They could start off developing violent and action-packed first-person shooters and fighting games, then gradually tune down the action and reflexive processes and increase the puzzles and thinking processes, until they finally ended up with a zero-action, pure-thought game like Myst.
All the games would cost no more than $10, and somehow they would all be rated E, so that the kids don't get left out.
I really think "The Killing Fields" and "Apocalypse Now" were different kinds of movies. They were about war in SE Asia but that's really where the resemblances end. The former seemed to be to be almost a journalistic piece or an exposé, trying to communicate the horrors of a specific war, the Cambodian conflict, to the world, and through that the horrors of war in general. The latter wasa sort of fable/allegory that just happened to be set up against Vietnam (being based on "Heart of Darkness," of course) and was more about the "darkness in man's soul" and all that instead of war specifically.
Oh, and the use of Lennon's "Imagine" at the end of "The Killing Fields": unforgivably cheesy and bad, nearly screws up the whole thing. Can anyone think of a worse use of popular song in film? I can't.
simPC, as far as I can tell, is trying to be a console, like the XBox and the PS2 and such. Seamless and slick UI, a very fixed number of things you can do with it, and if they design it well it'll be difficult to hack or infect, simply because of the sheer limitations of what the thing can do. If OS updates were necessary, you could download them from the company's website the way you can download content with XBox Live. They could even supply you with new, company-approved software this way.
As a matter of fact, why don't they have it just hook up directly to a TV? It would look a lot like a video game system, except with a keyboard and mouse instead of controllers. And yeah, I don't see why it shouldn't be able to burn CDs, as I agree that old folks are probably plenty interested in keeping and editing photos.
I don't exactly see this product making a killing in the market, but it might find a niche.
This is an excellent point, and one missed by a ridiculously large proportion of the commenters on this article. No one is debating that sex sells. No one is debating that the video game industry is driven by the young male demographic, and that sexualized women market well to it. The article does not argue that having sexy women in video games is wrong.
The main point of Flower's article is to wonder whether creating more reasonable, realistic female characters is a good way for the video game industry to reach out to women. Despite the fact that women comprise 50% of the population, the video game industry has not been successful in selling its products to women. You can throw your hands up and conclude video games just categorically don't appeal to most women. Or, you can think about how you can make a video game that does.
So why is anyone surprised that one way to do this might be to create more realistic female characters that women can relate to? Yes, men in video games tend to be exaggerated in body type too: tall dark and handsome, muscles rippling, and so forth. However, there's no market-driven reason for that to change, as it hasn't stopped men from buying games in droves. Since women don't seem to be nearly as interested in video games, people in the industry should (and do) wonder about what they can change to bring in more female customers - not on the basis of a sexism argument, or a moral argument, but simply because that's a big market out there waiting to be tapped. Develop a game that appeals across all demographics, male and female? You'd make a killing. Maxis sure did. You think developers aren't staring hard at the Sims, trying to figure out how they did it?
And if I knew how to do it, I wouldn't just run about posting it on/..
Well, what are you going to do about it, illegalize it? Compare the situations: people selling water for $20, and those same people not coming and not bringing any water. The existence of water for sale is an option that wasn't there before, and makes people no worse off than they would have been if these people hadn't bothered to come selling anything. These people certainly are doing more to help the disaster than someone who does nothing at all, regardless of whether the motive was being good and saintly or looking to make a cheap buck.
The moral qualms, really, come into play when you get there with your water to sell. OK, so you've hatched up this plan to sell water in the disaster areas. You go there with your water and a money box. When you're there, can you really look into the eyes of the victims, some clinging to the brink of death, and say, I won't give you this basic need of life unless you pay me up? A lot of people can't, I think myself included, and this really should be the root of why the practice draws any moral discomfort. However, if someone can do that, while we might say that this could reflect badly on their general moral characteristics, they are, again, still doing more to help than someone who does nothing at all.
In case someone jumps me on this - no, I don't think relief efforts should be privatized, or whatever. Governments put forth large efforts to get basic commodities and needs into areas, and I certainly have no problem with that, and am glad of it. I'd want it if some kind of natural disaster struck me. But governments can't do as much as governments and individuals can do combined, and if you are outraged at water sellers, you should be even more outraged at every individual out there who hasn't contributed to the relief efforts. Yes, just as outraged at every one.
Saying something is "lame," by the way, isn't a very coherent argument towards showing that it's "wrong."
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They could start off developing violent and action-packed first-person shooters and fighting games, then gradually tune down the action and reflexive processes and increase the puzzles and thinking processes, until they finally ended up with a zero-action, pure-thought game like Myst.
All the games would cost no more than $10, and somehow they would all be rated E, so that the kids don't get left out.
Oh, and the use of Lennon's "Imagine" at the end of "The Killing Fields": unforgivably cheesy and bad, nearly screws up the whole thing. Can anyone think of a worse use of popular song in film? I can't.
As a matter of fact, why don't they have it just hook up directly to a TV? It would look a lot like a video game system, except with a keyboard and mouse instead of controllers. And yeah, I don't see why it shouldn't be able to burn CDs, as I agree that old folks are probably plenty interested in keeping and editing photos.
I don't exactly see this product making a killing in the market, but it might find a niche.
The main point of Flower's article is to wonder whether creating more reasonable, realistic female characters is a good way for the video game industry to reach out to women. Despite the fact that women comprise 50% of the population, the video game industry has not been successful in selling its products to women. You can throw your hands up and conclude video games just categorically don't appeal to most women. Or, you can think about how you can make a video game that does.
So why is anyone surprised that one way to do this might be to create more realistic female characters that women can relate to? Yes, men in video games tend to be exaggerated in body type too: tall dark and handsome, muscles rippling, and so forth. However, there's no market-driven reason for that to change, as it hasn't stopped men from buying games in droves. Since women don't seem to be nearly as interested in video games, people in the industry should (and do) wonder about what they can change to bring in more female customers - not on the basis of a sexism argument, or a moral argument, but simply because that's a big market out there waiting to be tapped. Develop a game that appeals across all demographics, male and female? You'd make a killing. Maxis sure did. You think developers aren't staring hard at the Sims, trying to figure out how they did it?
And if I knew how to do it, I wouldn't just run about posting it on /..
The moral qualms, really, come into play when you get there with your water to sell. OK, so you've hatched up this plan to sell water in the disaster areas. You go there with your water and a money box. When you're there, can you really look into the eyes of the victims, some clinging to the brink of death, and say, I won't give you this basic need of life unless you pay me up? A lot of people can't, I think myself included, and this really should be the root of why the practice draws any moral discomfort. However, if someone can do that, while we might say that this could reflect badly on their general moral characteristics, they are, again, still doing more to help than someone who does nothing at all.
In case someone jumps me on this - no, I don't think relief efforts should be privatized, or whatever. Governments put forth large efforts to get basic commodities and needs into areas, and I certainly have no problem with that, and am glad of it. I'd want it if some kind of natural disaster struck me. But governments can't do as much as governments and individuals can do combined, and if you are outraged at water sellers, you should be even more outraged at every individual out there who hasn't contributed to the relief efforts. Yes, just as outraged at every one.
Saying something is "lame," by the way, isn't a very coherent argument towards showing that it's "wrong."