I think the privacy concern here is a real one. However I don't see the big deal about advertising in games. When I'm playing a game like GTA4 which is supposed to be in NYC, or Rainbow 6 vegas, making a city look real is a major part of those games. Real cities have advertising: billboards, storefronts, posters, whatever. "Fake" adds work great for those, but seeing an add for a company I've heard of certainly doesn't hurt the immersion, it can actually help it.
Of course this doesn't apply to the stupid big splash-screen adds or things showing up in blatant, or gameplay changing ways. Those are annoying and need to go. Clearly some games can add this (like those I mentioned above) while others, say Final Fantasy or Mario anything will never lend themselves to this. I think it's a matter of context.
Grabbing private information from my computer/console to try and customize these adds is a direction I'm not a huge fan of, but this is very much not isolated to video games. It's all over the web and I'm sure advertisers are trying to do it elsewhere.
I'm all for not giving kids M rated games, thats why the ratings even exist. What you're missing is that there are no laws anywhere, that I'm aware of, that make it a crime (even a misdemeanor, let alone a felony) to let a kid into an R rated movie, or sell them that movie. The same goes for music, TV, and books, which don't even have ratings yet can be just as violent as any other media. I believe it should be store policy to not sell M rated games to kids, but if one employee slips, they shouldn't be marked for life.
As has already been said, changing passwords daily is just as bad as never changing passwords... maybe worse. People either write them down somwhere, are constantly forgetting them(costing you labor time) or picking really crappy easily compromised passwords.
I worked one place where we had to change passwords monthy(which i don't think is too bad, but more people would do this for daily passwords), and one guy couldn't keep up, so he just used the date he had to change as his passowrd: Dec9,2005 it uses all 4 character types and is never the same... yet really easy to crack... I could always peg his password within a couple trys.
Actually theres no law stopping kids from seeing them in theaters either. Sure it's enforced by pretty much every theater, but its not law and there's not criminal penalty. Video game ratings are already the equivilent to movie ratings. I don't see how it's any different.
Thank you. I know high schools have a problem, but honestly they are no where near as bad as the middle school education in this country. Grades 6-8 were a complete waste of my life. The only things I learned were poor social skills and that I was smarter than quite a few adults. I slept in class infront of the teachers because I already knew the material, and they were fine with that. My science teacher told me the atomic mass of most elements were long decimals because of the weight of electrons(which i knew was wrong because some were negative) instead of an average of isotopes. I was in the 'advanced' math class and we finally got to pre-algebra in 8th grade.
I've talked to quite a few people about this and they can all recount similar experiences of middle school being a waste. This comes back to bite us when we go to any high school, no matter how good. We're already behind on material, and we've just spent 3 years doing nothing which can 'teach' kids that thay don't need to work to get through school and have them fail when they need to.
Yes, high schools are bad. Middle schools are worse.
Slashdot Mirror
I think the privacy concern here is a real one. However I don't see the big deal about advertising in games. When I'm playing a game like GTA4 which is supposed to be in NYC, or Rainbow 6 vegas, making a city look real is a major part of those games. Real cities have advertising: billboards, storefronts, posters, whatever. "Fake" adds work great for those, but seeing an add for a company I've heard of certainly doesn't hurt the immersion, it can actually help it. Of course this doesn't apply to the stupid big splash-screen adds or things showing up in blatant, or gameplay changing ways. Those are annoying and need to go. Clearly some games can add this (like those I mentioned above) while others, say Final Fantasy or Mario anything will never lend themselves to this. I think it's a matter of context. Grabbing private information from my computer/console to try and customize these adds is a direction I'm not a huge fan of, but this is very much not isolated to video games. It's all over the web and I'm sure advertisers are trying to do it elsewhere.
I'm all for not giving kids M rated games, thats why the ratings even exist. What you're missing is that there are no laws anywhere, that I'm aware of, that make it a crime (even a misdemeanor, let alone a felony) to let a kid into an R rated movie, or sell them that movie. The same goes for music, TV, and books, which don't even have ratings yet can be just as violent as any other media. I believe it should be store policy to not sell M rated games to kids, but if one employee slips, they shouldn't be marked for life.
As has already been said, changing passwords daily is just as bad as never changing passwords... maybe worse. People either write them down somwhere, are constantly forgetting them(costing you labor time) or picking really crappy easily compromised passwords. I worked one place where we had to change passwords monthy(which i don't think is too bad, but more people would do this for daily passwords), and one guy couldn't keep up, so he just used the date he had to change as his passowrd: Dec9,2005 it uses all 4 character types and is never the same... yet really easy to crack... I could always peg his password within a couple trys.
Actually theres no law stopping kids from seeing them in theaters either. Sure it's enforced by pretty much every theater, but its not law and there's not criminal penalty. Video game ratings are already the equivilent to movie ratings. I don't see how it's any different.
Thank you. I know high schools have a problem, but honestly they are no where near as bad as the middle school education in this country. Grades 6-8 were a complete waste of my life. The only things I learned were poor social skills and that I was smarter than quite a few adults. I slept in class infront of the teachers because I already knew the material, and they were fine with that. My science teacher told me the atomic mass of most elements were long decimals because of the weight of electrons(which i knew was wrong because some were negative) instead of an average of isotopes. I was in the 'advanced' math class and we finally got to pre-algebra in 8th grade. I've talked to quite a few people about this and they can all recount similar experiences of middle school being a waste. This comes back to bite us when we go to any high school, no matter how good. We're already behind on material, and we've just spent 3 years doing nothing which can 'teach' kids that thay don't need to work to get through school and have them fail when they need to. Yes, high schools are bad. Middle schools are worse.
All 3 if you do it right.