but a lot of that would seem independent of the technology
It is precisely what is not independant of the technology. If a company releases a game for the 360 or ps3 and it features the same asset counts, texture resolutions, code base, etc of a current gen game, a publisher will wonder why the hell you arn't releasing it on the PS2 which has such a massive install base that PS2 exclusive games will continue getting made for another 4 or 5 years, most likely. (Certainly, I can promise you of titles that are two years away from release, and our company, as well as others, pick 4 or 5 years as the best guess at this stage.)
but an increasingly discerning gamer culture does independent of the technology as well
The gamer culture has become more mainstream, and it is certainly not more discerning than it was in earlier years. Maybe the more mainstream consumers will not actually become dependant upon the technology. This is the very hotly debated issue within the industry right now, and its why we see two bohemoths, Sony and Nintendo, picking different horses.
The costs such as voice acting is the only real 'hollywood' cost, given the celebrity nature of some of the voice actors. I'm talking in most games. Note that Mass Effect, Bioshock, etc may put alot of money into those fields, but for the blue collar nature of the industry, the 'normal' costs, they are insignificant to paying the artists/modlers/programmers and the technology they need to make the game. But so far, we are seeing HUGE incubation periods, production pipeline costs, etc for next generation technology because to compete, well, you just have to do so much more in order to stand out.
I agree with you regarding that there is no One True Path, but the matter is that creating a game for a next generation system will cost a lot more money, even 4 years down the road when the overhead of learning and perfecting the pipeline is right for the same reasons that creating Office now costs more money than it took to make Office back in the day. You CAN do more, and somebody WILL do more unless you commit to meeting that barrier to market. Thats why making games for the Wii is a significantly less risky scenario from a financial perspective, and alot of publishers see it as a double play; you can make a game for the PS2 and the Wii (I can only speak for ourselves, but I'm sure many developers now have engines that minimize the platform specific code as much as possible) and cover both generations.. the emergent next gen Wii system and the massive install base of the PS2. Believe me that its probably cheaper right now to have an engine that cross-compiles on PS2/Wii rather than a single 360/PS3 engine that takes advantage of everything. I don't know the exact numbers, I just know that the industry itself considers that the costs of making games for the 360/PS3 is spiraling out of control. And the triple A production budgets wouldn't really change too much between next gen and current gen. Its the same actors, and same directors, the same writers, the same composers.. you're don't need to invest nearly as much more into those factors to create critically acclaimed cameracuts/stories/music since those were already being done on the last gen systems. It really is the technology which forces you to hire way more modelers, animators, texture artists, programmers, etc in order to meet the standards of next-generation production values.
Show me a game that actually lists having a "lens flare" on the back of the box.
The key to all these features is using them properly. When the effects are shoved down your throat at a detrement to gameplay, than yes, it sucks. But start actually looking out for lense flares in games; you'll be surprised how many games have them and you've never even noticed it before. Those are the games that use those features to enhance the level of immersion.. you just don't notice how frequently they're used properly because when they're used properly, you don't notice them.
Unfortunately, it is you who is incorrect. Development costs do "explode" for the 360/ps3 games over the ps2/gc/wii kind of games.
These games are capable of much more power, and with more power, you do not simply not "downscale" as much. Next-gen games feature more assets (more particle emitter assets, more model assets) nevermind that producing environments for next gen games is far more time consuming due to the increased scale.
More power also means you can do far more in code, so typically, you have larger teams of developers in order to produce more complicated AI systems, more complicated physics engines, more complicated shaders, etc.
Also, since the assets 'weigh more' on disk, your tools and technology infrastructure to support explodes. More disk space, more powerful hardware to work on, more files to support (because of more assets being created.)
Game budgets ARE far higher on next gen games, for all the reasons listed.. even more than 3-4 times higher in some cases when comparing a triple A PS2 title to a triple A PS3 title. One of the biggest issues within the industry is how to keep costs down on next gen games since the financial risk is much higher. Procedural art assets is one common discussed potential approach.
And how do I know this? I'm a game developer, at a company that produces both current (ok, well now last) gen and next (okay with now current) gen games, for the xbox, ps, and nintendo families.
So really, he doesn't have a reality distortion field. Its a reality.. a reality that has a lot of developers and publishers concerned.
"Textures and models are typically downscaled for consoles anyway."
Textures and models are typically "baked" (and LoD models set) relatively early in a single-generation production process, in order to ensure that artists are working on exactly what appears in the game. If you downscaled every time you made a build (ie, proceduraly,) you'd never know exactly what you'd end up with. Your comment regarding two ports at the same time, is of course correct. Especially so if you're producing a next and current gen version of the same game, which is why you just won't see it done very often. (Legends was one such example.) But your comment about budgets being generation specific are completely contrary to what the industry is experiencing and trying to grapple with.
Writing and gaming are in a sense opposites of one another.
I am an avid reader, and a game coder, but I just don't see how it is possible to achieve great writing in a medium where the chief goal is leading towards allowing the player as much freedom as possible to create his own narrative. How do you get recognized as a brilliant writer when the gamer is free to abuse, play around, suck, rule, kick ass, get his/her ass kicked, and provide the fixed text that an NPC ultimately says to you for 'getting to that point'. Its an impossible task.
There are games where I felt the writing was very good, like Fire Emblem, or God of War, or to reach back abit, the original Myst, but the writing has to serve to the game, which is to say it has to be there and not make you notice it rather than stand out for being awesome.
Half of me wishes the gaming industry was capable of attracting better writing talent, but the key is to attract writers who are aware of the purpose of writing for a game. It should not be an attempt to *justify* your in-game experience (think of all the over the top cheesy narratives written over games that lacked the gameplay mechanics and immersiveness to do it justice,) its merely to enhance the suspension of disbelief and level and match the level of requested immersion from the player.
Note how it is generally accepted that being an amazing and accomplished writer does not mean you can write a good screen play, or how playwrights arn't neccessarily slam-dunk book authors. I just can't shake the feeling that games will always share, albeit to a lesser degree, a commonality with porn - the narrative of the game simply isn't that central to a good gaming experience (I'm not refuting that some games have good writing, or have even been saved by the writing) just like the writing in porn isn't that central to good porn. I feel that its pretty much a permenant condition... writing in games just needs to be good enough, not cream of the crop excellent. Its the game itself that really has to hold up, and the writing just needs to make sure it doesn't make an ass of itself.
As a user, nothing. As a proponant about the universal strengths of an OS, lots. You're saying because you live in a region in which it never snows, a car that easily rusts is suitable for everyone. The thrust of the article is which OS is best under all conditions, not which OS is best because you're one of the minority running it.
I don't get it. I got all sorts of flack for that parent post. I wasn't judging any of the OSes (except windows, I guess, because I did point out that I hate its ass).. I was merely pointing out that the virus argument is one of the most moot points considering the market share. No car company sells a car by saying, "Hey, you're one of the few that'd own this car; it'd never get stolen." My post was about bad marketing, not a comment on the quality of the security provided by the OSes.
On the other, you need physical access, or a realy good social engineering attack to get a user to change an attachment into an executible file with the privilages to install software.
Yes, I'm sure if 90% of the world was running Linux as their user OS, we'd all have to chmod a+x/usr/local/home/technician/downloads/worldofwarcra ft after we downloaded, and then
For gods sake, priviledges to install software? On a users' machine at home? Who are we requiring permission from if we want to install the software? Our mom? More likely our own root account. I don't care which OS you're running; if lots of people want a screensaver of a fishtank, and that OS is popular, its super-easy (and should be super easy) to install. And.. booyah, virus problems. Physical access doesn't mean shit next to pervasive use because when you say 'a little social engineering', what you really mean is almost none at all, which is what most malware or adware gets by on.
Of course it doesn't. I agree with you except for the crucial difference that exploiting a server is very much different from exploiting through email, the web, or other passive methods that occur when users surf the internet.
Virus writers do not target server apis nearly as much as they target clients involved in requesting data, at least as far as adware/malware goes. This is why I have to repeatedly click 'yes' to installing software on windows these days; because the juicy targets are the users, not the software. Its not apache or IIS users need to worry about (unless you work in IT, of course, thats a subset of the problem) but rather exploitable clients. If you're working on Apache or IIS, your job is to prevent exploits. If your job isn't on the line with respect to having your machines owned, you're the target market for zombies.
With all due respect, I think that the actual market share of Windows/IE/Word/etc as clients have more to do with it than anything. When one user platform is so pervasive, going after those users is simply the logical thing to do. Going after the clients is much easier than going after the server, unless you're in it purely for the mojo or the acedemic props. I spent my time in the late 90s going after Word viruses, and I also wrote ad delivery and reporting software (prime targets in a shady market space, and we even worked with adware companies) on freeBSD/apache later on. And hey, I use Windows. I never really appreciated how much more user machines are targeted than servers until that ad job. If your job is to keep your machines running pure, then lo and behold, you will generally be fine. As another poster noted, IIS and windows isn't that bad if your job is to keep them clean. Its users' installs of windows itself that has been the real target, and that ties back to my original point.
Another significant advantage with Linux is that, unlike in Windows, there is no need to worry about security since viruses are very rare, no virus has yet spread successfully on the platform.
1. I do not like windows. 2. I used to develop on freeBSD and linux (now Windows because I am a game production developer, it comes with the job.) 3. This argument about viruses has absolutely no basis since if an OS is not widely used, it simply isn't an attractive commercial target for virus/adware writers. I wish Linux/OSX cheerleaders would not use this point in listing the merits of a system beause nobody can convince me that if everyone used Linux or everyone used OSX to the degree that Windows dominates the market (and especially the novice computer user market with respect to Linux) this argument would neccessarily hold up. (It might hold up, I'm just sayin that right now theres no way to know.)
That's a false dichotomy; every g8 country, including the states, mixes 'socialism' with 'capitalism', to a largly successful degree, including the states. The parent post isn't exactly enlightening, but this is just rediculous generalism.
Its more than just a few lines of code. Cost, meet benefit. Given that the OS is upgradeable however, I would imagine you'll probably see Wii menu keyboard support (and the requisite SDK support for developers) at some point.
If I had mod points, you'd be looking at a -1 for yet another useless, invalid, irrelevant 'damn government regulation' whine. The government should regulate these things because the fact of the matter is some parents *don't* give a shit about their kids and the government should and tries, and to varying degrees of success, DOES, provide a safety net to children (and other exploited citizens) where their parents or their community fails them.
People like you miss the point; the 'regulations' are not meant to absolve parents of their responsibility, and they don't excuse parental indifference or outright failure of responsibility, but are meant to provide a decent fallback for children who are failed by their parents.
Do you think government funded at-risk youth centers should be shut down because it encourages parents to kick their children out of the home? Should we scrap the age requirement for drivers licenses because parents should be the sole determinator of when their children are of a suitable age to drive? No amount of "its the parents responsibility" hand-wringing excuses somebody from failing to support reasonable external guidelines to childrens' access to unsuitable material.
I'm not talking about the first amendment here, because nobody is talking about making laws. But your 'its the job of the parents' lament is a common false dichotomy of any discussion in which multiple parties share responsibility for the health of citizens. Its the job of the parents, the community, the local government, and the federal government. Plenty of law related regulation is perfectly valid as it applies to age suitability; think driving, voting, sex, etc. Some parents fail their kids, and some kids actively succeed in nullifying their parents judgement. So whats so wrong about laws being a reasonable and positive last resort? I think your problem lies more with *what* those laws are, not that they exist, which renders your blanket grudge with regulation somewhat disingenuous.
The GP is really not talking to consumers, hes talking to marketers. Successful marketers are usually petrified, more so than economists. They know you like tits, football, and violence. So thats what they advertise. Its the safe bet. And it pays off. Until you change, and they collapse.
I think the real question is, "Is there anything we can do to fight the desire to reduce risk by way of marketing tits and football to people?"
Its the willingness to take risks in actually advertising and marketing new ideas that drives sales; not quality or prestige. Thats the realistic question he's asking. Advertising is the real engine behind financial success, but how can you keep marketing from collapsing under its own denial of reality before radical readjustments in marketing strategies are required?
Rock and Roll racing! Nice call. Probably my favorite multiplayer and SNES game of all time. I came in to post it as a suggestion, and its taken care of in the third or forth post. So glad to see it being represented.
1. Cost of dev kits (you need several, at least, for a large project.) ~20,000$ for PS3.. ~2000$ for Wii. 2. Programming model for PS3 is much different, and more complex. Multi core = multi thread = more complicated = higher development costs. 3. Your game logic might be the same on gamecube/ps3, but your graphics engine has to be 40% written for the specific console. Thus, writing a game for PS3 and gamecube means you have to write (and support) substancially more engine code. Picking one is much cheaper. 4. At higher resolutions, power, etc, your game assets are much larger, disk space wise. This means your production pipeline has to handle much more data. More disks, more time to save/copy/archive/restore/build the game, more hardware, potentially different pipeline tools for each platform = more money. Larger textures and models means longer everything: open/save/build/etc. Thats time, and time is money.
Tho I agree with your intent, thats not a fair example because you do pay for television via taxes for public broadcast and subscriptions for cable, etc.
If the case is as simple as, "They showed their hand without being protected by patent, and therefore we can steal it," well, then we have a problem. Software is subject to copyright, even tho you don't spend any money to *anybody* on your behalf who is licensing it. Its not like you're not paying your television companies, who in term pay for licensing the rights to broadcast Star Wars. In this case, no author of the content gets payed, and nothing angers capitalist pedantics like somebody who asks for something other than money for their work.
It seems to be under the popular assumption that if you don't ask for financial compensation for produced works, you deserve to belong to a downtrodden class of anti-capitalist authors undeserving of the sections of law which were originally created to grant an author the power to dictate the terms of use for his or her work within a limited time frame.
I'm sure the actual case is more complicated and nuanced that that, however.
Almost all the burnout games are poster children for bad loading times, made worse by the fact that you need to to load between what are essentially 30 second crash scenarios. (Fortunately, the races take longer so the long load times arn't as annoying.)
I can understand it would have been a challenge to program in soft resets (there are alot of game objects in each crash scenario to reset) without doing the easy thing and just reloading the assets off the disc but it would have been worth it. If you want to play the same crash scenario 10 times, you'll spend at least half that time waiting for loading or pushing 'x' to skip the slow and clunky GUI.
Slashdot Mirror
but a lot of that would seem independent of the technology
.. the emergent next gen Wii system and the massive install base of the PS2. Believe me that its probably cheaper right now to have an engine that cross-compiles on PS2/Wii rather than a single 360/PS3 engine that takes advantage of everything. I don't know the exact numbers, I just know that the industry itself considers that the costs of making games for the 360/PS3 is spiraling out of control. And the triple A production budgets wouldn't really change too much between next gen and current gen. Its the same actors, and same directors, the same writers, the same composers .. you're don't need to invest nearly as much more into those factors to create critically acclaimed cameracuts/stories/music since those were already being done on the last gen systems. It really is the technology which forces you to hire way more modelers, animators, texture artists, programmers, etc in order to meet the standards of next-generation production values.
It is precisely what is not independant of the technology. If a company releases a game for the 360 or ps3 and it features the same asset counts, texture resolutions, code base, etc of a current gen game, a publisher will wonder why the hell you arn't releasing it on the PS2 which has such a massive install base that PS2 exclusive games will continue getting made for another 4 or 5 years, most likely. (Certainly, I can promise you of titles that are two years away from release, and our company, as well as others, pick 4 or 5 years as the best guess at this stage.)
but an increasingly discerning gamer culture does independent of the technology as well
The gamer culture has become more mainstream, and it is certainly not more discerning than it was in earlier years. Maybe the more mainstream consumers will not actually become dependant upon the technology. This is the very hotly debated issue within the industry right now, and its why we see two bohemoths, Sony and Nintendo, picking different horses.
The costs such as voice acting is the only real 'hollywood' cost, given the celebrity nature of some of the voice actors. I'm talking in most games. Note that Mass Effect, Bioshock, etc may put alot of money into those fields, but for the blue collar nature of the industry, the 'normal' costs, they are insignificant to paying the artists/modlers/programmers and the technology they need to make the game. But so far, we are seeing HUGE incubation periods, production pipeline costs, etc for next generation technology because to compete, well, you just have to do so much more in order to stand out.
I agree with you regarding that there is no One True Path, but the matter is that creating a game for a next generation system will cost a lot more money, even 4 years down the road when the overhead of learning and perfecting the pipeline is right for the same reasons that creating Office now costs more money than it took to make Office back in the day. You CAN do more, and somebody WILL do more unless you commit to meeting that barrier to market. Thats why making games for the Wii is a significantly less risky scenario from a financial perspective, and alot of publishers see it as a double play; you can make a game for the PS2 and the Wii (I can only speak for ourselves, but I'm sure many developers now have engines that minimize the platform specific code as much as possible) and cover both generations
Show me a game that actually lists having a "lens flare" on the back of the box.
.. you just don't notice how frequently they're used properly because when they're used properly, you don't notice them.
The key to all these features is using them properly. When the effects are shoved down your throat at a detrement to gameplay, than yes, it sucks. But start actually looking out for lense flares in games; you'll be surprised how many games have them and you've never even noticed it before. Those are the games that use those features to enhance the level of immersion
> you don't magically get a game thats more fun by firing all your graphics engineers and hiring 2x more designers
.. don't you ever give me that apocolypical mental image again. ;)
Shudder
Unfortunately, it is you who is incorrect. Development costs do "explode" for the 360/ps3 games over the ps2/gc/wii kind of games.
.. even more than 3-4 times higher in some cases when comparing a triple A PS2 title to a triple A PS3 title. One of the biggest issues within the industry is how to keep costs down on next gen games since the financial risk is much higher. Procedural art assets is one common discussed potential approach.
.. a reality that has a lot of developers and publishers concerned.
These games are capable of much more power, and with more power, you do not simply not "downscale" as much. Next-gen games feature more assets (more particle emitter assets, more model assets) nevermind that producing environments for next gen games is far more time consuming due to the increased scale.
More power also means you can do far more in code, so typically, you have larger teams of developers in order to produce more complicated AI systems, more complicated physics engines, more complicated shaders, etc.
Also, since the assets 'weigh more' on disk, your tools and technology infrastructure to support explodes. More disk space, more powerful hardware to work on, more files to support (because of more assets being created.)
Game budgets ARE far higher on next gen games, for all the reasons listed
And how do I know this? I'm a game developer, at a company that produces both current (ok, well now last) gen and next (okay with now current) gen games, for the xbox, ps, and nintendo families.
So really, he doesn't have a reality distortion field. Its a reality
"Textures and models are typically downscaled for consoles anyway."
Textures and models are typically "baked" (and LoD models set) relatively early in a single-generation production process, in order to ensure that artists are working on exactly what appears in the game. If you downscaled every time you made a build (ie, proceduraly,) you'd never know exactly what you'd end up with. Your comment regarding two ports at the same time, is of course correct. Especially so if you're producing a next and current gen version of the same game, which is why you just won't see it done very often. (Legends was one such example.) But your comment about budgets being generation specific are completely contrary to what the industry is experiencing and trying to grapple with.
Writing and gaming are in a sense opposites of one another.
... writing in games just needs to be good enough, not cream of the crop excellent. Its the game itself that really has to hold up, and the writing just needs to make sure it doesn't make an ass of itself.
I am an avid reader, and a game coder, but I just don't see how it is possible to achieve great writing in a medium where the chief goal is leading towards allowing the player as much freedom as possible to create his own narrative.
How do you get recognized as a brilliant writer when the gamer is free to abuse, play around, suck, rule, kick ass, get his/her ass kicked, and provide the fixed text that an NPC ultimately says to you for 'getting to that point'. Its an impossible task.
There are games where I felt the writing was very good, like Fire Emblem, or God of War, or to reach back abit, the original Myst, but the writing has to serve to the game, which is to say it has to be there and not make you notice it rather than stand out for being awesome.
Half of me wishes the gaming industry was capable of attracting better writing talent, but the key is to attract writers who are aware of the purpose of writing for a game. It should not be an attempt to *justify* your in-game experience (think of all the over the top cheesy narratives written over games that lacked the gameplay mechanics and immersiveness to do it justice,) its merely to enhance the suspension of disbelief and level and match the level of requested immersion from the player.
Note how it is generally accepted that being an amazing and accomplished writer does not mean you can write a good screen play, or how playwrights arn't neccessarily slam-dunk book authors. I just can't shake the feeling that games will always share, albeit to a lesser degree, a commonality with porn - the narrative of the game simply isn't that central to a good gaming experience (I'm not refuting that some games have good writing, or have even been saved by the writing) just like the writing in porn isn't that central to good porn. I feel that its pretty much a permenant condition
As a user, nothing. As a proponant about the universal strengths of an OS, lots. You're saying because you live in a region in which it never snows, a car that easily rusts is suitable for everyone. The thrust of the article is which OS is best under all conditions, not which OS is best because you're one of the minority running it.
.. I was merely pointing out that the virus argument is one of the most moot points considering the market share. No car company sells a car by saying, "Hey, you're one of the few that'd own this car; it'd never get stolen." My post was about bad marketing, not a comment on the quality of the security provided by the OSes.
I don't get it. I got all sorts of flack for that parent post. I wasn't judging any of the OSes (except windows, I guess, because I did point out that I hate its ass)
I'm not debunking the claim, I'm saying I wish he didn't bring up the point despite the validity of his reasoning.
Explain to me how that is a sustainable process in a world where that OS is running on 90% of all end users' machines.
Try this.
On the other, you need physical access, or a realy good social engineering attack to get a user to change an attachment into an executible file with the privilages to install software.
/usr/local/home/technician/downloads/worldofwarcra ft after we downloaded, and then
.. booyah, virus problems. Physical access doesn't mean shit next to pervasive use because when you say 'a little social engineering', what you really mean is almost none at all, which is what most malware or adware gets by on.
Yes, I'm sure if 90% of the world was running Linux as their user OS, we'd all have to chmod a+x
For gods sake, priviledges to install software? On a users' machine at home? Who are we requiring permission from if we want to install the software? Our mom? More likely our own root account. I don't care which OS you're running; if lots of people want a screensaver of a fishtank, and that OS is popular, its super-easy (and should be super easy) to install. And
Of course it doesn't. I agree with you except for the crucial difference that exploiting a server is very much different from exploiting through email, the web, or other passive methods that occur when users surf the internet.
Virus writers do not target server apis nearly as much as they target clients involved in requesting data, at least as far as adware/malware goes. This is why I have to repeatedly click 'yes' to installing software on windows these days; because the juicy targets are the users, not the software. Its not apache or IIS users need to worry about (unless you work in IT, of course, thats a subset of the problem) but rather exploitable clients. If you're working on Apache or IIS, your job is to prevent exploits. If your job isn't on the line with respect to having your machines owned, you're the target market for zombies.
With all due respect, I think that the actual market share of Windows/IE/Word/etc as clients have more to do with it than anything. When one user platform is so pervasive, going after those users is simply the logical thing to do. Going after the clients is much easier than going after the server, unless you're in it purely for the mojo or the acedemic props. I spent my time in the late 90s going after Word viruses, and I also wrote ad delivery and reporting software (prime targets in a shady market space, and we even worked with adware companies) on freeBSD/apache later on. And hey, I use Windows. I never really appreciated how much more user machines are targeted than servers until that ad job. If your job is to keep your machines running pure, then lo and behold, you will generally be fine. As another poster noted, IIS and windows isn't that bad if your job is to keep them clean. Its users' installs of windows itself that has been the real target, and that ties back to my original point.
And you'd hear me complaining about Linux users bragging about the availability of software.
FTFA:
Another significant advantage with Linux is that, unlike in Windows, there is no need to worry about security since viruses are very rare, no virus has yet spread successfully on the platform.
1. I do not like windows.
2. I used to develop on freeBSD and linux (now Windows because I am a game production developer, it comes with the job.)
3. This argument about viruses has absolutely no basis since if an OS is not widely used, it simply isn't an attractive commercial target for virus/adware writers. I wish Linux/OSX cheerleaders would not use this point in listing the merits of a system beause nobody can convince me that if everyone used Linux or everyone used OSX to the degree that Windows dominates the market (and especially the novice computer user market with respect to Linux) this argument would neccessarily hold up. (It might hold up, I'm just sayin that right now theres no way to know.)
In my experience a lot of enviros are marxists (and some murderous and destructive).
When you say that, how hard is it to keep a straight face?
That's a false dichotomy; every g8 country, including the states, mixes 'socialism' with 'capitalism', to a largly successful degree, including the states. The parent post isn't exactly enlightening, but this is just rediculous generalism.
>put in a few lines of code
Its more than just a few lines of code. Cost, meet benefit. Given that the OS is upgradeable however, I would imagine you'll probably see Wii menu keyboard support (and the requisite SDK support for developers) at some point.
If I had mod points, you'd be looking at a -1 for yet another useless, invalid, irrelevant 'damn government regulation' whine. The government should regulate these things because the fact of the matter is some parents *don't* give a shit about their kids and the government should and tries, and to varying degrees of success, DOES, provide a safety net to children (and other exploited citizens) where their parents or their community fails them.
People like you miss the point; the 'regulations' are not meant to absolve parents of their responsibility, and they don't excuse parental indifference or outright failure of responsibility, but are meant to provide a decent fallback for children who are failed by their parents.
Do you think government funded at-risk youth centers should be shut down because it encourages parents to kick their children out of the home? Should we scrap the age requirement for drivers licenses because parents should be the sole determinator of when their children are of a suitable age to drive? No amount of "its the parents responsibility" hand-wringing excuses somebody from failing to support reasonable external guidelines to childrens' access to unsuitable material.
I'm not talking about the first amendment here, because nobody is talking about making laws. But your 'its the job of the parents' lament is a common false dichotomy of any discussion in which multiple parties share responsibility for the health of citizens. Its the job of the parents, the community, the local government, and the federal government. Plenty of law related regulation is perfectly valid as it applies to age suitability; think driving, voting, sex, etc. Some parents fail their kids, and some kids actively succeed in nullifying their parents judgement. So whats so wrong about laws being a reasonable and positive last resort? I think your problem lies more with *what* those laws are, not that they exist, which renders your blanket grudge with regulation somewhat disingenuous.
The GP is really not talking to consumers, hes talking to marketers. Successful marketers are usually petrified, more so than economists. They know you like tits, football, and violence. So thats what they advertise. Its the safe bet. And it pays off. Until you change, and they collapse.
I think the real question is, "Is there anything we can do to fight the desire to reduce risk by way of marketing tits and football to people?"
Its the willingness to take risks in actually advertising and marketing new ideas that drives sales; not quality or prestige. Thats the realistic question he's asking. Advertising is the real engine behind financial success, but how can you keep marketing from collapsing under its own denial of reality before radical readjustments in marketing strategies are required?
Strange, I figured the first step was that we make the laws, so the rules they play by are technically ours?
Rock and Roll racing! Nice call. Probably my favorite multiplayer and SNES game of all time. I came in to post it as a suggestion, and its taken care of in the third or forth post. So glad to see it being represented.
Our corperate internal 'buy' pool for consoles:
16 people want PS3s.
47 people want Wiis.
300 person console development company.
1. Cost of dev kits (you need several, at least, for a large project.) ~20,000$ for PS3 .. ~2000$ for Wii.
2. Programming model for PS3 is much different, and more complex. Multi core = multi thread = more complicated = higher development costs.
3. Your game logic might be the same on gamecube/ps3, but your graphics engine has to be 40% written for the specific console. Thus, writing a game for PS3 and gamecube means you have to write (and support) substancially more engine code. Picking one is much cheaper.
4. At higher resolutions, power, etc, your game assets are much larger, disk space wise. This means your production pipeline has to handle much more data. More disks, more time to save/copy/archive/restore/build the game, more hardware, potentially different pipeline tools for each platform = more money. Larger textures and models means longer everything: open/save/build/etc. Thats time, and time is money.
Tho I agree with your intent, thats not a fair example because you do pay for television via taxes for public broadcast and subscriptions for cable, etc.
If the case is as simple as, "They showed their hand without being protected by patent, and therefore we can steal it," well, then we have a problem. Software is subject to copyright, even tho you don't spend any money to *anybody* on your behalf who is licensing it. Its not like you're not paying your television companies, who in term pay for licensing the rights to broadcast Star Wars. In this case, no author of the content gets payed, and nothing angers capitalist pedantics like somebody who asks for something other than money for their work.
It seems to be under the popular assumption that if you don't ask for financial compensation for produced works, you deserve to belong to a downtrodden class of anti-capitalist authors undeserving of the sections of law which were originally created to grant an author the power to dictate the terms of use for his or her work within a limited time frame.
I'm sure the actual case is more complicated and nuanced that that, however.
Almost all the burnout games are poster children for bad loading times, made worse by the fact that you need to to load between what are essentially 30 second crash scenarios. (Fortunately, the races take longer so the long load times arn't as annoying.)
I can understand it would have been a challenge to program in soft resets (there are alot of game objects in each crash scenario to reset) without doing the easy thing and just reloading the assets off the disc but it would have been worth it. If you want to play the same crash scenario 10 times, you'll spend at least half that time waiting for loading or pushing 'x' to skip the slow and clunky GUI.