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I have a few things to discus here, just put them in the one post as I'm sure more people will read just the one and it is easier for me to write it this way. We all probably have various reasons why games appeal to us so much and why we play them, but imagine for a moment if you will what other uses games could have in the future. Other areas where games could be used for improving or educating people under various situations.
Here are a few I thought on:
What about the area of driving vehicles like cars, buses, planes etc. I know it is probably simulators that are of use but most simulators are a form of games anyway.
Gaming could improve these areas as the could allow practicing under non-dangerous situations, you could learn the basics before stepping into the real vehicle, thus boosting your confidence and making you feel a bit more comfortable.
Games could also benefit this area as there are various situations that we don't encounter very often that can have drastic effects on the vehicle, things like driving on snow and ice, flying in heavy winds/fog/snow etc. The game could create and test various dangerous situation to allow the user to gain confidence in these areas and also could be very beneficial if they were to encounter a dangerous situation they may be able to handle it properly and not end up in danger. Obviously there are situatuions we could never predict and it is impossible to identify all the expceted ones but this could help prepare the driver for a few of them.
I remember once seeing a program about American police and they were using a type of game (It was a video on a screen and the police used special handguns which interacted with the game. If the shot was fired on the screen at a badguy they fell, if they missed and the badguy shot back the officer was shot) it looked quite impressive as it tested officers in various situations. A better version could be used in which the officers could also use voice as an input and if they act incorrectly the person controlling the game could make the badguys respond in a dangerous way. This give police officers a safe way of dealing with various situations so that if the real thing was to happen they could be prepared to expect the unexpected and deal with it.
The paragraph above was one I used in a post ages ago and this idea seems to be in use. There was a program last night about armed police officers in the UK and as part of their initial training they face a similar challenge. Using a special weapon they stand in front of a large screen and a movie is played, if the officer responds well the person controlling the senario gives the correct input to make it all end safely. If they mess up the person controlling the senario makes the required input to make the criminal react to the situation. Obviously it is still user controlled but could reach the standard where it is all computer controlled, looked quite fun too although there is a serious side to it all ensuring all armed officers are capable and prepared for dangerous situation.
I also think that games could be used in schools for an educational purpose, when I was in school we used to watch educational programs on television which helped you to learn such topics as maths, spelling etc. I think games have more potential than the television in the field of education. Children would concentrate more with games and they are also interactive so the child would be doing more and learning along the way.
Children have very short attention spans, paying attention to a teacher all day can become very boring. A lot of children would like the idea of getting to play a game as part of learning. Games are very popular with young children (the rest of us as well) and ones that help them learn easier and sometimes faster could be beneficial to the children and also the teacher.
Bright, fast moving colours and sounds cause us to become interested in what’s happening, we pay more attention. When I was in school we used BBC computers with very poor graphical abilities, but still a lot of my classmates jumped at the chance to use one. I know all this would cost money but education is slowly improving in this country and more funds become available to schools all the time. Not a lot of equipment would be needed. Just a few computers in each school (which most probably have got). I know a lot of people who have some kind of educational software to help you learn, revise and they think they are a great help.
I think game based learning would not only be more fun than using books and TV, the teacher would still play a major part in teaching, games could just be used as a little bit of fun to make school a more fun place to be and to re-inforce the basics that we should all know. Maybe more suited to children with special learning needs who require more effort and find learning hard, this kind of thing could be an answer to helping them that little bit more.
Guess most points are for dangerous situation, maybe reinacting fires on dangerous places like boats and submarines could also benefit from a game type senario. There are probably a lot of others but right now my brain hurts and can't think of any more.
So where else do you think gaming could be used?
Another idea I was thinking about was one area on the potential that the on-line gaming market will have on us. So if on-line gaming is a huge success and also is cheap what kind of things could we expect to see.
Well other than the obvious things like playing games against people from all over. But looking into this area the potential is quite great. Take the following type of games as examples.
Football Games
A few possibilities, first you could take control of one individual player and ten others could do the same to make up your team and then play against another team, although this may not seem as much fun as how much of the ball your player gets will be decided by the other players.
How about the chance to play in a world cup where you can play against people all over in a cup competition to try be victorious. It does sound like a lot of fun to me as each oponent will be different in some way.
Wrestling games
The posibilities for this kind of game is also quite high, maybe story updates could be downlaoded to keep the characters and story up to date with the TV programs. Also what about the chance to play with 29 others in a royal rumble where each player picks a character and then gets a random number and it is up to you to do your best and win. This option would appeal to a lot of fans as wrestling games are usually months behind in terms of story mode and recent wrestlers, a way of updating these would make an average wrestling game a lot lot better.
Obviously there is huge potential for other varieties of games.
So what else could going on-line give us. Well things like Game updates which could give us extra levels and characters and make small improvements on games are a possibility. Also other options like downlaoding game demos, music and video clips are being planned by Sony and probably by Nintendo and Microsoft too.
But what about further into the future? Will we see games which are designed just for on-line game playing? Such games which require a large number of gamers to take part in them and everyone plays a unique and fun part to the game. This way each time you play could be different, requiring you to do different things to progresss.
Or in a simiar way to the wrestling option mentioned before what about games that automatically update themselves when you are on the network, so they could downlaod a small file either onto the hard disk or a memory card which is loaded each time you play that particular game, the update could have maybe extra options, levels,characters, vehicles etc or could be used to fix minor bugs or problems in the games coding. That way developers wouldn't have to release poor sequels *Cough FIFA /Cough* instead just release an update every few months which improves the game slightly, this way not only would each game last that little bit longer but also poor sequels could be a thing of the past. Poor sequels are ruining the industry quite a bit and the developers are making easy money and getting away with it.
All games are made for one reason. Money. Sure some developers like producing games for us all to play but they ultimately do it for the profits. It is an industry that if you do well you will be rewarded in a big way. These days most games cost millions to make but the profits that can be made are well worth the risk. I am currently studying computer science at university and one course focuses on designing software systems and programs and faults in software.
On average with every 1000 lines of programming code, the number of errors will be around 10, these take between 2 and 9 hours to fix. This means for a whole game it could take a very long time to completely rid it of bugs and faults. (remember windows 2000 has 30 million lines of code, it was released still with a lot of unfixed errors) so there isn't much surprise that games have bugss but most developers can keep these to a minimum which don't spoil the game at all.
There are a few reasons why some games don't match expectations and can only be described as pants. First up is time and money.
Money is needed throughout the development for various things, each game is given an expected time for release, usually this slips but as it slips more money is required from the publisher etc and sometimes a game is released before it really should be as money is no longer available and the publisher wants money back from it all so the game gets released.
Another problem could be down to the individual programmers, if a programmer is very good at his job they can produce good code which does what it should in the simplist and most efficient way possible, often programmers are snapped up by the bigger companies so sometimes in the middle of a games design the programmer of a certain part could leave and the part they were working on needs to be re-done.
I was reading through a magazine at the review scores for some games to see what to look out for in the near future, then something I didn't think I would ever see, a game scoring only 7%. The game in question is International League Soccer (Sounds like an ISS copy) and I think that name could confuse a lot, thinking they are buying an ISS game when they are not. This game did sound very poor so why was it released?
I did a post before on maybe a standard should be set that all games released at the time are matched too, when we buy a car we get to see details about the condition it is in so why not have something similar with games, if they have any faults surely we deserve to know about them before we buy it.
So what other solutions are there to reducing the number of poor games?
Well we as people/gamers could complain to developers more. If a product isn’t what it should be or has many faults then we should let them know. We don’t complain enough whether it be in a restaurant or to a developer about a shoddy game. Stand up for your rights and let them know how you feel. It’s time to whinge! If developers have a lot of pressure from the gamers then they will know they will have to do better next time of face a loss in sales, may also give you freebies if you moan enough just to try make you happier.
Manufactures like Sony and Nintendo could do something like this themselves, they already do but they aren’t as strict on some games as they should be. Also they should provide more help to the developers on certain aspects of the hardware allowing developers to use it as best they can.
Maybe a universal rating system could be used for all types of software, say a star rating out of 10 where 0-1 was very poor and 10 was awarded for very advanced and great quality software (maybe out of 100 would allow easier rating?) The console developer (Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft) could rate each of the games available for their platform. This way you know if you pick up a game with a high star rating you know it has been approved by the console manufacturer.
I guess the real way to prevent games like this being released is to not buy them, but sometimes due to clever marketing techniques and sometimes biased magazines reviews we can sometimes be fooled into buying a game that isn't what we thought it was. Most marketing teams can find good ways of selling even the most rubbish items available.
Something like these ideas could be beneficial to the gaming industry (and also any software industry) as it improves the overall standards for the customers and users and also for the developers as it would mean more would buy it as it has passed a suitable standard and people would recognise that it has something worth seeing.
I know all of us know what games are going to be good and which are not, but for those who don't pay enough attention to the industry surely something should be done to help them?
Here are a few I thought on:
What about the area of driving vehicles like cars, buses, planes etc. I know it is probably simulators that are of use but most simulators are a form of games anyway.
Gaming could improve these areas as the could allow practicing under non-dangerous situations, you could learn the basics before stepping into the real vehicle, thus boosting your confidence and making you feel a bit more comfortable.
Games could also benefit this area as there are various situations that we don't encounter very often that can have drastic effects on the vehicle, things like driving on snow and ice, flying in heavy winds/fog/snow etc. The game could create and test various dangerous situation to allow the user to gain confidence in these areas and also could be very beneficial if they were to encounter a dangerous situation they may be able to handle it properly and not end up in danger. Obviously there are situatuions we could never predict and it is impossible to identify all the expceted ones but this could help prepare the driver for a few of them.
I remember once seeing a program about American police and they were using a type of game (It was a video on a screen and the police used special handguns which interacted with the game. If the shot was fired on the screen at a badguy they fell, if they missed and the badguy shot back the officer was shot) it looked quite impressive as it tested officers in various situations. A better version could be used in which the officers could also use voice as an input and if they act incorrectly the person controlling the game could make the badguys respond in a dangerous way. This give police officers a safe way of dealing with various situations so that if the real thing was to happen they could be prepared to expect the unexpected and deal with it.
The paragraph above was one I used in a post ages ago and this idea seems to be in use. There was a program last night about armed police officers in the UK and as part of their initial training they face a similar challenge. Using a special weapon they stand in front of a large screen and a movie is played, if the officer responds well the person controlling the senario gives the correct input to make it all end safely. If they mess up the person controlling the senario makes the required input to make the criminal react to the situation. Obviously it is still user controlled but could reach the standard where it is all computer controlled, looked quite fun too although there is a serious side to it all ensuring all armed officers are capable and prepared for dangerous situation.
I also think that games could be used in schools for an educational purpose, when I was in school we used to watch educational programs on television which helped you to learn such topics as maths, spelling etc. I think games have more potential than the television in the field of education. Children would concentrate more with games and they are also interactive so the child would be doing more and learning along the way.
Children have very short attention spans, paying attention to a teacher all day can become very boring. A lot of children would like the idea of getting to play a game as part of learning. Games are very popular with young children (the rest of us as well) and ones that help them learn easier and sometimes faster could be beneficial to the children and also the teacher.
Bright, fast moving colours and sounds cause us to become interested in what’s happening, we pay more attention. When I was in school we used BBC computers with very poor graphical abilities, but still a lot of my classmates jumped at the chance to use one. I know all this would cost money but education is slowly improving in this country and more funds become available to schools all the time. Not a lot of equipment would be needed. Just a few computers in each school (which most probably have got). I know a lot of people who have some kind of educational software to help you learn, revise and they think they are a great help.
I think game based learning would not only be more fun than using books and TV, the teacher would still play a major part in teaching, games could just be used as a little bit of fun to make school a more fun place to be and to re-inforce the basics that we should all know. Maybe more suited to children with special learning needs who require more effort and find learning hard, this kind of thing could be an answer to helping them that little bit more.
Guess most points are for dangerous situation, maybe reinacting fires on dangerous places like boats and submarines could also benefit from a game type senario. There are probably a lot of others but right now my brain hurts and can't think of any more.
So where else do you think gaming could be used?
Another idea I was thinking about was one area on the potential that the on-line gaming market will have on us. So if on-line gaming is a huge success and also is cheap what kind of things could we expect to see.
Well other than the obvious things like playing games against people from all over. But looking into this area the potential is quite great. Take the following type of games as examples.
Football Games
A few possibilities, first you could take control of one individual player and ten others could do the same to make up your team and then play against another team, although this may not seem as much fun as how much of the ball your player gets will be decided by the other players.
How about the chance to play in a world cup where you can play against people all over in a cup competition to try be victorious. It does sound like a lot of fun to me as each oponent will be different in some way.
Wrestling games
The posibilities for this kind of game is also quite high, maybe story updates could be downlaoded to keep the characters and story up to date with the TV programs. Also what about the chance to play with 29 others in a royal rumble where each player picks a character and then gets a random number and it is up to you to do your best and win. This option would appeal to a lot of fans as wrestling games are usually months behind in terms of story mode and recent wrestlers, a way of updating these would make an average wrestling game a lot lot better.
Obviously there is huge potential for other varieties of games.
So what else could going on-line give us. Well things like Game updates which could give us extra levels and characters and make small improvements on games are a possibility. Also other options like downlaoding game demos, music and video clips are being planned by Sony and probably by Nintendo and Microsoft too.
But what about further into the future? Will we see games which are designed just for on-line game playing? Such games which require a large number of gamers to take part in them and everyone plays a unique and fun part to the game. This way each time you play could be different, requiring you to do different things to progresss.
Or in a simiar way to the wrestling option mentioned before what about games that automatically update themselves when you are on the network, so they could downlaod a small file either onto the hard disk or a memory card which is loaded each time you play that particular game, the update could have maybe extra options, levels,characters, vehicles etc or could be used to fix minor bugs or problems in the games coding. That way developers wouldn't have to release poor sequels *Cough FIFA /Cough* instead just release an update every few months which improves the game slightly, this way not only would each game last that little bit longer but also poor sequels could be a thing of the past. Poor sequels are ruining the industry quite a bit and the developers are making easy money and getting away with it.
All games are made for one reason. Money. Sure some developers like producing games for us all to play but they ultimately do it for the profits. It is an industry that if you do well you will be rewarded in a big way. These days most games cost millions to make but the profits that can be made are well worth the risk. I am currently studying computer science at university and one course focuses on designing software systems and programs and faults in software.
On average with every 1000 lines of programming code, the number of errors will be around 10, these take between 2 and 9 hours to fix. This means for a whole game it could take a very long time to completely rid it of bugs and faults. (remember windows 2000 has 30 million lines of code, it was released still with a lot of unfixed errors) so there isn't much surprise that games have bugss but most developers can keep these to a minimum which don't spoil the game at all.
There are a few reasons why some games don't match expectations and can only be described as pants. First up is time and money.
Money is needed throughout the development for various things, each game is given an expected time for release, usually this slips but as it slips more money is required from the publisher etc and sometimes a game is released before it really should be as money is no longer available and the publisher wants money back from it all so the game gets released.
Another problem could be down to the individual programmers, if a programmer is very good at his job they can produce good code which does what it should in the simplist and most efficient way possible, often programmers are snapped up by the bigger companies so sometimes in the middle of a games design the programmer of a certain part could leave and the part they were working on needs to be re-done.
I was reading through a magazine at the review scores for some games to see what to look out for in the near future, then something I didn't think I would ever see, a game scoring only 7%. The game in question is International League Soccer (Sounds like an ISS copy) and I think that name could confuse a lot, thinking they are buying an ISS game when they are not. This game did sound very poor so why was it released?
I did a post before on maybe a standard should be set that all games released at the time are matched too, when we buy a car we get to see details about the condition it is in so why not have something similar with games, if they have any faults surely we deserve to know about them before we buy it.
So what other solutions are there to reducing the number of poor games?
Well we as people/gamers could complain to developers more. If a product isn’t what it should be or has many faults then we should let them know. We don’t complain enough whether it be in a restaurant or to a developer about a shoddy game. Stand up for your rights and let them know how you feel. It’s time to whinge! If developers have a lot of pressure from the gamers then they will know they will have to do better next time of face a loss in sales, may also give you freebies if you moan enough just to try make you happier.
Manufactures like Sony and Nintendo could do something like this themselves, they already do but they aren’t as strict on some games as they should be. Also they should provide more help to the developers on certain aspects of the hardware allowing developers to use it as best they can.
Maybe a universal rating system could be used for all types of software, say a star rating out of 10 where 0-1 was very poor and 10 was awarded for very advanced and great quality software (maybe out of 100 would allow easier rating?) The console developer (Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft) could rate each of the games available for their platform. This way you know if you pick up a game with a high star rating you know it has been approved by the console manufacturer.
I guess the real way to prevent games like this being released is to not buy them, but sometimes due to clever marketing techniques and sometimes biased magazines reviews we can sometimes be fooled into buying a game that isn't what we thought it was. Most marketing teams can find good ways of selling even the most rubbish items available.
Something like these ideas could be beneficial to the gaming industry (and also any software industry) as it improves the overall standards for the customers and users and also for the developers as it would mean more would buy it as it has passed a suitable standard and people would recognise that it has something worth seeing.
I know all of us know what games are going to be good and which are not, but for those who don't pay enough attention to the industry surely something should be done to help them?
I have a few things to discus here, just put them in the one post as I'm sure more people will read just the one and it is easier for me to write it this way. We all probably have various reasons why games appeal to us so much and why we play them, but imagine for a moment if you will what other uses games could have in the future. Other areas where games could be used for improving or educating people under various situations.
Here are a few I thought on:
What about the area of driving vehicles like cars, buses, planes etc. I know it is probably simulators that are of use but most simulators are a form of games anyway.
Gaming could improve these areas as the could allow practicing under non-dangerous situations, you could learn the basics before stepping into the real vehicle, thus boosting your confidence and making you feel a bit more comfortable.
Games could also benefit this area as there are various situations that we don't encounter very often that can have drastic effects on the vehicle, things like driving on snow and ice, flying in heavy winds/fog/snow etc. The game could create and test various dangerous situation to allow the user to gain confidence in these areas and also could be very beneficial if they were to encounter a dangerous situation they may be able to handle it properly and not end up in danger. Obviously there are situatuions we could never predict and it is impossible to identify all the expceted ones but this could help prepare the driver for a few of them.
I remember once seeing a program about American police and they were using a type of game (It was a video on a screen and the police used special handguns which interacted with the game. If the shot was fired on the screen at a badguy they fell, if they missed and the badguy shot back the officer was shot) it looked quite impressive as it tested officers in various situations. A better version could be used in which the officers could also use voice as an input and if they act incorrectly the person controlling the game could make the badguys respond in a dangerous way. This give police officers a safe way of dealing with various situations so that if the real thing was to happen they could be prepared to expect the unexpected and deal with it.
The paragraph above was one I used in a post ages ago and this idea seems to be in use. There was a program last night about armed police officers in the UK and as part of their initial training they face a similar challenge. Using a special weapon they stand in front of a large screen and a movie is played, if the officer responds well the person controlling the senario gives the correct input to make it all end safely. If they mess up the person controlling the senario makes the required input to make the criminal react to the situation. Obviously it is still user controlled but could reach the standard where it is all computer controlled, looked quite fun too although there is a serious side to it all ensuring all armed officers are capable and prepared for dangerous situation.
I also think that games could be used in schools for an educational purpose, when I was in school we used to watch educational programs on television which helped you to learn such topics as maths, spelling etc. I think games have more potential than the television in the field of education. Children would concentrate more with games and they are also interactive so the child would be doing more and learning along the way.
Children have very short attention spans, paying attention to a teacher all day can become very boring. A lot of children would like the idea of getting to play a game as part of learning. Games are very popular with young children (the rest of us as well) and ones that help them learn easier and sometimes faster could be beneficial to the children and also the teacher.
Bright, fast moving colours and sounds cause us to become interested in what’s happening, we pay more attention. When I was in school we used BBC computers with very poor graphical abilities, but still a lot of my classmates jumped at the chance to use one. I know all this would cost money but education is slowly improving in this country and more funds become available to schools all the time. Not a lot of equipment would be needed. Just a few computers in each school (which most probably have got). I know a lot of people who have some kind of educational software to help you learn, revise and they think they are a great help.
I think game based learning would not only be more fun than using books and TV, the teacher would still play a major part in teaching, games could just be used as a little bit of fun to make school a more fun place to be and to re-inforce the basics that we should all know. Maybe more suited to children with special learning needs who require more effort and find learning hard, this kind of thing could be an answer to helping them that little bit more.
Guess most points are for dangerous situation, maybe reinacting fires on dangerous places like boats and submarines could also benefit from a game type senario. There are probably a lot of others but right now my brain hurts and can't think of any more.
So where else do you think gaming could be used?
Another idea I was thinking about was one area on the potential that the on-line gaming market will have on us. So if on-line gaming is a huge success and also is cheap what kind of things could we expect to see.
Well other than the obvious things like playing games against people from all over. But looking into this area the potential is quite great. Take the following type of games as examples.
Football Games
A few possibilities, first you could take control of one individual player and ten others could do the same to make up your team and then play against another team, although this may not seem as much fun as how much of the ball your player gets will be decided by the other players.
How about the chance to play in a world cup where you can play against people all over in a cup competition to try be victorious. It does sound like a lot of fun to me as each oponent will be different in some way.
Wrestling games
The posibilities for this kind of game is also quite high, maybe story updates could be downlaoded to keep the characters and story up to date with the TV programs. Also what about the chance to play with 29 others in a royal rumble where each player picks a character and then gets a random number and it is up to you to do your best and win. This option would appeal to a lot of fans as wrestling games are usually months behind in terms of story mode and recent wrestlers, a way of updating these would make an average wrestling game a lot lot better.
Obviously there is huge potential for other varieties of games.
So what else could going on-line give us. Well things like Game updates which could give us extra levels and characters and make small improvements on games are a possibility. Also other options like downlaoding game demos, music and video clips are being planned by Sony and probably by Nintendo and Microsoft too.
But what about further into the future? Will we see games which are designed just for on-line game playing? Such games which require a large number of gamers to take part in them and everyone plays a unique and fun part to the game. This way each time you play could be different, requiring you to do different things to progresss.
Or in a simiar way to the wrestling option mentioned before what about games that automatically update themselves when you are on the network, so they could downlaod a small file either onto the hard disk or a memory card which is loaded each time you play that particular game, the update could have maybe extra options, levels,characters, vehicles etc or could be used to fix minor bugs or problems in the games coding. That way developers wouldn't have to release poor sequels *Cough FIFA /Cough* instead just release an update every few months which improves the game slightly, this way not only would each game last that little bit longer but also poor sequels could be a thing of the past. Poor sequels are ruining the industry quite a bit and the developers are making easy money and getting away with it.
All games are made for one reason. Money. Sure some developers like producing games for us all to play but they ultimately do it for the profits. It is an industry that if you do well you will be rewarded in a big way. These days most games cost millions to make but the profits that can be made are well worth the risk. I am currently studying computer science at university and one course focuses on designing software systems and programs and faults in software.
On average with every 1000 lines of programming code, the number of errors will be around 10, these take between 2 and 9 hours to fix. This means for a whole game it could take a very long time to completely rid it of bugs and faults. (remember windows 2000 has 30 million lines of code, it was released still with a lot of unfixed errors) so there isn't much surprise that games have bugss but most developers can keep these to a minimum which don't spoil the game at all.
There are a few reasons why some games don't match expectations and can only be described as pants. First up is time and money.
Money is needed throughout the development for various things, each game is given an expected time for release, usually this slips but as it slips more money is required from the publisher etc and sometimes a game is released before it really should be as money is no longer available and the publisher wants money back from it all so the game gets released.
Another problem could be down to the individual programmers, if a programmer is very good at his job they can produce good code which does what it should in the simplist and most efficient way possible, often programmers are snapped up by the bigger companies so sometimes in the middle of a games design the programmer of a certain part could leave and the part they were working on needs to be re-done.
I was reading through a magazine at the review scores for some games to see what to look out for in the near future, then something I didn't think I would ever see, a game scoring only 7%. The game in question is International League Soccer (Sounds like an ISS copy) and I think that name could confuse a lot, thinking they are buying an ISS game when they are not. This game did sound very poor so why was it released?
I did a post before on maybe a standard should be set that all games released at the time are matched too, when we buy a car we get to see details about the condition it is in so why not have something similar with games, if they have any faults surely we deserve to know about them before we buy it.
So what other solutions are there to reducing the number of poor games?
Well we as people/gamers could complain to developers more. If a product isn’t what it should be or has many faults then we should let them know. We don’t complain enough whether it be in a restaurant or to a developer about a shoddy game. Stand up for your rights and let them know how you feel. It’s time to whinge! If developers have a lot of pressure from the gamers then they will know they will have to do better next time of face a loss in sales, may also give you freebies if you moan enough just to try make you happier.
Manufactures like Sony and Nintendo could do something like this themselves, they already do but they aren’t as strict on some games as they should be. Also they should provide more help to the developers on certain aspects of the hardware allowing developers to use it as best they can.
Maybe a universal rating system could be used for all types of software, say a star rating out of 10 where 0-1 was very poor and 10 was awarded for very advanced and great quality software (maybe out of 100 would allow easier rating?) The console developer (Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft) could rate each of the games available for their platform. This way you know if you pick up a game with a high star rating you know it has been approved by the console manufacturer.
I guess the real way to prevent games like this being released is to not buy them, but sometimes due to clever marketing techniques and sometimes biased magazines reviews we can sometimes be fooled into buying a game that isn't what we thought it was. Most marketing teams can find good ways of selling even the most rubbish items available.
Something like these ideas could be beneficial to the gaming industry (and also any software industry) as it improves the overall standards for the customers and users and also for the developers as it would mean more would buy it as it has passed a suitable standard and people would recognise that it has something worth seeing.
I know all of us know what games are going to be good and which are not, but for those who don't pay enough attention to the industry surely something should be done to help them?
Here are a few I thought on:
What about the area of driving vehicles like cars, buses, planes etc. I know it is probably simulators that are of use but most simulators are a form of games anyway.
Gaming could improve these areas as the could allow practicing under non-dangerous situations, you could learn the basics before stepping into the real vehicle, thus boosting your confidence and making you feel a bit more comfortable.
Games could also benefit this area as there are various situations that we don't encounter very often that can have drastic effects on the vehicle, things like driving on snow and ice, flying in heavy winds/fog/snow etc. The game could create and test various dangerous situation to allow the user to gain confidence in these areas and also could be very beneficial if they were to encounter a dangerous situation they may be able to handle it properly and not end up in danger. Obviously there are situatuions we could never predict and it is impossible to identify all the expceted ones but this could help prepare the driver for a few of them.
I remember once seeing a program about American police and they were using a type of game (It was a video on a screen and the police used special handguns which interacted with the game. If the shot was fired on the screen at a badguy they fell, if they missed and the badguy shot back the officer was shot) it looked quite impressive as it tested officers in various situations. A better version could be used in which the officers could also use voice as an input and if they act incorrectly the person controlling the game could make the badguys respond in a dangerous way. This give police officers a safe way of dealing with various situations so that if the real thing was to happen they could be prepared to expect the unexpected and deal with it.
The paragraph above was one I used in a post ages ago and this idea seems to be in use. There was a program last night about armed police officers in the UK and as part of their initial training they face a similar challenge. Using a special weapon they stand in front of a large screen and a movie is played, if the officer responds well the person controlling the senario gives the correct input to make it all end safely. If they mess up the person controlling the senario makes the required input to make the criminal react to the situation. Obviously it is still user controlled but could reach the standard where it is all computer controlled, looked quite fun too although there is a serious side to it all ensuring all armed officers are capable and prepared for dangerous situation.
I also think that games could be used in schools for an educational purpose, when I was in school we used to watch educational programs on television which helped you to learn such topics as maths, spelling etc. I think games have more potential than the television in the field of education. Children would concentrate more with games and they are also interactive so the child would be doing more and learning along the way.
Children have very short attention spans, paying attention to a teacher all day can become very boring. A lot of children would like the idea of getting to play a game as part of learning. Games are very popular with young children (the rest of us as well) and ones that help them learn easier and sometimes faster could be beneficial to the children and also the teacher.
Bright, fast moving colours and sounds cause us to become interested in what’s happening, we pay more attention. When I was in school we used BBC computers with very poor graphical abilities, but still a lot of my classmates jumped at the chance to use one. I know all this would cost money but education is slowly improving in this country and more funds become available to schools all the time. Not a lot of equipment would be needed. Just a few computers in each school (which most probably have got). I know a lot of people who have some kind of educational software to help you learn, revise and they think they are a great help.
I think game based learning would not only be more fun than using books and TV, the teacher would still play a major part in teaching, games could just be used as a little bit of fun to make school a more fun place to be and to re-inforce the basics that we should all know. Maybe more suited to children with special learning needs who require more effort and find learning hard, this kind of thing could be an answer to helping them that little bit more.
Guess most points are for dangerous situation, maybe reinacting fires on dangerous places like boats and submarines could also benefit from a game type senario. There are probably a lot of others but right now my brain hurts and can't think of any more.
So where else do you think gaming could be used?
Another idea I was thinking about was one area on the potential that the on-line gaming market will have on us. So if on-line gaming is a huge success and also is cheap what kind of things could we expect to see.
Well other than the obvious things like playing games against people from all over. But looking into this area the potential is quite great. Take the following type of games as examples.
Football Games
A few possibilities, first you could take control of one individual player and ten others could do the same to make up your team and then play against another team, although this may not seem as much fun as how much of the ball your player gets will be decided by the other players.
How about the chance to play in a world cup where you can play against people all over in a cup competition to try be victorious. It does sound like a lot of fun to me as each oponent will be different in some way.
Wrestling games
The posibilities for this kind of game is also quite high, maybe story updates could be downlaoded to keep the characters and story up to date with the TV programs. Also what about the chance to play with 29 others in a royal rumble where each player picks a character and then gets a random number and it is up to you to do your best and win. This option would appeal to a lot of fans as wrestling games are usually months behind in terms of story mode and recent wrestlers, a way of updating these would make an average wrestling game a lot lot better.
Obviously there is huge potential for other varieties of games.
So what else could going on-line give us. Well things like Game updates which could give us extra levels and characters and make small improvements on games are a possibility. Also other options like downlaoding game demos, music and video clips are being planned by Sony and probably by Nintendo and Microsoft too.
But what about further into the future? Will we see games which are designed just for on-line game playing? Such games which require a large number of gamers to take part in them and everyone plays a unique and fun part to the game. This way each time you play could be different, requiring you to do different things to progresss.
Or in a simiar way to the wrestling option mentioned before what about games that automatically update themselves when you are on the network, so they could downlaod a small file either onto the hard disk or a memory card which is loaded each time you play that particular game, the update could have maybe extra options, levels,characters, vehicles etc or could be used to fix minor bugs or problems in the games coding. That way developers wouldn't have to release poor sequels *Cough FIFA /Cough* instead just release an update every few months which improves the game slightly, this way not only would each game last that little bit longer but also poor sequels could be a thing of the past. Poor sequels are ruining the industry quite a bit and the developers are making easy money and getting away with it.
All games are made for one reason. Money. Sure some developers like producing games for us all to play but they ultimately do it for the profits. It is an industry that if you do well you will be rewarded in a big way. These days most games cost millions to make but the profits that can be made are well worth the risk. I am currently studying computer science at university and one course focuses on designing software systems and programs and faults in software.
On average with every 1000 lines of programming code, the number of errors will be around 10, these take between 2 and 9 hours to fix. This means for a whole game it could take a very long time to completely rid it of bugs and faults. (remember windows 2000 has 30 million lines of code, it was released still with a lot of unfixed errors) so there isn't much surprise that games have bugss but most developers can keep these to a minimum which don't spoil the game at all.
There are a few reasons why some games don't match expectations and can only be described as pants. First up is time and money.
Money is needed throughout the development for various things, each game is given an expected time for release, usually this slips but as it slips more money is required from the publisher etc and sometimes a game is released before it really should be as money is no longer available and the publisher wants money back from it all so the game gets released.
Another problem could be down to the individual programmers, if a programmer is very good at his job they can produce good code which does what it should in the simplist and most efficient way possible, often programmers are snapped up by the bigger companies so sometimes in the middle of a games design the programmer of a certain part could leave and the part they were working on needs to be re-done.
I was reading through a magazine at the review scores for some games to see what to look out for in the near future, then something I didn't think I would ever see, a game scoring only 7%. The game in question is International League Soccer (Sounds like an ISS copy) and I think that name could confuse a lot, thinking they are buying an ISS game when they are not. This game did sound very poor so why was it released?
I did a post before on maybe a standard should be set that all games released at the time are matched too, when we buy a car we get to see details about the condition it is in so why not have something similar with games, if they have any faults surely we deserve to know about them before we buy it.
So what other solutions are there to reducing the number of poor games?
Well we as people/gamers could complain to developers more. If a product isn’t what it should be or has many faults then we should let them know. We don’t complain enough whether it be in a restaurant or to a developer about a shoddy game. Stand up for your rights and let them know how you feel. It’s time to whinge! If developers have a lot of pressure from the gamers then they will know they will have to do better next time of face a loss in sales, may also give you freebies if you moan enough just to try make you happier.
Manufactures like Sony and Nintendo could do something like this themselves, they already do but they aren’t as strict on some games as they should be. Also they should provide more help to the developers on certain aspects of the hardware allowing developers to use it as best they can.
Maybe a universal rating system could be used for all types of software, say a star rating out of 10 where 0-1 was very poor and 10 was awarded for very advanced and great quality software (maybe out of 100 would allow easier rating?) The console developer (Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft) could rate each of the games available for their platform. This way you know if you pick up a game with a high star rating you know it has been approved by the console manufacturer.
I guess the real way to prevent games like this being released is to not buy them, but sometimes due to clever marketing techniques and sometimes biased magazines reviews we can sometimes be fooled into buying a game that isn't what we thought it was. Most marketing teams can find good ways of selling even the most rubbish items available.
Something like these ideas could be beneficial to the gaming industry (and also any software industry) as it improves the overall standards for the customers and users and also for the developers as it would mean more would buy it as it has passed a suitable standard and people would recognise that it has something worth seeing.
I know all of us know what games are going to be good and which are not, but for those who don't pay enough attention to the industry surely something should be done to help them?
In respect to your opinions on use of a game to learn to drive/fly and to use in preparation for extreme situations:
It's a superb idea, but i think it's already been done! I belive a major driving school at the moment already has simulators which imitate their learner cars. these are used to allow drivers to get comfortable with the controls whilst remaining safely away from the dangers of the road.
And Commercial Aircraft pilots will do extensive training in a simulator before they go anywhere near a real jet airliner. And when they have their licence they return to the simulator every few months in order to train in uncommon situations such as decompression, extreme turbulence, engine failures and so on.
And i think we are along way from seeing popular simulations that can perform this sort of training on a home console. Not because the consoles aren't powerful enough, but because of the massive limitations in the user to console interface (controller and screen). A driving simulator would require views to either side, which can only really be achieved using multiple screens, as Sega considered for home versions of F355 challenge. It's not really practical.
Furthermore, a truly realistic simulation that will train the user effectively requires a massive integration of control feedback. Controller feedback into steering columns and joysticks makes controller very cumbersome, and good quality ones aren't really avaliable. Professional Flight sims are even mounted on hydraulic actuators to change the floor angle!
Cool ideas about the use of computers more in schools though. Get a kid's attention and they'll learn.
It's a superb idea, but i think it's already been done! I belive a major driving school at the moment already has simulators which imitate their learner cars. these are used to allow drivers to get comfortable with the controls whilst remaining safely away from the dangers of the road.
And Commercial Aircraft pilots will do extensive training in a simulator before they go anywhere near a real jet airliner. And when they have their licence they return to the simulator every few months in order to train in uncommon situations such as decompression, extreme turbulence, engine failures and so on.
And i think we are along way from seeing popular simulations that can perform this sort of training on a home console. Not because the consoles aren't powerful enough, but because of the massive limitations in the user to console interface (controller and screen). A driving simulator would require views to either side, which can only really be achieved using multiple screens, as Sega considered for home versions of F355 challenge. It's not really practical.
Furthermore, a truly realistic simulation that will train the user effectively requires a massive integration of control feedback. Controller feedback into steering columns and joysticks makes controller very cumbersome, and good quality ones aren't really avaliable. Professional Flight sims are even mounted on hydraulic actuators to change the floor angle!
Cool ideas about the use of computers more in schools though. Get a kid's attention and they'll learn.
Good points but my views weren't just for the home console industry, really just ways games could be a benefit in other industrys. I expect that the other areas could benefit a lot from this kind of technology and the ones mentioned will no doubt improve an awful lot very soon. Who knows, we could soon be doing a lot of things in a virtual way before we do it in real life.
Could be a little weird though if they take things too far.
Could be a little weird though if they take things too far.
I see what you mean. There is nothing stopping developers from training all manner of activities on computer, in the way thay currently train for things like keyhole surgery. professions like those in the armed forces (weapons training, bomb disposal, etc) could probably be trained more efficiently, safely, and cheaply in this way.
And it could definately get a bit weird. Learn to write on a computer before you try in with a pencil and paper, and the like. ooh-er!
And it could definately get a bit weird. Learn to write on a computer before you try in with a pencil and paper, and the like. ooh-er!
Yeah I can see that, slightly off topic here but they are trying to change the way we learn. Schools are talking steps to become more advanced and teach using todays technology. Everything is becoming computerized and we may well see a lot of strange things happening.
Back to the topic, I was thinking a little more earlier today, I had to compile and run my java programs and a couple took about 30 minutes each so I had a fair bit of free time. I was thinking that maybe developers won't use the full capabilities of the on-line features that the consoles could quite easily use. Sure we will get on-line gaming but all the others may be left out for one reason, money.
Unless they can gaurentee a secure way of paying for them and no change of illegal copies of data beeen transfered then it may be that they just leave a lot of possible and in my opinion good ideas out.
Back to the topic, I was thinking a little more earlier today, I had to compile and run my java programs and a couple took about 30 minutes each so I had a fair bit of free time. I was thinking that maybe developers won't use the full capabilities of the on-line features that the consoles could quite easily use. Sure we will get on-line gaming but all the others may be left out for one reason, money.
Unless they can gaurentee a secure way of paying for them and no change of illegal copies of data beeen transfered then it may be that they just leave a lot of possible and in my opinion good ideas out.
Great post AliBoy.
I think there is actually a boat simulation computer, it's huge and rookie sailors use it to learn the basics. Not all sailors get this advantage, but it's a great idea.
Also on Thumb Bandits, i saw something about a boxing simulation. Putting something onto your hands and it will trace your movement. If this was made well enough, it may be able to tell whether the punch was worthy of a knock out or simple a bruise, giving boxers the advanatage of knowing their best punch.
The interactive learning idea is great. This would especially work for learning different languages. Maybe program in how to say the word properly and if it what you say gets close enough you are awarded a point. Online gaming in learning different languages and trying to beat an oppenent at it would a strange, but good idea.
Also i totally agree with getting updates for computer games. I talked about that in my post further down titled 'Endless Posibilities..'. Whether it may be a Wrestle-'em-up (Catchy, eh? ;-)) or a game like GTA3, the police are once again on your trail and you need to skip the country. Maybe doing a kind of 'Sneek-about-and-don't-get-cought' genre. Trying to get past customs.
Most of the things you mentioned would be very benifitial and i agree with you totally. Especially more whinging, i want freebies! :-D
Again, great post AliBoy
I think there is actually a boat simulation computer, it's huge and rookie sailors use it to learn the basics. Not all sailors get this advantage, but it's a great idea.
Also on Thumb Bandits, i saw something about a boxing simulation. Putting something onto your hands and it will trace your movement. If this was made well enough, it may be able to tell whether the punch was worthy of a knock out or simple a bruise, giving boxers the advanatage of knowing their best punch.
The interactive learning idea is great. This would especially work for learning different languages. Maybe program in how to say the word properly and if it what you say gets close enough you are awarded a point. Online gaming in learning different languages and trying to beat an oppenent at it would a strange, but good idea.
Also i totally agree with getting updates for computer games. I talked about that in my post further down titled 'Endless Posibilities..'. Whether it may be a Wrestle-'em-up (Catchy, eh? ;-)) or a game like GTA3, the police are once again on your trail and you need to skip the country. Maybe doing a kind of 'Sneek-about-and-don't-get-cought' genre. Trying to get past customs.
Most of the things you mentioned would be very benifitial and i agree with you totally. Especially more whinging, i want freebies! :-D
Again, great post AliBoy