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UK Industry Group Boss: Study Arts So Games Are Not Designed By 'Spotty Nerds'

nickweller writes: John Cridland is the leader of the Confederation of British Industry, a group that represents over 100,000 UK businesses. In a recent interview, he spoke about his enthusiasm for adding arts education to more traditional STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) programs. Here's how he chose to express that: "One of the biggest growth industries in Britain today is the computer games industry. We need extra coders — dozens and dozens of them but nobody is going to play a game designed by a spotty nerd. We need people with artistic flair." Cridland also expressed support for an increased emphasis on foreign language education: "If we’re not capable of speaking other people’s languages, we’re going to be in difficulties. However, there is far too much emphasis placed on teaching French and German. The language we most need going forward is Spanish (the second most frequently spoken language in the world). That and a certain percentage need to learn Mandarin to develop relations with China."

207 comments

  1. wow, super insulting and prejudiced. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    this should not end well

    1. Re:wow, super insulting and prejudiced. by Z00L00K · · Score: 2

      I agree - the design isn't always critical, just look at Minecraft and Tetris.

      --
      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
    2. Re:wow, super insulting and prejudiced. by juanfgs · · Score: 2

      and Mount & Blade, all of the Paradox Games, the Civilization series, etc.etc.

    3. Re:wow, super insulting and prejudiced. by JMJimmy · · Score: 1

      Insulting, prejudiced, and most of all completely idiotic. "Designer" based games & "greed" based games are driving me away from gaming in a big way. Time after time games have shown that *gameplay* is the most important factor. Designers have their place but if the game sucks at its core there's not going to be a following.

    4. Re:wow, super insulting and prejudiced. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Minecraft is retro yes, but quite gorgeous at the same time, it's not a good example of weak artistic design at all.

    5. Re:wow, super insulting and prejudiced. by narcc · · Score: 2

      I would counter that design is precisely why both of those are so successful.

      First, don't confuse graphics with artwork, they are very different concepts. Further, don't mistake simplicity in design for a lack of design.

    6. Re:wow, super insulting and prejudiced. by JMJimmy · · Score: 1

      The beauty in Minecraft is from your mind. It is the perfect example of weak artistic design and excellent gameplay. Tomb Raider is probably another example of where design has trumped gameplay and the product is a bland, uninspired, pretty, and pretty boring game. My fiance couldn't wait to be done with the new game and return to playing PS1 FF games/original Tomb Raider games/Bioshock.

    7. Re:wow, super insulting and prejudiced. by JMJimmy · · Score: 2

      Gameplay design is not what "artistic designers" do. The gameplay design is done lone before designers get their hands on it.

    8. Re:wow, super insulting and prejudiced. by war4peace · · Score: 2

      "long before"
      But otherwise true.
      There's a widely spread misunderstanding of the expression "game design".
      Look up "game design tools" and you'll find plenty of level design tools or graphical design tools, none of which even come close to what "game design" actually is supposed to represent.
      When you're designing the game, you're at the very first step. You expand the idea, write down the game rules, generate the game workflows, game mechanics, how things work together. You create the formulas, skill trees (if any), item properties, list of modifiers just to give a few examples.

      Then you take that shitload of stuff and start implementing it. Game art and level design come much later.

      --
      ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
    9. Re:wow, super insulting and prejudiced. by epyT-R · · Score: 1

      Gameplay is to 'artistic designers' as GUI usability is to 'UX designers'

    10. Re:wow, super insulting and prejudiced. by narcc · · Score: 1

      You can't privilege one aspect over another.

      In the case of Minecraft, mentioned by the parent, a good deal of the game play is directly facilitated by the aesthetic. I have little doubt a good bit of the game design was directly influenced by it, rather than the other way around. I'd go as far as to say that had the author more artistic talent, game play would be dramatically different.

      Conversely, you could look at a game like Zelda's Adventure, where the game design itself is reasonably sound but is hampered significantly by the artwork.

    11. Re:wow, super insulting and prejudiced. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Minecraft is hideous without mods. The raw joy of creating far, far outweighs the lack of pretty pixels.

    12. Re: wow, super insulting and prejudiced. by ravenshrike · · Score: 1

      TR2013's problems stemmed more from it being a proper origin story game than from updated art design. If they shift the primary focus to the tomb(s) and leave her with 60+% of her abilities at the start of the next game with the 'found' abilities being equipment based, there won't be an issue.

    13. Re:wow, super insulting and prejudiced. by JMJimmy · · Score: 1

      Gameplay is to 'artistic designers' as GUI usability is to 'UX designers'

      Completely irrelevant?

    14. Re: wow, super insulting and prejudiced. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think the issue came from it trying to be Uncharted (hilariously, what some people called Dude Raider) without all the care and design that made Uncharted fun. One of the most common sentiments I've heard about the new one shown at last E3 was that the scripted action sequence looked basically the same, but with snow.

    15. Re:wow, super insulting and prejudiced. by Z00L00K · · Score: 1

      The problem with the art designers is that they are often making a complete mess of things from a functionality perspective. If you see stuff that looks weird on a car you can be sure that there was a graphic designer involved that thought that it did look good - or that a functional design did look ugly so they changed it.

      --
      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
    16. Re:wow, super insulting and prejudiced. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Also Dwarf Fortress and Nethack, the ultimate games.

    17. Re:wow, super insulting and prejudiced. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This cunt studied Indian and African history. He knows nothing about STEM subjects. The reason he thinks A is important is because it's the only thing this moron knows.

    18. Re:wow, super insulting and prejudiced. by JMJimmy · · Score: 1

      CS Degree, a business in "STEM subjects", being working/playing in computers for over 25 years, and have consulted on ivy league CS course development. But I know nothing about such things. Besides all that, I am expressing an opinion, just because you're butthurt I pwned your ass in some discussion isn't a reason to be rude.

    19. Re:wow, super insulting and prejudiced. by narcc · · Score: 1

      I keep hearing this, but I haven't seem any (that I can remember, at least) convincing examples.

      On Slashdot, the biggest objection is "something changed about the thing I was comfortable using" without any thought in to why they believe the change to be for the worse. When pressed, all you get is "this is how I used to do it, it was perfection itself! With the new UI, I gave up without even trying, so horrible was the UI"

      Not very helpful, as you can imagine.

      The problem with the art designers is that they are often making a complete mess of things from a functionality perspective.

      Usability is always part of design. Even in Apple land, where form is often second to function, a great deal of thought has clearly been put in to the functional part of design.

      Though I should probably also mention that usability, by necessity, targets the broadest range of users. You've seem a lot of complaints about Ubuntu's UI, but it's about as simple as it can get. All the most common things are lined up neatly on the left. A user new to the system can find and launch the programs they want in seconds. Wireless settings, power options, etc. are all clear and within view. You won't see any complaints from the average user. "Advanced" users, however, are a different story. Because they don't already know where the advanced options and tools can be found, they feel helpless and incompetent. Then they blame the UI and those horrible designers who "made a mess of things". The "unusable" UI, from the Slashdot users perspective, is the reason that the average user can use Ubuntu Linux if they so choose.

    20. Re:wow, super insulting and prejudiced. by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      Which mods?

    21. Re:wow, super insulting and prejudiced. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      John Cridland studied Indian and African history. For someone claiming to have "pwned" someone's ass, you seem a bit butthurt yourself.

    22. Re:wow, super insulting and prejudiced. by JMJimmy · · Score: 1

      Why the hell would I know or care about a British business person?

    23. Re:wow, super insulting and prejudiced. by sfcat · · Score: 1

      Though I should probably also mention that usability, by necessity, targets the broadest range of users. You've seem a lot of complaints about Ubuntu's UI, but it's about as simple as it can get. All the most common things are lined up neatly on the left.

      No, that's not what usability is about. Usability is effectively and simply communicating a mental model to the user that enables them to feel "in-control" and allows them to do what they want in the way they expect. Different user environments have different usability requirements based upon frequency of use, average time of use and size and makeup of the expected user base.

      Unity (and gtk3) removed a lot of useful functionality and is less stable than what it replaced and still hasn't caught up several years later. Those are real reasons to complain. My HCI prof founded that field with a study that proved that a specific known text interface was superior to a new GUI one for telephone operators. The reason for this was mostly a lack of keyboard shortcuts coupled with a known user-base that has a long average time of use, which is exactly what Ubuntu removed/changed and messed up with Unity.

      Protip, if engineers can pick apart your UI design and your target market is engineers, you are doing it wrong...

      --
      "Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
    24. Re:wow, super insulting and prejudiced. by TapeCutter · · Score: 1

      As a developer I really like the way World of Tanks has evolved over the last few years, they have built up a dedicated army of beta-testers, and its hows in the quality of the game. They maintain historical accuracy in the tanks without sacrificing gameplay, they do that via a group of old men in cardigans. The physics feels real and the art work in the game is breath-taking, particularly the stormy skies and sunsets. The artwork that really strikes me as different from other shoot-em-ups are the small poignant details, like butterflies dancing around your tank while laying in ambush, a table for two with wine and a flower in an otherwise bombed out street, a child's roundabout in a war zone, etc.

      Also it's the only FPS my 50yo wife will play - took me a long time to find a FPS with "no blood and gore".

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
    25. Re:wow, super insulting and prejudiced. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Actually, you begin with a very simple prototype where you can toy with the core mechanics. No skill trees, no item properties (or probably items at all), no modifiers... no even art! Just a rough draft of the core mechanics. If the game is not fun just with the very basic mechanics, it will never ever be fun to play. All the other things (skill trees, items, more rules and side mechanics...) are built around it in an iterative process. Concept artists, script writers, so on and so forth will work in parallel. If you begin by designing a huge game and then try to implement all at once, you'll get a messy disaster that will very likely get scrapped: if you begin with lots of rules it's almost (there are famous examples) impossible to know what's not working and why. Start with a small thing fun to play and then add more complex rules and the content to fulfill your vision. There's a key principle in game design: you can make a fun game funnier by adding stuff but you'll never make a boring game fun, no matter what you throw in the mix.

    26. Re:wow, super insulting and prejudiced. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This cunt studied CS. He knows nothing about his post's subject. The reason he thinks his post is important is because it's about himself.

    27. Re:wow, super insulting and prejudiced. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pajitnov's original Tetris was extremely poorly designed. It was a piece of crap visually. It wasn't until Atari made the stand-up arcade version that Tetris was any good.

      Minecraft, on the other hand, at least had some modicum of decent design skill behind it.

    28. Re:wow, super insulting and prejudiced. by Z00L00K · · Score: 1

      No, I have encountered a case where the designers decided that a dual scale speedometer (MPH and km/h) was ugly and that caused some really shitty side effects in implementation for vehicles with the MPH scale because they are legally obliged to also display km/h.

      --
      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
    29. Re:wow, super insulting and prejudiced. by narcc · · Score: 1

      Can you elaborate?

  2. nobody is going to play a game designed by a spott by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Said no person with a functioning brain ever.

    Go ahead and walk into ANY game design studio. There will be slight differences, like the foosball table is on the left instead of the right. But one thing remains static across all of them.

    Pasty pale, slightly overweight SPOTTY NERDS have built all of this infrastructure, not to even mention gaming specifically. What an ass hat. Coding is art, game design is art.

    What an asshat

  3. Many of the greatest works of art by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    were created by the "spotty nerds" of their day.

    1. Re:Many of the greatest works of art by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I actually like his honesty, it's easy to see he's an imbecile. I think all you can read into this comment is he doesn't understand how games are developed, and the roles of both artists and programmers. Or, he really believes in indie game development, which would be unusual coming from a stuffed shirt type who sees labor as a means to make himself wealthy, and worthless if it's not working for him.

      The part that is more amusing is STEM->STEAM. When trying to "focus" one tends to reduce the subject matter to the fewest things, STEM is really math & science, the T&E being applications. Art is orthogonal, with no overlap. Might as well throw literature and history in there. STHEALM. Oh and Foreign Languages. STHLEAFM. I think you say that before you drink liquor?

      I suspect his comment about foreign language, particularly Spanish and Mandarin is correct even for STEM. R&D is being conducted on a much wider scale, with a lot of it being dropped on China (usually at the back end). Certainly I encourage my own kids the same way. Schools continue to push French and German in addition to Spanish, but those two languages are almost entirely worthless in the USA. Spanish is widely taught of course, but Mandarin is rare, and probably the most useful language looking in to the future. Sure if you're in the UK, it would seem French and German are a whole lot more immediately useful, but it seems appropriate for a minister of industry to want to focus on skills useful for the workforce. I'm confused about the rest of his message, unless we distill it into what should be obvious: the UK needs a better educated workforce (which is also true in the US).

    2. Re:Many of the greatest works of art by war4peace · · Score: 1

      FLAMSHET sounds better.
      FLASHMET?
      SHLAFTEM?
      SHAFTMEL?

      So.Many.Choices.

      --
      ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
    3. Re:Many of the greatest works of art by meta-monkey · · Score: 1

      Gotta get FLESH in there.

      FLESHMAT.

      MATFLESH.

      --
      We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
    4. Re:Many of the greatest works of art by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Apparently, spotty nerds don't like it when rich, successful, influential people refer to them as "spotty nerds."

    5. Re:Many of the greatest works of art by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I personally thing we should teach children:

      Languages
      Art
      Math
      Engineering

      Science
      History
      Interpretive dance
      Technology

    6. Re:Many of the greatest works of art by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      I personally thing we should teach children:

      Languages

      I thing that might be a good idea.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    7. Re:Many of the greatest works of art by lister+king+of+smeg · · Score: 1

      You won the internets today

      --
      ---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
  4. No thanks by mwvdlee · · Score: 2

    No thanks, we don't want our games designed by PHB's. Go back to your own job of creating... uhm... what do PHB's actually create?

    Game art is already designed by designers and artists. Game music is composed by musicians and composers. Game design is created by people who understand that mere game art and music alone does not make a good game.

    Considering the size of the gaming industry, I guess plenty of people are happily playing games designed by those "spotty nerds".

    --
    Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
    1. Re:No thanks by funwithBSD · · Score: 1

      No no, this is not PHBs, this is GHC, or Golden Haired Child.

      SO artsy....

      --
      Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
    2. Re:No thanks by iluvcapra · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Game art is already designed by designers and artists. Game music is composed by musicians and composers.

      Don't waste your time studying art, just hire artists!

      Game design is created by people who understand that mere game art and music alone does not make a good game.

      What part of game "design" isn't art, exactly? This is an interesting perspective: programmers make games, and they subcontract all the "Art" out to vendors. I've done sound design for some video games so I definitely run into this perspective a lot, I think it's kinda sick and it sorta denies the essential creative act of making a game.

      Basically you have a bunch of artists making stuff, and then you present your work to developers and the PMs, and uniformly, I've found the devs are totally inarticulate, and either don't really know what they want, and they are totally unoriginal and if you let them do whatever they wanted, they'd just have you remake all the Titanfall assets in different colors (or with more reverb and low-end). Dev don't communicate, they never want to talk to you, they got no vision for how they want this game to be different from every other one, and to them, the "artists" are just columns on a spreadsheet.

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
    3. Re:No thanks by MrLint · · Score: 1

      Its funny you mention spreadsheet. This whole commentary from this guy very much feels like what it means to poorly grasp a field/ technology.

      Back to my analog, people see spreadsheets with data on them, and think "this is how i should interact with data", being (intentionally) ignorant on how data come together for it to be presented to them. And yet they will pass the spreadsheet around via email, oblivious to all the bad info anyone can put in, and when it comes back to them they have giant "?" over there head as to why all the info is now hopelessly broken and unusable.

    4. Re:No thanks by ShieldW0lf · · Score: 0

      Art detracts from games. It's noise. Chess needs no art. Go needs no art. A 3d shooter needs no art. A strategy game needs no art. Art sucks. Photorealism in games sucks. If it's not a critical element in deciding what your next move in the game should be, it doesn't belong in the game.

      But that flattens the game market down to the point where you don't need a big game studio any more, so, we must use marketing to attempt to create a desire for this crap in the unthinking population.

      Go spray paint a bridge.

      --
      -1 Uncomfortable Truth
    5. Re:No thanks by freeze128 · · Score: 1

      uhm... what do PHB's actually create?

      Ulcers.

    6. Re:No thanks by mwvdlee · · Score: 2

      To devs, the gameplay itself is the art..

      You don't judge a book by it's cover, never mind it's font. These parts are necessary, but only in that they help convey the actual art of the text.

      It's like movies; spectacular special effects and a chart-topping musical score don't make a good movie. Good gameplay makes a good game, regardless of the quality of the graphics and sound.

      --
      Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
    7. Re:No thanks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      What part of game "design" isn't art, exactly? This is an interesting perspective: programmers make games, and they subcontract all the "Art" out to vendors. I've done sound design for some video games so I definitely run into this perspective a lot, I think it's kinda sick and it sorta denies the essential creative act of making a game.

      Basically you have a bunch of artists making stuff, and then you present your work to developers and the PMs, and uniformly, I've found the devs are totally inarticulate, and either don't really know what they want, and they are totally unoriginal and if you let them do whatever they wanted, they'd just have you remake all the Titanfall assets in different colors (or with more reverb and low-end). Dev don't communicate, they never want to talk to you, they got no vision for how they want this game to be different from every other one, and to them, the "artists" are just columns on a spreadsheet.

      What prevents anyone from doing it the other way around. Why can't "artists" subcontract the programming?
      What makes you think that situation will be any different? If you feel that programmers have a problem communicating with you then it is inevitable that you will have a problem communicating with them.
      Communicating in the echo chamber is easy, communicating with people with a different world view is hard, that is because the meaning of words are subjective.

      Well, anyway, we have seen what happens when artists try to design computer games. You end up with things like "Dear Esther" a.k.a "The walking simulator".
      That is why modern game studios have dedicated game designers that are neither programmers nor artists.
      Those that can't afford to have that are indie developers, they either have to be programmers and skip the art or they have to be artists and skip the program. In the latter case the end result is typically not a game.

    8. Re:No thanks by narcc · · Score: 2

      There's a reason the intersections on a Go board aren't spaced equally along both axes, you know.

      Or maybe you don't.

    9. Re:No thanks by slew · · Score: 1

      Art detracts from games. It's noise.

      Of course..."The image translators work for the construct program. But there's way too much information to decode the Matrix. You get used to it. I...I don't even see the code. All I see is blonde, brunette, red-head."

      What more can you ask for?

    10. Re:No thanks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      what do PHB's actually create?

      Customer-centric vertically-integrated paradigm-shifting monitization of core competencies ...

      and Synergy!

    11. Re:No thanks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      just listen you spotty fucks.

      art detracts from games? thats the road youre taking?

      consider the forum youre in right now. forums dont need art, right? art detracts from forums. anything that isnt a critical element in helping you post your idea doesnt belong in a forum. thing is, this forum, from its choice of color, to formatting, to the way headers are rounded in the top left corner... any idea which principles those called on, or which fields of studies they made use of? any idea how they affect you as a regular user?

      like it or not, the aesthetic construction of anything affects you, even if its just subconsciously.

      i mean, just listen this other guy:

      "Considering the size of the gaming industry, I guess plenty of people are happily playing games designed by those "spotty nerds"."

      so the size of the industry equates to quality, just like the popularity of an argument is proportional to its validity, right? bollocks.

    12. Re:No thanks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ... did i just see someone shilling for BETA?

    13. Re:No thanks by idontgno · · Score: 1

      No thanks, we don't want our games designed by PHB's. Go back to your own job of creating... uhm... what do PHB's actually create?

      Accounting irregularities, mostly.

      --
      Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
    14. Re:No thanks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      PHB? What's your problem with Player's handbook? It's a pretty fine piece of work.

    15. Re:No thanks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Problem is if you try to explain what will eventually happen with that spreadsheet, you'll be looked down at as "negative" and "non-supportive".

      So your best bet is just Keep Your Mouth Shut, and just observe foot being aimed at, triggers pulled aaaaand.....

    16. Re:No thanks by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      You don't judge a book by it's cover, never mind it's font.

      Of course I don't, because "it is cover" and "it is font" make absolutely no sense at all.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    17. Re:No thanks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There's a reason the intersections on a Go board aren't spaced equally along both axes, you know.

      Or maybe you don't.

      That reason isn't art, it's science.
      Or well, Go is old enough for it to be rigorous testing and gradual changes, the explanation is science.

      You can call it art if you want, but trust me, no-where in the design process has any persons that would associate with John Cridland and his likes been involved.

    18. Re:No thanks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      [...] indie developers, they either have to be programmers and skip the art or they have to be artists and skip the program.

      What a load of pseudo-insightful shit.

    19. Re:No thanks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I beg to differ. Art can add and detract from games. What art will never do is a game in and on itself, and that's something that many studios tend to forget these days. Those flashy endless cinematic scenes are NOT a game and will never be a game. If you need 100 minutes of cut scenes to tell your story, you don't want to make a game, you want to make a f***ing movie: GET OUT OF THE WAY. And that's just an obvious easy example, there are plenty of "games" that excel at level art but suck at level design. I don't care if you put the most awesome textures and realistic trees in that level, if it's totally unnecessary, boring and repetitive that level should not be there. On the other hand, there are plenty of examples of games with 80s and 90s artwork (and 80s and 90s games) that are really fun to play.

      Also, as a side note, if all you've ever played are video games and, maybe, poker, you are not prepared to be a game designer. The reason most game designers are nerds it's because nerd pastimes usually include a wide variety of games (role playing games, card collecting games, chess and board games of all kinds). As with any other thing in life, in order to understand games you have to play many different types of games (I haven't included sports because everyone gets exposed to those, in their homes and at school; those are important to know about too).

    20. Re:No thanks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But that flattens the game market down to the point where you don't need a big game studio any more, so, we must use marketing to attempt to create a desire for this crap in the unthinking population.

      Statements like this are always based on the assumption that the speaker is not himself one of the "unthinking population", and that assumption is always wrong.

      Oh, and also the actual statement is wrong, as you can see from the fact that the industry is swarming with successful indie studios that use varying degrees of artistic sophistication in their games.

    21. Re:No thanks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You didn't. And you don't believe that you did, no matter how much you want to.

    22. Re:No thanks by Nemyst · · Score: 1

      No thanks, we don't want our games designed by PHB's. Go back to your own job of creating... uhm... what do PHB's actually create?

      Pain? Suffering? Awful articles that get linked on Slashdot for clickbait?

    23. Re:No thanks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Intersection spacing isn't universal. Many countries use boards with equal spacing.

  5. Yeah... by juanfgs · · Score: 1

    after that don't complain about the avalanche of COD clones all with the same engine but sporting "engaging storyline" which will probably include: explosions, sex, cars and stupid stereotypes in the same line of Hollywood blockbusters. Or perhaps colored puzzles that annoy all your friends with stupid requests.

    1. Re:Yeah... by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      after that don't complain about the avalanche of COD clones all with the same engine but sporting "engaging storyline" which will probably include: explosions, sex, cars and stupid stereotypes in the same line of Hollywood blockbusters

      Actually, a COD clone with the same engine, an engaging storyline, explosions, sex, cars and stupid stereotypes in the line of Hollywood blockbusters sounds pretty darn good right about now.

      Beats the hell out of another Early Access point and click mess that will never see an actual release.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    2. Re:Yeah... by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      There in lies that absurd notion of a growth industry in gaming. Computer games are not like other products, there are real hard limits on number of games, number of users and free time. Think of it like a growth in sports being considered by an ever increasing number and variety of sports. Just because more people buy games does not mean you can produce and sell more games, you just sell copies of the successful ones. Success being a measure of the cost of development versus the income derived from the number of sales, this in fact crippled by the presence of more and more games. That idiot is just bullshitting beyond belief if he thinks computer programming or computer gaming design can replace manufacturing outsourced to cheap labour being paid cents per hour. There is a monumental difference between making a million cars and making 1, just fucking 1 game and copying it a million times and distributing it via download. If this seeming fuckwit thinks he can save British industry with computer games he is a complete and total moron.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
  6. On a related node by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I wonder who's responsible for the latest trend in UX-tardedness? Spotty nerds or almost-a-barista arts grads? Could be both. Whoever is responsible needs a talking to (followed by an ass-whooping).

  7. Spotty Nerds? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    WTF does the term "Spotty Nerds" translate to in America. I have no clue what personality trait is being bashed here.

    1. Re:Spotty Nerds? by funwithBSD · · Score: 1

      PFY
      Pimply Faced Youth

      --
      Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
    2. Re:Spotty Nerds? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Can't be weeaboo or otaku, they're doing pretty well with their JRPGs.

    3. Re:Spotty Nerds? by mark-t · · Score: 1

      So he's being agist?

      Or is he just prejudiced against people who have acne?

      Either way, the person is a moron... you should judge a person's work for the work that they actually do instead of what they look like, how old they are, or how convenient it might seem to lump the person into a stererotype that may or may not reflect that particular individual.

    4. Re:Spotty Nerds? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who is this clown? He looks like a bean pole with bad dress sense.

      He should eat some burgers and get to the gym, nobody is going to listen to policy decisions from this lanky bastard.

    5. Re:Spotty Nerds? by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      WTF does the term "Spotty Nerds" translate to in America.

      Mark Kern.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    6. Re:Spotty Nerds? by Rei · · Score: 1

      I was thinking that too. My first thought was "a piece of string", but that's a linguistic issue ;)

      Concerning the importance of internationalization: kind of, but programmers need to be careful about taking it too far. The most annoying ones are

      1) When programs change the keyboard shortcuts from your standard set of shortcuts to something that matches the first letter in the chosen language. For example, if "save" changes to the word "vista", changing ctrl-s to ctrl-v. Stop doing this, people!. You merely ensure that every app has its own completely different shortcuts, which is a major annoyance.

      2) When programs start insisting that you change your decimal point specifier to that for your language. For example, if I paste a number from almost any website on Earth into kcalc it interprets the "."s as thousands breaks and "," as decimal points, which of course means that it's virtually always a screwup (proper behavior: ignore thousand spacers since they're so rarely typed explicitly and interpret both "." and "," as a decimal point)

      --
      "99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
    7. Re:Spotty Nerds? by jcr · · Score: 1

      So he's being agist?

      I think the way they'd say it in the UK is he's being a cunt.

      -jcr

      --
      The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  8. Fuck this guy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He can suck my spotty dick.

  9. Just look at GNOME 3, Firefox 4+, Windows 8. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    All we need to do is look at GNOME 3, Firefox 4+ and Windows 8 to see what happens when "artistic" types get involved with software development.

    The end result is always a huge fucking disaster!

    The old UIs, developed mainly by programmers, may have been deemed "ugly", but they were consistent and highly usable. You could use them to get real work done quickly and efficiently.

    The new UIs, developed mainly by "UI designers" and "UX artisans" may be deemed pretty by such people, but they are really goddamn inconsistent and fucking unusable. You can't get work done with these, because you'll waste all of your time trying to figure out how the fuck to use the software.

    Gedit is an obvious example of how these "artistic designers" completely fuck up perfectly good software UIs. Gedit used to look like this, where it had a traditional, consistent, and highly usable UI. Newer versions of Gedit look like this disaster. Yes, it's true, the GNOME 3 developers somehow managed to fuck up the user interface of a simple text editor!

    We need to go back to "ugly" UIs developed by real programmers, not today's "pretty" UIs developed by terrible "designers" and "artists".

    1. Re:Just look at GNOME 3, Firefox 4+, Windows 8. by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      The old UIs, developed mainly by programmers, may have been deemed "ugly", but they were consistent and highly usable.

      You must be talking about the amazing wget UI, right?

      Gnome 3 is a problem, but there is a need for balance.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    2. Re:Just look at GNOME 3, Firefox 4+, Windows 8. by Howitzer86 · · Score: 1

      I think when it comes to design (with any product), the fewer people that are involved in it the better the outcome will be. So while you can get away with blaming fru-fru useless artists in a lot of cases, maybe what you should really look at is how many people were involved overall, and how they are managed. Instead of having a large number of UX professionals, maybe all you need are a few, or just one. Perhaps they should just be a single consultant offering "take it or leave it" advice. Then your team of programmers can make it happen and make sure it works, hiring artist contractors as needed.

      Personally I think the best outcome happens when the programmers have some art knowledge.

      Your Gedit example though... wow. Yes that's pretty, but I'm with you on that one. Running a program and constantly thinking "Ok, how do I find " when it's in a standard place in every other program is one of the things that irritate me the most. But you'll have to admit that anyone - artist or programmer - could make that mistake... just maybe not the people actually using Gedit...

    3. Re:Just look at GNOME 3, Firefox 4+, Windows 8. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I ditched GNOME the day that I received the new Evince after an update. After encountering the new 'pretty' interface, it took me over 10 minutes to find out how to open a fucking file.

      Apparently, all functionality has been delegated to the single Hamburger Menu Button (since that's what's hip and cool in web design these days!) -- but this button doesn't appear if your window is too small. You know what doesn't have that problem? Menu bars. It's almost like the classic 'File/Edit/View' is a taboo in UI design these days!

      The entire 'but you have more vertical space!'-argument is also a load of bull. Going back to Gedit, the tabs are larger, and so is the title bar. In the screenshots you linked, old gedit (title bar + menu bar + tabs) has approx. 74px of space used; the new gedit (title bar/toolbar combo + tabs) uses approx. 84px! If you really wanted to save that precious vertical space, why not just turn off the toolbar?

      The GNOME foundation claims that "[t]he design of Evince is centered around creating a natural experience [...] where you hardly even know that Evince exists". After switching to MATE's Atril I can wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment; I hardly know that Evince exists!

    4. Re:Just look at GNOME 3, Firefox 4+, Windows 8. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wait for it.....

    5. Re:Just look at GNOME 3, Firefox 4+, Windows 8. by EvilSS · · Score: 1

      Why you people think you need a GUI to work with text files is beyond me. We did fine before all you mouse jockeys came along and insisted on dumbing down everything to the level of a McDonalds cash register.

      --
      I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
    6. Re:Just look at GNOME 3, Firefox 4+, Windows 8. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What's the problem? If you need to give more options for wget than the url (in which case there's absolutely no reason to use GUI) and cannot use CLI for whatever reason, that looks pretty sane choice.

    7. Re:Just look at GNOME 3, Firefox 4+, Windows 8. by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

      FFS, the first version looked horrible too. Who needs a button, or even a menu option, for "new" or "save" in a text editor.

      --
      Your ad here. Ask me how!
    8. Re:Just look at GNOME 3, Firefox 4+, Windows 8. by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      What's the problem? If you need to give more options for wget than the url (in which case there's absolutely no reason to use GUI) and cannot use CLI for whatever reason, that looks pretty sane choice.

      Despite the fact that I've never been on a Linux system and unable to use the CLI,

      The organization is atrocious. A UI should make the common use case easy, and the uncommon case possible. In this UI, every option is smashed together as though they had equal importance.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    9. Re:Just look at GNOME 3, Firefox 4+, Windows 8. by CronoCloud · · Score: 1

      I ditched GNOME the day that I received the new Evince after an update. After encountering the new 'pretty' interface, it took me over 10 minutes to find out how to open a fucking file.

      If you open up evince on it's own, you get a selection of recent documents and a button that looks like a file folder. Hovering over that shows "Open".

      And considering how few buttons Evince with a document open has, it shouldn't take 10 minutes to see what that triple-line hamburger does.

    10. Re:Just look at GNOME 3, Firefox 4+, Windows 8. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But wget is a command line tool. It exists so that web content can be pulled down from the command line. From inside scripts, for example. I'm also pretty sure that wasn't a native GUI in that picture, but someone's third party wraparound utility.

    11. Re:Just look at GNOME 3, Firefox 4+, Windows 8. by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      I'm also pretty sure that wasn't a native GUI in that picture, but someone's third party wraparound utility.

      Yes, that doesn't prevent it from being horrendous.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    12. Re: Just look at GNOME 3, Firefox 4+, Windows 8. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are many usability violations there. Most likely the default UI should have only one button to download and one to close and a field for URL and a button for additional settings. This will hint the USER what is mandatory and what is extra. As there are so many the settings should probably be split to several sections. Non onvious settings should have more info about what happens from them e.g. preview kind of view. Some texts need also editing. Don't assume that text version had perfect text.

    13. Re:Just look at GNOME 3, Firefox 4+, Windows 8. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Perhaps you should have read more than just the first paragraph. The Magical Hamburger menu simply wasn't there until I resized the window -- and there is no indication that there is anything beyond the window border if the window is too small.

      Bad design all around.

    14. Re:Just look at GNOME 3, Firefox 4+, Windows 8. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Also the new Word and Paint toolbars. I've resorted to using OpenOffice and Photoshop because everything got so bad.

  10. Foreign Language Education by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Cridland also expressed support for an increased emphasis on foreign language education

    Why do people in English speaking countries keep thinking those countries will ever be motivated to develop really good foreign language education programs when every other country is busting ass trying to get its citizens to be better at speaking English?

    I'm sure there'd be personal and probably some cultural benefits if it worked, but until other countries stop trying so hard to learn English, the people in charge in English speaking countries will keep saying that the money and effort required to make a great language education system aren't worth it.

    1. Re:Foreign Language Education by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In the United States, video game salaries are low because there are a glut of potential employees.

      Speaks English and Spanish? There are a lot of those people in the United States.

  11. wut? by penandpaper · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "One of the biggest growth industries in Britain today is the computer games industry... but nobody is going to play a game designed by a spotty nerd. "

    Is it just me, or do these two ideas seem contradictory?

    1. Re:wut? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not just you.

    2. Re:wut? by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      Is it just me, or do these two ideas seem contradictory?

      It couldn't be more contradictory unless he made it, "designed by a spotty nerd with nice straight teeth".

      Where is this Brit planning on importing all the game designers from?

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
  12. Attempt to Manufacture Outrage for Clicks. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Attempt to Manufacture Outrage for Clicks. Now that's Foxy!

  13. Fuck you, Cridland by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Hey feminists, see that? That's how people treat us.

    1. Re:Fuck you, Cridland by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      Combine "flighty and incompetent" with "spotty nerd" and you've got what it's like to be a woman in tech. Double the insults, half the recognition!

      It's not that you guys don't get piles of shit, it's that your piles of shit are smaller compared to everyone else.

    2. Re:Fuck you, Cridland by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No one wins a competition comparing how many piles of shit they get, or how big their piles are. Someone always has a bigger pile, like somehow managing to lose 12 fingers.

    3. Re:Fuck you, Cridland by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Hey feminists, see that? That's how people treat us.

      "Us"? Which "us" are you talking about, game designers or spotty nerds?

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    4. Re:Fuck you, Cridland by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Different anon here.

      It's not that you guys don't get piles of shit, it's that your piles of shit are smaller compared to everyone else.

      That's bullshit, don't marginalize it like that. "Everyone else"? Everyone else who? Any labeled group that's not straight-up criminal gets more respect than male nerds. Hell, even criminals of certain types are sometimes viewed as more romantic.

      Here, I can make quick and generalized quantifications too: at least there's some people who find nerdy girls cute, I'd have killed for someone to think of me as cute in highschool. Almost any girl can get a guy, almost no male nerd can get a girl. So check your goddamn privilege.

    5. Re:Fuck you, Cridland by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Apparently there is no difference.

    6. Re:Fuck you, Cridland by locust · · Score: 1

      It's not that you guys don't get piles of shit, it's that your piles of shit are smaller compared to everyone else.

      Fail.

      How do you know? How many miles have you walked in my shoes? If you did walk in my shoes you might find my burden unbelievably light, or unbearably heavy. Yet you would still not know how heavy it is to me.

      Like many, I have been taught and trained to carry my burdens with equanimity. Thus those burdens appear small to you. You will never know how great they are to me.

      I will not prostitute those burdens to pay for the right to speak, and I will not trade your pity for a job, a raise, or a house.

    7. Re:Fuck you, Cridland by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      i don't trust people who don't care about other people's pile of shit, because their own is bigger.

      fuck you feminists, at least you're not being raped by the boko haram.

      wait, you think that your pile shit is worth talking about? some people's mountain of shit makes your pile of shit look like a molehill of shit.

      i saw this summary, and i said "this should not end well" in the first post.

      i'm waiting to see if those that decry prejudice, decry it in every circumstance.

    8. Re:Fuck you, Cridland by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Very poetic. But on aggregate I bet our AC is right.

      I worked at a startup in the 1990s which had a very varied staff, including several great designers (male and female), female engineers, many different nationalities, a big age range, two or three gay men, one hysterically funny, sports-car-driving man with a motor function disability... a really good, high-pressure-but-strong-community startup in a village between a major town and an academic city.

      One day one of the two female engineers -- a shy, dedicated, hugely intelligent and classically beautiful young woman -- walked back into the office, packed away her personal possessions and walked out. She'd overheard a conversation between her boss and someone else in the firm. The conversation concerned two things: a plan to move this young woman to work with the design team (basically because she was a girl), and a set of what I gather were astonishingly, gratuitously sexist and demeaning remarks about her. She made it known she'd heard the conversation and quit on the spot. (In an era when you didn't do this lightly; she did have a contract to work out). The other female engineer would perhaps have slapped him in the face and stayed; who knows.

      This shit happens ALL THE TIME. Male engineers are derided for their lack of social skills, yes, underpaid because they will be diligent anyway, yes. Treated as people who can't see the big picture, yes. But not persistently belittled, sexually discriminated against, demeaned, dismissed intellectually... Maybe your individual work life is fucking shitty; if it is I feel for you and I can relate. But on aggregate, women engineers face shit men do not.

    9. Re:Fuck you, Cridland by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I can make shit up too.

      So can anyone, including you. Well done.

    10. Re:Fuck you, Cridland by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      One day one of the two female engineers -- a shy, dedicated, hugely intelligent and classically beautiful young woman -- walked back into the office, packed away her personal possessions and walked out. She'd overheard a conversation...

      Yeah, that happened.

    11. Re:Fuck you, Cridland by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh right, I must've imagined that he is telling "spotty nerds" that their STEM education is only of use if they're herded by arts majors (lots of women there, btw.). How's that for a glass ceiling?

    12. Re:Fuck you, Cridland by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      C'mon bro, keep your woman-hating misogyny out of this thread. It's about game programmers getting shit on, not weak men who feel threatened by women like yourself.

  14. Written by ... by PPH · · Score: 1

    ... spotty nerds to be played by spotty nerds.

    Frankly, I don't see a problem.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  15. "Spotty nerd" ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    1v1 me bro, i rek yo ass.

    1. Re:"Spotty nerd" ? by meta-monkey · · Score: 1

      i 360 noscope u fggt.

      --
      We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
  16. Gedit UI change by tepples · · Score: 1

    The design that moves the titlebar and menubar into the toolbar, which you referred to as "this disaster", gains two lines of vertical space in the document compared to the old UI. With 16:10 and portrait displays hard to find especially in laptops, how else is the user supposed to make the best use of vertical space?

    And when did it change? You give a screenshot of 3.11.92, while a Gedit 3.10.4 user on another forum offers this screenshot that has the old UI. Did it change between 3.10 and 3.11? The user also says the screenshot is from "Gnome in Classic mode."

    1. Re:Gedit UI change by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I would be shocked if there wasn't a option to turn off toolbars/menus and etc. Why frag the UI to oblivion when you can simply give the user whatever control they need, 20 stacks of icons and two bars of info or nothing but screen space.

    2. Re:Gedit UI change by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The new Gedit UI fails even when considering your arbitrary criteria!

      With the old UI, you could disable the toolbar, gaining you three more lines of text, if you really needed them that badly. You'd still have the menus available to you, with the functionality very easily accessible and well organized. You can't disable the hodgepodge top bar in the new UI without losing access to most functionality!

      The tabs in the new UI are also nearly twice the height of the tabs in the old UI. For all your talk about "making the best use of vertical space", the new UI is extraordinarily wasteful! The hodgepodge top bar actually has more empty space than it does functionality and labels!

      We know you're just here to argue, but please, at least make your arguments at least slightly sensible!

    3. Re:Gedit UI change by 0123456 · · Score: 1

      Configuration confuses users. Hiding the menus does not.

      Or something.

      Personally, I'm still laughing about the way the UI 'designers' removed my browser menus to 'save screen space', then their comrades building web sites put in huge freaking fonts so they're readable on a tablet, so I now get about six lines of text on my laptop screen at many 'mobile-friendly' web sites.

      Arts grads are the biggest single threat to computing and the Web right now. They have completely stuffed up both of them over the last few years.

    4. Re:Gedit UI change by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The design that moves the titlebar and menubar into the toolbar, which you referred to as "this disaster", gains two lines of vertical space in the document compared to the old UI. With 16:10 and portrait displays hard to find especially in laptops, how else is the user supposed to make the best use of vertical space?

      No, if that had been the driving point then the toolbar would have been switched to a vertical one along the left or right edge.
      The reason for the change was only "oh, shiny!"

    5. Re:Gedit UI change by rastos1 · · Score: 1

      Fuck vertical space. On my random e-shop when I restrict the size of the monitor to 22"-24" then 90% of models have 1080 vertical pixels. And if I need more, I'll pivot the screen. You think I care about 3 additional lines? Oh, you mean on your netbook or tablet you don't have enough space? Well then get an editor designed for a small screen. And don't fuck up the default plain text editor of the DE. (Alternatively make it configurable).

    6. Re:Gedit UI change by tepples · · Score: 1

      And if I need more, I'll pivot the screen.

      Good luck doing that on a laptop, even one bigger than a netbook.

  17. Form over function strikes again? by ErichTheRed · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm convinced that this phase of computer history is going to be remembered as the "UX Revolution." Seriously, even Linux distributions' GUIs have turned into iOS clones. Windows 10, while better than 8, is still a disaster because Microsoft is still convinced that people want to run a phone/tablet OS on their desktop PC.

    It's the deadly combination of:
    - Everything is a touch screen, so UI elements have to be massive and convey no meaning unless you know what the symbol means.
    - Millions more "normal" people have computers in their pockets now, so even if "spotty nerds" want to use them, the UI can't be made functional because it has to be dumbed down for everyone.

    I agree that just letting the developers do a user interface would probably leave us at slightly above the verbosity level of vi, and a complexity level of emacs, but there's a happy medium. Not everything needs to be rendered in a flat, featureless Jony Ive rounded rectangle style. Seriously, if people who are used to computers have to look at a user interface for more than a few seconds to figure out what performs an action, and where that action is located, than form has won over function.

    I'd rather have an ugly, functional UI any day. AS/400 style green screens are hideously ugly and primitive, but they're laid out well, the intelligent use of color highlights important things, and they're easy to stare at for long periods of time. I'm absolutely sick of web pages and app screens that have bright white backgrounds and tiny light grey text, chosen simply because it's pretty.

    1. Re:Form over function strikes again? by TeknoHog · · Score: 2

      - Everything is a touch screen

      The dumbest thing about this is that people are now using more text/IM and less talking than they did in the days of number pads. While I prefer a real QWERTY on my phone, even the humble number pad could be used for tactile text input. In fact, it had the advantage of being usable by the single hand holding the phone.

      A friend of mine once remarked that touchscreen phones are a fad; it's only for a while that people can be fascinated by the sleek exterior, and they'll eventually want something that works. Unfortunately, I'm not seeing any signs why it would be passing any time soon. It seems like our entire culture is about superficial fads, and only a small minority is ever interested in getting things done.

      On a side note, the entire premise of artists vs. spotty geeks is a false dichotomy. I'm sure many an artist is a kind of spotty geek too, being focused on the art rather than social life. I also like to argue that harmony in art is deeply related to math -- for example, musical harmony is based on simple fractions, and there's a huge overlap in appreciating beauty from many different disciplines. Also, nature is full of examples where beauty in form is solely due to functional evolution, and the same applies to plenty of man-made forms.

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
    2. Re:Form over function strikes again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A friend of mine once remarked that touchscreen phones are a fad; it's only for a while that people can be fascinated by the sleek exterior, and they'll eventually want something that works.

      He is right, but he also doesn't understand that people don't want phones. People want portable microcomputers with multiple communication methods.
      A hardware input interface reduces general functionality in favor of improving some specific functionality. What we really need is a way to reintroduce tactile feedback without sacrificing the interface customization. I remember a /. article some time ago about a layer being developed to go on top of a capacitive touch screen that would inflate cells in the layer to provide a more button-like interface without interfering with the screen sensitivity. No idea what hurdles it's run into, but that had the potential to be a real solution.

    3. Re: Form over function strikes again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Some do that already. I have a phone that uses a tiny bit of vibration on a registered button press. That bit of haptic feedback really speeds up typing for me and helps mitigate some of the touchscreen downsides. That is a solid feature I could really see proliferating into being the standard. May be by now for all I know given that I replace cellphones infrequently.

    4. Re:Form over function strikes again? by Rakarra · · Score: 1

      I'm convinced that this phase of computer history is going to be remembered as the "UX Revolution." Seriously, even Linux distributions' GUIs have turned into iOS clones. Windows 10, while better than 8, is still a disaster because Microsoft is still convinced that people want to run a phone/tablet OS on their desktop PC.

      They want to provide a "consistence interface" across devices, and they believe, probably correctly, that desktop PCs are on their way out, and tablets and phones will dominate consumer computing in the coming decade.

    5. Re:Form over function strikes again? by TeknoHog · · Score: 1

      A friend of mine once remarked that touchscreen phones are a fad; it's only for a while that people can be fascinated by the sleek exterior, and they'll eventually want something that works.

      He is right, but he also doesn't understand that people don't want phones. People want portable microcomputers with multiple communication methods. A hardware input interface reduces general functionality in favor of improving some specific functionality. What we really need is a way to reintroduce tactile feedback without sacrificing the interface customization.

      That's an interesting choice of words. The said friend uses things like Plan 9 and Tor at home, so I'm sure he understands the difference between a computer and a toy for consuming apps.

      I agree with the general problem, though. There simply isn't enough room for a decent keyboard and display in a pocketable device, so compromises must be made. IMHO, a touchscreen makes sense in a tablet that is mostly used for reading/viewing stuff, and not so much writing. But when you communicate using text, you're basically writing half the time, so it should be one of the main foci in the hardware design as well. A slide keyboard is a decent solution that won't sacrifice portability, though it does make the body somewhat thicker. So basically I see people choosing thin over usable. In fact, it doesn't even look like a question of portability -- e.g. the N900 is more pocketable than most current tablet/slab-shaped phones.

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
  18. You cannot teach creativity by allquixotic · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The most galling fallacy in this short statement isn't that he thinks "geeks" aren't creative; it's that he thinks art education makes people creative. Here's some news for you: it doesn't.

    The MOST an art class can teach you is to learn how to follow the design memes of people who came before you. However, this is not necessarily a good thing. Those design features may have been very creative and engaging when they first started being incorporated into works, but if they are used in such a widespread way as to be monotonous, it actually makes a product *worse* to start throwing them in.

    Consider, for instance, how many games have a soundtrack that is extremely similar to every other game in their genre. It's not similar enough to lead to a copyright infringement lawsuit -- usually -- but it's "generic" in the sense that it borrows 90% of its design features from past works, whether previous titles from the same developer or competitors. These soundtracks often receive poor reviews when they don't stand out in any particular way from the other games that came before, and players tend not to remember the music after they stop playing the game.

    On the other hand, the best, most memorable and enjoyable game music soundtracks that have existed have all been extremely original, with major innovative design features that give a distinct "feel" or "sound" to the title. This can be VERY powerful and greatly boost the sales of the product.

    Similar comparisons can be made of visual assets in games, of course.

    The problem is, even though you can teach someone to mimic what's been done in the past and grade them on their ability to do so, you can't teach people to be able to come up with entirely new design features or concepts on their own. And if you tried to grade an art class based on how unique or original the design features were, most students at the high school and 4-year degree level would fail the class because they couldn't think of anything creative that was also good (you could technically consider any random selection of features to be "unique", but not all things that are unique are beautiful, appreciable, or easily digestible by the person accessing (reading/viewing) the work.)

    Most truly creative, novel design features that win awards and universal acclaim happen *spontaneously*, without any sort of directed methodology used to derive the aspects chosen. Sure, the creator may digest some existing art aspects of the game as "input" when trying to determine how to come up with more assets (textures, sounds, music), but even with that input, there are numerous ways you could go with creating the new content that seem equally viable from the outset. It's not until you get others to experience your content that you start to get feedback, like, "wow, this is incredible!" or "this sounds very generic".

    So yeah, throw away money, making coders spend extra hours bored in art class doing watercolor paintings, as if that's going to make England's creative output any better. People who are born to be creators tend to do whatever they love doing on their own, without having to be forced to sit in a class to do it. You really can't force creativity, or the "forced-ness" of it becomes obvious in the content that's been created. That's just the way it is.

    And don't even get me started on the stereotype that "geeks" are lacking in creativity. Coding shops used to ask people in interviews what their creative outlet is, whether it's singing, playing instruments, drawing, etc. - and those who didn't have any to speak of were often passed over in favor of candidates who had a creative passion. I imagine that type of thinking is even more prevalent in game studios, though I've never worked at one.

    1. Re:You cannot teach creativity by phantomfive · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You cannot teach creativity

      Plenty of people disagree with you.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    2. Re:You cannot teach creativity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I typically turn the "music" off in games. It is monotonous, repetitive, and distracting.

    3. Re:You cannot teach creativity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wish to disagree on the creative passion. I can neither draw nor paint myself out of a wet paper bag, I gave up on a musical instrument after a few years and never composed anything. Haven't tried my hand at writing.

      But when OO came along, structures and relationships simply fell into place in my mind. By the time I got my hands on the GoF book, I had independently discovered 8 of the 20 patterns in there, and established Singleton as an anti-pattern. And I do other technical solutions just as easily.

      So there is a creative spark that isn't tied to the arts.

  19. study arts in place where you don't get killed by by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    study arts in place where you don't get killed by loans so even you if end at mc job or 7-11 you are thing about If just where to rob the joint I can make them go a way.

  20. So: The same outlook s the Anti-GamerGate Crowd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Those gamer nerds just aren't our kind of people, and don't believe what we do, so let's treat them with ridicule and contempt."

  21. "art" in games by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I've become a fan of casual flash/unity games of the type that are on Kongregate, and I've learned to avoid the ones with lots of "art" because they usually suck. Big budget games can be different, but I find that artistry usually is no indicator of whether the game is any fun to play. In fact, I've found a severe drop in average UX since games have gone the also-console route, valuing look over usability. Look at the attractive but infuriating inventory system of Borderlands, for example. They need more UX people, not more artists.

  22. I, for one, by LionKimbro · · Score: 1

    I, for one, welcome our art overlords.

  23. Confederation of British Industry ... by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

    ... take down the flag and stuff.

    --
    It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
  24. British Elite HATE engineers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Engineers, and programmers are most certainly engineers, tend to have certain personality traits. In the USA, bosses try to nurture such people, and thus the USA has become the home of much of the computer revolution. In the UK, home of some of the GREATEST engineers and scientists in Human History, the bosses EXPLOIT what they see as the psychological weaknesses of the engineering classes.

    The hatred has a class basis, originating from the time when the rich OWNED the talent of everyone below them in Britain, and kept their power and money by becoming PERFECT PARASITES. In comparison, the same bosses LIKE the arty types, and find them droll company. The tradition, of course, is the dinner party of NOBS including the odd writer and artist to 'amuse' them. The cliche of the engineer, on the other hand, is a 'BORE' who sends every listener to sleep by wittering on about the minutiae of their field of study. You can see the same cliche depicted in modern films and TV shows.

    Computer Games represent quite unique art. Most frequently, according to the rule 'FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION' the 'artistic' expression in a computer game follows the technology that makes the game work. Take shoot-em-ups, like Space Invaders or Galaxians. Or platform games like Donkey Kong or Manic Miner.

    Much later we had Quake, with its distinctive style driven by the engineering choices of Carmack and Abrash. Modern open-world games look as they do due to the engineering behind the 3D rendering and lighting- the 'art' follows the engineering.

    Art-driven games tend to be flash-in-the-pan shallow shit that appeal to Apple loving journalists. Today the SJW crown has jumped on the bandwagon, since these types CANNOT think or program for shit, and thus must explot the fundamental work of vastly smarter Humans for their own perverted ends. A SJW that 'creates' a game by paying others to slap a layer of crap on a pre-existing engine will claim responsibility for everything, INCLUDING the engine.

    Pop stars are FAMOUS. Blockbuster movie directors are quite famous. The programming talent behind the world's best video games is 99.99% utterly INVISIBLE. A person like Carmack is the exception that 'proves' (tests in Old English) the rule, and even Carmack is only known to fellow nerds.

       

    1. Re:British Elite HATE engineers by meta-monkey · · Score: 1

      Insightful.

      --
      We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
  25. Re:About time by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 1

    I'm a relatively high end techno nerd and don't have a tv so had to fill up my spare time by reading a few bookshelves of history books (mostly early 20th century). I think this is a much easier route than getting a history degree and trying to learn differential geometry and calculus of variations on my own. But I'm pretty lazy, so maybe that's just me.

  26. Re:nobody is going to play a game designed by a sp by Qzukk · · Score: 1

    now enforcing dress codes

    Nice try, but a nerd in a suit is still a nerd.

    Just as it should be.

    Good luck with your mission to compel everyone to fit into your mold. Some parting words to think about: "swear allegiance to the flag, whatever flag they offer".

    --
    If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
  27. I cunt spel wrth a shiite by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I told you, I can't spell.

  28. Oh come on now... by s.petry · · Score: 1

    While I disagree with his premise regarding games I believe he has a valid point. Probably very unintentionally, but I have to be fair. Should Nerds/Geeks be learning Arts too? Absolutely they should. The classical education system worked so well because people learned a bit of everything while they also specialized. Our industrial education system does not work because it focuses on testing on two subjects (mostly). People might be able to find a rounded education outside of the public system, but you won't find it within.

    Where I do think he's wrong is pushing for Mandarin based games. Unless China revolts somehow, they will still be a 2 class system with the majority living in extreme poverty. It does not matter how many people speak the same language a game is released with, if they can't afford the product.

    --

    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

    1. Re:Oh come on now... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I believe you should get up to date with the current state of both, China and the USA.

  29. Re:nobody is going to play a game designed by a sp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Many software houses are now enforcing dress codes

    I'm not aware of a single *game* studio that is enforcing a dress code.

    There is no place for them anywhere. Just as it should be. :)

    What have you got against spotty nerds?

  30. We need games designed by people who play games by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We don't need games designed by nerds who have a sometimes rather weird sense of "fun". Granted. But at least those games would get played by nerds. Games designed by artists who have no connection with games would be played by NOBODY because, yes, they are artistically pleasing and maybe they will one day end up in some review of the "most beautiful games of the past", but an artist that has no idea what makes a game fun will not create a good game.

    What we need is people who have an idea what makes games fun. What makes games interesting. Why people play them. And why people play THOSE games and not the ones over there. What made Kerbal Space Program a great game that was generally praised and Hatred a bad game that was generally panned? Don't bother answering, pretty much EVERYONE here knows the answer.

    At least if they play games!

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  31. Mandarin? Spanish? by friesofdoom · · Score: 0

    I always laugh in the faces of the morons who tell me that bs.

    Mandarin, 14.4% of world population, spoken in: China, Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia
    Spanish, 6.15%, spoken in: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Spain, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela, and Western Sahara.
    English, 5.43%, spoken in: United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand.

    Thanks, but I'll stick with the DOLLARS and POUNDS rather than try my luck with those yen or peso.

    1. Re:Mandarin? Spanish? by friesofdoom · · Score: 0

      And if i ever need to speak to someone in Mandarin or Spanish, I'll just pay someone a pittance in yen or peso to do the translation for me.

    2. Re:Mandarin? Spanish? by Jiro · · Score: 1

      "How many people speak this as a first language" is not the same thing as "how many people speak this".

    3. Re: Mandarin? Spanish? by ravenshrike · · Score: 1

      That would be spoken as primary language. If one were to include english apeakers on a less than fluent but functional basis I imagine the numbers would look quite a bit different

    4. Re:Mandarin? Spanish? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So which of those countries use the Yen?

    5. Re:Mandarin? Spanish? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What kind of joke are you?

      yen is NOT (and never was) the currency in China, and peso is NOT the currency in most of the Spanish speaking countries.

      And good luck with finding a mandarin translator for a 'pittance'. Anything remotely complex or technical is a pure nighmare, and it's a struggle even for well-funded entities (like spying agencies, etc)

    6. Re:Mandarin? Spanish? by sabbede · · Score: 1

      People give far too much weight to Mandarin. Sure it's the most spoken language, but only by native speakers. It's radically different from every other widely spoken language (tonal+analytic vs. non-tonal+synthetic) and incredibly difficult to learn for non-native speakers. Impossible for some, as tone-deafness exists.

  32. STEM becomes STEAM? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We need more Steam!?

  33. spotty nerd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  34. "Curriculum" overloading ... by MacTO · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is the same mentality which leads to so much being added to the curriculum that neither the teacher nor the student can handle it. Rather than having every special interest trying to get their bits into the curriculum, decide what is important in a particular field and focus on that. Then give the learner the option to pursue a STEM, arts, or blended education. The arts aren't going to die off because everyone is interested in STEM, because you're never going to run into a situation where everyone is interested in STEM. Likewise, STEM isn't going to die off because of the arts. You're even going to have people who are interested in a mix of the two because no one completely fits into those silos.

  35. Re:About time by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 1

    > I personally hope this extends into requiring that people have well rounded educational backgrounds

    That may work nicely for generating lots of well rounded people, but stuff gets done be people focused on the thing they do. You wouldn't have any communication security if it wasn't for people who obsessed over mathematics for their entire lives. You wouldn't have pretty game graphics if it wasn't for people who obsessed over datapath architecture. You wouldn't have nice game music if it wasn't for people who focused on music their whole lives. You can live wide & shallow or deep & narrow or both or neither. The world will get by, but don't imagine it would be ok if everyone followed the wide & shallow path.

    --
    I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
  36. Spotty? by gurps_npc · · Score: 1

    I don't speak British - is spotty some kind of mean insult? Or does he just mean unreliable as in a spotty paint job.

    --
    excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
    1. Re:Spotty? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I guess the closest translation for you is probably "zitty"

    2. Re:Spotty? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think he's referring to menstruating girls. What connection that has to games is beyond my ken.

    3. Re:Spotty? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I guess the closest translation for you is probably "zitty"

      The word you're looking for is "pimply", as in PFY, the BOFH's assistant.

      What in the world is /. coming to these days?

    4. Re:Spotty? by gurps_npc · · Score: 1

      Thanks. Apparently, he thinks clean skin means cool ...and stupid.

      --
      excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
  37. Games should be designed by GAMERS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I disagree with the nerdy statement, the challenging games come from them, look at Elite Dangerous for example. simulating the milkyway first, then put gameplay in it.

    These days the WORST software comes from the commercial focussed groups like EA with 0 day dlc, crashes, bad support and bad programming. If we need to lose anything it is them.

  38. Corrected Headline:Individual has opinion on games by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    n/t

  39. Yeah right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Tell that to this guy.

  40. Re:About time by HornWumpus · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Right, You are the well rounded ones. Despite not taking a single non remedial math or science course.

    We do understand the world better than those who don't bother studying math or physics. That is just a simple fact. You are blind and don't know it.

    Every time I go anywhere near anything that makes the real world operate I see groups of techno nerds making it happen.

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  41. Twat ignorant of the shoulders he rides on by Dr_Barnowl · · Score: 1

    Some of the greatest games of the 8 and 16 bit era were conceived, designed, and programmed by those spotty nerds, in their bedroom, on their own. The concepts and ideas of those games live on today, and those programmers are the reason that Britain still has a thriving games industry today.

    They had more talent than this blowhard will ever have.

  42. Re:nobody is going to play a game designed by a sp by epyT-R · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Well this explains a lot about the sorry state of the AAA title industry. Like their obsessions with 'professional' looks and dress codes, their games are often expensive affairs that are all flash and no substance: Nice graphics, piss poor gameplay, and plenty of showstopper bugs. I submit that people who think shit like dresscodes are important are the ones who are 'spotty', at least in terms of self-esteem, and that insecurity is probably justified.

    You mention pop music as though it's an improvement to those long haired dudes who can play guitar... I just don't know what to say to that.

  43. By George He's Got It by aevan · · Score: 1

    This is why companies of Tale of Tales are the new wave. No one wants boring games like DotA or stupid fighting games like LoL. They want walking simulators of visceral glory, of characters of depth and poignancy with their own agency. Fun is irrelevant, it's about the social and artistic experience. This is the tomorrow today!

    ...what do you mean the company failed harder than Crystal Pepsi?

  44. Acne discrimination? by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    Next big game: Zitters Revenge!

  45. PHBs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We don't need to create things. We rule those who do.

  46. The CBI by RogueyWon · · Score: 2

    I've crossed paths with the CBI a number of times in a work context over the last decade and a bit. To be honest, I've never seen anything come out of them that wasn't either a) blindingly obvious or b) completely stupid.

    They're a bit of an artifact from another age, really. They were founded in mid-1960s, at a time when UK Governments tended to be much more hostile to business and often at the beck and call of the trades unions. The CBI was set up as a counter-point to that; to act, as it were, for a union for big business. And to be fair, that was a perfectly valid objective in the circumstances of the times and remained so throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s.

    Today, of course, British business is hardly cowering from the union menace and the CBI, like a lot of other institutions of the cold war era, is left without a clear purpose. With a divided and often disinterested membership, it mostly seems to exist largely only to perpetuate its own existence, which it does by making ponderous announcements on whatever vaguely business-related issue happens to be topical at the time. As I said above, sometimes it points out the obvious, sometimes it says something ridiculous.

    It would be harmless enough if it weren't for the fact that, for legacy reasons, it still commands more press attention than it deserves. It can be an absolute godsend for lazy BBC journalists who can't be bothered going out to talk to actual industry; get a CBI rent-a-quote to say something and present it as the voice of business on any given story.

  47. Re:About time by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

    You wouldn't have pretty game graphics if it wasn't for people who obsessed over datapath architecture.

    They're outsourcing all the obsessing over datapath architecture.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  48. Art degrees don't belong in the same group as STEM by Macdude · · Score: 2

    First off. F-You, John Cridland, for the 'spotty nerd' insult. And F-You for insinuating that coders aren't artistic and that coding isn't an art form.

    The whole point of promoting STEM is because Art degrees are waste of time and resources. You may be personally fulfilled getting your Masters Degree in 18th Century French Poetry but it's not going to help make you a productive member of society.

    As to game design, you have the game designer who designs the gameplay, then you have the coder who writes the code to implement the gameplay and then you have artist who creates the graphics (and sounds/music) for the game (among numerous other people). Game design is a team effort and everyone needs their own specific skills.

    That you think coders need to be able to draw really shows that you have no idea of how the video-game industry works.

    --
    "Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
  49. Doom? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Doom was designed by spotty nerds, for spotty nerds. It was a colossal hit and changed the industry.

    Of course, changing the industry meant bringing in lots of non-spotty nerds, and then complaining about the "lack of diversity" in games. :-P

    1. Re:Doom? by MercTech · · Score: 1

      And the evolution of the game... first there was Wolfenstein. The first megabit download size game. In the days of 1200 bit modems; it was an overnight download. You got the play the first three levels for free. This proved the concept an a gigantic beta platform for development of the game engine. This was one of the first 3D game engines as opposed to the majority of the games out there that were 2d scrolling games. (Mario, Donkey Kong, Zelda, etc)

      Heretic followed closely after Wolfenstein (The original, not "Shadow of the Serpent Riders". The one released on disc added more levels and cleaned up the graphics a bit) again with shareware distribution. The reason I bought that title was how impressed I was with the Wolfenstein engine that Id software had developed. I remember how I stayed up all night after finding that making it to the very last encounter of Heretic didn''t end the story but provided a code to download the first three levels of their new game in development, Doom!.

      Yep, a group of spotty nerds from Texas totally raised the bar on what people expect from games. And that spelled the demise of the easy to program side scroll games that were the forte of dedicated gaming packages at the time.

      --
      NRRPT/RCT
    2. Re:Doom? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Huh? Heretic was released after Doom - in December 1994. It was essentially a Doom mod, using the Doom engine.

  50. Less Nerds? No, fuck that. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Based on the horrible ports, shitty optimization, and general trend of game coding getting shittier and shittier, we need more competent programmers and game devs. People who actually know how to make a game run well, play well, and look good at the same time.

  51. Precisely by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Non-conformists tend to operate on the default assumption that they are automatically superior to those who conform. This is obvious arrogance. It's also self-contradictory, since most non-conformists still conform more than not.

    It's true that there isn't anything intrinsically correct or moral about conformity for its own sake. But, the trends that form do so because there is something valuable about them. Going with the flow tends to work much better all-around. Those who can't see that will suffer for their blindness.

  52. Neo-impressionist Nerds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    dozens and dozens of them but nobody is going to play a game designed by a spotty nerd.

    That's neo-impressionist nerd, you insensitive, art ignorant clod!

  53. This guy needs training in English by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He needs to learn how to speak English without putting down half of his audience and without putting his foot in his mouth. Perhaps he needs to go back to business school and get more practice in the fine art of public speaking.

  54. Then it'll be designed by SJW's by sethstorm · · Score: 1

    It'll be fully compliant with everything possible, but does nothing in terms of functionality.

    --
    Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
  55. Wanker by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

    That and a certain percentage need to learn Mandarin to develop relations with China.

    Oh, should they? Will conscription be involved?

    Awfully sorry old chap, we're already 2% over quota for frog, and don't even ask about kraut. I'm afraid it's either tiddlywink or the firing squad.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  56. Yah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fuck you too...

    1. Re:Yah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ok, now tell us what you really think.

  57. Yeah. Right. by Qbertino · · Score: 1

    Like academic "artists" actually can do art. Right.

    One of the reasons the art of videogames is so innovative is because of its significant lack of academic bullshitters involved in it.

    Even the biggest, most successfull studios (Eidos Montreal comes to mind) still have that 80ies underground subculture vibe to them. They all have more in common with street art than academia - luckyly. They don't give a flying f*ck wether you have academic rank or not. They're actually interested in your art and wether you can deliver or not.

    That's why games make billions and modern academic conceptional bullshit art doesn't and can only survive as some bizar sort of giant scam in rich societies with too much money.

    --
    We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
  58. Boring fuck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You sound like the most boring fuck on Earth and I'm happy to not know you.

  59. If you don't play games... do not critic them. by Karmashock · · Score: 2

    Imagine if all you knew about Cinema was the occasional trailer for a Michael Bay movie. Lets say you never actually watched movies. Ever. lets say all you knew was the trailers.

    Cinema would be crap right?

    Okay lets say all you knew about literature was whatever was in the airport book stand. That is what you thought books were. A collection of romance novels, spy thrillers, self help books, and other assorted shit.

    Literature would be crap as well, no?

    The first mistake this little twat made was in suggesting that game makers are not real artists. Anyone that has seen the work put into character design, modeling the various objects, creating the sound effects, etc... there are lots of artists in gaming and they're as good or better than the artists in other industries.

    The second mistake he made was projecting HIS desires for what gaming should be without understanding what gaming is already. He probably wants the equivalent of art house movies in games. What he doesn't grasp is that first we already have those and second just like in film they're not very popular because they either are only of interest to a small demographic or they are outright boring. If its wrong for me to judge all movies by Michael Bay movies then where does this fuck come off thinking he can judge all games by grand thief auto etc?

    And it was upon seeing this second error that I just rolled my eyes and stopped reading. If the man wants to talk about gaming then he can sit down and learn something about it. He knows nothing.

    --
    I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
  60. Specky Little Gits by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I've had enough nerd games. You specky little gits need to take your LOL/DOTA2 rubbish and sod off.

  61. is it just me? by JustNiz · · Score: 1

    >> We need extra coders

    Is it just me..or does anyone else also feel REALLY insulted when someone describes a graduate level software engineer's job as "coder"?

  62. Logic fail by tsotha · · Score: 1

    If one of the biggest growth industries in the UK is computer games, doesn't that imply the Spotty Nerds are already doing it right, and that the games "nobody wants to buy" are being bought?

  63. Re:Art degrees don't belong in the same group as S by AthanasiusKircher · · Score: 2

    I completely agree with you that this guy's comments are insulting and don't necessarily make a lot of sense. However...

    The whole point of promoting STEM is because Art degrees are waste of time and resources. You may be personally fulfilled getting your Masters Degree in 18th Century French Poetry but it's not going to help make you a productive member of society.

    This is unnecessarily narrow-minded as well. First, while college degrees seem largely about "job training" for most folks today, for most of the 1000+ year history of universities, the assumption was that getting a degree was also about "broadening one's mind" and acquiring a breadth of skills that may be useful in various ways.

    Someone who has a master's degree in 18th-century French poetry may not find a lot of jobs outside academia that value that very specific field. But there are loads of related skills that could be useful -- mastery of another language has practical use, historical perspective means an ability to think outside of one's current situation (a skill which can be helpful when trying to understand other people and other ideologies and perspectives), poetic analysis requires certain levels of creativity and abstract thinking (particularly outside one's native tongue), understanding rhetorical structure of language can be helpful in crafting everything from good reports to persuasive speeches, etc. And there are even specific benefits perhaps from this particular field: 18th-century France was the home of the so-called Enlightenment, whose philosophy has shaped our modern world, from science to political systems and law. Surely a grasp of some of the background to the place and time which gave birth to our modern pragmatic, scientific culture might be helpful at some point.

    I know a LOT of people who have degrees at various levels in the humanities and make very successful careers in various fields. And those experiences they received by pursuing a humanities education often allows them to confront problems with different perspectives than someone with a STEM degree. This is NOT to say that that STEM degrees aren't "creative" -- obviously they can be. But there are different thinking and creative skills developed by different disciplines, and sometimes having someone working from a different set of background assumptions can be really helpful.

    Thus, I'm not saying that we should all go out and pursue humanities degrees. But they're not necessarily "a waste of time and resources" either.

  64. Re:nobody is going to play a game designed by a sp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Dress codes do serve a purpose. In industries that aren't 99% male, they keep people from bitching about each other over what someone was wearing or how slutty or not some person is. It keeps complains down about poor hygiene and about people leaving body marks on chairs. A basic dress code reduces a huge amount of HR work. That said, way too many companies go too far the other way. Fabric that can be easily used to strangle you should never be required.

    At least it helps when evaluating another company and it's people. The fancier they dress the less trust worthy they are. People dress more formal to artificially impress other people but it also artificially inflates their self-worth. Studies show time and time again that people with higher self delusions steal more and are more corrupt. They think they deserve more than the 'little people' so they take it regardless of the morals of doing so.

  65. So I looked the guy up... by jcr · · Score: 1

    ...and he looks like a limp-wristed boarding school poof to me. If Brits want to know why you lost the empire, look no further.

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  66. Re:Art degrees don't belong in the same group as S by jcr · · Score: 1

    for most of the 1000+ year history of universities, the assumption was that getting a degree was also about "broadening one's mind" and acquiring a breadth of skills that may be useful in various ways.

    And for most of that history, universities were for the gentry and the clergy, not for people who actually had to make any worthwhile contribution to their fellow man.

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  67. John Cridlands' CV by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Looking at his Wikipedia page, he "studied Indian and African history", joined the Confederation of British Industry as a policy advisor at 21, and was director at 30... and has done nothing else and is now 54. Does anyone find this strange? No business or industrial background at all. And clearly no knowledge either. Yet making pronouncements struggling to sound relevant.

    My conclusion: cronyism. But then what else would you expect from a rent-seeking organization.

  68. Re:About time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Techno nerds at least match their brackets.

  69. Its a fucking game by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Its a fucking game, it's already noise.

  70. Re:Art degrees don't belong in the same group as S by Blaskowicz · · Score: 1

    They formed the Ancien Régime, which is a way of saying they ran the country.

    While I do not particularly promote the old social order and politics, the nobles and clergymen were the ones to do worthwile contributions to physics, chemistry, medicine and all other things etc., simply because they could afford to, what with not having to work and being able to get educated instead.
    After the second industrial revolution when child labor was replaced by mandatory schooling then the general populace could get a slim chance at joining the people not having to make any worthwile contribution, and that got increasingly better till now, where (sarcasm :) ) no one needs to do a meaningful contribution anymore : you don't need to be noble anymore to get welfare.

  71. Re:nobody is going to play a game designed by a sp by rbarreira · · Score: 1

    Well this explains (...)

    It doesn't explain anything, because it's not true.

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    The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
  72. No. by DiEx-15 · · Score: 2

    We don't need games designed by nerds who have a sometimes rather weird sense of "fun". Granted. But at least those games would get played by nerds. Games designed by artists who have no connection with games would be played by NOBODY because, yes, they are artistically pleasing and maybe they will one day end up in some review of the "most beautiful games of the past", but an artist that has no idea what makes a game fun will not create a good game.

    What we need is people who have an idea what makes games fun. What makes games interesting. Why people play them. And why people play THOSE games and not the ones over there. What made Kerbal Space Program a great game that was generally praised and Hatred a bad game that was generally panned? Don't bother answering, pretty much EVERYONE here knows the answer.

    At least if they play games!

    No.

    First off: "Fun" is subjective. What you find "fun" others may not. So off the bat, what you are asking is not possible because there isn't a universally accepted measure or definition of "fun".

    Second off: Gamers make bad game designers. They have a penchant to make games they want to play. That may not necessarily make for good sales and sales are what keep the game makers paid. It also falls back on point 1: Their version of "fun" may not be what others consider "fun".

    Finally: A lot of Gamers quickly become "Not Gamers" after a few games they created. They no longer see the "fun" in a game, but rather the vector points, trigger events, and critical paths in every game they play. Which the number of games they play dwindles fast after a game publish or two.

    I am sure though there is a few gamers that are successful game designers but they are the exception, not the rule. Most game designers are part artist, part "spotty nerd" like the ass clown in the article calls them, and part psychologist to get the balance between "too hard" and "too easy" right. They see and assemble the worlds what you play through a different set of eyes that gamers may have difficulty seeing through. If they do, they lose the suspension of disbelief in the same way knowing how a magician does all their tricks.

  73. Re: nobody is going to play a game designed by a s by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think we're being quite successful at having people appear to fit our mold

    FTFY. I'd say that for most people, conformity is a facade they show other people. The illusion is best shattered by considering just about any politician's hypocrisy.

  74. Because "spotty nerds" are never artistic? by sabbede · · Score: 1

    Bulloney.

  75. Re:nobody is going to play a game designed by a sp by epyT-R · · Score: 1

    Dress codes don't fix that. They just refocus it to smaller and even less relevant differences. If your employees are spending most of their time bitching about clothing and their sex lives instead of working then get rid of them. I don't care what sex they are. Hygiene has nothing to do with dress codes. Dirty laundry smells no matter how expensive it was. Ditto with dirty bodies no matter how much they're paid.

    Clothing has little bearing on the trustworthiness of a company since, as you've already learned, people can choose to overdress to compensate for lack of true capability and honesty. Of course, this only works if the targets are also similarly insecure and irrational. Slackers come in all shapes and dressed in all kinds of clothing. So do hard workers.

  76. Oy vey! by Tyrannicsupremacy · · Score: 1

    Gotta take that gender-studies class, not to mention African historic art class so you can make more... progressive games, goyim!

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    http://i.cubeupload.com/T6cyLu.png