Looks like this new platform is getting flooded, and Nintendo's quality control is not keeping up. A game like this should have never been allowed a release - just from the poor visual quality alone.
Indie Game Removed from Switch After Dev Reveals It Has a Hidden Code Editor
61–70 of 188 posts
Re: Indie Game Removed from Switch After Dev Reveals It Has a Hidden Code Editor
#62>The narrative that has played out online is exactly what's wrong with this trashcan fire of a world. >Everyone is an armchair expert. Everyone thought the worst. You've seen that I've been called a dick, idiot, and everything in between. Because sensationalised news sells. If the narrative was 'I added a sandbox to A Dark Room that lets you mod the game and provide a medium for kids to code (and technical parents to…
The fact that Nintendo were always like this does not mean it is okay. If there's anything wrong with this story it's how everyone seems to silently accept it is okay for a company to tell you what you can run on the hardware that you "buy" but not really own.
It's easy to continue the line of thought to absurdity, so I leave that as an exercise to the reader.
There's a few lines here that need to be drawn somewhere. Nintendo sells access to a platform to developers. It's not unreasonable that they aren't allowed free reign to control what's run; at some point one developers free reign would conflict with anothers.
Should the consumer have free control over what's running on their hardware? Perhaps. Let's for the sake of argument assume yes.
Then how should Nintendo and third party developers deal with hackers? Completely cut their access to Nintendo/game services? Now they have a brick.
The lines drawn for developers and consumers with respect to game consoles make sense and generally work for all involved.
I think your point has legs in other contexts (i.e. Apple products, right to repair, etc) just not here. If people feel differently they should vote with their dollars, but managed walled gardens will always be greener in some aspects.
Re: Indie Game Removed from Switch After Dev Reveals It Has a Hidden Code Editor
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
There’s definitely an argument to be made about how this dev should only be shipping to hundreds, thousands, or millions of personal devices via Nintendo’s infra only what’s printed on the tin. My hacker nerd side is all giggly. My security and consumer conscious sides bristle at the idea some dev thought it was a great little in-joke to ship this to unsuspecting users.
> dev should only be shipping to hundreds, thousands, or millions of personal devices via Nintendo’s infra only what’s printed on the tin That's a very long-winded way of saying, "He should only sell what was advertised." > unsuspecting users Nobody is forcing anyone to find or access Easter Eggs. It wasn't malicious nor annoying, it wasn't even accessible unless you attached a keyboard. I haven't seen any backlash f…
[deleted]
Re: Indie Game Removed from Switch After Dev Reveals It Has a Hidden Code Editor
#64>The narrative that has played out online is exactly what's wrong with this trashcan fire of a world. >Everyone is an armchair expert. Everyone thought the worst. You've seen that I've been called a dick, idiot, and everything in between. Because sensationalised news sells. If the narrative was 'I added a sandbox to A Dark Room that lets you mod the game and provide a medium for kids to code (and technical parents to…
[deleted]
Re: Indie Game Removed from Switch After Dev Reveals It Has a Hidden Code Editor
#65>The narrative that has played out online is exactly what's wrong with this trashcan fire of a world. >Everyone is an armchair expert. Everyone thought the worst. You've seen that I've been called a dick, idiot, and everything in between. Because sensationalised news sells. If the narrative was 'I added a sandbox to A Dark Room that lets you mod the game and provide a medium for kids to code (and technical parents to…
“Arbitrary code execution” is a bit of a stretch. It’s a sandboxed Ruby interpreter, not a ROP chain that pops a shell logged in as root.
Re: Indie Game Removed from Switch After Dev Reveals It Has a Hidden Code Editor
#66I love the amount of control we are using over our devices. It is not like people can do anything malicious with it. Anyway; so like Apple (less and less luckily), Nintendo forbids editable code to run on their devices? Or is it allowed if there is a gaming aspect involved? Or just not at all?
You can purchase a BASIC interpreter on the 3DS eShop. It's called SmileBASIC, and it's pretty full featured. http://smilebasic.com/en/ It doesn't make intuitive sense to me why a BASIC interpreter would be allowed, but not a Ruby interpreter. The difference is likely that Nintendo was never informed about the Ruby interpreter. While I wish everything was user-modifiable, I'm generally okay with game consoles being l…
A major issue (for me) with SmileBASIC is they removed (presumably at Nintendo's request) any way to export or import code except for their walled garden. Previous versions of SmileBASIC (for the regular DS, under the name Petite Computer) allowed one to (iirc) scan a QR code to input files. Someone has made a modem for SmileBASIC, but it's a lot of typing to get it loaded (presumably Nintendo would quickly pull it from the curated list of programs if someone tried to upload a copy of that).
Re: Indie Game Removed from Switch After Dev Reveals It Has a Hidden Code Editor
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fact that Nintendo were always like this does not mean it is okay. If there's anything wrong with this story it's how everyone seems to silently accept it is okay for a company to tell you what you can run on the hardware that you "buy" but not really own.
It's easy to continue the line of thought to absurdity, so I leave that as an exercise to the reader. There's a few lines here that need to be drawn somewhere. Nintendo sells access to a platform to developers. It's not unreasonable that they aren't allowed free reign to control what's run; at some point one developers free reign would conflict with anothers. Should the consumer have free control over what's running…
Why is it reasonable to be given free reign to control what is run on their platform? this is why Apple gets away with anti-competitive practices like pulling apps that compete with newly released features, even though the apps weren't a problem before.
These are truly walled gardens. Worse, these walled gardens are monopolies that can and are abused by large companies.
Re: Indie Game Removed from Switch After Dev Reveals It Has a Hidden Code Editor
#68I follow him on Mastodon, where this all played out: https://ruby.social/@amirrajan His explanation: https://ruby.social/@amirrajan/101991299426077446 He did security checks: https://ruby.social/@amirrajan/101986725826245184
> He did security checks: https://ruby.social/@amirrajan/101986725826245184
This is worth nothing to Nintendo and should be worth nothing to other people. This should've been done as a collaboration with Nintendo in order to actually bring Ruby to the Switch, not snuck in.
Re: Indie Game Removed from Switch After Dev Reveals It Has a Hidden Code Editor
#69The narrative in the article also misses the following point, which I've seen many times over the years, in both game dev and non-game dev shops: It is massively unprofessional to ship an Easter Egg without broad consent to do so. Planning a fun "secret" for your users? Great! Surprising people involved in the publishing pipeline , esp. in a "will I get caught" way? Not so great. That's where Rajan went off the rails…
> That's where Rajan went off the rails.
No, no, he only embedded Ruby. Not Rails.
Re: Indie Game Removed from Switch After Dev Reveals It Has a Hidden Code Editor
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's easy to continue the line of thought to absurdity, so I leave that as an exercise to the reader. There's a few lines here that need to be drawn somewhere. Nintendo sells access to a platform to developers. It's not unreasonable that they aren't allowed free reign to control what's run; at some point one developers free reign would conflict with anothers. Should the consumer have free control over what's running…
Why is it reasonable to be given free reign to control what is run on their platform? this is why Apple gets away with anti-competitive practices like pulling apps that compete with newly released features, even though the apps weren't a problem before. These are truly walled gardens. Worse, these walled gardens are monopolies that can and are abused by large companies.
Continuity. Standards and limitations keep the platform usable which makes it valuable to all involved. For walled gardens to be successful, both consumers and developers must both buy into them.
So, either people are painfully stupid or a managed platform has some appeal over free ones.
Continuity, ease of use, various warranties/guarantees make walled gardens attractive. If consumers have free reign and brick their device, it's hard to expect the manufacturer to have/honor any warranty. If developers have free reign there's no guarantee another application won't break theirs or that they won't break someone else's... or that it'll work with whatever the consumer is doing.
Yes, an obvious counter point is *nix systems, but there is some authority in that ecosystem which keeps most things working. It's still not painless to setup/use which prevents it from effectively competing with windows/Mac OS.
Simply put, the price of admission into a walled garden comes with some perks/guarantees/warranties which aren't readily available elsewhere.