Duke isn't offensive because he's buff. He's "offensive" (I disagree with that label -- I find it hard to believe people can see him as anything but a humorous caricature of action-movie heroes) because of what he says.:)
"There's nothing you can do about it" has an awfully fatalistic sound to it, for something involving the human brain, which we still don't really understand. I'll just say I politely disagree with your views on that and leave it at that.
Agreed, one stereotype replacing another is a Bad Thing (no better than the situation you started with). But as of right now, I can think of only a few games (or game types) that are not marketed with a heavy T&A spin on them. I think that a happy medium can be reached without sacrificing any of the "intensity" of game ads...
"Not being part of a target demographic" may be one of the main points of the article...I mean, we've all sat around the sidelines and said things like, "oh man, I'm an RPG lover, and the PC RPG scene has been dead for years...we want new RPGs!" (personal example from the dark days of PC RPGs) RPG lovers, in this instance, thought that they were being ignored unfairly by the market...
How is that different from saying "jeez, I'm a woman gamer, and I don't really feel like playing yet another game of 'tits in a chainmail bikini'...I want some games that I want to play!"?
Tetris implementations are readily available, simple, intuitive, and challenging.
For that matter, a lot of puzzle games fit that criteria.
For another matter, most PC games do not have all three characteristics (simple, intuitive, challenging). A lot of PC games, frankly, suck. Does the fact that I know that from personal experience make me any more of a gamer than someone who likes puzzle games?
And as far as hallucinating after playing a game goes...well, I've never done that before, so I don't know what you're talking about. And if you think I'm not a gamer, then please look at this URL:
A "women's magazine" is obviously designed to sell to women, just like how Maxim and Details are geared towards men. There's no problem with this (in relation to your complaint) because the domains of the respective magazines are defined along gender lines. These magazines aren't trying to reach everyone.
You don't seem to understand what "exploitative" means -- in the cinema sense, exploitation movies were ones that were based around a single gimmick (teen flicks from the '50s were good examples of this -- monster movies, "beach blanket bingo" films, etc.). Exploitative games would be based around the gimmick of "hot chicks", i.e. Tomb Raider: The Final Implants, etc. And, in light of this definition, I'm sure you will immediately see that a large amount of game advertisements are exploitative.
Gaming is something that does not seem to have any gender "orientation", for lack of a better term. And yet gaming magazines are aligning themselves with male interests (against the simple marketing theory that says you shouldn't alienate potential customers) with the sophomoric ads that fill up every gaming magazine I've seen recently. This doesn't really make sense.
For people who say, "oh, girls don't like games anyway," (never minding the oh-so-subtle distinction between girls who don't like games and manly men who do) well, I have this funny feeling that you'll be the ones left out of the IPO once somebody figures out the games that women want to play, markets them properly, and promptly captures 50% of the gaming population. You have to admit, all concerns aside, that potentially doubling the gaming market has to be at least economically interesting...
This is based on an IDSA study that claims 35-45 (console-pc) percent of game players are women and ~50% of game buyers are women (must be a lot of moms buying games).
Actually, this is likely true. The console market dwarfs the PC market, and is geared towards younger people, hence a lot of moms would probably be purchasing games. I mean, come on...we've all seen the scenes at in December. Lots of moms looking for games to give as presents, since the market penetration of consoles in America, at least, is really high...
The other thing is that the genres that are more prolific on console systems (story-centric RPGs, platformers, etc.) would probably appeal more to women in general than all the first-person shooters that make the PC famous. Consoles are also much easier to "get into" -- you just turn it on and play, unlike the myriad problems a gamer can potentially have with a full-blown computer. I'm not really surprised by this, and I agree with the article's main point that most game advertising is really very sophomoric. I find the ads pandering, and I'm a guy, fer chrissakes...
Saying that we cannot be entertained by anything without sex or violence is pretty shortsighted, to say the least. I imagine quite a few artists, musicians, writers, and, gosh, even GAME PROGRAMMERS might disagree with you!
I mean, come on, does Tetris need good graphics? No. Does (I shudder to say) Pokemon need good graphics? Not really. And Pokemon happens to be a very touchy-feely looking property...
I shouldn't waste much breath on a troll, I know, but...it's the principle...
The only thing that has me worried is the fact that the same people that own the DVD CCA also own the press in the US. I have yet to see even a single news article or report in favor of the defendants in this case.
This is true. I tried to mail a news service regarding factual inaccuracies in one of their articles about this case (i.e. "DeCSS is a copying program"), and the response I got from the author was, in so many figurative words, "fuck off and die pirate scum."
Now, for the record, I don't even own a DVD player or movies. And my message was polite, concise, and I tried to stress that there were inaccuracies in the story that should be corrected (not that the story was crap). In reply I get a nasty letter along with "my story is 100% factual, there are no inaccuracies in it," which is plainly not true. This was disheartening, to say the least.
This is a crisis situation, folks...even if the defendants are in the right, it won't matter if the MPAA and company still control the mindshare of the press...
I hate to pop off a "me too" kind of reply, but I agree wholeheartedly. Anybody who criticizes him for donating to that food bank program is clearly out of their gourd -- I can think of few things more wholesome or useful to contribute to than a food bank, and yet people are running around talking about "he should donate to FSF" or what have you. It's disgusting.
It's his check. What he's doing with it is his business. And I personally feel he's doing something really good with it.
I just mailed a clarification/correction to the feedback address given in the article (feedback@bloomberg.com), since they stated near the beginning of the article that DeCSS was a DVD copying program, which is not true. I encourage others to mail (polite!) messages to the feedback address in order to help combat the negative media spin the MPAA and friends are trying to put on us as end-users.
"Custom chips designed for gaming" can now be found on consumer-level 3D graphics cards. They blaze.
And saying that the "video to RAM to CPU paths" were never designed for gaming is misleading. Consoles often use CPUs designed for "traditional" computers (PowerPC, 68000, etc.). And what is AGP about?
I find the vast amount of high-quality games on my PC to have a lot more play value in them than console games. Sure, when I have only a couple of minutes to play, I'll fire up a console and play for a few minutes, but when I really want to play something, I turn on my computer, because the games are much more involving.
Graphics on a PC are superior, and will continue to be (albeit at a higher price point than a console). Unbelievers are invited to fire up Quake 3 or Unreal Tournament for proof.
Besides, RTS and conventional strategy games on consoles stink...:)
This is drifting off-topic, but most of the user-created maps/mods I've seen for Tribes have been terrible. Too unbalanced, or simply bizarre (the mod where you can carry a "camouflage" tree on your back comes to mind).
People making maps for Tribes need to concentrate less on putting thousands of turrets on a map. (they also need to stop simply taking bases from stock maps and putting them on different maps)
"Dub it" has a high-stylin' audiophile ring to it, which usually doesn't apply to anything I dub. "Making a tape" implies amateur, personal, and small-scale production. I don't "dub" tapes for my car stereo, I make tapes for it...
Agreed, "dubbing" is the correct term, but "making a tape" conveys those subtle linguistic notions which I thought were appropriate, since a CD-RW is a personal device, usually used for amateur, small-scale production of ripped CDs.:)
Yes, I knew that. I realize that this may not be the case for everyone, and I don't know the owner of every corporation on the planet. But the wonderful thing about the Information Age is that I can find this stuff online pretty quickly.
As far as the odiousness of Philip Morris goes, I may subsidize some of the companies they own, but I'm not a smoker, and I'll never buy any of their damn cigarettes. If other people followed suit, and the cigarette-arm of PM began to perform poorly in comparison to other companies in the family, don't you think that this would be a strong incentive for them to change their business?
"Supporting a tobacco company" really comes from buying cigarettes, not from buying Cheez Whiz. I'm voting with my wallet, supporting Cheez Whiz and other consumer products over cigarette production...
Letter writing, to the company, media, and the government, where applicable. Peaceful protests. Finding alternate sources of similar products (store-brand Cheez Whiz suits me fine on my student budget).
Economic boycott is not the only way to get companies to change their ways.
But that kind of feedback requires trustable, reliable, and unbiased information. You have to know that product 'A' is made by corportion 'B' if you want to lobby the corporation into not acting badly. How do you do that if 'A' is one of its thousand of brands?
Sorry, but this is just stupid. When I want to discover that Philadelphia brand cream cheese is actually made by Kraft (IIRC), I look on the back of the box, where the helpful address and phone number for comments are listed.
I have never had a problem where I was unable to find out who made a product I had purchased (for which I had a complaint).
I love how people scream 'martial law' whenever measures like a curfew and a cordoned-off zone are put into effect.
When a place is declared a disaster area, these measures are usually taken to prevent looting, and maintain order, and above all, prevent further damage to innocent citizens or their property until order can be restored. Nobody ever complains about this, right?
I think that once the situation in Seattle devolved into riots, the steps taken by the city were justified. People should be free to protest, but once they begin endangering other people or preventing others from, say, attending a conference, then they are probably overstepping their bounds and measures should be taken.
Tell this to Creative Labs. I was at the store the other day, and one of their CD-RW box sets (piracy-in-a-box) had some text on the cover graphic that said "rip it" or something to that effect...
I agree that "rip it" does imply copyright violation, but if you think about it, "make a tape of it" probably did also, but it doesn't seem to anymore... Probably in 5-10 years "ripping it" will be used in the same way as "taping it" is today...
Freespace (btw, one of the best games I've ever played) is like that for me. I can sit down a quite literaly play for hours without thinking once, it's all just instinct and reaction. You use one hand to control the keypad (you need all the number keys for controlling the ship decently well), and the other for things like weapons and speed control. Since it's all configurable (good thing, since the defaults kind of suck, IIRC).
Whoa. Playing any flight-like game with the keyboard is an excruciating experience. You need a nice joystick with lots of buttons and a hat switch (my MS force feedback stick works nicely -- yes, I know it's MS, but the stick is nice). I can play FreeSpace hands-off the keyboard for long stretches of time (pausing only perhaps to give orders to wingmen on the keyboard), just by using all the buttons and the hat switch on the stick. (there's also the throttle wheel, which makes following people much easier)
Now that lets you get into Zen mode.:) An extremely natural configuration.
The more top-tier titles that are available for Linux, the better. Think about it this way: the most-played commercial title for Linux is undoubtedly Quake. Unreal is another top-shelf first person shooter. How long before companies producing titles in other genres say, "Hmm...id and Epic, for the most part, _own_ the [rapidly expanding] Linux market...we need to get a piece of the action!"
This is when you will see Linux executables in the same box as the Windows version. Epic releasing the executables for Linux (and open-sourcing parts of them) is a significant step towards this goal.
It's exciting news, but I think we should really wait for some more information and confirmation.
What's interesting is the note in the article regarding observation with the next generation of telescopes and astronomical equipment. Aside from confirming this, what else might be done with the next generation of observation equipment?
I realize that the real ruling is expected sometime next spring, but what I really wonder is how soon Joe Six-Pack will feel the repercussions from this case. Five years, ten years, fifteen years? Will this be lower prices, a choice of pre-installed operating system, or a broken-up Microsoft?
I guess it largely depends on the punishment/settlement reached in this case. In the meantime, hurrah, hurrah, this finding of fact is a great thing indeed!
Slashdot Mirror
Duke isn't offensive because he's buff. He's "offensive" (I disagree with that label -- I find it hard to believe people can see him as anything but a humorous caricature of action-movie heroes) because of what he says. :)
"There's nothing you can do about it" has an awfully fatalistic sound to it, for something involving the human brain, which we still don't really understand. I'll just say I politely disagree with your views on that and leave it at that.
You assume that you can only play games on a computer. Sony, Sega, and Nintendo would be rather distressed to hear that...
Agreed, one stereotype replacing another is a Bad Thing (no better than the situation you started with). But as of right now, I can think of only a few games (or game types) that are not marketed with a heavy T&A spin on them. I think that a happy medium can be reached without sacrificing any of the "intensity" of game ads...
"Not being part of a target demographic" may be one of the main points of the article...I mean, we've all sat around the sidelines and said things like, "oh man, I'm an RPG lover, and the PC RPG scene has been dead for years...we want new RPGs!" (personal example from the dark days of PC RPGs) RPG lovers, in this instance, thought that they were being ignored unfairly by the market...
How is that different from saying "jeez, I'm a woman gamer, and I don't really feel like playing yet another game of 'tits in a chainmail bikini'...I want some games that I want to play!"?
Tetris implementations are readily available, simple, intuitive, and challenging.
For that matter, a lot of puzzle games fit that criteria.
For another matter, most PC games do not have all three characteristics (simple, intuitive, challenging). A lot of PC games, frankly, suck. Does the fact that I know that from personal experience make me any more of a gamer than someone who likes puzzle games?
And as far as hallucinating after playing a game goes...well, I've never done that before, so I don't know what you're talking about. And if you think I'm not a gamer, then please look at this URL:
http://www.seas.smu.edu/~erik/games_beaten.html
A "women's magazine" is obviously designed to sell to women, just like how Maxim and Details are geared towards men. There's no problem with this (in relation to your complaint) because the domains of the respective magazines are defined along gender lines. These magazines aren't trying to reach everyone.
You don't seem to understand what "exploitative" means -- in the cinema sense, exploitation movies were ones that were based around a single gimmick (teen flicks from the '50s were good examples of this -- monster movies, "beach blanket bingo" films, etc.). Exploitative games would be based around the gimmick of "hot chicks", i.e. Tomb Raider: The Final Implants, etc. And, in light of this definition, I'm sure you will immediately see that a large amount of game advertisements are exploitative.
Gaming is something that does not seem to have any gender "orientation", for lack of a better term. And yet gaming magazines are aligning themselves with male interests (against the simple marketing theory that says you shouldn't alienate potential customers) with the sophomoric ads that fill up every gaming magazine I've seen recently. This doesn't really make sense.
For people who say, "oh, girls don't like games anyway," (never minding the oh-so-subtle distinction between girls who don't like games and manly men who do) well, I have this funny feeling that you'll be the ones left out of the IPO once somebody figures out the games that women want to play, markets them properly, and promptly captures 50% of the gaming population. You have to admit, all concerns aside, that potentially doubling the gaming market has to be at least economically interesting...
This is based on an IDSA study that claims 35-45 (console-pc) percent of game players are women and ~50% of game buyers are women (must be a lot of moms buying games).
Actually, this is likely true. The console market dwarfs the PC market, and is geared towards younger people, hence a lot of moms would probably be purchasing games. I mean, come on...we've all seen the scenes at in December. Lots of moms looking for games to give as presents, since the market penetration of consoles in America, at least, is really high...
The other thing is that the genres that are more prolific on console systems (story-centric RPGs, platformers, etc.) would probably appeal more to women in general than all the first-person shooters that make the PC famous. Consoles are also much easier to "get into" -- you just turn it on and play, unlike the myriad problems a gamer can potentially have with a full-blown computer. I'm not really surprised by this, and I agree with the article's main point that most game advertising is really very sophomoric. I find the ads pandering, and I'm a guy, fer chrissakes...
Saying that we cannot be entertained by anything without sex or violence is pretty shortsighted, to say the least. I imagine quite a few artists, musicians, writers, and, gosh, even GAME PROGRAMMERS might disagree with you!
I mean, come on, does Tetris need good graphics? No. Does (I shudder to say) Pokemon need good graphics? Not really. And Pokemon happens to be a very touchy-feely looking property...
I shouldn't waste much breath on a troll, I know, but...it's the principle...
The only thing that has me worried is the fact that the same people that own the DVD CCA also own the press in the US. I have yet to see even a single news article or report in favor of the defendants in this case.
This is true. I tried to mail a news service regarding factual inaccuracies in one of their articles about this case (i.e. "DeCSS is a copying program"), and the response I got from the author was, in so many figurative words, "fuck off and die pirate scum."
Now, for the record, I don't even own a DVD player or movies. And my message was polite, concise, and I tried to stress that there were inaccuracies in the story that should be corrected (not that the story was crap). In reply I get a nasty letter along with "my story is 100% factual, there are no inaccuracies in it," which is plainly not true. This was disheartening, to say the least.
This is a crisis situation, folks...even if the defendants are in the right, it won't matter if the MPAA and company still control the mindshare of the press...
I hate to pop off a "me too" kind of reply, but I agree wholeheartedly. Anybody who criticizes him for donating to that food bank program is clearly out of their gourd -- I can think of few things more wholesome or useful to contribute to than a food bank, and yet people are running around talking about "he should donate to FSF" or what have you. It's disgusting.
It's his check. What he's doing with it is his business. And I personally feel he's doing something really good with it.
I just mailed a clarification/correction to the feedback address given in the article (feedback@bloomberg.com), since they stated near the beginning of the article that DeCSS was a DVD copying program, which is not true. I encourage others to mail (polite!) messages to the feedback address in order to help combat the negative media spin the MPAA and friends are trying to put on us as end-users.
This has to be one of the best, if not the best, interview I've seen here since I began reading Slashdot.
Thanks Dr. Lederman, and thanks also to Rich Wellner!
"Custom chips designed for gaming" can now be found on consumer-level 3D graphics cards. They blaze.
:)
And saying that the "video to RAM to CPU paths" were never designed for gaming is misleading. Consoles often use CPUs designed for "traditional" computers (PowerPC, 68000, etc.). And what is AGP about?
I find the vast amount of high-quality games on my PC to have a lot more play value in them than console games. Sure, when I have only a couple of minutes to play, I'll fire up a console and play for a few minutes, but when I really want to play something, I turn on my computer, because the games are much more involving.
Graphics on a PC are superior, and will continue to be (albeit at a higher price point than a console). Unbelievers are invited to fire up Quake 3 or Unreal Tournament for proof.
Besides, RTS and conventional strategy games on consoles stink...
This is drifting off-topic, but most of the user-created maps/mods I've seen for Tribes have been terrible. Too unbalanced, or simply bizarre (the mod where you can carry a "camouflage" tree on your back comes to mind).
People making maps for Tribes need to concentrate less on putting thousands of turrets on a map. (they also need to stop simply taking bases from stock maps and putting them on different maps)
"Dub it" has a high-stylin' audiophile ring to it, which usually doesn't apply to anything I dub. "Making a tape" implies amateur, personal, and small-scale production. I don't "dub" tapes for my car stereo, I make tapes for it...
:)
Agreed, "dubbing" is the correct term, but "making a tape" conveys those subtle linguistic notions which I thought were appropriate, since a CD-RW is a personal device, usually used for amateur, small-scale production of ripped CDs.
Yes, I knew that. I realize that this may not be the case for everyone, and I don't know the owner of every corporation on the planet. But the wonderful thing about the Information Age is that I can find this stuff online pretty quickly.
As far as the odiousness of Philip Morris goes, I may subsidize some of the companies they own, but I'm not a smoker, and I'll never buy any of their damn cigarettes. If other people followed suit, and the cigarette-arm of PM began to perform poorly in comparison to other companies in the family, don't you think that this would be a strong incentive for them to change their business?
"Supporting a tobacco company" really comes from buying cigarettes, not from buying Cheez Whiz. I'm voting with my wallet, supporting Cheez Whiz and other consumer products over cigarette production...
Letter writing, to the company, media, and the government, where applicable. Peaceful protests. Finding alternate sources of similar products (store-brand Cheez Whiz suits me fine on my student budget).
Economic boycott is not the only way to get companies to change their ways.
I don't see how this enters into the current situation. WTO != allowing companies to disguise their intentions or identities.
Sorry, but this is just stupid. When I want to discover that Philadelphia brand cream cheese is actually made by Kraft (IIRC), I look on the back of the box, where the helpful address and phone number for comments are listed.
I have never had a problem where I was unable to find out who made a product I had purchased (for which I had a complaint).
I love how people scream 'martial law' whenever measures like a curfew and a cordoned-off zone are put into effect.
When a place is declared a disaster area, these measures are usually taken to prevent looting, and maintain order, and above all, prevent further damage to innocent citizens or their property until order can be restored. Nobody ever complains about this, right?
I think that once the situation in Seattle devolved into riots, the steps taken by the city were justified. People should be free to protest, but once they begin endangering other people or preventing others from, say, attending a conference, then they are probably overstepping their bounds and measures should be taken.
Tell this to Creative Labs. I was at the store the other day, and one of their CD-RW box sets (piracy-in-a-box) had some text on the cover graphic that said "rip it" or something to that effect...
I agree that "rip it" does imply copyright violation, but if you think about it, "make a tape of it" probably did also, but it doesn't seem to anymore... Probably in 5-10 years "ripping it" will be used in the same way as "taping it" is today...
Whoa. Playing any flight-like game with the keyboard is an excruciating experience. You need a nice joystick with lots of buttons and a hat switch (my MS force feedback stick works nicely -- yes, I know it's MS, but the stick is nice). I can play FreeSpace hands-off the keyboard for long stretches of time (pausing only perhaps to give orders to wingmen on the keyboard), just by using all the buttons and the hat switch on the stick. (there's also the throttle wheel, which makes following people much easier)
Now that lets you get into Zen mode.
The more top-tier titles that are available for Linux, the better. Think about it this way: the most-played commercial title for Linux is undoubtedly Quake. Unreal is another top-shelf first person shooter. How long before companies producing titles in other genres say, "Hmm...id and Epic, for the most part, _own_ the [rapidly expanding] Linux market...we need to get a piece of the action!"
This is when you will see Linux executables in the same box as the Windows version. Epic releasing the executables for Linux (and open-sourcing parts of them) is a significant step towards this goal.
No details of the work? No peer review?
It's exciting news, but I think we should really wait for some more information and confirmation.
What's interesting is the note in the article regarding observation with the next generation of telescopes and astronomical equipment. Aside from confirming this, what else might be done with the next generation of observation equipment?
I guess it largely depends on the punishment/settlement reached in this case. In the meantime, hurrah, hurrah, this finding of fact is a great thing indeed!