Stupid little games

[sometimes99er]

I enjoyed reading this one ...

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/08/magazine/angry-birds-farmville-and-other-hyperaddictive-stupid-games.html

Edited April 7, 2012 by sometimes99er

[Keatah]

tldnr

[TEXAS_JOE]

Angry birds?

 

Watch these birds..... keep watching the motion they fly in .... give it at least 30 seconds ....!

 

birdz.zip

[Rhomaios]

From what I got from the article is that people with addictive personalities should stay away from simple games (I don't think "stupid" is the right word, especially when he lumped chess in with the rest of them). Sounds like good advice to me. I do however disagree with his definition. How much more complicated is Space Invaders or Pac-Man than Tetris? I would say that the very foundation of games are short and simple, and only with the increase of technology and time have complexities grown.

 

tldnr

You're so cool.

 

Also, this part is especially true and really disappointing at the same time:

 

“Having just built this, I’m seeing how much I hate the Internet,” Gage told me. “I mean, I really like the Internet and what it’s done for games — it’s been amazing. But in so many ways it’s just terrible. Arcade cabinets did a lot of things that were really smart that we never gave them credit for. There’s a lot of social psychology embedded in that structure.” The Xbox, he explained, offered only a few games designed to be played along with other people in the same room. “No one is designing games like that anymore,” he said. “It’s very terrible.”

Edited April 7, 2012 by ὁ Ῥωμαῖος Νέος

[TEXAS_JOE]

Agreed. No one is designing many games to be played with other people in the room. Space invaders can sit there in attract mode, and anyone can jump on it and try to get the highest score ... Much the same with Pac Man. Much the same with even Dig Dug or even Tempest. Try it with Call of Duty ..... You'll get you're wrist slapped by the guy wearing headphones who won't pass over the game-pad. But it's ok because that guy will be die of dehydration soon. (Trust me it happened once, it was in some article somewhere).

 

And another thing - companies cashing in , with "DLC" downloadable content ... but that's by the by, and another story altogether, but it's truly a sign of the times we are in.

[TEXAS_JOE]

tldnr

 

* INCORRECT STATEMENT IN 10

 

READY

>

[Keatah]

Agreed. No one is designing many games to be played with other people in the room. Space invaders can sit there in attract mode, and anyone can jump on it and try to get the highest score ... Much the same with Pac Man. Much the same with even Dig Dug or even Tempest. Try it with Call of Duty ..... You'll get you're wrist slapped by the guy wearing headphones who won't pass over the game-pad. But it's ok because that guy will be die of dehydration soon. (Trust me it happened once, it was in some article somewhere).

 

And another thing - companies cashing in , with "DLC" downloadable content ... but that's by the by, and another story altogether, but it's truly a sign of the times we are in.

 

We *must* want this style of game, because record-breaking profits are being made and sales are through the roof. So we must seem to like these things, DLC, and single-player-in-the-room type of thing with online connections. As gamers crave this more and more, companies will only be happy to oblige. Whichever way the wind blows. And gamers are sure as fuck playing all the DLC they can get their hands on!

[TEXAS_JOE]

This is true. I must say, my views and opinions are largely those of an old-fashioned gamer. I don't know wether that's down to my age or not, but I sure know which type of games I prefer to play, and it isn't many of the new ones, apart from Red Dead Redemption and Forza 3 or 4.

 

The DLC concept would not have worked back in my day. Imagine buying Munch Man on disc, taking it home, then getting to level 10 and a message appears stating "Send off mail order for the disc containing the next 10 levels" ..... you'd have been annoyed at that, I would think.

 

(Even though I know in most cases the point to DLC is to update the game, but then again we do get "patches" for games to correct a fuck-up thats been made, which is down to such companies as Activision cracking the whip to get the game out faster ... mistakes are made which are made up for with free patches, THAT sort of DLC I agree with, if its free)

 

Gamers of today are fine, they know what they want, they know what they like, and I can't discredit them for what they spend they're money on but to me it just seems a little odd.

 

Again, I'm very stubborn and old-fashioned and I won't budge technology wise. If I go out and buy a new laptop tomorrow, it'll be because I want more memory space for Emulators

[Willsy]

And another thing - companies cashing in , with "DLC" downloadable content ... but that's by the by, and another story altogether, but it's truly a sign of the times we are in.

 

The DLC is simply a reaction to piracy - torrents and torrent sites. The days of buying a game on DVD are coming to an end. In fact, if I remember correctly, the new Microsoft console doesn't even *have* a DVD drive. It's internet only.

 

I blame the pirates.

[TEXAS_JOE]

The pirates started to pirate software due to such companies as Microsoft charging #49.99 (uk price) for a disc upon new release. (Well, they do these days, I know Pirates have copied tape software in the 80's, and if you're pirating a game that costs #2.99 budget label, you're an ass, plain and simple) ....

 

They (the pirates) certainly blame the pricing, and I know myself I've looked at software and thought it over-priced. We could go on with this forever, and to be honest it would'nt do to kill Sometimes99er's thread with my ramblings ....

 

I know one thing ... if I ever made a game that was to sell for any price, I would'nt like it to be pirated and given away. But then I'm not a hugh company with my head up my ass (Ala Microsoft, Activision etc etc....)

 

There's the thing with Activision again. Call of Duty being a f*ck up on every release because Activision wants the game on the market * now * and not giving it's coders time to perfect it before it's release. Then we get silly little patches in DLC that correct the latency, whatever..... Can you imagine Marc Hull doing that ?!?! If he released a game before it was ready and then started posting patches all over the place 'cos it was buggered up? No, he does'nt do that .... he waits until the product is to his satisfaction before he releases it. Which is what bigger companies should do. (Ok I'm rambling again now)

 

Sorry Sometimes99er, I think rambled all over you're thread. But all of the above is why I prefer the "Stupid little games" and not games made by profit-hungry large companies.

[Kurt_Woloch]

I enjoyed that article as well. Have you tried "playing" the flash game on top of the first page? You can shoot the instructions, then fly out of the box and all over the article, use the ship for scrolling down and up, and shoot the ads on the side, the comments on the bottom of the page and other things.

 

Oh, and since the author is talking so much about Drop7... I think that game would be perfectly doable on the TI-99.

[TEXAS_JOE]

I'm sorry for messing up your thread, Sometimes99er

[sometimes99er]

Don't be sorry !

 

Hopefully TI relevant as I think many of us went through the arcade and home computer things in the eighties. I just thought it an okay and fun aspect on games.

[TEXAS_JOE]

Thanks, Sometimes99er.

 

Just to say , in response to Willsy's post here, about the new Microsoft console .... I've just heard Steve Benway on youtube going on about the new console, apparently it's going to be disc based but has a lock-out for second hand games. Now, wether or not we have to use a code that's specific to that console or user account is not knowledgable, however it is probably going to stamp out piracy altogether on that console.

 

That's Microsoft cashing in again!!!!!! They get more money in the end, when no-ones buying anything second hand .... but surely that's a bad thing, dont you think? ....

 

I've not heard of a software lock-out since Texas Instruments did it to AtariSoft with they're 1983 model TI99's (beige QI models) ..... (which was just stupid IMO)

[Tursi]

I've not heard of a software lock-out since Texas Instruments did it to AtariSoft with they're 1983 model TI99's (beige QI models) ..... (which was just stupid IMO)

 

That sort of lockout has always been in the console market. The NES had a lockout chip in the US market which denied third party games as well as providing a crude region lock (as the Japanese games didn't have the matching chip). When third parties started to work around it, Nintendo revised it slightly. Nearly every console has had some form of third party lockout and most had region locks as well - though the mechanisms and effectiveness varied. All current consoles also lock out unlicensed software.

 

Now, locking out second hand games is a rumour that has been growing since over the last couple of years a couple of loud voices in the industry have complained about how much it costs them. DLC is a strong answer to the vendors, of course, because there's no disc to resell. It's highly unlikely that physical media will be prevented from resale, but there is nothing preventing that media from not working without an online license. There are already some titles today that have tried that, mostly to great negativity.

[TEXAS_JOE]

I truly did'nt know that. (the lockouts on most consoles) .... thank's for the information!

[orion1052003]

I think that the goal of the companies is to someday sell downloadable unviewable and unusable content at high prices. Control, control, control. Open vs. closed information is a debate since the advent of computers. To think about why the companies are just as bad and worse than pirates, read a copy of HACKERS by Steven Levy. Great book!

[Keatah]

Shit.. when something gets too complex and annoying I just don't bother with it. They can DRM themselves right out of business as far as I'm concerned.

Edited April 12, 2012 by Keatah

[Kurt_Woloch]

I think that the goal of the companies is to someday sell downloadable unviewable and unusable content at high prices. Control, control, control. Open vs. closed information is a debate since the advent of computers. To think about why the companies are just as bad and worse than pirates, read a copy of HACKERS by Steven Levy. Great book!

 

I think that's a bit exaggerated, but what the companies could be aiming for is a pay-per-play model like in the arcades where you have to pay for every time you play a game, and the companies can freely change the pricing or remove games from availability so you can't play them anymore even if you'd be willing to pay for them.

 

Or even better, a subscription model where you have to subscribe to a game for a monthly or even yearly fee in order to be able to play it for that duration.

 

On the other hand, there will probably always independent game programmers writing games without those restrictions for open systems like the PC. That is, unless Microsoft succeeds in closing a subsequent version of Windows so much that you can only get software for it in their app store and there's no other way installing software on the platform... but I doubt they'd succeed with this.