I've not noticed anything "considerably" broken with BIg daddies. I just see them as spawning and searching out the sisters. If you already got all the sisters in the level, then the big daddies just go on looking. It adds texture.
After I'd "rescued" all the Little Sisters from a level, I tried following around a Big Daddy just to see what would happen. It approached one of the crawlspaces, banged on it thunderously, then seemed almost to sigh when no Sister emerged from it to shepherd. I actually felt bad for it. Maybe there's some other spawning/AI problem, but I haven't noticed it.
You know, that, to me, is the really incredible thing about Bioshock: it actually makes you feel as if you are there, in a dynamic world. In the very first cut-scene with a Big Daddy, I found myself ducking behind a nearby pillar so it wouldn't see me. Intellectually, I KNEW it was a cut-scene and that the game wouldn't perceive me in the next room watching it, but it's well-designed enough and immersive enough that my -- not my characters's, but MY -- self-preservation instincts kicked in. I very, very rarely find that in a game.
There's no doubt to me that for once, a title with a crazy amount of hype actually deserves it. There will always be some people who think that the Next Thing is a harbinger of doom. They said it about novels, about photography, about film, about television, about Elvis, and now they're saying it about video games. It's too late for those voices to win, though. Game studies is popping up, and it's here to stay, and Bioshock was made to be a textbook example of how both graphics and violence can serve the purpose of art in gaming.
Yes I am in favour of free education, but I would use the analogy that it is like giving an illiterate a book and telling him to read it; there needs to be support. It's just one part of the puzzle. Most people get free education all the way through high school, and still there are illiterate people graduating, and with very poor Math, reading, and social skills.
That right there is my problem with all these science and math focused programs: I know plenty of people who can do mathematics I never dreamed of, but I know almost no-one who can communicate effectively enough in text and do enough critical reading to share ideas. Even just trying to get people to communicate clearly in office e-mails is a disaster, let alone anything that might require a more formal style. I spend half my life revising letters, because apparently I'm the only one here who had competent English teachers...
The sciences and mathematics don't stand alone. Literacy issues really need to be tackled, soon, BEFORE the university level.
... they simply evolved. Take Psychonauts, for example. Scratch the platformer surface and you'll find a detailed, well-written adventure game.
Mmm, true, but the field is more sparse for those who would rather do all the work with their brains and none of it with their thumbs. The old-school adventure (I still count the LucasArts classics as my favorite games) really has its modern incarnation on the Nintendo DS: Phoenix Wright (1, 2, soon 3), Hotel Dusk, and so on. Granted, the modern version, usually Japanese, is a little more text-heavy and narrative, but I still describe Phoenix Wright to my friends as "sort of like a SCUMM-engine CSI."
Not that there's anything wrong with a game like Psychonauts, but for people who enjoy PC or other gaming but who don't have the reflexes or the physical ability (I've had arthritis in my hand since I was a teenager, it really sucks sometimes) sometimes it's really nice NOT to have it couched in a platformer or whatnot.
....except youth is too disinterested to demonstrate. The downward spiral continues.
Full disclaimer: I'm American, in my late twenties (as are the majority of my friends and peers) and I work for a global educational non-profit organization, in the United States.
As I see it, the issue is not that youth is too disinterested. Youth is by its nature fiery and passionate. The issue is that youth is too uneducated to demonstrate. I've got history degrees and work with teachers of all subjects and I STILL don't know the last time I saw a high school kid adequately taught the history, civics, or literature & arts histories needed for an adequate understanding if what's happening in their world -- our world -- today. If you've never read 1984, if you've never read Animal Farm, if you don't know what happened at Kent State or why 1968 was a vital year, or why the Constitution was written the way it is... how would you know enough to get outraged about it being undermined?
Youth are by and large not disinterested, but they are unaware. Remember: anyone born after 1987 or so cannot possibly have any memory of a time when the Berlin wall stood. And the history and liberal arts education is just NOT there, because when we "fix education" we want it to mean math and science, not civics and social studies and history and humanities and arts.
A teachers job is not sell the value of an education, that is a parents job. Too bad if the parent weren't up to it.
If a child does not want to learn it's not the teachers job to convince him otherwise. Instead the teacher should cut him loose and accept another student who wishes to learn.
A teacher is there to impart knowledge of the subject. He's not some motivational speaker but rather an aid to study.
I could not disagree with you more strongly.
I was extremely fortunate, as a child. When I went to kindergarten reading and doing math, the school gave me an enrichment course three times a week. My parents are the ones to whom I owe my ability to read fluently at age three, my parents are the ones who put books in my hands, and my parents are the ones who gave me my genes and my values system. My dad is the one who taught me fractions and negative numbers on a napkin at a diner when I was four, because I'd expressed interested in the change he was paying the waitress with.
But in the end? So what if I'm naturally gifted? So what if I have innate aptitude? Does that mean I never once, in twenty years of formal education, needed a truly talented and devoted teacher? HELL NO. I owe some of my teachers more than I can ever repay. Mrs. Myers, who for three years of high school advanced and honors English wouldn't LET me be a lazy writer, and who knocked that intelligent oh-so-justified teenaged smarter-than-thou gifted arrogance out of me with my one and only F. Professor Broadbridge, in college, who made me think of history in a way I never could have done before. Teachers who taught me inquiry, scientific thought, and who made me expand beyond my own horizons.
The more arrogant and self-contained one is, the less one learns. Good teachers can draw in any student, regardless of that student's innate aptitude. Good teachers reach students, make students expand their own minds and abilities. Any idiot (or genius) can learn facts from a book. Math, history, whatever. Good teachers make the facts WORTH KNOWING.
Not to be politically incorrect, but the fact is that the vast majority of women will not even attempt what this woman has, where-as the vast majority of men will.
I realize that as a woman who will assemble, disassemble, and build her own computers, I'm in the minority, but... I sure as hell don't expect to be Slashdotted when I upgrade my gaming rig (or build my next one). Regardless of whether my boyfriend helps or not.
I'm glad to see stories pointing out, "hey, girls: really, you can do this too!" but it'd be nice if the presentation was less condescending.
Why do people see the two mediums as being so distant? What passes as an R for a movie, would be an AO for a game, like Manhunt.
There is an argument -- one that I am not sure how I feel about, but an argument nonetheless -- that says the participation and interactivity of gaming makes everything sort of... more. It's frequently looked at in studies and frequently used as the cornerstone of debate. Sometimes they compare to TV, sometimes they compare to competitive athletics... it's a pretty hotly researched thing in psychology, as I understand it (which is as a layman).
When you look at film history, the anti-gaming and pro-regulation arguments are in a way directly recycled from anti-film arguments of the 20th century. Personally, I think the history, development of, and premise of video gaming is VERY similar to the history and development of film, which is why I'm constantly reading and writing about such. But every time a new medium comes into its own, it meets with strong reactions. It happened for film and for television. I suspect the thought of video gaming as "different" will dissipate over time as well.
No, I'm just really tired of putting up with it. I work in an office now where people actually respect their co-workers as human beings, even when they're joking around (which is usually). There's a difference. A big difference.
Except the field really is hostile to women who WANT to be in it. I've come in to a room because someone asked for support with their PC, and been told to leave because they're expecting "the tech guy." I can't possibly know what I'm doing, you see, because I have X chromosomes and sometimes wear skirts.
A minority? Sure, I can live with being a minority. I'm pretty used to it. And I know full well my interests and talents skew differently than those of most women I know. But that doesn't mean I should be treated with hostility simply for existing.
And this is EXACTLY the kind of attitude that female IT workers encounter on the job. Sure, it's funny on Slashdot, but after months or years of putting up with it... well, let's just say it was old before it started, and thick-skinned barely begins to describe how a woman needs to be to succeed in the techie world.
We had an NES when I was in high school, and a SNES when I was just out of HS and my little brother and sister were still in HS and Elementary respectively. Now I'm 35, with 2 kids, my brother is 30 (no kids yet) and my sister is 25. The video game generation is all grown up now.
Fair enough. I guess I live in a skewed population -- no-one I know except one couple has had or is planning to have kids until they're 30-35, and most of us are late-20s or just coming up 30 now.;)
If everyone stopped submitting their games to the ESRB, and we pink slipped those censor's like they badly deserve, would anyone even notice?
Okay. First of all: I've been lucky enough to meet face-to-face and to chat with several ESRB employees in charge of ratings, and to a man they are all vehemently anti-censorship. They believe -- and I am inclined to agree -- that the ratings system, while flawed, actually protects game designers and game retail. With a system that "laymen" can understand in place, at least parents and other theoretcially "for the children" prude groups aren't (usually) demanding a ban on all digital entertainment.
In fact, it IS very similar to the problems surrounding the comic book industry: you have a set of creators and consumers making art and entertainment for a target population (i.e., adults over 17 who can enjoy their sex and violence if they damn well want to) squaring off against a set of "concerned individuals" who believe that the medium in question, because it is also consumed by children, is only meant for children and should therefore not contain any "inappropriate" material or "adult themes."
I happen to think their argument is rubbish, of course, as an adult consumer of comics, games, and other media, but their argument is there and it's not going away. That's why we have organizations like the CBLDF. But unfortunately, a self-imposed regulatory board, as contrary as it may seem, is about the only tool currently working AGAINST people with such (prudish and misguided) beliefs.
It's very like the MPAA. An "unrated" movie may simply not have gone through the process, or it may be two frames away from unmitigated pornographic rubbish, but either way it's not going to get distribution. The real "cure" for this sort of misunderstanding of games lies, I think, in the next 10-20 years. The first kids to have an NES in their homes growing up are now starting to become parents. That generation has a much better and more realistic understanding than their parents did, and that will go on over time.
..wrong. The mainstream has been noticing video games for quite some time now. Hence why all these juvenile violent crimes are being blamed on video games. The Wii had nothing to do with it. Jack Thompson put video games more under the spotlight than the Wii.
There are two different kinds of "notice" at work here. The one Miyamoto's after is, "Hmm. This is a form of entertainment that I am interested in learning more about, and perhaps even in participating in." The one Thompson creates is, "Clearly, there is some kind of evil mischief afoot here, and video gaming is something perverted that only children and sickos participate in."
The attention Miyamoto's after is the kind of "notice" that hopefully means, in the future, that when I say, "I like video games" to my co-workers, they take that in the same vain as they take it when I say, "I have a film degree," not that they take it in the same vein as if I said, "I regularly murder babies and sell their souls to Satan to finance overseas oil corporations."
Now the only technical problem is getting americans out of their cars...
If you've ever been in Boston's South Station or New York's Grand Central or any of a dozen other major urban transit hubs at rush hour... there are plenty of people there not using cars.
Why make it so hard? Just hook the dynamo up to the turnstiles instead.
Because as subway and transit systems nationwide modernize, you have fewer actual turnstiles and more other kinds of gates. Turnstiles would work in New York probably, where they still actually turn, but imagine someplace like Washington DC, with those puny plastic flippy things...
A really high-use walking area is a more likely way to go.
This is how I always feel, as well. I'm guilty of using emoticons to excess when posting in forums online, and when modding communities I run (particularly when deleting posts made by teenage girls who already think they suck, an occasional:) helps them not take it too personally). But anytime I catch myself dropping one into an e-mail at work, even into an informal e-mail directed at a colleague I consider myself friendly with, I delete it immediately.
I'm in my late 20s and so supposedly of this generation that finds it "acceptable," but I was still taught to consider a workplace, and workplace communications, more formal than that. If your words are not sufficient to communicate your tone and message, then you need to work harder on communicating in writing.
Ditto. I have a 5th gen iPod now but I still charge primarily from the wall charger that came with my 3rd gen iPod (which had an, er, unfortunate sidewalk incident). In fact, at least ten of my co-workers have iPod wall chargers that either came with their iPods or they bought somewhere as accessories (because we're always mooching off each other when one of us has no battery).
So... yeah. I really don't care if my iPod won't charge on someone else's computer, because it'll probably charge on someone else's wall.
DS or PSP owners almost always also own a console also. And, as far as that goes, consoles are still played more by several orders of magnitude.
Actually, with the emergence of the DS as a popular item for first-time owners and players, I'm not so sure that's true anymore -- and it'd be the kind of thing I think would be interested to find out. With the DS market expanding to include more female gamers (from kids to seniors) and non-gamers, and with the Wii being markedly less available in stores than a DS... well, I'd be curious to see the demographics of handhelds.
Of course, I think PC gaming's best all around and sadly under-represented on shelves, but that's a different issue.;)
Anecdotal evidence does not make proof. I've been using the same hotmail account since 1999, and at least 50% of my attachments simply go wandering into the wild. (When someone wants to send me an attachment specifically, I try to convince them to use one of my other e-mail addresses.) That doesn't mean my anectodal observation is any more or less accurate than yours; it means that both of our observations fail to be representative.
You know, I've been trying to come up with ways to teach a basic game studies class (history, theory, and criticism) but the major obstacle I keep running into is that I can't think of a way to get a class to play them. It's as you say. With the advent of certain retro gaming distribution services (online Wii purchasing, and GameTap, and so on) it's possible to get certain older titles but not all of them.
It's easy to teach film studies these days, because Netflix has just about every movie that ever was released on DVD and can mail it to nearly wherever in the country you are, and is inexpensive. And more and more old films are released on DVD daily. But getting one's hands on old games and getting them to be playable is, indeed, a complicated and thorny mess. And a legal mess, too, not just a practical one.
I worked for GameStop when the 360 launched and it was only about a week before the first wave of lucky customers started bringing us disks with those crazy gouge rings. (To which we said, "Sorry, but we have nothing to do with that damage. Call Microsoft.") So that was what, November 2005? You're not the only one who's amazed it took this long for a lawsuit.
I live in NYC now; before that, I lived in Boston.
After 2001, Boston made regulations about photography in certain places. Namely, you're not allowed to take pictures of anything T (public transit). Not the trains, not the buses,not the employees, nothing. One day at Park Street I saw a Japanese woman (the quintessential stereotypical tourist) who clearly didn't speak a word of English get carted away by two beefy officers because she was taking pictures of her family standing next to a Green Line train. Yes, they'd given her three verbal warnings over the intercom, but as she didn't speak English and no-one nearby spoke Japanese, she had no idea what was going on.
New York is not the only city pushed into absurdity by "security" concerns, particularly when those concerns overlap with the quest to rake in more cash from every source possible. The majority of tourists in NYC, mind, will never run in to these problems, because I'm sure the guards and cops at the key tourist locations -- Times Square, Empire State Building, etc etc etc -- have been taught or told what's "acceptable" photography. Stories like yours about Fulton Ferry Park are what we'd see more of.
Indeed, anyone who's read the interviews and articles about the last few months of Sigil should understand damn well that the big problems with Vanguard had nothing to do with being distributed by SOE and everything to do with being developed by apparently one of the worst-run companies ever.
There's all this irrational hatred out there of SOE as distributor. Now, I totally understand why all the people who used to play Galaxies are gun-shy with the company, but that's apples and oranges to this. This is more like HBO or PBS airing an independently-made documentary than it is like Fox studios financing and releasing Star Wars.
If you pay cash to a university, you have one less piece of a paper trail should the university turn around and screw you... and screw you they often do. Universities are notorious for piss poor management, lost bills, and all other manner of headaches. Despite the general incompetence of most universities, the one thing you can always fall back on is that if they charge you electronically there is not only their receipt, but a transaction from your bank as well. When you go to dispute your bill, you will be armed with a very clear record of how they fucked up.
This is exactly why I almost never use cash for anything if I can help it. If I had paid my movers $500 cash when they ended up stealing and breaking my stuff, I'd have been hosed; instead, I could call my credit card company and say, "I am disputing this," and I wasn't out $500 with no record and no recourse.
Checking accounts and credit cards, when used responsibly, are in the consumer's best interest. You never lose the money without a paper trail. And yes, university bureaucracies are the second-worst, right behind health care. I have indeed had to fax copies of cancelled checks to hospitals and bring copies of cancelled checks to universities before to get them to stop hounding me about bills I already paid. Keeping proof of outgoing money is ALWAYS in your best interest.
Slashdot Mirror
After I'd "rescued" all the Little Sisters from a level, I tried following around a Big Daddy just to see what would happen. It approached one of the crawlspaces, banged on it thunderously, then seemed almost to sigh when no Sister emerged from it to shepherd. I actually felt bad for it. Maybe there's some other spawning/AI problem, but I haven't noticed it.
You know, that, to me, is the really incredible thing about Bioshock: it actually makes you feel as if you are there, in a dynamic world. In the very first cut-scene with a Big Daddy, I found myself ducking behind a nearby pillar so it wouldn't see me. Intellectually, I KNEW it was a cut-scene and that the game wouldn't perceive me in the next room watching it, but it's well-designed enough and immersive enough that my -- not my characters's, but MY -- self-preservation instincts kicked in. I very, very rarely find that in a game.
There's no doubt to me that for once, a title with a crazy amount of hype actually deserves it. There will always be some people who think that the Next Thing is a harbinger of doom. They said it about novels, about photography, about film, about television, about Elvis, and now they're saying it about video games. It's too late for those voices to win, though. Game studies is popping up, and it's here to stay, and Bioshock was made to be a textbook example of how both graphics and violence can serve the purpose of art in gaming.
Yes I am in favour of free education, but I would use the analogy that it is like giving an illiterate a book and telling him to read it; there needs to be support. It's just one part of the puzzle. Most people get free education all the way through high school, and still there are illiterate people graduating, and with very poor Math, reading, and social skills.
That right there is my problem with all these science and math focused programs: I know plenty of people who can do mathematics I never dreamed of, but I know almost no-one who can communicate effectively enough in text and do enough critical reading to share ideas. Even just trying to get people to communicate clearly in office e-mails is a disaster, let alone anything that might require a more formal style. I spend half my life revising letters, because apparently I'm the only one here who had competent English teachers...
The sciences and mathematics don't stand alone. Literacy issues really need to be tackled, soon, BEFORE the university level.
... they simply evolved. Take Psychonauts, for example. Scratch the platformer surface and you'll find a detailed, well-written adventure game.
Mmm, true, but the field is more sparse for those who would rather do all the work with their brains and none of it with their thumbs. The old-school adventure (I still count the LucasArts classics as my favorite games) really has its modern incarnation on the Nintendo DS: Phoenix Wright (1, 2, soon 3), Hotel Dusk, and so on. Granted, the modern version, usually Japanese, is a little more text-heavy and narrative, but I still describe Phoenix Wright to my friends as "sort of like a SCUMM-engine CSI."
Not that there's anything wrong with a game like Psychonauts, but for people who enjoy PC or other gaming but who don't have the reflexes or the physical ability (I've had arthritis in my hand since I was a teenager, it really sucks sometimes) sometimes it's really nice NOT to have it couched in a platformer or whatnot.
....except youth is too disinterested to demonstrate. The downward spiral continues.
Full disclaimer: I'm American, in my late twenties (as are the majority of my friends and peers) and I work for a global educational non-profit organization, in the United States.
As I see it, the issue is not that youth is too disinterested. Youth is by its nature fiery and passionate. The issue is that youth is too uneducated to demonstrate. I've got history degrees and work with teachers of all subjects and I STILL don't know the last time I saw a high school kid adequately taught the history, civics, or literature & arts histories needed for an adequate understanding if what's happening in their world -- our world -- today. If you've never read 1984, if you've never read Animal Farm, if you don't know what happened at Kent State or why 1968 was a vital year, or why the Constitution was written the way it is... how would you know enough to get outraged about it being undermined?
Youth are by and large not disinterested, but they are unaware. Remember: anyone born after 1987 or so cannot possibly have any memory of a time when the Berlin wall stood. And the history and liberal arts education is just NOT there, because when we "fix education" we want it to mean math and science, not civics and social studies and history and humanities and arts.
A teachers job is not sell the value of an education, that is a parents job. Too bad if the parent weren't up to it. If a child does not want to learn it's not the teachers job to convince him otherwise. Instead the teacher should cut him loose and accept another student who wishes to learn. A teacher is there to impart knowledge of the subject. He's not some motivational speaker but rather an aid to study.
I could not disagree with you more strongly.
I was extremely fortunate, as a child. When I went to kindergarten reading and doing math, the school gave me an enrichment course three times a week. My parents are the ones to whom I owe my ability to read fluently at age three, my parents are the ones who put books in my hands, and my parents are the ones who gave me my genes and my values system. My dad is the one who taught me fractions and negative numbers on a napkin at a diner when I was four, because I'd expressed interested in the change he was paying the waitress with.
But in the end? So what if I'm naturally gifted? So what if I have innate aptitude? Does that mean I never once, in twenty years of formal education, needed a truly talented and devoted teacher? HELL NO. I owe some of my teachers more than I can ever repay. Mrs. Myers, who for three years of high school advanced and honors English wouldn't LET me be a lazy writer, and who knocked that intelligent oh-so-justified teenaged smarter-than-thou gifted arrogance out of me with my one and only F. Professor Broadbridge, in college, who made me think of history in a way I never could have done before. Teachers who taught me inquiry, scientific thought, and who made me expand beyond my own horizons.
The more arrogant and self-contained one is, the less one learns. Good teachers can draw in any student, regardless of that student's innate aptitude. Good teachers reach students, make students expand their own minds and abilities. Any idiot (or genius) can learn facts from a book. Math, history, whatever. Good teachers make the facts WORTH KNOWING.
Not to be politically incorrect, but the fact is that the vast majority of women will not even attempt what this woman has, where-as the vast majority of men will.
I realize that as a woman who will assemble, disassemble, and build her own computers, I'm in the minority, but... I sure as hell don't expect to be Slashdotted when I upgrade my gaming rig (or build my next one). Regardless of whether my boyfriend helps or not.
I'm glad to see stories pointing out, "hey, girls: really, you can do this too!" but it'd be nice if the presentation was less condescending.
Why do people see the two mediums as being so distant? What passes as an R for a movie, would be an AO for a game, like Manhunt.
There is an argument -- one that I am not sure how I feel about, but an argument nonetheless -- that says the participation and interactivity of gaming makes everything sort of... more. It's frequently looked at in studies and frequently used as the cornerstone of debate. Sometimes they compare to TV, sometimes they compare to competitive athletics... it's a pretty hotly researched thing in psychology, as I understand it (which is as a layman).
When you look at film history, the anti-gaming and pro-regulation arguments are in a way directly recycled from anti-film arguments of the 20th century. Personally, I think the history, development of, and premise of video gaming is VERY similar to the history and development of film, which is why I'm constantly reading and writing about such. But every time a new medium comes into its own, it meets with strong reactions. It happened for film and for television. I suspect the thought of video gaming as "different" will dissipate over time as well.
No, I'm just really tired of putting up with it. I work in an office now where people actually respect their co-workers as human beings, even when they're joking around (which is usually). There's a difference. A big difference.
Except the field really is hostile to women who WANT to be in it. I've come in to a room because someone asked for support with their PC, and been told to leave because they're expecting "the tech guy." I can't possibly know what I'm doing, you see, because I have X chromosomes and sometimes wear skirts.
A minority? Sure, I can live with being a minority. I'm pretty used to it. And I know full well my interests and talents skew differently than those of most women I know. But that doesn't mean I should be treated with hostility simply for existing.
And this is EXACTLY the kind of attitude that female IT workers encounter on the job. Sure, it's funny on Slashdot, but after months or years of putting up with it... well, let's just say it was old before it started, and thick-skinned barely begins to describe how a woman needs to be to succeed in the techie world.
We had an NES when I was in high school, and a SNES when I was just out of HS and my little brother and sister were still in HS and Elementary respectively. Now I'm 35, with 2 kids, my brother is 30 (no kids yet) and my sister is 25. The video game generation is all grown up now.
;)
Fair enough. I guess I live in a skewed population -- no-one I know except one couple has had or is planning to have kids until they're 30-35, and most of us are late-20s or just coming up 30 now.
If everyone stopped submitting their games to the ESRB, and we pink slipped those censor's like they badly deserve, would anyone even notice?
Okay. First of all: I've been lucky enough to meet face-to-face and to chat with several ESRB employees in charge of ratings, and to a man they are all vehemently anti-censorship. They believe -- and I am inclined to agree -- that the ratings system, while flawed, actually protects game designers and game retail. With a system that "laymen" can understand in place, at least parents and other theoretcially "for the children" prude groups aren't (usually) demanding a ban on all digital entertainment.
In fact, it IS very similar to the problems surrounding the comic book industry: you have a set of creators and consumers making art and entertainment for a target population (i.e., adults over 17 who can enjoy their sex and violence if they damn well want to) squaring off against a set of "concerned individuals" who believe that the medium in question, because it is also consumed by children, is only meant for children and should therefore not contain any "inappropriate" material or "adult themes."
I happen to think their argument is rubbish, of course, as an adult consumer of comics, games, and other media, but their argument is there and it's not going away. That's why we have organizations like the CBLDF. But unfortunately, a self-imposed regulatory board, as contrary as it may seem, is about the only tool currently working AGAINST people with such (prudish and misguided) beliefs.
It's very like the MPAA. An "unrated" movie may simply not have gone through the process, or it may be two frames away from unmitigated pornographic rubbish, but either way it's not going to get distribution. The real "cure" for this sort of misunderstanding of games lies, I think, in the next 10-20 years. The first kids to have an NES in their homes growing up are now starting to become parents. That generation has a much better and more realistic understanding than their parents did, and that will go on over time.
Alas, too late I realized I should have added a parenthetical "polite boredom." :-P
..wrong. The mainstream has been noticing video games for quite some time now. Hence why all these juvenile violent crimes are being blamed on video games. The Wii had nothing to do with it. Jack Thompson put video games more under the spotlight than the Wii.
There are two different kinds of "notice" at work here. The one Miyamoto's after is, "Hmm. This is a form of entertainment that I am interested in learning more about, and perhaps even in participating in." The one Thompson creates is, "Clearly, there is some kind of evil mischief afoot here, and video gaming is something perverted that only children and sickos participate in."
The attention Miyamoto's after is the kind of "notice" that hopefully means, in the future, that when I say, "I like video games" to my co-workers, they take that in the same vain as they take it when I say, "I have a film degree," not that they take it in the same vein as if I said, "I regularly murder babies and sell their souls to Satan to finance overseas oil corporations."
Now the only technical problem is getting americans out of their cars...
If you've ever been in Boston's South Station or New York's Grand Central or any of a dozen other major urban transit hubs at rush hour... there are plenty of people there not using cars.
Why make it so hard? Just hook the dynamo up to the turnstiles instead.
Because as subway and transit systems nationwide modernize, you have fewer actual turnstiles and more other kinds of gates. Turnstiles would work in New York probably, where they still actually turn, but imagine someplace like Washington DC, with those puny plastic flippy things...
A really high-use walking area is a more likely way to go.
This is how I always feel, as well. I'm guilty of using emoticons to excess when posting in forums online, and when modding communities I run (particularly when deleting posts made by teenage girls who already think they suck, an occasional :) helps them not take it too personally). But anytime I catch myself dropping one into an e-mail at work, even into an informal e-mail directed at a colleague I consider myself friendly with, I delete it immediately.
I'm in my late 20s and so supposedly of this generation that finds it "acceptable," but I was still taught to consider a workplace, and workplace communications, more formal than that. If your words are not sufficient to communicate your tone and message, then you need to work harder on communicating in writing.
Ditto. I have a 5th gen iPod now but I still charge primarily from the wall charger that came with my 3rd gen iPod (which had an, er, unfortunate sidewalk incident). In fact, at least ten of my co-workers have iPod wall chargers that either came with their iPods or they bought somewhere as accessories (because we're always mooching off each other when one of us has no battery).
So... yeah. I really don't care if my iPod won't charge on someone else's computer, because it'll probably charge on someone else's wall.
DS or PSP owners almost always also own a console also. And, as far as that goes, consoles are still played more by several orders of magnitude.
;)
Actually, with the emergence of the DS as a popular item for first-time owners and players, I'm not so sure that's true anymore -- and it'd be the kind of thing I think would be interested to find out. With the DS market expanding to include more female gamers (from kids to seniors) and non-gamers, and with the Wii being markedly less available in stores than a DS... well, I'd be curious to see the demographics of handhelds.
Of course, I think PC gaming's best all around and sadly under-represented on shelves, but that's a different issue.
Anecdotal evidence does not make proof. I've been using the same hotmail account since 1999, and at least 50% of my attachments simply go wandering into the wild. (When someone wants to send me an attachment specifically, I try to convince them to use one of my other e-mail addresses.) That doesn't mean my anectodal observation is any more or less accurate than yours; it means that both of our observations fail to be representative.
You know, I've been trying to come up with ways to teach a basic game studies class (history, theory, and criticism) but the major obstacle I keep running into is that I can't think of a way to get a class to play them. It's as you say. With the advent of certain retro gaming distribution services (online Wii purchasing, and GameTap, and so on) it's possible to get certain older titles but not all of them.
It's easy to teach film studies these days, because Netflix has just about every movie that ever was released on DVD and can mail it to nearly wherever in the country you are, and is inexpensive. And more and more old films are released on DVD daily. But getting one's hands on old games and getting them to be playable is, indeed, a complicated and thorny mess. And a legal mess, too, not just a practical one.
I worked for GameStop when the 360 launched and it was only about a week before the first wave of lucky customers started bringing us disks with those crazy gouge rings. (To which we said, "Sorry, but we have nothing to do with that damage. Call Microsoft.") So that was what, November 2005? You're not the only one who's amazed it took this long for a lawsuit.
I live in NYC now; before that, I lived in Boston.
After 2001, Boston made regulations about photography in certain places. Namely, you're not allowed to take pictures of anything T (public transit). Not the trains, not the buses,not the employees, nothing. One day at Park Street I saw a Japanese woman (the quintessential stereotypical tourist) who clearly didn't speak a word of English get carted away by two beefy officers because she was taking pictures of her family standing next to a Green Line train. Yes, they'd given her three verbal warnings over the intercom, but as she didn't speak English and no-one nearby spoke Japanese, she had no idea what was going on.
New York is not the only city pushed into absurdity by "security" concerns, particularly when those concerns overlap with the quest to rake in more cash from every source possible. The majority of tourists in NYC, mind, will never run in to these problems, because I'm sure the guards and cops at the key tourist locations -- Times Square, Empire State Building, etc etc etc -- have been taught or told what's "acceptable" photography. Stories like yours about Fulton Ferry Park are what we'd see more of.
Indeed, anyone who's read the interviews and articles about the last few months of Sigil should understand damn well that the big problems with Vanguard had nothing to do with being distributed by SOE and everything to do with being developed by apparently one of the worst-run companies ever.
There's all this irrational hatred out there of SOE as distributor. Now, I totally understand why all the people who used to play Galaxies are gun-shy with the company, but that's apples and oranges to this. This is more like HBO or PBS airing an independently-made documentary than it is like Fox studios financing and releasing Star Wars.
If you pay cash to a university, you have one less piece of a paper trail should the university turn around and screw you... and screw you they often do. Universities are notorious for piss poor management, lost bills, and all other manner of headaches. Despite the general incompetence of most universities, the one thing you can always fall back on is that if they charge you electronically there is not only their receipt, but a transaction from your bank as well. When you go to dispute your bill, you will be armed with a very clear record of how they fucked up.
This is exactly why I almost never use cash for anything if I can help it. If I had paid my movers $500 cash when they ended up stealing and breaking my stuff, I'd have been hosed; instead, I could call my credit card company and say, "I am disputing this," and I wasn't out $500 with no record and no recourse.
Checking accounts and credit cards, when used responsibly, are in the consumer's best interest. You never lose the money without a paper trail. And yes, university bureaucracies are the second-worst, right behind health care. I have indeed had to fax copies of cancelled checks to hospitals and bring copies of cancelled checks to universities before to get them to stop hounding me about bills I already paid. Keeping proof of outgoing money is ALWAYS in your best interest.