[geeks] Games, was Re: Ubuntu partition on Bootcamp Mac?

[Jon Gilbert]

> When I played "F.E.A.R." there were advertisements on the walls in  
> the game
> made by real professional artists and advertising companies.
>
> I can create a world in Neverwinter Nights that also let's people  
> have a
> virtual life, interact with others, get married, run a business  
> that makes
> real money, and you can even write code and do professional design  
> work.
> Perhaps not as flexibly as SL, but that's a technological limit  
> which could
> be removed.
>
> Granted, the focus is on a medieval world, but that's only an  
> argument of
> timeline, not whether or not it is a game.
>
> I could even argue that you don't have health bars or anything and  
> that it is
> real because the D&D combat system uses real-world statistics to model
> actual death and injury.
>
> Of course, I'd be wrong, but I'd be presenting an argument that is  
> only
> different from yours in the details and limitations of the  
> particular game
> engine.
>
> Given the time I could expand NWN to have every thing SL has in it.
>
> Would it at some arbitrary point become not a game?

I said this in another post too, but NWN was *intended* as a game  
(dungeons and dragons). Though you can hack it to not be used as a  
game, and just be used as a virtual environment. Second Life is a  
virtual environment, where on the other hand, it can have a game in it.

>
>> It's not a game. It has games within it, but it also has a lot of  
>> non-
>> games within it. I mentioned the bit about the gaming industry
>> because even if it was a game, that would not make it unproductive in
>> a "work" sense.
>
> I think you just take too much offense at the term game.
>
> SL is a game.
>
> Falcon 3.0 is a game.
>
> A $100 million military simulation I saw one time that included a full
> working economy, virtual lives and armies... it was also a game,  
> though I had
> to talk to a guy just like you who spent endless hours trying to  
> tell us that
> it wasn't.

Well, I define a game uh, using the dictionary. Languages should have  
definitions that are used. Otherwise we all get confused and think  
words mean things that they don't mean.

A $100 million military simulation is not a game. What makes it a  
game? It's not intended as a "pastime" or "amusement" activity. It is  
not a competitive contest between players. What's the point of  
calling it a game, other than to annoy people who know what that word  
means?

I think that you guys need to pick up a dictionary and look up  
"game," then get back to me.
-
Jon Gilbert
PGP fingerprint: 7FA9 B168 73CA A698 DD9E  2DF2 EE1A 3E73 3119 741F