(Caveat: I gave up gaming on PCs a while ago, it was always a loosing battle for keeping up with the latest graphics card, and I like laptops -- now I just do Xbox).
This is happening more and more often. When a console is less expensive than the next graphics card, and 1/10 as expensive as the computer required to run the next graphics card, the decision is obvious.
Example: UT 2004 will not run at more than 15FPS on a rather recent machine. No matter what resolution it is running at, nor what the settings are, it simply refuses to run any faster than that. Aside from the fact that makes no fucking sense at all, it also means that very few people are going to want to buy the game because it doesn't work without a $4000 gaming rig to go with it. That is flat out silly.
Meanwhile, the PS2/Gamecube/Xbox each run dozens of games with no problems, sort of like the Mac (turn it on, it works, right now). What's a PS2, a couple hundred bucks? PC games are going to have problems competing if for an extra $150, you can get the whole machine.
Intel, like Microsoft, Dell and Sony, is a favored company.
AMD, like Nokia, Apple and Nintendo, is not.
AMD's strategy (Opteron instead of dual-core?) will therefore be called "a significant risk given the current market reality" while Intel's strategy (dual-core instead of Itanium?) will be called "a savvy decision for the technology giant," even though the media wouldn't know an Opteron or a dual-core CPU if one jumped up on their desk and did the tap number from 42nd street.
All of the general stories will make repeated and redundant references to the effect of Intel's strategy on the "tech-heavy Nasdaq."
This is no different than the Sony vs. Nintendo console competition. The media doesn't like competition. Neither do the markets. (There is only room for three companies in any given market) It's so much easier to be a sycophant when your favored company has 80% of the market.
So some guy runs through the living room with a case of chronic, uncontrollable spontaneous diarrhea, pumps wet shit all over everything and all we're allowed to say is "wow, that guy sure makes a mess, don't he?"
Oh, let's see. Not counting manga, about 400 square feet of shelf space at Suncoast. Two aisles at Best Buy. One cable network. Most of another. Couple million web sites. $4.3 billion growing market. About 300 million fans worldwide. An Academy Award.
Just for fun, lets fire dozens of people today! It's a bright sunny day outside, let's ruin everyone's day! I know, let's all sing a song. Sing a song of destroyed careers! Let's all play a game! How long before you miss a car payment! Sell your house and move across the land so you can get an entry-level job after wasting all this time getting fired! Why, you can't even list it on your resume! WHO THE FUCK WANTS AN EMPLOYEE WHO JUST GOT FIRED???!?!?!?!
CongratuFUCKINGLATIONS you just won the STARVING UNIVERSITY GRADUATE LOTTERY!! A fabulous and exciting prize package is yours! You get eight months of budget-scrimping shit! You have to sell everything you own! You get to FLUSH IT ALL DOWN THE RUINED CREDIT TOILET!!
We'll have the whole fuckin' thing sold eventually. And here you thought you were doing what you were supposed to do. Oh, well. Back to the want-ads.
Television will be 90% advertising very soon. The greatness of the invention will sink into a bubbling toilet of infomercials scheduled between commercials and what's coming up next.
I think what's coming up next is the tuna casserole.
Once again, Nintendo, which has a HAMMERLOCK on the portable game console industry is facing a "tough fight" with a company that has NO PRESENCE in the portable game console industry.
Meanwhile Sony is invincible in the home video game market, and has never and will never face a tough fight with anyone except Microsoft, because Sony and Microsoft are the greatest companies in the history of the universe and we, the media, can do nothing except gape at their publically displayed cash hoards.
Meanwhile, Apple, a company with a HAMMERLOCK on digital music distribution, despite the fact their product is MORE expensive, faces a tough fight from the bold and innovative Dell, which introduced their digital music player earlier this week.
Microsoft, on the other hand, faces no competition at all from Apple.
Why do Apple and Nintendo constantly have to scrape for the benefit of the doubt in markets they own?
The word "bias" comes to mind. Half-assed rah rah hype-journalism at its worst.
So, why do people think the PSP is going to do well?
Because Sony is a "favored" company, like Microsoft. Nintendo is not.
Therefore Sony's entry into a market that Nintendo has a HAMMERLOCK on is "deeply troubling for the gaming giant (Nintendo)" while if Nintendo were trying to enter a market (Gamecube?) that Sony had 99.9% market share in, it would be "highly unlikely that Nintendo could succeed."
Same situation with Apple's iPod and Dell's crap-player. Dell is a favored company. Apple is not, despite the fact that Apple consistently makes better products. Dell's crap-player is therefore "a bold and innovative industry move" while Apple's best-selling iPod, arguably the most important product for the music industry in two decades is "likely to fall behind as competitors eye Apple's unusually high market share."
Amazing how easy it is to write faux-news isn't it?
It's basically the worst kind of sycophantic, half-assed, suck the money rah-rah hype-"journalism" that Dockers-wearing illiterate morons write while distracted by the piles of glittering cash these companies put on public display.
Unless a company is the undisputed leader in a market with an overwhelming market share and hundreds of billions of dollars in profits, they cannot ever be a "favored" company, and therefore all media coverage of their products will be consistently skeptical. Ahh, skepticism. So easy to criticize people who work hard to succeed.
So, basically you want people to create innovative titles that no one has ever heard of, but using existing engines?
Correct. The reason companies don't make money is because they insist on re-inventing the wheel every two years. Technology is often abandoned after one game. It is a waste of capital and man-hours.
Innovation is a great word, but in game development, if people aren't buying new, you give them what they want.
People aren't buying new because there is no new. "The market wants what we build" is incompetent, arrogant, greedy, stupid middle management justifying their inability to a) take risks and b) build anything original
eople complain about the lack of innovation, but then everyone is excited about Doom 3, UT2004, Half-Life 2, Warcraft 3, etc.
Sequel, Sequel, Sequel/Clone, Sequel.
You want innovation, pay for it.
At $50 a box, it's already paid for.
Why should it? The adventure genre is a niche market now.
All markets are niche markets except detergent.
Why should electronic distribution be standard?
So there is unlimited shelf space.
People buy certain kinds of games, so publishers publish them.
Publishers publish certain kinds of games, so people buy them.
Publishers control all the capital and all the shelf space. If games suck, it's the publisher's fault. Period.
you want innovative titles, but you want standard art, engine, and other tools to be available to everyone.
Correct. Without the need to spend 35,000 man-hours building art and engines, developers will have time to work on GAMEPLAY for a change, which would be nice.
What sort of math are CS majors expected to take? Why are these classes useful? Does programming really have that much to do with math?
Employers and society no longer value higher education, so it really makes no difference what math courses one takes. Any subject not understood by the HR drone reading the resume will make no difference in that candidate's "qualificiations."
Think about it, when you saw the first movie 'Alien' what made you like it?
Jones. The fucking cat kicked everyone's ass. It stared down the alien, got away from the alien twice, got a first class seat on the "get the fuck out of here" express, and got paid for a sequel where it stayed home in the air conditioned apartment eating Fancy Feast.
if these games don't impress you, then what COULD?
A writer.
Both Doom3 and HL2 promise not just prettier graphics, but stories and interactivity being integrated into the game like never before. How can you "been there, done that" when these games are both going to be such radical departures from the pervious games as to leave them in the dust?
Because they aren't radical departures. It's the same game as Castle Wolfenstein with better graphics. It's boring.
then maybe you just don't like FPSes period.
After 173 sequels, maybe people are tired of playing the same game. Ok, so they can talk to the other scientist. So what? Who wrote the story? What's the plot? What's the theme? What do we learn about the characters? How do those characters change? At what point in the game might the player win by NOT blasting 112 alien flipping insect flippers with a rotary razor blade cannon?
Show people a game with a moral dilemma, or a moment of real drama, or a game that might make someone cry. THAT would be innovative. Nobody gives a shit about displaying 5% more bump-voxeled pixel-polygons.
They were Serious Sam and Serious Sam : The Second Encounter. Both of which initially retailed for $20 USD. Fans loved it. Reviewers praised it. But money didn't come.
While complexity does have a factor in delaying projects, it is minimal when compared to lack of planning.
It is impossible for a large organization run by middle managers to properly plan anything. Middle managers do not plan. They build contingency structures and processes which serve no constructive purpose.
The guys who made the LOTR movies put insane hours in as well. When you're making outstanding triple-AAA quality entertainment based media, be it movies, games, televisions shows, etc, you've got put the effort in to make it as good as it can be.
By driving employees to the point of exhaustion? Its inefficient and a poor way to build an industry. Structural engineers don't work 14 hours a day building suspension bridges. Auto workers don't work 80 hour weeks. Why must game developers work ridiculous schedules to earn their paychecks? (Hint: It has to do with management and the value of a "really cool job.")
34.3% of developers expect to leave the industry within 5 years, and 51.2% within 10 years
Sounds like a great way to build up knowledge and experience in the industry so game development advances like all other industries. Just another example of short-term, slap-a-label-on-it thinking, brought to you by middle management.
The average crunch work week exceeds 80 hours 13% of the time.
Omnipresent 80 hour work weeks. Sounds like about half the proper work force hasn't been hired yet. Probably because of arrogant, incompetent, cynical management.
Overtime is often uncompensated (46.8%)
Even though the video game industry makes profits in the billions.
While game development is a stimulating and rewarding career
Sure it is. From this description it sounds like a wailing shithole.
he work conditions are often taxing, making it hard to sustain a balanced lifestyle and leading many senior developers to leave the industry before they've done their best work... it is not just the community that is affected - these issues also impact the quality of games produced
No shit?
Are insane hours just part and parcel of working in games, or is there another way?
Yes. Standardize the tools. No more graphics engines for 10 years. Period. Half of all development budgets should be spent on games that haven't EVER been developed yet (no sequels, no clones, no remakes, no licensed characters). One fourth of development budgets should be used to hire independent developers. One tenth of all development budgets should fund games written by one developer.
The adventure genre should be re-invented from the ground up. Interactive fiction should be marketed again. Prices for games should be cut by 30% across the board. Electronic distribution should be standard for all games, including consoles.
Publishers should invest long-term to build a true renaissance for video and computer games. Create-your-own-game tools should be developed and marketed for all genres. Standardized artwork, engines and tools should be made available to all amateur developers.
Arcade, console and computer classics should be marketed in binary form as products by genre with properly licensed emulators. All such products should include documented source for each game with reference to the available tools so amateur developers can build their own versions of each game type. Game designs and theory should be documented as well.
The result would be decades of windfall profits for the game industry and entire libraries of new games for players, amateur developers and the mod community alike.
Oh, and it wouldn't require 80-hour uncompensated work weeks so we can have another sequel of a remake of a clone of a boring game.
Slashdot Mirror
by 1997 The Spot was gone, another victim of the dot-com bust.
The dot-com bust in 1997? Huh?
Love them hype-journalism phrases. "Dot-com bubble" and "dot-com bust" are used to explain every negative event in technology.
(Caveat: I gave up gaming on PCs a while ago, it was always a loosing battle for keeping up with the latest graphics card, and I like laptops -- now I just do Xbox).
This is happening more and more often. When a console is less expensive than the next graphics card, and 1/10 as expensive as the computer required to run the next graphics card, the decision is obvious.
Example: UT 2004 will not run at more than 15FPS on a rather recent machine. No matter what resolution it is running at, nor what the settings are, it simply refuses to run any faster than that. Aside from the fact that makes no fucking sense at all, it also means that very few people are going to want to buy the game because it doesn't work without a $4000 gaming rig to go with it. That is flat out silly.
Meanwhile, the PS2/Gamecube/Xbox each run dozens of games with no problems, sort of like the Mac (turn it on, it works, right now). What's a PS2, a couple hundred bucks? PC games are going to have problems competing if for an extra $150, you can get the whole machine.
Intel, like Microsoft, Dell and Sony, is a favored company.
AMD, like Nokia, Apple and Nintendo, is not.
AMD's strategy (Opteron instead of dual-core?) will therefore be called "a significant risk given the current market reality" while Intel's strategy (dual-core instead of Itanium?) will be called "a savvy decision for the technology giant," even though the media wouldn't know an Opteron or a dual-core CPU if one jumped up on their desk and did the tap number from 42nd street.
All of the general stories will make repeated and redundant references to the effect of Intel's strategy on the "tech-heavy Nasdaq."
This is no different than the Sony vs. Nintendo console competition. The media doesn't like competition. Neither do the markets. (There is only room for three companies in any given market) It's so much easier to be a sycophant when your favored company has 80% of the market.
"Sir, maybe we should introduce our dual core chip now!"
"No... that's just what they'll be expecting us to do..."
Sure, if it ran at more than eight frames a second on a machine that can do six BILLION INSTRUCTIONS A SECOND.
FUCK I hate computer games. No wonder people buy consoles.
So some guy runs through the living room with a case of chronic, uncontrollable spontaneous diarrhea, pumps wet shit all over everything and all we're allowed to say is "wow, that guy sure makes a mess, don't he?"
Sounds great.
Is the Matrix crossed with the Ring even a good thing?
No. Unnamed secret CLONE is more accurate.
Wouldn't it be great if just a few dollars could be spent on a writer? Just one writer?
This is the land of "we want it all for free" so why the fuck not? Give 'em a parade and a beverage too.
Anime owns what now?
Oh, let's see. Not counting manga, about 400 square feet of shelf space at Suncoast. Two aisles at Best Buy. One cable network. Most of another. Couple million web sites. $4.3 billion growing market. About 300 million fans worldwide. An Academy Award.
That's for openers...
Just for fun, lets fire dozens of people today! It's a bright sunny day outside, let's ruin everyone's day! I know, let's all sing a song. Sing a song of destroyed careers! Let's all play a game! How long before you miss a car payment! Sell your house and move across the land so you can get an entry-level job after wasting all this time getting fired! Why, you can't even list it on your resume! WHO THE FUCK WANTS AN EMPLOYEE WHO JUST GOT FIRED???!?!?!?!
CongratuFUCKINGLATIONS you just won the STARVING UNIVERSITY GRADUATE LOTTERY!! A fabulous and exciting prize package is yours! You get eight months of budget-scrimping shit! You have to sell everything you own! You get to FLUSH IT ALL DOWN THE RUINED CREDIT TOILET!!
We'll have the whole fuckin' thing sold eventually. And here you thought you were doing what you were supposed to do. Oh, well. Back to the want-ads.
what does this accomplish?
It reminds the powerless of their place.
Television will be 90% advertising very soon. The greatness of the invention will sink into a bubbling toilet of infomercials scheduled between commercials and what's coming up next.
I think what's coming up next is the tuna casserole.
but they can't colour in between the lines all that well.
Disney doesn't make animation any more. Anime owns the entire market now, just like the auto industry in the 70s.
Oh, and Disney fired everyone too, just like Comcast.
The record companies secretly helped design CDs so they would rot and deny people access to their music and data.
Sounds like a bad Scooby-Doo script.
Once again, Nintendo, which has a HAMMERLOCK on the portable game console industry is facing a "tough fight" with a company that has NO PRESENCE in the portable game console industry.
Meanwhile Sony is invincible in the home video game market, and has never and will never face a tough fight with anyone except Microsoft, because Sony and Microsoft are the greatest companies in the history of the universe and we, the media, can do nothing except gape at their publically displayed cash hoards.
Meanwhile, Apple, a company with a HAMMERLOCK on digital music distribution, despite the fact their product is MORE expensive, faces a tough fight from the bold and innovative Dell, which introduced their digital music player earlier this week.
Microsoft, on the other hand, faces no competition at all from Apple.
Why do Apple and Nintendo constantly have to scrape for the benefit of the doubt in markets they own?
The word "bias" comes to mind. Half-assed rah rah hype-journalism at its worst.
Books can be cheaper, as they're the result of one or two guys banging on a keyboard, somebody editing it, and somebody printing it.
One or two guys banging on a keyboard... No wonder nobody learns to read any more.
So, why do people think the PSP is going to do well?
Because Sony is a "favored" company, like Microsoft. Nintendo is not.
Therefore Sony's entry into a market that Nintendo has a HAMMERLOCK on is "deeply troubling for the gaming giant (Nintendo)" while if Nintendo were trying to enter a market (Gamecube?) that Sony had 99.9% market share in, it would be "highly unlikely that Nintendo could succeed."
Same situation with Apple's iPod and Dell's crap-player. Dell is a favored company. Apple is not, despite the fact that Apple consistently makes better products. Dell's crap-player is therefore "a bold and innovative industry move" while Apple's best-selling iPod, arguably the most important product for the music industry in two decades is "likely to fall behind as competitors eye Apple's unusually high market share."
Amazing how easy it is to write faux-news isn't it?
It's basically the worst kind of sycophantic, half-assed, suck the money rah-rah hype-"journalism" that Dockers-wearing illiterate morons write while distracted by the piles of glittering cash these companies put on public display.
Unless a company is the undisputed leader in a market with an overwhelming market share and hundreds of billions of dollars in profits, they cannot ever be a "favored" company, and therefore all media coverage of their products will be consistently skeptical. Ahh, skepticism. So easy to criticize people who work hard to succeed.
So, basically you want people to create innovative titles that no one has ever heard of, but using existing engines?
Correct. The reason companies don't make money is because they insist on re-inventing the wheel every two years. Technology is often abandoned after one game. It is a waste of capital and man-hours.
Innovation is a great word, but in game development, if people aren't buying new, you give them what they want.
People aren't buying new because there is no new. "The market wants what we build" is incompetent, arrogant, greedy, stupid middle management justifying their inability to a) take risks and b) build anything original
eople complain about the lack of innovation, but then everyone is excited about Doom 3, UT2004, Half-Life 2, Warcraft 3, etc.
Sequel, Sequel, Sequel/Clone, Sequel.
You want innovation, pay for it.
At $50 a box, it's already paid for.
Why should it? The adventure genre is a niche market now.
All markets are niche markets except detergent.
Why should electronic distribution be standard?
So there is unlimited shelf space.
People buy certain kinds of games, so publishers publish them.
Publishers publish certain kinds of games, so people buy them.
Publishers control all the capital and all the shelf space. If games suck, it's the publisher's fault. Period.
you want innovative titles, but you want standard art, engine, and other tools to be available to everyone.
Correct. Without the need to spend 35,000 man-hours building art and engines, developers will have time to work on GAMEPLAY for a change, which would be nice.
What sort of math are CS majors expected to take? Why are these classes useful? Does programming really have that much to do with math?
Employers and society no longer value higher education, so it really makes no difference what math courses one takes. Any subject not understood by the HR drone reading the resume will make no difference in that candidate's "qualificiations."
Think about it, when you saw the first movie 'Alien' what made you like it?
Jones. The fucking cat kicked everyone's ass. It stared down the alien, got away from the alien twice, got a first class seat on the "get the fuck out of here" express, and got paid for a sequel where it stayed home in the air conditioned apartment eating Fancy Feast.
Jones should be a guest on the talk shows.
if these games don't impress you, then what COULD?
A writer.
Both Doom3 and HL2 promise not just prettier graphics, but stories and interactivity being integrated into the game like never before. How can you "been there, done that" when these games are both going to be such radical departures from the pervious games as to leave them in the dust?
Because they aren't radical departures. It's the same game as Castle Wolfenstein with better graphics. It's boring.
then maybe you just don't like FPSes period.
After 173 sequels, maybe people are tired of playing the same game. Ok, so they can talk to the other scientist. So what? Who wrote the story? What's the plot? What's the theme? What do we learn about the characters? How do those characters change? At what point in the game might the player win by NOT blasting 112 alien flipping insect flippers with a rotary razor blade cannon?
Show people a game with a moral dilemma, or a moment of real drama, or a game that might make someone cry. THAT would be innovative. Nobody gives a shit about displaying 5% more bump-voxeled pixel-polygons.
where development budgets and marketing costs are reaching Hollywood proportions
and so is quality.
They were Serious Sam and Serious Sam : The Second Encounter. Both of which initially retailed for $20 USD. Fans loved it. Reviewers praised it. But money didn't come.
Huh? What does that mean? It didn't sell?
While complexity does have a factor in delaying projects, it is minimal when compared to lack of planning.
It is impossible for a large organization run by middle managers to properly plan anything. Middle managers do not plan. They build contingency structures and processes which serve no constructive purpose.
The guys who made the LOTR movies put insane hours in as well. When you're making outstanding triple-AAA quality entertainment based media, be it movies, games, televisions shows, etc, you've got put the effort in to make it as good as it can be.
By driving employees to the point of exhaustion? Its inefficient and a poor way to build an industry. Structural engineers don't work 14 hours a day building suspension bridges. Auto workers don't work 80 hour weeks. Why must game developers work ridiculous schedules to earn their paychecks? (Hint: It has to do with management and the value of a "really cool job.")
34.3% of developers expect to leave the industry within 5 years, and 51.2% within 10 years
Sounds like a great way to build up knowledge and experience in the industry so game development advances like all other industries. Just another example of short-term, slap-a-label-on-it thinking, brought to you by middle management.
Crunch time is omnipresent,
Poor, overpaid, underqualified, incompetent management.
The average crunch work week exceeds 80 hours 13% of the time.
Omnipresent 80 hour work weeks. Sounds like about half the proper work force hasn't been hired yet. Probably because of arrogant, incompetent, cynical management.
Overtime is often uncompensated (46.8%)
Even though the video game industry makes profits in the billions.
While game development is a stimulating and rewarding career
Sure it is. From this description it sounds like a wailing shithole.
he work conditions are often taxing, making it hard to sustain a balanced lifestyle and leading many senior developers to leave the industry before they've done their best work... it is not just the community that is affected - these issues also impact the quality of games produced
No shit?
Are insane hours just part and parcel of working in games, or is there another way?
Yes. Standardize the tools. No more graphics engines for 10 years. Period. Half of all development budgets should be spent on games that haven't EVER been developed yet (no sequels, no clones, no remakes, no licensed characters). One fourth of development budgets should be used to hire independent developers. One tenth of all development budgets should fund games written by one developer.
The adventure genre should be re-invented from the ground up. Interactive fiction should be marketed again. Prices for games should be cut by 30% across the board. Electronic distribution should be standard for all games, including consoles.
Publishers should invest long-term to build a true renaissance for video and computer games. Create-your-own-game tools should be developed and marketed for all genres. Standardized artwork, engines and tools should be made available to all amateur developers.
Arcade, console and computer classics should be marketed in binary form as products by genre with properly licensed emulators. All such products should include documented source for each game with reference to the available tools so amateur developers can build their own versions of each game type. Game designs and theory should be documented as well.
The result would be decades of windfall profits for the game industry and entire libraries of new games for players, amateur developers and the mod community alike.
Oh, and it wouldn't require 80-hour uncompensated work weeks so we can have another sequel of a remake of a clone of a boring game.