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How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

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Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#221

Post by musha68k »

dpkirchner wrote: post #134
serf wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This makes me sad. I gotta say, I think I agree. Maybe it's just rose-tinted-glasses, but I remember a time when software was split between "IBM-Corpo" culture, and zany SV/MIT/Caltech culture where people threw things at the wall and proceeded when stuff stuck. It kind of saddens me that it feels like it's now only IBM-Corpo, and everyone feels the need to be ever-productive and adhere to strict rules and schema. t…

> It kind of saddens me that it feels like it's now only IBM-Corpo I think about this whenever I see a new open source library hosted on its own domain with a polished and slick promo material. I really don't mean to throw shade at designers for making nice designs, but it just feels weird and corporate-y to me that the polish is a priority. There are, of course, open source projects that serve as a hook for selling…

the permaculture of: patches in emails; binaries on usenet; releases / of sources on maybe less savoury personal web sites

otoh lack of basically centralized source control / git / hub / lab etc would also be missed dearly

depending on context: corporate polish can be fine; especially if software "is infra"; let truly (?) fun inconsequential software be messy and / or fun if sparks joy

apropos permaculture: i enjoyed TIS-100 but never got interested by factorio (maybe its art?) but anyways i'd personally find it more interesting to see more declarative / triggered simulation / play out in ever interesting ways

so maybe biologic systems over industry in space?

maybe there exist such games already? they do in my mind at least; i should look into current simulation frameworks maybe and read up on ecology

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#222

Post by kzrdude »

philsnow wrote: post #22
dcre wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better in what sense?

I love Factorio but the graphics look a bit like 1996 SVGA 256-color sprites (edit: by which I mean, I feel like there is noticeable dithering). I haven't played the new "Factorio in space" bits, maybe it gets out of the browns-and-beige color palette a bit more?

For Factorio 2.0, there's a lot of graphics that have gotten higher resolution upgrades. Earendel has blogged about working on this. (The Space Exploration mod author, who also works for Wube).

Terrain looks better, trees look better, too, I think it's a pretty big change.

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#223

Post by hiAndrewQuinn »

herval wrote: post #127

Lots of comments on this thread in the vein of “I dislike this game because it’s not productive”. My honestly question is… why? Why is “being productive” this goal that has to consume your entire life?

Well, because being more productive makes more money, of course. Even if I only capture a small portion of the overall value of it.

Scratch that - I'm using "money" as a proxy for "value". Let's talk value directly. All things being equal, if I can enjoy Activity A totally in isolation, and Activity B equally much, but B leaves something behind which other people can use and get their own value out of, then B is clearly a better or more noble use of my time. Being productive just makes you a better person on net.

Now... I do not choose the "max productivity" strat with each and every second of my being, far from it. I'll probably buy and play Factorio sometime in the next few months, and it will be Steam game #3 added to my library after FTL and Slay the Spire. But I'm not going to sit here and pretend it is somehow better for the world outside of myself to play Factorio rather than e.g. improve the FOSS software I maintain that helps people learn Finnish. Let alone something like contribute to the Linux kernel. This is a philosophical non-question to me.

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#224

Post by matheusmoreira »

> For me, the difference between work and fun is about the process.

> If I have to do it in an inefficient way, or the way I’m told to, it feels like work.

> When I have the freedom to do it my way, it feels like fun.

Yeah, that resonates with me. I didn't pursue a software development career because of this. Decided to do something else and enjoy programming on my own terms. It's been alright but I still wonder what might have been.

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#225

Post by medstrom »

0points wrote: post #193
lucb1e wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don’t need to make software for mass appeal. Hear, hear. I would tell you all about the tools my household runs on but it is as you say. Still gives me a lot of satisfaction to make stuff that makes life better, and for someone more adventurous than me it might also be something you can use to try out new technologies or build something for on your CV. The only downside is that internet connectivity being down…

It fascinates me how someone like you manage to build all these tooling to run your house, but still struggle with > need to remember to load the grocery list before leaving the house that has the server in it ^ remote access and > better hope your phone doesn't decide for you that the page needs to be unloaded on the way ^ unreliable tech

What would you do?

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#226

Post by consp »

satvikpendem wrote: post #35

I know lots of people who play Factorio but for me, I guess it just feels too much like work? Whenever I play it, I get the distinct feeling that I could instead do the same thing but productively instead, such as by contributing to my OSS projects (sometimes, maybe even for profit instead). I never got into these types of programmatic games for precisely this reason but I'd like to understand other perspectives on t…

> I never got into these types of programmatic games for precisely this reason but I'd like to understand other perspectives on this.

Everything you describe requires interaction with people. Those are too often toxic, incompetent, overly demanding and keep changin schedules and priorities. At least in single player games you get to drop all that crap.

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#227

Post by indigoabstract »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #61
indigoabstract wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol. My parser failed at this step, so I had to look it up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence

I'm looking over the sentences in the comment you replied to and I can't figure out where you would have gotten lost, can you quote the partial sentence that confused you?

It starts out as a typical programmer rant these days about AI assistants and LLM fine tuning and then goes on to complain how sadly, they don't work for this game yet. So he's forced to play it manually. How old fashioned.

I find that pretty amusing.

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#228

Post by matheusmoreira »

duckmysick wrote: post #64
satvikpendem wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand, I can make whatever software I want, for whatever purpose, and it can still be impactful, depending on the user. It feels way more impactful than anything I can make in Factorio or similar.

> I can make whatever software I want, for whatever purpose Such freedom is extremely rare when you get paid for writing or maintaining software.

Here's to hoping things like Patreon and GitHub Sponsors make it more common. These platforms could truly change the way things are done in the software world. Given enough sponsors, I could quit my job and focus on free software every day.

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#229

Post by medstrom »

satvikpendem wrote: post #35

I know lots of people who play Factorio but for me, I guess it just feels too much like work? Whenever I play it, I get the distinct feeling that I could instead do the same thing but productively instead, such as by contributing to my OSS projects (sometimes, maybe even for profit instead). I never got into these types of programmatic games for precisely this reason but I'd like to understand other perspectives on t…

Exactly how I feel with redstone contraptions in Minecraft. Already have OSS projects to my name, and my way to "play" is to refactor them endlessly. In a game I'm looking for a different type of fun for once.

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#230

Post by sureglymop »

herval wrote: post #127

Lots of comments on this thread in the vein of “I dislike this game because it’s not productive”. My honestly question is… why? Why is “being productive” this goal that has to consume your entire life?

I think it's perfectionism and impostor syndrome.

When I play games, I never play competitive or intense games, I see it as a therapeutic activity.

I play relaxing single player games like Stardew Valley or Tiny Glade. Cultivate some crops, feed my chicken, pat my cat. No real end goal other than to just relax. I urge anyone to try, especially in co-op with with a friend or partner. It really is therapeutic.

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