JUDE'S PROFILE

Rather than looking at the original Legend of Zelda, I would love to see an analysis of the LttP/Link's Awakening style levels. Maybe I should get smarter and try to do it myself.

I've already decided I'm not buying Ubisoft PC games anymore. I have been burned too many times by their online service.

I think a scenario where too little entertainment is being created is possible. I also think it's very unlikely and is definitely not the case right now.

author=Max McGee
This isn't. I could imagine (really!) being a professional game designer. I can't imagine contributing anything useful to any of those other fields (and I also don't see how being a "computer scientist" is innately more beneficial to society, because you know what else we have fucking enough of? software. so I think I'd lump "computer designer" in there with artist and game designer as opposed to lumping it in with the engineers, chemists, and doctors) because I am just not competent enough. Not everyone approaches the discipline of "game design" from the same skillset/hemisphere of the brain. If I become a professional game designer, America (maybe) loses a writer, worst case scenario. It definitely isn't losing a cancer researcher or the guy who's going to develop an alternative power source. I've known that since I started really, really struggling to pass math classes in the seventh grade.

Computer scientists are often merely programming some kind of database for a so-what endeavor, but it is also a field where new technologies or methods of information dissemination are created. Only a few people ever revolutionize anything within their field, but the more people you have invested into it, the more likely it is to get the best people producing the best work. To draw a poor analogy, American athletes aren't necessarily any better or worse than Brazilians, but their soccer teams destroy ours because their culture invests more heavily into it.

To preempt an inevitable argument, which may've been made already... I am in no way opposed to creativity. I consider creative thinking perhaps equally important to critical thinking, because most problem sets and solutions require both. It is no coincidence that cultures responsible for some of the greatest art are also responsible for some of the greatest feats in engineering.

author=slashphoenix
Unfortunately, people are not purely logical computers, and indeed do require "playtime" and other enjoyable forms of mental stimulation to reach their maximum potential. It's a physical and mental need just like anything else, and game makers are just now joining the ranks of their predecessors in film, writing and any other form of media.

Someday scientists will cure some form of cancer, and everyone who suffers from that cancer will have a greatly improved quality of life. Video game developers simply provide a greater quality of life, in a different form.

Believe what you want, but the world would not be a better place if there was no entertainment.

I never said there wasn't a need for entertainment. What I said is that we don't need more of it. Walk into any shopping center and you'll see plenty of evidence that we have enough entertainment. Movies, video games, television, sports, etc, etc, etc. It has become the defining feature of our culture. Over 50% of Ph.D. applicants in the US are immigrants these days. I can't recall if it was 10 or 20 years from now (but I will find the information if requested), but we're projected to have 250 million high skill jobs and based on current education trends we'll only be able to fill 50 million of them with Americans. Simply put: Not enough of us are going to school for the right things. Fortunately for aspiring video game programmers, many of those skills overlap with what we'll need.