Oh, I agree. In fact this sort of theme was prevalant with the other speakers (Spector and Costikyan). But they argued the point cogently and without targeting a group of people to hate. They focused on how monolithic publishers stifle innovation because of the demands of mega-budgets games. Not how "evil men" are plotting to pollute the minds of our boys and other such hyperbole. Her speech was more suited for some kind of virulent anti-globalism rally.
Indeed. Warren and Costikyan both really hit on this issue. Budgets are skyrocketing in a truly scary way. As such, publishers are less and less willing to spend that money on innovation (read: unproven concepts). As the scope of games (both technology and content) increases with the budgets, each developer becomes a smaller and smaller cog in the wheel. Enthusiasm wanes. I've been on more than one project where one of the first questions asked is "Will this sell a million units?". When that is part of the green light process, you know things are really F'd up.
(piracy comments addressed below)
I dunno. I agreed with much of what the panel had to say (except for Brenda whatserface who came across as a willowy 60's feminist reject - here's a clue Brenda : you had 12 minutes to speak - spending 8 of them bitching about "evil men", "the Spectacle", gender, and not "video games" was really retarded).
Greg Costikyan was a firebrand and I thought he was insightful overall. A little cycnical, but that was in the spirit of the talk.
I felt bad for the guy in the mohawk who tried to related Blockbuster rentals with piracy. He got 100% owned by the panel. However, I think aside from Warren (who essentially said that anyone who worries about piracy is delusional, because those who pirate wouldn't have bought the game anyway - I agree), all the piracy comments from the panel were unbelievably stupid. Yes, we know you guys are militant anti-corporate whatevermajiggers - but that was pure grandstanding. You can try and get all artiste on us all you want, but you're all smart people and you have to realize that sales of your products are what fundamentally allow you to continue with your pursuits. But, that was at the end of the talk and I think they all just might have gotten carried away in the spirit of the moment.
Brenda retardowhatsits went as far as to say we need to get away from the "bad idea of publically owned companies". Back to Berkely with you, comrade.
Chris Hecker did indeed come dangerously close to breaking NDA with some of his talk. Even though he claims he never signed an NDA he clearly was on board with some of the more recent tech missives from the next-gen console companies. I half expected to see Blue and Green ninjas burst from the ceiling and kill him on the spot.
The rant session was a fun capper to the overall GDC experience. It would have been a 100% grand old time if that Brenda chick hadn't come in with her unwelcome ultra socialist rants (here's another clue Brenda : you were all excited about announcing you just got a job with Sun! That's completely inconsistent with your anti-male, anti-corporation rant. You hateful fucktard!
MIPS chip, check. Snazzy vector processors, check. Flexible DMA, check. Giant mega pain in the ass to write code for - you betcha!
If the Cell is like some kind of EE on steroids, you're gonna see a lot of PS2 programmers running for the hills.
Intellectual challenge is one thing, and cool hardware is another (and the PS2 hardware is most definitely cool) but having to jump through ridiculous loops to write code for already radically overscoped and overly complex modern games is pain incarnate.
It's a creaking theocrasy with a self-proclaimed messiah leading it.
There is not even the slightest shred of evidence to substantiate what you're saying. No, in fact, what you're doing is monkeying what you've been told to think from whatever lefty sources you like to listen to.
I've heard this said so many times, and it remains retarded. To suggest that the US is a theocracy, or is headed that way is so ludicrous, all it does is make your average person look at you as detached from reality. I'll say it a gain: hyperbole does not help your cause.
So you're actually suggesting it is better that everyone have their 'dignity preserved' rather than having unrestricted free speech?
If that's the case, can I file 615,189,002 'hate crime' reports for all the venomous attacks on Christianity to be found on Slashdot? My dignity is at stake, you see.
Getting back to my original point - gross violations like C.250 and others which have no equivalent even marginally close in the US (CFR would be the leading contender) are completely ignored by the left when slinging around accusations of this mythical ultra-evil, ultra-restrictive US.
Their little bastions of tolerance and freedom are anything but. They are absolutely rotten with intolerance towards any deviation from the politically correct.
This is why threads like this just irritate the hell out of me. The hatred towards the US is so blind and uninformed. Disagreement with the policy of Bush leads to abject hatred of him because he's 'religious' and then all the 'well, look how horrible the US is' bullshit comes flying down the pipe. Irrational hatred of the US , as illustrated by your average Slashdot thread is about 8% based on any sort of reality.
Horseshit. That law is almost impossible to apply without a lot more than just a simple statement. They tried for years with Ernst Zündel, and I forget if they ever made it stick.
Enforceable or otherwise. It is there. Criminalization of thoughts and words. Thought police.
Though you may not like to think that your definition of liberal/conservative are different than mine, the fact that you don't condemn such a slippery-slope humdinger like C.250 very clearly illustrates alignment with such socialist thinking. In my book, that's liberal.
No, but the key difference here is the the fundamental disregard for inalienable rights.
For example, lefties don't like something...say "hate speech" and bam, you're a FELON if you publicly say 'I think homosexuality is wrong' (see bill C.250, Canada - no joke).
Or in England, violence == always bad. There have been numerous cases where people fighting off attackers who have broken into their homes have been convicted of violent crimes. The left has deemed self defense illegitimate in just about every context.
Or, campaign finance reform. Lauded by the left, and (horribly) signed into law by Bush. Literally a direct restriction on the 'highest form' of free speech - political speech. Not surprisingly, the groups most affected by this : groups universally hated by the left (NRA, etc).
Or in another ugly attack on free speech, the IRS was considering putting restrictions in place that would have.... get this.... made it illegal for certain organizations to notify their members of legislation about to be voted on. This was directly targeted at the the GOA (the NRA's less compromising brother). Tell me that's not bone chilling.
So while you can point fingers and tut tut about the silly antics of conservatives and porn, that's just the stupidest drop in the bucket compared to the overwhelming amount of control the socialist left would like over just about everything in your life.
Sadly, this ridiculous infringement of basic liberty (to play a freaking game) will go unnoticed and uncommented on by your average lefties on Slashdot. Instead, they'll just rave hyperbole about how it's the evil old US who -really- infringes on everyone's freedoms.
This may seem like a small thing, but the way to look at it is thus : If the government is willing to step in and OUTLAW something so silly and trivial as laser-tag, then there's' absolutely no area of your life they will be willing to legislate. This is where the horrifying human cost of socialism truly lies
Towns razed and Christians slaughtered in Indonesia? Islam.
This list does not end. Follow the trail of brutality, racism, and genocide and 9 times out of 10 you find Islam. Intolerant to outside cultures to a degree unseen anywhere else in the world. This is fact. It is worldwide, it is consistent. It is in fact, a recognizable, repeating historical pattern. Until Islam gets it's shit together, right or wrong, people are going to equate Muslims with Terrorists.
On the other hand, would that really be all that bad? As we're having so lovingly illustrated for us recently, the old Chinese curse "may you live in interesting times" is all too true.
This is the smart thing to do. Put your effort into highly polished, excellent pieces of multiplayer. Don't dilute yourself making tons of useless modes that less than 5% of the players who even make it on line will play.
It's even rather silly to do deathmatch and CTF modes since you're competing part-time (effort-wise) against huge multiplayer-only franchises like UT and Battlefield. Yes, it'll get vocal whining from the fringe people who like the uniqueness, but from the average gamer's perspective, the overall product has been improved. Polish the holy hell out of a proven, massively popular game mode.
All the smart FPS companies have come to this conclusion. Focus on either single player -or- multiplayer. And in the case of Valve, they've got a wildly successful single player game with a unique and wildly successful multiplayer mode. Why screw around with subpar implementation of same old same old.
These days, it's all about spending your effort wisely. Kudos to Valve.
Your hyperbole is misplaced and oddly uninformed. Though many people are severely unhappy with the Patriot Act and the signing of Campaign Finance Reform, most are quite capable of distinguishing erosion of rights with the installation of some sort of Orwellian dictatorship.
Perhaps you would be willing to expound upon bill C.215 in Canada which literally turns thoughts and words into federal crimes. Or perhaps the phenomenon in Finland where it is completely legitimate for political parties to be outright banned from elections by the government because they are deemed too extreme. Or maybe a short essay on the United Nations where nations that actively practice slavery and advocate extermination of certain ethnic groups are part of the Security Council. Or perhaps a well-considered exposition on how Nelson Mandela, liberal-champion-extraordinaire openly supports the genocidal outlook of Robert Mugabe.
I gather you will not do any of these things. They are, of course contrary to the liberal outlook of the world, where only the US and the 'whites' who control it are truly evil. It is far easier to buy into the myth that the US is some horrible power hungry machine intent on controlling the world, despite the obvious and overwhelming evidence that should it decide to do just that, it could do so effectively unopposed.
Signed,
The American People not quite as susceptible to sensationalist views.
$250k is a pittance in terms of a modern game budget. No, it's not accessible to the average joe programmer. But to a project looking to drop $15+ million on a 3+ year project, if the engine provides what you need and has solid support, it's a no brainer.
The reason you shouldn't be surprised is that the engine is only the tip of the iceberg. You need to have a huge, professionally supported toolchain and the hordes of artists to feed it.
If you break down the cost of developing a game, it's nearly all salaries. And if you look at the cost of the salary of the 2-3 (or less) 'engine' programmers, it's a drop in the bucket compared to the 75 artists pumping out art.
What you will see in = 10 years, is DirectEngine from Microsoft. It won't be open source, but it'll be free, and it'll have elite level support and stability, and it'll have the ears of hardware developers. That's the kind of 'open source' you can expect to see catch on in the future, IMO.
Don't count on it. The 'engine' bit of 3d games these days is frankly only the tip of a very very large iceberg when it comes to an actual game. Yes, it's high profile and it attacts the fanboys - but it's a triviality compared to the actual work involved in designing and finishing a fun game. Games are starting to regularly cost $15 million to make with teams of 50-100 people or more. It doesn't matter if you've got the latest and greatest (until 3 months from now) tech - if you don't have the army of artists and their designer and programmer shepherds, you've got bubkus:)
This is not to say you'll -never- see anything. But of all the things you'll ever see 'open source' be viable for, AAA game development is the least likely.
Engines are neat and keen, but over the years, you learn to stifle a yawn whenever the newest thing comes out. 3D engines are all converging on the same thing (data/art driven shader pipelines with snazzy occlusion, streaming, high grade physics, and an assortment of more and more widely known tricks).
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, I agree. In fact this sort of theme was prevalant with the other speakers (Spector and Costikyan). But they argued the point cogently and without targeting a group of people to hate. They focused on how monolithic publishers stifle innovation because of the demands of mega-budgets games. Not how "evil men" are plotting to pollute the minds of our boys and other such hyperbole. Her speech was more suited for some kind of virulent anti-globalism rally.
Indeed. Warren and Costikyan both really hit on this issue. Budgets are skyrocketing in a truly scary way. As such, publishers are less and less willing to spend that money on innovation (read: unproven concepts). As the scope of games (both technology and content) increases with the budgets, each developer becomes a smaller and smaller cog in the wheel. Enthusiasm wanes. I've been on more than one project where one of the first questions asked is "Will this sell a million units?". When that is part of the green light process, you know things are really F'd up.
Greg Costikyan was a firebrand and I thought he was insightful overall. A little cycnical, but that was in the spirit of the talk.
I felt bad for the guy in the mohawk who tried to related Blockbuster rentals with piracy. He got 100% owned by the panel. However, I think aside from Warren (who essentially said that anyone who worries about piracy is delusional, because those who pirate wouldn't have bought the game anyway - I agree), all the piracy comments from the panel were unbelievably stupid. Yes, we know you guys are militant anti-corporate whatevermajiggers - but that was pure grandstanding. You can try and get all artiste on us all you want, but you're all smart people and you have to realize that sales of your products are what fundamentally allow you to continue with your pursuits. But, that was at the end of the talk and I think they all just might have gotten carried away in the spirit of the moment.
Brenda retardowhatsits went as far as to say we need to get away from the "bad idea of publically owned companies". Back to Berkely with you, comrade.
Chris Hecker did indeed come dangerously close to breaking NDA with some of his talk. Even though he claims he never signed an NDA he clearly was on board with some of the more recent tech missives from the next-gen console companies. I half expected to see Blue and Green ninjas burst from the ceiling and kill him on the spot.
The rant session was a fun capper to the overall GDC experience. It would have been a 100% grand old time if that Brenda chick hadn't come in with her unwelcome ultra socialist rants (here's another clue Brenda : you were all excited about announcing you just got a job with Sun! That's completely inconsistent with your anti-male, anti-corporation rant. You hateful fucktard!
If the Cell is like some kind of EE on steroids, you're gonna see a lot of PS2 programmers running for the hills.
Intellectual challenge is one thing, and cool hardware is another (and the PS2 hardware is most definitely cool) but having to jump through ridiculous loops to write code for already radically overscoped and overly complex modern games is pain incarnate.
You've never played poker, eh?
If so, you don't have a leg to stand on. Hunting has preciously little to do with 'macho'.
I find it endlessly telling that you described the resistors in case 3 as 'freedom fighters' and the resistors in case 4 as 'terrorists'.
There is not even the slightest shred of evidence to substantiate what you're saying. No, in fact, what you're doing is monkeying what you've been told to think from whatever lefty sources you like to listen to.
I've heard this said so many times, and it remains retarded. To suggest that the US is a theocracy, or is headed that way is so ludicrous, all it does is make your average person look at you as detached from reality. I'll say it a gain: hyperbole does not help your cause.
If that's the case, can I file 615,189,002 'hate crime' reports for all the venomous attacks on Christianity to be found on Slashdot? My dignity is at stake, you see.
Seriously, it's difficult to argue that laws which are top to bottom socialist in nature are -not- liberal.
Their little bastions of tolerance and freedom are anything but. They are absolutely rotten with intolerance towards any deviation from the politically correct.
This is why threads like this just irritate the hell out of me. The hatred towards the US is so blind and uninformed. Disagreement with the policy of Bush leads to abject hatred of him because he's 'religious' and then all the 'well, look how horrible the US is' bullshit comes flying down the pipe. Irrational hatred of the US , as illustrated by your average Slashdot thread is about 8% based on any sort of reality.
Enforceable or otherwise. It is there. Criminalization of thoughts and words. Thought police.
Though you may not like to think that your definition of liberal/conservative are different than mine, the fact that you don't condemn such a slippery-slope humdinger like C.250 very clearly illustrates alignment with such socialist thinking. In my book, that's liberal.
For example, lefties don't like something...say "hate speech" and bam, you're a FELON if you publicly say 'I think homosexuality is wrong' (see bill C.250, Canada - no joke).
Or in England, violence == always bad. There have been numerous cases where people fighting off attackers who have broken into their homes have been convicted of violent crimes. The left has deemed self defense illegitimate in just about every context.
Or, campaign finance reform. Lauded by the left, and (horribly) signed into law by Bush. Literally a direct restriction on the 'highest form' of free speech - political speech. Not surprisingly, the groups most affected by this : groups universally hated by the left (NRA, etc).
Or in another ugly attack on free speech, the IRS was considering putting restrictions in place that would have .... get this .... made it illegal for certain organizations to notify their members of legislation about to be voted on. This was directly targeted at the the GOA (the NRA's less compromising brother). Tell me that's not bone chilling.
So while you can point fingers and tut tut about the silly antics of conservatives and porn, that's just the stupidest drop in the bucket compared to the overwhelming amount of control the socialist left would like over just about everything in your life.
Oops, that should be 'no area of your life they won't be willing to legislate'.
This may seem like a small thing, but the way to look at it is thus : If the government is willing to step in and OUTLAW something so silly and trivial as laser-tag, then there's' absolutely no area of your life they will be willing to legislate. This is where the horrifying human cost of socialism truly lies
Let's take a tour, shall we?
Bombings in Spain? Islam.
Race riots in multiple northern European countries? Islam.
Slavery, massive brutality, genocide through just about the entire continent of Africa? Islam.
Children being kidnapped off the streets of Russia, brought to Chechnya to be videotaped having their fingers chopped off? Islam.
Bombings in Bali? Islam.
Unrest, bombings and general atrocities in southtern Thailand (never heard of that one, eh)? Islam.
Blown up school busses and general atrocities in Israel? Islam.
Schools being bombed in Russia? Islam.
People in the region for humanitarian reasons having their heads sawed off while still alive? Islam.
People cheering in the streets and partying as potentially 50,000 (-only- turning out to be 5,000) murdered in the World Trade Center? Islam.
Or this little appalling gem from Memri? Islam.
Beheadings in the Philippiines? Islam.
Towns razed and Christians slaughtered in Indonesia? Islam.
This list does not end. Follow the trail of brutality, racism, and genocide and 9 times out of 10 you find Islam. Intolerant to outside cultures to a degree unseen anywhere else in the world. This is fact. It is worldwide, it is consistent. It is in fact, a recognizable, repeating historical pattern. Until Islam gets it's shit together, right or wrong, people are going to equate Muslims with Terrorists.
Oh come now. Won't someone give this fellow some well deserved points?
On the other hand, would that really be all that bad? As we're having so lovingly illustrated for us recently, the old Chinese curse "may you live in interesting times" is all too true.
It's even rather silly to do deathmatch and CTF modes since you're competing part-time (effort-wise) against huge multiplayer-only franchises like UT and Battlefield. Yes, it'll get vocal whining from the fringe people who like the uniqueness, but from the average gamer's perspective, the overall product has been improved. Polish the holy hell out of a proven, massively popular game mode.
All the smart FPS companies have come to this conclusion. Focus on either single player -or- multiplayer. And in the case of Valve, they've got a wildly successful single player game with a unique and wildly successful multiplayer mode. Why screw around with subpar implementation of same old same old.
These days, it's all about spending your effort wisely. Kudos to Valve.
Your hyperbole is misplaced and oddly uninformed. Though many people are severely unhappy with the Patriot Act and the signing of Campaign Finance Reform, most are quite capable of distinguishing erosion of rights with the installation of some sort of Orwellian dictatorship.
Perhaps you would be willing to expound upon bill C.215 in Canada which literally turns thoughts and words into federal crimes. Or perhaps the phenomenon in Finland where it is completely legitimate for political parties to be outright banned from elections by the government because they are deemed too extreme. Or maybe a short essay on the United Nations where nations that actively practice slavery and advocate extermination of certain ethnic groups are part of the Security Council. Or perhaps a well-considered exposition on how Nelson Mandela, liberal-champion-extraordinaire openly supports the genocidal outlook of Robert Mugabe.
I gather you will not do any of these things. They are, of course contrary to the liberal outlook of the world, where only the US and the 'whites' who control it are truly evil. It is far easier to buy into the myth that the US is some horrible power hungry machine intent on controlling the world, despite the obvious and overwhelming evidence that should it decide to do just that, it could do so effectively unopposed.
Signed,
The American People not quite as susceptible to sensationalist views.
$250k is a pittance in terms of a modern game budget. No, it's not accessible to the average joe programmer. But to a project looking to drop $15+ million on a 3+ year project, if the engine provides what you need and has solid support, it's a no brainer.
If you break down the cost of developing a game, it's nearly all salaries. And if you look at the cost of the salary of the 2-3 (or less) 'engine' programmers, it's a drop in the bucket compared to the 75 artists pumping out art.
What you will see in = 10 years, is DirectEngine from Microsoft. It won't be open source, but it'll be free, and it'll have elite level support and stability, and it'll have the ears of hardware developers. That's the kind of 'open source' you can expect to see catch on in the future, IMO.
This is not to say you'll -never- see anything. But of all the things you'll ever see 'open source' be viable for, AAA game development is the least likely.
Engines are neat and keen, but over the years, you learn to stifle a yawn whenever the newest thing comes out. 3D engines are all converging on the same thing (data/art driven shader pipelines with snazzy occlusion, streaming, high grade physics, and an assortment of more and more widely known tricks).
Bravo. Extremely well said. Wish I had a new batch of mod points to spend on you, my friend :)