Game development is worthless? WTF? (Was: Why Ruby?)

Nick Sabalausky a at a.a
Sun Dec 19 12:08:44 PST 2010


"Christopher Nicholson-Sauls" <ibisbasenji at gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:iekles$79e$1 at digitalmars.com...
> On 12/18/10 14:12, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>> "Nick Sabalausky" <a at a.a> wrote in message
>> news:iej46p$424$1 at digitalmars.com...
>>> "Caligo" <iteronvexor at gmail.com> wrote in message
>>> news:mailman.5.1292651710.4588.digitalmars-d at puremagic.com...
>>>>
>>>> IMO there is no honor in game development as it contributes nothing to
>>>> society.  I've rarely played any,
>>>
>>> I gotta jump on this as being a giant load of pretentious bullshit. 
>>> First
>>> of all, there's the patently obvious "how in the world would you know?"
>>> considering the "I've rarely played any".
>>>
>>> But more importantly, games make life suck less - I can't even imagine 
>>> any
>>> more significant contribution to society than that. Even all of the
>>> endeavors generally considered to be the biggest contributions to 
>>> society
>>> are *only* significant contributions *because* that's exactly what they
>>> do: they make life suck less, and are therefore well-regarded.
>>>
>>> Seriously, what up with all those presumptuous assholes out there 
>>> (mostly
>>> baby boomer dinos and their even more anachronistic parents, 
>>> interestingly
>>> enough) who have barely ever touched a videogame and yet figure they
>>> actually have reason to believe such absurd pretentious crap? Fuck, they
>>> all remind me of that pompous Roger Ebert douchebag. (Speaking of ways 
>>> to
>>> benefit society, when's he finally gonna keel over? Isn't it about time 
>>> by
>>> now? And speaking of "contributions to society" what the fuck's he ever
>>> done? Collect a salary just to spout off opinions? Fucking useless
>>> wanker.)
>>>
>>
>> Since it apparently isn't obvious to some people: things don't have to be
>> dull to qualify as a significant a contribution.
>>
>>
>>
>
> There's also the classic example: a game was instrumental in the
> development of UNIX.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Travel_(video_game)
>
> This wasn't arbitrary either; it was something Thompson wanted to do,
> and he needed a better OS to do it in... so his toy got new polish.
> Some of this polish became things we now take for granted and hardly
> know how to live without (like a hierarchial filesystem).
>
> Do I mean to say that without the game there would be no UNIX?  No; but
> I do mean to say that games have *always* been a valuable tool for
> finding the limits of systems, and for inspiring innovative ways to
> expand those limits.
>
> The same research and development that provided pixel shaders to game
> developers, also provided them to medical imaging developers.  The same
> that provided CPU technologies such as SSE to enable more complex
> simulations in games, also provide for more complex simulations in
> supercomputers.  And many of these sort of technologies were original
> conceived just to make games more awesome.  Amazing.
>
> So no, games in and of themselves don't contribute anything -- if you
> don't count fun, and honestly, I do count it -- but they have been a
> driving force behind a lot of innovation.
>

Yea, and another thing is the matter of art in general: If you're an 
ultra-utilitarian like Christopher seems to be (and even most programmers 
aren't ultra-utilitarian), then art can be seen as lacking significant 
contribution to society. But if you do believe in the value of art and still 
cherry-pick videogames as dishonorable or lacking significant contribution, 
then you're just simply being a dumbfuck and an elitist (like Roger Ebert).





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