Agreed.
And on the flip side of that, artists working for game companies need to stop deluding themselves into thinking that they are equal talents to the developers.
-Brian
Yeah I wish I had the time to play Table-Tops again. I used to spend like 8 hours every Sunday playing Shadowrun. Now, it would be very difficult to find that kind of time. On top of that, it would be impossible for me to find 5 or 6 others who had that kind of time at the same time as me. THEN we'd have to find someone who could devote twice as much time to GMing the damned thing. Ugh.
What about NeverWinter Nights? Could this bring back RPGing? A real DM, and a regular group of players would have a lot easier time if not restricted by geography.
-Brian
Re:What about Shadowrun?
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FASA Dies
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· Score: 1
I'm with you. Battletech was fun, but Shadowrun was awesome. I think the best RPGing times I had as a teen were playing shamans and physical adepts in a seemy 2053 Seattle.
-Brian
Like he said in the article, take a lot of math classes.
Get a real computer science degree from a reputable university, work hard on the projects you do there that you could show off later, and be prepared to make $15,000/year less than all of the people you graduate with.;-)
-Brian
Remember to have fun! It's about the best job around, but like anything else, game programming can turn into a job if you let it. Don't let it. You're one of the luckiest people in the history of the planet, getting incredibly well rewarded for doing something challenging, fun, and just plain cool. Remember that and count your blessings every day. Then get out there and write some great software!
Well, I'm the first to admit that it would be really cool and I'll be psyched if one of the companies I'm talking to right now hires me when I graduate in June. However, game programmers do get shit on for pay, and get little respect outside of the industry. Small price to pay, but it puts being a basketball player or a rock star high above game programmer on the "coolest jobs ever" list.
-Brian
I think you underestimate the impact of a public apology. Public institutions rarely admit that they are wrong. The catholic church has yet to apologize for the Crusades. If they issued an apology, and the next year got caught up in another similar scandal, more drastic measures would be called for. Even then, there would be specific persons resposible, and they should be canned. Perhaps $1000 is not the right amount. But some reasonable number should be used. Throwing around punitive damages in the millions is silly and destructive. There is no way anything over 10 G's would be fair.
-Brian
This already in Washington state
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Norway Bans Spam
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In WA there is a law on the books: if you spam someone who is on the opt-out list they can sue you for $500 per infraction. Check out http://www.waisp.org/
It's tough to enforce on anyone who doesn't live in Washington though. I know that a guy in OR was taken to court but I'm not sure how it ended up.
-Brian
One of the other problems with this country is our propensity for frivalous and excessive lawsuits. I think he should sue for cost of his equipment if ruined, maybe $1000 for lost data, and a public apology from the police department.
-Brian
I agree. What they did was pretty slimy and underhanded. We certainly don't want to encourage this sort of corporate behavior, but it is only spam. It takes half a second to delete it.
-Brian
I think these guys must have been contractors and confused. At MS you are discriminated against based on the color of your ID badge, not the color of your skin.
-Brian
I disagree. He could have easily simply ignored the letter. Obviously he can't make any concrete statements; anyone speaking for a company knows they don't have the power to say anything definate. I think it's great that he acknowledged the concerns and we at least know that they will be thought about now.
-Brian
Since my teenage years I haven't gotten to do any role-playing. My girlfriend thinks that I "grew out of it," but in reality it just hasn't been feasible to get a bunch of interested people together at the same place and time since then. NWN could make it possible for me to play again. Thanks, Bioware!
-Brian
Teaching is a HARD job. Teachers deserve much more respect and pay than they get in this country. I think that anyone (myself incldued) who pursues a lucrative degree (like my BS in CompSci) when they know they are smart and sociable enough to really help kids is being selfish. Fine, lots of us choose career paths with only our interests in mind. But by doing so we lose the right to snipe at teachers (unless they are obviously not trying).
Here are some aspects of popular culture that are and probably will always be more popular than computer gaming:
Going to church
Heh... Can't argue with that. Religion will be around for a long time. Watching Sports
Agreed. Passive entertainment is easy and the emotional involvement with one's favorite team is strong. Playing Sports
Listening to the radio
Reading popular fiction (ditto)
I'm not convinced. I don't think any of these things will disappear, but video games will in our lifetime become as or more popular. For radio, books, and tv, people will crave something more custom and interactive. For playing sports, this will absolutely stick around, but it will be so much easier to get a bunch of people together and organized without geographic restrictions. Reading newspapers/magazines (even if they are online)
Politics
Complaining about politics
I hope you are right. It is frightening even today, though, how little people are paying attention to events outside their own little world. 1/4th of our registered voters chose George Bush.
Yeah, it seems unlikely that there are even 5% of female PC users playing Quake. A couple of points things I noticed though:
After some thought it does make sense that women make up the majority of on-line gamers. I never would have considered my girlfriend a gamer, but she does indeed go to people.com and do the crossword now and then. I think they count that sort of thing in this survey.
Also, if you were a quake gamer chick, wouldn't you just act like one of the guys? How would anyone know? And if you did use a female skin, a feminine name, and claimed to be a girl, would anyone believe you?;)
You missed the point... Gaming is active entertainment, meaning that is requires active engagement. Not that it is physically active. You are not entertained by a video game, rather you entertain yourself with a video game.
All of these are good examples of stuff to do. I don't think anyone is arguing that you can lead a full life with gaming as your only activity. The point is that gaming is active, not passive entertainment. I wouldn't say that any of the things that you listed are better than gaming, or visa-versa. The attractive thing about your list is variety. Those things, collectively, are better than gaming is alone. Well, duh.;)
I would also include on-line gaming as a social activity. Limited as it is, participation (not just number of players but interaction amoung them) increases every month.
So, go ahead, after you put your girlfriend to bed, stay up late playing TFC.
-Brian
I think it's overly crass to compare it to knowing an advertising jingle. Closer to quoting lines from a movie, I think. In any case, like it or not, both of these are part of our culture. Your parents can probably recite some advertising jingle or another that everyone knows fromthe 50's, and that would be part of our inherited culture.
Game making is a creative endeavor. Whether or not is is art is up to whether or not you consider film-making art. Regardless, I wouldn't want public funds making games. The threat of censorship and content-dictation is bad enough in the private sector. Would we ever get duke-nukem from a government funded project?
Slashdot Mirror
Agreed.
And on the flip side of that, artists working for game companies need to stop deluding themselves into thinking that they are equal talents to the developers.
-Brian
Yeah I wish I had the time to play Table-Tops again. I used to spend like 8 hours every Sunday playing Shadowrun. Now, it would be very difficult to find that kind of time. On top of that, it would be impossible for me to find 5 or 6 others who had that kind of time at the same time as me. THEN we'd have to find someone who could devote twice as much time to GMing the damned thing. Ugh.
What about NeverWinter Nights? Could this bring back RPGing? A real DM, and a regular group of players would have a lot easier time if not restricted by geography.
-Brian
I'm with you. Battletech was fun, but Shadowrun was awesome. I think the best RPGing times I had as a teen were playing shamans and physical adepts in a seemy 2053 Seattle.
-Brian
That sounds a little far-fetched. I doubt they have human-beings evaluating each of the folders they have and jotting down comments.
-Brian
Very true. It's a good thing we have a nice, rational, non-partisan and non-ideological Supreme Court...
wait...
-Brian
Like he said in the article, take a lot of math classes. ;-)
Get a real computer science degree from a reputable university, work hard on the projects you do there that you could show off later, and be prepared to make $15,000/year less than all of the people you graduate with.
-Brian
Remember to have fun! It's about the best job around, but like anything else, game programming can turn into a job if you let it. Don't let it. You're one of the luckiest people in the history of the planet, getting incredibly well rewarded for doing something challenging, fun, and just plain cool. Remember that and count your blessings every day. Then get out there and write some great software!
Well, I'm the first to admit that it would be really cool and I'll be psyched if one of the companies I'm talking to right now hires me when I graduate in June. However, game programmers do get shit on for pay, and get little respect outside of the industry. Small price to pay, but it puts being a basketball player or a rock star high above game programmer on the "coolest jobs ever" list.
-Brian
Doesn't Ebert pay a royalty to the studio when he uses a clip? The question is not rhetorical... I really don't know.
-Brian
I think you underestimate the impact of a public apology. Public institutions rarely admit that they are wrong. The catholic church has yet to apologize for the Crusades. If they issued an apology, and the next year got caught up in another similar scandal, more drastic measures would be called for. Even then, there would be specific persons resposible, and they should be canned.
Perhaps $1000 is not the right amount. But some reasonable number should be used. Throwing around punitive damages in the millions is silly and destructive. There is no way anything over 10 G's would be fair.
-Brian
In WA there is a law on the books: if you spam someone who is on the opt-out list they can sue you for $500 per infraction. Check out http://www.waisp.org/
It's tough to enforce on anyone who doesn't live in Washington though. I know that a guy in OR was taken to court but I'm not sure how it ended up.
-Brian
One of the other problems with this country is our propensity for frivalous and excessive lawsuits. I think he should sue for cost of his equipment if ruined, maybe $1000 for lost data, and a public apology from the police department. -Brian
I agree. What they did was pretty slimy and underhanded. We certainly don't want to encourage this sort of corporate behavior, but it is only spam. It takes half a second to delete it. -Brian
I think these guys must have been contractors and confused. At MS you are discriminated against based on the color of your ID badge, not the color of your skin. -Brian
I disagree. He could have easily simply ignored the letter. Obviously he can't make any concrete statements; anyone speaking for a company knows they don't have the power to say anything definate. I think it's great that he acknowledged the concerns and we at least know that they will be thought about now. -Brian
I agree number 2 is a lame question. I think 9 was fair though. -Brian
Since my teenage years I haven't gotten to do any role-playing. My girlfriend thinks that I "grew out of it," but in reality it just hasn't been feasible to get a bunch of interested people together at the same place and time since then. NWN could make it possible for me to play again. Thanks, Bioware!
-Brian
Teaching is a HARD job. Teachers deserve much more respect and pay than they get in this country. I think that anyone (myself incldued) who pursues a lucrative degree (like my BS in CompSci) when they know they are smart and sociable enough to really help kids is being selfish. Fine, lots of us choose career paths with only our interests in mind. But by doing so we lose the right to snipe at teachers (unless they are obviously not trying).
Here are some aspects of popular culture that are and probably will always be more popular than computer gaming: Going to church
Heh... Can't argue with that. Religion will be around for a long time.
Watching Sports
Agreed. Passive entertainment is easy and the emotional involvement with one's favorite team is strong.
Playing Sports Listening to the radio Reading popular fiction (ditto)
I'm not convinced. I don't think any of these things will disappear, but video games will in our lifetime become as or more popular. For radio, books, and tv, people will crave something more custom and interactive. For playing sports, this will absolutely stick around, but it will be so much easier to get a bunch of people together and organized without geographic restrictions.
Reading newspapers/magazines (even if they are online) Politics Complaining about politics
I hope you are right. It is frightening even today, though, how little people are paying attention to events outside their own little world. 1/4th of our registered voters chose George Bush.
I agree; that grappling hook was so cool. The translocator in UT is pretty cool, but no-one has ever really equaleed that hook. -Brian
Yeah, it seems unlikely that there are even 5% of female PC users playing Quake. A couple of points things I noticed though: After some thought it does make sense that women make up the majority of on-line gamers. I never would have considered my girlfriend a gamer, but she does indeed go to people.com and do the crossword now and then. I think they count that sort of thing in this survey. Also, if you were a quake gamer chick, wouldn't you just act like one of the guys? How would anyone know? And if you did use a female skin, a feminine name, and claimed to be a girl, would anyone believe you? ;)
You missed the point... Gaming is active entertainment, meaning that is requires active engagement. Not that it is physically active. You are not entertained by a video game, rather you entertain yourself with a video game.
All of these are good examples of stuff to do. I don't think anyone is arguing that you can lead a full life with gaming as your only activity. The point is that gaming is active, not passive entertainment. I wouldn't say that any of the things that you listed are better than gaming, or visa-versa. The attractive thing about your list is variety. Those things, collectively, are better than gaming is alone. Well, duh. ;)
I would also include on-line gaming as a social activity. Limited as it is, participation (not just number of players but interaction amoung them) increases every month.
So, go ahead, after you put your girlfriend to bed, stay up late playing TFC.
-Brian
It may not make it a defining point of our culture, but if enough of us recognize these, it does make it a part of our culture.
I think it's overly crass to compare it to knowing an advertising jingle. Closer to quoting lines from a movie, I think. In any case, like it or not, both of these are part of our culture. Your parents can probably recite some advertising jingle or another that everyone knows fromthe 50's, and that would be part of our inherited culture.
Game making is a creative endeavor. Whether or not is is art is up to whether or not you consider film-making art. Regardless, I wouldn't want public funds making games. The threat of censorship and content-dictation is bad enough in the private sector. Would we ever get duke-nukem from a government funded project?