I was assuming the conversation was about the US Army, since they were talking about the "America's Army" game. Surely some Army units use games and sims for training. I'm just saying it's not part of the US Army Training and Doctrine emphasis, and no formal critical training tasks exist that incorporate commercial off-the-shelf games and simulations.
60 million isn't very much money in software development, in my experience. But then again, I'm in the cash-cow defense contracting industry, so maybe that's an unfair comparison.
And I have to admit, my harsh critique of Gran Turismo is based solely on GT5 Prologue. Hopefully the final version will be much more realistic. They should spend more time tweaking the physics engine and less time worrying about car damage models and sound effects, IMHO.
The drum thing is understandable. Not everyone can play drums. If they made Band Hero or whatever it's called realistic, nobody would play it, because it would be too hard.
As a Time Warner customer, I look forward to losing NBC again this Summer as Time Warner tries to convince me that the evil NBC wants to charge me more money for my tv, and how Time Warner is either forced to raise my rates, or drop NBC coverage. Lame, lame, lame. AT&T, please extend your service about 10 more miles south.
That's kind of like saying "I know some NFL guys who play Madden"...doesn't mean Madden is very realistic, only that people in an industry like playing games associated with their chosen professions.
Man, there is so much wrong with your post...GT is not a very good sim as far as realism goes, especially compared to alternatives out there. It is fun, but not incredibly realistic. It isn't even as realistic as Grand Prix Legends from 1997/98? or even the NASCAR 2003 series. I'm guessing you have never raced in real life, or used a serious racing sim. Any "sim" that lets you stomp the gas and brakes with relative immunity is not a very good sim. It's not even really accurate for learning the race track, as most tracks you go to take a lap or two to remember the layout (this doesn't transfer well in video games, but it takes a lot more laps to memorize a track in a sim than it does real life, most likely because in real life you can "see" more of the track and the environment around, giving you more reference points,etc.) Besides, the things racers are interested in on a track are the camber, bumps, dips, pits, and other things that affect the traction of the race car. The best racing line in a sim may be marred in real life by worn out pavement, or an off-camber layout (only one game I've ever played has successfully simulated an off-camber turn realistically, Grand Prix Legends, the first left hander after the short chute at Watkins Glen).
Secondly, the military has far better simulations available to them than a Sony video game. Unlimited budget, no need for fancy music and cut scenes, no need to worry about sales figures. I know, I was in the Army and I now develop training simulations for the Army. The simulations used to learn how to fly a UAV are indescernible from actually flying a UAV.
Thirdly, (and yes, I play drums too), the drum skills in those Band/Hero games are terrible. They don't even develop the basic motor skills of the bass drum, snare drum, high hat (95% of all popular western music). Instead you just hit something related to when a light lights up on the screen. No transfer at all... At least the guitar part of those games puts the notes in relative order (higher notes are higher on the fret board, and lower notes are lower). The drums are just layed out as, red, blue, orange, green...a drummer didn't design these games, clearly.
Yes I know it is rare that a race car driving, drum playing, Army training simulation trainer shows up on slashdot, but here I am;-)
Flight simulators are used to train pilots on how to handle situations as they arise, or to learn the location of the many and complex controls. They are used to train pilots on the complex requirements of air traffic control, communications, and regulations. Most racing sims skip all this stuff because the very long boring days of registering a race team, putting the cars through inspection and hanging around the paddock for hours on end are not very interesting in a video game.
More importantly, racing is about car control. A mass-marketed sim like Grand Turismo does not approach the levels of realism required to be an adequate sim for learning this.
Even worse, he wasn't even investing his time in a serious racing sim. There are plenty of sims out there that can prepare you with a solid understanding of racing physics that transfer to the real world. None of them, however, run on consoles.
No, you are right in your analysis. Dumbing anything down to any level (be it the stupidest person, or just the 50th percentile) IS demeaning to a large number of people (the 49th percentile and above, for example). I was just saying you don't want to dumb it down to the stupidest person, because by doing that, you are missing out on a large market of just slightly stupid people out there.
Ronald Reagan "All Government is Evil" fan boys...all government is evil, except the government led by the guy who says all government is evil? Interesting!
Most PBS money comes from private contributions to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Trying to claim that PBS is some sort of tax money pit is disingenuous, since very little tax money goes to PBS.
Besides, if one can't watch a single episode of Frontline and immediately recognize the journalistic and artistic superiority it consistently displays compared to ABC/NBC/CBS and most cable outlets, then I suppose we have nothing further to discuss.
Don't confuse "journalism" with "consumerism". Those stories that lead the cnn.com home page are there because those are the stories MOST people click on...Britney doesn't wear underwear, Lindsey Lohan likes drugs, some Disney Starlet has a camera on her phone and forgot some clothes..blah blah blah. Some "journalists" exist to generate ad revenue so they run stories like these. I personally avoid them, because there are far too many other outlets that skip that garbage in favor of grown-up news.
They aren't dumbing it down to the "stupidest" person consuming news, just the 50th percentile. This gets the largest viewer/readership which translates to more ad revenue. Just say what the 50th percentile wants to hear and you automatically have the largest market, ala Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.
This story needs the "duh" tag. Radio frequency has been around much longer than cell phones. If RF caused cancer, we would have known it long before the advent of cell phones.
I don't buy it. I recently bought one of those front-loading energy/water efficient washers because I wanted to spend less money on my electricity and water bill, not because I wanted to save electricity and water. In other words, DEMAND is why we have these (pretty awesome) nice washing machines, not stupid California laws.
Why do people still believe that the price most goods are sold at is in any way affected by the cost of the manufacturing?
What do you mean??!!! Or course manufacturing costs matter! This is why Air Jordans in size 14 are so much more expensive than Air Jorands in size 8...more material!! Oh, wait...
Wider viewing angle = better? That's one criterion but I can think of many others that are far more important (to me, at least), starting with "picture quality". Do you live in some sort of Dr. Seuss house where you have to watch your tv from strange viewing angles?
I'm from Oregon, but when I lived in California, they'd tax you anyway if you drove to Oregon to buy a car then try to register it in California. I imagine they'd come up with some sort of tv licensing scheme that allowed them to do the same thing for tv's as they do cars now (well, then...1990s when I lived there).
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I was assuming the conversation was about the US Army, since they were talking about the "America's Army" game. Surely some Army units use games and sims for training. I'm just saying it's not part of the US Army Training and Doctrine emphasis, and no formal critical training tasks exist that incorporate commercial off-the-shelf games and simulations.
60 million isn't very much money in software development, in my experience. But then again, I'm in the cash-cow defense contracting industry, so maybe that's an unfair comparison.
And I have to admit, my harsh critique of Gran Turismo is based solely on GT5 Prologue. Hopefully the final version will be much more realistic. They should spend more time tweaking the physics engine and less time worrying about car damage models and sound effects, IMHO.
The drum thing is understandable. Not everyone can play drums. If they made Band Hero or whatever it's called realistic, nobody would play it, because it would be too hard.
No. And you can't use the armco to corner faster either!
As a Time Warner customer, I look forward to losing NBC again this Summer as Time Warner tries to convince me that the evil NBC wants to charge me more money for my tv, and how Time Warner is either forced to raise my rates, or drop NBC coverage. Lame, lame, lame. AT&T, please extend your service about 10 more miles south.
That's kind of like saying "I know some NFL guys who play Madden"...doesn't mean Madden is very realistic, only that people in an industry like playing games associated with their chosen professions.
Man, there is so much wrong with your post...GT is not a very good sim as far as realism goes, especially compared to alternatives out there. It is fun, but not incredibly realistic. It isn't even as realistic as Grand Prix Legends from 1997/98? or even the NASCAR 2003 series. I'm guessing you have never raced in real life, or used a serious racing sim. Any "sim" that lets you stomp the gas and brakes with relative immunity is not a very good sim. It's not even really accurate for learning the race track, as most tracks you go to take a lap or two to remember the layout (this doesn't transfer well in video games, but it takes a lot more laps to memorize a track in a sim than it does real life, most likely because in real life you can "see" more of the track and the environment around, giving you more reference points,etc.) Besides, the things racers are interested in on a track are the camber, bumps, dips, pits, and other things that affect the traction of the race car. The best racing line in a sim may be marred in real life by worn out pavement, or an off-camber layout (only one game I've ever played has successfully simulated an off-camber turn realistically, Grand Prix Legends, the first left hander after the short chute at Watkins Glen).
Secondly, the military has far better simulations available to them than a Sony video game. Unlimited budget, no need for fancy music and cut scenes, no need to worry about sales figures. I know, I was in the Army and I now develop training simulations for the Army. The simulations used to learn how to fly a UAV are indescernible from actually flying a UAV.
Thirdly, (and yes, I play drums too), the drum skills in those Band/Hero games are terrible. They don't even develop the basic motor skills of the bass drum, snare drum, high hat (95% of all popular western music). Instead you just hit something related to when a light lights up on the screen. No transfer at all... At least the guitar part of those games puts the notes in relative order (higher notes are higher on the fret board, and lower notes are lower). The drums are just layed out as, red, blue, orange, green...a drummer didn't design these games, clearly.
Yes I know it is rare that a race car driving, drum playing, Army training simulation trainer shows up on slashdot, but here I am ;-)
Flight simulators are used to train pilots on how to handle situations as they arise, or to learn the location of the many and complex controls. They are used to train pilots on the complex requirements of air traffic control, communications, and regulations. Most racing sims skip all this stuff because the very long boring days of registering a race team, putting the cars through inspection and hanging around the paddock for hours on end are not very interesting in a video game.
More importantly, racing is about car control. A mass-marketed sim like Grand Turismo does not approach the levels of realism required to be an adequate sim for learning this.
No they don't. I develop Army training, and most of the stories you hear about soldiers playing video games for training are exactly that...stories.
Even worse, he wasn't even investing his time in a serious racing sim. There are plenty of sims out there that can prepare you with a solid understanding of racing physics that transfer to the real world. None of them, however, run on consoles.
No, you are right in your analysis. Dumbing anything down to any level (be it the stupidest person, or just the 50th percentile) IS demeaning to a large number of people (the 49th percentile and above, for example). I was just saying you don't want to dumb it down to the stupidest person, because by doing that, you are missing out on a large market of just slightly stupid people out there.
Ronald Reagan "All Government is Evil" fan boys...all government is evil, except the government led by the guy who says all government is evil? Interesting!
Most PBS money comes from private contributions to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Trying to claim that PBS is some sort of tax money pit is disingenuous, since very little tax money goes to PBS.
Besides, if one can't watch a single episode of Frontline and immediately recognize the journalistic and artistic superiority it consistently displays compared to ABC/NBC/CBS and most cable outlets, then I suppose we have nothing further to discuss.
O'Reilly needs another pretty dead blond girl story to be relevant again.
Don't confuse "journalism" with "consumerism". Those stories that lead the cnn.com home page are there because those are the stories MOST people click on...Britney doesn't wear underwear, Lindsey Lohan likes drugs, some Disney Starlet has a camera on her phone and forgot some clothes..blah blah blah. Some "journalists" exist to generate ad revenue so they run stories like these. I personally avoid them, because there are far too many other outlets that skip that garbage in favor of grown-up news.
as Microsoft Publisher is to desktop publishing. Just because you can type stuff on your blog doesn't mean you are a journalist.
They aren't dumbing it down to the "stupidest" person consuming news, just the 50th percentile. This gets the largest viewer/readership which translates to more ad revenue. Just say what the 50th percentile wants to hear and you automatically have the largest market, ala Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.
This story needs the "duh" tag. Radio frequency has been around much longer than cell phones. If RF caused cancer, we would have known it long before the advent of cell phones.
Don't forget the obligatory grammar nazi reply that he used "wrong" incorrectly as well.
Wait, your name is Wyatt Earp, and you've only "driven" through Texas? According to Wikipedia, you met Doc Holliday in Texas, you liar!
I don't buy it. I recently bought one of those front-loading energy/water efficient washers because I wanted to spend less money on my electricity and water bill, not because I wanted to save electricity and water. In other words, DEMAND is why we have these (pretty awesome) nice washing machines, not stupid California laws.
Why do people still believe that the price most goods are sold at is in any way affected by the cost of the manufacturing?
What do you mean??!!! Or course manufacturing costs matter! This is why Air Jordans in size 14 are so much more expensive than Air Jorands in size 8...more material!! Oh, wait...
My Mazda3 hatchback swallowed up my 52" Sony...I think my Mazda gets 30mpg?
Wider viewing angle = better? That's one criterion but I can think of many others that are far more important (to me, at least), starting with "picture quality". Do you live in some sort of Dr. Seuss house where you have to watch your tv from strange viewing angles?
I'm from Oregon, but when I lived in California, they'd tax you anyway if you drove to Oregon to buy a car then try to register it in California. I imagine they'd come up with some sort of tv licensing scheme that allowed them to do the same thing for tv's as they do cars now (well, then...1990s when I lived there).