties from 1994 to 2004. With fixed county and year effects, I can examine if changes relative increases in gaming in an area are associated with relative increases or decreases in criminal activity. For six of eight categories of crime, more game stores are associated with significant declines in crime rates. Proxies for other leisure activities, sports and movie viewing, do not have a similar effect. For confirmation, I also find that mortality rates, especially mortality rates stemming from injuries, also are negatively related to the number of game stores.

Video Games, Crime and Violence by Michael R. Ward, University of Texas at Arlington - Department of Economics

There is no epidemic of youth violence in America.

The whole concept is a lie manufactured, distributed and perpetuated by the media. Kids are not killing each other more frequently than they used to. In fact, it turns out the opposite is true.

CAUTION: Childen at Play - The Truth About Violent Youth and Video Games

Overall results of the study found that although violent video games appear to increase people's aggressive thoughts (which it would not be surprising that people are still thinking about what they were just playing), violent games do not appear to increase aggressive behavior.

This as true for both correlational and experimental studies. Also it was found that studies that employed less standardized measures of aggression produced higher effects than better standardized measures of aggression. In other words, better measures of aggression are associated with lower effects.

Researcher Finds Scant Evidence Linking Violent Games With Aggressive Behavior

"It's a natural behavior and it's surprising that the idea that children and adolescents learn aggression from the media is still relevant," says Richard Tremblay, a professor of pediatrics, psychiatry and psychology at the University of Montreal, who has spent more than two decades tracking 35,000 Canadian children (from age five months through their 20s) in search of the roots of physical aggression. "Clearly youth were violent before television appeared."

Taming Baby Rage: Why Are Some Kids So Angry?

The BBFC has accepted there is no proven link between anti-social behaviour and violent videogames - but said more research is required to conclusively rule any connection out.

No evidence connecting games and violence, says BBFC News

There's a nice summary here

http://www.gamerevolution.com/features/gizmondo_bizarro

"Stefan Eriksson and a man known only as "Trevor" were driving a limited-edition Ferrari Enzo down the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, California at a relaxing 165 mph. As luck would have it, they hit a bump in the road and flew into a concrete utility pole, ripping the car in two."

It later turned out (during the trial of Erikson) that the car was driving at 199mph when it crashed (because they'd been filming the speedo when it crashed - and the video was submitted as evidence).

The Bank of Scotland actually claimed ownership of the car after it was totalled - apparently Eriksson had ceased payments on the loan he'd got from them.

From wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan_Eriksson

Eriksson accepted a plea bargain for three years in jail and deportation. He pleaded guilty to two counts of embezzlement and one count of illegal gun possession. He avoided an auto theft charge. Eriksson was released from prison on January 21, 2008.

There were far more reasons as to why the Gizmondo failed......

http://www.gamerevolution.com/images/feature/gizmondo/flow_chart.gif

The biggest difference between the Gizmondo and the Pandora is that the latter is intended for home-brew only, and is certainly not aimed as a PSP killer. With that in mind, it's hard to see how the Pandora can fail, bring down a large electronics company, destroy a Ferrari Enzo, and lose millions of investors cash in quite the same way as the Gizmondo managed......

I recall a game from the late '80s entitled "If It Moves, Shoot It" from Broderbund... which, if you do a casual Google search you will also discover a much better list of The 50 Worst Video Game Names of All Time then the one in the original post. I'm just glad it made #2.

The game itself was entertaining, if you like vertical-scrolling games like Xevious.

"Recently, the offending rates for 14-17 year-olds reached the lowest levels ever recorded."

This is not a scientific study but see: http://www.gamerevolution.com/features/violence_and_videogames

If you look at the way gamers spend their free time they are often spending 30+% of their free time playing games. So among that group of people they would have to be 30% more violent in the rest of their life to make up for that gap. Which does not seem to be happening.

Gizmondo doesn't count, it was doomed to failure from the get go. I mean, come on, paying to develop a typing tutor for a handheld that lacks a keyboard?

Also check out the hilarious "Where are they now?"

http://www.gamerevolution.com/static/index.php?sec tion=feature&sub=gizmondo&page=gizmondo_part2

This is just genius. Can we say organized crime-backed money laundering schemes?

The best article on this subject, if only because of the absolutely spectacular flowchart attached to it, appeared on GameRevolution back in April. It kinda makes you consider tinfoil hats from a different perspective.

Is it just me, or have "Lazy Parents" taken a number-two spot behind "Jews" on the Big List Of Convenient Scapegoats For Blaming All The Ills Of The World On?

I'd leave the whole anti-semitism thing out of the discussion. There are more people worrying about anti-semitism than actual anti-semites.

It can't be that an entire generation (present company, of course, excluded, can't use ourselves as scapegoats) has suddenly forgotten how to raise children.

Who said they did? Violent crime has been on a steady trend down since a bit before the PlayStation 1 was released. Perhaps the reason for the falling crime rates is that parents on the whole have improved?

The problem is, they CANT prove that violent/graphic video games are harmful to minors, because they're not. According to this site, violent crime rates for children is at an all-time low.

-------

NOTE TO SELF: Don't wait until userids are near 1M to join a website after reading it for 7 years.

and studies were released proving that there is no link between videogames and violence...

http://www.gamerevolution.com/oldsite/articles/rev olution/revolution_controller1b.jpg

The nunchuck part is your analog stick and Z button / R buttons. The A and B buttons are the A and B buttons on the remote (the B is on the back) and the C arrows are the D-PAD just above the A button. You can't press them at the same time you pressed the A/B buttons but you couldn't do it on the original.

The only thing missing is the left part of the N64 controller but it wasn't used in most games.

The gPod was much cooler than the iGame. Heck, I'd pay for that thing and the last console I have paid for was a used Sony Playstation...

This reminds me so much of the Nintendo Power Glove! Awesome! http://www.gamerevolution.com/oldsite/articles/ran ts/powerglove.jpg

Yes, most of them are biased, but no more than any other reports on VGs.

http://www.gamerevolution.com/oldsite/articles/vio lence/violence.htm
http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=62 504
http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/games/halo2.ht ml

And some funnier ones
http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/games/wowworld .html
http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/games/wargames .html

Allow me to contribute one or two more links to your list here:
The Truth About Violent Videogames is one of the more informative articles on violence and videogames that I've read.

And of course, for offline reading, there is Everything Bad is Good for You.

http://www.gamerevolution.com/oldsite/articles/vio lence/violence.htm

What you should have offered as evidence would be something like stats comparing teenage violence in the 50s to today. However the stats show the opposite, more violence, so the evidence does not support your conclusion.

No, actually violence among adolescents has decreased significantly based on DoJ statistics. See the fisrt graph here which at least goes back to the early 70's. Haven't found anything going back to the 50's yet. Where do you get the idea teenage violence was lower in the 50's?

I don't agree that Violent Video games are breeding a generation of violent children.

This article, based on Department of Justice statistics on violent crime rates for adolescents seems to agree. In fact, based on that first graph, one could argue that video games are the greatest crime deterrent we have. But that would require intrepreting a correlation as showing cause and affect.

To be fair to Sony...

Everquest 2
World of Warcraft
Everquest 2
Lineage 2
Everquest 2
A Tale in the Desert
Another Lineage 2, just because I like the art style.
Everquest 2
Asheron's Call 2
Everquest 2
Everquest 2
Final Fantasy XI Online
Everquest 2
Ragnarok Online

These are hand-picked images from a quick google images search. Hopefully that balances both ways. I'll let you all be the judge of the aesthetic quality of EQ2.

You'll also note that the imagery has gotten much more stylized as the series has progressed into the desert of flames expansion. I suspect this has been a touchy subject within Sony, which is why they had the strong reaction they did to the criticism.

Here is the correct link for Starfox.

Personally, I wish that they didn't restrict themselves to consoles. There were a lot of Commodore, Amiga, and early PC games that had great endings.

Is THIS on your dvd?