Most of iD's games are, in fact, intended to be merely tech demos for the engine, which they license to other developers as their primary source of income. A number of other developers follow this model as well. That the tech demos usually tend to be good enough (if not always original enough) to stand on their own right as commercial games is more of a fringe benefit.
It seems to me that a game which explored the concept of shady agricultural practices without making a definite statement or even having a strong bias, rather than merely assuming from the get-go that one position is Evil by definition and that virtually any methods of opposing it are excusable, would better serve its agenda. As it stands, such a game is probably most used for preaching to the choir.
You should be careful making such assumptions. There's a great deal of debate about the underlying causes of the current political situation even among experts who've dedicated their professional lives to studying it.
Nonsense. They have customers in China as well - and those customers should be served. If obeying local laws is the only way to accomplish that, then that makes the laws the problem.
And, as a company who "do[es] no evil," they have a responsibility to deliver quality product - that is, users who both trust the results and are interested in the products advertised - to their customers.
It's not so much a case of "All that is necessary for evil to succeed etc." as it is a case of "freedom relies upon a well-informed populace." Government is not inherently evil, merely inherently dangerous, nor are citizens inherently good, merely inherently vulnerable.
The only people whose rights are infringed upon are those who don't demand rights. The Founding Fathers knew it - government, even well-intentioned and competent government (which we may or may not have now, I'm not intending to be an anti-Bush troll) will inevitably infringe upon the rights of the people, and the only defense is a populace who cares enough about their rights to claim them.
I'm not trying to say that government is evil - merely that government is very dangerous, the way a car is dangerous. It can do very great things, but proper safety procedures (such as wearing a seat belt, or demanding a warrant) must be observed.
Not really. The job of any military is to win wars. The job of any civilian government is to direct its military in ways that benefit the country - according to the standards of whoever's in charge of the government. In the United States, these standards may vary based on whoever the executive is, but it would take very extenuating circumstances in order for the standards to fall outside of the Constitution.
I've never understood what line of reasoning leads people to think that sequels are automatically a bad thing. I mean, if the sequel doesn't add anything new to the gameplay of the original, then it's bad - but that's not because it's a sequel, it's more like it's because you're overcharging for an expansion. And if a sequel is a bad game, then it's bad - but not because it's a sequel, rather it's because it's a bad game.
Irrelevant concepts can still exist. Merely because (if what you assert is true) there is no relevance to whether a person fulfills a set of criteria which determine "genius" is no reason to suggest that no person can be a genius.
They're okay if I don't have to pay for the game, and they're okay if they add to the game's effect without feeling like an ad. Subtle product placement is fine, and if viewing ads means I get a(n otherwise) free game, well, that's just great.
I'm inclined to believe that a genius is a person who can do well on an arbitrary test of "mental parlor tricks" and excel in real-life applications of intelligence.
Not everybody who does well on an IQ test is a genius, but everybody who does not do well on an IQ test is not a genius.
Did you consider that perhaps it would be a bad idea for the government to spread anxiety and dissatisfaction for a problem that no amount of public outcry is going to expedite? There are numerous public and private movements to get people to stop wasting energy, and they're working. If people choose not to follow suit, then there's no reason that they should be coerced into it. It's more important that we buy enough time to develop technologies that make energy more common. These technologies are well on their way to implementation, but they still need more time - it's not worth it to try to make people even more impatient.
And the time and money being invested, publicly and privately, in researching and implementing Hydrogen power, nuclear power, solar power, wind power, biodiesel, and any other alternative energy source that could be viable doesn't count as "wak[ing] up to this problem"... why, exactly?
In general, any breakthrough discovery requires years of follow-up testing to make sure it's actually valid, and even then whatever comes as a result of it will be of limited use and prohibitively expensive - even assuming that the follow-up testing didn't reveal any new hurdles, which it usually does.
Because nobody's spending it. If it's been put into a mutual fund, it's staying in that mutual fund. It's not being spent on anything. Hence, no circulation.
I can foresee Nintendo's online service - downloading the backlog and perhaps a few independent titles - becoming the console equivalent of Steam and/or Gametap. The controller's awesome, sure - but it's the online service that's the really exciting part.
If they license out access to that service to other hardware manufacturers, there's a good chance of creating an industry standard. Of course, Nintendo makes a killing from its own hardware; why would they want to give up that advantage?
Did you ever notice precisely how much change there is between any two games in a Nintendo franchise (other than Mario Party)? It's less like repackaging the Big Mac and giving it a new name, and more like changing the recipe - little enough that it's still recognizable as a burger, but different enough that most people will feel justified in calling it something new.
You might have a point if, say, Mario Sunshine was essentially Mario 64 with updated graphics and new levels (which is what most sequels are these days). But it's not. It plays differently. You've got a new gameplay mechanism (namely, the freaky talking water jetpack thing) which is integrated into the level design fundamentally (that is, it's not just a gimmick whose uses are distinct and separate from the platforming).
Making a game with a talking-water-jetpack-thing would not have worked as well if they had to invent an entirely new franchise to display it - particularly if they wanted to integrate the jetpack-thing with Mario-style platforming. In that case, you'd have people on Slashdot complaining about how the game played too much like Mario, why can't they just give us a proper Mario title god damn it.
Stagnant rehashing is bad, but there's a great deal to be said about not reinventing the wheel every time you have a new idea.
Slashdot Mirror
Most of iD's games are, in fact, intended to be merely tech demos for the engine, which they license to other developers as their primary source of income. A number of other developers follow this model as well. That the tech demos usually tend to be good enough (if not always original enough) to stand on their own right as commercial games is more of a fringe benefit.
It seems to me that a game which explored the concept of shady agricultural practices without making a definite statement or even having a strong bias, rather than merely assuming from the get-go that one position is Evil by definition and that virtually any methods of opposing it are excusable, would better serve its agenda. As it stands, such a game is probably most used for preaching to the choir.
You should be careful making such assumptions. There's a great deal of debate about the underlying causes of the current political situation even among experts who've dedicated their professional lives to studying it.
Nonsense. They have customers in China as well - and those customers should be served. If obeying local laws is the only way to accomplish that, then that makes the laws the problem.
And, as a company who "do[es] no evil," they have a responsibility to deliver quality product - that is, users who both trust the results and are interested in the products advertised - to their customers.
It's not so much a case of "All that is necessary for evil to succeed etc." as it is a case of "freedom relies upon a well-informed populace." Government is not inherently evil, merely inherently dangerous, nor are citizens inherently good, merely inherently vulnerable.
Hear, hear.
The only people whose rights are infringed upon are those who don't demand rights. The Founding Fathers knew it - government, even well-intentioned and competent government (which we may or may not have now, I'm not intending to be an anti-Bush troll) will inevitably infringe upon the rights of the people, and the only defense is a populace who cares enough about their rights to claim them.
I'm not trying to say that government is evil - merely that government is very dangerous, the way a car is dangerous. It can do very great things, but proper safety procedures (such as wearing a seat belt, or demanding a warrant) must be observed.
Does this make Google evil, or China?
And here I thought Slashdot didn't like it when corporations were powerful enough to stand up to governments.
Not really. The job of any military is to win wars. The job of any civilian government is to direct its military in ways that benefit the country - according to the standards of whoever's in charge of the government. In the United States, these standards may vary based on whoever the executive is, but it would take very extenuating circumstances in order for the standards to fall outside of the Constitution.
How is it, again, "evil" for a business to obey laws? I thought Slashdot hated it when corporations were powerful enough to stand up to governments.
That really depends on what we're doing that produces all this carbon, now, doesn't it?
I've never understood what line of reasoning leads people to think that sequels are automatically a bad thing. I mean, if the sequel doesn't add anything new to the gameplay of the original, then it's bad - but that's not because it's a sequel, it's more like it's because you're overcharging for an expansion. And if a sequel is a bad game, then it's bad - but not because it's a sequel, rather it's because it's a bad game.
Pundits perform cognitive dissonance?
Stop the presses!
Irrelevant concepts can still exist. Merely because (if what you assert is true) there is no relevance to whether a person fulfills a set of criteria which determine "genius" is no reason to suggest that no person can be a genius.
They're okay if I don't have to pay for the game, and they're okay if they add to the game's effect without feeling like an ad. Subtle product placement is fine, and if viewing ads means I get a(n otherwise) free game, well, that's just great.
Not everybody who does well on an IQ test is a genius, but everybody who does not do well on an IQ test is not a genius.
There's no way to know. Every /. user knows that he's the only intelligent person there.
Did you consider that perhaps it would be a bad idea for the government to spread anxiety and dissatisfaction for a problem that no amount of public outcry is going to expedite? There are numerous public and private movements to get people to stop wasting energy, and they're working. If people choose not to follow suit, then there's no reason that they should be coerced into it. It's more important that we buy enough time to develop technologies that make energy more common. These technologies are well on their way to implementation, but they still need more time - it's not worth it to try to make people even more impatient.
And the time and money being invested, publicly and privately, in researching and implementing Hydrogen power, nuclear power, solar power, wind power, biodiesel, and any other alternative energy source that could be viable doesn't count as "wak[ing] up to this problem"... why, exactly?
In general, any breakthrough discovery requires years of follow-up testing to make sure it's actually valid, and even then whatever comes as a result of it will be of limited use and prohibitively expensive - even assuming that the follow-up testing didn't reveal any new hurdles, which it usually does.
I was trying to simplify it for the grandparent poster, and I guess I did it wrong.
Because nobody's spending it. If it's been put into a mutual fund, it's staying in that mutual fund. It's not being spent on anything. Hence, no circulation.
I can foresee Nintendo's online service - downloading the backlog and perhaps a few independent titles - becoming the console equivalent of Steam and/or Gametap. The controller's awesome, sure - but it's the online service that's the really exciting part.
If they license out access to that service to other hardware manufacturers, there's a good chance of creating an industry standard. Of course, Nintendo makes a killing from its own hardware; why would they want to give up that advantage?
Did you ever notice precisely how much change there is between any two games in a Nintendo franchise (other than Mario Party)? It's less like repackaging the Big Mac and giving it a new name, and more like changing the recipe - little enough that it's still recognizable as a burger, but different enough that most people will feel justified in calling it something new.
You might have a point if, say, Mario Sunshine was essentially Mario 64 with updated graphics and new levels (which is what most sequels are these days). But it's not. It plays differently. You've got a new gameplay mechanism (namely, the freaky talking water jetpack thing) which is integrated into the level design fundamentally (that is, it's not just a gimmick whose uses are distinct and separate from the platforming).
Making a game with a talking-water-jetpack-thing would not have worked as well if they had to invent an entirely new franchise to display it - particularly if they wanted to integrate the jetpack-thing with Mario-style platforming. In that case, you'd have people on Slashdot complaining about how the game played too much like Mario, why can't they just give us a proper Mario title god damn it.
Stagnant rehashing is bad, but there's a great deal to be said about not reinventing the wheel every time you have a new idea.