Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't get to enter your initials into the machine based on how far you get. Only your score matters, and your score resets when you continue. You don't "beat" Pac-Man when you get to the kill screen, you beat Pac-Man when you get a perfect score.
High score resets whenever the machine is unplugged. Score isn't the only measure of success in Pac-man or other arcade games.
Digital Capitalism’s War on Leisure
51–60 of 163 posts
Re: Digital Capitalism’s War on Leisure
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why, is it immune from criticism? Instead of this worthless comment, why didn't you read the piece yourself? Then you could make your own judgement.
Reading it myself would require wasting precious time, when I can instead offload that responsibility to someone who has already read it and can comment on whether or not it is a shitpiece.
Re: Digital Capitalism’s War on Leisure
#53The reason for this displeasure varies, but among the reasons would be corruption, ineptitude, graft, greed, pandering to special interests, and so on. In a world where government was some post-humanistic benevolent and impartial entity, I think this article would have some reasonable points. However, people tend to be self absorbed, ignorant of whatever lays outside their own interests, and driven by bias. And government is little more than a collection of us, biased to those who share mostly the same skill set as con men.
I'm certainly not anarchistic, but I think we need to consider the fact that government is us. And so where is the logic that massively expanding the role and power of our government would solve more problems than create? My favorite example of good intentions gone awry is passports. Many wish we had a more open and free world, and at one time we did. Mandatory usage of passports was little more than a "temporary war measure" during WW1. But once we'd granted governments such tremendous power and control, it was predictably never relinquished.
Re: Digital Capitalism’s War on Leisure
#54> how can the market exploitation of civic, social, and leisure spaces possibly be averted What? The ominous "market" isn't forcing its way into any of these spaces. You let it in . You bought that game with micro-transactions, you signed up for that "free" social media app that was "secretly stealing your data". What shall we do? Our economic system isn't doing what we think it should! Could it be that we don't unde…
Are you not concerned that while some of these costs may not be entirely hidden - they are very often intentionally obfuscated? It's not exactly analogous to "people should know to avoid credit cards with 20% interest rates" as that interest rate must be openly communicated to the consumer while the collection and sale of my personal data has no such requirement.
Re: Digital Capitalism’s War on Leisure
#55This is a good read, but I question this line: > Video games, at their best, offer everyone an equal chance to overcome the same challenges on an equal playing field. “Pac-Man,” after all, didn’t let you add extra quarters to purchase immunity from the ghosts. I mean, in a way they did. If you had more quarters to spare in Pac-Man, you'd be more likely to make it further than your cash-strapped compatriot. But then a…
Re: Digital Capitalism’s War on Leisure
#56The argument essentially seems to be this: Some people are making substantial amounts of money from activities that we traditionally associate with leisure, in the example given, videogames. This devalues gaming as a leisure activity for the rest of society. This is a bad thing. This is an indicator of a broader trend of the monetization of all forms of leisure. This is bad. Consequently we should find ways to redist…
It always sounds cool to derive these kinds of arguments when there is a new delivery model that is Paradigm Shifting Everything. In fact, as pointed out by a bunch of other commenters, this model isn't intrinsically much different from the console arcade game model of whenever it was the first pinball machine came out.
As for the "monetization of leisure" this is basically as old as leisure time itself, as is the idea of restricting access to this leisure activity to those with the wherewithal. The classic model here is - golf. To play a "better course" you need to pay large fees, and in many clubs need to pass some kind of vetting. Golf nonetheless created a class of professional players, who are paid based on how well their play (and possibly antics) entertain a population of passive fans.
I don't see how "monetized gaming" and "e-sports" is at all different from the vast class of professional gaming or sporting activities from poker to football. Civilization has not collapsed because there are millions of lowly duffers who feel compelled to spend money to knock little white balls around a field. I feel confident we will survive "Clash of Clans" as well.
Re: Digital Capitalism’s War on Leisure
#57[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/232383/gender-split-of-u...
Re: Digital Capitalism’s War on Leisure
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
No but the poster you are replying to is correct. The article is indeed a "shitpiece" against capitalism, it seeks to paint shitty video games that bilk their users of money as some sort of phenomenon that unique to capitalism. Therefore we need to enact "Big Government" to solve the problem. The author nor the readers generally could not care less about those affected, their only concern are the delicious condemnati…
Even if you abhor the remedies suggested in the article, it is still true that marketers in general are trying very hard to run ahead of the average person's cognitive defences against exploitation. Given that, much of the discussion in the article is interesting and useful (and by that I don't mean "correct".)
Re: Digital Capitalism’s War on Leisure
#59This is a good read, but I question this line: > Video games, at their best, offer everyone an equal chance to overcome the same challenges on an equal playing field. “Pac-Man,” after all, didn’t let you add extra quarters to purchase immunity from the ghosts. I mean, in a way they did. If you had more quarters to spare in Pac-Man, you'd be more likely to make it further than your cash-strapped compatriot. But then a…
But it also allowed skill with the game to shine by getting further on a single quarter.
Re: Digital Capitalism’s War on Leisure
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
NES-era games juiced the difficulty so you couldn't beat them on rental. Not quite the same but if I were going to pick a "golden age" of relatively not-exploitative gaming it might go from SNES-PS2 or so.
Isn't the golden age now , where difficulty is customizable?
I think a lot of the indie and AA space is still very good, though.