If they wait too long, the PS3 will begin looming on the horizon, causing even devout early adopters to question the intelligence of buying a stand-alone Blu-Ray unit.
Assuming the PS3 blu-ray player actually works, then it will be an issue for Sony to consider.
My friend bought a first generation DVD player and it's still functioning to this day. I think it even has some of the codecs built into it (MP3, AVIs, etc.). His PS2's DVD functionality went out long ago. And that was after he participated in the first recall.
Buy a game console for its games. Buy a media player for its media playing abilities. Let's stop encouraging the console makers to bloat their consoles. Concentrate on one thing and--for the love of the game--get it right!
First off, I'd like to say that I think the managing of games has come a long way from the beginning. In the beginning, it seemed like you needed one key inventor/genius player on a team to make a great game. It had to be someone's child. That's what would make great games. Nowadays, people know how to manage a team and have more experience. I think that this would lead the way to great games being made without the need of one star player. A solid team with mediocre people can make a great game.
Try this out, search the web for "creator of doom" and then search for "creator of world of warcraft" or "creator of oblivion." And I think you'll find that one person (John Carmack) is attributed with Doom while the topic isn't even addressed when talking about WoW or Oblivion.
I would also say that we, as consumers, are guilty of buying the same old crap over and over (Madden Football, anyone?). The producers know we'll do this and they cater to our needs with mediocre games. I would wager that today's games are a immensely more complex than games of yore, thus making it nearly impossible for a game to be entirely concieved in one person's head.
There are so many things working against a solo developer to get a game going. Aside from developing licenses for platforms skyrocketing, there are things like console wars that only compound the different platforms they made need to support it for. I know you probably know of a thousand good indie games for the computer, but any for a console? As far as computer games go, the customer base is often very demanding (we're nerds, what would you expect) and I think companies rely on people with specialized skills to put a product out at every step of the way. Is this bad? Not necessarily, there are still good games being produced--just not in the same fashion as before.
Along with the above contributing factors, great game developers today might not seem so great because innovation of years past is much more nostalgic to us. That's right, the same reason that we know Van Gogh & Picasso but can't name one contemporary artist says a lot about how nostalgia rules the art world. I look back on Kubrick's movies and say, "Christ, where have all the good directors gone?" when in reality I'll probably be worshipping Darren Aronofsky after he's dead just as much as Kubrick. Note, that was an example of my opinion--please do not hijack this thread with speculations of who's the better director. Unfortunately, the media won't cover someone until they're dead (Stanislaw Lem, anyone?) or at least that's how the American media seems to work.
Wait until these men age & die (or leave the business) then nostalgia kicks in and they are remembered as a "Game God."
That's odd, all the studies and anecdotal evidence presented to me suggest otherwise. I don't think the universities themselves are better, you're just more likely to make better contacts here than abroad. And the only reason for that is because Americans have money and a lot of them use it to invest (as Paul pointed out).
I've been through undergrad and grad schools in the US and I have to say that there were more than a few courses where I didn't learn anything.
Why is he asking about Universities in Europe? What about Eastern Europe or the Ukraine or Russia? What about the results to the programming challenge that everyone made a big fuss about? What about China's Universities?!
I'm not as confident about the US as Mr. Graham is. In fact, I'm kind of afraid when someone like him writes an article like this because it feels like we're creating a false sense of security as an industry leader.
Former RIAA head Hilary Rosen now believes that the RIAA is wrong by pursuing their lawsuits of individuals for using P2P programs.
Have you ever noticed that it's easier to assume the higher moral ground when your job is no longer riding on your views & political statements? Now for your entertainment, you can not only hear it from United States Generals but also former RIAA employees!
This seems like a not too complicated idea. You create an inexpensive operation that extracts what features you want from the sound data. Most importantly, you avoid features that are prone to randomness and entropy. It would take some research to figure out what the best features are and that's the audio fingerprint.
Since Google has more storage than you can imagine, they can most likely apply this fingerprinting technique to every episodes of every major show. Then they host the fingerprints in Google style and use their patented "Google Technology" to search it much the same way web content is searched.
Why would you want this? Well, there's the obvious marketing ploys. You know that people who watch Darma & Greg like to shop at Trader Joe's and like Odwalla brand food so you offer free episodes of Darma & Greg with only Trader Joe's & Odwalla episodes. You let the sponsors (Trader Joe's and Odwalla) foot the bill for the bandwidth/royalties or whatever.
The second useful implication would be cross suggesting shows to a user based on random sampling of the shows. You could allow users to watch old TV shows on the internet and then build a profile of them and their shows. Much how Amazon works, you could then suggest other shows, other DVDs of shows or perhaps build a site that randomly shows the user episodes that they might like based on prior viewings and statistics of other users.
The take away from this article for me was the fact that Google has vested interest in archiving and now television will be archived Google style.
I can't think of many other uses for this as the system isn't really "inferring" or "thinking" about data samples but is more so matching extracted features against a database. You know, voice recognition software allows for decent voice fingerprinting. You could most likely easily identify characters based on voices (but not actors due to stars like Hank Azaria who do multiple voices). Then you wouldn't need a database of all shows but more so just a database of character voice fingerprints. I would find this sort of approach more interesting but less specific and useful.
Aside from showing this off to your friends, it's not very useful. What I personally would like to see this new Google strategy applied to is all the tapes recorded of famous people like the United States Presidents. If you divided those up into sessions and I was listening to a particular tape of the Nixon set where he talked about the "new right", perhaps a database with references would then point me to some tapes or materials on Joe McCarthey's staunch views on the right.
I've been developing web apps for two years in a Fortune 500 company. I've run the gambit. ASPs, JSPs, Weblogic, Websphere, Plum Tree, Axis, Spring/Struts, etc. Let me point out the my easily identified cons of web development:
The technology & framework you're using will be obsolete in two months (see above list).
Your scope creep is worse than another project because web technologies (like Web 2.0) are constantly offering new features. The customer sees them and wants them... now.
A lot of times, you can add something graphical in two minutes and the customer might wet themselves when they see it. On the other hand, you can spend two months knocking out major requirements in back-end functionality and the customer will probably ask you why they're paying you since nothing's changed in the interface.
You need GUI experience and a sort of artistic knack (or at least a team member with this expertise).
You need a solid programming background for functionality (or at least a team member with this expertise).
You need to know a lot about security (or at least a team member with this expertise).
You need to know a lot about databases (or at least a team member with this expertise).
If you rely on team members for the above, you need to keep constant communication with them through every step of the development process--this is why it's often better for you to just learn everything.
You have to develop original content for the website. Seriously, where do people get their pictures for websites? I want licensed images of people standing around and using computers in my website... I had better get my digital camera and waver forms and hit the office cubicles.
A lot of the tools are FOSS. My company's FOSS Process has 20-25 control gates. Most of them are lawyers.
You sometimes have to deal with lawyers.
It's a tiered or layered framework that you work with & therefore to introduce a new functionality, it has to be implemented from front to back. This means that it's fairly difficult to have people in charge of a layer (like presentation-side versus functional server-side versus database) because they all have to play ball in order to get the functionality working.
You have to balance server load with what can safely be done on the client side.
Now, I know a lot of the above elements are present in other programming/IT jobs but I do find web development to be the most difficult form of programming.
The pros of web development:
A lot of jobs are available.
The pay is decent.
It doesn't sound very fun & yet I still continue to do it. If you want a suggestion, only take web development jobs on a large team that already experiences success. Learn how to fit in and then you can work on taking on challenging tasks. As you can see from above, I'm expected to do it all and then some. I've been forced to do things as a one man team and I don't like it. Don't enter into anything unless your duties are well defined and involve well built products, tools & technologies.
Most importantly, educate yourself about enhancements, advancements & changes and stay well rounded. Best thing I ever did was set up an Apache Tomcat server at my home and start tinkering around. Well, I suppose that's another story though...
Only to be prompted with a the 1.11 patch. I wait for it to install and then get into the game with my level 55 priest. I summon my undead horse but for some reason it's no longer called an undead horse, it's an "Undead Ford Mustang." Oh well, I can live with small changes to make my game cheaper.
I ride out of town and instantly am killed by a level 60 alliance rogue. Wait a minute, was he wearing a Starter jacket? And for some reason, instead of scrambling everything he's trying to say to me, he's just repeating "Do the Dew! To the EXTREME! etc."
My priest trainer is no longer a priest trainer but instead a "Scientologist Enlightener" that offers me an application for Scientology. Well, those high in-game ad bidders should make this game free, right?
I suddenly realize I'm no longer using Traveler's Backpacks but instead have "Jansport Bookbags." My alt's Boots of Swiftness are now "Nike Airs." In certain instances, you don't kill monsters, you kill Democrats and Ragnaros has been replaced with Hillary Clinton.
My chracter's rings have all been renamed "Stones of Jostens (GooooOOO Jostens!)" and everytime I disembark from a zeppelin or boat, the goblin tells me "Thank you for floating United Airlines!" and I realize why "ted" is painted all over the boats. My engineer can now make T-mobile phones for players with personalized ring tones because they're too annoying to be contained only in real life so let's add them to the virtual world!
I no longer "mail" items but instead have to visit the Fedex shop in major cities and stand in long lines. Oh, and when I get the mail, a huge AOL symbol appears on my screen with the "You've Got Mail" soundbite. And I no longer have a repair bill as long as I purchase my AllState equipment insurance at the bank in each city.
What's going on!? Well, at least the log-in server is stable... right? Then again, it doesn't really matter how stable it is if everyone stops using it.
So... tell me why this is a good thing again?
I once read an article on how to market to everyone--even poor people--by selecting key traits of their demographics. It's essentially profiling a user of an already existing product and identifying them as a key possible consumer for your product. And it makes me f*cking sick to see it so far widespread that it's going to happen in freaking video games which we're probably going to end up paying for anyways. Don't try to cover up your attitude towards the rest of mankind. It's evident that you lack a soul and will stop at nothing to market a product... whether it require you to destroy communities, communication, the environment or even a kid's gaming experience.
From the article:
Advertising has always targeted a powerful consumer alter ego: that hip, attractive, incredibly popular person just waiting to emerge (with the help of the advertised product) from an all-too-normal self.
The day had started off normally with SCO making blatant claims--this time about ownership of ELF.
The SCO team was cut-off in mid sentence by a surprise defendent, Will Farrell. He appeared and rushed into the courtroom declaring that his legal team for the motion picture "ELF" had already secured rights to anything with that name.
The court room erupted into commotion as a second prosecutor entered the room. The legal team representing the Earth Liberation Front entered the room demanding all three parties to pay royalties for using their registered trademark name and threatened to bomb the livestock holdings of all parties involved should E.L.F. lose the case.
At this point, a hushed silence befelled the room as Christopher Tolkien (representing The Tolkien Estate) entered the room. He swore that "before the dawning of the next day", all mis-uses of his father's invention would force him to use his "+5 lawyers of speech twisting" to rectify the situation and bring unto him large sums of moneys.
SCO then revealed that they had purchased the rights to use & create ELF from a group of folklorists based in Europe. The judge then dismissed Will Farrell, E.L.F. & Mr. Tolkien. The SCO lawyer cleared his throat and resumed his sentence, "...as I was saying, having invented ones and zeros, we own the rights to all software ever developed..."
Yes it's me, Jack Bauer. Now, I want you to turn yourself in. Don't be afraid, we'll just need you to spend some time with me in the friendly interrogation room. I just want answers. Nevermind that the last five people I interrogated were beaten & yelled at until they gave me answers they didn't know--it's standard CTU procedure.
NSA Researcher: "Herr Direktor, the results from mining Slashdot have just come in!" NSA Director Alexander: "Well, what have you found, son?" NSA Researcher: "Well, sir, according to the report, this multi-billion dollar project has revealed that TripMaster Monkey is insightful, informative & interesting... also that..." NSA Director Alexander: "Yes, what else?" NSA Researcher: "It's about Commander Taco, sir... he's gay. NSA Director Alexander: "My GOD! Get me the president! And make sure he's dishonerably discharged immediately!" NSA Researcher: "Yes SIR!"
How are they certain that the rules derived from these sites like MySpace or even Slashdot are even accurate? People post mis-information all the time & you can hardly call MySpace a reliable source for even seeding a semantic web. You can build a social network but even then it's hard because you're linking mostly aliases. Nowhere will you find my real name associated with my slashdot or myspace account--though you may be able to link them.
A would like to point out that you can buy very useful documents from the IDC through Amazon. For instance, this 10 page PDF entitled Attacking Application Infrastructure Configuration Complexity can be downloaded for a mere $3,500.00 USD. Yeah, there's around 8600 over priced market forecasts and analyses available on Amazon.
If you're looking for a 1 page PDF with romance, adventure & a criticism of day to day life through the eyes of an electronic device, check out the IDC's No PSP for the Holidays for a mere $750.00 USD. As you can see by the customer comments, this is a very satisfying purchase.
Does anyone actually pay this much money for these? If they do, how can they be sure that IDC knows the future?
Assuming the IDC does know what it's talking about, I find their analysis of mobile operating systems to be the most interesting. This is an area of OSs (or real time OSs) where Microsoft is losing footing. Symbian seems to be increasingly dominating that market with Microsoft & Linux neck and neck. By the way, don't bother to pay the $3500 USD for that article, the press release will suffice.
With the IDC also predicting mobile device sales to skyrocket, what does this tell you about Linux? Maybe Linux has lost the desktop war but it doesn't matter because the future is filled with concentrations on extremely small mobile devices and the servers that they connect to?
Wait, didn't it say that the house rejected the bill. Wouldn't that mean that the tolls will not be in place? Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but I thought for once The House stopped something that it should. Can someone clear me up on this. Am I backwards or are you complaining about a situation that isn't going to come to light since they rejected it?
The issue here is simply that instead of having something like 30,000 local franchise boards vying for your moneys, there will be an FCC commission dictating what will be the lowest price for you to access certain things on the internet.
If you read the article, this means that users will not have competing services (like how capitalism is supposed to work).
What was struck down was a proposal to make an amendment that would prevent providers for charging more for certain kinds of media & sites being accessed by users. What they wanted to protect you from is a scenario like you stream a lot of videos so you will now pay more than your neighbor who does not stream a lot of videos. The proposal for you to be paying an equal amount has been rejected & now you will begin to see ISPs opening up a salvo of charges to people who are simply accessing large amounts of information or visiting particular sites. It's up to your ISP to essentially decide what is tolled and what isn't now. May god have mercy on us all--because the Slashdot crowd is probably one that demands high bandwidth (if you're anything like me).
When I opened up this Slashdot article in Internet Explorer, the headline read "U.S. House Rejects Net Neutrality" but when I opened it up in Firefox it read "Wealthy Old White Men Reject Yet Another Form Of Equality."
In it's raw form, the internet is a communications device. You section it off--and you're going to piss people off. The more people you piss off, the more hackers you'll spawn. I for one hope that these "toll" lanes are violated right off the bat by the best and brightest of the Ukraine & Russia.
Shortly after news broke of Daniel's epic accomplishment, reality TV show offers started pouring in.
Among them, a proposal from ABC for a televised relationship with Paris Hilton for a month, a proposal from CBS to televise him living in close quarters with Terrell Owens for two months, NBC's proposal to televise him talking with Jack Thompson for three minutes & Fox's proposal to videotape him living for a year with a North American black bear that has been injected with rabies.
When asked which contract he'd be signing, Daniel revealed he was leaning towards Fox's proposal of starring in "World's Most Dangerous Roommate" citing that he'd take the rabid bear over the other three any day and was cautiously optimistic that his vine-swinging & pit jumping skills would come in handy.
Daniel has recently purchased a large mansion on loan and is confident that his endorsement contracts are only now starting with Twin Galaxies. Enjoy your fifteen minutes, Daniel!
According to IDC Research, there may be a rise in mobile operating system use and Linux will probably retain around 15% of the market share. Granted, this isn't for laptops but instead for things like phones or tablet PCs, it still probably holds some weight.
I doubt Lenovo would be changing their tune because it seems to be that (as of 2004), Linux runs on something like 2.4% of desktops and probably less laptops. Lenovo probably is imagining their products getting smaller and competing with cell phones & PDAs. In order to do that, they're going to need to support applications written for Linux or maybe even Symbian OSs so that they can steal users from the other side of the market.
Plain and simple: Laptops, PDAs, cell phones & tablet PCs are all about to vie for the "must have" device that does it all. Any manufacturer needs to be sure they can support the other side's applications if they want a piece of the market share. I think Lenovo knows the winds are changing and they are trying to support as much to satisfy their consumer. It's only natural that a buyer wants as many options as possible even though they have no intent whatsoever to utilize said options.
The article linked is a little hard to read but Playlist has a decent report on the story. Also note that MacWorld UK ran this story yesterday.
But this kind of raises an interesting question. When a company operates accross many countries, which country's law do they uphold?
We saw both Google & Yahoo! run into a bit of a jam with their services in China. They pretty much violated what would be considered ethical duties in the United States overseas. Is this wrong? Do they face legal implications in one country or the other?
With iTMS operating in the UK, the US & Norway, what are they to do? Fairplay seems to be violating laws in the UK & Norway while in the United States it seems to be law to have some form of DRM (and with lobbyist Herr RIAA in charge, that's not going to change anytime soon). Do they alter the way their service works in each country? If so, sign me up for some musikk!
Perhaps Apple will license Fairplay so that other devices can play the MP4 music... though I doubt it. They've got quite a racket going and I'm sure they don't want to hurt iPod sales anywhere. Maybe they'll have to better define a few EULAs in order to avoid this, I'm not a law-talking guy so I'm not sure.
I don't want an operating system with bells & whistles. I don't want an operating system that looks like it has a glass face or real marble or the most incredible anti-aliased font you've ever seen. What I want is an operating system that works and works efficiently.
There's no reason to preach to the choir, I have many machines (most of them Linux) that dual boot to many operating systems but you'll always need Windows because it's kind of the 'industry standard' for some people.
But when I look for an operating system the words 'form','function','marriage' & 'perfect' come to mind but not necessarily in that order. What I mean is, there's a balance I seek such that my hardware isn't stressed just to open a text editor yet the design is simple & friendly to the eye.
I run Windows XP professional & it works. It works well, which is surprising considering my history with the Windows operating system. It can be cut down to a pretty bare point of functionality and I like it.
So, Mr. Gates, why should I upgrade to Vista? Your "feature list" (the same damn thing I've been seeing for the last year) doesn't entice me at all. In fact, it scares me. You know what else scares me? It might not run the games I currently play... and I'm not even sure it will run on my current hardware. Hell, even IBM doesn't seem to want Vista.
Tons of cash for a bloated operating system? No thanks. I'll settle for Windows XP Professional.
DRM! You pay nothing because our DRM technology ensures artists receive royalties each time you play their song.
Here we have an innovative use of DRM such that it is restricting the decrypting of a particular file to ensure that the user is viewing ads or clicking ads to visit websites that then, in turn, pay the artists.
Why is this better than iTunes? Because with iTunes, the money comes directly out of your pocket but you're still forced to decrypt those files you're buying. The primary difference is that iTunes gives you the sense that you'll always be able to play that song after you've paid for it, but does anyone have this in writing?
I'm not sure but I would wager that the "Premium" tier service for Qtrax operates in much the same way as iTunes... with the music you pay for still being encrypted in mpq. I'll probably give the free tier of Qtrax a try... because it's free but I'm still going to buy media format discs. Why? Because I'm not depended on a particular company's product to decrypt that disc... at least not yet.
Having been in bands that only play the local scene, this new "P2P2A" just looks like another level of penetration preventing bands from "making it big." For a second there, it looked like the internet & P2P networks would allow starting bands to release their stuff for anyone if they so chose (something that used to require signing a label). Now, you have to be signed on a label and it has to be the right label with deals worked with iTunes or Qtrax to make your music available. If consumers are moved to use primarily one of these two programs for their music, how will they ever be exposed to bands on indie labels or bands not on labels at all?
What I'm trying to say is... it used to be about the music.
One of these days, I'm going to go to Slashdot and see that Google has unvealed that all their services are now a WebOS.
Go to Google, check your Gmail (stored in your user space), bring up saved searches, research with Google scholar, manage your saved Google webpages, edit your Google spreadsheets (stored in your user space), edit your Google blog in a file directory using Google Word, veiw your map locations in saved tabs of Google maps, start up Google Talk to chat with your friends, manage your finances with Google Finance, etc. I mean, it doesn't take much imagination to see how this would work. Other WebOS's out there try to do things like this but lack the applications and userspace/stability. I'd expect GoogleOS to give you 5~10GB worth of space and work through any browser.
This article is trying to get accross the point that Google is targeting MS Office but in my opinion I think that Google is targeting MS Windows and fleshing out their applications suites before they push for launching a user space or OS type web project. Perhaps all you'll need pretty soon to be productive is a machine with Linux installed & merely a good web browser?
I installed it but then actually read through everything--EULA & all. I was pretty disturbed. It sounded less & less like I was paying for music... and more & more like I was paying for the right to listen to the music as long as iTunes say fit.
Many of my friends depend on that little application for their music. Should iTunes decide to stop working for whatever reason, there wouldn't be much that the user could do. I would be worried about Apple facing RIAA lawsuits for selling music too cheap and then simply patching iTunes to charge every user another dime before they can listen to each track again. After all, didn't Apple just pull the $1 price out of their ass?
It's about time a government questions DRM & I would think it's about time consumers (on a mass scale) start questioning DRM. I told my friend about how DRM works with iTunes and she completely didn't understand so I told her to open an iTunes file with Windows Media Player... which didn't work, of course. I think that the concept of DRM is very shady and that consumers think they are buying the music when they're really just buying the ability to decrypt certain songs and the period for which they can decrypt those songs is unspecified.
DRM is supposed to be used as a tool that prevents users from sharing files or copying iPods to hard drives on the go. I think that DRM has a dual purpose though, one that may end up hurting consumers because a lot of them clearly don't understand what they've signed up for. If you have iTunes, I recommend burning all your music to CD in case that magical day happens when the company that owns your access program changes its mind... at least that way you can rip the hodgepodge of discs you have with CDex.
I still buy the archaic media on a physical disc. Why? Because I own that and it's not going anywhere. If they start putting DRM on CDs, I'm going to take my 1100 discs worth of ripped CDs (100% legal) and place a 300GB hard disk copy of it in a safe deposit box in a freaking bank. We pay for the rights to listen to that music. Technology has enabled us to listen to that music at home, in the car, while jogging or almost anytime we wish. I predict we're entering an age where the right to listen to the music is no longer sold--simply a temporary access fee with no ownership entailed.
Microprocessor Online has some an interesting analysis. Pay attention to page 8, where the PS2 "Emotion Engine" processor is compared to the PS3 Cell processor. This is an analyst report for the industry of microprocessors.
If you really want to dig into the details of the Cell processor, check out Sony's resources. You have to agree to a bunch of things to get to the pdfs but there's a lot of information in them. Another place you can find information is IBM's resource site which contains a lot of stuff including the programming handbook.
Personally, if he answered "no", I'm afraid that wouldn't be good enough for me.
He could lie but you have to remember that there are people in the NSA with an axe to grind.
He could get up there and contemplate lying. But what if he lied and the information was leaked from the NSA or released after his death that the collections did occur?
Hayden is an important man. Important men (when intelligent enough) are constantly worried about how history sees them after they die. I would wager that his fear of the public finding out that he lied to his country, defied justice and decieved the very people he swore to serve would be a greater weight than the importance of covering up a breach of privacy on that same populace.
The information itself may be classified but the fact of whether or not they collected it shouldn't be.
Why don't they ask the director of the NSA, Michael V. Hayden, whether or not their information was collected? They don't need the classified records, just to have him swear under oath (after checking appropriate databases) whether or not AT&T gave it to the NSA.
I would think a simple "yes" or "no" answer would be enough evidence and also keep the classified information concealed.
According to this new law, named after Ken Perlin, who gave birth to the concept, games should not be infinitely wide-ranging or allow the player to do anything he wants.
I've always secretly hoped that games would one day evolve to a point of them becoming specific to the user. This "mind game" that Ender played had seemingly limitless possibilities and also seemed to reflect the user's psyche back at them and cause them to make connections they never knew existed.
Maybe the next step for video game engines isn't graphics rendering but instead, stimulus/response rendering? Where by the game reacts to user input using rules, heuristics and a bit of randomness and the game states are loosely defined. Why is Spore so popular? Possibly because of the number of proposed outcomes of the game.
We're no where near this kind of game play yet but it may be possible in the future. Perlin's Law seems kind of like a restriction that I honestly wish game developers and publishers wouldn't try to adhere to. Only when people take chances and think outside of the box will we find true gems in the video games. I'm sick of repackaged games and ideas.
Video Games as the Next Art Medium?
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In Defense of Games
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· Score: 5, Interesting
Long ago, there was the art of spoken word. Whereby stories were passed on from generation to generation by simple speech. Some of these were true stories, some were factious but they were popular.
Eventually, writing & printed word became a popular means to pass on these same stories. Poetry, plays, odes, short stories & eventually novels caused these words to persist through time.
Then followed music and the art of telling a story through a song. Chorals, hymns, operas, symphonies & musicals would forever bring us stories--again both fiction and non-fiction--across time and space to our theatres and living rooms.
Motion pictures evolved and suddenly acting was more popular than ever. The actual events of a story were unfolded before our eyes and could be repeated over and over. These rose in popularity because all of the above could be recorded in the form of a movie (and many movies are remakes of one of the above).
Games are not much different but there's a new twist. The user can interact with the story. Sometimes on a very limited basis with no influence at all but, in others, the user feels/is integral to the storyline. A story is often told, some very basic, confusing and short (Tetris, Super Mario Bros, etc.) while others are much more in depth and consuming (Final Fantasy, World of Warcraft, etc).
Unfortunately, most video games are produced just to give the user a previous story with some limited involvement in it. Look at how many Lord of the Rings video games there are out there. Look at how many games are spurred from a successful book or movie. Is this really necessary? Do game makers lack so much imagination that they are relying upon movies or books for their storylines? If this is the case, then gaming is doomed to be a mere wanna-be art medium.
What are games missing to truly take hold among the masses & become a popular medium for entertainment? Some may argue it's already happened. Some may argue that games are the best form of story telling and factious tales of adventure.
I would disagree and so does a majority of the public. Novels, magazines, television & movies seem to be the preferred medium.
Gamers seem to be caught up with trivial aspects of games. Graphics, console wars & and status seeking has torn apart the community. Did Shakespeare bitch and moan about his lack of fonts? Did Plato refuse to write on shitty papyrus based paper? Did Mozart refuse to write music because he didn't have the right instruments yet--or a mixer for that matter? Did Fritz Lang stop making motion pictures because he didn't have color film and light meters?
No.
Why are we spending our time arguing over whether cell processing is the best for gaming when we should be talking about our favorite characters from our favorite games? Is this what gaming is about? Laughing at the Wii for its name and bickering about pixel shading and polygon counts? For Christ's sake, how could anyone not technologically inclined pick up a console without being abased by a gamer?
When technology catches up to games and graphics/CPU power/egos are out of the way, hopefully games can be made that truly aim at evoking emotion and telling a good story... or better yet, letting the user experience their own story & interacting with other users.
Slashdot Mirror
My friend bought a first generation DVD player and it's still functioning to this day. I think it even has some of the codecs built into it (MP3, AVIs, etc.). His PS2's DVD functionality went out long ago. And that was after he participated in the first recall.
Buy a game console for its games. Buy a media player for its media playing abilities. Let's stop encouraging the console makers to bloat their consoles. Concentrate on one thing and--for the love of the game--get it right!
First off, I'd like to say that I think the managing of games has come a long way from the beginning. In the beginning, it seemed like you needed one key inventor/genius player on a team to make a great game. It had to be someone's child. That's what would make great games. Nowadays, people know how to manage a team and have more experience. I think that this would lead the way to great games being made without the need of one star player. A solid team with mediocre people can make a great game.
Try this out, search the web for "creator of doom" and then search for "creator of world of warcraft" or "creator of oblivion." And I think you'll find that one person (John Carmack) is attributed with Doom while the topic isn't even addressed when talking about WoW or Oblivion.
I would also say that we, as consumers, are guilty of buying the same old crap over and over (Madden Football, anyone?). The producers know we'll do this and they cater to our needs with mediocre games. I would wager that today's games are a immensely more complex than games of yore, thus making it nearly impossible for a game to be entirely concieved in one person's head.
There are so many things working against a solo developer to get a game going. Aside from developing licenses for platforms skyrocketing, there are things like console wars that only compound the different platforms they made need to support it for. I know you probably know of a thousand good indie games for the computer, but any for a console? As far as computer games go, the customer base is often very demanding (we're nerds, what would you expect) and I think companies rely on people with specialized skills to put a product out at every step of the way. Is this bad? Not necessarily, there are still good games being produced--just not in the same fashion as before.
Along with the above contributing factors, great game developers today might not seem so great because innovation of years past is much more nostalgic to us. That's right, the same reason that we know Van Gogh & Picasso but can't name one contemporary artist says a lot about how nostalgia rules the art world. I look back on Kubrick's movies and say, "Christ, where have all the good directors gone?" when in reality I'll probably be worshipping Darren Aronofsky after he's dead just as much as Kubrick. Note, that was an example of my opinion--please do not hijack this thread with speculations of who's the better director. Unfortunately, the media won't cover someone until they're dead (Stanislaw Lem, anyone?) or at least that's how the American media seems to work.
Wait until these men age & die (or leave the business) then nostalgia kicks in and they are remembered as a "Game God."
But I don't agree with all of it: That's odd, all the studies and anecdotal evidence presented to me suggest otherwise. I don't think the universities themselves are better, you're just more likely to make better contacts here than abroad. And the only reason for that is because Americans have money and a lot of them use it to invest (as Paul pointed out).
I've been through undergrad and grad schools in the US and I have to say that there were more than a few courses where I didn't learn anything.
Why is he asking about Universities in Europe? What about Eastern Europe or the Ukraine or Russia? What about the results to the programming challenge that everyone made a big fuss about? What about China's Universities?!
I'm not as confident about the US as Mr. Graham is. In fact, I'm kind of afraid when someone like him writes an article like this because it feels like we're creating a false sense of security as an industry leader.
This seems like a not too complicated idea. You create an inexpensive operation that extracts what features you want from the sound data. Most importantly, you avoid features that are prone to randomness and entropy. It would take some research to figure out what the best features are and that's the audio fingerprint.
Since Google has more storage than you can imagine, they can most likely apply this fingerprinting technique to every episodes of every major show. Then they host the fingerprints in Google style and use their patented "Google Technology" to search it much the same way web content is searched.
Why would you want this? Well, there's the obvious marketing ploys. You know that people who watch Darma & Greg like to shop at Trader Joe's and like Odwalla brand food so you offer free episodes of Darma & Greg with only Trader Joe's & Odwalla episodes. You let the sponsors (Trader Joe's and Odwalla) foot the bill for the bandwidth/royalties or whatever.
The second useful implication would be cross suggesting shows to a user based on random sampling of the shows. You could allow users to watch old TV shows on the internet and then build a profile of them and their shows. Much how Amazon works, you could then suggest other shows, other DVDs of shows or perhaps build a site that randomly shows the user episodes that they might like based on prior viewings and statistics of other users.
The take away from this article for me was the fact that Google has vested interest in archiving and now television will be archived Google style.
I can't think of many other uses for this as the system isn't really "inferring" or "thinking" about data samples but is more so matching extracted features against a database. You know, voice recognition software allows for decent voice fingerprinting. You could most likely easily identify characters based on voices (but not actors due to stars like Hank Azaria who do multiple voices). Then you wouldn't need a database of all shows but more so just a database of character voice fingerprints. I would find this sort of approach more interesting but less specific and useful.
Aside from showing this off to your friends, it's not very useful. What I personally would like to see this new Google strategy applied to is all the tapes recorded of famous people like the United States Presidents. If you divided those up into sessions and I was listening to a particular tape of the Nixon set where he talked about the "new right", perhaps a database with references would then point me to some tapes or materials on Joe McCarthey's staunch views on the right.
- The technology & framework you're using will be obsolete in two months (see above list).
- Your scope creep is worse than another project because web technologies (like Web 2.0) are constantly offering new features. The customer sees them and wants them
... now.
- A lot of times, you can add something graphical in two minutes and the customer might wet themselves when they see it. On the other hand, you can spend two months knocking out major requirements in back-end functionality and the customer will probably ask you why they're paying you since nothing's changed in the interface.
- You need GUI experience and a sort of artistic knack (or at least a team member with this expertise).
- You need a solid programming background for functionality (or at least a team member with this expertise).
- You need to know a lot about security (or at least a team member with this expertise).
- You need to know a lot about databases (or at least a team member with this expertise).
- If you rely on team members for the above, you need to keep constant communication with them through every step of the development process--this is why it's often better for you to just learn everything.
- You have to develop original content for the website. Seriously, where do people get their pictures for websites? I want licensed images of people standing around and using computers in my website
... I had better get my digital camera and waver forms and hit the office cubicles.
- A lot of the tools are FOSS. My company's FOSS Process has 20-25 control gates. Most of them are lawyers.
- You sometimes have to deal with lawyers.
- It's a tiered or layered framework that you work with & therefore to introduce a new functionality, it has to be implemented from front to back. This means that it's fairly difficult to have people in charge of a layer (like presentation-side versus functional server-side versus database) because they all have to play ball in order to get the functionality working.
- You have to balance server load with what can safely be done on the client side.
Now, I know a lot of the above elements are present in other programming/IT jobs but I do find web development to be the most difficult form of programming.The pros of web development:
- A lot of jobs are available.
- The pay is decent.
It doesn't sound very fun & yet I still continue to do it. If you want a suggestion, only take web development jobs on a large team that already experiences success. Learn how to fit in and then you can work on taking on challenging tasks. As you can see from above, I'm expected to do it all and then some. I've been forced to do things as a one man team and I don't like it. Don't enter into anything unless your duties are well defined and involve well built products, tools & technologies.Most importantly, educate yourself about enhancements, advancements & changes and stay well rounded. Best thing I ever did was set up an Apache Tomcat server at my home and start tinkering around. Well, I suppose that's another story though
I ride out of town and instantly am killed by a level 60 alliance rogue. Wait a minute, was he wearing a Starter jacket? And for some reason, instead of scrambling everything he's trying to say to me, he's just repeating "Do the Dew! To the EXTREME! etc."
My priest trainer is no longer a priest trainer but instead a "Scientologist Enlightener" that offers me an application for Scientology. Well, those high in-game ad bidders should make this game free, right?
I suddenly realize I'm no longer using Traveler's Backpacks but instead have "Jansport Bookbags." My alt's Boots of Swiftness are now "Nike Airs." In certain instances, you don't kill monsters, you kill Democrats and Ragnaros has been replaced with Hillary Clinton.
My chracter's rings have all been renamed "Stones of Jostens (GooooOOO Jostens!)" and everytime I disembark from a zeppelin or boat, the goblin tells me "Thank you for floating United Airlines!" and I realize why "ted" is painted all over the boats. My engineer can now make T-mobile phones for players with personalized ring tones because they're too annoying to be contained only in real life so let's add them to the virtual world!
I no longer "mail" items but instead have to visit the Fedex shop in major cities and stand in long lines. Oh, and when I get the mail, a huge AOL symbol appears on my screen with the "You've Got Mail" soundbite. And I no longer have a repair bill as long as I purchase my AllState equipment insurance at the bank in each city.
What's going on!? Well, at least the log-in server is stable
So
I once read an article on how to market to everyone--even poor people--by selecting key traits of their demographics. It's essentially profiling a user of an already existing product and identifying them as a key possible consumer for your product. And it makes me f*cking sick to see it so far widespread that it's going to happen in freaking video games which we're probably going to end up paying for anyways. Don't try to cover up your attitude towards the rest of mankind. It's evident that you lack a soul and will stop at nothing to market a product
From the article: To which I reply, you make me sick.
The day had started off normally with SCO making blatant claims--this time about ownership of ELF.
The SCO team was cut-off in mid sentence by a surprise defendent, Will Farrell. He appeared and rushed into the courtroom declaring that his legal team for the motion picture "ELF" had already secured rights to anything with that name.
The court room erupted into commotion as a second prosecutor entered the room. The legal team representing the Earth Liberation Front entered the room demanding all three parties to pay royalties for using their registered trademark name and threatened to bomb the livestock holdings of all parties involved should E.L.F. lose the case.
At this point, a hushed silence befelled the room as Christopher Tolkien (representing The Tolkien Estate) entered the room. He swore that "before the dawning of the next day", all mis-uses of his father's invention would force him to use his "+5 lawyers of speech twisting" to rectify the situation and bring unto him large sums of moneys.
SCO then revealed that they had purchased the rights to use & create ELF from a group of folklorists based in Europe. The judge then dismissed Will Farrell, E.L.F. & Mr. Tolkien. The SCO lawyer cleared his throat and resumed his sentence, "...as I was saying, having invented ones and zeros, we own the rights to all software ever developed..."
Seriously, when will this SCO shit end?
Yes it's me, Jack Bauer. Now, I want you to turn yourself in. Don't be afraid, we'll just need you to spend some time with me in the friendly interrogation room. I just want answers. Nevermind that the last five people I interrogated were beaten & yelled at until they gave me answers they didn't know--it's standard CTU procedure.
NSA Researcher: "Herr Direktor, the results from mining Slashdot have just come in!" ... also that ..." ... he's gay.
NSA Director Alexander: "Well, what have you found, son?"
NSA Researcher: "Well, sir, according to the report, this multi-billion dollar project has revealed that TripMaster Monkey is insightful, informative & interesting
NSA Director Alexander: "Yes, what else?"
NSA Researcher: "It's about Commander Taco, sir
NSA Director Alexander: "My GOD! Get me the president! And make sure he's dishonerably discharged immediately!"
NSA Researcher: "Yes SIR!"
How are they certain that the rules derived from these sites like MySpace or even Slashdot are even accurate? People post mis-information all the time & you can hardly call MySpace a reliable source for even seeding a semantic web. You can build a social network but even then it's hard because you're linking mostly aliases. Nowhere will you find my real name associated with my slashdot or myspace account--though you may be able to link them.
A would like to point out that you can buy very useful documents from the IDC through Amazon. For instance, this 10 page PDF entitled Attacking Application Infrastructure Configuration Complexity can be downloaded for a mere $3,500.00 USD. Yeah, there's around 8600 over priced market forecasts and analyses available on Amazon.
If you're looking for a 1 page PDF with romance, adventure & a criticism of day to day life through the eyes of an electronic device, check out the IDC's No PSP for the Holidays for a mere $750.00 USD. As you can see by the customer comments, this is a very satisfying purchase.
Does anyone actually pay this much money for these? If they do, how can they be sure that IDC knows the future?
Assuming the IDC does know what it's talking about, I find their analysis of mobile operating systems to be the most interesting. This is an area of OSs (or real time OSs) where Microsoft is losing footing. Symbian seems to be increasingly dominating that market with Microsoft & Linux neck and neck. By the way, don't bother to pay the $3500 USD for that article, the press release will suffice.
With the IDC also predicting mobile device sales to skyrocket, what does this tell you about Linux? Maybe Linux has lost the desktop war but it doesn't matter because the future is filled with concentrations on extremely small mobile devices and the servers that they connect to?
If you read the article, this means that users will not have competing services (like how capitalism is supposed to work).
What was struck down was a proposal to make an amendment that would prevent providers for charging more for certain kinds of media & sites being accessed by users. What they wanted to protect you from is a scenario like you stream a lot of videos so you will now pay more than your neighbor who does not stream a lot of videos. The proposal for you to be paying an equal amount has been rejected & now you will begin to see ISPs opening up a salvo of charges to people who are simply accessing large amounts of information or visiting particular sites. It's up to your ISP to essentially decide what is tolled and what isn't now. May god have mercy on us all--because the Slashdot crowd is probably one that demands high bandwidth (if you're anything like me).
When I opened up this Slashdot article in Internet Explorer, the headline read "U.S. House Rejects Net Neutrality" but when I opened it up in Firefox it read "Wealthy Old White Men Reject Yet Another Form Of Equality."
In it's raw form, the internet is a communications device. You section it off--and you're going to piss people off. The more people you piss off, the more hackers you'll spawn. I for one hope that these "toll" lanes are violated right off the bat by the best and brightest of the Ukraine & Russia.
Shortly after news broke of Daniel's epic accomplishment, reality TV show offers started pouring in.
Among them, a proposal from ABC for a televised relationship with Paris Hilton for a month, a proposal from CBS to televise him living in close quarters with Terrell Owens for two months, NBC's proposal to televise him talking with Jack Thompson for three minutes & Fox's proposal to videotape him living for a year with a North American black bear that has been injected with rabies.
When asked which contract he'd be signing, Daniel revealed he was leaning towards Fox's proposal of starring in "World's Most Dangerous Roommate" citing that he'd take the rabid bear over the other three any day and was cautiously optimistic that his vine-swinging & pit jumping skills would come in handy.
Daniel has recently purchased a large mansion on loan and is confident that his endorsement contracts are only now starting with Twin Galaxies. Enjoy your fifteen minutes, Daniel!
According to IDC Research, there may be a rise in mobile operating system use and Linux will probably retain around 15% of the market share. Granted, this isn't for laptops but instead for things like phones or tablet PCs, it still probably holds some weight.
I doubt Lenovo would be changing their tune because it seems to be that (as of 2004), Linux runs on something like 2.4% of desktops and probably less laptops. Lenovo probably is imagining their products getting smaller and competing with cell phones & PDAs. In order to do that, they're going to need to support applications written for Linux or maybe even Symbian OSs so that they can steal users from the other side of the market.
Plain and simple: Laptops, PDAs, cell phones & tablet PCs are all about to vie for the "must have" device that does it all. Any manufacturer needs to be sure they can support the other side's applications if they want a piece of the market share. I think Lenovo knows the winds are changing and they are trying to support as much to satisfy their consumer. It's only natural that a buyer wants as many options as possible even though they have no intent whatsoever to utilize said options.
The article linked is a little hard to read but Playlist has a decent report on the story. Also note that MacWorld UK ran this story yesterday.
... though I doubt it. They've got quite a racket going and I'm sure they don't want to hurt iPod sales anywhere. Maybe they'll have to better define a few EULAs in order to avoid this, I'm not a law-talking guy so I'm not sure.
But this kind of raises an interesting question. When a company operates accross many countries, which country's law do they uphold?
We saw both Google & Yahoo! run into a bit of a jam with their services in China. They pretty much violated what would be considered ethical duties in the United States overseas. Is this wrong? Do they face legal implications in one country or the other?
With iTMS operating in the UK, the US & Norway, what are they to do? Fairplay seems to be violating laws in the UK & Norway while in the United States it seems to be law to have some form of DRM (and with lobbyist Herr RIAA in charge, that's not going to change anytime soon). Do they alter the way their service works in each country? If so, sign me up for some musikk!
Perhaps Apple will license Fairplay so that other devices can play the MP4 music
I am a simple man.
... and I'm not even sure it will run on my current hardware. Hell, even IBM doesn't seem to want Vista.
I don't want an operating system with bells & whistles. I don't want an operating system that looks like it has a glass face or real marble or the most incredible anti-aliased font you've ever seen. What I want is an operating system that works and works efficiently.
There's no reason to preach to the choir, I have many machines (most of them Linux) that dual boot to many operating systems but you'll always need Windows because it's kind of the 'industry standard' for some people.
But when I look for an operating system the words 'form','function','marriage' & 'perfect' come to mind but not necessarily in that order. What I mean is, there's a balance I seek such that my hardware isn't stressed just to open a text editor yet the design is simple & friendly to the eye.
I run Windows XP professional & it works. It works well, which is surprising considering my history with the Windows operating system. It can be cut down to a pretty bare point of functionality and I like it.
So, Mr. Gates, why should I upgrade to Vista? Your "feature list" (the same damn thing I've been seeing for the last year) doesn't entice me at all. In fact, it scares me. You know what else scares me? It might not run the games I currently play
Tons of cash for a bloated operating system? No thanks. I'll settle for Windows XP Professional.
Why is this better than iTunes? Because with iTunes, the money comes directly out of your pocket but you're still forced to decrypt those files you're buying. The primary difference is that iTunes gives you the sense that you'll always be able to play that song after you've paid for it, but does anyone have this in writing?
I'm not sure but I would wager that the "Premium" tier service for Qtrax operates in much the same way as iTunes
Having been in bands that only play the local scene, this new "P2P2A" just looks like another level of penetration preventing bands from "making it big." For a second there, it looked like the internet & P2P networks would allow starting bands to release their stuff for anyone if they so chose (something that used to require signing a label). Now, you have to be signed on a label and it has to be the right label with deals worked with iTunes or Qtrax to make your music available. If consumers are moved to use primarily one of these two programs for their music, how will they ever be exposed to bands on indie labels or bands not on labels at all?
What I'm trying to say is
One of these days, I'm going to go to Slashdot and see that Google has unvealed that all their services are now a WebOS.
Go to Google, check your Gmail (stored in your user space), bring up saved searches, research with Google scholar, manage your saved Google webpages, edit your Google spreadsheets (stored in your user space), edit your Google blog in a file directory using Google Word, veiw your map locations in saved tabs of Google maps, start up Google Talk to chat with your friends, manage your finances with Google Finance, etc. I mean, it doesn't take much imagination to see how this would work. Other WebOS's out there try to do things like this but lack the applications and userspace/stability. I'd expect GoogleOS to give you 5~10GB worth of space and work through any browser.
This article is trying to get accross the point that Google is targeting MS Office but in my opinion I think that Google is targeting MS Windows and fleshing out their applications suites before they push for launching a user space or OS type web project. Perhaps all you'll need pretty soon to be productive is a machine with Linux installed & merely a good web browser?
I've never used iTunes.
... and more & more like I was paying for the right to listen to the music as long as iTunes say fit.
... which didn't work, of course. I think that the concept of DRM is very shady and that consumers think they are buying the music when they're really just buying the ability to decrypt certain songs and the period for which they can decrypt those songs is unspecified.
... at least that way you can rip the hodgepodge of discs you have with CDex.
I installed it but then actually read through everything--EULA & all. I was pretty disturbed. It sounded less & less like I was paying for music
Many of my friends depend on that little application for their music. Should iTunes decide to stop working for whatever reason, there wouldn't be much that the user could do. I would be worried about Apple facing RIAA lawsuits for selling music too cheap and then simply patching iTunes to charge every user another dime before they can listen to each track again. After all, didn't Apple just pull the $1 price out of their ass?
It's about time a government questions DRM & I would think it's about time consumers (on a mass scale) start questioning DRM. I told my friend about how DRM works with iTunes and she completely didn't understand so I told her to open an iTunes file with Windows Media Player
DRM is supposed to be used as a tool that prevents users from sharing files or copying iPods to hard drives on the go. I think that DRM has a dual purpose though, one that may end up hurting consumers because a lot of them clearly don't understand what they've signed up for. If you have iTunes, I recommend burning all your music to CD in case that magical day happens when the company that owns your access program changes its mind
I still buy the archaic media on a physical disc. Why? Because I own that and it's not going anywhere. If they start putting DRM on CDs, I'm going to take my 1100 discs worth of ripped CDs (100% legal) and place a 300GB hard disk copy of it in a safe deposit box in a freaking bank. We pay for the rights to listen to that music. Technology has enabled us to listen to that music at home, in the car, while jogging or almost anytime we wish. I predict we're entering an age where the right to listen to the music is no longer sold--simply a temporary access fee with no ownership entailed.
Digital Rights Management, indeed!
Microprocessor Online has some an interesting analysis. Pay attention to page 8, where the PS2 "Emotion Engine" processor is compared to the PS3 Cell processor. This is an analyst report for the industry of microprocessors.
If you really want to dig into the details of the Cell processor, check out Sony's resources. You have to agree to a bunch of things to get to the pdfs but there's a lot of information in them. Another place you can find information is IBM's resource site which contains a lot of stuff including the programming handbook.
He could get up there and contemplate lying. But what if he lied and the information was leaked from the NSA or released after his death that the collections did occur?
Hayden is an important man. Important men (when intelligent enough) are constantly worried about how history sees them after they die. I would wager that his fear of the public finding out that he lied to his country, defied justice and decieved the very people he swore to serve would be a greater weight than the importance of covering up a breach of privacy on that same populace.
The information itself may be classified but the fact of whether or not they collected it shouldn't be.
Why don't they ask the director of the NSA, Michael V. Hayden, whether or not their information was collected? They don't need the classified records, just to have him swear under oath (after checking appropriate databases) whether or not AT&T gave it to the NSA.
I would think a simple "yes" or "no" answer would be enough evidence and also keep the classified information concealed.
I've always secretly hoped that games would one day evolve to a point of them becoming specific to the user. This "mind game" that Ender played had seemingly limitless possibilities and also seemed to reflect the user's psyche back at them and cause them to make connections they never knew existed.
Maybe the next step for video game engines isn't graphics rendering but instead, stimulus/response rendering? Where by the game reacts to user input using rules, heuristics and a bit of randomness and the game states are loosely defined. Why is Spore so popular? Possibly because of the number of proposed outcomes of the game.
We're no where near this kind of game play yet but it may be possible in the future. Perlin's Law seems kind of like a restriction that I honestly wish game developers and publishers wouldn't try to adhere to. Only when people take chances and think outside of the box will we find true gems in the video games. I'm sick of repackaged games and ideas.
Long ago, there was the art of spoken word. Whereby stories were passed on from generation to generation by simple speech. Some of these were true stories, some were factious but they were popular.
... or better yet, letting the user experience their own story & interacting with other users.
Eventually, writing & printed word became a popular means to pass on these same stories. Poetry, plays, odes, short stories & eventually novels caused these words to persist through time.
Then followed music and the art of telling a story through a song. Chorals, hymns, operas, symphonies & musicals would forever bring us stories--again both fiction and non-fiction--across time and space to our theatres and living rooms.
Motion pictures evolved and suddenly acting was more popular than ever. The actual events of a story were unfolded before our eyes and could be repeated over and over. These rose in popularity because all of the above could be recorded in the form of a movie (and many movies are remakes of one of the above).
Games are not much different but there's a new twist. The user can interact with the story. Sometimes on a very limited basis with no influence at all but, in others, the user feels/is integral to the storyline. A story is often told, some very basic, confusing and short (Tetris, Super Mario Bros, etc.) while others are much more in depth and consuming (Final Fantasy, World of Warcraft, etc).
Unfortunately, most video games are produced just to give the user a previous story with some limited involvement in it. Look at how many Lord of the Rings video games there are out there. Look at how many games are spurred from a successful book or movie. Is this really necessary? Do game makers lack so much imagination that they are relying upon movies or books for their storylines? If this is the case, then gaming is doomed to be a mere wanna-be art medium.
What are games missing to truly take hold among the masses & become a popular medium for entertainment? Some may argue it's already happened. Some may argue that games are the best form of story telling and factious tales of adventure.
I would disagree and so does a majority of the public. Novels, magazines, television & movies seem to be the preferred medium.
Gamers seem to be caught up with trivial aspects of games. Graphics, console wars & and status seeking has torn apart the community. Did Shakespeare bitch and moan about his lack of fonts? Did Plato refuse to write on shitty papyrus based paper? Did Mozart refuse to write music because he didn't have the right instruments yet--or a mixer for that matter? Did Fritz Lang stop making motion pictures because he didn't have color film and light meters?
No.
Why are we spending our time arguing over whether cell processing is the best for gaming when we should be talking about our favorite characters from our favorite games? Is this what gaming is about? Laughing at the Wii for its name and bickering about pixel shading and polygon counts? For Christ's sake, how could anyone not technologically inclined pick up a console without being abased by a gamer?
When technology catches up to games and graphics/CPU power/egos are out of the way, hopefully games can be made that truly aim at evoking emotion and telling a good story