I would certainly agree. Anyone can tell you that a single character's voice acting does not define the character itself, but only enhances it. Why? Because so many other factors (appearance, motion, etc) are integral in determining the quality of the character (most of which the voice actor is not involved in). This is a striking contrast to your average film with real individuals, in which the actor embodies more than just the voice. Film institutions realize this, and thus do not award individual voice acting for things like animated films.
If your someone who still doesn't believe me, then just take a look at the awards. Best female voice acting to Julie Dench? Her acting wasn't bad, but it was a FAR CRY from award winning. It was just plausible (as one should expect).
As such, I would think it would be more logical to provide a 'Excellence in Voice Acting' award to a game in general, instead of individual people. At least that award would take into account a combination of efforts.
Your logic is true for more than just webpages. It spans basically Microsoft's entire software library. Balmer's arrogantly stated that it "one mistake" was that it didn't get involved in the 'search' industry earlier, but anyone who has followed Microsoft's trail can tell you that thier late to the table more often than not. And even when they are on time, the product is often a faulty or damaged good that doesn't operate at the level of other competitor products.
Ex. -IE debacle, where Microsoft played catch-up to Netscape and other existing browsers after failing to neglect thier need in earlier years. -Direct3D, which played second fiddle to OpenGL for years in usability and features till Microsoft finally began adopting parts of OpenGL's paradigm for computer graphics. -The modern desktop GUI. A product of Apple in many respects, but later was adopted by Microsoft. -Powerpoint, Visio and other 'Office' products. They were created by other companies, and then consumed by Microsoft.
And the list goes on and on. Today thier trying to same with hand-held media players (derived from the success of iPods), search technologies (coming from Yahoo, Google, and other succesfull search/advertisement ventures), spyware detection and many other Microsoft 'Innovations' that are soon to hit the market.
This industry remains strong and poised for renewed double digit growth over the next five years as we enter a new cycle of video game console launches. The future could not be brighter.
Isn't this how every industry sounds when it reaches a new zenith? Home desktop manufacturers, various ISPs, Cellphone service providers,... the list goes on and on.
What, based on history, will really happen is this:
-Mergers to help consolidate costs of producing new games.
-Complete outsourcing of all testing efforts, and eventually large portions of developments (for things such as graphics engines).
-Stock inflation for small companies, followed by the eventual crash.
-Longer hours for employees.
-Higher costs for games and worse customer service.
EA's response is not due to the fact that the MLB deal was worthless, but rather was caused by the need to save face in front of shareholders. If EA were to have returned fire with a 'We are disappointed with the current arrangement between Take-2 and MLB...' or 'We regret blah blah blah', thier stock would no doubt take some form of a hit. Capital from investors is largely based on trust in corporate governance and predictions of future revenue. If an executive were to indicate that the outlook had been hurt from this deal, the market would of pounced on it quickly. Investors are just that way.
Was there some air of 'over-confidence' in it the statement though? Probably, but if there was, it was hot-air. EA's MVB Baseball is about a $40 to $45 million dollar revenue stream according to recent sales figures, meaning that EA will likely lose a nice chunk of earnings. That is, of course, provided that they don't find a really creative way to market newer iterations of thier MVP Baseball games that compensates for a lack of player licenses. That or they'll layoff employees.
Just pre-election talk. With all the 'crises' our fearless leader keeps talking about, it clear we aren't going anywhere other than perhaps Iran or some other third-world country.
Strong government investment in space flight won't return unless:
-Private space flight becomes much larger OR -China continues to significantly expand its plan for space exploration and manages to put several men on the moon themselves in the coming years.
OSDL, god praise it's name, wishes to send out noice that there is no re-writing of Linux kernel, nor has there ever been any attempt to re-write it. These are the truths! Even if there were attempts to re-write it, which ther are not, it would only be by word of our great master, IBM.
Only the infidels at Microsoft could create such lies, and surely would admit it if they were not such cowards, hiding in thier cubes like the unholy nerds that they are. God willing, capitalist proprietary software will fail under the great crush of thier devil-like closed-source policies. Indeed, I do not doubt this. Praise OSDL.
I can agree with the criticism level of complexity. From what I can see, WinFX is not really a new API. Rather, it's just a different syntax, based on the paradigm of Direct3D (which, since DX7, has been based on the paradigm of OpenGL). Quick observations seem to show that the only advantage seems to be that it's a markup-language syntax that doesn't require compilation. But does Microsoft believe that because it can be presented in a markup-language, that it's simpler overall? I hope not, because XML cannot hide the complexity of rendering a 3-Dscene, as can XUL hide the complexities of rendering layouts for 2-D windows.
Developing using a modern graphics API is already hard enough (what with all the other technologies a developer has to be familiar with, and the differences in hardware). I would rather see Microsoft simplify the process of rendering a scene and ensure consistency accross hardware, as opposed to merely changing the syntax and presentation.
Honestly, is 3-dimensional menu's, icons, or windows that wave like water really necessary? A user may be initially impressed with it at first, but beyond that, it's just eye candy. And I can't image tight integration of a 3-Dimensional sub-system into an OS making a programmers life any easier.
Perhaps this is just Microsoft throwing a bone to the card manufacturers, or trying to revitalize slowing desktop PC sales.
"I'm not spamming again," Wallace said in an interview with CNET News.com. "I am the most antispam person alive because of the trouble my old company got into."
Having secure software does prevent spyware (though it goes a long way towards helping it). No doubt, Microsoft will tout this as an application that removes spyware that became present "due to human error" (or at least they would like you to believe that).
I'd be tempted to agree with you in the fact that developers often do not get enough credit for the work that they do on projects, but quite honestly, the gaming industry has done a terrible job in terms of large scale productions which honor those that make the games possible. Usually what we get is a TV network which produces a low-rent, half-assed recognition/award show production that acts more as an free adverisement for the kiddies at home. Remeber Spike TV's gaming awards?
And even if an means of awarding the developers on a large scale was created, is it likely that the general public would care? Generally people are not drawn to someone who works behinds the scenes in a cube writting code all day (where as a musician or actor assumes a more public role in his or her productions). Because of this, I think recognition is better left to the conferences, expo's and the press, where you have an enviroment that provides peers who can actually understand the achievement and how much work it actually took.
Looking for quality journalism in the gaming industry's TV media outlets is like looking for a replacement bank security guard at an Ex-Convict Social. You just aren't going to find it unless you lie to yourself about what you're looking at.
The fact that television provides has potential to provide much higher presentation levels than print magazines or to a lesser-extent, gaming sites, lends the media in general to buddy up with the companies that produce products they cover.
Though I'm not going to comment on your 'interesting' way of stating your point, I will say that much of your remarks aren't true.
From the perspective of SDKs, DirectX (up till the most recent versions) was long inferior to other alternatives such as OpenGL (which Microsoft has worked hard to mimic in terms of simplicity). The reason's for DirectX support had less to do with the fact that it was superior to other methods but more to do with the the MCD and Farenheit debacles , Microsoft's influence and as of late, the fact that OpenGL's 'By-Commmitte' approach has slowed down advancements in the API.
From the perspective of game development itself, Microsoft has lagged also. Most of Microsoft's games were not incredible, and thier entry into the console market did not occur till just in the last 3 years (in what has been a money losing venture).
The fact that Linux does not have games has less to do with the fact that Linux cannot SUPPORT games, but more to do with the fact that Microsoft used (and still contiues to use) questionable tactics to undercut thier competitors.
Those are all nice features for some, but not features that will sell an operating system to Joe User. When a user boots up thier computer, they want three things:
-To Read Email
-To Use Office (or other word processing/spreadsheet/presentation application)
-To Surf the internet.
That's all. My grandmother doesn't care if KDE provides quick access to the console terminal, nice configuration of profiles or quick ways to make system level modifications. And she definitetly wouldn't care about ports or tcp-ip (even if she had a vague idea of what they were). In short, she would have no intention of touching these features in the first place even if they were present in Windows.
Your case of installation is another excellent example. Windows install methods are kept basic for the simple reason that even your most average user has to be able to perform it (and Microsoft knows it). Having a variety of installation methods and added complexity tends to scare people away from any product in general. Whether it's simply choosing 1 application from hundreds that you want to install or telling someone to setup partitions and swap space, they'll be terrified if you put too much in thier face.
Linux Distribution companies realize this, and are working hard to simplyfy thier installation methods. Based on what i've seen when I picked up SuSE 9.0 a while back, this is certainly true.
In time, people will come to become more computer literate, and perhaps these features will have some meaning. Till then though, it's not going to be all the fancy under-the-hood features that sell a product. It's going to be simplicty.
When is name-value a bad thing? When your game is called 'Tomb Raider'. While the brand is well recognized, few game players and reviewer circles have anything good to say about the quality of the product since it's second installment. I guess that Eidos never predicted that stale gameplay mechanics that were popular several years ago could ever wear out. It's only fitting now that Eidos is left with a series that is only known for it's big-breasted-heroine and not much else.
Gamers have grown considerably since the early PSX days, and people simply don't care anymore about the Tomb Raider sex-image that captured a number young gamers 7 years ago. I find it hard to imagine that anything else other than a complete overhall of every aspect of the game (including its main character) will salvage this series.
But who feels the benefit of high-profile titles other than the companies who produce them?. Sales for "City of Heroes" or "Thief: Deadly Shadows" are not going to explode because of the buzz Half-Life or Doom create.
I think that if PC gaming is to succeed in the future, it's imperative that game and card developers address the issues of game setup and configuration for less knowledgable users (from a sound, control, and graphics perspective). An average gamer may not know what 'AGP', 'DirectX' or 'Hardware Transform and Lighting (T&L) Capability' mean. He isn't able to judge how well his system can handle various texturing options. He may not even understand the concept of resolution or which ones his system supports. Yet some less knowlegable users that may feel compelled to try out to a new PC game are still put in a position that forces them to configure options blindly in hopes of getting some sort of visual performance they had envisioned when they bought the game.
Some may say that if a gamer cannot understand these sometimes simple options, then he shouldn't be playing PC games anyway. But in reality that statement summarizes the PC gaming industries inablility to bring on new users and proves my point. If the game and card manufacturers are unwilling to devote time to more simplified setup (even at the expense of graphics), then they probably deserve to see thier market share dwindle.
I think that it's unreasonable to to believe that the PC industry has to reduce its interfaces to the level which console game enjoys, but certainly a lot more could be done.
As mentioned by others, it seems that the downturn in the japanese game market has much to do with lack of replay value from products that have become simply to reliant on story components and not actual playtime. Much of this, I believe, comes from the fact that the game industry have become fixated on trying to become that which the movie industry is (as seen by the large amount voice acting, scripting, and music talent that is being brought into the mix). But what they fail to realize is that unlike a good flick, games such as RPGs will always have 'downtime' between scenes and higher monetary cost. This then results in a product that is much more expensive in terms of time and money to the game player, but perhaps wont give you much more than an average film would at the theater in terms of storyline and content (which supposedly is the games focus).
Now don't get me wrong, I like a game with an excellent storyline as much as the next person (even if it means sitting through prolonged cinema sequences) but I would hope that the game industry can realize that at the core of any game should be the mechanics that allow a user to interact with the world it presents, not just allow someone to watch it. After all, who would always fire up thier latest copy of Madden 2004, set both players to be CPU-controlled, and just watch a fictional game play out without any intervention from themselves. Not many. Sure we could watch it play out and marvel about the AI, talk about the graphics and observe the amount of play selection and options, but these thing grow irrelevant when all a person wants to do is play the game.
Slashdot Mirror
I would certainly agree. Anyone can tell you that a single character's voice acting does not define the character itself, but only enhances it. Why? Because so many other factors (appearance, motion, etc) are integral in determining the quality of the character (most of which the voice actor is not involved in). This is a striking contrast to your average film with real individuals, in which the actor embodies more than just the voice. Film institutions realize this, and thus do not award individual voice acting for things like animated films.
If your someone who still doesn't believe me, then just take a look at the awards. Best female voice acting to Julie Dench? Her acting wasn't bad, but it was a FAR CRY from award winning. It was just plausible (as one should expect).
As such, I would think it would be more logical to provide a 'Excellence in Voice Acting' award to a game in general, instead of individual people. At least that award would take into account a combination of efforts.
Your logic is true for more than just webpages. It spans basically Microsoft's entire software library. Balmer's arrogantly stated that it "one mistake" was that it didn't get involved in the 'search' industry earlier, but anyone who has followed Microsoft's trail can tell you that thier late to the table more often than not. And even when they are on time, the product is often a faulty or damaged good that doesn't operate at the level of other competitor products.
Ex.
-IE debacle, where Microsoft played catch-up to Netscape and other existing browsers after failing to neglect thier need in earlier years.
-Direct3D, which played second fiddle to OpenGL for years in usability and features till Microsoft finally began adopting parts of OpenGL's paradigm for computer graphics.
-The modern desktop GUI. A product of Apple in many respects, but later was adopted by Microsoft.
-Powerpoint, Visio and other 'Office' products. They were created by other companies, and then consumed by Microsoft.
And the list goes on and on. Today thier trying to same with hand-held media players (derived from the success of iPods), search technologies (coming from Yahoo, Google, and other succesfull search/advertisement ventures), spyware detection and many other Microsoft 'Innovations' that are soon to hit the market.
This industry remains strong and poised for renewed double digit growth over the next five years as we enter a new cycle of video game console launches. The future could not be brighter.
... the list goes on and on.
Isn't this how every industry sounds when it reaches a new zenith? Home desktop manufacturers, various ISPs, Cellphone service providers,
What, based on history, will really happen is this:
-Mergers to help consolidate costs of producing new games.
-Complete outsourcing of all testing efforts, and eventually large portions of developments (for things such as graphics engines).
-Stock inflation for small companies, followed by the eventual crash.
-Longer hours for employees.
-Higher costs for games and worse customer service.
EA's response is not due to the fact that the MLB deal was worthless, but rather was caused by the need to save face in front of shareholders. If EA were to have returned fire with a 'We are disappointed with the current arrangement between Take-2 and MLB ...' or 'We regret blah blah blah', thier stock would no doubt take some form of a hit. Capital from investors is largely based on trust in corporate governance and predictions of future revenue. If an executive were to indicate that the outlook had been hurt from this deal, the market would of pounced on it quickly. Investors are just that way.
Was there some air of 'over-confidence' in it the statement though? Probably, but if there was, it was hot-air. EA's MVB Baseball is about a $40 to $45 million dollar revenue stream according to recent sales figures, meaning that EA will likely lose a nice chunk of earnings. That is, of course, provided that they don't find a really creative way to market newer iterations of thier MVP Baseball games that compensates for a lack of player licenses. That or they'll layoff employees.
I was refering the promise by Bush for further space exploration funding.
Just pre-election talk. With all the 'crises' our fearless leader keeps talking about, it clear we aren't going anywhere other than perhaps Iran or some other third-world country.
Strong government investment in space flight won't return unless:
-Private space flight becomes much larger
OR
-China continues to significantly expand its plan for space exploration and manages to put several men on the moon themselves in the coming years.
OSDL, god praise it's name, wishes to send out noice that there is no re-writing of Linux kernel, nor has there ever been any attempt to re-write it. These are the truths! Even if there were attempts to re-write it, which ther are not, it would only be by word of our great master, IBM.
Only the infidels at Microsoft could create such lies, and surely would admit it if they were not such cowards, hiding in thier cubes like the unholy nerds that they are. God willing, capitalist proprietary software will fail under the great crush of thier devil-like closed-source policies. Indeed, I do not doubt this. Praise OSDL.
I can agree with the criticism level of complexity. From what I can see, WinFX is not really a new API. Rather, it's just a different syntax, based on the paradigm of Direct3D (which, since DX7, has been based on the paradigm of OpenGL). Quick observations seem to show that the only advantage seems to be that it's a markup-language syntax that doesn't require compilation. But does Microsoft believe that because it can be presented in a markup-language, that it's simpler overall? I hope not, because XML cannot hide the complexity of rendering a 3-Dscene, as can XUL hide the complexities of rendering layouts for 2-D windows.
Developing using a modern graphics API is already hard enough (what with all the other technologies a developer has to be familiar with, and the differences in hardware). I would rather see Microsoft simplify the process of rendering a scene and ensure consistency accross hardware, as opposed to merely changing the syntax and presentation.
Honestly, is 3-dimensional menu's, icons, or windows that wave like water really necessary? A user may be initially impressed with it at first, but beyond that, it's just eye candy. And I can't image tight integration of a 3-Dimensional sub-system into an OS making a programmers life any easier. Perhaps this is just Microsoft throwing a bone to the card manufacturers, or trying to revitalize slowing desktop PC sales.
Gotta love this:
u siness/2100-1023_3-220427.html
"I'm not spamming again," Wallace said in an interview with CNET News.com. "I am the most antispam person alive because of the trouble my old company got into."
Apparently he didn't mean it.Here's the full article: http://news.com.com/Is+the+king+of+spam+back+in+b
Having secure software does prevent spyware (though it goes a long way towards helping it). No doubt, Microsoft will tout this as an application that removes spyware that became present "due to human error" (or at least they would like you to believe that).
I have known Trip Hawkings. Trip Hawkings is my friend. Larry Probst, you are no Trip Hawkings.
I'd be tempted to agree with you in the fact that developers often do not get enough credit for the work that they do on projects, but quite honestly, the gaming industry has done a terrible job in terms of large scale productions which honor those that make the games possible. Usually what we get is a TV network which produces a low-rent, half-assed recognition/award show production that acts more as an free adverisement for the kiddies at home. Remeber Spike TV's gaming awards?
And even if an means of awarding the developers on a large scale was created, is it likely that the general public would care? Generally people are not drawn to someone who works behinds the scenes in a cube writting code all day (where as a musician or actor assumes a more public role in his or her productions). Because of this, I think recognition is better left to the conferences, expo's and the press, where you have an enviroment that provides peers who can actually understand the achievement and how much work it actually took.
Looking for quality journalism in the gaming industry's TV media outlets is like looking for a replacement bank security guard at an Ex-Convict Social. You just aren't going to find it unless you lie to yourself about what you're looking at.
The fact that television provides has potential to provide much higher presentation levels than print magazines or to a lesser-extent, gaming sites, lends the media in general to buddy up with the companies that produce products they cover.
Though I'm not going to comment on your 'interesting' way of stating your point, I will say that much of your remarks aren't true. From the perspective of SDKs, DirectX (up till the most recent versions) was long inferior to other alternatives such as OpenGL (which Microsoft has worked hard to mimic in terms of simplicity). The reason's for DirectX support had less to do with the fact that it was superior to other methods but more to do with the the MCD and Farenheit debacles , Microsoft's influence and as of late, the fact that OpenGL's 'By-Commmitte' approach has slowed down advancements in the API. From the perspective of game development itself, Microsoft has lagged also. Most of Microsoft's games were not incredible, and thier entry into the console market did not occur till just in the last 3 years (in what has been a money losing venture). The fact that Linux does not have games has less to do with the fact that Linux cannot SUPPORT games, but more to do with the fact that Microsoft used (and still contiues to use) questionable tactics to undercut thier competitors.
Those are all nice features for some, but not features that will sell an operating system to Joe User. When a user boots up thier computer, they want three things:
-To Read Email
-To Use Office (or other word processing/spreadsheet/presentation application)
-To Surf the internet.
That's all. My grandmother doesn't care if KDE provides quick access to the console terminal, nice configuration of profiles or quick ways to make system level modifications. And she definitetly wouldn't care about ports or tcp-ip (even if she had a vague idea of what they were). In short, she would have no intention of touching these features in the first place even if they were present in Windows.
Your case of installation is another excellent example. Windows install methods are kept basic for the simple reason that even your most average user has to be able to perform it (and Microsoft knows it). Having a variety of installation methods and added complexity tends to scare people away from any product in general. Whether it's simply choosing 1 application from hundreds that you want to install or telling someone to setup partitions and swap space, they'll be terrified if you put too much in thier face.
Linux Distribution companies realize this, and are working hard to simplyfy thier installation methods. Based on what i've seen when I picked up SuSE 9.0 a while back, this is certainly true.
In time, people will come to become more computer literate, and perhaps these features will have some meaning. Till then though, it's not going to be all the fancy under-the-hood features that sell a product. It's going to be simplicty.
When is name-value a bad thing? When your game is called 'Tomb Raider'. While the brand is well recognized, few game players and reviewer circles have anything good to say about the quality of the product since it's second installment. I guess that Eidos never predicted that stale gameplay mechanics that were popular several years ago could ever wear out. It's only fitting now that Eidos is left with a series that is only known for it's big-breasted-heroine and not much else.
Gamers have grown considerably since the early PSX days, and people simply don't care anymore about the Tomb Raider sex-image that captured a number young gamers 7 years ago. I find it hard to imagine that anything else other than a complete overhall of every aspect of the game (including its main character) will salvage this series.
But who feels the benefit of high-profile titles other than the companies who produce them?. Sales for "City of Heroes" or "Thief: Deadly Shadows" are not going to explode because of the buzz Half-Life or Doom create.
I think that if PC gaming is to succeed in the future, it's imperative that game and card developers address the issues of game setup and configuration for less knowledgable users (from a sound, control, and graphics perspective). An average gamer may not know what 'AGP', 'DirectX' or 'Hardware Transform and Lighting (T&L) Capability' mean. He isn't able to judge how well his system can handle various texturing options. He may not even understand the concept of resolution or which ones his system supports. Yet some less knowlegable users that may feel compelled to try out to a new PC game are still put in a position that forces them to configure options blindly in hopes of getting some sort of visual performance they had envisioned when they bought the game.
Some may say that if a gamer cannot understand these sometimes simple options, then he shouldn't be playing PC games anyway. But in reality that statement summarizes the PC gaming industries inablility to bring on new users and proves my point. If the game and card manufacturers are unwilling to devote time to more simplified setup (even at the expense of graphics), then they probably deserve to see thier market share dwindle.
I think that it's unreasonable to to believe that the PC industry has to reduce its interfaces to the level which console game enjoys, but certainly a lot more could be done.
As mentioned by others, it seems that the downturn in the japanese game market has much to do with lack of replay value from products that have become simply to reliant on story components and not actual playtime. Much of this, I believe, comes from the fact that the game industry have become fixated on trying to become that which the movie industry is (as seen by the large amount voice acting, scripting, and music talent that is being brought into the mix). But what they fail to realize is that unlike a good flick, games such as RPGs will always have 'downtime' between scenes and higher monetary cost. This then results in a product that is much more expensive in terms of time and money to the game player, but perhaps wont give you much more than an average film would at the theater in terms of storyline and content (which supposedly is the games focus).
Now don't get me wrong, I like a game with an excellent storyline as much as the next person (even if it means sitting through prolonged cinema sequences) but I would hope that the game industry can realize that at the core of any game should be the mechanics that allow a user to interact with the world it presents, not just allow someone to watch it. After all, who would always fire up thier latest copy of Madden 2004, set both players to be CPU-controlled, and just watch a fictional game play out without any intervention from themselves. Not many. Sure we could watch it play out and marvel about the AI, talk about the graphics and observe the amount of play selection and options, but these thing grow irrelevant when all a person wants to do is play the game.