One's mileage may vary with this depending on how good the good player is.
I used to play a lot of Soul Calibur II at work and against some players it didn't matter what you did with the handicap system. What they needed wasn't for their character to do more damage, they needed to be quicker. A bad player can easily spend the entire round on the floor or in the air, unable to begin a move. That is not fun.
As it happens, my kids aren't babies anymore. And just as well too, or I might have taken that article far too seriously and worried that I was doing all kinds of things wrong. Don't make me do the annoying parent thing and type out a huge list of how smart my kids are.;-)
Fortunately I understand what they're referring to with the benefit of hindsight. No - this isn't the topic we're discussing. Computer languages which condone "sloppy" usage are not about replacing good practice with malpractice. The emphasis is on accepting any communication that is not ambiguous, which is also exactly what one does with a child.
When a two year old says "Nana please!" and points to the fruit bowl, you will only cause frustration and confusion if you pretend not to understand the request. By all means offer corrections (compile time warnings), but give (or refuse) the fruit anyway.
Actually I do have two small children and I most definitely do neither of those things. I taught them first to communicate in whatever ways they found easiest and most effective - it certainly wasn't correct English. Your analogy isn't bad at all!
The implication being that the primary need a beginner has is to be forced to write good code. Whilst Edsger Dijkstra would probably have agreed with you, I don't. Beginners need things to be easy and quick and to do roughly what they want with a minimum of fuss. (I don't know if VB achieves this either mind you, since I don't know it well myself.) One of the great successes of HTML in my view is that it ignores errors and you can then run a validator once you reach the point where you care.
The article misses the point in a big way by comparing WoW with Street Fighter. The latter is indeed supposed to be all about a contest of skill. But in fact the huge popularity of RPG-style games with many gamers lies precisely with the fact that they can gain a feeling of progress from simply playing the game.
It's not about hardcore vs casual either - some very serious gamers play only RPGs and absolutely do not want their "skill" tested too much.
I see what you're saying here and doubtless would've said the same myself ten years ago.
The reality is that Java mobile standards are horribly mired in politics. Whilst you might think that sidestepping all that nonsense would be a good thing, the bizarre truth is that experience has proved that to be wrong. Look at the original MIDP-1 standard. It was a pretty simple thing, even underpowered, yet still a great many devices shipped with MIDP-1 implementations which were not properly compliant. Almost as bad was the fact that many shipped with proprietary extensions. The standard was a commercial disaster for application developers because it was not actually standard at all. The people who mattered did not fully back the standard.
MIDP-2 is much better than MIDP-1 was, but still the same problems of weak implementations plague application developers. In an effort to keep this post impartial I won't name names, but the difference between the best and worst implementations is massive not just in terms of performance but in terms of compliance to spec. Sun's compliance tests are ridiculously ineffective.
Mobile apps desperately need proper standardisation to really thrive. Currently only large developers with the deep pockets necessary to port, test and distribute to multiple platforms can make any kind of money. Creating a good standard involves an awful lot of politics. Simply knowing a requirement exists is not enough to get it acknowledged. In my view, better a slightly flawed standard than no standard at all.
(In case anyone's curious, I speak both as a developer of Java MIDlets and as a member of the development team for a well known MIDP-2 implementation. My opinions are my own and not those of my employer, just in case anyone can work out who they are.)
So evidently they reckon SiN Episodes is going to be making big money.
They're probably right too. It's much easier to sell a game for $100 if you split it up into ten $10 "episodes". Combine this with the advantages of sidestepping traditional retail and I can definitely see the appeal.
The ones that are looking for a point score won't read if you give it 4/10 as opposed to 7/10 anyway.
Not true. I like to read the highest and lowest scores for anything I'm going to buy because these reviews between them will give me the clearest picture of the pros and cons.
I recommend this approach, by the way. Works well if you don't have time to read every review of everything.
"Art is the stuff you find in the museum, whether it be a painting or a statue. What I'm doing, what videogame creators are doing, is running the museum--how do we light up things, where do we place things, how do we sell tickets?"
So he's trying to make a distinction between something that contains art and something that is itself art.
That seems like a fair distinction to me. Whenever I challenge someone to name a game that is a work of art they always cite things like Ico. A classic example: it's full off pretty graphics, but it's not clear that the rather pedestrian gameplay is part of anything I want to call art.
Even if you don't agree with Kojima yourself, I don't think the point he makes is one that can be dismissed so casually.
Logically, interactive rape cannot be discussed as truly different than interactive killing.
Certainly I see the argument, but I remain to be convinced. Combat and violence in games often provides the flavour/background for some mechanically interesting gameplay. Also, even in cases outside that category murder is either portrayed by NPCs or is in some way morally justified in the mind of the character you're controlling or is simply closer to comedy than drama.
I don't want to see stuff like rape scenes censored, but that doesn't mean I have to be comfortable with people wanting to be involved with that sort of thing. Your movies example is a good one: I might well appreciate the art of a film in which rape was depicted. However, it's very unlikely I'd appreciate a rape in a film which wasn't a necessary part of the story being told.
Companies don't do stuff like this for nothing. They expect it to be popular. I find it hard to view players in a positive light whose preference is for playing out interactive rapes.
Thing is, Gizmondo used to be something rather different. The original idea as I understand it was to use GPS to enable parents to track their kids. They only wanted to make the thing enough of a games device that the kids wouldn't ditch it (!). The thing's been pending for so long that DS and PSP probably weren't on their radar when the original project was (ill-)conceived.
From the article:
"We know good games activate minds [...] The goal of this effort is to establish a baseline of knowledge - you'd think it exists but it really doesn't."
So if I understand correctly they already know the results of their research, they just want the data to back their conclusion? Mmm... research! No wonder PopCap want to get involved.
the character had accidentally set a villager on fire earlier; after that, when he tried to go join a guild that he had joined in every previous demo, the guildmaster told him he was not welcome
That's pretty realistic. Last job interview I went to the new boss was asking if I'd ever set a villager on fire. I said "no". The way I see it, that's none of his business.
"...did not live up to anyone's expectations" eh ?
Who are these people and where did they get their expectations from? If I recall correctly the 4th quarter of 2004 included Grand Theft Auto : San Andreas. I'd expect that to mean higher revenue than this year - Civ4 is PC only and as has been pointed out there aren't enough XBox 360s in play yet for the platform to generate huge revenues.
Can anyone explain why these results are surprising ?
You didn't fail in that respect though - the point about finishing games was well made. But, y'know, this is the internet and it's much more fun to poke holes in things than applaud them, right ?;-)
I think you're completely misunderstanding the author's intent in writing the piece.
Tim Harford - the writer in question - writes the "Dear Economist" column for the Financial Times. Here it seems to me he's doing something very similar to what he does there: applying well understood economics principles to real life situations and seeing where it leads.
It's interesting stuff because if we're being honest none of us gave a second thought to why Microsoft chose to underprice a scarce resource. Or at least if you did I'm willing to bet you're in a small minority.
In my opinion, the article achieves a lot in making the reader think about stuff. And as for the effects of exploiting the 360 shortage for commercial gain, we need look no further than Best Buy, right?
True enough, but even these titles would require considerable effort to classify as art as games.
I'll take Ico as my example. I only recently played this (less than a month ago), despite having received recommendations for years.
Despite the elapsed time, I was still blown away by some of the great visuals. The plot wasn't awful either, which was a nice surprise. But there the good stuff ended. Games cannot claim to be art solely because they contain great graphics and quality writing. And there is no way I'm prepared to accept Ico's gameplay as art. It was mostly reasonable, occasionally annoying, but never exciting.
Now in fact I'm very much a believer that games could be art. But if I had to judge the issue on what I've seen so far, I wouldn't be so sure.
Slashdot Mirror
...which if you think about it is just crazy.
Powerstone 2 needs a big screen. If they released it for the PS2 I'd buy it like a shot. And a 60" plasma screen to play it on. (In my dreams.)
One's mileage may vary with this depending on how good the good player is.
I used to play a lot of Soul Calibur II at work and against some players it didn't matter what you did with the handicap system. What they needed wasn't for their character to do more damage, they needed to be quicker. A bad player can easily spend the entire round on the floor or in the air, unable to begin a move. That is not fun.
As it happens, my kids aren't babies anymore. And just as well too, or I might have taken that article far too seriously and worried that I was doing all kinds of things wrong. Don't make me do the annoying parent thing and type out a huge list of how smart my kids are. ;-)
Fortunately I understand what they're referring to with the benefit of hindsight. No - this isn't the topic we're discussing. Computer languages which condone "sloppy" usage are not about replacing good practice with malpractice. The emphasis is on accepting any communication that is not ambiguous, which is also exactly what one does with a child.
When a two year old says "Nana please!" and points to the fruit bowl, you will only cause frustration and confusion if you pretend not to understand the request. By all means offer corrections (compile time warnings), but give (or refuse) the fruit anyway.
Actually I do have two small children and I most definitely do neither of those things. I taught them first to communicate in whatever ways they found easiest and most effective - it certainly wasn't correct English. Your analogy isn't bad at all!
The implication being that the primary need a beginner has is to be forced to write good code. Whilst Edsger Dijkstra would probably have agreed with you, I don't. Beginners need things to be easy and quick and to do roughly what they want with a minimum of fuss. (I don't know if VB achieves this either mind you, since I don't know it well myself.) One of the great successes of HTML in my view is that it ignores errors and you can then run a validator once you reach the point where you care.
The article misses the point in a big way by comparing WoW with Street Fighter. The latter is indeed supposed to be all about a contest of skill. But in fact the huge popularity of RPG-style games with many gamers lies precisely with the fact that they can gain a feeling of progress from simply playing the game.
It's not about hardcore vs casual either - some very serious gamers play only RPGs and absolutely do not want their "skill" tested too much.
I see what you're saying here and doubtless would've said the same myself ten years ago.
The reality is that Java mobile standards are horribly mired in politics. Whilst you might think that sidestepping all that nonsense would be a good thing, the bizarre truth is that experience has proved that to be wrong. Look at the original MIDP-1 standard. It was a pretty simple thing, even underpowered, yet still a great many devices shipped with MIDP-1 implementations which were not properly compliant. Almost as bad was the fact that many shipped with proprietary extensions. The standard was a commercial disaster for application developers because it was not actually standard at all. The people who mattered did not fully back the standard.
MIDP-2 is much better than MIDP-1 was, but still the same problems of weak implementations plague application developers. In an effort to keep this post impartial I won't name names, but the difference between the best and worst implementations is massive not just in terms of performance but in terms of compliance to spec. Sun's compliance tests are ridiculously ineffective.
Mobile apps desperately need proper standardisation to really thrive. Currently only large developers with the deep pockets necessary to port, test and distribute to multiple platforms can make any kind of money. Creating a good standard involves an awful lot of politics. Simply knowing a requirement exists is not enough to get it acknowledged. In my view, better a slightly flawed standard than no standard at all.
(In case anyone's curious, I speak both as a developer of Java MIDlets and as a member of the development team for a well known MIDP-2 implementation. My opinions are my own and not those of my employer, just in case anyone can work out who they are.)
I certainly agree the potential is there.
I suppose my experiences with episodic novels, films and TV have left me with a surfeit of cynicism!
So evidently they reckon SiN Episodes is going to be making big money.
They're probably right too. It's much easier to sell a game for $100 if you split it up into ten $10 "episodes". Combine this with the advantages of sidestepping traditional retail and I can definitely see the appeal.
The ones that are looking for a point score won't read if you give it 4/10 as opposed to 7/10 anyway.
Not true. I like to read the highest and lowest scores for anything I'm going to buy because these reviews between them will give me the clearest picture of the pros and cons.
I recommend this approach, by the way. Works well if you don't have time to read every review of everything.
That's unfair. From TFA:
"Art is the stuff you find in the museum, whether it be a painting or a statue. What I'm doing, what videogame creators are doing, is running the museum--how do we light up things, where do we place things, how do we sell tickets?"
So he's trying to make a distinction between something that contains art and something that is itself art.
That seems like a fair distinction to me. Whenever I challenge someone to name a game that is a work of art they always cite things like Ico. A classic example: it's full off pretty graphics, but it's not clear that the rather pedestrian gameplay is part of anything I want to call art.
Even if you don't agree with Kojima yourself, I don't think the point he makes is one that can be dismissed so casually.
Logically, interactive rape cannot be discussed as truly different than interactive killing.
Certainly I see the argument, but I remain to be convinced. Combat and violence in games often provides the flavour/background for some mechanically interesting gameplay. Also, even in cases outside that category murder is either portrayed by NPCs or is in some way morally justified in the mind of the character you're controlling or is simply closer to comedy than drama.
I don't want to see stuff like rape scenes censored, but that doesn't mean I have to be comfortable with people wanting to be involved with that sort of thing. Your movies example is a good one: I might well appreciate the art of a film in which rape was depicted. However, it's very unlikely I'd appreciate a rape in a film which wasn't a necessary part of the story being told.
Companies don't do stuff like this for nothing. They expect it to be popular. I find it hard to view players in a positive light whose preference is for playing out interactive rapes.
Thing is, Gizmondo used to be something rather different. The original idea as I understand it was to use GPS to enable parents to track their kids. They only wanted to make the thing enough of a games device that the kids wouldn't ditch it (!). The thing's been pending for so long that DS and PSP probably weren't on their radar when the original project was (ill-)conceived.
Umm... doesn't "forced sexual relations" seem in rather poor taste ?
Or is the argument supposed to be that if you can have violence in games then it's fair play ? Ugh.
It's a masturbatory activity
I'm pretty much in favour of masturbation too, Jack. The only reason I don't do that for ten hours straight is...
Oh, he hung up.
From the article:
"We know good games activate minds [...] The goal of this effort is to establish a baseline of knowledge - you'd think it exists but it really doesn't."
So if I understand correctly they already know the results of their research, they just want the data to back their conclusion? Mmm... research! No wonder PopCap want to get involved.
the character had accidentally set a villager on fire earlier; after that, when he tried to go join a guild that he had joined in every previous demo, the guildmaster told him he was not welcome
That's pretty realistic. Last job interview I went to the new boss was asking if I'd ever set a villager on fire. I said "no". The way I see it, that's none of his business.
"...did not live up to anyone's expectations" eh ?
Who are these people and where did they get their expectations from? If I recall correctly the 4th quarter of 2004 included Grand Theft Auto : San Andreas. I'd expect that to mean higher revenue than this year - Civ4 is PC only and as has been pointed out there aren't enough XBox 360s in play yet for the platform to generate huge revenues.
Can anyone explain why these results are surprising ?
You didn't fail in that respect though - the point about finishing games was well made. But, y'know, this is the internet and it's much more fun to poke holes in things than applaud them, right ? ;-)
I'm not sure it's that I've misunderstood so much as we seem to have a fundamental disagreement.
:-)
I believe that murder is morally wrong. This applies to SotC. This applies to GTA.
Both are fictional, so it doesn't bother me in the slightest.
So what you're saying here is that it's fine to murder provided the people you're murdering aren't very nice ?!
Of all the games of which to worry about the morality I'm not sure Shadow of the Colossus would be top of my list.
Grand Theft Auto series anyone ?
I think you're completely misunderstanding the author's intent in writing the piece.
Tim Harford - the writer in question - writes the "Dear Economist" column for the Financial Times. Here it seems to me he's doing something very similar to what he does there: applying well understood economics principles to real life situations and seeing where it leads.
It's interesting stuff because if we're being honest none of us gave a second thought to why Microsoft chose to underprice a scarce resource. Or at least if you did I'm willing to bet you're in a small minority.
In my opinion, the article achieves a lot in making the reader think about stuff. And as for the effects of exploiting the 360 shortage for commercial gain, we need look no further than Best Buy, right?
True enough, but even these titles would require considerable effort to classify as art as games.
I'll take Ico as my example. I only recently played this (less than a month ago), despite having received recommendations for years.
Despite the elapsed time, I was still blown away by some of the great visuals. The plot wasn't awful either, which was a nice surprise. But there the good stuff ended. Games cannot claim to be art solely because they contain great graphics and quality writing. And there is no way I'm prepared to accept Ico's gameplay as art. It was mostly reasonable, occasionally annoying, but never exciting.
Now in fact I'm very much a believer that games could be art. But if I had to judge the issue on what I've seen so far, I wouldn't be so sure.
Hmm... does sound vaguely familiar ! :o
(Mod parent up - informative !)