I'm pretty sure they receive no tax breaks from Child's Play except perhaps what goes into the cost of advertising and running the event, which may reach into the thousands but not into the millions that the charity raises. Child's Play is a charity auction, which means the money and items donated are tax write-offs for those who are donating, not for Gabe and Tycho.
You're right that being a worker in McDonald's doesn't guarantee you'll move up, but if McDonald's hires from within the majority of the time, your chances are better than working at a company that almost always hires from without. Trust me, I've worked in an atmosphere like that.
I know, right? I mean, why can't companies be more like Activision. Franchises should be released on a yearly basis, regardless of quality or originality. Modern Warfare 2 sold like 50 bajillion copies and it was more or less the same game as the original (and in many ways worse).
It's time these selfish companies like Valve stop wasting our time and give us all what we really want... mediocrity.
Gods, reading these two posts made me realise that I need to stop reading and posting to Slashdot when it's late and I'm in a bad mood and feeling misanthropic. *grumbles*
Ya think? Honestly I'm not on Slashdot very often. Maybe it is an overused joke, but I don't post a lot in hardware related forums so how would I know. Check my history if you don't believe me. If you think it's overused, not funny or redundant, do what I do when I come across such posts. Roll your eyes, then move onto the next post. Don't get your panties in a twist over it. I'm sorry if not every post on Slashdot conforms to your standards, but if you're that worried about it, go start your own forum. Your tagline could be "News for people who take themselves way too seriously." I thought it was funny. I guess so did a few others. Relax. Some guy you don't know getting modded up for an overused joke REALLY isn't going to affect your life.
From what I've seen of the game so far, I think I can honestly say without hyperbole that this game is the biggest and possibly most important experiment in the past 15 years of gaming. It really takes the whole idea of what is considered to be a game and breaks the mold. It actually reminds me a bit of Indigo Prophecy, but ten times more deviated from standard gameplay practices. I'm excited to see if it will work and how it will be received.
You kiddin' me? Granted, using jquery for one line of code is a bit much. Luckily I don't know anyone who does that. Usually jquery is used throughout the page. If you consider the amount of memory saved by turning multiple 20 lines javascript code segments into single jquery calls, I bet a lot of that memory is given back.
But wtf am I saying? Who gives a shit about 50-300kb of space nowadays. It's not a 56kb/sec world anymore. Get over yourself.
I see nothing wrong with a scripted outcome in a video game, and I don't think it detracts from the game at all. There's this misconception that video games, in their truest form, should be like "choose your own adventure" books, with branching paths, alternate endings and random elements. I disagree.
I like to use movies as analogy to illustrate a point. Movies often use music to heighten the emotional significance of a given scene. In fact, I don't believe I've ever seen a movie that didn't use music in some fashion or another. It's become such a part of the movie experience that I usually don't even notice the music is playing. It's like white noise, but it's effective.
Does this mean that movies are cheating? After all, shouldn't a movie be able to stand on its own merits without the necessity of music to lean on? Most movie buffs would call that ridiculous, and I would agree. Music, whilst an art form unto itself, is also part of the make-up of any given movie, not an addition to it. The music is as much a part of the movie as the characters, the dialogue, the lighting or whatever.
The same could be said for the cinematic portions of a videogame. Like music, the cinematic portions are part of the game. They're not additions to it. A videogame is a rich tapestry of all kinds of art forms melted into one. In that way, there's nothing stopping a game from giving the player certain gameplay elements and freedoms whilst still directing the user towards an ultimate narrative through the use of cinematic devices out of the player's control. Quite to the contrary of some people's beliefs, those devices aren't at the expense of the gameplay experience, they're for the benefit of it.
Seriously. Abusing laws to prosecute people under ridiculous circumstances only serves to undermine those laws and weaken their effectiveness in dealing with the real crimes those laws were enacted to prevent.
Whatever happened to those two girls charged with distribution of child porn for taking pictures of themselves and sending them to their boyfriends? This reminds me of that.
Well, I'm not quite sure what you mean by this. So, a video game can be artistic, just not about anything controversial? I guess we'd have to first define what you mean by controversial. I know videogames already deal with things like death, war, racism, love, fear, and murder. Hell, all those subjects can be found in Mass Effect, a videogame I'd argue to be quite artistic.
If videogames are indeed capable of artistic expression, then there should be nothing stopping them from being able to tackle controversial subjects in that artistic manner. It seems strange to me to think that there could be a form of artistic expression unable to do so. Hell, part of what makes something art is it's ability to tackle the controversial as well as the familiar.
No, I think the argument is whether videogames are or are not capable of artistry. I don't think a compromise would work. It seems faulty to suggest that something can be artistic in one context and not another. That makes the already ambiguous nature of art even more so.
I saw a t-shirt with a picture of Edvard Munch's "The Scream" on the front, with some kind of sarcastic caption added to it. I can't remember it exactly.
What someone chooses to do with an artistic piece matters little to the underlying artistic quality of it. If one person "doesn't get it," that doesn't negate the possibility that others do. There's freedom in interpretation of all artistic endeavors. I have to disagree with your opinion that presenting a video game as art is a "nearly impossible task." No offense, but I actually find that idea to be a little close-minded and short-sighted. It's exactly the type of opinion that will forever justify treating video games as child's toys, completely vulnerable to the types of censorship that accompanies such treatment. I'd be interested to know the name of last video game you played. It's possible you'd be more optomistic if only you'd play the right games. I suggest "Shadow of the Colossus."
"But Lolita and Ulysses were both recognized as literature by a great many people in society at the time of their publication, despite the fact that some people considered them obscene."
But I doubt there was any overlap between the people that considered them obscene and those that found them to be "high art" (a term I personally can't stand, probably made up by insecure artists of one school who felt threatened by the emergence of an original one). I think the OP's point is that there were those who absolutely refused to even consider these works as art because, in their heads, the topics were taboo and obscene.
Now I question whether this Fallujah game would have any artistic qualities or not (probably not), but the point the OP is making is that some people aren't even willing to consider the artistic qualities of this game because the topic is too taboo or obscene. Sure, it's not the same kind of obscene as what some derived from Lolita, but its obscenity nevertheless. I believe that the OP is simply trying to make the argument that if one could put aside one's preconceived notions of taboo, it's possible to find great art in unsuspected areas. That is the analogy he was drawing to Lolita.
Incidentally, correct me if I'm wrong, but I almost sensed a bit of your concern wasn't so much with the classification of Lolita as juvenile, but rather your objection to the idea that video games might be compared to literature. I admit, as an avid game player, the industry certainly isn't there yet. But there is hope. Shadow of the Colossus, Braid, Portal and others have let me to believe the potential is there. I doubt the emergence of videogame creation as an artform would have any negative affects on literature. Don't let it concern you.
Yeah, but the point was, I didn't want other people who visited my page to see these ads. I wasn't bothered that I would see these ads on other people's pages. It bothered me that I couldn't control everything people saw on my page. Adblock is great, but only a small handful of people use it.
I don't remember much about Geocities, but I do remember that I absolutely HATED having their advertisements on my page.
It's funny, though, if you look at MySpace or Facebook now they're absolutely cluttered with flashy, obtrusive advertisements and I don't give it much thought. Guess it goes to show, you can get used to anything.
Wish I had mod points. I'd mod you up. Innovation is great, but it's not the sole qualifying element as to whether a game is good or not, and I'm a little tired of the gaming population's fixation on it. I've loved several games that weren't particularly innovative, and I'm tired of the argument "this game isn't good, such-and-such game already did that X many years ago." So what? I've seen a dozen movies about underdog sports teams winning the big game. Doesn't mean I'm not going to enjoy another one.
Not really. Look at the Hanson brothers. Look at the Jonas brothers. Look at Justin Timberlake. Girls love those guys, but most guys aren't at all impressed by them. In fact, most guys can't stand them. What attracts females and what impresses guys are two very different things. You don't see many football players on the cover of teen beat magazine, but those are the kind of guys other guys tend to idolize.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm pretty sure they receive no tax breaks from Child's Play except perhaps what goes into the cost of advertising and running the event, which may reach into the thousands but not into the millions that the charity raises. Child's Play is a charity auction, which means the money and items donated are tax write-offs for those who are donating, not for Gabe and Tycho.
I'd mod you up if I had mod points. Excellent post.
So basically, you're criticizing homosexuals for criticizing you when you criticize them...
Yeah, there's a bit of ironic hypocrisy in that, but I'd understand if you're too confused to see it.
You're right that being a worker in McDonald's doesn't guarantee you'll move up, but if McDonald's hires from within the majority of the time, your chances are better than working at a company that almost always hires from without. Trust me, I've worked in an atmosphere like that.
I know, right? I mean, why can't companies be more like Activision. Franchises should be released on a yearly basis, regardless of quality or originality. Modern Warfare 2 sold like 50 bajillion copies and it was more or less the same game as the original (and in many ways worse). It's time these selfish companies like Valve stop wasting our time and give us all what we really want... mediocrity.
Yeah, but modding a 360 runs the risk of having that system banned from xbox live. A lot of people don't want to take that risk.
Offtopic, I know, but I just had to say that was one of the best posts I've seen in a long time. Made me laugh. Thanks.
Yeah, I like how he failed to mention that, to make the game sound lame. Shame
Gods, reading these two posts made me realise that I need to stop reading and posting to Slashdot when it's late and I'm in a bad mood and feeling misanthropic. *grumbles*
Ya think? Honestly I'm not on Slashdot very often. Maybe it is an overused joke, but I don't post a lot in hardware related forums so how would I know. Check my history if you don't believe me. If you think it's overused, not funny or redundant, do what I do when I come across such posts. Roll your eyes, then move onto the next post. Don't get your panties in a twist over it. I'm sorry if not every post on Slashdot conforms to your standards, but if you're that worried about it, go start your own forum. Your tagline could be "News for people who take themselves way too seriously." I thought it was funny. I guess so did a few others. Relax. Some guy you don't know getting modded up for an overused joke REALLY isn't going to affect your life.
Do we HAVE to turn this into a system war? Can't we instead talk about Heavy Rain?
From what I've seen of the game so far, I think I can honestly say without hyperbole that this game is the biggest and possibly most important experiment in the past 15 years of gaming. It really takes the whole idea of what is considered to be a game and breaks the mold. It actually reminds me a bit of Indigo Prophecy, but ten times more deviated from standard gameplay practices. I'm excited to see if it will work and how it will be received.
Almost meets the minimum requirements for Crysis 2
The south? I kid. I kid.
Can I legally change my name to "The".
You kiddin' me? Granted, using jquery for one line of code is a bit much. Luckily I don't know anyone who does that. Usually jquery is used throughout the page. If you consider the amount of memory saved by turning multiple 20 lines javascript code segments into single jquery calls, I bet a lot of that memory is given back. But wtf am I saying? Who gives a shit about 50-300kb of space nowadays. It's not a 56kb/sec world anymore. Get over yourself.
I see nothing wrong with a scripted outcome in a video game, and I don't think it detracts from the game at all. There's this misconception that video games, in their truest form, should be like "choose your own adventure" books, with branching paths, alternate endings and random elements. I disagree.
I like to use movies as analogy to illustrate a point. Movies often use music to heighten the emotional significance of a given scene. In fact, I don't believe I've ever seen a movie that didn't use music in some fashion or another. It's become such a part of the movie experience that I usually don't even notice the music is playing. It's like white noise, but it's effective.
Does this mean that movies are cheating? After all, shouldn't a movie be able to stand on its own merits without the necessity of music to lean on? Most movie buffs would call that ridiculous, and I would agree. Music, whilst an art form unto itself, is also part of the make-up of any given movie, not an addition to it. The music is as much a part of the movie as the characters, the dialogue, the lighting or whatever.
The same could be said for the cinematic portions of a videogame. Like music, the cinematic portions are part of the game. They're not additions to it. A videogame is a rich tapestry of all kinds of art forms melted into one. In that way, there's nothing stopping a game from giving the player certain gameplay elements and freedoms whilst still directing the user towards an ultimate narrative through the use of cinematic devices out of the player's control. Quite to the contrary of some people's beliefs, those devices aren't at the expense of the gameplay experience, they're for the benefit of it.
Seriously. Abusing laws to prosecute people under ridiculous circumstances only serves to undermine those laws and weaken their effectiveness in dealing with the real crimes those laws were enacted to prevent.
Whatever happened to those two girls charged with distribution of child porn for taking pictures of themselves and sending them to their boyfriends? This reminds me of that.
Well, I'm not quite sure what you mean by this. So, a video game can be artistic, just not about anything controversial? I guess we'd have to first define what you mean by controversial. I know videogames already deal with things like death, war, racism, love, fear, and murder. Hell, all those subjects can be found in Mass Effect, a videogame I'd argue to be quite artistic.
If videogames are indeed capable of artistic expression, then there should be nothing stopping them from being able to tackle controversial subjects in that artistic manner. It seems strange to me to think that there could be a form of artistic expression unable to do so. Hell, part of what makes something art is it's ability to tackle the controversial as well as the familiar.
No, I think the argument is whether videogames are or are not capable of artistry. I don't think a compromise would work. It seems faulty to suggest that something can be artistic in one context and not another. That makes the already ambiguous nature of art even more so.
I saw a t-shirt with a picture of Edvard Munch's "The Scream" on the front, with some kind of sarcastic caption added to it. I can't remember it exactly.
What someone chooses to do with an artistic piece matters little to the underlying artistic quality of it. If one person "doesn't get it," that doesn't negate the possibility that others do. There's freedom in interpretation of all artistic endeavors. I have to disagree with your opinion that presenting a video game as art is a "nearly impossible task." No offense, but I actually find that idea to be a little close-minded and short-sighted. It's exactly the type of opinion that will forever justify treating video games as child's toys, completely vulnerable to the types of censorship that accompanies such treatment. I'd be interested to know the name of last video game you played. It's possible you'd be more optomistic if only you'd play the right games. I suggest "Shadow of the Colossus."
"But Lolita and Ulysses were both recognized as literature by a great many people in society at the time of their publication, despite the fact that some people considered them obscene."
But I doubt there was any overlap between the people that considered them obscene and those that found them to be "high art" (a term I personally can't stand, probably made up by insecure artists of one school who felt threatened by the emergence of an original one). I think the OP's point is that there were those who absolutely refused to even consider these works as art because, in their heads, the topics were taboo and obscene.
Now I question whether this Fallujah game would have any artistic qualities or not (probably not), but the point the OP is making is that some people aren't even willing to consider the artistic qualities of this game because the topic is too taboo or obscene. Sure, it's not the same kind of obscene as what some derived from Lolita, but its obscenity nevertheless. I believe that the OP is simply trying to make the argument that if one could put aside one's preconceived notions of taboo, it's possible to find great art in unsuspected areas. That is the analogy he was drawing to Lolita.
Incidentally, correct me if I'm wrong, but I almost sensed a bit of your concern wasn't so much with the classification of Lolita as juvenile, but rather your objection to the idea that video games might be compared to literature. I admit, as an avid game player, the industry certainly isn't there yet. But there is hope. Shadow of the Colossus, Braid, Portal and others have let me to believe the potential is there. I doubt the emergence of videogame creation as an artform would have any negative affects on literature. Don't let it concern you.
computer IS the new scratch. So is Hamburger Helper.
Yeah, but the point was, I didn't want other people who visited my page to see these ads. I wasn't bothered that I would see these ads on other people's pages. It bothered me that I couldn't control everything people saw on my page. Adblock is great, but only a small handful of people use it.
I don't remember much about Geocities, but I do remember that I absolutely HATED having their advertisements on my page.
It's funny, though, if you look at MySpace or Facebook now they're absolutely cluttered with flashy, obtrusive advertisements and I don't give it much thought. Guess it goes to show, you can get used to anything.
Wish I had mod points. I'd mod you up. Innovation is great, but it's not the sole qualifying element as to whether a game is good or not, and I'm a little tired of the gaming population's fixation on it. I've loved several games that weren't particularly innovative, and I'm tired of the argument "this game isn't good, such-and-such game already did that X many years ago." So what? I've seen a dozen movies about underdog sports teams winning the big game. Doesn't mean I'm not going to enjoy another one.
Not really. Look at the Hanson brothers. Look at the Jonas brothers. Look at Justin Timberlake. Girls love those guys, but most guys aren't at all impressed by them. In fact, most guys can't stand them. What attracts females and what impresses guys are two very different things. You don't see many football players on the cover of teen beat magazine, but those are the kind of guys other guys tend to idolize.