Casual gamers would be best served by reviews written by casual gamers. Obsessive gamers would be best served by reviews written by obsessive gamers. Each group expects and cares about different things, why a one-size-fits-all game review is even expected escapes me at the moment.
He seeks to impose legislation that will prohibit the distribution, sale, rental and availability of mature video games to children younger than 18.
Won't someone think of the children over 18?
Of course, most people over 12 wouldn't think of themselves as "children." You can trust someone to drive a car (14 where I came from, to start learning) but don't trust their exposure to information? Bah.
I let my young son watch while I played SoT and we both enjoyed it. Based on what I've seen of the new game, I think we'll unfortunately be passing on it due to the content. Way to lose a customer guys.
Molyneux probably has no fucking clue how much processor time the growing trees feature would take
That is quite likely... on the other hand, it very well could have been a crappy implementation, or simply completely unoptimized - iterating over every tree in the world every frame could suck up a big chunk. Programmers are exceptionally scarce resources in game development, probably better to have them fix show-stopper bugs or implement features more central to gameplay than make trees grow.
How much would the license cost to do this legally then? If it's all about money, why doesn't Lucas ask for $1 per ticket, rather than just shut the whole thing down?
That's a curious thing about a lot of these copyright cases, a license is never presented as an option, it's always just "stop!" If someone is managing to make money from someone else's material, surely it would be more profitable to both parties to actually license it, rather than pay the horde of lawyers to make sure there is no revenue stream at all...
Programmers do work that is easily repeatable by others. Sorry, but it's the truth . . . ten programmers may implement a spec slightly differently, but the end result is basically the same.
I make games. I have some control over the visual look, gameplay, and several other elements. I'm also pretty sure that if someone else had done it, it would have been quite different.
So, once again everyone is coming out of the woodwork to explain why this article is either right or wrong based entirely on the tiny subset of programming tasks that they actually do.
For some applications - embedded systems, drivers, games (my specialty), or any other real-time application - assembly is either very important to understand or actually essential. There is (or was) no other way to program the PS2's vector units, for instance.
For database work, batch or text processing, network admin, or anything else where speed is nice but not a show-stopper, "make it work" is much more important than "make it work fast."
I've always felt knowledge of assembly makes one a better programmer regardless of the application. Even on a high level, understanding why (unnecessarily) using data types larger than the system's register size is going to hurt performance can only be a good thing. Understanding assembly is fairly fundamental to understanding computers, as opposed to just using them.
I really had no particular interest in university while I was there, choosing to program rather than go to classes (or, occasionally, exams). I still did get a lot of knowledge about algorithms, logic, calculus and matrix math that I probably wouldn't have been exposed to as quickly or completely otherwise. Mostly I just became a more mature developer, moving beyond some pretentious prick who thought he knew everything about computers because he could write a little code.
In any case, I'm now a lead programmer at a major game company, and per your web page, was easily out of debt within three years. I have no regrets about the path I've taken, and I do wish you well on yours.
Well obviously game programming requires a sick level of math, but if you're not planning to program games or complex graphics, you'll just be wasting your time learning it in college.
I would expect post-secondary education to prepare you well for whatever twists and turns your career takes you through for the rest of your life. Calling something as fundamental to the creative aspects of computers (as opposed to the service side of the industry) a waste of time seems short-sighted and career-limiting.
It just takes one bad parent with GTA3 and a handgun to give the media food for a year, the chances of something NOT happening are too small.
Do the odds change in any significant way if you only remove GTA3 from the equation though? Anyone influenced to violence by a video game already has enough issues that making games a scapegoat isn't going to help anybody.
It's not necessary, and learning OO concepts will serve you very well, but given two equally competent OO programmers, but only one who knows assembly, I know which one I would pick.
In my line of work (games) - or any real time programming - understanding what's going on under the hood is vital. It also vastly aids in debugging, because sometimes dropping to the assembly level is the only way to figure out what's going on (particularly if you're getting a crash in a library you don't have the source to).
We also still do a small but significant amount of work in assembly (paralell vector calculations and the like). It's the superstars who know assembly and can actually do everything their job requires.
Greater than 99% of kids who play a violent game are not going to do anything violent because they played the game
Less than 100% of adults who play a violent game are not going to do anything violent because they played the game
It seems to me that the idea of free speech centers around the idea that banning something is harmful to everyone, while banning nothing will harm a very insignificant portion of the population. Until there is a vastly better way than age discrimination to determine who those people are, parental and personal responsibility seems to be a good approach.
It is what you make of it. You are not compelled to finish the game - if you don't like what you have to do, you are quite free not to do it. That was my whole point, did you miss it that completely?
When designers create a simulation that encourages experimentation, they are taking a huge authorial risk: trusting their players
I've been thinking things like this for quite a while.
You know what? Real Life is inherently Evil, because you can do a practically limitless number of evil things in Real Life, while you can only do a limited number of pretend evil things in GTA. Let's ban Real Life!
GTA is inherently benign until the player actually does something (OK, there might be a little bit of nastniness in the intro). Any actually illegal, violent or Evil actions come from the player, the game isn't just sitting there being the embodiment of evil, even if you believe such a thing can exist.
Mostly I think we should just ban anyone who can't separate reality from fantasy from playing such games, which would include pretty well everyone who is complaining about it. Oh, wait, big assumption here - that any of them have even played it so they understand what they're talking about.
I had a job interview there in 1998 - they were known as "Atari Games," which I think was to distinguish them from "Atari," which was the part of the company that had more to do with the original console hardware (and the Jaguar?) and had spun them off at some time. In any case, they were owned by Midway.
It was an interesting experience, walking the halls and seeing posters of so many classic games. They were still developing arcade hardware, and I was being interviewed about porting one of the arcade games to the N64.
I believe I actually sat at the table in this picture - I had one interview over lunch with someone who was quite humorless and clearly hadn't slept for far, far too long. Actually, I think they got him out of bed to talk to me. I also played the green SF Rush machine in that picture - quite the arcade they had there.
I guess I should be glad I took a job with another company. Still, sad to see them go. RIP Atari.
Personally, I take exception to the interpretation of the results. Because it's video games, they're called "aggressive," where if it was a study of traditional sports it would probably be called "competitive" or something similar.
It's all just a bunch of loaded words signifying more about the biases of the researchers (or reporters) than objective study.
Slashdot Mirror
Casual gamers would be best served by reviews written by casual gamers. Obsessive gamers would be best served by reviews written by obsessive gamers. Each group expects and cares about different things, why a one-size-fits-all game review is even expected escapes me at the moment.
It seems the purchaser of the ad would be the trademark infringer, not Google, even if the use of a context-free word was a trademark violation.
Won't someone think of the children over 18?
Of course, most people over 12 wouldn't think of themselves as "children." You can trust someone to drive a car (14 where I came from, to start learning) but don't trust their exposure to information? Bah.
How much wheat would Wil Wheaton eat, if Wil Wheaton will eat wheat?
That is quite likely... on the other hand, it very well could have been a crappy implementation, or simply completely unoptimized - iterating over every tree in the world every frame could suck up a big chunk. Programmers are exceptionally scarce resources in game development, probably better to have them fix show-stopper bugs or implement features more central to gameplay than make trees grow.
That's a curious thing about a lot of these copyright cases, a license is never presented as an option, it's always just "stop!" If someone is managing to make money from someone else's material, surely it would be more profitable to both parties to actually license it, rather than pay the horde of lawyers to make sure there is no revenue stream at all...
I make games. I have some control over the visual look, gameplay, and several other elements. I'm also pretty sure that if someone else had done it, it would have been quite different.
So, once again everyone is coming out of the woodwork to explain why this article is either right or wrong based entirely on the tiny subset of programming tasks that they actually do.
For some applications - embedded systems, drivers, games (my specialty), or any other real-time application - assembly is either very important to understand or actually essential. There is (or was) no other way to program the PS2's vector units, for instance.
For database work, batch or text processing, network admin, or anything else where speed is nice but not a show-stopper, "make it work" is much more important than "make it work fast."
I've always felt knowledge of assembly makes one a better programmer regardless of the application. Even on a high level, understanding why (unnecessarily) using data types larger than the system's register size is going to hurt performance can only be a good thing. Understanding assembly is fairly fundamental to understanding computers, as opposed to just using them.
Pen
Paper
? OK, whatever.
I really had no particular interest in university while I was there, choosing to program rather than go to classes (or, occasionally, exams). I still did get a lot of knowledge about algorithms, logic, calculus and matrix math that I probably wouldn't have been exposed to as quickly or completely otherwise. Mostly I just became a more mature developer, moving beyond some pretentious prick who thought he knew everything about computers because he could write a little code.
In any case, I'm now a lead programmer at a major game company, and per your web page, was easily out of debt within three years. I have no regrets about the path I've taken, and I do wish you well on yours.
Well obviously game programming requires a sick level of math, but if you're not planning to program games or complex graphics, you'll just be wasting your time learning it in college.
I would expect post-secondary education to prepare you well for whatever twists and turns your career takes you through for the rest of your life. Calling something as fundamental to the creative aspects of computers (as opposed to the service side of the industry) a waste of time seems short-sighted and career-limiting.
Good luck...
It just takes one bad parent with GTA3 and a handgun to give the media food for a year, the chances of something NOT happening are too small.
Do the odds change in any significant way if you only remove GTA3 from the equation though? Anyone influenced to violence by a video game already has enough issues that making games a scapegoat isn't going to help anybody.
So.... it's OK to show it on public TV for all to see, but it's a moral outrage to put it in a game clearly labelled "Teen?"
Somebody mentioned they blurred part of it, but the phrase "double standard" seems to be echoing into the distance...
Well, that was kinda covered, but...
It's not necessary, and learning OO concepts will serve you very well, but given two equally competent OO programmers, but only one who knows assembly, I know which one I would pick.
In my line of work (games) - or any real time programming - understanding what's going on under the hood is vital. It also vastly aids in debugging, because sometimes dropping to the assembly level is the only way to figure out what's going on (particularly if you're getting a crash in a library you don't have the source to).
We also still do a small but significant amount of work in assembly (paralell vector calculations and the like). It's the superstars who know assembly and can actually do everything their job requires.
Greater than 99% of kids who play a violent game are not going to do anything violent because they played the game
Less than 100% of adults who play a violent game are not going to do anything violent because they played the game
It seems to me that the idea of free speech centers around the idea that banning something is harmful to everyone, while banning nothing will harm a very insignificant portion of the population. Until there is a vastly better way than age discrimination to determine who those people are, parental and personal responsibility seems to be a good approach.
It is what you make of it. You are not compelled to finish the game - if you don't like what you have to do, you are quite free not to do it. That was my whole point, did you miss it that completely?
When designers create a simulation that encourages experimentation, they are taking a huge authorial risk: trusting their players
I've been thinking things like this for quite a while.
You know what? Real Life is inherently Evil, because you can do a practically limitless number of evil things in Real Life, while you can only do a limited number of pretend evil things in GTA. Let's ban Real Life!
GTA is inherently benign until the player actually does something (OK, there might be a little bit of nastniness in the intro). Any actually illegal, violent or Evil actions come from the player, the game isn't just sitting there being the embodiment of evil, even if you believe such a thing can exist.
Mostly I think we should just ban anyone who can't separate reality from fantasy from playing such games, which would include pretty well everyone who is complaining about it. Oh, wait, big assumption here - that any of them have even played it so they understand what they're talking about.
*sigh*
Where stuff that costs money to make costs money to obtain, and you're free to not pay for things you don't want!
would there be any practical reason for an eBook to have multiple pages?
Do you ever have more than one application/window open? Ever want to be able to see them side-by-side or switch back and forth easily and intuitively?
I had a job interview there in 1998 - they were known as "Atari Games," which I think was to distinguish them from "Atari," which was the part of the company that had more to do with the original console hardware (and the Jaguar?) and had spun them off at some time. In any case, they were owned by Midway.
It was an interesting experience, walking the halls and seeing posters of so many classic games. They were still developing arcade hardware, and I was being interviewed about porting one of the arcade games to the N64.
I believe I actually sat at the table in this picture - I had one interview over lunch with someone who was quite humorless and clearly hadn't slept for far, far too long. Actually, I think they got him out of bed to talk to me. I also played the green SF Rush machine in that picture - quite the arcade they had there.
I guess I should be glad I took a job with another company. Still, sad to see them go. RIP Atari.
I've been wondering about this...
Is it illegal until someone copies it? Until it's been copied, there isn't actually any infringement.
Once it's been copied, you weren't actually the one doing the copying, it was someone else.
How much responsibility it placed on the owner of a CD to ensure no one copies it?
Personally, I take exception to the interpretation of the results. Because it's video games, they're called "aggressive," where if it was a study of traditional sports it would probably be called "competitive" or something similar.
It's all just a bunch of loaded words signifying more about the biases of the researchers (or reporters) than objective study.
The lag will make their heads explode.
don't generally act like a bunch of intellectual notables. So the bit about 'community' is stretching things a bit.
What, as opposed to a bunch of guys who get drunk together watching football?