This is probably the inevitable for the industry, it's just a question of when; eventually people will realize that while working on a game is a cool idea, putting up with all the bullshit that goes with making a game and getting paid LESS (yes, less) than their counterparts in boring business applications, people will get a union or the game industry will be forced to set more realistic goals.
Then why are you still an American citizen? If you don't like American taxes, and you don't live or work in the United States of America...then become a citizen of where you live and work. It's called immigration and it's generally not that hard to do if you already live and work in another country.
Perhaps I'm just more realistic than the average college graduate, but I'd really just...like a job. I knew, coming in, that whatever I learned in college was just the tip of the iceberg; if getting a BS in Computer Science really prepared you for everything you might see in the "real world" then why are there Masters and Doctorate programs? I will admit that a lot of my fellow college students thought that they are geniuses for one reason or another, but I'm under no such delusions. Hell, in this economy, I'd just like a steady IT job; but it has been remarkably hard to find one with the market flooded with more experienced individuals.
The essentials of the Scientific method are very simple: 1. You see something and you desire to have an explanation for it.
2. You come up with a hypothesis based on your observations.
3. Based on your hypothesis, you come up with a test that could prove or disprove your theory.
4. You test #3.
No where in there do people make "wild leaps of faith"; usually it is the news media that presents a wild theory as fact, rather than a potential explanation for what we observe.
Okay, let's turn this around then: prove that people and dinosaurs DID exist together. Wait, you don't have any proof? Hrrrmm...well you know what that means moron? As far as science is concerned (because remember that scientific knowledge is sheerly based on what we can observe and measure), humans and dinosaurs never existed together.
If the cop wasn't a dirty cop then he should consider this to be a lesson, our system is based on what we can observe, we don't know what everyone involved actually did or thought. The linked article also doesn't give us a full trial log, it could be that there are other factors involved as well that made the suspect seem innocent. However, ultimately if this guy really did lie about his gun possession chances are pretty good he'll be caught again anyway; criminals like this one are much less than bright.
Is anyone really surprised that the CEO of a digital distribution company is predicting the end of physical media in the near future? The fact of the matter is that while the technology is there to allow people to download full games, the convenience is not. While sure, downloading a retro game is a snap, downloading a 1+ GB game is, for most American, a lengthy proposition, forcing them to leave their PC running overnight and/or making their computer unusable for several hours. Why bother when, for the same price, I can drive 5-20 minutes (for most people) to purchase the game at the nearest retailer, often for less due to a sale or member's discount?
Also, having a physical copy guarantees (unless that physical copy is destroyed) that even if your computer dies, you will still have a copy of that game for the foreseeable future. If I buy the game from a service like Gamers Gate, and then I reformat my computer sometime in the next two years, there's no guarantee that I can reinstall that game because there's no guarantee the business will last that long. I still have physical copies of games from the early 90's in my collection at home; even though the companies have long since gone belly-up (with a few exceptions such as Blizzard and Bethesda).
A few years to see all digital distribution or even majority digital distribution for blockbuster games? Not happening unless everyone gets T1 lines in the next few years.
You stop being a pansy and forget about it; even a half-brained idiot can see that internet forums are generally less reliable sources of information than the babbling lunatic homeless guy on the street corner. If your employer believes that nonsense, then you probably don't want to work there because the company is going down in flames.
So because black men are depicted as being violent and black zombies turn a white woman into a zombie, the game is racist? Nonsense, that's projection; people looking at the game from a racial perspective want to see racism there, so they do.
I seriously disagree; he looked at one clip of the game and made a judgment, granted he didn't say the game is out and out racist but he more or less hinted that he considered it to be racist. What N'Gai Croal claimed is that the images in the game resembled images from the days of apartheid in Africa, and that a white guy shooting black zombies is shocking and racially insensitive (which is a way of saying "racist" without being defamatory).
I think this quote from the interview with MTV really showed me why I disagree so much with him on this issue:
"There was a lot of imagery in that trailer that dovetailed with classic racist imagery. What was not funny, but sort of interesting, was that there were so many gamers who could not at all see it. Like literally couldnâ(TM)t see it. So how could you have a conversation with people who donâ(TM)t understand what youâ(TM)re talking about and think that youâ(TM)re sort of seeing race where nothing exists?" - N'Gai Croal
Here's why most gamers don't see it, because it was before their time. A 20-something or younger individual in America has probably never seen the "racist imagery" that N'gai claims is in the game; they have little idea that a white cop shooting shooting black people in Africa brings up bad memories for some older black individuals. Rather, they see the trailer for what it is meant to be; the next Resident Evil 5 game in which you're surrounded by zombies and bad things will happen to you if you don't shoot the zombies. What N'Gai and others are conveniently ignoring is that the game has a strong, black female character partnered up with the white male character and that they are working together as equals; or perhaps she's just not "black enough" for people like Croal (she does have lighter skin than the zombies and all).
What the essence of this problem is is that the older generation of black and white individuals in this country are not willing to move on; they are stuck in the horror of the past and refuse to let the country heal. There are still racists out there, there are still racial problems in the United States; but to say that a video game is racist because it features primarily black antagonists in Africa seems extreme to me. If all the zombies had been black, would it have been okay, or would they complain that there aren't enough black people in a game set in Africa?
Children for decades have been taught that, to paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr., people should be judged on the basis of their actions, words and thoughts rather than the color of their skin; many (if not most) of these children have grown up taking this on face value, then people like N'Gai Croal tell us that wait, skin color does matter when you're making a game or a movie, that if an image in your game or movie matches (in their mind) some racial imagery of the past that you've never seen then it is racist. Never you mind that they're zombies, the important thing is that they're black and a white guy is shooting them and that's racist! Martin Luther King Jr. encouraged us to judge people on who they were; it's sad that people are being chastised for following that great man's words.
N'Gai complained about the game after seeing a single clip that was less than three (3) minutes long; you can't raise valid concerns from seeing three minutes of footage.
I'm guessing you know nothing about this game since there is a positive black person in the game, the other main character of the game is a black woman that is working with the white male guy; neither of them seem terribly concerned about the race of the zombies they are shooting for some reason, funny that.
I want to be AMAZED by something other than graphics. I want to be amazed by the implications of a gameplay action, again. I want to be amazed by the details - not just the details of the pixels, but the details of how one action affects another. I want a game to do something I haven't seen before, and better still, didn't even think a game could do.
Might I suggest, then that you try a puzzle game? Most of the most innovative games today are games like Echochrome; and you won't find any other genre where one action can affect another so clearly. Overall, to me, it just sounds like you're complaining; "games aren't what they used to be when I was younger", that's called nostalgia, you're wearing rose-tinted glasses when looking back at the past.
Look, I thought it was amazing when the first shooters came out too; but I also play the more modern shooters and find a lot there that I'm impressed with and that I like. F.E.A.R. was a ground-breaking experience of a game, probably the only game in the past ten years that has actually scared me at times; F.E.A.R. 2 sounds like it's mostly a rehash of F.E.A.R. 1 unfortunately so I may or may not pick it up. However, I don't lament that the second game doesn't have mind-blowing innovation; if every game was innovative all the time, we'd probably get sick of innovation "Oh for crying out loud, I have to learn how to play a whole new genre, again", and ultimately if you don't like a game or don't think it is innovative enough, bitching on Slashdot probably isn't going to change the industry. What might is programming what you want to see yourself (or even work off another engine to build your "dream game") and not buying games you don't find to be innovative enough while buying "innovative" games.
While I generally agree with you, comparing God of War and Painkiller is a mistake. Painkiller is a first person shooter and God of War is an action game; exactly how God of War can be a "boring version of Painkiller" I'm not exactly sure. God of War is a third-person action game and a hell of a lot of fun; the storyline isn't really that deep, though it is a lot deeper and less ridiculous than most action games. What makes God of War (and its sequels) fun is the brutality and violence that you can inflict on opponents if you do well; and the fact that the game is still challenging despite your herculean strength.
Allow me to cry a single tear for the bot companies that have had their customer's (aka jackasses) gold mining plans undermined by this ruling, oh wait, I won't. Just because you paid someone to enter their building, doesn't mean you can do anything you want in it or to it; the same applies for servers. If I were to pay to get into a museum, then set up a robot that is constantly flipping people off in the lobby, do you honestly think they wouldn't kick me and my flipping the bird robot out? Well setting up a bot on a company-owned server is sort of like giving a giant "fuck you" to everyone who wants to play the game within the rules that have been laid out.
As far as using WoW with "alternate" servers, that would mean Blizzard would need to release server hosting software; clearly they won't do that unless they believe they can get more money from that than hosting it themselves, so anybody who is hosting a WoW server besides Blizzard would be reverse engineering their code (which is illegal for any software that isn't open source). However, if you don't like Blizzard's policies, you are more than welcome to put your money where your mouth is; send Blizzard a letter or e-mail saying what policies you think should be changed and that you won't buy their games until those policies do change. People seem to constantly forget that capitalism is the ultimate representative democracy, you vote with your wallets people!
Then it's really the "fault" of games that are complex; the controller is hardly complex, the game that uses 15 button presses to preform a combo are. That said, those games know the crowd they are aiming for are not "casual" gamers, but action game fans who want to the challenge of pulling off those difficult combos.
And obviously you've never driven a car in rough weather or on difficult terrain; you must live in someplace warm.
Additionally, more complex games such as strategy games and RPGs can increase cognitive thinking much like pen and paper games and testing can such as a crossword puzzle (though the vocabulary and spelling benefits only occur if you play a word game).
I keep hearing people say that modern games have controls that are "too complex"...and that confuses the hell out of me. A control has, at most, twelve buttons and two sticks; most games use six or fewer buttons and just the left stick. If you can't handle learning how to play a game on a console and you don't have some sort of mental or physical disability...kill yourself for the good of humanity, you're too stupid to live. Sure, not everybody is great at video games, not everybody is a pro, but at least you can do okay with them.
For that matter, how is it -less- complex to operate a car than play a game, which has more buttons and not only that it requires a certain degree of familiarity with how to accelerate, brake and generally avoid accidents? Just because you drive more than you game, and are thus more familiar with the operation of a car, doesn't mean operating a car is easier.
Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act may however have something to do with this...or maybe not. It's not like that Title VII has anything to do with religion...
Take a look at that, religious discrimination of any kind, under that law is illegal. If you need to pray to Mecca during certain parts of the work day you are allowed to (of course, the employer is also allowed to not pay you during these times), if you need to wear a small cross around your neck or do a dance every day at 2:02 pm those are all fine so long as it doesn't cost your employer anything extra. Of course, this doesn't give you free reign to do whatever religious things you'd like at the workplace; if you have to sacrifice a goat each day at 3:00 pm, you can't do that at work because it would make a huge mess (and cost the employer significant money in clean-up and time lost). If your religion tells you you have to smack women around whenever you see them then you can't do that either, because it conflict with laws against physical violence and work place harassment. If someone at your work wasn't allowed to pray at work because it would be disruptive to the workplace or foist their religious views on others then the company had every right to block them; but if all they wanted to do was quiet prayer that didn't disrupt the workplace, then that is fine.
As for the lawsuit, this one portion of the law basically makes sure that this guy wins : "Employees cannot be forced to participate -- or not participate -- in a religious activity as a condition of employment."
Slashdot Mirror
This is probably the inevitable for the industry, it's just a question of when; eventually people will realize that while working on a game is a cool idea, putting up with all the bullshit that goes with making a game and getting paid LESS (yes, less) than their counterparts in boring business applications, people will get a union or the game industry will be forced to set more realistic goals.
...repeal the law next session if they don't want it?
Not to mention that face to face communication in an office has almost become unnecessary thanks to instant messenger software.
Then why are you still an American citizen? If you don't like American taxes, and you don't live or work in the United States of America...then become a citizen of where you live and work. It's called immigration and it's generally not that hard to do if you already live and work in another country.
Perhaps I'm just more realistic than the average college graduate, but I'd really just...like a job. I knew, coming in, that whatever I learned in college was just the tip of the iceberg; if getting a BS in Computer Science really prepared you for everything you might see in the "real world" then why are there Masters and Doctorate programs? I will admit that a lot of my fellow college students thought that they are geniuses for one reason or another, but I'm under no such delusions. Hell, in this economy, I'd just like a steady IT job; but it has been remarkably hard to find one with the market flooded with more experienced individuals.
Erm...science actually does usually start from evidence, obviously you have no clue about the scientific method.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_Method#Elements_of_scientific_method
The essentials of the Scientific method are very simple:
1. You see something and you desire to have an explanation for it.
2. You come up with a hypothesis based on your observations.
3. Based on your hypothesis, you come up with a test that could prove or disprove your theory.
4. You test #3.
No where in there do people make "wild leaps of faith"; usually it is the news media that presents a wild theory as fact, rather than a potential explanation for what we observe.
Okay, let's turn this around then: prove that people and dinosaurs DID exist together. Wait, you don't have any proof? Hrrrmm...well you know what that means moron? As far as science is concerned (because remember that scientific knowledge is sheerly based on what we can observe and measure), humans and dinosaurs never existed together.
If the cop wasn't a dirty cop then he should consider this to be a lesson, our system is based on what we can observe, we don't know what everyone involved actually did or thought. The linked article also doesn't give us a full trial log, it could be that there are other factors involved as well that made the suspect seem innocent. However, ultimately if this guy really did lie about his gun possession chances are pretty good he'll be caught again anyway; criminals like this one are much less than bright.
Is anyone really surprised that the CEO of a digital distribution company is predicting the end of physical media in the near future? The fact of the matter is that while the technology is there to allow people to download full games, the convenience is not. While sure, downloading a retro game is a snap, downloading a 1+ GB game is, for most American, a lengthy proposition, forcing them to leave their PC running overnight and/or making their computer unusable for several hours. Why bother when, for the same price, I can drive 5-20 minutes (for most people) to purchase the game at the nearest retailer, often for less due to a sale or member's discount?
Also, having a physical copy guarantees (unless that physical copy is destroyed) that even if your computer dies, you will still have a copy of that game for the foreseeable future. If I buy the game from a service like Gamers Gate, and then I reformat my computer sometime in the next two years, there's no guarantee that I can reinstall that game because there's no guarantee the business will last that long. I still have physical copies of games from the early 90's in my collection at home; even though the companies have long since gone belly-up (with a few exceptions such as Blizzard and Bethesda).
A few years to see all digital distribution or even majority digital distribution for blockbuster games? Not happening unless everyone gets T1 lines in the next few years.
If you didn't get a job because your boss believes some bulls*** on the internet, then you don't want to work there.
You stop being a pansy and forget about it; even a half-brained idiot can see that internet forums are generally less reliable sources of information than the babbling lunatic homeless guy on the street corner. If your employer believes that nonsense, then you probably don't want to work there because the company is going down in flames.
So because black men are depicted as being violent and black zombies turn a white woman into a zombie, the game is racist? Nonsense, that's projection; people looking at the game from a racial perspective want to see racism there, so they do.
I seriously disagree; he looked at one clip of the game and made a judgment, granted he didn't say the game is out and out racist but he more or less hinted that he considered it to be racist. What N'Gai Croal claimed is that the images in the game resembled images from the days of apartheid in Africa, and that a white guy shooting black zombies is shocking and racially insensitive (which is a way of saying "racist" without being defamatory).
I think this quote from the interview with MTV really showed me why I disagree so much with him on this issue:
"There was a lot of imagery in that trailer that dovetailed with classic racist imagery. What was not funny, but sort of interesting, was that there were so many gamers who could not at all see it. Like literally couldnâ(TM)t see it. So how could you have a conversation with people who donâ(TM)t understand what youâ(TM)re talking about and think that youâ(TM)re sort of seeing race where nothing exists?" - N'Gai Croal
Here's why most gamers don't see it, because it was before their time. A 20-something or younger individual in America has probably never seen the "racist imagery" that N'gai claims is in the game; they have little idea that a white cop shooting shooting black people in Africa brings up bad memories for some older black individuals. Rather, they see the trailer for what it is meant to be; the next Resident Evil 5 game in which you're surrounded by zombies and bad things will happen to you if you don't shoot the zombies. What N'Gai and others are conveniently ignoring is that the game has a strong, black female character partnered up with the white male character and that they are working together as equals; or perhaps she's just not "black enough" for people like Croal (she does have lighter skin than the zombies and all).
What the essence of this problem is is that the older generation of black and white individuals in this country are not willing to move on; they are stuck in the horror of the past and refuse to let the country heal. There are still racists out there, there are still racial problems in the United States; but to say that a video game is racist because it features primarily black antagonists in Africa seems extreme to me. If all the zombies had been black, would it have been okay, or would they complain that there aren't enough black people in a game set in Africa?
Children for decades have been taught that, to paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr., people should be judged on the basis of their actions, words and thoughts rather than the color of their skin; many (if not most) of these children have grown up taking this on face value, then people like N'Gai Croal tell us that wait, skin color does matter when you're making a game or a movie, that if an image in your game or movie matches (in their mind) some racial imagery of the past that you've never seen then it is racist. Never you mind that they're zombies, the important thing is that they're black and a white guy is shooting them and that's racist! Martin Luther King Jr. encouraged us to judge people on who they were; it's sad that people are being chastised for following that great man's words.
N'Gai complained about the game after seeing a single clip that was less than three (3) minutes long; you can't raise valid concerns from seeing three minutes of footage.
I'm guessing you know nothing about this game since there is a positive black person in the game, the other main character of the game is a black woman that is working with the white male guy; neither of them seem terribly concerned about the race of the zombies they are shooting for some reason, funny that.
I want to be AMAZED by something other than graphics. I want to be amazed by the implications of a gameplay action, again. I want to be amazed by the details - not just the details of the pixels, but the details of how one action affects another. I want a game to do something I haven't seen before, and better still, didn't even think a game could do.
Might I suggest, then that you try a puzzle game? Most of the most innovative games today are games like Echochrome; and you won't find any other genre where one action can affect another so clearly. Overall, to me, it just sounds like you're complaining; "games aren't what they used to be when I was younger", that's called nostalgia, you're wearing rose-tinted glasses when looking back at the past.
Look, I thought it was amazing when the first shooters came out too; but I also play the more modern shooters and find a lot there that I'm impressed with and that I like. F.E.A.R. was a ground-breaking experience of a game, probably the only game in the past ten years that has actually scared me at times; F.E.A.R. 2 sounds like it's mostly a rehash of F.E.A.R. 1 unfortunately so I may or may not pick it up. However, I don't lament that the second game doesn't have mind-blowing innovation; if every game was innovative all the time, we'd probably get sick of innovation "Oh for crying out loud, I have to learn how to play a whole new genre, again", and ultimately if you don't like a game or don't think it is innovative enough, bitching on Slashdot probably isn't going to change the industry. What might is programming what you want to see yourself (or even work off another engine to build your "dream game") and not buying games you don't find to be innovative enough while buying "innovative" games.
While I generally agree with you, comparing God of War and Painkiller is a mistake. Painkiller is a first person shooter and God of War is an action game; exactly how God of War can be a "boring version of Painkiller" I'm not exactly sure. God of War is a third-person action game and a hell of a lot of fun; the storyline isn't really that deep, though it is a lot deeper and less ridiculous than most action games. What makes God of War (and its sequels) fun is the brutality and violence that you can inflict on opponents if you do well; and the fact that the game is still challenging despite your herculean strength.
...welcome our new Klingon overlords.
Allow me to cry a single tear for the bot companies that have had their customer's (aka jackasses) gold mining plans undermined by this ruling, oh wait, I won't. Just because you paid someone to enter their building, doesn't mean you can do anything you want in it or to it; the same applies for servers. If I were to pay to get into a museum, then set up a robot that is constantly flipping people off in the lobby, do you honestly think they wouldn't kick me and my flipping the bird robot out? Well setting up a bot on a company-owned server is sort of like giving a giant "fuck you" to everyone who wants to play the game within the rules that have been laid out.
As far as using WoW with "alternate" servers, that would mean Blizzard would need to release server hosting software; clearly they won't do that unless they believe they can get more money from that than hosting it themselves, so anybody who is hosting a WoW server besides Blizzard would be reverse engineering their code (which is illegal for any software that isn't open source). However, if you don't like Blizzard's policies, you are more than welcome to put your money where your mouth is; send Blizzard a letter or e-mail saying what policies you think should be changed and that you won't buy their games until those policies do change. People seem to constantly forget that capitalism is the ultimate representative democracy, you vote with your wallets people!
If it really works the way they say it does, then they can't really show it to you since you wouldn't be able to see it.
Then it's really the "fault" of games that are complex; the controller is hardly complex, the game that uses 15 button presses to preform a combo are. That said, those games know the crowd they are aiming for are not "casual" gamers, but action game fans who want to the challenge of pulling off those difficult combos.
And obviously you've never driven a car in rough weather or on difficult terrain; you must live in someplace warm.
Actually, various studies have found that playing action games boost hand-eye coordination.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/05/0528_030528_videogames.html
Additionally, more complex games such as strategy games and RPGs can increase cognitive thinking much like pen and paper games and testing can such as a crossword puzzle (though the vocabulary and spelling benefits only occur if you play a word game).
I keep hearing people say that modern games have controls that are "too complex"...and that confuses the hell out of me. A control has, at most, twelve buttons and two sticks; most games use six or fewer buttons and just the left stick. If you can't handle learning how to play a game on a console and you don't have some sort of mental or physical disability...kill yourself for the good of humanity, you're too stupid to live. Sure, not everybody is great at video games, not everybody is a pro, but at least you can do okay with them.
For that matter, how is it -less- complex to operate a car than play a game, which has more buttons and not only that it requires a certain degree of familiarity with how to accelerate, brake and generally avoid accidents? Just because you drive more than you game, and are thus more familiar with the operation of a car, doesn't mean operating a car is easier.
The 1st amendment has jack shit to do with this; the 1st amendment handles the government discriminating based on religion.
http://www.eeoc.gov/types/religion.html
Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act may however have something to do with this...or maybe not. It's not like that Title VII has anything to do with religion...
http://www.eeoc.gov/types/religion.html
Take a look at that, religious discrimination of any kind, under that law is illegal. If you need to pray to Mecca during certain parts of the work day you are allowed to (of course, the employer is also allowed to not pay you during these times), if you need to wear a small cross around your neck or do a dance every day at 2:02 pm those are all fine so long as it doesn't cost your employer anything extra. Of course, this doesn't give you free reign to do whatever religious things you'd like at the workplace; if you have to sacrifice a goat each day at 3:00 pm, you can't do that at work because it would make a huge mess (and cost the employer significant money in clean-up and time lost). If your religion tells you you have to smack women around whenever you see them then you can't do that either, because it conflict with laws against physical violence and work place harassment. If someone at your work wasn't allowed to pray at work because it would be disruptive to the workplace or foist their religious views on others then the company had every right to block them; but if all they wanted to do was quiet prayer that didn't disrupt the workplace, then that is fine.
As for the lawsuit, this one portion of the law basically makes sure that this guy wins : "Employees cannot be forced to participate -- or not participate -- in a religious activity as a condition of employment."