I'll probably vote for Gen. Clark between the top two "choices" of "Rich White Man", since at least he doesn't look like a weasel. (Sorry, Dean, but you look like a weasel.)
Yeah, but doesn't Clark look like some kind of Christmas Elf? Tiny head, ears that kind of stick out... Plus he's got some kind of Arkansas accent--between the current administration and the last one, my subconscious mind just expects people who talk like they're from that region of the country to lie.
Dean definitely never looks like he's genuinely happy to be in public--I'm not sure if that makes me more or less trusting of him...
At least neither of them are Gephardt, who always seems like a grumpy old man telling kids to get off his lawn.
If you purchase a game that seriously disappoints you, to say that this purchase makes the game more popular is absurd. Also, the most popular game of all time should be one that remains popular long after it is released--which is not measured in sales figures either.
The article discussed the possibility of distributed, end to end massively multiplayer world near the end, in which no central authority or EULA has ultimate control, and ask what is there to keep this peer to peer thing from becoming part of the real world--merely an extension of the Internet, rather than a game. This is particular noteworthy, because the idea of a completely p2p MMOG is one of those ideas that "everyone" has. You know what I'm talking about--stupid ideas like the 3D window manager that everyone has at one time or another, such that anyone with sufficient initiative to actually implement it realizes that it is a bad idea. I don't think the article debunks this idea completely--but it does debunk the idea that there will be ONE end to end massively multiplayer world in which all players play--for what would be the purpose of such a singular world?
The article also discusses EULAs as a sort of social contract between players--by agreeing to play on the server, players agree to a set of rules, in exchange for the priviledge of playing on a server where everyone is forced to obey those same rules.
Still, one part that mystified me was the mention that Second Life is a system that "has been extensively criticized as limiting creativity." Where could I see this extensive criticism?--it sounds interesting.
Look into the Comics Code--apparently, they were going to make comic books illegal back in the 1950s, so the major American comics publishers began to voluntarily comply with the Comics Code.
Some interesting pieces of the code:
Crimes shall never be presented in such a way as to create sympathy for the criminal, to promote distrust of the forces of law and justice, or to inspire others with a desire to imitate criminals.
Policemen, judges, government officials, and respected institutions shall never be presented in such a way as to create disrespect for established authority.
Basically, they mandated that America produce nothing but boring superhero comics for several decades, which is why comics tended to become more popular in Europe and Japan than in America.
Could something similar happen to games? The one big advantage games have in the 00s that comics didn't in the 50s is that comics were explicitly targeted to juveniles, which is why there was such public furor over them, while the more violent games made today are (supposedly) aimed at people in their 20s and up.
An industry effort to make more quality games rather than relying on the same old violence cliches could only be a good thing, but I don't think it will really prove necessary--games companies just have to keep emphasizing that they are not trying to sell to kids. (Hey, it works for the tobacco companies--which even with the settlement are rolling in the dough.)
Even if games never leave this sophomoric violent stage, any public attempt to ban them will run into the same problem that is run into when trying to ban guns in America--most people want to eliminate guns, but too many of the people who want to keep guns are single-issue voters.
Follow the cash to corporate gaming monoliths like Electronic Arts and Vivendi, or follow the cash to see the narrow demographic (young males) to which most games today are sold, or follow the cash to see that 90% of games lose money, and you start to wonder exactly how well games makers are following what the public wants.
I suspect that corporate boardrooms are simply bad at choosing game projects, and the software industry DOES dictate the kinds of games that are made, because they simply have no ability to determine what the public wants at all.
If it were legal to take commercial software and code, copy it, and give it away for free, then many GPL developers might switch to BSD. There are lots of reasons why you would oppose all software restrictions and still use the GPL on your code--essentially, the GPL is a weapon to force other people to have fewer restrictions on their code (if it is derived from yours.)
I doubt there are many people in this world who want to abolish all copyright who would still want to retain the GPL in that copyrightless world. And if any such people did exist, and they had the political power to eliminate copyrights, they would probably also have the power to pass a GPL-like law that required all distributed software to come with source.
In conclusion, the argument that we should support the existence of copyrights because they are neccessary for the GPL is the most worthless possible argument you could make in support of copyright. The GPL accomplishes a specific goal within a particular set of laws, but that does not mean that this particular set of laws is the best way to achieve that goal.
My own position is to support copyright, but I also think the system falls apart if enforced too rigidly. After all, legal systems are far slower than computer systems, so if every time I do a computation I have to defend against a lawsuit, Moore's Law will reverse itself quite fast.
When you compare Apple to Microsoft, you start to think "wow, Apple really needs to get their act together--both sell operating systems, yet MS makes way more money." But if you compare Apple to Dell, (they both sell computers), Apple starts to look pretty damn good.
You're making the same mistake here--Nintendo is not a Sony that also makes games, instead Nintendo is a Capcom that also sells consoles. Sony and Microsoft are way the heck larger than Nintendo, and it's ridiculous to expect Nintendo to out-Sony Sony. Sony's model is to encourage other people to develop PS2 games so they can sell PS2s. Nintendo's model is to make gamecubes so they can develop Gamecube games.
Perhaps the future of Nintendo hardware is in question. But that's not a big problem, Nintendo can simply abandon its hardware side if it no longer makes any sense to keep selling hardware. In other words, take the Sega route.
Holy fuck, you're an idiot! No one would bother selling games to China if they actually LOST money doing so, right? So, piracy or not, any money made in China (and there IS money made there, or they wouldn't be there, okay?!) is just as good as money made anywhere else.
I mean, it's pretty simple microeconomics. The Slashdot headline is absolutely right, you kids complaining about it are morons. Piracy, like any other form of COMPETITION, forces prices DOWN. Since the marginal cost of selling games is near zero, piracy will always result in lower prices.
Now, you could argue that fewer games will be made, because games manufacturers will be less confident that they will make up their fixed costs. But, again I say, selling games in China at a lower price because of piracy gets you closer to your fixed costs than not selling any games in China at all.
So you and every idiot that has modded you up needs to buy a fuckin' clue for yourselves--piracy, like all other competition lowers prices, period.
Losing vision and no longer having dreams and aspirations has nothing to do with that.
The truth of this statement depends on which particular older, more experienced people tend to be around the particular younger person. The corporate culture that surrounds too many of us is manufactured to discourage creativity. The growing revulsion that people of all ages are begining to feel, the voice in our heads that says "I refuse to be a part of this organized despair!" is humanity's last hope of remaining non-mechanical, of living a life outside of organized system.
Corporations have robots to do their weaving--if you want to weave yourself into a culture, you'll have to start by making your own culture.
Definition of the Damn -Fool Years: the years during which one still possess dreams that go beyond getting a comfy job and procreating to spread your genes to the next generation.
An awful lot of people throughout history--most all of the people we still remember--lived their entire lives without ever leaving the Damn-Fool Years.
I see so many thirteen year olds today who are already past their Damn-Fool Years. Horrible.
So apparently the large majority likes the games that we, as/.-ers think are way too 'overproduced'. This proves that we are but a small, insignificant community. Sad but true.
One of the urban legend statistics that I've never found evidence of but sounds so right it must be true (heh heh) is that 90% of games released lose money. Given that, perhaps it isn't that our wants are at odds with those of consumers--its sounds like what the industry supplies is what's truly at odds with consumers.
I think it's just that industry wants to supply us with something consumers do not want. Corporations crave certainty--they want to find an idea that will assure a return on their investment, throw a whole lot of investment on that idea, and have a nice, safe source of income they can invest into more sure things.
Unfortunately, gamers crave novelty, innovation, and surprise. Gamers are a fairly young bunch, and young people are attracted to new, unpredictable things. But producing new, unpredictable things means unpredictable returns on your investment. Consumers want great gameplay. But brilliant new gameplay is harder for a corporation to evaluate than brilliant new graphics. Thus the corporation chooses new graphics.
So I don't believe what you say is true at all--there are plenty of consumers who want fresh, new innovative games, but there are few corporations willing to supply them. This lack of innovation is SUPPLY, not DEMAND driven. It's getting worse because gaming companies are consolidating like everything else these days, thus become bigger and less innovative as time wears on.
See also: why new music sucks, why new movies suck
I haven't been in one of these stores for a few months, but for a while the industry seemed moving toward standard box sizes that weren't very much wider or taller than dvd boxes (about 4 times as thick, though). Dvd boxes are still better, though, since those are permanent holders of the media, while the computer game boxes are thrown out.
When I play a game, the time I invest into it is infinitely more valuable than the 50 bucks I invest in it. I don't evaluate my purchases on the basis on how many hours they kill per dollar, because time isn't something that you're supposed to waste.
But you've got a point here. The key difference between a console and a computer, other than the fact that a gaming-worthy computer costs ten times as much as a gamecube, is that computers are capable of CREATION as well as CONSUMPTION. If I didn't entertain vague fantasies that I would one day actually create games or pieces of games, I would never have spent the money keeping up a computer with up-to-date graphics cards.
Games where I deeply customize my character (not just choosing the accessories and facial features, but to simply design a whole new persona) are simply not possible on a console--if they were, that console would be a computer. For example, it would not be possible to make a console port of Second Life, a game in which players upload their models and even interactive scripts to a persistent massively multiplayer world. Indeed, massively multiplayer games in general aren't very common on consoles.
The trouble with Xenosaga was that it kept making me walk through the same empty hallways in the spaceship over and over again. Random battles aren't really any worse than watching your protagonist's running animation for 15 minutes.
Theoretically true, but in the real world if there is a large difference the machines and the paper, then we know that something mischievious happened. So we might declare the paper ballot winner the true winner--but now we also know to investigate both the manufactuer of the machine and the pollworkers at that particular site until we manage to account for the difference.
I'm convinced that this was actually true of Legend of Mana--a game which offered a massive number of choices, in which you could even choose where the towns and dungeons you visit are located on the map, in the end didn't really offer significant choices at all--you can follow the quests in a wide variety of orders, but the only way to progress the story is to finish quests. The characters even seemed to make jokes about the protagonist's free will or lack thereof. At one point a child says to your PC "I hate grownups who only say yes or no" and your character is given a choice of responding "Yes." or "No."
Regarding this game, I think the freedom in the original DX was not so much the macrofreedom of plot changes near the end, but the microfreedom of finding more than one way to reach the various goals of the game. I don't really see what the point of Chrono Cross style branched paths--it's like reading one of those old kids books that asked you to make decisions for the main character and turn to the appropriate page. It's like one of those old laserdisc games. Spector talks alot about emergent gameplay, and branching story lines are definitely not an example of that. If the plot were determined by the various characters represented by AI programs trying to pursue goals through deduction rules, then player plot decisions could be interesting, but short of that technically infeasible task I don't really see the point.
As VoteHere points out, authoritative paper receipts really just turn the machine into a very expensive pencil, when they offer the potential to do so much more.
No, it's better than just a pencil, because pure paper voting is more vulnerable to small-scale election fraud--i.e. just replacing the box of ballots when no is looking.
So with paper we have to trust the pollworkers, with machines we have to trust corporations. With both machines and paper, we just have to trust that pollworkers and corporations are not in a giant partisan conspiracy.
Slashdot Mirror
Besides, government is not the only source of power. They both seek power in their own way. Neither one speaks particularly intelligent ideas.
Yeah, but doesn't Clark look like some kind of Christmas Elf? Tiny head, ears that kind of stick out... Plus he's got some kind of Arkansas accent--between the current administration and the last one, my subconscious mind just expects people who talk like they're from that region of the country to lie.
Dean definitely never looks like he's genuinely happy to be in public--I'm not sure if that makes me more or less trusting of him...
At least neither of them are Gephardt, who always seems like a grumpy old man telling kids to get off his lawn.
No. How do you feel about Hilary Clinton?
Can't all Americans stand together and admit the obvious--that both Ann and Hillary are really annoying?
OTOH, the opposing logic means all generic terms defined in any language are generic terms in all languages
Once again, globalism is illogical...
If you purchase a game that seriously disappoints you, to say that this purchase makes the game more popular is absurd. Also, the most popular game of all time should be one that remains popular long after it is released--which is not measured in sales figures either.
whoops, thus all reasoning based on counter-factuals is invalid!!!! my causal reasoning explodes!11
The article also discusses EULAs as a sort of social contract between players--by agreeing to play on the server, players agree to a set of rules, in exchange for the priviledge of playing on a server where everyone is forced to obey those same rules.
Still, one part that mystified me was the mention that Second Life is a system that "has been extensively criticized as limiting creativity." Where could I see this extensive criticism?--it sounds interesting.
Some interesting pieces of the code:
Basically, they mandated that America produce nothing but boring superhero comics for several decades, which is why comics tended to become more popular in Europe and Japan than in America.
Could something similar happen to games? The one big advantage games have in the 00s that comics didn't in the 50s is that comics were explicitly targeted to juveniles, which is why there was such public furor over them, while the more violent games made today are (supposedly) aimed at people in their 20s and up.
An industry effort to make more quality games rather than relying on the same old violence cliches could only be a good thing, but I don't think it will really prove necessary--games companies just have to keep emphasizing that they are not trying to sell to kids. (Hey, it works for the tobacco companies--which even with the settlement are rolling in the dough.)
Even if games never leave this sophomoric violent stage, any public attempt to ban them will run into the same problem that is run into when trying to ban guns in America--most people want to eliminate guns, but too many of the people who want to keep guns are single-issue voters.
I suspect that corporate boardrooms are simply bad at choosing game projects, and the software industry DOES dictate the kinds of games that are made, because they simply have no ability to determine what the public wants at all.
I doubt there are many people in this world who want to abolish all copyright who would still want to retain the GPL in that copyrightless world. And if any such people did exist, and they had the political power to eliminate copyrights, they would probably also have the power to pass a GPL-like law that required all distributed software to come with source.
In conclusion, the argument that we should support the existence of copyrights because they are neccessary for the GPL is the most worthless possible argument you could make in support of copyright. The GPL accomplishes a specific goal within a particular set of laws, but that does not mean that this particular set of laws is the best way to achieve that goal.
My own position is to support copyright, but I also think the system falls apart if enforced too rigidly. After all, legal systems are far slower than computer systems, so if every time I do a computation I have to defend against a lawsuit, Moore's Law will reverse itself quite fast.
Whoops, guess my example is a few years old.
You're making the same mistake here--Nintendo is not a Sony that also makes games, instead Nintendo is a Capcom that also sells consoles. Sony and Microsoft are way the heck larger than Nintendo, and it's ridiculous to expect Nintendo to out-Sony Sony. Sony's model is to encourage other people to develop PS2 games so they can sell PS2s. Nintendo's model is to make gamecubes so they can develop Gamecube games.
Perhaps the future of Nintendo hardware is in question. But that's not a big problem, Nintendo can simply abandon its hardware side if it no longer makes any sense to keep selling hardware. In other words, take the Sega route.
I mean, it's pretty simple microeconomics. The Slashdot headline is absolutely right, you kids complaining about it are morons. Piracy, like any other form of COMPETITION, forces prices DOWN. Since the marginal cost of selling games is near zero, piracy will always result in lower prices.
Now, you could argue that fewer games will be made, because games manufacturers will be less confident that they will make up their fixed costs. But, again I say, selling games in China at a lower price because of piracy gets you closer to your fixed costs than not selling any games in China at all.
So you and every idiot that has modded you up needs to buy a fuckin' clue for yourselves--piracy, like all other competition lowers prices, period.
The truth of this statement depends on which particular older, more experienced people tend to be around the particular younger person. The corporate culture that surrounds too many of us is manufactured to discourage creativity. The growing revulsion that people of all ages are begining to feel, the voice in our heads that says "I refuse to be a part of this organized despair!" is humanity's last hope of remaining non-mechanical, of living a life outside of organized system.
Corporations have robots to do their weaving--if you want to weave yourself into a culture, you'll have to start by making your own culture.
What?
An awful lot of people throughout history--most all of the people we still remember--lived their entire lives without ever leaving the Damn-Fool Years. I see so many thirteen year olds today who are already past their Damn-Fool Years. Horrible.
One of the urban legend statistics that I've never found evidence of but sounds so right it must be true (heh heh) is that 90% of games released lose money. Given that, perhaps it isn't that our wants are at odds with those of consumers--its sounds like what the industry supplies is what's truly at odds with consumers.
I think it's just that industry wants to supply us with something consumers do not want. Corporations crave certainty--they want to find an idea that will assure a return on their investment, throw a whole lot of investment on that idea, and have a nice, safe source of income they can invest into more sure things.
Unfortunately, gamers crave novelty, innovation, and surprise. Gamers are a fairly young bunch, and young people are attracted to new, unpredictable things. But producing new, unpredictable things means unpredictable returns on your investment. Consumers want great gameplay. But brilliant new gameplay is harder for a corporation to evaluate than brilliant new graphics. Thus the corporation chooses new graphics.
So I don't believe what you say is true at all--there are plenty of consumers who want fresh, new innovative games, but there are few corporations willing to supply them. This lack of innovation is SUPPLY, not DEMAND driven. It's getting worse because gaming companies are consolidating like everything else these days, thus become bigger and less innovative as time wears on.
See also: why new music sucks, why new movies suck
I haven't been in one of these stores for a few months, but for a while the industry seemed moving toward standard box sizes that weren't very much wider or taller than dvd boxes (about 4 times as thick, though). Dvd boxes are still better, though, since those are permanent holders of the media, while the computer game boxes are thrown out.
But you've got a point here. The key difference between a console and a computer, other than the fact that a gaming-worthy computer costs ten times as much as a gamecube, is that computers are capable of CREATION as well as CONSUMPTION. If I didn't entertain vague fantasies that I would one day actually create games or pieces of games, I would never have spent the money keeping up a computer with up-to-date graphics cards.
Games where I deeply customize my character (not just choosing the accessories and facial features, but to simply design a whole new persona) are simply not possible on a console--if they were, that console would be a computer. For example, it would not be possible to make a console port of Second Life, a game in which players upload their models and even interactive scripts to a persistent massively multiplayer world. Indeed, massively multiplayer games in general aren't very common on consoles.
The trouble with Xenosaga was that it kept making me walk through the same empty hallways in the spaceship over and over again. Random battles aren't really any worse than watching your protagonist's running animation for 15 minutes.
That would rule.
People a few years down the road have too much time on their hands.
Theoretically true, but in the real world if there is a large difference the machines and the paper, then we know that something mischievious happened. So we might declare the paper ballot winner the true winner--but now we also know to investigate both the manufactuer of the machine and the pollworkers at that particular site until we manage to account for the difference.
Regarding this game, I think the freedom in the original DX was not so much the macrofreedom of plot changes near the end, but the microfreedom of finding more than one way to reach the various goals of the game. I don't really see what the point of Chrono Cross style branched paths--it's like reading one of those old kids books that asked you to make decisions for the main character and turn to the appropriate page. It's like one of those old laserdisc games. Spector talks alot about emergent gameplay, and branching story lines are definitely not an example of that. If the plot were determined by the various characters represented by AI programs trying to pursue goals through deduction rules, then player plot decisions could be interesting, but short of that technically infeasible task I don't really see the point.
No, it's better than just a pencil, because pure paper voting is more vulnerable to small-scale election fraud--i.e. just replacing the box of ballots when no is looking.
So with paper we have to trust the pollworkers, with machines we have to trust corporations. With both machines and paper, we just have to trust that pollworkers and corporations are not in a giant partisan conspiracy.