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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 2nd, 2023

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  • You argue there’s risk in conflating one type of mass shooting with another (domestic violence or criminal pursuit vs. ‘rampaging’) because it changes how policy would be considered, while simultaneously conflating two very different types of mass shooting (psychological instability vs. ideological terrorism) as one and the same. The policy strategy to prevent these two types of violence, I hope you’d agree, would be quite different.

    From my point of view, this is the inherent problem with the viewpoint you are trying to defend. You’re trying to bucket some shootings as acceptable and some as bad, and that’s a point, but that’s not the point.

    If there was a standard legal or academic definition of mass shooting, and this organization was using an alternate standard, I would see and support your point, but your argument is that in an ill defined space, one organizations definition isnt the same as yours, and is therefore wrong. It’s not tenable as far as I can see. You use this idea of ‘most people’ as some kind of yardstick, which it can’t be in any formal way. It’s sort a nothingism used to attack something with the weight of popular thinking, but not really a viable standard of any kind.


  • Are you saying that we should have Allowlists vs. Denylists for types of gun violence that are acceptable? This seems to be the fundamental premise upon which we disagree…

    From my POV, intention is immaterial because there are no ‘good’ gun deaths, so splitting hairs has no values.

    It sounds to me like you’re saying if you go to a mall and have a mass shooting in a totally sober state, that’s bad, but if you get hopped up on bath salts and then have a good old fashioned shotgun rampage, that’s ok and we shouldn’t count those ones…


  • Your explaining the difference but not explaining why it makes a difference.

    To matters of gun regulation, of safety in public spaces, of trauma to the affected, of national reputation (pick any one, or all, or something else) why does the intent change anything?

    I’ll start off: To have the intention to mass-murder purely for the sake of mass murder could be worth isolating and studying because that is a specific and extreme psychological problem worth solving. However, not all mass killings (with intent, for your sake) will have that psychological trigger at root. A religious or racial extremist, for example, is different than a disaffected teenager.

    In this circumstance, intent is interesting if one is interested in those other things (psychological issues in American youth, the spread of religious and racial extremism), but ultimately are secondary issues when it comes to measuring gun violence. A mass stabbing by a racial extremist, or a teenager blowing up their high school with fertilizer would still need to be measured.

    You are complaining about this organization’s yardstick, but I don’t hear a compelling alternative from you for this specific measure. You are saying they should be measuring a totally different thing, which is arguably irrelevant to this measure.







  • I’m not sure what kind of role you had in the industry, but I’m not sure what you’re saying is entirely accurate… although there are some bits in there I agree with:

    Lots of programmers and artists don’t really care about the final game, they only care about their little part.

    Accurate. And that’s ok. A programmer whose job it is to optimize the physics of bullet ricochet against thirteen different kind of materials can go really deep on that, and they don’t need to (or have time to) zoom out and care about the entire game. That’s fine. They have a job that is often highly specialized, has been given to them by production and they have to deliver on time and at quality. Why is that a problem? You use the corrolary of film, and nobody cares if the gaffer understands the subtext of the Act 3 arc… it’s not their job.

    Game designers and UX designers are often clueless and lacking in gaming experience. Some of the mistakes they make could be avoided by asking literaly anyone who play games.

    Which one? A game designer lacking in gaming experience likely wouldn’t get hired anywhere that has an ounce of standard. A UX designer without gaming experience might get hired, but UX is about communication, intuition and flow. A UX designer who worked on surgical software tooling could still be an effective member of a game dev team if their fundamentals are strong.

    Investors and publishers often know very little to almost nothing about gameplay and technology and will rely purely on aesthetic and story.

    Again, which one? Investors probably don’t know much about the specifics of gameplay or game design because they don’t need to, they need to understand ROI, a studio’s ability to deliver on time, at budget and quality, and the likely total obtainable market based on genre and fit.

    Publishers – depending on whether you are talking about mobile or console/box model – will usually be intimately familiar with how to position a product for market, what KPIs (key performance indicators) to target and how to optimize within the available budget.

    This is why you have some indie devs kicking big studio butts with sometime less than 1% the ressources.

    This has happened. I’m not sure it’s an actual trend. There are lots of misses in the game industry. Making successful products is hard – it’s hard at the indie level, it’s hard at the AAA level. I would estimate there are a thousand failed Indies for every one you call out as ‘kicking a big studio’s butt.’ Lots of failed AAA titles too. It’s just how it goes.

    The same, by the way, is true of film, TV, books and music. A lot of misses go into making a hit. Cultural products are hard to make, and nobody has the formula for success. Most teams try, fail, then try again. Sometimes, they succeed.


  • I love this sentiment, and it can be true, but it also creates this idea that ‘heart’ alone has a high bearing on whether or not a product of any kind (book, film, statue, game) will be successful in its market ambitions.

    It doesn’t always correlate. I would argue if often doesn’t correlate. Any indie film or game fest is chock full of projects with a ton of heart. Few of them graduate to success in the market place.

    I’m not saying heart is a bad thing. It’s a damn great thing. But strong business fundamentals are a good thing too. And sometimes, you also just need that extra bit of luck or uncontrollable virality too. To find success, you stack the deck with as many good plays as you can, and heart is one of them.

    Success is not a recipe, and if it was, everybody would be doing it…