You must not have seen this movie in theatres. It was an incredible experience. The entire audience was into it, and this movie will be lost if you do not see it with a good audience. This is not something that can be duplicated anywhere else. I was in a theatre full of people, ready to see snakes on a motherfucking plane, and bringing that energy with them. Watching this alone on DVD would NOT be the same. At all.
"The public schools in Washtenaw country are well funded"
Not exactly. We have this thing called proposal A, which attempts to divide funding up relatively equally between districts. Before the proposal, we had a larger budget than most districts. Now, money is essetially being taken away from us and given to other districts to equalize things.
The problem arises, when you look at the fact that is costs more per child than in other districts. Because the cost of living in Ann Arbor is so high for instance, teachers need to be paid more. So while we had more money than other districts, this was because we NEEDED more. I've felt the effects, and at my old high school, teaching jobs were cut, and we were limited in the number of classes we could take (7).
I currently have comcast cable, and I began with one of those 6 months at 20per month deal. However when the time came, I made it clear I would cancel service if the rate went up, and if couldn't get the deal anymore, I'd shop for DSL, or something else. To my suprise, they agreed to let me keep the modem for 20 bucks. Apparently, you can still haggle in this day and age.
Do any of you have any idea how difficult it actually is to be a parent now? Picture this as an example. My 13 year old son has a paper route, and so a stream of income on his own. He can choose to take his check, ride his bike over to the local game store, and buy any game he wants. He can take this home, and play it. What happens if I come by to check on what he's doing? He turns the game off and picks up a book, says "I'm reading". Short of watching a child 24/7, there is no way to make sure they do everything they are supposed to. Surely you've hidden illicit things from your parents when you were a teenager, like drugs, sex etc. It's actually pretty easy isn't it?
Yes I take the nessesary steps: the computer and game systems are in the living room, not behind closed doors in his room, but I can't watch him all the time. His friends have game systems in their rooms, and there's nothing I can do about that.
Yes, some parents certainly ARE to blame, but even the ones that try hard have it tough. I welcome any law that would prevent a child from buying a violent game. It's not censorship, as anybody who has first ammendment protection can buy the game. I can even buy the game for my child if I think it's okay. The government is not saying what's okay and what's not; that's still up to me.
There needs to be a way to immediately cancel something if I want to bail out. Examples of this not working are in Safari. While a webpage is loading, I can click the cancel button, and it will not register until several seconds later. Sometimes when the button is depressed, it then takes 5 seconds to actually stop. Or in Final Cut Pro, canceling a render can take 10-15 seconds. My computer is by no means the fastest, but how hard is it to make a cancel button that actually works? How difficult is it to simply STOP?
.of companies that make money selling digital music without DRM, look at just about every company that has sold CDs for the last 20 years. It's not like the model hasn't already proven itself. Even the big media companies know they can profitably sell unDRMed stuff, because that's how they became big media companies. DRM is a "solution" looking for a problem.
20 years ago there were no writable CDs, and music could not be distributed over the internet. Now we have burnable CDs and fast connections. Yes, they got where they are without DRM because there was no need for DRM back then.
What if the criminal has someone else handle their encryption/decryption, and thus does not even know their key? Can you be jailed for not giving away information you don't know?
Get a fucking clue people. Terrorism isn't a threat to your daily lives. If you actually think it is, then you've been emotionally manipulated by people who want your money and/or vote
Tell that to my uncle who was killed on 9/11. I for one AM worried, because it can happen. I would hope the government is taking every step it can to prevent future terrorism. Just because you don't see it affecting YOU, does not give you the right to belittle people whom it HAS affected.
"Last summer the video game industry was rocked by revelations that Take-Two Interactive, the makers of the hyper-violent Grand Theft Auto games, had illegally embedded in GTA: San Andreas graphic interactive adult sexual material."
Illegally imbedded? Since when is depicting nuidity in a work of art/literature/film/video game illegal? Pretty sure we can do that given the first amendment. The rating system is not law either, so not showing the ESRB all content is no more illegal. Seems his attitude is a bit skewed.
"It is also clear that Take-Two corporately and its senior officers, including CEO Paul Eibeler, individually, must now be prosecuted criminally for the knowing distribution of "sexual material harmful to minors" which is a felony in most states and nationally. The undersigned intends to work toward that end immediately"
Again, the ratings system is not law. Because a game is rated teen does not mean it is intended to be marketed towards kids. If anything, get on the ESRB for misrepresenting the game. Why not sue every publisher who puts out sexually explicit books. It's not the publisher's responsibility to dictate who should buy their material. His statements are outrageous.
From your link:
- Moore was "on retainer to the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association to tour European countries to counter advocacy by environmental groups for a boycott of British Columbian forest products" from 1992-1996.
- Moore acted as "consultant to the National Association of Forest Industries in Australia for a national tour defending the logging of native forests"
Logging is NOT BAD for the environment. If done properly, more trees will be planted, and no animals will lose their habitats. Most paper is made from trees grown for specifically that purpose. Of the forests that are cut down, the trees are replaced, and the logging rotated. In fact, we have more forest now than we have ever had.
Similar things can be said about mining and energy, the point is that the man should not be critisized for doing this. He cares for the environment, but simply isn't anti-corporation/globalization like so many that have perverted his once fine greenpeace organization.
The trouble with this is pure economics. Lucasarts began to run into this problem around when The Dig was released. The game itself was very good, however it did not sell very well. Why? At the time, games like Quake were starting to come out, and adventure games looked pale in comparison. Even if the company was commited to making a kickass 2D adventure game, they may not make up for it in sales.
Also consider the artwork. Back in the day, 320 x 240 16 or 256 colour was all you needed, with 8 frames or so for a walking animation. Now resolutions are much higher, and smoother animation will be demanded. The problem with setting such great standards is that you have to outdo them next time. Curse of Monkey island took a lot of time and money to make. To make another game, with smoother animation, better artwork etc, would actually be a huge burden. Game designers are complaining now about the cost of texture art on the new systems. TEXTURE ART! Try creating hundreds of backgrounds, animations for each object interaction, cutscenes, ad you can see that the art for a 2D game can become costly. Just because it's 2D doesn't mean it's cheap. And when nobody will buy your game, how do you expect to make the money back?
While I certainly mourn the loss of the Lucasarts adventure game, I understand completely.
Nobody is attempting to BAN violent video games. I'm sure some would like to, but now the issue is keeping them from being purchased by minors. Regardless of how YOU think a game should be rated, this in no way affects your ability as a parent to buy the game for your child, if you in fact think that it is appropriate. Nothing is being banned, and nobody is telling you what you can and cannot buy for you, or for your child.
This study IS relevant, to see if the rating system, and the policies of retailers are in fact working.
Quasars occur when galaxies collide (or at least that's the theory). Quasars we see now are billions of years old. Now, galaxies aren't really as close together anymore, so new quasars are extremely rare. Might not be many in the distant future with which to encrypt signals.
Anybody think this seem odd? An early April fools perhaps?
I don't think that's quite the point. If a work of art is good enough, people will make it endure. With ROMs and emulation, anybody can play an NES game on their computer. With all the copies on the internet and on people's hard disks, there's no way anythign will be "lost".
Now the real question is, will the work still be relevant, and interesting many many years from now? Great art is timeless. Shakespear will always be read and taught, because it's some of history's best literature, and there's a lot that you can study. Would a video game? Are video games even studied NOW?
The fact that one game developer still plays NES games, or the fact that I still play Megaman 2 says nothing. We like those particular games, and we play them because we do. Some people enjoy re-reading trashy novels. does this make it good art? Nope.
For the record, I enjoy videogames, but I am on the side that they contain art, such as graphics, but in and of themselves are not art.
I know a lot of formats are purely digital now, but I regularly shoot analouge betacam and digitize it for greenscreen and other effects. Are you telling me this breaks, I won't be able to buy another because it will be illegal? That's insane.
There are definately more uses for a D/A converter that are legit, than there are shady. I think most pirates would try to keep the digital signal intact, so as to maintain as high a quality as possible. Who are they trying to stop?!
I don't understand. HDR as an effect is good because it's similar to how our eyes work, but adding cinema effects from the time period of the game plot? That's sounds completely bizarre.
It's not a bizzare as you think. Stubbs the zombie had film grain and discoulouration, and It works extremely well as a way to enhance the atmosphere, immersing you into the world of the 1950s.
It might be of intrest to note most games are reviewed by gamers who more or less 'hardcore'. A game designed for casual play may not get a high score because of this slanted perspective, but still sell extremely well.
I can tell you this WON'T be used in cars anytime soon. I recall at the Society of Automotive engineers seeing a similar paint that changed colour depending on the angle you viewed it at. In addition to being ridiculously expensive, it was later decided you couldn't paint your car with it, since it would complicate things if law enforcement needed to locate your car.
Such games you mention certainly contain art. I will not argue that Myst does not contain wonderful visual creations. I will not argue that Monkey Island contains good comedic writing. But under it all, it's just a game, and a game, in and of itself, is NOT art. A game is a set of rules. Good games are fair and involve skill, and therefore fun to play, and poor games are unfair or require little skill. Creating a good game is not an art, it is simply picking from established principles. Even "innovative" games are not different, the Sims basic game mechanics are no different from an arcade shooter: to survive.
Ebert's point is well taken. An artist is in control of their work, the experience they give the viewer is pivital to the work. How then can you call a game art when the experience is NOT controlled by the artist? Sure, the game designer can try to control as much as possible, but then doesn't it become more like a movie or a book?
Marathon's story was excelent, but it was all conveyed in text form via terminals. Many modern games use cutscenes to drive the experience. Video games must fall back on these art forms: film and literature to give their stories a boost. Could you effectively tell a story with no scripted encounters, and no textual passages? Possiblely, as in the sims, but that would be the PLAYER'S story. It's impossible for the game designer to create a meaningful story without resorting to one of these two art forms.
This of course assumes that the story and the experience is that art. You can certainly create an FPS that takes place in a painting or photo gallery. But would that be FUN? Would that be a good game?
Or you could drop the detail and other graphical effects to hit 30fps. I've never heard of a console deveoper doing this; if it isn't up to speed, they scale back the detail.
Why not simply label games G, PG, PG13, R and NC-17? EVERYBODY is familiar with the movie ratings, and even those include descriptors now. It seems so simple, because parents will then know to compare an R rated game to an R rated movie, and they are probably familiar with the content contained in such a film. With the descriptors, certanly there would be much less confusion.
Just how does a measure like this restrict free speech? Kids are no longer allowed to purchase violent video games, yet this does not make the sale or manufacture of such games illegal.
Furthermore, I don't see what harm can come of this law. All it will do is make sure a parent checks out the games they buy their children. Sure kids might still be able to get such games, but it's better than no law at all.
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You must not have seen this movie in theatres. It was an incredible experience. The entire audience was into it, and this movie will be lost if you do not see it with a good audience. This is not something that can be duplicated anywhere else. I was in a theatre full of people, ready to see snakes on a motherfucking plane, and bringing that energy with them. Watching this alone on DVD would NOT be the same. At all.
"The public schools in Washtenaw country are well funded"
Not exactly. We have this thing called proposal A, which attempts to divide funding up relatively equally between districts. Before the proposal, we had a larger budget than most districts. Now, money is essetially being taken away from us and given to other districts to equalize things.
The problem arises, when you look at the fact that is costs more per child than in other districts. Because the cost of living in Ann Arbor is so high for instance, teachers need to be paid more. So while we had more money than other districts, this was because we NEEDED more. I've felt the effects, and at my old high school, teaching jobs were cut, and we were limited in the number of classes we could take (7).
Seems they could have dropped the price a bit if they didn't include the built in iSight, which doesn't strike me as much added value.
I currently have comcast cable, and I began with one of those 6 months at 20per month deal. However when the time came, I made it clear I would cancel service if the rate went up, and if couldn't get the deal anymore, I'd shop for DSL, or something else. To my suprise, they agreed to let me keep the modem for 20 bucks. Apparently, you can still haggle in this day and age.
Competitive skydiving and golf aren't even an olympic sports. Why the hell should video games be?
Do any of you have any idea how difficult it actually is to be a parent now? Picture this as an example. My 13 year old son has a paper route, and so a stream of income on his own. He can choose to take his check, ride his bike over to the local game store, and buy any game he wants. He can take this home, and play it. What happens if I come by to check on what he's doing? He turns the game off and picks up a book, says "I'm reading". Short of watching a child 24/7, there is no way to make sure they do everything they are supposed to. Surely you've hidden illicit things from your parents when you were a teenager, like drugs, sex etc. It's actually pretty easy isn't it?
Yes I take the nessesary steps: the computer and game systems are in the living room, not behind closed doors in his room, but I can't watch him all the time. His friends have game systems in their rooms, and there's nothing I can do about that.
Yes, some parents certainly ARE to blame, but even the ones that try hard have it tough. I welcome any law that would prevent a child from buying a violent game. It's not censorship, as anybody who has first ammendment protection can buy the game. I can even buy the game for my child if I think it's okay. The government is not saying what's okay and what's not; that's still up to me.
There needs to be a way to immediately cancel something if I want to bail out. Examples of this not working are in Safari. While a webpage is loading, I can click the cancel button, and it will not register until several seconds later. Sometimes when the button is depressed, it then takes 5 seconds to actually stop. Or in Final Cut Pro, canceling a render can take 10-15 seconds. My computer is by no means the fastest, but how hard is it to make a cancel button that actually works? How difficult is it to simply STOP?
.of companies that make money selling digital music without DRM, look at just about every company that has sold CDs for the last 20 years. It's not like the model hasn't already proven itself. Even the big media companies know they can profitably sell unDRMed stuff, because that's how they became big media companies. DRM is a "solution" looking for a problem.
20 years ago there were no writable CDs, and music could not be distributed over the internet. Now we have burnable CDs and fast connections. Yes, they got where they are without DRM because there was no need for DRM back then.
What if the criminal has someone else handle their encryption/decryption, and thus does not even know their key? Can you be jailed for not giving away information you don't know?
Get a fucking clue people. Terrorism isn't a threat to your daily lives. If you actually think it is, then you've been emotionally manipulated by people who want your money and/or vote
Tell that to my uncle who was killed on 9/11. I for one AM worried, because it can happen. I would hope the government is taking every step it can to prevent future terrorism. Just because you don't see it affecting YOU, does not give you the right to belittle people whom it HAS affected.
"Last summer the video game industry was rocked by revelations that Take-Two Interactive, the makers of the hyper-violent Grand Theft Auto games, had illegally embedded in GTA: San Andreas graphic interactive adult sexual material."
Illegally imbedded? Since when is depicting nuidity in a work of art/literature/film/video game illegal? Pretty sure we can do that given the first amendment. The rating system is not law either, so not showing the ESRB all content is no more illegal. Seems his attitude is a bit skewed.
"It is also clear that Take-Two corporately and its senior officers, including CEO Paul Eibeler, individually, must now be prosecuted criminally for the knowing distribution of "sexual material harmful to minors" which is a felony in most states and nationally. The undersigned intends to work toward that end immediately"
Again, the ratings system is not law. Because a game is rated teen does not mean it is intended to be marketed towards kids. If anything, get on the ESRB for misrepresenting the game. Why not sue every publisher who puts out sexually explicit books. It's not the publisher's responsibility to dictate who should buy their material. His statements are outrageous.
From your link: - Moore was "on retainer to the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association to tour European countries to counter advocacy by environmental groups for a boycott of British Columbian forest products" from 1992-1996. - Moore acted as "consultant to the National Association of Forest Industries in Australia for a national tour defending the logging of native forests" Logging is NOT BAD for the environment. If done properly, more trees will be planted, and no animals will lose their habitats. Most paper is made from trees grown for specifically that purpose. Of the forests that are cut down, the trees are replaced, and the logging rotated. In fact, we have more forest now than we have ever had. Similar things can be said about mining and energy, the point is that the man should not be critisized for doing this. He cares for the environment, but simply isn't anti-corporation/globalization like so many that have perverted his once fine greenpeace organization.
The trouble with this is pure economics. Lucasarts began to run into this problem around when The Dig was released. The game itself was very good, however it did not sell very well. Why? At the time, games like Quake were starting to come out, and adventure games looked pale in comparison. Even if the company was commited to making a kickass 2D adventure game, they may not make up for it in sales.
Also consider the artwork. Back in the day, 320 x 240 16 or 256 colour was all you needed, with 8 frames or so for a walking animation. Now resolutions are much higher, and smoother animation will be demanded. The problem with setting such great standards is that you have to outdo them next time. Curse of Monkey island took a lot of time and money to make. To make another game, with smoother animation, better artwork etc, would actually be a huge burden. Game designers are complaining now about the cost of texture art on the new systems. TEXTURE ART! Try creating hundreds of backgrounds, animations for each object interaction, cutscenes, ad you can see that the art for a 2D game can become costly. Just because it's 2D doesn't mean it's cheap. And when nobody will buy your game, how do you expect to make the money back?
While I certainly mourn the loss of the Lucasarts adventure game, I understand completely.
Nobody is attempting to BAN violent video games. I'm sure some would like to, but now the issue is keeping them from being purchased by minors. Regardless of how YOU think a game should be rated, this in no way affects your ability as a parent to buy the game for your child, if you in fact think that it is appropriate. Nothing is being banned, and nobody is telling you what you can and cannot buy for you, or for your child.
This study IS relevant, to see if the rating system, and the policies of retailers are in fact working.
Quasars occur when galaxies collide (or at least that's the theory). Quasars we see now are billions of years old. Now, galaxies aren't really as close together anymore, so new quasars are extremely rare. Might not be many in the distant future with which to encrypt signals.
Anybody think this seem odd? An early April fools perhaps?
I don't think that's quite the point. If a work of art is good enough, people will make it endure. With ROMs and emulation, anybody can play an NES game on their computer. With all the copies on the internet and on people's hard disks, there's no way anythign will be "lost".
Now the real question is, will the work still be relevant, and interesting many many years from now? Great art is timeless. Shakespear will always be read and taught, because it's some of history's best literature, and there's a lot that you can study. Would a video game? Are video games even studied NOW?
The fact that one game developer still plays NES games, or the fact that I still play Megaman 2 says nothing. We like those particular games, and we play them because we do. Some people enjoy re-reading trashy novels. does this make it good art? Nope.
For the record, I enjoy videogames, but I am on the side that they contain art, such as graphics, but in and of themselves are not art.
I know a lot of formats are purely digital now, but I regularly shoot analouge betacam and digitize it for greenscreen and other effects. Are you telling me this breaks, I won't be able to buy another because it will be illegal? That's insane. There are definately more uses for a D/A converter that are legit, than there are shady. I think most pirates would try to keep the digital signal intact, so as to maintain as high a quality as possible. Who are they trying to stop?!
I don't understand. HDR as an effect is good because it's similar to how our eyes work, but adding cinema effects from the time period of the game plot? That's sounds completely bizarre.
It's not a bizzare as you think. Stubbs the zombie had film grain and discoulouration, and It works extremely well as a way to enhance the atmosphere, immersing you into the world of the 1950s.
It might be of intrest to note most games are reviewed by gamers who more or less 'hardcore'. A game designed for casual play may not get a high score because of this slanted perspective, but still sell extremely well.
I can tell you this WON'T be used in cars anytime soon. I recall at the Society of Automotive engineers seeing a similar paint that changed colour depending on the angle you viewed it at. In addition to being ridiculously expensive, it was later decided you couldn't paint your car with it, since it would complicate things if law enforcement needed to locate your car.
Such games you mention certainly contain art. I will not argue that Myst does not contain wonderful visual creations. I will not argue that Monkey Island contains good comedic writing. But under it all, it's just a game, and a game, in and of itself, is NOT art. A game is a set of rules. Good games are fair and involve skill, and therefore fun to play, and poor games are unfair or require little skill. Creating a good game is not an art, it is simply picking from established principles. Even "innovative" games are not different, the Sims basic game mechanics are no different from an arcade shooter: to survive. Ebert's point is well taken. An artist is in control of their work, the experience they give the viewer is pivital to the work. How then can you call a game art when the experience is NOT controlled by the artist? Sure, the game designer can try to control as much as possible, but then doesn't it become more like a movie or a book? Marathon's story was excelent, but it was all conveyed in text form via terminals. Many modern games use cutscenes to drive the experience. Video games must fall back on these art forms: film and literature to give their stories a boost. Could you effectively tell a story with no scripted encounters, and no textual passages? Possiblely, as in the sims, but that would be the PLAYER'S story. It's impossible for the game designer to create a meaningful story without resorting to one of these two art forms. This of course assumes that the story and the experience is that art. You can certainly create an FPS that takes place in a painting or photo gallery. But would that be FUN? Would that be a good game?
Or you could drop the detail and other graphical effects to hit 30fps. I've never heard of a console deveoper doing this; if it isn't up to speed, they scale back the detail.
Why not simply label games G, PG, PG13, R and NC-17? EVERYBODY is familiar with the movie ratings, and even those include descriptors now. It seems so simple, because parents will then know to compare an R rated game to an R rated movie, and they are probably familiar with the content contained in such a film. With the descriptors, certanly there would be much less confusion.
This was modded insightful how? I've played both, and I think FFVII is better. The materia system was unique, and the story telling was fabulous.
Just how does a measure like this restrict free speech? Kids are no longer allowed to purchase violent video games, yet this does not make the sale or manufacture of such games illegal.
Furthermore, I don't see what harm can come of this law. All it will do is make sure a parent checks out the games they buy their children. Sure kids might still be able to get such games, but it's better than no law at all.