Slashdot Mirror
Monkey Island Creator Slams Corporate Control Over Game Publishing
An anonymous reader writes "Ron Gilbert, co-creator of classic games Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island 1 and 2, and many more, has spoken out against corporate censorship — the way of large companies getting a say on what does or does not get published on the distribution channels they control. Although his insightful rant applies to a number of corporations (Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo and Comcast are mentioned), most of the direct examples single out Apple. Quoting: 'Apple has maintained an almost North Koreanish dictatorial control over the devices, becoming the arbitrator over what is good and bad, what is allowed and not allowed. They don't have this control over the Mac because it is a real computer and an open device, but they can do this with the iPhone because we (as consumers) were convinced by the cell phone carriers that they needed this control to protect their networks (in the same way they wouldn't let us own our own telephones in the '70s) and Apple was happy to jump on that ship because they could finally control everything that went on the device and we bought it into it. Apple apologists say that Apple needs this control to maintain the "specialness" of the device. I say that's a load of crap.'" He also mentions Adidas dropping out of iAds because they couldn't accept Apple's excessive creative control, and a photography app that was rejected because it used the volume buttons as trigger."
I bought the iPhone because I know they are controlling the user experience. I'm greatly enjoying my user experience on my iOS devices. I feel like I got what I paid for, and am likely to get more apple products in the future.
What the mans says is true. Yet people still buy and use the products (including many here on /.). Given that there exist alternatives, people must be OK with the compromise (design/"sexiness" vs openness).
We each have a most powerful weapon against such authoritarian control - do not buy the offending company's product. No-one truly needs an iPhone. Either go without or buy a more open alternative.
Why shouldn't buttons be multi-purpose though? There are 3 buttons on an iPhone 4 and one switch. One of the buttons is used to exit the app, the other two should be used as needed. There are a lot of ways that buttons can be used for more than one purpose. For example, in the camera app, there would be no need to have music playing, if you want to change the volume of your phone you could just use the silent/loud switch included. Rocker buttons are very nice for page scrolling when holding a phone in vertical mode and would be useful in the camera app. Android lets apps switch functions of the buttons and its not frustrating, its very convenient on a touch-phone with very few physical buttons.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
From the article:
Aaaaand that's where you lost me. Beaten Wife Syndrome: if you keep going back for more, after a while you have to take some responsibility for enabling the whuppings.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Thank you Ron Gilbert! At last someone finally gets what I have been saying for a long time and has the gonads to say it out loud. (Be careful though Ron, some blogs will ban you for such treachery. I know because I tried to say this very same thing and got my account deleted from a female blog dictator.) Now, don't get me wrong. The iThings are very nice products from a hardware point of view with the MAJOR exception of no user replaceable batteries. (Sorry, but having to spend $79 to replace the battery in a $99 iPhone 3GS is just plain idiotic.) The hardware is attractive, user friendly, and usually well designed (with another exception of the user-touchable antenna which de-tunes it.) I just have a major issue with someone else telling me what I can or cannot install for apps on my devices. If I am paying that much, I feel I have bought the right to install what I please as long as it doesn't interfere with the phone company network.
It's a volume button.
What's a "volume button"? Is that any different than any other button? Does it have a label on it that says "this button only controls volume, and nothing else, always"?
I don't have a problem with Apple with rejecting an app that subverts the defined usage of a hardware button.
Ha! "Subverts the defined usage of a button". That's very Orwellian of you. Isn't the "defined usage" of a button to be pressed?
I haven't used (or heard of) this app
Yeah, and you won't either, because Apple rejected it. You'll never get to determine, for your own usage scenarios, whether it's more comfortable or natural to press a button on the side of the device to take a picture. You won't have to make that choice for yourself, because Apple has already made it for you.
what does it do if you try to change the volume of your music or phone call when also trying to take a picture?
What do you think it does? It takes a picture. That's why you're using the camera, right? Do you turn on your music, take a phone call, and then start the camera? If you have the camera running and know that the volume button takes a picture, is it going to confuse you when you press the volume button and it takes a picture? Why is this difficult to figure out? Maybe it's better that Apple did make that choice for you if you're confused by things like this.
Your keyboard has a button on it near the bottom that's really long and doesn't have a label. Most of the time, when you're typing sentences, when you press this button it inserts a space character in the text. Do you get confused when you're online and you're using TAB to skip between interface elements, you land on a button, press the space bar, and it "clicks" the button? This key is only supposed to insert spaces into text, right? Why is it also clicking buttons that you've focused? That's madness! And what's the deal with that TAB button, anyway? Sometimes it inserts a bunch of whitespace, and sometimes it changes focus. How can anyone be expected to make any sense of this? And don't even get me started on a backspace key that would cause my browser to go to the previous page. That totally loses me.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
For example, in the camera app, there would be no need to have music playing, if you want to change the volume of your phone you could just use the silent/loud switch included.
There are two issues here. First, Apple requires that apps use the published APIs according to their guidelines so things don't break as hardware changes. Apps that won't work on the new version because the switches have changed are a no-no. Second, if I'm playing music through my phone and also doing something else, no I don't want the second app to prevent me from adjusting the device volume when a louder song comes on, that's just freaking annoying. I'm not a big iPhone fan (don't own one, probably never will) but complaining about Apple requiring developers to use the APIs as published is just dumb.
Actually, no, the Wii SDK is the cheapest of the three. And they even support flash, so you can even start your game without the SDK. The need of having an actual company is just a way of saying "you have to take this seriously"; not a big deal if you really want to make a career of it. Most people who complain about the need to have a company actually have no idea on what goes into making a game. Nobody wants to play your tetris clone that you derived from a tutorial on gamedev.net.
We must be reading different news sites. I've seen stuff about Android apps sending GPS data, and even contacts. The "counter point" article I saw on iPhone says that two thirds of apps send the unique device ID to the server.
Now, I don't love that it sends this, but it really is an entirely different class of problem.
-Peter
I know everyone loves to hate on apple's dictatorial approach, but just for once I'd like to talk about some of the less egregious examples of corporate censorship. He mentions XBLA in passing. I want to know what he's specifically talking about.
The indie section was a mess last time I looked, the top sellers were "personal massager" programs that did nothing more than make the controllers vibrate on command. There were several "games" that just tortured your avatar. One involved just shooting your avatar out of a woman's womb and trying to make the "baby" break as much stuff as possible. The indie section of XBLA seems more like an abandoned lot than a walled garden. If MS is exerting any control over that crap pile, they should be ashamed of themselves.
The non-indie sections of XBLA on the other hand do have better offerings, but I've heard of a few cases where MS has definitely meddled. They're pushing a "gamers have no reason to expect things for free, so you can't give them anything for free" motto it seems. Valve claimed that MS wouldn't let them release TF2 updates for free for that reason. They could have charged for it, but free updates for an already watered down version of the game? Absolutely not. At some point there was also an issue of how big a file TF2 could update, though I don't remember if that was MS putting artificial limits on it or the XBLA software couldn't handle it. I'd wonder if that's part or all of the reason steam is coming or has come to the PS3 but not the 360. MS may have said they couldn't, or steam may have decided (for good reason) to not bother. Either way, we 360 owners lost out there, and any game that my computer can run I'll be buying on steam.
Anyway, I think this discussion can use some examples that aren't apple because this problem isn't limited to iphones and ipads.
What about this? http://gizmodo.com/5592521/how-a-guy-tricked-apple-with-a-disguised-iphone-tethering-app
If tethering can make it past the Apple gates, why won't other 'features'?
This space for rent.
None of those examples removed functionality from other applications.
Neither does the cited camera app. When you're using the camera, the button does one thing. When you're not using the camera, it does something else. Nothing has been removed. Things have only been added. The concept of using one button for multiple actions has been around for as long as computers have had buttons. This is especially prevalent with console games. When you're on one screen a certain button has a certain action, when you're doing something else that button does something completely different. It's all about context. People are in fact intelligent enough to figure this out. Yes, even Apple users.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
The app that Apple pulled needed to perform various steps to enable the easter egg, so it's not as if the volume buttons are instantly reconfigured. You have to go out of your way substantially to enable it, and still people did it, because they really wanted to.
That is because some people enjoy using the items they purchased as they see fit. If came out with a brand of axes and sent a copyright license along with it you implicitly agree to by purchasing and it read, "By purchasing this Axe, you agree to only use it for chopping Birch trees and you may not modify the handle nor the axe head in any way without explicit permission of Antisyzygy Inc.". Most people would probably want to use the axe to also chop down other types of trees or even planks of wood, or maybe they would want to add a special grip to it. Software and hardware is no different than any other tool. You use it for purposes as you see fit and if it simply doesn't work for that purpose then you get a different tool or augment your tool to work. I don't want to argue the copyright portion. A tool to do something virtually is still a tool, albeit a more abstract version. Im not disagreeing that Apple's product is designed for aesthetics and ergonomics in that order. Its just bullshit you can't do something with a tool you purchase. If there was an alternative to loading apps through there App store I wouldn't complain.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
iPhone apps don't have to track your GPS data and sell it, when Apple will do it for you.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2010/06/apple-location-privacy-iphone-ipad.html
Your keyboard has a button on it near the bottom that's really long and doesn't have a label. Most of the time, when you're typing sentences, when you press this button it inserts a space character in the text. Do you get confused when you're online and you're using TAB to skip between interface elements, you land on a button, press the space bar, and it "clicks" the button? This key is only supposed to insert spaces into text, right? Why is it also clicking buttons that you've focused? That's madness!
Your example shows the major difference between the touch-based iOS devices and generic computers. On the iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch, you never have context-specific behavior of any buttons. The space bar on the onscreen keyboard always inserts a space into the focused text field. The home button always terminates the current application (well, except when you double/triple-press it or you're already on the home screen and there's nothing to terminate). iOS never requires the user to remember any keyboard hotkeys or differing behavior based on the current application's state. The return key even changes to "Submit" in a web form, or "Search" in the search bar, etc.
You just can't directly compare the user interface of a traditional computer to this new kind of system.
You know what really pisses me off? I have all of these video games on my computer, and when I press the space bar, my on-screen character doesn't type a space at all. In fact, it usually fires a weapon of some kind.
This is totally unacceptable. A space bar should be a space bar! If not, you're confusing me!
(In fact, I got so used to the video games that one day when I got an email from my boss that infuriated me, that was the last straw, I tried to respond by using my keyboard to jump onto my desk, dash across the room, blast a hole in his office door and blow his head off. Instead I accidentally ended up typing an email response. When will this madness end? SOMEONE needs to control these things!)
This space available.