Is 'SimCity' Homelessness a Bug or a Feature? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is 'SimCity' Homelessness a Bug or a Feature?

#31

Post by popeshoe » Wed, Jan 21, 2015, 11:43 AM UTC

michaelx386 wrote: post #24

popeshoe wrote: post #11

It's an amusing thought, but I imagine that most of these people realise homelessness isn't really a problem you can simply fix by following some set of procedures. Ultimately it's a game to be played for entertainment, and if you can get some people to think about social issues as they play it that's wonderful, but it's still supposed to be enjoyable. Clearly homeless people in the game are impeding some peoples enj…

> a common strategy was to make the nobledwarfs accommodation floodable with lava I've not played Dwarf Fortress for a while, but were there any consequences to killing the nobledwarfs like that? The game is so comprehensive I'm wondering if the creators considered that strategy.

As far as I remember it just makes his family and friends upset, and anybody who witnesses the death, which is usually always preferable to him going mental and sentencing your master metalworker to death because he refused to make -=* platinum trumpets*=-

Re: Is 'SimCity' Homelessness a Bug or a Feature?

#32

Post by iopq » Wed, Jan 21, 2015, 11:44 AM UTC

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #4

It is amusing what happens when you make games that are "realistic" in a way which isn't fun for players but is like real life, and get to see how the player base reacts. Depression Quest springs to mind. Or way the book the protagonist of The Fault In Our Stars loves cuts off abruptly once the main character dies, which upsets her to no end.

Depression Quest is built on having sex with people in the industry and making a half-assed excuse for a non-game.

Re: Is 'SimCity' Homelessness a Bug or a Feature?

#33

Post by iopq » Wed, Jan 21, 2015, 11:46 AM UTC

popeshoe wrote: post #19

davidw wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a totally made-up analogy with no supporting facts. What does it even mean that "the real America operates according to a video game logic"? Does France operate that way? How about Morocco or Mongolia? It's nonsense.

In America if you collect 100 coins you get an extra life. In America if you get seriously hurt you get taken to hospital and lose some money In America you can only carry 2 guns In America if you try and run forward and sideways at once the two velocities are combined and you run twice as fast I guess some of them work

you run sqrt(2) as fast

Re: Is 'SimCity' Homelessness a Bug or a Feature?

#34

Post by Danieru » Wed, Jan 21, 2015, 11:48 AM UTC

hueving wrote: post #22

simonh wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 'final solution' option? It's been done in real life of course many times in many countries, but I don't think adding an option to Sim City to round them all up and shoot/gas/incinerate them, or build a 'killing fields' facility is really what people are looking for in that game. In DF we can get some distance from it because it's explicitly a fantasy world, but Sim City is a bit too close to emulating real life…

It would be more interesting if they had that option just too see how often players would resort to something like that.

All of them. It is a common accepted reality in game design that players will take any shortcut offered. Players will go so far as skipping content just to "solve" a challenge with the fastest method.

Players would jump at genocide if it solved their problem. It would be an interesting result if it was not so predictable.

Re: Is 'SimCity' Homelessness a Bug or a Feature?

#35

Post by probably_wrong » Wed, Jan 21, 2015, 11:48 AM UTC

popeshoe wrote: post #11

It's an amusing thought, but I imagine that most of these people realise homelessness isn't really a problem you can simply fix by following some set of procedures. Ultimately it's a game to be played for entertainment, and if you can get some people to think about social issues as they play it that's wonderful, but it's still supposed to be enjoyable. Clearly homeless people in the game are impeding some peoples enj…

> Ultimately it's a game to be played for entertainment, and if you can get some people to think about social issues as they play it that's wonderful, but it's still supposed to be enjoyable.

I have not played SimCity for a long, long time, but IIRC it's meant to be less a "game" and more of a "interactive simulation". In that context, whether the emergent behavior is fun or not would not be the main point.

Or maybe the new SimCitys (SimCities?) are not like that anymore.

Re: Is 'SimCity' Homelessness a Bug or a Feature?

#36

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jan 21, 2015, 11:55 AM UTC

davidw wrote: post #6

chicofarm wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how does that make it political?

Let's rewrite it. Say it's some conservative commentator like Bill O'Reilly: "To me video games are the so-called 'real France,'" he said. "The real France operates according to a video game logic, and that game logic is socialism" That doesn't strike you as overtly and primarily political in nature? Beyond that, it's simply inane.

[deleted]

Re: Is 'SimCity' Homelessness a Bug or a Feature?

#37

Post by WBrentWilliams » Wed, Jan 21, 2015, 11:55 AM UTC

I'm going to earn my downvotes today. It was more interesting reading the comments than the article, especially when one of the threads devolved into saying the article is political.

The other entertaining point is the offense at the notion that America is it's entertainment. The fact that some took offense at that is interesting from both a technology standpoint and a startup standpoint. It is an imperfect mirror, reflecting why we do things and why some businesses fail and others succeed, from a certain point of view. In other words, perhaps part of why a given venture gains customers in not just need, but need coupled with entertainment used to market and sell.

Re: Is 'SimCity' Homelessness a Bug or a Feature?

#38

Post by arrrg » Wed, Jan 21, 2015, 11:57 AM UTC

probably_wrong wrote: post #35

popeshoe wrote: post #11

It's an amusing thought, but I imagine that most of these people realise homelessness isn't really a problem you can simply fix by following some set of procedures. Ultimately it's a game to be played for entertainment, and if you can get some people to think about social issues as they play it that's wonderful, but it's still supposed to be enjoyable. Clearly homeless people in the game are impeding some peoples enj…

> Ultimately it's a game to be played for entertainment, and if you can get some people to think about social issues as they play it that's wonderful, but it's still supposed to be enjoyable. I have not played SimCity for a long, long time, but IIRC it's meant to be less a "game" and more of a "interactive simulation". In that context, whether the emergent behavior is fun or not would not be the main point. Or maybe…

The main focus of these kinds of toy boxes was always less on accuracy and more on making playing with the toys enjoyable. I really don’t see the contradiction in that and Sim City being an simulation. It’s practically always only accurate when that serves it being enjoyable. That’s how it should be.

Do you really believe it was ever a serious simulation?!

Re: Is 'SimCity' Homelessness a Bug or a Feature?

#39

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jan 21, 2015, 11:58 AM UTC

simonh wrote: post #20

popeshoe wrote: post #11

It's an amusing thought, but I imagine that most of these people realise homelessness isn't really a problem you can simply fix by following some set of procedures. Ultimately it's a game to be played for entertainment, and if you can get some people to think about social issues as they play it that's wonderful, but it's still supposed to be enjoyable. Clearly homeless people in the game are impeding some peoples enj…

The 'final solution' option? It's been done in real life of course many times in many countries, but I don't think adding an option to Sim City to round them all up and shoot/gas/incinerate them, or build a 'killing fields' facility is really what people are looking for in that game. In DF we can get some distance from it because it's explicitly a fantasy world, but Sim City is a bit too close to emulating real life…

[deleted]

Re: Is 'SimCity' Homelessness a Bug or a Feature?

#40

Post by omaranto » Wed, Jan 21, 2015, 12:00 PM UTC

popeshoe wrote: post #11

It's an amusing thought, but I imagine that most of these people realise homelessness isn't really a problem you can simply fix by following some set of procedures. Ultimately it's a game to be played for entertainment, and if you can get some people to think about social issues as they play it that's wonderful, but it's still supposed to be enjoyable. Clearly homeless people in the game are impeding some peoples enj…

I suggest changing "it" to "SimCity" in the second sentence:

> Ultimately it's a game to be played for entertainment, and if you can get some people to think about social issues as they play it that's wonderful, but it's still supposed to be enjoyable.

Right now "it" seems to refer to "homelessness" from the previous sentence, which confused me a bit.