While that's true, gaming becomes a much more profound part of our every day lives. Games start integrating with "real world" systems and ideas. More and more games are becoming social platforms. Where in the past you'd have your dedicated fan forum for a specific game, these days developers create social platforms out of the games themselves. The most simple example of this is XBox Live's achievement and gamerpoints system. A game like World of Warcraft wouldn't me nearly as successful if it weren't for the social aspects of it. I think that in the coming years, games that form a solid social platform will be the most succesful. This begins with the simple option of multiplayer gaming, the next step being coop (just look at the popularity of Gears of War's Horde mode and the number of Horde clones being released right now, such as Halo ODST's firefight mode). But it can expand much, much further than that.
Next to that we have games that integrate into our every day lives. An example is Wii Fit. While it's not entirely there yet, one could see Wii Fit (or similar software) as an integral part of someone's workout and exercise plan. I'm not sure if games can have a big political or ethical impact in the sense of the original article, but it's not uncommon anymore for games to become real world applications that integrate into our lives rather than simple entertainment.
Agreed. Discworld is an excellent choice. Many of the Discworld books also reflect upon "real world" issues. The book "The Truth" for instance, delves into the whole issue of trustworthy journalism. While the series parodist nature make it appear like it does so in a superficial way, some of the books do expose some intelligent views on serious issues.
This is mostly true for the more recent books though, as the first seven to ten books are mostly parodies on the whole fantasy genre. This in itself makes it an interesting add-on for a scifi/fantasy curriculum though.
Wii forces you to update as well through some (first party) games. Mario Kart or Wii Fit for instance won't run if you don't install the updates included on their discs. So if you don't stay up to date, you will lock yourself out of an increasing number of games for the platform.
What a preposterous comparison. If I wanted to import a crate of Coca Cola from the US, then I'm damn well able to open the bottle _and_ drink it's contents.
I don't see how region locking protects the average user either. Technically speaking, there doesn't have to be a difference between a NTSC-U or PAL release. It's also a "problem" that PC games or even Nintendo DS games never had to deal with. There's no region locking on either platform. So why would it be necessary for the Wii?
If Nintendo is truly worried about me putting an NTSC disc in my PAL Wii, then at most they could show a message telling me that I'm attempting to play an NTSC disc and that it may differ from a PAL release of the same game. "Do you wish to continue? Yes or No?"
The only real advantages to region locking are for the producer of the product. They can put up different price points for different markets and prevent consumers from tapping into a different market (region).
Good point.
I've written a piece touching this subject a few days ago.
http://eraesr.blogspot.com/2009/09/design-over-technology.html
I'm not a good writer by any means, but I think the point comes across well enough. I basically try to explain that the design of a game, in what measure a game achieved it's intended style, is far more important than technological bells and whistles. I focused mainly on the Wii since that is the weakest of the three consoles. The point is that a game like Lost Winds looks far better than a game thats relatively technologically advanced (The Conduit).
To be honest, a slightly distressing development with all the movie tie-ins is that Lego seems to have dropped all efforts to stick to their color uniformity. Back in the day you'd have white, black, gray, yellow, blue and red pieces. That was it. These days it looks like the Star Wars sets introduce their own shades of gray. There's blue pieces that are just a slightly different blue than the original blue color. The orange in the current Mars Mission sets looks like a different orange from the orange used in the old ice planet sets of the mid-90's.
If you buy Lego pieces that are spread among 12 colors rather than the original 6 then it becomes increasingly hard to make new constructions out of a single color.
I haven't touched Lego in a long time, so it could just be me, but I do get the impression that there's an increasing diversity in colors.
Slashdot Mirror
Bat'leth :-O
Oh dear why do I know this....
In my experience most people have never even heard about Open Office and will never even bother looking for an alternative to MS Office.
Rather expensive chat client though
While that's true, gaming becomes a much more profound part of our every day lives. Games start integrating with "real world" systems and ideas. More and more games are becoming social platforms. Where in the past you'd have your dedicated fan forum for a specific game, these days developers create social platforms out of the games themselves. The most simple example of this is XBox Live's achievement and gamerpoints system. A game like World of Warcraft wouldn't me nearly as successful if it weren't for the social aspects of it. I think that in the coming years, games that form a solid social platform will be the most succesful. This begins with the simple option of multiplayer gaming, the next step being coop (just look at the popularity of Gears of War's Horde mode and the number of Horde clones being released right now, such as Halo ODST's firefight mode). But it can expand much, much further than that.
Next to that we have games that integrate into our every day lives. An example is Wii Fit. While it's not entirely there yet, one could see Wii Fit (or similar software) as an integral part of someone's workout and exercise plan. I'm not sure if games can have a big political or ethical impact in the sense of the original article, but it's not uncommon anymore for games to become real world applications that integrate into our lives rather than simple entertainment.
Agreed. Discworld is an excellent choice. Many of the Discworld books also reflect upon "real world" issues. The book "The Truth" for instance, delves into the whole issue of trustworthy journalism. While the series parodist nature make it appear like it does so in a superficial way, some of the books do expose some intelligent views on serious issues. This is mostly true for the more recent books though, as the first seven to ten books are mostly parodies on the whole fantasy genre. This in itself makes it an interesting add-on for a scifi/fantasy curriculum though.
Wii forces you to update as well through some (first party) games. Mario Kart or Wii Fit for instance won't run if you don't install the updates included on their discs. So if you don't stay up to date, you will lock yourself out of an increasing number of games for the platform.
What a preposterous comparison. If I wanted to import a crate of Coca Cola from the US, then I'm damn well able to open the bottle _and_ drink it's contents. I don't see how region locking protects the average user either. Technically speaking, there doesn't have to be a difference between a NTSC-U or PAL release. It's also a "problem" that PC games or even Nintendo DS games never had to deal with. There's no region locking on either platform. So why would it be necessary for the Wii? If Nintendo is truly worried about me putting an NTSC disc in my PAL Wii, then at most they could show a message telling me that I'm attempting to play an NTSC disc and that it may differ from a PAL release of the same game. "Do you wish to continue? Yes or No?" The only real advantages to region locking are for the producer of the product. They can put up different price points for different markets and prevent consumers from tapping into a different market (region).
Good point. I've written a piece touching this subject a few days ago. http://eraesr.blogspot.com/2009/09/design-over-technology.html I'm not a good writer by any means, but I think the point comes across well enough. I basically try to explain that the design of a game, in what measure a game achieved it's intended style, is far more important than technological bells and whistles. I focused mainly on the Wii since that is the weakest of the three consoles. The point is that a game like Lost Winds looks far better than a game thats relatively technologically advanced (The Conduit).
To be honest, a slightly distressing development with all the movie tie-ins is that Lego seems to have dropped all efforts to stick to their color uniformity. Back in the day you'd have white, black, gray, yellow, blue and red pieces. That was it. These days it looks like the Star Wars sets introduce their own shades of gray. There's blue pieces that are just a slightly different blue than the original blue color. The orange in the current Mars Mission sets looks like a different orange from the orange used in the old ice planet sets of the mid-90's. If you buy Lego pieces that are spread among 12 colors rather than the original 6 then it becomes increasingly hard to make new constructions out of a single color. I haven't touched Lego in a long time, so it could just be me, but I do get the impression that there's an increasing diversity in colors.