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An Interesting Look at the Video Game Industry
Bamafan77 writes "USATODAY has an interesting article in their Money section on the video game industry. The centerpiece of the story is an overview of DigiPen, the only accredited video game university, but it also describes aspects of the video game industry in general including the explosive growth of the industry (e.g. Barnes and Nobles would've reported a loss without their Gamestop subsidiary) and how many universities not only fail to prepare students for the game industry, but still don't take it seriously. However, I believe things are slightly better than the days when Trip Hawkins (EA's co-founder founder) Harvard professor told him to stop wasting time with games."
If I had moderator points I would troll this so up your eyes would pop out(sorry can't think of anything better to say)
... aren't made; they're born :)
It's pretty well known video games cause violence among kids.. I think there should be a restriction on selling games to kids until they have enough common sense to know wrong from right.
And who is going to detirmine this? You? I think not. It is impossible for any government institution to accurately say when every single child will be able to tell right from wrong. That, my friend, is up to the parents.
I still stand by the fact that video games do nothing to increase (serious) violence in anyone. If someone was going to snap they would have done it with or without the video games. Worst case is that the game may have sent the person over the edge a couple days sooner than he would have normally.
But I could be wrong.
I majored in tetris! I also have degrees in Donkey Kong Theory and Token Economics!
Counter Strike anyone? ooops, sorry server full.
Heh.. they do it for movies, drinking, driving, smoking... why not games? I agree with you that videogames do not cause violence among normal people.. but children are still at a point in development where they are learning what is real and what is not.
All in all, I'd say that most universities turn out computer science students who know how to program applications. Word processors and the like. I doubt that many universities take video games seriously because they only came onto the scene in my lifetime. Give it another 10 years and we'll see where things are at then.
"Computer games don't affect kids. I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music."- Kristian Wilson, Nintendo Inc. 1989
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order- Ed Howdershelt Via Tass
I have been involved in exactly one firearm dispute in my life, before XBOX, before PS2, hell it was even before PacMan, but after pong.
I blame pong for all of the violence in the world.
However, I believe things are slightly better than the days when Trip Hawkins' (EA's co-founder founder) Harvard professor told him to stop wasting time with games."
Gamers have been begging Trip Hawkins to stop wasting time with games for years. I guess Hawkins' prof was just ahead of his time.
Yeah, when I tried to explain to them the reason I was flunking out was because of playing Final Fantasy, they decided to suspend me anyway!
I'm confused. I know what a founder co-founder is (one of the parents of the founder), but what is a co-founder founder? The original from which the co-founder was cloned?
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
"It's pretty well known video games cause violence among kids.."
It's also pretty well known that the Earth is flat, the moon landing was a hoax, and masterbation makes you blind. I agree that common sense should be divvied out, but I don't think you're channeling it in the right direction.
...outsold the motion-picture industry by a billion dollars last year, and movie studios and record labels wonder why they are losing money? Come on! I've always thought that it was an obvious fact that 'x' dollars only go so far, and if some kid chooses to spend his allowance or paycheck on a computer game, there's that much less money LEFT to spend on a CD or movie ticket. Don't forget, either, that even just last year video games weren't nearly so prevalent. There are a lot more choices out there for me to spend my money on, but (go figure) I don't seem to have any more money this year to spend... The times, they are a changin', and the dinosaurs will be left in the dust.
Yeah, I sound just like a million other people, but I imagine myself and all those other people will continue to say the same things until they no longer need to be said.
Everyone on slashdot has a journal.
what I've always wanted! Quake 101, Doom 3 basics, and of course, star craft essentials for living 2a! Best College credits ever!
Theonlyuse of monkeys is to testthings onthem.Some peoplemay say"Hey That'scruel!"and myresponse is"I don't like monkeys
DigiPen has a cool collection of downloadable games created by their students here... None of them open source though :P
Welley Corporation - SLM Scammers
Personally i found the games industry very enjoyable at first. Then, once the novelty of having the latest gaming hardware and software in the office (Rebellion where we worked on AvP) wore off, I realised what the (western) industry really is like.
It's a macho male dominated industry where predominantly male ideas such as 'cars and guns are cool' and 'hit your competitor (colleague) before he hits you' dominate. The executives sell products to children which are antisocial, addictive and are rarely educational.
The people who work in the industry can be genuinely nice, and it is interesting work - but I didn't see the point meself. My particular company seemed to prefer to pay its staff as little as it possibly could get away with and the whole process of having to threaten to leave to get a pay rise left me with a sore taste in my mouth. I left before AvP was realised and hence didn't get a penny (not that i'd have got any money anyhow), or my name on the credits of the game.
There's sooo many people who would love to go into game development, there isn't really a need to specifically train people. Those who want it the most, will learn. It's hard enough to find a game job right now as it is, If we were spewing forth graduates with a BS in GD (Game Design) then what would happen.
... it's more fun than business apps, is mildly morally rewarding, and doesn't require 60 hour weeks like I'm sure a lot of game shops gave.
But I'm happy making educational software
Better games (look and feel; gameplay-wise, etc) requires more and more resources over time.
Anyone remember PONG?
Compare it now to any games made today. PONG is s simple and requires less hardware capability.
Gaming industry is one of the driving forces that PUSH the technology development.
Why would one need the latest and greatest Graphic Card?
Mostly for games......
many universities not only fail to prepare students for the game industry, but still don't take it seriously.
Taking preparation for a video game design career seriously is like taking preparation for a rock musician career seriously. At best you can argue that it's an art that people can pursue out of interest. Claiming that universities in any way do their students a disservice by not offering it as a career-preparation stream is very silly.
In both industries, you have a very small number of people who can possibly make a living at it, because you just don't need that many providers in the mainstream market. This is even more true with video games than with music, as niche markets are few and local markets are nonexistant. Anyone who *isn't* one of the big players in either industry had better be doing it because they like it, and have a day job that they're trained for, because they'll have a hard time making a living.
Video game creation also doesn't require as much specialized training as music. It requires a _lot_ of training, but most of it is the same stuff you'd get doing a CS major or 3D or 2D art major or a drama/literature major (depending on the aspect of game design you're targetting). The usefulness of a specialized stream of study is questionable.
In short, I think the importance of "preparing people for the video game industry" is overstated.
getting assaulted by free candy and caffinated drinks when ALL YOU WANTED was to GET A FUCKING DRINK OF WATER AND GET BACK TO WORK!
I'm surprised game developers live past 40.
---------
Get back to me when my brain starts working.
Point taken.
Hey, this is the only paper in America that's not afraid to tell the truth, that everything is just fine."
Everything that was once directly lived has receded into a representation. -debord
Going to school and studing to be a game developer reminds me of the famous quote from Animal House.
"You can major in GameBoy if you know how to Bullshit".
NO! NO! Please don't mod me, I'm too young to die a troll. *click* Oh the pain, the pain...
Heh.. they do it for movies, drinking, driving, smoking... why not games? I agree with you that videogames do not cause violence among normal people.. but children are still at a point in development where they are learning what is real and what is not.
Well, driving, I almost agree with, while I don't think everyone is ready at 16 and some might even be ready at 10 to drive, some limit needs to be set somewhere for that and 16 seems to be pretty good. Drinking and smoking I don't think should have age limits on them. I think drinking should just be plain illegal and smoking should carry a much higher tax. Which leaves only one other thing which you mentioned: Movies.
The rating system (up until NC-17 and X ratings) are merely suggestions. I have no issue at all with putting ratings on games, in fact I think it is a very good idea. It gives parents the chance to make an informed decision (and do it quickly when the kid is screaming about how they want it.) ANYWAY, this is a bit offtopic for the article so I will stop now.
huh ??? what a joke ? let me tell you if you did not know .... there are a lot of games which are non violent and are very good.
there are a lot of games with puzzles to improve your thinking capabilities , imagination and what not?
games can be used as a teaching tool for kids. yes i agree that there are some games that can cause violence among kids .. and most of the games are rated accordingly . yes its definitely up to the parents to decide on what their kids are going to play but .... the games can be made in such a way that it would be very pleasant for the people playing it .
When did Digipen become an University? Is Digipen the only Game Design school? And is the Game Industry really in need for more programmers. Just becuase they make a lot of money, doesn't mean a lot of studio's are not closing currently.
mnewberg.com
I took a year long programming course, and the only "gaming" related material was to code a game of pacmac for the rest of the class to goof around with.
I'm thinking thats probably mostly from The Sims, and Grand Theft Auto 3.
Then I read the next line:
The current video game hit, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, sold more than 1.4 million copies at an average $48 apiece in its first three days. That $70 million windfall easily puts it in the ranks of a blockbuster movie.
Also, There was a 2 issue article in GamePro about "Take This Job and Love It!." Working in the video game industry. Heres a link to the lo-fi version, search for the pretty oneTake This Job and Love It.
Sadly the games industry is using less and less programmers, and more and more artists (so good for the artists at least). Look at major 3d games titles at the moment, and you have a small core team of developers (often as few as 10, normally more though) and, for the larger titles at least, 100+ 3d artists. With more and more games projects being based on generic engines and toolkits, and the serious lack of optimisation going into games (PC rather than consoles on that front) pretty soon there will be only a few of us left. Programming is also being outsourced from britain/us to places with cheaper, talented programmers in Italy and the like.
What I like the most about digipen is that you only take courses directly related to video game programming (or computer graphics design). None of this European History nonsense that I'm 99% sure I'm never going to use again.
Required Course List for a B.S. in Real Time Interactive Simulation
-dk
While games development is a great job for some, it is not for others. I like process, I admit it. I like to follow a methodology that promotes defined repeatable outcomes, that looks for ways to continuously improve the process, and thus the ability of the team to improve the quality of the outputs. When I interviewed at EA, they didn't need no stinkin' process. And I don't blame them: the product they produce is closer to a piece of art than a piece of software at times. Requirements management? Ha! How about ad-hoc requirements change up to the last minute? But that's the nature of doing something so creative... you need to change and tweak up to release. Should they teach this in Uni? No goddamn way. Why? Most software developers already are good at being creative: they take a requirement, a sentence on a piece of paper and translate it into source code that does something. How much more creative do you need? So teaching the finer points of game development, aside from the core stuff that is already taught in most CS degrees (graphics etc.), can be done as part of learning the job. Like an apprencticeship or co-op term. You learn the basic skills for any s/w development in school, then you refine and specify those skills in the real world.
"Content's a bitch."
I haven't been there for a while, but the University of British Columbia Computing Science department head in the early '90s (Maria Klawe) was interested in using computer games in education. Last I heard she was the University's Vice-President of Research (but she was still doing her own research too).
Just a wild guess, but I'd be inclined to bet that UBC takes computer games relatively seriously. Being in the home town of EA doesn't hurt much either.
(actually, EA is based in Burnaby -- a siamese suburb of Vancouver, and UBC is essentially it's own town at the other end of Vancouver, but that's picking nits).
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
With the porn industry with estimated $11 billion in annual sales (besting the video game industry by $1.6 billion), where's the Porn University?
I feel many universities not only fail to prepare students for the porn industry, but still don't take it seriously.
The University of Texas at Dallas has a new Art & Engineering program that just started up...They brought in two game designers John Romero and Tom Hall to teach a few classes on game programming. Theres a story on it in the college's own publication the UTD Mercury
"Some fight for law. Some fight for justice. What will you fight for? One day, you will see."
i could have sworn it was Microsoft DirectX, and that Quake 3 was run on Open GL
if you're going to flame, get it right
Here on the university of twente (yes, the one with the burned down building and the backup-yadda-yadda) I had a course in general 3d graphics and game principles allthough it was just an extra course you could opt in for, still, it was there and quite some fun, beside the part where you had to use java3d for an assignment.
I would argue that a University Education in Computer Science is intended to introduce the students to a broad range of topics in the field of computer science, not something as specific as game development.
To say that Universities should offer training for video game programming is ridiculous.
The intent of taking Computer Science at University is not to even learn how to program. A person takes courses that teach programming languages in their first year and then after that it's assumed that you can program, regardless of the language. A person is there to learn about the science of computers: stuff like algorithms and design at the early levels of a degree and more advanced topics such as graphics, AI, distributed computing, etc in later years.
I would say that game development would be an application of various topics in to one. Software Design, Graphics, AI, etc. So in reality I think that a course on game development wouldn't be useful anyway because it couldn't get in to enough detail on enough of the involved topics.
After leavign university a person should be able to take their knowledge and do with it what they want because they have a general knowledge of many topics. Whether they apply that knowledge to writing an operating system, word processor or the next version of Quake is up to them to decide.
This is just my view of what a university education should give someone. For all I know other areas of the world view a university education differently...
my two cents(cdn)
A new feature is just a bug waiting to happen. And vice versa.
not significantly more violent, but at least a little bit. Its a contributing factor, at least that's what i've learned in every psych class i've ever taken. There have been studies that prove this.
I subscribe to the John Carmack University of Game Design. Obviously, this is the best way to learn 3D engines and code optimization. Who cares what the other institutions are doing, anyways? The real competition comes from dropouts anyway.
many universities not only fail to prepare students for the game industry, but still don't take it seriously ...and the gaming industry has prospered nonetheless. Let's not fix what isn't broken.
I'm not sure how all universities are, but I think some are starting to take games and other media seriously.
The University of Calgary, where I am, has a concentration for games in the BSc comp-sci program. Probably the first university to do so, but it is refelcetive of a changing attitude in universities I think.
** Sig-a-licious **
please don't do what I did. Don't click the link...
magnanomous.
Please see CS248 . The final project of the class is to make a video game. I went to the showing last year, and the games kicked ass. There were people from the game industry that came to judge the final product, they recruited people pretty heavily if I recall correctly.
The main advantage of going away to college is being surrounded by challenging teachers and students at your level. DigiPen is a great opportunity if you know that is what you want to do. A larger place might offer more breadth in topics and people, if that is what you wan to do.
I've seen this quote alot and I've always wondered if its accurate and true.
Anyone knows?
Thanks
Similarly, Computer Science should not be taught as a course in game development. A student that is taught nothing but game development will fail miserably if they do anything else. And, in my experience, students of so-called video game schools know how to slap down code, but don't understand the workings of that code. You probably couldn't give them a original piece of code and have them understand it immediately.
However, a student who is taught the fundamentals of programming and the basis of computer science will be able to adapt to create games. He knows the foundation and will be able to apply it to a specific task. Furthermore, they will have the expertise to work outside of that field, should they not get a job as a game developer (a very real possibility).
A broad understanding of the fundamentals and foundations of Computer Science is better than learning a specific application. A good programmer will be able to adapt and could probably end up programming a better game than the one taught to just make video games.
I think that girl was actually dating goatse for a while.
What was your point again? You took that in about 600 different, conflicting directions.
DigiPen is not the only accreditted school instructing Game Development. There are several others including Full Sail in Orlando that are fully accredited with thier state organizations.
There is a list at the main page of the International Game Developers Association page listing all the schools instructing game design and development. www.igda.org
"However, I believe things are slightly better than the days when Trip Hawkins (EA's co-founder founder) Harvard professor told him to stop wasting time with games."
.. just the one in the dough
... is this hypocritical? NO.. to say so would be to assume that it's wrong to 'waste time'. Doing it too much is just as bad as doing any other thing to excess; doing it in moderation is healthy like many other things (but not all)
Ok..
-- better than what? You've given away your view as someone who thinks everyone should take gaming seriously. Everyone has the right to think games are worthwhile, or not.. oh what a dumb unenlightened harvard professor that guy must have been, huh? Just because there's a market for something doesn't make it 'worthwhile' or prove that Hawkins is the one in the right
-- I play Unreal with friends but I still consider it a waste of time
A computer without Microsoft is like ice cream without ketchup.
Incidently, anytime someone says "It's pretty well known," it's pretty well known that the following statement is going to be rife with half-truthful anecdotal misinformation.
Violent crime has steadily decreased (even in the USA) over the last several years, has it not?
Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
Just because a school is "accredited" does not mean it will be recognized as a full education.
I know people who have gone there, since I live near Redmond. The courses are extremely focused. True, it is a limited scope, but there still should be a broader approach. I.E. Why are only programmers and graphic artists being trained there? What about the directors and producers?
Also, let's say you spend 4 years there and go to work for a company which makes games. If you wanted to leave the field, you'd likely already be pigeonholed. If you get a broader CS or Comp Engineering degree, at least you have other openings.
Just something to think about, before jumping "willy nilly" into such a narrowly scoped environment.
"PC Load Letter? What the $@#% does that mean?!"
You do realize the irony of what you just said.. ;)
slashdot!=valid HTML
Damn you Video Games! Damn you to hell!
Like my mum used to say: "if you can't think of anything intelligent to say, shut the fuck up you miserable little puke!"
> It's pretty well known video games cause violence among kids.. I think there should be a restriction on selling games to kids until they have enough common sense to know wrong from right. Ok, this is another one of those "obvious" things like year round school helping test scores. The data simply isn't there. (And, in year round schools, the data says it hurts except in districts with a large number of ESL students). Anyhow, I (being a gamer) have been around large numbers of "kids", and from experience that this is _not_ the case.
What happens all to often is that people confuse _cause_ and _effect_. Just because violent people play violent video games does NOT mean that violent video games. People who have natural tendancies towards violence will naturally be drawn to violent, agressive games. However, in my experience, the _vast_ number of people who play violent video games are not violent themselves. I play some of the most gruesome games out there, yet I wrote a 6 page report instead of dissecting a frog. The sight of real blood pains me. I will risk being bitten by a farrel cat (and have been in the past), just to help it out. Clearly, people are paying attention to the exceptions, not the rule.
I'm male. Lots of males like sports. Does that mean I like sports? If someone likes sports, does it mean they're male? Judging by the WNBA's salary (they get paid so little, they must like the game), that is clearly not the case.
Contact Me (got tired of viruses emailing me).
And see that Hollywood isn't doing too good. There have been a lot movie-related companies (especially SFX) going out of business in the past two years. I think in 5 years the same thing will happen to the video games industry (ie - another early 1980's style Atari crash by overproduction is coming).
In the great CONS chain of life, you can either be the CAR or be in the CDR.
You are right in that the process of making games is more a series of changes than a plan. But it is the same thing whenever you are solving any hard problem - I find that any project that goes according to a predefined plan is really trivialy easy when you get down to what they are trying to do.
In the great CONS chain of life, you can either be the CAR or be in the CDR.
The article is comparing the Gaming industries total revenues with the box office sales of the movie industry. They're ignoring the huge video/dvd/rental/cable-deal/fast-food-promotions revenues that the movie industry makes.
That being said, I'm still impressed by the fact that the gaming industry exceeds box office revenues by $1 Billion.
Mmmm.. Donuts
That quote was actually from PCU, not Animal House.
"All art is quite useless." -- Oscar Wilde
Actually the thing I'm wondering is, would all the famous people in the gaming industry make it though Digipen's school, or would they flunk? Carmack for example.
This is, without a doubt, the best troll I've read in the past two months.
As a student at Digipen I can tell you that the school is not, in fact, accredited. I could be mistaken, but I was under the impression Full Sail wasn't accredited either.
gee, a few hundred years ago, civilization was pretty violent .. do you think genghis khan, eric the red, and charlemagne played videogames when they were young?
But I'm going to buy it this weekend, because I can't look at Aribeth without feeling such deep shame.
*sob* Now that's how you stop piracy.
After reading that article on digipen, I was quite horrified to read that there are no arts, music and so on. In life there are the foundation disciplines, such as logic, reading, music appreciation; upon these one later builds the skills of interaction and communication: public speaking, writing, programming, social skills and so on. To totally immerse yourself in the pursuit of communication at such a young age (18) is foolish. I really am in favor of a strong classical education in addition to a regimen of computer skills. I've found, at least as far as I'm concerned, that I have separate capacities for learning in different areas. If I do two hours of philosophy and two hours of coding (C++) I am not nearly as toasted as if I did two hours of C++ and two of discrete math. What often passes for "focus" lends little acceleration to one discipline while the rest rot. A well-rounded, well-adjusted person is going to be happier, easier to work with, and therefore more useful to the company on the whole.
But there is another kind of evil that we must fear most... and that is the indifference of good men.
Some of the best game developers I know aren't CS people, they have EE / ME degrees. (Hey Jess, you out there? Still at EA?) This is something I'd consider if I wanted to get into game development and was looking for a career path. Engineering is very focused on how to model the real world and real world physics and stresses, something pretty much what games do today. You're not going to learn much about automatic control systems in a CS program, and that is very relevant to advanced simulator design. American engineering schools aren't quite as rigorous (Canadian perspective here), but it's pretty much the same thing. I have an EE degree, so obviously I am biased.
Another benefit to having an engineering degree is it gives you great distinction from the packs of CS people. For better or for worse, this has been something that has benefited me in job searches, especially in this economy.
If you are an engineer in Canada, you are required to do much more complicated math than most CS undergraduates get into. At the core of all games is some very complicated mathematical modelling - I'd even argue someone with a pure math degree would be a better bet than someone from a more specific program in game development.
Let's face it, going to a school that's going to just teach you game development would be very nearsighted IMHO. I would much rather have a solid grounding in the fundamentals that I can apply to whatever comes along. Anyone who is destined to be a great game developer is smart enough to implement their own gaming engines and games, learn about game physics and AI, etc, on their own. I would give a harder look to someone with a degree and their own open source project in one of the above areas than someone who graduated from Video Game U. Unless of course, I was looking to save money.. and of course, there are exceptions to every rule.
Most of the time those who have a natural talent and interest stand out light years ahead of those who trudge through a CS degree for the money. Perhaps this is what you mean by an "applications developer".
My $0.02.
..don't panic
..but in Soviet Russia, the game industry prepares for you!
Its not really just pressing 1 button all the time, and you can play it in creative way. Even after 5 years I can still think of a new stratagy. Also it helps you to make friends, I got met a lot of people in my residence at university just because of the huge amount of LAN starcraft we played. Even the story was pretty good. So although most games suck, starcraft was good. Warcraft 3 wasn't as good, maybe it will be starcraft 2 soon though :)
Between May of 2001 and January of 2002, I worked for a company called Maximum Charisma Studios (MaxCha) out of Denver metro Colorado. They were a start up, made a game called Fighting Legends Online, released it, it sucked, and they went chapter 7.
... and thats what I have to say.
MaxCha had 32 employees at it's height. About half of those people were the real producers of the company and the other half were the wanna-be-game-company-employee types who were barely doing anything, and mostly were assistants for the rest. We had a lot of interns who worked for free doing slave labor -- stuff like helping the marketing department, helping customer support, doing testing (playing the game for free and logging bugs).
MaxCha made major efforts to push it's game, giving away free shirts, stickers, mailing CDs to people all over, and even gave the game away for free with a rebate program, but nobody would buy it because it sucked. Those who did buy it took it back to the stores because it sucked. You can't get sales if your PC game sucks, no matter how hard you push it -- console publishing may be a little easier to build some hype with.
The lessons learned for me were invaluable, and I think it will be for the others who paid attention too.
In total, I heard that the company blew only just over 3 million across a period of about two to two and a half years, which is amazingly little for what was accomplished. I am proud to say that I was personally responsible for about one third of that because I provided all recommendations for production infrastructure for the online game -- collocation, servers, routers, switches, random equipment, $30K of RAM from memman.com (Thanks Jay), software, and services costs. Almost everything done (ALL sound development, ALL art, the box, programming, marketing, even distribution) was done in-house.
The story of MaxCha was that of a bunch of kids who grew up, wanted more out of their jobs than just being paid, got together, said, "Hey, let's start a game company!" And they all had their own idea of how it was going to go. The game ended up not having a design board because the founders all wanted their little idea to be the basis of the game. The result was that the game had no basis, no story, and play sucked. The code rocked, the back end infrastructure was excellent, our ability to scale up and support a massive customer base in short order was good, but the game was not fun.
No fun, no sales. Whoops.
I moved away from the Denver Metro area after the company went under. Denver/Boulder Colorado has a decent game company market, as does San Francisco California, Seattle Washington, Portland Oregon, and a few other random places. I even found that EA Sports has a sub company that makes sports games here in Orlando Florida.
It is really hard to get into the gaming business unless you have some contacts, start your own business, or luck out. In my case, I lucked out because I was not really into working for a game company. I was just looking for a way to get out of my old employer because they were about to tank.
The atmosphere at MaxCha was very loose on the downstairs, and business like on the upstairs. We had a two story building that was very small, but it was perfect because the CEO, marketing department, HR, and other 'stiff' managers worked upstairs as a nice pretty front. Downstairs was the art department, testing, the programmers, and others. There were times that people slept there over night, there was beer drinking on site, pot smoking outside at the park, and parties at houses every few weeks. The fridge downstairs had beer in it, someone had a pet dog running around, there were game consoles laying about, and people came and went as they pleased so long as they worked 40 hours a week and got the projects done. I personally would come in somewhere between 9:00am and 1:00pm, and work my eight to ten hours.
In a small company like this, individuals made all of the difference. Not firing do-nothings early was a mistake, and making up the work later was very difficult. Worse, the employee was socially entrenched and nobody wanted to be the bad person and do the duty to the company that was necessary. There were a few who fell into this category, but I was surprised that most of the people in MaxCha actually recognized that because they were a small business they themselves needed to take initiative on various things in the company and get the job done.
The failure of MaxCha as a game company was that the game released was no fun, and sales were nothing. The nail in the coffin was the fact that the game was an online interactive game that required expensive infrastructure. If it had been a stand alone title, they might have been able to put out a second game and get it right the second time.
Box art, packaging, manual, and physical product was great. The box looked good, felt good, and looked like it could be a good game. Code was really good. Graphics were a little heavy for what they were but that was because of the frame of the game -- players did not get to see all of the patches that added all of the stuff that was left out to make the release date.
The release date made two years prior was met, even if little things got cut off. That is apparently an incredible feat in the gaming industry.
IT infrastructure was good, which usually gets neglected in gaming companies. Everyone is a computer user and nobody wants to admit that they need one person to really support the internal and production network. They think they can throw up a Win2K server on the T1 and host all those gamers off of it. We got it right though.
Design at MaxCha was a mistake -- no real design staff. Furthermore, design is like a book. A team does not write a story, one person does. Giving away that authority was a problem that the founders did not want to do, and so they all tossed in their little features, but it turned out crappy. They did not trust one person enough to write the story, give the concept to the artists and content producers, and come up with the game design that ultimately made the game fun. The fun got left out.
Because design was bad, the artists did their best to come up with original good stuff, and they did. Programmers programmed well, did UI interaction testing, got the AI right, and documented code well. Marketing sold the game as being good for everybody and got the name out. But in the end, everyone did it their own way and nobody was responsible for bringing it all together.
Giving that ability and responsibility to the right single person can make a great game company, but it is hard to do that. This is why many game companies are self started.
"...and masterbation makes you blind."
Apparently it affects your typing too.
They have a very slow pipe or are slashdotted, downloading is very slow. So tell what is worth trying.
So far I've only tried out the Wyrm one. It had promise, but was a dissapointment. The flight model was very hard to use - sometimes my dragon would be furiously flap his wings and end up going backwards. On top of that you don't have enough "mana", or it doesn't recharge fast enough. Considering that you need this to shoot, flap your wings, and cast spells, about 15 seconds after you enter battle you end up sitting on the ground exhausted while the computer dragons shoot you to death.
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
lanner, If you are currently in Orlando, please email me. I'd like to talk to you about your experience with MaxCha. Thanks!
As a consumer of the end product, I'm all for game programming education. But why universities? There are many skills that are useful and in demand in the world but not all are provided within the ivy towers.
... and even those that are, are affiliated mostly just in name).
The purpose of an university education tends to be more general and less industry specific: universities are not meant to replace trade schools but rather produce people who have skills that are more widely applicable. Even people who end up getting B.S. degrees (which were initially a controversial innovation) in the sciences tend to have an education that makes them suited for a large array of technical positions in multiple industries. (e.g. a B.S. in ChemE doesn't mean you necessarily have to work in the Petroleum industry)
I think game programming education can be better provided by a technical institute. By this, I don't necessarily mean the DeVry's and ITTs of the world. The institute can be of exceptionally high quality but focused on serving a particular industry. Think high end culinary schools, architectural & engineering programs, and even, to some extent, medical schools (many of which are not universtiy affiliated per se
This would benefit students: those who know for sure they want to be game programmers can focus solely on courses designed to achieve those ends (no "distributional" requirements) and those who realize later on that they want to be game programmers can get a game programming education without having to re-apply and re-enroll at an university (not an easy thing to do).
Lastly, it should be noted that this path has worked fairly well (okay, open to debate) in the IT industry. Many of the IT professionals (especially entry-level SysAdmins) in the Silicon Valley were trained at local technical institutes and not universities like Berkeley/Stanford or even San Jose State.
Betcha they're not truly preparing them for the hardest part of the game industry; namely, the 70-80+ hour workweeks for months on end.
I work for a Very Large Game Company, and the project I'm on was going along at reasonable work hours & conditions, until this summer... when suddenly the producers & management apparently realized that they had no chance in hell of making the ship date.
Rather than pushing back the ship date (can't do that, shareholders might get upset), or being honest with the staff (give up any semblance of personal life 'till we're done, cuz you're not gonna have any), it was the death of a thousand cuts, and always "just one more" week of grueling hell. (Followed by another, etc...)
Evidently, this sort of management (and I use that word very loosely) isn't at all specific to my company, but (from what I can tell) is pretty generic to almost all of the game industry.
Why? Simple: there are lots of people who really want to write games (or at least, think they do), and are willing to put up with subpar pay and inhuman (and, in California, outright illegal) work hours in order to do so; once you burn out a group, there are plenty more ready to take their place.
Of course, you lose the senior and more-talented people doing this, but for most games, you really only need to have a single version that sorta kinda works; maintainability is rarely an issue, and anyone who has buys current PC games knows to start checking for patches on day 1.
(And yes, I'm posting this anonymously, because I fear retribution from my employer.)
At several of the most recent SIGGRAPHs, there was a very interesting panel debate between prominent figures in academia, and people in the game industry.
Basically, the academics think the game developers are focusing too much on the here and now, and not really focusing on long-term research, and they are concerned that the increasing popularity of games will lead to less funding for their more long-term research programs. Whereas the developers always think that the academics are too stuck-up and fail to appreciate how they are being used in the real world, and want to see less of a disconnect between theory and applications.
As someone from both backgrounds, having made the switch from one to the other, I personally find them hilarious. I do agree that academia and the gaming world should work more closely together. Indeed, you are starting to see more and more papers in venues like SIGGRAPH being authored by games people from EA and the like, and the Game Development conferences are in many ways being more and more like SIGGRAPH, with paper presentations, etc.
There is no doubt that games, and related fields like movie animation, rather than stifling the state of the art, are fueling it. It's probably safe to say, that without games and gamers demanding more and more, SGI-quality graphics hardware on the PC would have nowhere been so cheap and ubiquitous as they are now. And, in many areas such as physical modelling, simulation, and interactive real-time rendering, there would have not been so many state of the art innovations as there have been now.
Game programmers, I dare say, are often the BEST at what they do -- writing efficient code, both space and time-wise -- VERY much true for the consoles, and even so for the PCs! Despite advances in hardware, game programming is probably the most difficult and more demanding field of software, and one that will continue to insipire future generations of programmers to do their best, rather than being complacent and writing inefficient "bloatware".
In short, the making of games has grown up from a backwater area of programming to a serious factory of intellectual progress. I look forward to innovation coming from both those in the ivory towers and those in the game studios, working hand in hand and side by side.
-- Samir Gupta, Ph. D. Head, New Technology Research Group, Nintendo Co. Ltd., Kyoto, Japan.
Programmers who can code games are a dime a dozen. It's game DESIGNERS that are so rare.
Back in the day, which is probably where most of the guys you all idolize came from, designers and programmers used to be one in the same. Richard Garriot sat down and WROTE Akalabeth and the early Ultimas. Sid Meier (arguably the first "superstar" designer) wrote reams of code for Microprose in the 80s. Will Wright coded and designed the original SimCity. None of the above are coders now. (Garriot is out of the industry now, but his last few years of work was in design)
I know a guy that worked on Daggerfall (ok, so that's not a great accomplishment seeing as it was so buggy, but damn it he was a game coder), and I know a guy that worked on Everquest. They're coders. They didn't have anything to do with the design of the games.
If you can code a physics engine from scratch, great. John Carmack can. But iD hasn't released a game that was innovative in its design in years. John will sell the [insert name + Roman numeral here] engine and buy his Ferraris. But when LucasArts gets it and writes Jedi Knight II using that engine, THEY created the game, not Carmack. Carmack didn't do anything more than build a toolkit for other people to use. In another world he would have worked on libc or the C++ STL or on a tax calculation library or in Core Services for a financial institution.
Stop worshipping the programmers, go and seek out the best designed and written games, and the industry can be saved..
Come on, this is a "Score:3 Funny" not a "Score:5 Funny."
I see someone had the sense to put an 'overrated' on it, but evidently someone else undid the good work.
Hm, going off on a tangent in a big way:
A man was holding a very small dinner party, with his father's brother-in-law, his brother's father-in-law, his father-in-law's brother and his brother-in-law's father.
How small can the party be?
(This puzzle comes from the Rev Charles Dodgeson, the famous Victorian photographer, mathemetician and author. As the puzzle is of English origin, first cousins may marry.)
An extension *not* from the Rev Dodgeson: How much smaller can the party become if we ignore incest marrage restrictions? What is the least relaxation on the incest laws to allow this minimum size?
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
many universities... fail to prepare students for the game industry
1337 Warrior Freshman:
"Hey, Prof, is this class 'How to earn Gold Pieces in EverQuest by repetitively making bricks from river-bank mud until I can accumulate enough to go on an adventure, 101?'"
Prof:
"Sure is, and it'll also prepare you for the mind-numbing drudgery, alienation, and disaffection of real work, too! By the time you're done, you'll know how to eagerly but passively sacrifice your life and dignity for the worthless epheremal trinkets consumer capitalism will tell you you have to have! And you'll be able to do it the the real and in virtual worrlds simultaneously!"
"
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
Weither I make money doing it or not, I have to make games some day. Every single day since I was 5 I have thought up games, I see them in my head, they get more and more detailed, and if they don't get out I think they will eventualy drive me insane. I wish there was a college around here that offered Game Design classes, the most technical thing I can take is PC & LAN Management (I'm only 17 and my mom won't let me go off for college, nor pay for me to go beyond an associates degree).
Anyone can paint, write, make a movie, or play an insturment... paint/paintbrushes, paper/pencils, camcorders, and insturments are relitively cheep and easy to obtain. People who love to do it, have the creativeness, and have the drive to do it professionaly can easily find a college for it. I can not wait for the day when game design is that easily accessible.
Video games make you...
well according to some studies video games affect behavior... but have they done studies in SOVIET RUSSIA?
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
Modded down gets YOU!
FYI, the 'sub-company' EA has down in the Orlando area is EA Tiburon. They're responsible for Madden football, Nascar driving, NCAA football, etc. Its a console dev shop, and its a lot bigger than you think--around 200 employees and growing. Right now they're located in Maitland, Florida.
They're also expanding, although read some of my other posts if you're thinking of working there.
- - - - - - - -
Don't worry, being eaten by a crocodile is just like going to sleep in a giant blender.
There are plenty of others schools--some accredited--with programs aimed at the games industry. Check this listing
I recently transfered in to Emerson College in Boston, doing away with a double major in Design/Technical Theatre & Cable/TV Broadcasting at Western Michigan University. Upon starting at Emerson, I found out about a BFA program where a student can partake in a feature-length project in film, tv/video, radio, and new media. Long story short, I changed majors from a BA in Film to peruse BFA in New Media.
Personally, I think 'New Media' should be renamed 'Interactive Media.' With internet, with video games, it's a form of media that the audience interacts with. With 'New Media,' what happens in 20 or 10 years? Is it still new? And what happens when HTML goes the way of BetaMax? What does knowing HTML do for you then?
I use the class curriculum as a springboard for my own education. The classes provide the foundation, I complete the rest of the picture with my thesis project. What I hope to create is an education where I can understand how an audience interacts with the media I create. Programing languages and media delivery systems will come and go, but what I hope to keep is how best to allow my audience to interact with my artwork. HTML, Flash, Director, et all are tools for a user to interact with content. I'm trying to keep in check that the tools will change and improve, but the fundamentals of audience interaction are still in play.
AnamanFan - Trying to find the Truth, one post at a time.
Theres nothing hard about getting into the video game industry if you have something to offer. For those who don't have anything, there are the positions of producer, leads, exec, etc that you will have to have connections and butt kissing to get.
...and I'm glad I did. The borderline hardware I had at the time croaked on NWN. Couldn't handle it. Then I upgraded. Took another look at NWN. Was pleased by the game and my new hardware's performance. And then I bought a legal copy.
Good job with that 3 mil. I'm not being sarcastic, Ion blew like $25 mil. Retro, $25 mil for one game. 3 mil is good for 2.5 years.
Legends was an interesting thing. It seemed everything clicked except the game part. Truthfully, we tried it out the free cd and gave up immediately after we could not figure out the controls.
"The atmosphere at MaxCha was very loose on the downstairs, and business like on the upstairs"
A lot of people don't get it. A video game startup can't follow the 'business overlord' design. Everyone has to be down in the trenches to some degree (doing art or programming). Every new game company is a new invention. Did Ford just hire a bunch of people to come up with the Model T? Did edison hire a bunch of people to invent the light bulb for him? Did Gates sit in his leather chair while his drones wrote a Basic interpreter? Did Linus decide to have someone create a kernel for him?
Well, Then why do some game execs think they can hire their way to being a successful game company. This would only happen if you could hire an entire existing team that has already completed a project, and this will never happen. They are inventing the team from scratch. They can't do it looking over the team's shoulder with arms folded barking orders.
Similar such oppression has occurred at my school. One afternoon, a student was researching the pornography industry in the library, and he was ESCORTED OUT! I couldn't believe such a travesty would occur to someone whom I assume was just hoping to break into that $11 billion industry.
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I attend DigiPen and actually we are reminded CONSTANTLY about the fact of having to work insane hours. While I do not quite work 70 - 80 hours a week (Digipen is closed Sunday and only open 9 hours on Saturday, shucks), the rest of my team and I put a substantial amount time into our game. I would believe anyone in the industry could imagine this since we do make an entire game in less than 6 months amongst other homework. We are also told my our professors (most of whom work in the game industry) that such scheduling problems (that lead to being overworked) are being avoided more and more as companies improve themselves.
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I to go polytechnic university (brooklyn). This is a pretty good small engineering shool which offers a good CS program. In the ACM room there is a TV with an XBOX , playstation and game cube and 5 controllers all hooked up. On the other side of the we have a projector that is used to display counter strike action being streamed from one of the students palying with others in the room over schools WAN or LAN. All these game players are not surprisingly the once who are strugling with their course work. The kids who are realy implementing quicksoft somewere are not wasting their time playing games but on actualy learning computer science. So what conclusion can i reach that most game programers are not gamers themself. To be a good programer one needs a good education in computer sicnece fundamentals.
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Game companies in Portland? Are you sure about that? All I've seen are hobbiest groups (or open-sourcers like me).
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... just decided to have games as 1 out of 3 research areas in their new research strategy:
http://www.it-c.dk
Nice article, and good posts, but the thing that people fail to realize is that programming is only part of the equation. Being able to work in a team environment and commincate with your peers is just as important than programming. If you can't tell somone what you coded, how can they help you or vice versa?
-Kenix
n/t
Does 'game developer' have a broader meaning than 'game programmer' ? For example, what is John Carmack ? is he a game developer or game programmer ? He certainly is a game programmer, but developing a game has much more than simply programming. There is the gameplay, art, controls, menus, music, packaging and other issues which in turn may be more important than game programming itself. With libraries such as DirectX(and OpenGL for 3D), and third-party software like Renderware, programming almost becomes a non-issue, unless a new engine should be realised.
My conclusion is that we should focus more on the gameplay and artistic side of the game than programming. I am willing to accept lower frame rates for a better game. For example, in FIFA 2003 the player can not give a spin to the ball!!! although the graphics are top notch, it is a little to much for me to have a soccer game without the ability to make kicks without spin!!!
My school's been listed on /.! Not to mention it has it's own private Slashpage inside(Since the beginning of this year, natch). /. effect if it's through a link in an article?
Now, is there enough people clicking from USAToday to the site to slashdot the site or is that even considered a
Side notes:
The school is closed Sunday and is OPEN 14 hours a day. Very few students stay all day, though. And we also AREN'T accredited.
It's not a University, it's a technical college. Universities are for getting an education, technical colleges are for training.
I despair when I read posts here saying "That's my kind of education, none of that history bullshit I'll never use again." There's nothing wrong with pursuing a specialist technical career, but there's everything wrong with believing you have the right to vote in utter ignorance of history, politics and culture.
Yes.
That isn't cheap??? Then why in the world am I paying over $30,000 a year at my school?
The government of the state of Paraná in Brazil is trying to encourage the creation of game companies, so it set up a "network" for them in its high tech business incubator.
Today and tomorrow they are having an "International Conference on Technology and Inovation in Entertainment Games".
The University of North Texas has been running a games program for several years now. When I looked up Digipen they had the equivilent accreditation as a vocational school, not an official BS degree, even though it was more focused on Computer games requiring things liek Calc 3, it still was not a "real" degree, so I personally opted to come to UNT for the "Larc" program, http://larc.csci.unt.edu/ , The Labratory for Recreational Computing. At UNT you can get a BS in Computer Science, and take the game classes as electives. You can also opt to take the advanced math courses liek Calc 3 that Digipen would have you learn, so in effect you can get most of what Digipen offers, and have a Computer Science degree to fall back on, after all the video game industry is not the easiest industry to break into
Interestingly, my college, the Rochester Institute of Technology will be the first college in the United States to offer a Video Game major.
Perhaps even more interestingly, it will be in the field of Information Technology, not Computer Science.
What would give you a better background? Who would you hire? We're obviously not talking about the John Carmacks of the world here, but the supporting cogs making up the majority.
- 4-5 years of an EE/ME program + 2 years working as a game developer / software engineer.
- 4 years from DigiPen + 2 years working as a game developer / software engineer.
For what it's worth, you don't "learn to be an engineer" in an engineering program. That takes -another- 4 or more years after you graduate, at least in Canada. School just gives you the grounding and fundamentals.
*shrug* DigiPen just seems like the easy way out. All that math I didn't think would be important turns out to be really useful, your mileage may vary.
..don't panic
That's like my grandma saying let's go to Walmarts or Targets. Hilarious probably to only me, it's a rural thing. Everyone in the country parts of Oklahoma call it Walmarts as if they had more than one and were going to both (all) of them!
If the *AA would learn from that example, then maybe they wouldn't be $1B behind the Game Industry.
Oh, I'm pretty sure AA is *way* more than $1B behind the Game Industry. I mean, how much money are they making off those meetings, anyway?
I can't wait to download "Super Adventure Puzzle Fighter Alpha 2 Gold Text Edition". How cool of a name is that?!?
CMU has recently (last year or two) started a new school that offers a Master's degree in Entertainment Technology. Go check it out at http://www.etc.cmu.edu/
Hey - actual Digipen person - Talk some of your classmates into doing a version of the game "Elite" for a project. That game *rocked*!
Hmm, first review I visited bore out your description - 2 stars out of 5.
e gends/flo.htm
u ct_1567.asp
http://www.gamesfirst.com/reviews/clayn/fightingl
But how the h*ll did you get such high reviews here? 5 out of 5? wtf???
http://www.pcgamereview.com/reviews/strategy/prod
Mental note to self, avoid user-reviews like the plague on pcgamereview.com.
*snrk* zzzzzz.....
:)
wha..? is he done yet?
(just kidding jace
My cube. My friend. My solace. My prison.
we didn't have no stinkin' computer graphics...
we had to hand render every frame on a cave wall...
and we liked it that way....
As a former video game programmer turned PHD student I can say alot about the video game industry. Let me start with directing you to the insider website that has the real dirt on the game industry. Its www.fatbabies.com.
If you want to make games, I pity you. Its true it is a sweatshop industry, 70 hours a week, no extra pay. This is not a way to live your life. The pay is substandard and the work very difficult, and likely your company will tank leaving you to drown. Its this way because so many people want to make games and they get abused by the owners of the game companies.
Best to be a producer, they get to work 9 to 5, of course the ones I know haven't had a day of vacation in 5 years, but that is the BEST you can do for a life in the industry. Other than that, you need to start your own company, don't bother working for someone else, do your own thing. Thats how Carmack, Meier, Wright and the other greats really made it.
As to education, everything that you need to learn about video games is at all major universities, just got to take the classes. There are alot, but graphics and AI are the most important. Personally, I think you get robbed for 4 years at places like Digipen, I know many people who went there. Its training to be a galley slave, better to be the galley captain.
As for me, I'm doing a PHD in AI at a tier 1 school and writing fiction on the side. My Disseration involves technology that has game applications. When I'm finished, I might start a company and give you losers a job. Where you will sweat over MY game, making ME rich.
When I see software that works well in the worst conditions, dances lightly on computer resources, and exudes its aura of elegant design, I know that it was done by someone with not only Knowledge and Skill, which are common, but also Talent, which is rare.
Hi, will do.
You bring up a really good issue -- that review sites are often whores of the industries themselves. If they do one bad article, they can count on never being able to get free stuff from that vendor to review again. The result is that game company review sites, and other similar review sites of any kind, need to be whores of the companies which products they review.
MaxCha and Fighting Legends did get a lot of really good reviews, and got some really bad reviews. Some of them were so bad that they were funny. Some were so good that it was sick. In the case of at least two reviews, I can definitely attest that an exchange occurred that increased the goodness of the review. Corruption and lack of ethics definitely exists in game review sites, but not all of them.
From what I can tell, the computer gaming industry is completely rife with stuff like this. "Hot seller" shelves are 100% bought, as are most other shelves in game stores and other stores (Wal-Mart is an apparent exception). Be noted that this is only my impressions from speaking with the people in marketing and impressions that I got. Take it with some salt.
I had looked into them, and I sent my resume over, just in case they might be interested. I have heard nothing, and I really don't expect to. IS/IT is really disrespected in gaming companies. They either outsource it or have the sound guy flip up a T1 and some desktop box to host their website. Though they do take the website development pretty seriously -- just not the infrastructure.
Hi again
I went reading through some of your older posts like you said to. From this I gather that you are a student at one of the various schools in the Orlando metro area, or are pretty early on in your career.
I have the terribly obvious advice that unless you really have it made somehow with something local, and even if you do, get the hell out of the Orlando metro area as soon as you can. You seem to have a clue, so I should not have to say this.
I recently moved here after having lived in most major western U.S. metro cities and I have to say that Orlando was not my choice. I am here because of a special situation that is only temporary, a few years, and then I am gone. Orlando is a death trap for someone like yourself who wants to get into computer game development on the coding side. Orlando is about the toll roads, cheap labor, and the college kid schools.
In Orlando;
I don't expect to get paid anywhere near my market value in other metro areas.
I don't expect that any job I find here will provide me with much technological related experience.
I plan to spend the time teaching myself new things with my lab equipment and on my own time.
I don't expect the Orlando metro area to get any better in the next five years.
Even if you have to flip burgers in Denver, San Francisco, or Seattle, it will be much better than flipping them here. Fortunately for you, I think your burger flippin days, if they came, are near over.
And I know if Digipen were open later then 10pm, students would be there all night, in the darkness, in front of their monitors, coding like heck! *whistles a lively tune*
Look at
news://news.gmane.org/gmane.games.devel.sweng
for some enlightening info about the wonderful world of videogames development.
Posts done after 30/11/2002 can open your eyes...
Have a resume handy? : )
Yes, if you like. I am not going to post it here though. eMail me at sharaharass@yahoo.com if you would like to get a hold on my resume.
Za Moosey!
Dynamicx is toast, and was based in Eugene, OR, about 110 miles south of Portland.
In Portland, the only pro group I know is Mare Crisium, who is working on the sequel to Stars:
http://www.crisium.com/sn/index.html
Other than that, Portland is totally dead for games. Try Seattle.
I fully agree with you both from a development creation and usage perspective of games. As a 'sort-a' gamer (due to time and money) I have always valued gameplay and immersion over even the best graphics and sound. As a developer of systems (not just games as that is a hobby) I am glad to see another person that will point out the differences between programming and development. I deeply desire the IT industry as a whole to realize this, especially in the defense industry. If you had any idea the millions of tax dollars that are thrown away due to the lack of this understanding (as well as general apathy and lack of ethics and patriotism) you would puke. Then when you realize how the end user that is supposed to use these systems are not getting what they need then that is the really detestible part. Of course the ability to change this really relies upon changing people and instituting a concept of caring for results... but that is another matter.
The problem is that game companies are too focused on graphics instead of making the game fun to play. I've noticed this trend the past few years. What happened to the things that matter, gameplay, art style (why do almost all Xbox games look alike?) interactive sound, etc. I still play many of my old SNES ans NES games, not because they look good, but because they are fun and genuinely challenging to play. Thank god for Ninty, or I wouldn't play games at all anymore...
Standards... then technology...
Suck my cuntjuices.
Personally, I think my choice in the mostest-superlative-computer wars has to
be the HP-48 series of calculators. They'll run almost anything. And if they
can't, while I'll just plug a Linux box into the serial port and load up the
HP-48 VT-100 emulator.
-- Jeff Dege, jdege@winternet.com
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