Interesting Links for 02-04-2012

[andrewducker]

• Email and web use to be monitored under new laws. I really hope this gets rapidly squashed
  (tags: government UK privacy surveillance )
• Mind-boggling XKCD April Fools comic wrap-up thread
  (tags: location awesome internet xkcd )
• Many groundbreaking cancer studies cannot be replicated
  (tags: research fraud cancer science )
• Ask a Physicist: Will CERN awaken the Elder Gods?
  (tags: cern physics cthulhu funny )
• Why nations fail
  (tags: nations history society politics economics )
• SPAM may have uses (in protecting against universal internet surveillance)
  (tags: surveillance spam internet )
• Humans: hot, sweaty, natural-born runners
  (tags: humans running evolution exercise biology )
• How the Tories u-turned on civil liberties. (Where, by the way, are the lib-dems speaking out against this?)
  (tags: politics surveillance rights uk )
• Do you remember voting for The National Security And Anti-terrorism Party?
  (tags: terrorism security_theatre rights )
• Gaming Consoles Will Soon Be for Nerds Only (I don't agree, but it's an interesting argument)
  (tags: consoles computer_games business prices )

Comments

[steer.livejournal.com]

Heh... I'm glad you posted that xkcd link -- from my browser settings I got only the "I didn't have time to make a UK comic", not the "across the sea" response. I totally failed to understand it even with the mouseover text and assumed I'd somehow missed a bunch while away.

[steer.livejournal.com]

From the gaming console argument, I couldn't disagree more.

The $60 game may not be 60 times as fun as the .99 game. But I would rather spend 100 hours in the richly crafted universe of the $60 game than spend 10 hours in each of 10 inferior games. In the same way, I would rather read a £5 book of 500 pages than 500 one page pizza pamphlets pushed through my door.

In "entertainment per dollar per hour" my gaming habit is relatively cheap -- £30 will usually buy me something with 30-100 hours of play. Indeed, I'd gladly pay more for higher quality and shorter games.

We've both recently finished Mass Effect games. They're state of the art for what that kind of game does. However, they both have large amounts of repetitious content. For example, how many enemy types were in mass effect 2? Maybe 20? You spend a good chunk of your game hacking through fights against those. Why so few? Because it takes a heck of an amount of programmer time to create just one -- from concept art to animation to AI... modern RPGs tend to have far less diversity of "things to fight" than old school ones. If I could pay twice as much for a shorter game with more diversity, I probably would because, by the standards of things I do for leisure (going to a gig, the theatre, comedy or a restaurant) gaming is very very cheap (less than £1 per hour entertainment compared with £10-£30 per hour entertainment ).

[andrewducker]

I agree - I'm not going to pay £40 for a game that's over in a few hours, but for one that keeps me occupied for weeks it's definitely worth it.

And, as I just picked up ME3 for £17, the value for money is even higher!

[steer.livejournal.com]

Where this "value/return" breaks is different for different people. For me though (and I think for you) a really great game is a thing you will remember for a long time (like a great book or film) and a casual game is something to kill time if you've just got a few minutes on a train.

Casual games (of the $0.99) variety like Angry Birds are a very different proposal. They can be fun and they have more mass market appeal. They're much less intensive on developer time and that's why they're cheap. This is not to say that a single (or small) developer game can never provide a rich emotional experience (Braid makes it just about and some recent interactive fiction games).

An "Elder Scrolls" or "Mass Effect" will always require a lot of developer effort. To get the "epic feel" cinematics and good quality scripting and acting requires people to put in time and that costs. That's going to be the case for quite some time I think.

If the gaming audience increases vastly, of course, the ecosystem will change. The marginal cost of a game is near zero (cost of media or digital download) so if 100 times as many people are buying then it becomes worth vastly upping the developer/artist/scriptwriter time you put in to get that market edge.

[usmu.livejournal.com]

Only a (gaming) nerd would make a dollar per hour of enjoyment comparison, which means you're free to keep playing console games regardless of whether the rest of the world does. ;)

On a less tongue in cheek note:

Depending on how hand held devices like the ipad and (to a lesser extent) smart phones hold up hardware wise, I could see the less hardcore console users switch to less cumbersome media, specially if they're going to be carrying those with them anyway. I don't see a reason why there couldn't or wouldn't be games with a lot of content for a resonable price. The casual games industry shows ligth content for a reasonable price works, so why not more content heavy games for a reasonable, somewhat higher price. I wouldn't be surprised if the market will be big enough for the model to be sustainable.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I wasn't really sure what that article _was_ asserting. The comparison was Blueray vs Downloading seemed to be that people more often value convenience more than technical flourishes, which is probably true.

But he seemed to be conflating "all games will cost £0.99" with "no-one will use consoles" which to me are two separate questions. Facebook, smartphones and tablets have opened up casual gaming to a massively larger segment of the population (which is great).

But he seems to be making two separate predictions. One is: "no-one will want to play games that require a concentrated investment of time, so everyone will play Angry Birds instead of Deus Ex". I guess that's _possible_. It's true that the larger possible user base makes it possible to make more games like Angry Birds, which means people who played Deus Ex but would have been happier with Angry Birds can switch. But like you say, I don't expect that to be _that_ many people (and presumably, as more people play Angry Birds, more people may be willing to try something a bit more complicated). I would expect the market for "real video games" to stay about the same.

The other question is, will people play them on consoles, and there I don't know for sure. Currently I don't think there's many AAA games that can get ported to an iPad, let alone a smartphone? But that _could_ happen. And many middling-serious gamers may well be happy to use whatever computing device is most convenient -- to some extent, consoles presumably took off because they were cheaper and less hassle than getting games to run on a PC. And he may be right that if you can reach _most_ of the market by producing something which will run on an iPad, it's not necessarily worth capturing the uber-gamers by porting it to a specialised console. (But I don't know, presumably an iPad will always lag behind in graphics performance, I'm not sure how much the majority of gamers care about that, but presumably at least somewhat?) So we may have games on consoles, or Steam, or iPads or -- whatever's most convenient. That's probably a good thing too :)

Of course, it's possible we'll meet in the middle and have games that have serious investment in character, plot, gameplay and replayability that can be played on an iPad or a PC, but photorealistic graphics that are counterproductive to actually navigating around the game will become niche, but I doubt that'll actually happen :)

[steer.livejournal.com]

"all games will cost £0.99" with "no-one will use consoles

I can sort of see this. Most consoles are sold at a loss because expensive games then claw back the money. Arguably if all games cost 99p the console business model is dead. (I think it would more likely just change).

I would expect the market for "real video games" to stay about the same.

I would expect it to increase slightly. Obviously only a proportion of people have the mindset that wants to devote many hours to something "just a game". However, developing markets will make it more profitable to sell to a larger user base within that proportion. (Hence WoW going gaga for China recently).


The other question is, will people play them on consoles, and there I don't know for sure. Currently I don't think there's many AAA games that can get ported to an iPad, let alone a smartphone? But that _could_ happen.

I agree here it's a definite possibility. At what point does a graphics engine and processing power come into "diminishing returns"? If you can run the greatest game in the world on your calculator or digital watch and have a port out to a high enough definition screen why spend £BIG on a console. On the other hand, I don't think we're near that point yet. Skyrim was definitely more beautiful than Oblivion. Mass Effect 3 was more beautiful than Mass Effect 1. That rate of development is slowing though (to me). Maybe in 10 years we'll reach the point where investment in CPU and graphics card just to achieve cinematic effects will not increase much further -- at that point then all but the ultra serious gamer can make do with a last generation console and graphics card. (Incidentally console generations are slowing down in their release times, I think inline with this).

[naath.livejournal.com]

As with almost everything... this value is subjective. To *you* a game like Skyrim may be tens if not hundreds of hours of entertainment - to me most games like that are a few hours of keyboard snapping frustration at the interface coupled with boredom at the plot; which adds up to approximately zero fun. Whilst a lot of silly puzzle-type games of the sort that cost very little are exactly the sort of thing that can keep me entertained for hours on end.

There are a lot of things out there where I don't understand why people pay the extra money; but I have to assume that the people paying are getting something that they want for their money that they can't reasonably get for less money.

[steer.livejournal.com]

To *you* a game like Skyrim may be tens if not hundreds of hours of entertainment - to me most games like that are a few hours of keyboard snapping frustration at the interface coupled with boredom at the plot

Of course -- but the point is that there are millions of people who want that experience (the detailed skyrim experience) and that gamer is the core market for console gaming. Or similarly people put 1000s of hours into winning a strategy game or moving their character upwards in a multi-player online game. Those are the people to whom you can say "Hey, this box costs £425 (PS3 UK launch price), but if you buy it you can play even better games." They're who the console maker is selling to.

The exception (slightly) is Wii which is more targetted towards "casual" gaming and cheaper.

Whilst a lot of silly puzzle-type games of the sort that cost very little are exactly the sort of thing that can keep me entertained for hours on end.

Indeed and I don't mean to disparage the so called "casual" gamer. However, those are the last people to buy a console (which was what the article was about). If you bought a console I'd guess you'd likely buy a Wii (no offense meant as this is the console I have) as it's cheap enough and can play exactly those games just fine with little expense. Those games can be produced cheaply, bought cheaply and run on just about any hardware. Not many people are going to buy a playstation 3 to play the equivalent of bejewelled or plants versus zombies, not because those are "bad games" but because those games work fine on just about any computer.

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

Sometimes the entertainment/hour just gets ridiculously good from computer games.

Skyrim, for example - werejud and I bought it on PS3, and then subsequently on PC for both of us - a total of about £100 invested.

We've played for at least 300 hours between us so far, probably more, and we're far from done with it yet. Indeed, I'm very likely to end up making Machinima with it, and we're both starting to investigate the mod scene (expect very pretty pictures soon). I wouldn't be surprised if our total entertainment time from one game ended up totalling >1000 hours.

[steer.livejournal.com]

Wow... you guys really get "bang for buck"... I am in awe of the achievements of the modding/machinima communities. The things that are achieved these days are brilliant.

[andrewducker]

Ooooh, pretty pictures! I shall look forward to them.

[randomchris.livejournal.com]

"“Humans are terrible athletes in terms of power and speed, but we’re phenomenal at slow and steady. We’re the tortoises of the animal kingdom,” Lieberman said."

...

I'm pretty sure that the tortoises of the animal kingdom are, in fact, tortoises.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Googling for "the rolls royce of automobiles"... :)

[steer.livejournal.com]

Oh, data point for the running thing:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_versus_Horse_Marathon

Maybe "Most animals would develop hyperthermia — heat stroke in humans — after about 10 to 15 kilometers, he said."

However, in those races the horses almost always win -- and they are carrying riders. The horses also have to stop for veterinarian checks to ensure they are fit to continue which is apparently not typically deducted from their time.

So my conclusion is a horse could easily outrun a motivated human athlete over a marathon distance if you took the damn rider off its back -- it just would not usually be motivated to do so.

[jarkman.livejournal.com]

I wonder how much the hyperthermia thing varies with the weather ?

The running article is specifically about us chasing the beasts during the hot part of an African day, not during a drizzly Welsh afternoon.

[steer.livejournal.com]

While looking around I also found info about races run in the Arabian desert -- the horses there were getting a much better half-marathon time than human runners. I also found out that pony express horses were fairly typically running human elite-runner half marathon times between changes of horse -- that would include deserts -- and those were averages.

Horses also do "ultra marathon" distance events in many conditions over 100km and 160km distances in faster times than humans but they have "vet breaks" and food/water breaks which I could not find info about the length of and which I *think* are subtracted from the time.

Seems to me like horse + rider over any long distance is faster than runner.

[del-c.livejournal.com]

it just would not usually be motivated to do so

This is why a proper test would involve horse hunting :-)

Joking aside, could not a humane version be created, involving humans doing something that annoys a horse but does not actually distress it? Horse paintballing, where the paintball may only be thrown using hands, a sling, or something arranged on the end of a spear with an atlatl?

The horse owners who agree to let their horses get used to running away from people would be a specialised group, I think.

[steer.livejournal.com]

*laugh* Well, I think the humane version would be running alongside your dog with the dog keeping up at their own pace. Elsewhere in this thread it seems that dogs can go very long distances like that and be fresh at the end of it (having kept up with a human for a long time).

I don't think many horse owners would like that and those that did perhaps shouldn't be horse owners. :-)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Huh. I'm honestly amazed that a human won over 20 miles, even with the horse stopping for breaks, I would have assumed that a horse would do 20 miles easily.

I thought it was commonly understood that humans were naturally long-distance runners, but I assumed that was more like, over 100 miles than over 20. I'm sure I remember seeing that in nature programs (and even web comics) -- the idea that humans would hunt prey by simply tracking it and running it into the ground, even though it was faster for quite a while at first.

The quote I remember (I think it came up recently when I mused about horse-cycling) was something like "If a cheetah wants to catch up to a human, it can catch up to a human. If a human wants to catch up to a cheetah, it can catch up to a cheetah".

Now I'm not sure -- is that article saying that this wan't accepted but now it is? Or just making publically aware something that was accepted by biologists? Or that this determination was more recent than I'd assumed? Or that we used to think something _like_ that, but now we think something more specific?

[steer.livejournal.com]

I thought it was commonly understood that humans were naturally long-distance runners, but I assumed that was more like, over 100 miles than over 20.

Surely not? Most (even quite fit) humans simply couldn't do that and the punishment the body takes makes it bad for you to do (marathon runners and ultramarathon runners train with < 20 mile runs because 20 mile and longer runs reduces your ability to run). If a bunch of humans chase something for 100 miles then it had better essentially be a rhino made of sugar to be worth the calories (I exaggerate for comic effect but not much). I find it very unlikely that chases of 20 miles were common in hunter societies (consider you've got to then kill, butcher and bring it back).

[henriksdal.livejournal.com]

I think Life on Earth, or another recent Attenborough documentary, did cover this? they had three men hunting down a game beast in Africa. They just followed it quickly at first, then just walked after it. Every time it stopped to rest, the men would catch up with it and it would be forced to move on, until it was near death with exhaustion. According to documentary, this is human's hunting niche - pursuing something not quickly, but relentlessly

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

"Email and web use to be monitored under new laws. I really hope this gets rapidly squashed"

Shouldn't "no universal surveilance" be covered in the ECHR or something? I'm so depressed :(

"Ask a Physicist: Will CERN awaken the Elder Gods?"

ROFL. That's awesome. I love that it actually SOUNDS like a physicist talking, rather than many such parodies which seem to jump straight to "oh, we summon elder gods all the time, didn't you know?"

"How the Tories u-turned on civil liberties. (Where, by the way, are the lib-dems speaking out against this?)"

Oh, we were supposed to believe that?

That's not quite fair -- I'm still too left-wing by inclination to give conservatives fair shakes, even when they really deserve praise. And I hoped that maybe the coalition would be better than labour on this. But pro-business and anti-privacy seem to pervade both wings of politics :(

[inamac.livejournal.com]

I am still hoping that the GCHQ thing is an April Fool - and if it isn't, that someone in Government will have the wit to pretend that it was.

[doubtingmichael.livejournal.com]

Good grief! A particular thank you for the xkcd link. It was like xkcd Christmas come early.