My answer to the argument "10 million people, it must be a good game!" has always been:
Britney Spears.
Is she good because millions of people adore her? Is that really the definition of good music? Is that the key to her success, she's good? Or did her handlers simply hit on the right combination of sex appeal, catchy pop tunes, and image at the right time to propel her into stardom?
Britney Spears and the manufactured pop music model are why we can't have nice things. They are why it is hard for an indie group or someone who wants to break the musical paradigm to make it big. There simply is no room in the popular culture for any other model, though perhaps for the music industry that will change as online distribution slowly destroys the monolithic record labels.
I think there are many parallels in WoW. It's an ok game. It's catchy. I played it for a few years. But in much the same way that the average pop idol is the sugary part of hundreds of years of Western musical tradition distilled down to a few repetitive chords and drum patterns, WoW is simply the result of taking the most addictive parts of a gaming model that started with MUDs and polishing them into online crack. Addictive, but with little substance. Unfortunately WoW has a stronger hold on the MMO industry than even the record labels have on theirs, as there is no real way to take them down. No "WoW Killer" in the foreseeable future. Unlike a song that lasts a few minutes, WoW can consume an individual's entire free time. I think the best we can hope for is the more innovative developers will be able to peel off some of the new player base WoW has created, and make enough money to keep developing that way.
Always be aware of the bias of the author. Of course this guy desperately wants parallel programming to succeed, he's an Intel marketing guy.
"James Reinders is a senior engineer who has spent the past 16 years at Intel Corporation working on projects such as the world's first TeraFLOP supercomputer (ASCI Red) and on the compilers and architectures for the Pentium® Pro, Pentium II, Itanium®, Pentium® 4, and iWarp processors. James is currently the director of business development and marketing for Intel's Software Products Division and serves as the division's chief product evangelist."
This article almost seems almost like a troll post, something to deliberately provoke a negative response or a reverse psychology reaction from the older programmers. "You experienced programmers are LAME. You don't GET parallel programming like the young kids do! You're getting ooolllld and sloooow! You aren't XTREME enough to handle it! Maybe programmers from other nations are more HARDCORE than you!"
Not to mention the screw job that Dubya pulled on NASA when he announced his mission to mars initiative. A lot of people don't realize that he petitioned for/no additional funds/ for the Mars mission. So in order for NASA to comply, they would have to rape Earth Science, remote sensing, and any other programs that don't directly relate to Mars, for money. I used to work at Goddard, and I have some friends there who are still furious about that, and how little press coverage was given to the negative side of Bush's "vision".
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My answer to the argument "10 million people, it must be a good game!" has always been:
Britney Spears.
Is she good because millions of people adore her? Is that really the definition of good music? Is that the key to her success, she's good? Or did her handlers simply hit on the right combination of sex appeal, catchy pop tunes, and image at the right time to propel her into stardom?
Britney Spears and the manufactured pop music model are why we can't have nice things. They are why it is hard for an indie group or someone who wants to break the musical paradigm to make it big. There simply is no room in the popular culture for any other model, though perhaps for the music industry that will change as online distribution slowly destroys the monolithic record labels.
I think there are many parallels in WoW. It's an ok game. It's catchy. I played it for a few years. But in much the same way that the average pop idol is the sugary part of hundreds of years of Western musical tradition distilled down to a few repetitive chords and drum patterns, WoW is simply the result of taking the most addictive parts of a gaming model that started with MUDs and polishing them into online crack. Addictive, but with little substance. Unfortunately WoW has a stronger hold on the MMO industry than even the record labels have on theirs, as there is no real way to take them down. No "WoW Killer" in the foreseeable future. Unlike a song that lasts a few minutes, WoW can consume an individual's entire free time. I think the best we can hope for is the more innovative developers will be able to peel off some of the new player base WoW has created, and make enough money to keep developing that way.
Always be aware of the bias of the author. Of course this guy desperately wants parallel programming to succeed, he's an Intel marketing guy. "James Reinders is a senior engineer who has spent the past 16 years at Intel Corporation working on projects such as the world's first TeraFLOP supercomputer (ASCI Red) and on the compilers and architectures for the Pentium® Pro, Pentium II, Itanium®, Pentium® 4, and iWarp processors. James is currently the director of business development and marketing for Intel's Software Products Division and serves as the division's chief product evangelist." This article almost seems almost like a troll post, something to deliberately provoke a negative response or a reverse psychology reaction from the older programmers. "You experienced programmers are LAME. You don't GET parallel programming like the young kids do! You're getting ooolllld and sloooow! You aren't XTREME enough to handle it! Maybe programmers from other nations are more HARDCORE than you!"
Not to mention the screw job that Dubya pulled on NASA when he announced his mission to mars initiative. A lot of people don't realize that he petitioned for /no additional funds/ for the Mars mission. So in order for NASA to comply, they would have to rape Earth Science, remote sensing, and any other programs that don't directly relate to Mars, for money. I used to work at Goddard, and I have some friends there who are still furious about that, and how little press coverage was given to the negative side of Bush's "vision".