And whose job is it to act on this research? The politicians who are trying to silence it or the industry heads who stand to lose a lot of money if they change their policies?
Yeah, the scientist are biased. Biased by their better understanding of the situation.
I think that's what he means by saying it needs to be presented as a sport. Think about how many people pay ridiculous amounts of money to go see a pro-football game... They could much more cheaply see a college or high school game and probably with greater ease. The problem is, sports aren't actually fun to watch for most of the spectators. People like pro-sports because they feel connected to a team or to certain players and the outcome of the game actually becomes meaningul in that way.
As it stands now, which of the world's best gamers wins the most games doesn't matter to anyone at all, but if they each had fans then the competition between the resulting camps would fuel interest and spectation. Gambling would probably help get that going, as much as I would hate to see gambling over games.
I'm pretty sure that this is the next step in a long running, logical progression that's been gaining steam as the MMOGs have been increasing in complexity, popularity, and stability.
As for the full article, that list isn't really as complicated as one would think. The only major issue with any of the points (besides harrassment, I guess) is that the game money can be traded for real money. Except in 2L, this is frowned upon by the developers and I think it usually is outlawed in the EULA. With that in mind, it seems that only 2L is actually in any trouble since the other MMOGs' property has no official value.
2L has three potential paths, as far as I can tell at this point:
1. Drop the act: stop marketting it as an extnesion of the real world and make major policy changes regarding the relationship between in game property and real world property. This would probably be met with outrage from the community so I doubt it will happen.
2. Go all out: declare the game a true extension of the real world. This creates a whole new set of problems that are actually even worse than the one's that exist right now. Who has sovereignty over the game? What kinds of taxes are on transactions between game currency and real currency? What about minting money? I dunno about 2L, where does their money come from? There would have to be monitors for inflation to protect RL currency. What f the game crashes? This event, although even more unlikely, would mean that a set of real laws would have to be created addressing all those things, but then one must also consider if the laws affect a real person or just their avatar, etc. This would be a terrible mess and would more likely be the result of a very slow transition that a single decision.
3. Let the lawmakers work it out. This is most likely going to be the case, unfortunately. The old men in congress have absolutely no idea what goes on inside a game and have probably never played a MMOG. Yet chances are, they will be the ones who eventually decide what kind of laws are placed within any given game world. Actually no, they'll create an all encompassing set of laws that affect all game worlds, which is even worse.
1. I think that the best thing that could happen for the exploration of space at the moment would be the discovery of some fabulously lucrative resource on a planet or in comets, meteors, asteroids, etc. Nothing serious will get done in the private sector until some significant avenue of wealth opens up. There will, of course, be long term drawbacks in having corporations rule outer space (besides Earth), but I can't imagine the ball getting rolling in any other manner in my lifetime.
2. On that note, is anyone else profoundly upset about the fact that they will never visit a lush, colonized (or otherwise inhabited) planet?
3. With all the problems that plauge space agencies worldwide, they certainly do seem to hit big when they don't miss entirely. I wonder if they purposely underestimate their mission lengths in order to pad their portfolio.
I agree that art is subjective, but I think we should keep money as a different issue. Excepting ridiculously famous classics, most serious art loses more money than it makes.
That being said, games are art because countless gamers say they are. As the number of gamers increases and as the average age of the gamer increases with it, the number of people who agree with this point will rise. Ten or twenty years from now when all the people who hate games are retiring and we take over the world, the fossils like this guy with be wondering why nobody is paying attention to their movie reviews while we're all too busy with our Katamari and crumpet parties to get to the theatre.
I absolutely agree with that, my point is that the standards for AO now are fine. A game with porn in it should be rated AO because that's what it is. My concern is over the fact that they want some games that are currently being rated M as AO. I'm not a GTA fan, but I'm sure a lot of adults would be pissed if the next installment was watered down ("sweat" replacing blood a la Mortal Kombat, for example) because the standards became more strict.
I would guess that every adult gamer who cares about deciding what games they can or can not play gives a "flying fig."
It would seem at first as if forcing the ESRB to rate more things as AO would only affect minors, the fact of the matter is made quite clear even in the article summary. Developers don't want to make AO games, so tightenning the standards means more censored games for people of all ages.
This kid from my town, Jim Clifford, is playing DOA there. Apparently they picked him up in a limo and drove him the 45 mins to NYC for the qualifiers. I'm pretty jealous, but I can outscore him often enough when we team up in Halo... That counts for something, right?
...right?
He goes by the name NefariousSage if anyone wants to check out his profile. Anyway, he's the only USA representative for DOA so I guess GO JIM!
How many people in this thread cited how much Diablo 2 messed up their lives? Guess what... None of them play D2 anymore. The scientists seem to have forgotten that people generally become addicted to a game, then stop playing a short time later because the repetition gets boring. The idea that they need a clinic is absolutely ridiculous. By the time they get checked in, they'll have stopped playing the game they're in for.
Bad hardware sounds more like a Sony issue to me. I've never had to replace a Nintedo system, yet I've owned two Playstations and two PS2s. I do own a Gamecube, by the way, with which you could have used this same argument when they launched with a dramatically lower price tag. It has always run fine.
Good think you don't matter to Nintendo, then. It would have been a disaster is their business model depended entirely on you.
Most people don't even have HDTVs nor surround sound nor a computer that can handle high end games at that resolution. You're a huge minority, especially considering Nintendos "casual gamer" target demographic.
Yeah, different people feel differently about the points being discussed. You don't expect the entire community to come to a consensus and then stricty follow it, do you?
Re:Buy the Game and Pay Again to Play It - NOT!!!!
on
Blizzcon Writeup
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· Score: 1
I'm sure a lot of people play for 18 months, but I'd be willing to bet that a whole lot more quit after one or two. If increasing profits in a way that made customers happy were as easy as you make it sound, they'd probably do it. They're not stupid.
As for the "understanding motivations" issue, I can definately bite. When I first started playing Civ II I would never want to try for a military victory. Then I got older and better at it (Civ III by then) and started to understand the reasons why one would do such a thing. Specifically, if you get tanks before anyone else, game over for them. When you have military superiority, you go for it. It's enlightening when you first find yourself being militaristically greedy.
As for history, I thought Civ II was better. they actually had factual information regarding untis/science etc. Civ III just has in game info. I dunno about AoE.
On top of that, they'd probably make a bigger profit. The fact that they don't make such an obvious move just goes to show you that they don't want to cut down on game addiction. We shouldn't assume that the people of that country share the beliefs of the people that wrote this article.
Maybe they don't consider it a problem. Maybe they like playing a lot of games.
Slashdot Mirror
And whose job is it to act on this research? The politicians who are trying to silence it or the industry heads who stand to lose a lot of money if they change their policies?
Yeah, the scientist are biased. Biased by their better understanding of the situation.
This guy probably only hates DDR because he's no good at it.
That being said, the arcade is dead because nobody wants to spend a dollar for one fight against their friends in a game they already have at home.
I've heard rumors that games of Starcraft used to be (maybe still are) televised in Korea. Can anyone confirm/deny this?
I think that's what he means by saying it needs to be presented as a sport. Think about how many people pay ridiculous amounts of money to go see a pro-football game... They could much more cheaply see a college or high school game and probably with greater ease. The problem is, sports aren't actually fun to watch for most of the spectators. People like pro-sports because they feel connected to a team or to certain players and the outcome of the game actually becomes meaningul in that way.
As it stands now, which of the world's best gamers wins the most games doesn't matter to anyone at all, but if they each had fans then the competition between the resulting camps would fuel interest and spectation. Gambling would probably help get that going, as much as I would hate to see gambling over games.
I'm pretty sure that this is the next step in a long running, logical progression that's been gaining steam as the MMOGs have been increasing in complexity, popularity, and stability.
As for the full article, that list isn't really as complicated as one would think. The only major issue with any of the points (besides harrassment, I guess) is that the game money can be traded for real money. Except in 2L, this is frowned upon by the developers and I think it usually is outlawed in the EULA. With that in mind, it seems that only 2L is actually in any trouble since the other MMOGs' property has no official value.
2L has three potential paths, as far as I can tell at this point:
1. Drop the act: stop marketting it as an extnesion of the real world and make major policy changes regarding the relationship between in game property and real world property. This would probably be met with outrage from the community so I doubt it will happen.
2. Go all out: declare the game a true extension of the real world. This creates a whole new set of problems that are actually even worse than the one's that exist right now. Who has sovereignty over the game? What kinds of taxes are on transactions between game currency and real currency? What about minting money? I dunno about 2L, where does their money come from? There would have to be monitors for inflation to protect RL currency. What f the game crashes? This event, although even more unlikely, would mean that a set of real laws would have to be created addressing all those things, but then one must also consider if the laws affect a real person or just their avatar, etc. This would be a terrible mess and would more likely be the result of a very slow transition that a single decision.
3. Let the lawmakers work it out. This is most likely going to be the case, unfortunately. The old men in congress have absolutely no idea what goes on inside a game and have probably never played a MMOG. Yet chances are, they will be the ones who eventually decide what kind of laws are placed within any given game world. Actually no, they'll create an all encompassing set of laws that affect all game worlds, which is even worse.
I'll rest assured that you'll be following my comments accurately the whole way.
1. I think that the best thing that could happen for the exploration of space at the moment would be the discovery of some fabulously lucrative resource on a planet or in comets, meteors, asteroids, etc. Nothing serious will get done in the private sector until some significant avenue of wealth opens up. There will, of course, be long term drawbacks in having corporations rule outer space (besides Earth), but I can't imagine the ball getting rolling in any other manner in my lifetime.
2. On that note, is anyone else profoundly upset about the fact that they will never visit a lush, colonized (or otherwise inhabited) planet?
3. With all the problems that plauge space agencies worldwide, they certainly do seem to hit big when they don't miss entirely. I wonder if they purposely underestimate their mission lengths in order to pad their portfolio.
I apologize for my joke; clearly I was a fool.
NASA SWIFTLY SOLVES 35-YEAR-OLD MYSTERY
NASA and I have very different ideas on the meaning of the word "swiftly."
He obviously doesn't understand what "impeachable offense" means.
I think he (or his advisors) looked back at what happened to Nixon and realized that a coverup would be a bad move in the long run.
I agree that art is subjective, but I think we should keep money as a different issue. Excepting ridiculously famous classics, most serious art loses more money than it makes.
That being said, games are art because countless gamers say they are. As the number of gamers increases and as the average age of the gamer increases with it, the number of people who agree with this point will rise. Ten or twenty years from now when all the people who hate games are retiring and we take over the world, the fossils like this guy with be wondering why nobody is paying attention to their movie reviews while we're all too busy with our Katamari and crumpet parties to get to the theatre.
I absolutely agree with that, my point is that the standards for AO now are fine. A game with porn in it should be rated AO because that's what it is. My concern is over the fact that they want some games that are currently being rated M as AO. I'm not a GTA fan, but I'm sure a lot of adults would be pissed if the next installment was watered down ("sweat" replacing blood a la Mortal Kombat, for example) because the standards became more strict.
I would guess that every adult gamer who cares about deciding what games they can or can not play gives a "flying fig."
It would seem at first as if forcing the ESRB to rate more things as AO would only affect minors, the fact of the matter is made quite clear even in the article summary. Developers don't want to make AO games, so tightenning the standards means more censored games for people of all ages.
This kid from my town, Jim Clifford, is playing DOA there. Apparently they picked him up in a limo and drove him the 45 mins to NYC for the qualifiers. I'm pretty jealous, but I can outscore him often enough when we team up in Halo... That counts for something, right?
...right?
He goes by the name NefariousSage if anyone wants to check out his profile. Anyway, he's the only USA representative for DOA so I guess GO JIM!
How many people in this thread cited how much Diablo 2 messed up their lives? Guess what... None of them play D2 anymore. The scientists seem to have forgotten that people generally become addicted to a game, then stop playing a short time later because the repetition gets boring. The idea that they need a clinic is absolutely ridiculous. By the time they get checked in, they'll have stopped playing the game they're in for.
I didn't realize old adages were witty sayings now.
Bad hardware sounds more like a Sony issue to me. I've never had to replace a Nintedo system, yet I've owned two Playstations and two PS2s. I do own a Gamecube, by the way, with which you could have used this same argument when they launched with a dramatically lower price tag. It has always run fine.
Good think you don't matter to Nintendo, then. It would have been a disaster is their business model depended entirely on you.
Most people don't even have HDTVs nor surround sound nor a computer that can handle high end games at that resolution. You're a huge minority, especially considering Nintendos "casual gamer" target demographic.
Still no XBL play for Halo 1. If they can do it on XBC, why can't Bungie and Microsoft work soomething out?
Yeah, different people feel differently about the points being discussed. You don't expect the entire community to come to a consensus and then stricty follow it, do you?
I'm sure a lot of people play for 18 months, but I'd be willing to bet that a whole lot more quit after one or two. If increasing profits in a way that made customers happy were as easy as you make it sound, they'd probably do it. They're not stupid.
As for the "understanding motivations" issue, I can definately bite. When I first started playing Civ II I would never want to try for a military victory. Then I got older and better at it (Civ III by then) and started to understand the reasons why one would do such a thing. Specifically, if you get tanks before anyone else, game over for them. When you have military superiority, you go for it. It's enlightening when you first find yourself being militaristically greedy.
As for history, I thought Civ II was better. they actually had factual information regarding untis/science etc. Civ III just has in game info. I dunno about AoE.
the only significantly-planned title is ... Halo 3.
What about Perfect Dark Zero and Fable 2? The latter isn't officially announced, but it's almost a sure thing.
On top of that, they'd probably make a bigger profit. The fact that they don't make such an obvious move just goes to show you that they don't want to cut down on game addiction. We shouldn't assume that the people of that country share the beliefs of the people that wrote this article.
Maybe they don't consider it a problem. Maybe they like playing a lot of games.
They probably hadn't expected this to happen or at least that it wouldn't be common. I'm sure they'll implement a feature like this soon enough.