Space exploration isn't just about science or nationalism. It's also about humanity and it's desire for exploration. What's the point of learning all about the cosmos unless we can somehow put it to use for humanity? And part of that science is the effect of space travel and other-world habitation on humans. Eventually, humanity will be living out in space, and we will be better and richer for it.
I consider that a fine investment of my tax dollars.
I completely agree. And with most issues like this, I think the market will decide what levels of advertising are appropriate for the content you're playing for. Reviewers will make a note of obtrusive or inappropriate ads in their reviews, and gamers (if they feel the same way as us) will decide to simply NOT buy that particular game. Unless we're talking about contemporary sports games (which look weird *without* advertising) or substantially reduced game costs (e.g. Burger King), I'll pass on any game that clobbers me over the head with ads. My $60 is more than enough to pay for the game's development costs, thank you. And if not, then the developer needs to figure out how to sell more games or lower production costs.
...for all the egregious mistakes they've made in marketing the PS3, they're doing one thing that neither Nintendo nor Microsoft (XNA aside) has really managed: luring fantastic independent and artistic game developers onto the platform. (XNA aside)... Isn't that a pretty big caveat, seeing as that's exactly the point of XNA? Nothing has come to fruition yet, but I think we'll be seeing homebrew games coming to the public at some point. Still, you're point about a lack of original titles is well made, if slightly exaggerated (there have been a number of original games released to Live).
Do you wonder why you see a lot of ports and casual games on Xbox live arcade? Let's list the top ten Arcade titles:
1. Sonic The Hedgehog 2
2. Bomberman LIVE
3. Frogger
4. Bankshot Billiards 2(TM)
5. UNO
6. Streets of Rage 2
7. Puzzle Fighter HD
8. Sonic The Hedgehog
9. TMNT 1989 Arcade
10. Worms
Not an original IP in the bunch. The fact is, as a rule, old arcade game ports are probably going to sell a lot more copies than some brand new, highly artistic / creative endeavor. It's a sad fact that many highly creative, well-reviewed games simply don't sell all that well. Game devs have to eat too, and people's purchases are dictating the direction of future development.
Yep, that's true. But it's a bit like comparing basic free over-the-air TV with a premium satellite or cable subscription. Yes, there's a price difference, but there's also a difference in the service you receive. I don't think you can argue the fact that Xbox is the current king of online console gaming. The PS3 has the hottest hardware, the Wii is probably the most innovative and family-friendly. Each console has their strengths.
That being said, I'm a 360 *owner*, not a 360 *proponent*. I could care less who "wins the console wars". The best possible 'victory' will be no victory at all. Competition is healthy and best for consumers in the long run. That's why I'm glad to see Nintendo and (maybe) MS overtaking Sony this round a bit, but I certainly don't want them knocked out of the game. I only own a 360 at the moment, but I'm certain I'll eventually own all three consoles. I'll be picking up a Wii soon, and I'm just waiting for perhaps some must-have exclusive Japanese RPGs to hit the PS3 before I pick one up (they're still coming out for PS2 unfortunately).
I've still got some PS2 games I haven't played yet, though. I'd certainly prefer my future PS3 be able to play them.
Gears of War and BioShock both have *very* muted palettes compared to Halo. Gears' is pretty much about monochromatic shades of grey/brown, while Bioshock is constrained to indoor environments, and pretty dark / subdued ones at best. Don't get me wrong, I loved the look of both these games as well. But it's much, much harder to do a broad range of lighting and coloring scenarios, and the Halo 3 engine does it pretty damn well.
If you've ever defended yourself against a frivolous lawsuit, you'd know this sort of publicity is anything but "free". Right now, Jack Thompson has cost MS a non-trivial amount of money, because you can bet MS is already putting lawyers to work on this in preparation. Those lawyers' time is worth real money.
I'm not trying to gin up sympathy for MS or anything, I just want to dispel this ridiculous notion that getting legally harassed is "free publicity" by any stretch of the imagination.
I've been in the game industry 10 years, and have shipped nearly as many titles. I've crunched to some degree at previous jobs, yes, but in general, the industry is starting to grow up. More and more game development houses are starting to recognize that its best for the bottom line to avoid insane crunches, because experienced programmers, artists, and designers are pretty valuable assets. I'm currently working for a company that develops a popular MMO (not the MOST popular one, in case you're wondering). In the two years I've been with this company, I haven't yet crunched, with the exception of two weekends worth of work getting a Gold Master disk ready (since I'm the coder responsible for that).
So, have the good times made up for the bad times? Undoubtedly. It's been a fantastic career for me so far, and I can't imagine doing anything else. I earn a great salary, have never had trouble finding employment, and enjoy the flexible hours and relaxed atmosphere. No, of course nothing is perfect, but what in life is? There are a number of game developers who have obviously had bad experiences (I've heard my fair share from colleagues), but honestly, you have to take some responsibility for your own career as well. In other words, if an employer is sucking the life force out of you, then: suck it up for the first year or two and get a shipped title, then leave and find greener pastures at a new company. Odd as it may seem, there ARE actually employers out there who don't believe driving their employees like slaves.
BTW, speaking to the primary topic, our company has the luxury of choosing from among the industry's best candidates, and we've hired (and continue to hire) quite a few students from Digipen (not sure about other schools). I think either the game dev school or the traditional four-year is just fine - it really boils down to the individual anyhow, how talented and motivated they are. Most game development companies are going to look at your qualifications as an individual. If they really are that snobby about what particular school you did or didn't attend... well, frankly, I don't think you'd want to work there anyhow.
A company called Syncrosoft already makes a USB-dongle copy protection system. I have several virtual audio instruments / libraries that use this. I haven't had any problems with it so far on my music workstation, but hardware-based protection schemes seem just as likely to cause problems for users, based on the issues I've seen crop up in related tech support forums. Still, it does seem vastly superior to software-based schemes in general.
It would be a bit tougher to get gamers to buy into such a scheme with $50 purchases, considering the keys as present cost about $100 - and the fact that transferring the key is not quite as transparent an operation as one would hope for - but that might improve with time. Incidentally, these keys have transferable licenses, so there's no need for multiple keys. They can all go to one master key.
Really, they let you transfer it for only $200? Wow! What a steal. Didn't the lifetime service already cost you $300 on top of the Tivo unit cost? TiVo made it very clear that the lifetime subscription was tied to the box, not the purchaser. But the fact of the matter is that I'm already ahead of those paying a monthly fee by purchasing the lifetime subscription over three years ago. Why would I balk at paying another $200? In a few years, I'll once again be ahead of those paying a monthly fee.
Scoff if you like, but I enjoy my full service TiVo, and I'm willing to pay a slightly premium price for it. If you're happy with the basic service, more power to you. It's nice they offer that option for those that don't want the extra expense.
And as a final rant I'm pretty ticked off that Tivo changes the terms of the deal on the fly by "upgrading" my Tivo with such "useful" features as disabling the 30 second skip. BTW, I can't recall the 30-second skip - I'm guessing I either never used it or I got my TiVo after they had already removed the feature. That is slightly annoying if you were used to using it. Was it removed to placate advertisers, or was there some other reason?
Actually, most people couldn't do the math to make a decent halo capital ship battle. That's why they hire game programmers - doing the hard math so the game player doesn't have to.
Not to mention that one shot destroying your big ship would make many people cry and be really bitchy. And that's why they hire game designers, to balance the game so people have fun playing.
Honestly, from the perspective of someone inside the industry - ideas are a dime a dozen (no offense, I do like the idea). The real trick is: 1) Finding someone willing to finance development of (your ultimate game idea) 2) Putting together a team with the creative and technical know-how to actually create and produce (your ultimate game idea)
There are a lot of really creative people that have great game ideas, but publishers are pretty leery (as one might imagine) to plunk down a few million bucks on a revolutionary (read: risky) game design, especially if it's not coming from a designer (or established studio) with an established track record of success.
It looks pretty good, doesn't it? A few more games like that, throw in a few exclusive RPGs, mix in a price drop, and Sony may just sucker me into getting a PS3. Maybe...
WooT! I never actually finished Morrowind, and I was severely disappointed by Oblivion's auto-scaling system. I think I'm going to go back and enjoy the game - now in glorious HD with full-screen anti-aliasing. This is one of several games I was really hoping they'd eventually get working. I'm glad to see my patience was rewarded.
Yeah, that's true. I guess I'm talking in future tense when past tense is probably more appropriate. To answer my own question then, it seems that Sony did indeed do a better job of backward compatibility than MS did. It seems like about 2/3 of my old Xbox games still aren't supported.
In our world, though, hardware is an expression of an algorithm, said algorithm being implementable in software as well. Despite the hype of the next-gen machines, they are NOT powerful enough to completely emulate all hardware functions of the last gen consoles in software, specifically the rendering capabilities. Your example is slightly skewed, as most emulators of old game machines emulate much less powerful machines, and so are able to emulate them 100% in software with no real performance issues.
What gets trickier is when you must instead write an emulation layer that maps instructions originally designed for one set of hardware onto a second set of hardware, both of which had their own quirks. Making this even harder is the fact that the PS2 was a largely to-the-metal programming job. There was very little in the way of any sort of software abstraction there (an OS, essentially), unlike on the current generation of hardware. This will make it trickier for Sony.
I'm not saying it's impossible - just that it's very tricky to do (I know, you did say this). Microsoft has discovered how tough emulation is (seeing such a small percentage of games is currently emulated on the 360) - we'll see if Sony can do a better job of it. That being said, there are some advantages with software emulation + using current hardware. One big one is that graphics rendered with more modern GPUs can take advantage of higher screen resolutions, full screen AA, etc.
Public is not a page buried in a web site. Public is just the same as the way they advertised no faults, in newspapers, on the radio and on the TV, a full retraction. That's a nice re-definition of the word 'public'. You've inspired me to change my sig.
Pelagius believed that everybody at all times had the ability to make free decisions, and therefore there was no excuse for any criminal behaviour whatsoever. Nowadays we live in a world in which neurologists and psychologists have demonstrated that this is fundamentally flawed, that much of our decision making is unconscious, and that in reality there is rarely such a thing as a free choice. The views of Pelagius are associated only with far-right evangelical fundamentalist Christians and ditto ditto ditto Muslims, and affect many American legal systems largely because the former group had so much influence in creating them. However, I guess that the great majority of neurologists, experimental psychologists and, in fact, theologians would reject them. From this point of view, Heinlein was massively wrong and was, in fact, allying himself with people whose other views he did not share. Interesting how you dismiss any dissenting opinions as belonging to "far-right evangelical fundamentalist Christians and ditto ditto ditto Muslims". I would tend to dispute the notion that "psychologists have demonstrated that this is fundamentally flawed". Demonstrated how, exactly? As you point out, we're dealing with soft sciences for the most part here, which, by nature, can never really be 'proven'. Please note that I'm not saying that I subscribe to these viewpoints, as I'm convinced that brain chemistry can certainly alter and is in many ways a cause of certain behaviors... but, I also highly dispute the similarly-simplistic tendencies of many in the "soft sciences" to attribute destructive behavioral patterns to outside influences or internal chemistry, overlooking the capacity of intelligence to override base tendencies (which most humans do all the time), and to make moral distinctions, with decisions based on those distinctions.
In reality, one could explain ALL decision-making as nothing but chemical reactions or a response to past experiences (depending if you're a neurologist or a psychologist), but ultimately, I think that's an all-too convenient way for some to dodge the issue of personal responsibility and accountability for one's own behaviors and actions.
Together with the warranty should be a public apology to all the customers who suffered problems, who were lied too and whose problems were not fixed. You mean like:
If we have let any of you down in the experience you have had with your Xbox 360, we sincerely apologize. We are taking responsibility and are making these changes to ensure that every Xbox 360 owner continues to have a great experience. http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/13876/Microsoft-Exte nds-Xbox-360-Warranty-to-Three-Years/
A law huh? How about this - do a quick search on the net before plunking down $50-60 on a new game. Or, if you do get snookered and get a game with advertising in it, simply don't buy games from that company anymore.
Is this really something we want to get lawmakers involved in? You know... the same lawmakers that seem to think that video games turn normal children into rampaging, sniper-wielding death-dealers after a few intense afternoons of gaming?
Enchanted Arms was a nice turn-based JRPG from From Software on the 360 (it was also released recently on the PS3). Eternal Sonata is turn based too, but there's no release date yet outside Japan, except that it will be released. Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey (once again, turn based) look really cool and are almost here (August for BD, LO in December). Enchanted Arms was not a horrible game, but I'm not so sure I'd even call it 'nice'. It looked very last-gen (the environments were horribly bland - compare to Oblivion and you'll see what I mean), the English voice-acting was so bad, I had to switch to the Japanese soundtrack, and the game balance was pretty lacking (they give you all these cool golems, but I pretty much played the entire game with only humans in the party).
I have to admit, Obvlivion disappointed me deeply with its flawed auto-scaling (pretty much obliterating any real challenge or need to level up, or the satisfaction of coming back to smack around some enemies that were killing your before).
So... I'm pretty much pinning my hopes on some of the 360s upcoming RPGs, such as Blue Dragon and Mass Effect. All in all, I guess I may eventually get a PS3, but only if they've got a very solid lineup of exclusive RPGs. And when they're cheaper.
Oops! Disk duplication took 1 day extra. DOH! It's September 26th shipping.
Or alternatively, your beta testing and bug fixing just had 1 less day to complete, because you told everyone you're going to ship to customer hands on exactly September 25th morning and your boxing and packaging plant will miss your run if you don't. I bet one major bug just got reclassified minor.
I'm not being pessimistic - this is what the real state of affairs is out there. You have been lucky in your job picks so far. I'm not saying that everything was perfect where I worked (lord knows I wouldn't call some of my job picks 'lucky'), but the road to gold master was a typically a fairly controlled process for the most part (at least it seemed so from my vantage-point), especially between the points when the final release dates were announced (any schedule slips had long since occured) and when customers got the product. Having shipped a number of games, for instance, no one was under any illusions about how long certain processes took.
All I was saying is that this was my experience at several different game companies. I'm not claiming to represent the norm of the industry based on just a few examples, but in all fairness, neither should you. The most we can logically conclude is that there's a pretty big discrepancy in how well companies seems to manage this process.
I'm not sure if you've ever worked in the console development business, but having been through that process myself (I'm a programmer btw), there's a few things you might not be aware of. First, it's not ridiculous to propose an exact release date, even specifying morning or afternoon. What's happening here is the culmination of a long chain of events, and proper synchronization of all aspects of the release are crucial. The software development, while the most important element of these events, is typically completed many weeks in advance of the actual launch.
Here's a few elements in that process:
Q&A process / final signoff Gold master creation (at least 6-8 weeks before launch day for our projects if I recall correctly) TRC certification ESRB board ratings Disk duplication Packaging and Boxing Warehousing and Distribution Marketing (print / TV / Movie / Web advertising) Release day events & promotions ACTUAL GAME RELEASE
So, there are a lot of non-software-related tasks that must be lined up months in advance. So no, it's not all that crazy to actually schedule the launch date exactly. And (I'm sorry you seem to have had bad experiences here), in companies I've worked for, development actually slowed down prior to gold master, as we tended to get *extremely* conservative about what we would be willing to change for fear of destabilizing the product.
Regarding your "what really happens" list: * Yes, hours typically increase. But the way this occurs is vastly different from company to company. Some companies that I've worked for have had generous time-off policies post-release to allow employees to unwind after shipping, and my current company doesn't really believing in massive crunches at all, which is pretty refreshing. Still, you'll often find (at most any company) a certain number of employees who stay longer hours because they want to produce the best game they can and are willing to put the time in to make it happen, not because a manager is standing over them with a whip. * I've not had your experience with feature bloat. If anything, the project leaders at the places I've worked have often been quite ruthless about cutting fluff, much to the dismay of the devs who worked on those features. * Well, how else do you propose to deal with a bug like "tree in level 8 overlaps slightly with castle wall"? Is this type of bug worth delaying the game over? Triage is an important part of the QA process - yes, it can be abused, but if you're actually reclassifying bugs in order to ship the game, then your company has process problem. Once again, my experience, for the most part, differs than yours.
So, yes, these kinds of things do happen, but they are not industry-standard practices. You've apparently just had some bad luck in choosing companies.
I wonder how we'll deal with this (societally, I mean) when cell phone implants, and eventually cybernetic implants, are common? This has pretty huge implications for any sort of knowledge-based testing or competition, be it for school, job-certification, or chess championships.
Slashdot Mirror
Space exploration isn't just about science or nationalism. It's also about humanity and it's desire for exploration. What's the point of learning all about the cosmos unless we can somehow put it to use for humanity? And part of that science is the effect of space travel and other-world habitation on humans. Eventually, humanity will be living out in space, and we will be better and richer for it.
I consider that a fine investment of my tax dollars.
I completely agree. And with most issues like this, I think the market will decide what levels of advertising are appropriate for the content you're playing for. Reviewers will make a note of obtrusive or inappropriate ads in their reviews, and gamers (if they feel the same way as us) will decide to simply NOT buy that particular game. Unless we're talking about contemporary sports games (which look weird *without* advertising) or substantially reduced game costs (e.g. Burger King), I'll pass on any game that clobbers me over the head with ads. My $60 is more than enough to pay for the game's development costs, thank you. And if not, then the developer needs to figure out how to sell more games or lower production costs.
...for all the egregious mistakes they've made in marketing the PS3, they're doing one thing that neither Nintendo nor Microsoft (XNA aside) has really managed: luring fantastic independent and artistic game developers onto the platform. (XNA aside)... Isn't that a pretty big caveat, seeing as that's exactly the point of XNA? Nothing has come to fruition yet, but I think we'll be seeing homebrew games coming to the public at some point. Still, you're point about a lack of original titles is well made, if slightly exaggerated (there have been a number of original games released to Live).Do you wonder why you see a lot of ports and casual games on Xbox live arcade? Let's list the top ten Arcade titles:
1. Sonic The Hedgehog 2
2. Bomberman LIVE
3. Frogger
4. Bankshot Billiards 2(TM)
5. UNO
6. Streets of Rage 2
7. Puzzle Fighter HD
8. Sonic The Hedgehog
9. TMNT 1989 Arcade
10. Worms
Not an original IP in the bunch. The fact is, as a rule, old arcade game ports are probably going to sell a lot more copies than some brand new, highly artistic / creative endeavor. It's a sad fact that many highly creative, well-reviewed games simply don't sell all that well. Game devs have to eat too, and people's purchases are dictating the direction of future development.
Yep, that's true. But it's a bit like comparing basic free over-the-air TV with a premium satellite or cable subscription. Yes, there's a price difference, but there's also a difference in the service you receive. I don't think you can argue the fact that Xbox is the current king of online console gaming. The PS3 has the hottest hardware, the Wii is probably the most innovative and family-friendly. Each console has their strengths.
That being said, I'm a 360 *owner*, not a 360 *proponent*. I could care less who "wins the console wars". The best possible 'victory' will be no victory at all. Competition is healthy and best for consumers in the long run. That's why I'm glad to see Nintendo and (maybe) MS overtaking Sony this round a bit, but I certainly don't want them knocked out of the game. I only own a 360 at the moment, but I'm certain I'll eventually own all three consoles. I'll be picking up a Wii soon, and I'm just waiting for perhaps some must-have exclusive Japanese RPGs to hit the PS3 before I pick one up (they're still coming out for PS2 unfortunately).
I've still got some PS2 games I haven't played yet, though. I'd certainly prefer my future PS3 be able to play them.
Gears of War and BioShock both have *very* muted palettes compared to Halo. Gears' is pretty much about monochromatic shades of grey/brown, while Bioshock is constrained to indoor environments, and pretty dark / subdued ones at best. Don't get me wrong, I loved the look of both these games as well. But it's much, much harder to do a broad range of lighting and coloring scenarios, and the Halo 3 engine does it pretty damn well.
If you've ever defended yourself against a frivolous lawsuit, you'd know this sort of publicity is anything but "free". Right now, Jack Thompson has cost MS a non-trivial amount of money, because you can bet MS is already putting lawyers to work on this in preparation. Those lawyers' time is worth real money.
I'm not trying to gin up sympathy for MS or anything, I just want to dispel this ridiculous notion that getting legally harassed is "free publicity" by any stretch of the imagination.
http://www.arena.net/
I've been in the game industry 10 years, and have shipped nearly as many titles. I've crunched to some degree at previous jobs, yes, but in general, the industry is starting to grow up. More and more game development houses are starting to recognize that its best for the bottom line to avoid insane crunches, because experienced programmers, artists, and designers are pretty valuable assets. I'm currently working for a company that develops a popular MMO (not the MOST popular one, in case you're wondering). In the two years I've been with this company, I haven't yet crunched, with the exception of two weekends worth of work getting a Gold Master disk ready (since I'm the coder responsible for that).
So, have the good times made up for the bad times? Undoubtedly. It's been a fantastic career for me so far, and I can't imagine doing anything else. I earn a great salary, have never had trouble finding employment, and enjoy the flexible hours and relaxed atmosphere. No, of course nothing is perfect, but what in life is? There are a number of game developers who have obviously had bad experiences (I've heard my fair share from colleagues), but honestly, you have to take some responsibility for your own career as well. In other words, if an employer is sucking the life force out of you, then: suck it up for the first year or two and get a shipped title, then leave and find greener pastures at a new company. Odd as it may seem, there ARE actually employers out there who don't believe driving their employees like slaves.
BTW, speaking to the primary topic, our company has the luxury of choosing from among the industry's best candidates, and we've hired (and continue to hire) quite a few students from Digipen (not sure about other schools). I think either the game dev school or the traditional four-year is just fine - it really boils down to the individual anyhow, how talented and motivated they are. Most game development companies are going to look at your qualifications as an individual. If they really are that snobby about what particular school you did or didn't attend... well, frankly, I don't think you'd want to work there anyhow.
A company called Syncrosoft already makes a USB-dongle copy protection system. I have several virtual audio instruments / libraries that use this. I haven't had any problems with it so far on my music workstation, but hardware-based protection schemes seem just as likely to cause problems for users, based on the issues I've seen crop up in related tech support forums. Still, it does seem vastly superior to software-based schemes in general.
It would be a bit tougher to get gamers to buy into such a scheme with $50 purchases, considering the keys as present cost about $100 - and the fact that transferring the key is not quite as transparent an operation as one would hope for - but that might improve with time. Incidentally, these keys have transferable licenses, so there's no need for multiple keys. They can all go to one master key.
Scoff if you like, but I enjoy my full service TiVo, and I'm willing to pay a slightly premium price for it. If you're happy with the basic service, more power to you. It's nice they offer that option for those that don't want the extra expense. And as a final rant I'm pretty ticked off that Tivo changes the terms of the deal on the fly by "upgrading" my Tivo with such "useful" features as disabling the 30 second skip. BTW, I can't recall the 30-second skip - I'm guessing I either never used it or I got my TiVo after they had already removed the feature. That is slightly annoying if you were used to using it. Was it removed to placate advertisers, or was there some other reason?
Honestly, from the perspective of someone inside the industry - ideas are a dime a dozen (no offense, I do like the idea). The real trick is:
1) Finding someone willing to finance development of (your ultimate game idea)
2) Putting together a team with the creative and technical know-how to actually create and produce (your ultimate game idea)
There are a lot of really creative people that have great game ideas, but publishers are pretty leery (as one might imagine) to plunk down a few million bucks on a revolutionary (read: risky) game design, especially if it's not coming from a designer (or established studio) with an established track record of success.
It looks pretty good, doesn't it? A few more games like that, throw in a few exclusive RPGs, mix in a price drop, and Sony may just sucker me into getting a PS3. Maybe...
WooT! I never actually finished Morrowind, and I was severely disappointed by Oblivion's auto-scaling system. I think I'm going to go back and enjoy the game - now in glorious HD with full-screen anti-aliasing. This is one of several games I was really hoping they'd eventually get working. I'm glad to see my patience was rewarded.
Yeah, that's true. I guess I'm talking in future tense when past tense is probably more appropriate. To answer my own question then, it seems that Sony did indeed do a better job of backward compatibility than MS did. It seems like about 2/3 of my old Xbox games still aren't supported.
What gets trickier is when you must instead write an emulation layer that maps instructions originally designed for one set of hardware onto a second set of hardware, both of which had their own quirks. Making this even harder is the fact that the PS2 was a largely to-the-metal programming job. There was very little in the way of any sort of software abstraction there (an OS, essentially), unlike on the current generation of hardware. This will make it trickier for Sony.
I'm not saying it's impossible - just that it's very tricky to do (I know, you did say this). Microsoft has discovered how tough emulation is (seeing such a small percentage of games is currently emulated on the 360) - we'll see if Sony can do a better job of it. That being said, there are some advantages with software emulation + using current hardware. One big one is that graphics rendered with more modern GPUs can take advantage of higher screen resolutions, full screen AA, etc.
In reality, one could explain ALL decision-making as nothing but chemical reactions or a response to past experiences (depending if you're a neurologist or a psychologist), but ultimately, I think that's an all-too convenient way for some to dodge the issue of personal responsibility and accountability for one's own behaviors and actions.
A law huh? How about this - do a quick search on the net before plunking down $50-60 on a new game. Or, if you do get snookered and get a game with advertising in it, simply don't buy games from that company anymore.
Is this really something we want to get lawmakers involved in? You know... the same lawmakers that seem to think that video games turn normal children into rampaging, sniper-wielding death-dealers after a few intense afternoons of gaming?
I love that argument...
"Doctor, I broke my arm. Can you help me?"
"Pfft! See Mr. Faldworth over there? He's dying of cancer! What are you complaining about?"
I have to admit, Obvlivion disappointed me deeply with its flawed auto-scaling (pretty much obliterating any real challenge or need to level up, or the satisfaction of coming back to smack around some enemies that were killing your before).
So... I'm pretty much pinning my hopes on some of the 360s upcoming RPGs, such as Blue Dragon and Mass Effect. All in all, I guess I may eventually get a PS3, but only if they've got a very solid lineup of exclusive RPGs. And when they're cheaper.
Or alternatively, your beta testing and bug fixing just had 1 less day to complete, because you told everyone you're going to ship to customer hands on exactly September 25th morning and your boxing and packaging plant will miss your run if you don't. I bet one major bug just got reclassified minor.
I'm not being pessimistic - this is what the real state of affairs is out there. You have been lucky in your job picks so far. I'm not saying that everything was perfect where I worked (lord knows I wouldn't call some of my job picks 'lucky'), but the road to gold master was a typically a fairly controlled process for the most part (at least it seemed so from my vantage-point), especially between the points when the final release dates were announced (any schedule slips had long since occured) and when customers got the product. Having shipped a number of games, for instance, no one was under any illusions about how long certain processes took.
All I was saying is that this was my experience at several different game companies. I'm not claiming to represent the norm of the industry based on just a few examples, but in all fairness, neither should you. The most we can logically conclude is that there's a pretty big discrepancy in how well companies seems to manage this process.
I'm not sure if you've ever worked in the console development business, but having been through that process myself (I'm a programmer btw), there's a few things you might not be aware of. First, it's not ridiculous to propose an exact release date, even specifying morning or afternoon. What's happening here is the culmination of a long chain of events, and proper synchronization of all aspects of the release are crucial. The software development, while the most important element of these events, is typically completed many weeks in advance of the actual launch.
Here's a few elements in that process:
Q&A process / final signoff
Gold master creation (at least 6-8 weeks before launch day for our projects if I recall correctly)
TRC certification
ESRB board ratings
Disk duplication
Packaging and Boxing
Warehousing and Distribution
Marketing (print / TV / Movie / Web advertising)
Release day events & promotions
ACTUAL GAME RELEASE
So, there are a lot of non-software-related tasks that must be lined up months in advance. So no, it's not all that crazy to actually schedule the launch date exactly. And (I'm sorry you seem to have had bad experiences here), in companies I've worked for, development actually slowed down prior to gold master, as we tended to get *extremely* conservative about what we would be willing to change for fear of destabilizing the product.
Regarding your "what really happens" list:
* Yes, hours typically increase. But the way this occurs is vastly different from company to company. Some companies that I've worked for have had generous time-off policies post-release to allow employees to unwind after shipping, and my current company doesn't really believing in massive crunches at all, which is pretty refreshing. Still, you'll often find (at most any company) a certain number of employees who stay longer hours because they want to produce the best game they can and are willing to put the time in to make it happen, not because a manager is standing over them with a whip.
* I've not had your experience with feature bloat. If anything, the project leaders at the places I've worked have often been quite ruthless about cutting fluff, much to the dismay of the devs who worked on those features.
* Well, how else do you propose to deal with a bug like "tree in level 8 overlaps slightly with castle wall"? Is this type of bug worth delaying the game over? Triage is an important part of the QA process - yes, it can be abused, but if you're actually reclassifying bugs in order to ship the game, then your company has process problem. Once again, my experience, for the most part, differs than yours.
So, yes, these kinds of things do happen, but they are not industry-standard practices. You've apparently just had some bad luck in choosing companies.
I wonder how we'll deal with this (societally, I mean) when cell phone implants, and eventually cybernetic implants, are common? This has pretty huge implications for any sort of knowledge-based testing or competition, be it for school, job-certification, or chess championships.