by Ted Rueter, Assistant Professor of Political Science at DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana
Now clearly, here's a fella with his finger firmly on the pulse of the gaming medium, and, for that matter, fully qualified to discuss its relevance in terms of higher ed.
If I teach programming, can I spout off about the high cost of drug prices and get a front-page href at webmd.com?
Can we get the opinions of some staff members at the Culinary Institute of America on this matter next?
Re:Slashdot needs to stop posting Gamasutra articl
on
The End of Copyright
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· Score: 1
It seems that in the rush to react to articles, Slashdotters miss the point that they're not the target audience.
But they SHOULD be..and that's the real problem.
Maybe Slashdotters as a whole aren't making games, but they sure as hell are playing them, in droves. Just because they can't all do the requisite API calls and such (though surely many can), Adams isn't talking about the technical side of things, he's talking about distribution models, ownership, that sort of thing. In that arena there's no reasons to think the average/.-er can't be very well informed. You assume they're rushing to judgement just because they can type fast. Hell, they're responding by citing case law in some cases.
So why, exactly, is what Adams saying relevant for creators but irrelevant for consumers?
For that matter, ok, now we know who Adams is...so what? The postings are attacking his ideas, not the man himself. Your point that no one here knows who he is proves that.
So now we know he's spent "20 years in the games industry", which in itself could be contested (the last game he worked on was...?), but let's accept it. Again, so what? Does that make his wacky idea somehow more relevant?
An un-informed and/or bad idea is simply that, regardless of who is spouting it, regardless of how many layers of pedantic pseudo-intellectualism you wrap it in. This kind of discourse, it isn't advancing anything, and nothing could be more irrelevant to the average gamer than the writings of people like Adams.
Stop linking Gamasutra articles, I agree. I agree/.-ers aren't the target audience. But for articles like this, they SHOULD be, and until GS figures that out, turn them off. The gaming intellectuals are speaking to each other, and that's about it. It's a closed system that furthers nothing expect, possibly, their own careers.
On an unrelated matter, all respect to Raph, the next person who writes a blog/article/book exploring the issue of 'what is fun?' gets taken out back:)
Except that games are different from movies, tv and book. Different medium, different impact. Watching something happen vs. making it happen. That doesn't make the medium BAD, but acknowledge that it's different. Acknowledge that playing Silent Hill 4 gives you a different experience than watching The Fog or what have you. Tv and Movies may be immersive, but they aren't interactive, and that's a critical difference that we need to start paying more attention to.
Look, we hate the people that are attacking the medium independent of the message, but to ignore its differences are also doing it a disservice. If put to it I'd let a child watch a violent movie long before I'd let them play a violent video game. I'd let them see a dozen horror movies before playing GTA.
Because I'm 30, married, no mental issues that I know of, and GTA:VC damn sure affected me. And I loved VC, loved it to death. But I remember playing for a few hours, then heading out, and I was sitting in my truck at a stop light. I turned and looked at the car next to me and found myself thinking, out of nowhere, for about half a second, that car is nicer than mine, I should take it.
Half a second, then it was gone. But it was there. And that was a wake-up call. That has NEVER happened with any non-interactive media I've experienced in my life. And I was in my late 20's at the time. It was eerie.
No other stable, rational people out there had any kind of similar experience? Not one? Uh-huh.
That's the power of the medium, folks. Use it for good or evil, but face up to what it is, and what it is is different from everything else.
Try this for me: fire up Burnout 3. Play for a good 30-45 minutes, straight (a drop in the bucket of how long most people would play for) then turn it off, jump in your car, and start driving. See if it doesn't change the way you see the road. You say it doesn't, I'll respect that, but try it first.
You don't have to hate games to say that they affect us differently. I love them BECAUSE they do. But we need to start acknowledging it.
which is free publicity that he couldn't buy anywhere else (hot coffee, anyone?).
You're helping this guy in spades by continuing to cover idiocy on a level I've not seen since the last time my wife watched Entertainment Tonight. You're giving time and energy to this...hell, so am I, and I'm not happy about it.
Stores are written, they propagate to boards like this, then to others, ad infinitum, and by the end of the day a whole lot more people know who this clown is, and not everyone will see him for what he is. Maybe one of them calls him with a case of their own. More fuel on the fire, and we (those with minds) lose another foothold.
Nothing wrong with lawyers getting rich. Nothing wrong with all of us getting rich. But not like this.
So stop helping him. It's hard, I know, to turn a blind eye in the face of ignorance, greed, stupidity, greed, and greed, on this kind of scale, but it's the best tactic we've got. As he flails his arms wildly and jumps up and down and bellows fire and brimstone from various orifices, pay no mind, and watch his powers begin to fade. He's not worth your time and you know it. Treat this corpuscle as what he is.
Slashdot Mirror
No doubt there is an issue here. Still, from TFA:
by Ted Rueter, Assistant Professor of Political Science at DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana
Now clearly, here's a fella with his finger firmly on the pulse of the gaming medium, and, for that matter, fully qualified to discuss its relevance in terms of higher ed.
If I teach programming, can I spout off about the high cost of drug prices and get a front-page href at webmd.com?
Can we get the opinions of some staff members at the Culinary Institute of America on this matter next?
It seems that in the rush to react to articles, Slashdotters miss the point that they're not the target audience.
/.-er can't be very well informed. You assume they're rushing to judgement just because they can type fast. Hell, they're responding by citing case law in some cases.
/.-ers aren't the target audience. But for articles like this, they SHOULD be, and until GS figures that out, turn them off. The gaming intellectuals are speaking to each other, and that's about it. It's a closed system that furthers nothing expect, possibly, their own careers.
:)
But they SHOULD be..and that's the real problem.
Maybe Slashdotters as a whole aren't making games, but they sure as hell are playing them, in droves. Just because they can't all do the requisite API calls and such (though surely many can), Adams isn't talking about the technical side of things, he's talking about distribution models, ownership, that sort of thing. In that arena there's no reasons to think the average
So why, exactly, is what Adams saying relevant for creators but irrelevant for consumers?
For that matter, ok, now we know who Adams is...so what? The postings are attacking his ideas, not the man himself. Your point that no one here knows who he is proves that.
So now we know he's spent "20 years in the games industry", which in itself could be contested (the last game he worked on was...?), but let's accept it. Again, so what? Does that make his wacky idea somehow more relevant?
An un-informed and/or bad idea is simply that, regardless of who is spouting it, regardless of how many layers of pedantic pseudo-intellectualism you wrap it in. This kind of discourse, it isn't advancing anything, and nothing could be more irrelevant to the average gamer than the writings of people like Adams.
Stop linking Gamasutra articles, I agree. I agree
On an unrelated matter, all respect to Raph, the next person who writes a blog/article/book exploring the issue of 'what is fun?' gets taken out back
Except that games are different from movies, tv and book. Different medium, different impact. Watching something happen vs. making it happen. That doesn't make the medium BAD, but acknowledge that it's different. Acknowledge that playing Silent Hill 4 gives you a different experience than watching The Fog or what have you. Tv and Movies may be immersive, but they aren't interactive, and that's a critical difference that we need to start paying more attention to.
Look, we hate the people that are attacking the medium independent of the message, but to ignore its differences are also doing it a disservice. If put to it I'd let a child watch a violent movie long before I'd let them play a violent video game. I'd let them see a dozen horror movies before playing GTA.
Because I'm 30, married, no mental issues that I know of, and GTA:VC damn sure affected me. And I loved VC, loved it to death. But I remember playing for a few hours, then heading out, and I was sitting in my truck at a stop light. I turned and looked at the car next to me and found myself thinking, out of nowhere, for about half a second, that car is nicer than mine, I should take it.
Half a second, then it was gone. But it was there. And that was a wake-up call. That has NEVER happened with any non-interactive media I've experienced in my life. And I was in my late 20's at the time. It was eerie.
No other stable, rational people out there had any kind of similar experience? Not one? Uh-huh.
That's the power of the medium, folks. Use it for good or evil, but face up to what it is, and what it is is different from everything else.
Try this for me: fire up Burnout 3. Play for a good 30-45 minutes, straight (a drop in the bucket of how long most people would play for) then turn it off, jump in your car, and start driving. See if it doesn't change the way you see the road. You say it doesn't, I'll respect that, but try it first.
You don't have to hate games to say that they affect us differently. I love them BECAUSE they do. But we need to start acknowledging it.
which is free publicity that he couldn't buy anywhere else (hot coffee, anyone?).
You're helping this guy in spades by continuing to cover idiocy on a level I've not seen since the last time my wife watched Entertainment Tonight. You're giving time and energy to this...hell, so am I, and I'm not happy about it.
Stores are written, they propagate to boards like this, then to others, ad infinitum, and by the end of the day a whole lot more people know who this clown is, and not everyone will see him for what he is. Maybe one of them calls him with a case of their own. More fuel on the fire, and we (those with minds) lose another foothold.
Nothing wrong with lawyers getting rich. Nothing wrong with all of us getting rich. But not like this.
So stop helping him. It's hard, I know, to turn a blind eye in the face of ignorance, greed, stupidity, greed, and greed, on this kind of scale, but it's the best tactic we've got. As he flails his arms wildly and jumps up and down and bellows fire and brimstone from various orifices, pay no mind, and watch his powers begin to fade. He's not worth your time and you know it. Treat this corpuscle as what he is.