so what we are talking about here is use value versus exchange value, right? My $9.99 watch has exactly the same use value as someone's multihundred dollar rolex (or multithousand dollar? I really don't know). They both tell time. Mine even has the date on it.
however, the exchange value of the rolex is much much greater because of the prestige associated with being able to afford one.
so it seems like the same thing with online games. To the guy on the street, a particular item in a game has no use value, but to certain people it has a high exchange value.
as i said in my post, it only seems to work in internet explorer. when I went there with firebird, i got the same thing you did. however, I opened up IE and when i went to the page, the button was there.
Surprisingly, the site does not seem to work with Mozilla Firebird. I opened it and the button to start the test does not even appear in Firebird. I know this is a big shock to us all. Microsoft not playing nice with competitors? That's umpossible!
Is there something inherently "bad" about Muppets in Space?
Still just speculation
on
Farscape is Back
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· Score: 5, Informative
Earlier this week, Dark Horizons reported that he had learned the production office is open, but that he was unable to learn anything else. SOMETHING is going on but that article simply seems to be plagiarizing the Dark Horizons article.
There was a Henson press conference set for Thursday according to savefarscape.com but it was cancelled which leads me to beleive that perhaps whatever deal they had fell through.
There is a fan convention going on this weekend, so if there is an anouncement look for it soon.
After all this is a MAC ipod on a WINDOWS machine. They never intended this particular ipod to be used on a windows machine. So why should they support the use of it? Yes subsequent ipods are designed to be for windows, but the one in question was not. Therefore, I do not see what anyone can expect of them. It would be nice if this mac designed product worked with their later newer windows designed product, but I do not see them under any obligation to do so.
I went over and read the forum posting and in it they say that when the jedi appeared everyone got a message from Vader encourageing them to go hunt down and kill the jedi, so it seems that there is a system that encouraged what you suggest.
I want to say that I don't really agree much with Jenkins. However, I really disagree with the sentiment of your message.
To say that something is "just a game" is the same as saying that a film is "just a movie." but movies make people cry, laugh and think. Why is it so impossible that games can do the same thing?
I am not saying that games of war can or particularly should be full of meaning. However, doesn't it seem signifigant that war games are popular? Doesn't it seem to say something that we keep returning to WWII games --arguably the last war where there was no real ambiguity of who was the good guys and the bad guys.
Because games are very popular, because people spend hours a week playing them, it seems that they should be worthy of examination. It seems that something that people, myself included, spend so much time with them we should stop and look at the signifigance of that. What does it say about us what do these games say about our culture.
Now don't assume that I am in any way making a stament about violence. I am not particularly interested in the violence in games. There is so much more to examine about games than violence, I get very weary discussing violence in videogames. Personally, I am not interested in how games shape opinions, but how they reflect them. These things are products of our culture and thus they reflect our culture.
Bookstores, especially large ones, have entire sections devoted to book that analyze films. Why should games be any less worthy of analysis?
...once had a line that replied to this sort of conversation. It went something like, "If only Monopoly had a stronger plot, then it would really be sucessfull."
Why do people always criticize games for their lack of plot but we never criticize films for their lack of interactivity?
I popped the Wizard of Oz in my ps2 last night and no matter how hard I tried I couldn't get that girl to go off the yellow brick road. I kept hitting buttons but they didn't seem to have any effect on the movie at all except to pause it and skip ahead.
Maybe they want Taoma which was hyped as using techniques similar to google but seems to be pretty limited by the fact that it seems like the only way to get your site listed is to pay them.
I used to use it pretty consistently. There were occasions when my inbox would get flooded with the same spam hundreds of times. The only times it ever happened was when I was reporting stuff to spamcop. This leads me to beleive that on some level spammers were being at least made aware of the fact that they were being reported (and then trying to take some measure of revenge).
I dont' really see them REMOVING functionality on the next generation of gaming consoles. One of the selling points is all of the NEW things it can do, so to take away an existing feature doesn't seem likely.
I feel old. The pre-"extended play" then known as "gamespot tv" with adam sesler and lauren feilder was a cool show. They originally had a boxing ring set up where for a segment they would have gamers compete in a fighting game or seomthing.
Extened play was ok. then kate left and for about 6 months it was a a weird 3/4 rerun mixed with 1/4 new show.
x-play is now all reviews and previews. no interviews with developers. its pretty blaa. the skits are ocasionally entertaining with attempts to dramatise videogame logic in the real world, but I want more meat less filler.
While I do not listen to much broadcast radio directly, I do listen to independent radio station WOXY over the internet every day. WOXY has introduced me to more new music in the past 3 years I've been listening to it than any other single source. That is one of the advantages of a god radio station, they can introduce you to bands that you would have never heard otherwise.
Ads are irritating. However, this is from techTV, a tv channel. They want you to watch their shows to see the reviews. So while it may stink that there aren't pictures of the thing, the main purpose of the site is for people who have watched the show to go and read the review.
That is possible. However, I still would think that a FPS on easy would still be more intimidating in a 20 minute sitting than a game like Pharoh. Although I've never played it, it my understadning is that it is in the civilization style of gameplay where you aren't going to totally fail and get killed as quickly as you would in UT2k3. If I am correct (and someone please let me know if I am not) then simply because UT2k3 is much more action based, you will fail more often than in a civ-like game such as Pharoh the researchers really are, whether they know it or not, are comparing apples to oranges.
I mean that there are many many more variables in comparing playing these two games than just one is violent and one isn't. perhaps a better comparison to UT2k3 would have been a Tony Hawk game which is pretty fast paced, has a lot of failures, but it considered fairly non-violent.
Of course, as many have pointed out, we don't know exactly what this study was trying to find out. It is too bad that the article didn't mention the school, becasue I am very tempted to try to contact them and get some info on what they are trying to do.
Perhaps what is really going on here is not that the people conducting the experiement are unintentionally skewing their results by imporperly setting up the games, but that the researchers are assuming that "games are easy!" The guy who wrote this article was an experienced gamer. He already knew how to play uT2k3. But as anyone who has tried to show a non-gamer how to play a FPS game knows, they can be very frustrating to learn. I think that these reserachers are severly underestimating the skill that it takes to become good at a game like UT2k3. If you have never played a FPS you can't sit down at one a play it for 20 minutes with the ai on hard and NOT get frustrated.
On the other hand, in a game like Pharoh, while much deeper in terms of strategies and the like, you aren't going to die ten times in five minutes trying to learn how to play it and so you will be less frustrated in that 20 minute window of time.
So my point is that, once again, people unfamilliar with videogames underestimate them. Videogames are not as easy as people seem to think, they take a certain amount of skill to be good at them and people constantly forget that. So what this test is really studying is if learning an action game can be more frustrating than learning a sim.
While I am sure that Jack Thompson and the Lion and the Lamb group will latch onto this number, keep in mind that videogames were not the worst. According to the survey 81% were able to buy mature dvd's and 83% were able to buy mature music. Remember this, because I'm sure the anti-videogame zealots won't.
Several years ago when I was teahing high school they would censor out "objectionable" words. However, the censor that they used was so dumb that it would not only censor out typical words, but it would censor out parts of words. So if I were to types something like "I wish it would stop," the censor would see the "sh" at the end of wish and the word "it," and think it was an "objectionable" word leaving blank spaces in my text and rendering it pretty unreadable. I only found out about it after a friend responded to me asking me what I was trying to say.
Last Friday I spent some time in the university library and found an audio cassette from 1982 about videogames. So I checked it out and listened to it. It turns out to be some sort of radio report about videogames. It was funny to hear even back then the reporters talking about games with storylines and then mentioning games like Donkey Kong and Ms. Pac-Man as examples.
The reporter was trying desperately to hype of some addiction or violence angle. It was interesting that every adult he talked to was a professional. A lawyer or an accountant. At one point however, the reporter was talking to a kid and trying to get the kid to say something about violence. The reporter asked the kid about confusing reality and violence three times before the kid finally said that maybe some kids might get confused.
So mainstream media's distorted reporting of videogames has been going on for at least 20 years.
Is Amazon getting out of them? I know Barnes and Noble said they were, but I don't remember Amazon saying so. It would be weird if they did since they sell lots of other things that I can't imagine are profitable for them.
It may not be realistic (i've not played it, so i don't know) but is it a mockery simply because it is a game or is there soemthing else? I mean, Hogan's Heroes was set in a WWII prisoner of war camp. It first aired in 65. Certianly it had a lot more of a potential to be offensive than a game that comes out now, so much later.
How about board games? There are hundreds of those. I'm just concerned that you consider the videogame form inately more disrespectful than other forms, which I cannot agree with.
Slashdot Mirror
so what we are talking about here is use value versus exchange value, right? My $9.99 watch has exactly the same use value as someone's multihundred dollar rolex (or multithousand dollar? I really don't know). They both tell time. Mine even has the date on it.
however, the exchange value of the rolex is much much greater because of the prestige associated with being able to afford one.
so it seems like the same thing with online games. To the guy on the street, a particular item in a game has no use value, but to certain people it has a high exchange value.
as i said in my post, it only seems to work in internet explorer. when I went there with firebird, i got the same thing you did. however, I opened up IE and when i went to the page, the button was there.
Surprisingly, the site does not seem to work with Mozilla Firebird. I opened it and the button to start the test does not even appear in Firebird. I know this is a big shock to us all. Microsoft not playing nice with competitors? That's umpossible!
Is there something inherently "bad" about Muppets in Space?
Earlier this week, Dark Horizons reported that he had learned the production office is open, but that he was unable to learn anything else. SOMETHING is going on but that article simply seems to be plagiarizing the Dark Horizons article.
There was a Henson press conference set for Thursday according to savefarscape.com but it was cancelled which leads me to beleive that perhaps whatever deal they had fell through.
There is a fan convention going on this weekend, so if there is an anouncement look for it soon.
After all this is a MAC ipod on a WINDOWS machine. They never intended this particular ipod to be used on a windows machine. So why should they support the use of it? Yes subsequent ipods are designed to be for windows, but the one in question was not. Therefore, I do not see what anyone can expect of them. It would be nice if this mac designed product worked with their later newer windows designed product, but I do not see them under any obligation to do so.
aren't some of those supposed to lock up macs so badly you have to take the machine apart to get the disk back out?
I went over and read the forum posting and in it they say that when the jedi appeared everyone got a message from Vader encourageing them to go hunt down and kill the jedi, so it seems that there is a system that encouraged what you suggest.
I want to say that I don't really agree much with Jenkins. However, I really disagree with the sentiment of your message.
To say that something is "just a game" is the same as saying that a film is "just a movie." but movies make people cry, laugh and think. Why is it so impossible that games can do the same thing?
I am not saying that games of war can or particularly should be full of meaning. However, doesn't it seem signifigant that war games are popular? Doesn't it seem to say something that we keep returning to WWII games --arguably the last war where there was no real ambiguity of who was the good guys and the bad guys.
Because games are very popular, because people spend hours a week playing them, it seems that they should be worthy of examination. It seems that something that people, myself included, spend so much time with them we should stop and look at the signifigance of that. What does it say about us what do these games say about our culture.
Now don't assume that I am in any way making a stament about violence. I am not particularly interested in the violence in games. There is so much more to examine about games than violence, I get very weary discussing violence in videogames. Personally, I am not interested in how games shape opinions, but how they reflect them. These things are products of our culture and thus they reflect our culture.
Bookstores, especially large ones, have entire sections devoted to book that analyze films. Why should games be any less worthy of analysis?
Techtv's x-play did a segment on this a little while back if someone wants to check out another article about it.
...once had a line that replied to this sort of conversation. It went something like, "If only Monopoly had a stronger plot, then it would really be sucessfull."
Why do people always criticize games for their lack of plot but we never criticize films for their lack of interactivity?
I popped the Wizard of Oz in my ps2 last night and no matter how hard I tried I couldn't get that girl to go off the yellow brick road. I kept hitting buttons but they didn't seem to have any effect on the movie at all except to pause it and skip ahead.
graphics 10
gameplay 0
score 2
It reminded me a lot of the zodiac, which admittedly looks a bit like the lynx.
Maybe they want Taoma which was hyped as using techniques similar to google but seems to be pretty limited by the fact that it seems like the only way to get your site listed is to pay them.
I used to use it pretty consistently. There were occasions when my inbox would get flooded with the same spam hundreds of times. The only times it ever happened was when I was reporting stuff to spamcop. This leads me to beleive that on some level spammers were being at least made aware of the fact that they were being reported (and then trying to take some measure of revenge).
I dont' really see them REMOVING functionality on the next generation of gaming consoles. One of the selling points is all of the NEW things it can do, so to take away an existing feature doesn't seem likely.
I feel old. The pre-"extended play" then known as "gamespot tv" with adam sesler and lauren feilder was a cool show. They originally had a boxing ring set up where for a segment they would have gamers compete in a fighting game or seomthing.
Extened play was ok. then kate left and for about 6 months it was a a weird 3/4 rerun mixed with 1/4 new show.
x-play is now all reviews and previews. no interviews with developers. its pretty blaa.
the skits are ocasionally entertaining with attempts to dramatise videogame logic in the real world, but I want more meat less filler.
While I do not listen to much broadcast radio directly, I do listen to independent radio station WOXY over the internet every day. WOXY has introduced me to more new music in the past 3 years I've been listening to it than any other single source. That is one of the advantages of a god radio station, they can introduce you to bands that you would have never heard otherwise.
Ads are irritating. However, this is from techTV, a tv channel. They want you to watch their shows to see the reviews. So while it may stink that there aren't pictures of the thing, the main purpose of the site is for people who have watched the show to go and read the review.
That is possible. However, I still would think that a FPS on easy would still be more intimidating in a 20 minute sitting than a game like Pharoh. Although I've never played it, it my understadning is that it is in the civilization style of gameplay where you aren't going to totally fail and get killed as quickly as you would in UT2k3. If I am correct (and someone please let me know if I am not) then simply because UT2k3 is much more action based, you will fail more often than in a civ-like game such as Pharoh the researchers really are, whether they know it or not, are comparing apples to oranges.
I mean that there are many many more variables in comparing playing these two games than just one is violent and one isn't. perhaps a better comparison to UT2k3 would have been a Tony Hawk game which is pretty fast paced, has a lot of failures, but it considered fairly non-violent.
Of course, as many have pointed out, we don't know exactly what this study was trying to find out. It is too bad that the article didn't mention the school, becasue I am very tempted to try to contact them and get some info on what they are trying to do.
Perhaps what is really going on here is not that the people conducting the experiement are unintentionally skewing their results by imporperly setting up the games, but that the researchers are assuming that "games are easy!" The guy who wrote this article was an experienced gamer. He already knew how to play uT2k3. But as anyone who has tried to show a non-gamer how to play a FPS game knows, they can be very frustrating to learn. I think that these reserachers are severly underestimating the skill that it takes to become good at a game like UT2k3. If you have never played a FPS you can't sit down at one a play it for 20 minutes with the ai on hard and NOT get frustrated.
On the other hand, in a game like Pharoh, while much deeper in terms of strategies and the like, you aren't going to die ten times in five minutes trying to learn how to play it and so you will be less frustrated in that 20 minute window of time.
So my point is that, once again, people unfamilliar with videogames underestimate them. Videogames are not as easy as people seem to think, they take a certain amount of skill to be good at them and people constantly forget that. So what this test is really studying is if learning an action game can be more frustrating than learning a sim.
While I am sure that Jack Thompson and the Lion and the Lamb group will latch onto this number, keep in mind that videogames were not the worst. According to the survey 81% were able to buy mature dvd's and 83% were able to buy mature music. Remember this, because I'm sure the anti-videogame zealots won't.
Several years ago when I was teahing high school they would censor out "objectionable" words. However, the censor that they used was so dumb that it would not only censor out typical words, but it would censor out parts of words. So if I were to types something like "I wish it would stop," the censor would see the "sh" at the end of wish and the word "it," and think it was an "objectionable" word leaving blank spaces in my text and rendering it pretty unreadable.
I only found out about it after a friend responded to me asking me what I was trying to say.
Last Friday I spent some time in the university library and found an audio cassette from 1982 about videogames. So I checked it out and listened to it. It turns out to be some sort of radio report about videogames. It was funny to hear even back then the reporters talking about games with storylines and then mentioning games like Donkey Kong and Ms. Pac-Man as examples.
The reporter was trying desperately to hype of some addiction or violence angle. It was interesting that every adult he talked to was a professional. A lawyer or an accountant.
At one point however, the reporter was talking to a kid and trying to get the kid to say something about violence. The reporter asked the kid about confusing reality and violence three times before the kid finally said that maybe some kids might get confused.
So mainstream media's distorted reporting of videogames has been going on for at least 20 years.
Is Amazon getting out of them? I know Barnes and Noble said they were, but I don't remember Amazon saying so. It would be weird if they did since they sell lots of other things that I can't imagine are profitable for them.
It may not be realistic (i've not played it, so i don't know) but is it a mockery simply because it is a game or is there soemthing else? I mean, Hogan's Heroes was set in a WWII prisoner of war camp. It first aired in 65. Certianly it had a lot more of a potential to be offensive than a game that comes out now, so much later.
How about board games? There are hundreds of those. I'm just concerned that you consider the videogame form inately more disrespectful than other forms, which I cannot agree with.