Spurn the computer game industry
naughtycomputer.uk
Spurn the computer game industry
1–10 of 55 posts
Re: Spurn the computer game industry
#2I personally think game dev is more democratized than ever (and in that sense games as a whole are more open). The resources to make your own near AAA quality game are out there (see Unity and Unreal), and in fact people are doing it.
The problem is advertising is what sells games now. When everyone can shovel a game onto Steam and burn a few people with a game in beta hell, people start to clutch onto their wallets.
The same thing happened with mobile dev and crapware.
While I think there are people in it to blame, I don't think "the industry" a whole is the problem, they're as much a victim as the gamers at this point.
We're in a bubble and it's slowly deflating (see games like Watch Dogs 2, Titanfall 2, and Dishornered 2), I'm worried for the devs who will get caught in it.
Re: Spurn the computer game industry
#3A plug for Battle for Wesnoth!
Re: Spurn the computer game industry
#4> bullshit like Windows and Steam
> beautiful games like The Battle for Wesnoth
> TAKE BACK CONTROL OF OUR GAMES!
> let the computer games industry and their over-priced fetish-hardware languish!
Saying something doesn't make it so.
Re: Spurn the computer game industry
#5I do sympathize with a lot of this article (as a person who decided to stop having big desktops years ago, and as a Christmas-and-Easter free software advocate). I'd love to see more free software games, and if I ever develop any I would likely release them under a free license (possibly with the assets restricted, so I could still reasonably charge for the game).
However, I think by focusing on Steam and Windows the author misses a bigger threat.
> Most commercial computer games require very powerful computers. This means that a less-wealthy person cannot play online games with their more-wealthy friends. This is especially a problem for young people, for whom gaming is an important social activity. Also it's a problem for people who don't earn massive 1st-world salaries.
Most of the young people I know don't play PC games (exception: the ones who like Minecraft). They play on consoles or mobile devices. A PS4 or an iOS/Android device are way more restrictive. On top of that, the mobile games are particularly pernicious in their design. Many of them may not even consider children, as the goal of the game is to trap a handful of whales, but they still lock children in the skinner box.
Re: Spurn the computer game industry
#6I hope by "free software" he means Richard Stallman free and not screw-developers-I-don't-pay-for-shit free.
Re: Spurn the computer game industry
#7The fundamental problem with OSS games:
Many people who contribute to OSS are doing it because they use it in their work.
No one uses games in their work.
More significant, all - every single one of them, professional game developers are up to their eyeballs in work. It's the nature of making games, they are never finished and there is always more to do.
Professional game developers are very unlikely to have any side project or contribute to OSS (I was one for years).
Re: Spurn the computer game industry
#8I've used an old Optiplex I3 540 system with Win7 license ($30) on which was added 16gb of ram bought used ($40) from classifieds ad, and a new GTX 740 ($70). Can play most free games on Steam. Just sayin'.
Re: Spurn the computer game industry
#9The fundamental problem with OSS games: Many people who contribute to OSS are doing it because they use it in their work. No one uses games in their work. More significant, all - every single one of them, professional game developers are up to their eyeballs in work. It's the nature of making games, they are never finished and there is always more to do. Professional game developers are very unlikely to have any side…
I don't get why the author is so fixated on OSS games as opposed to more open (or at least easily accessible) tools. I mentioned something similar in my comment, but I don't see why a publisher spending millions on development is going to allow the developers to open source their game.
What's more realistic is that money that's being spent on development also funnels into tools so that everyone can reap the benefits from, and to a degree that's already happening with stuff like Unreal.
Re: Spurn the computer game industry
#10There's a lot of work inside an AAA title. Most of it isn't programming. Back in the 1990s, the big problem was technical - building an engine that could handle a big complex world. That's mostly solved. Now it's mostly large amounts of artwork, plotting, sound, character movement, and construction. That takes lots of hours.
As for "spurn the computer game industry", that should apply to jobs. The working conditions are terrible. They need to be unionized, like Hollywood.