Cav's Place

IGN has recently published this year’s edition of the Readers’ Choice Top 100 Games of All Time and it once again showed the same differences between PC and console games and gamers, differences which unjustly put PC games at a disadvantage, which in turn puts PC gamers at a disadvantage as well.

The top included 26 PC games, including here any game which was listed as having a PC version. Eight of those games, including the top four, didn’t have the PC version listed on their page in the top itself. That might mean that the user ratings for that version weren’t taken into account for some reason, therefore making their presence in a hypothetical “Readers’ Choice Top 100 PC Games of All Time” questionable. But I’ll just ignore that fact for now and say that there are 26 PC games in that top 100. I’d have preferred them to be around a third instead of a quarter, but that is still a reasonable number.
The problems appear when you analyze further. The Legend of Zelda and Mario seem deadlocked in the battle for the best series of games of all time, each appearing eight times in the top (though Zelda has the first and fourth places while no Mario game made it into the top ten), while Metroid, with six appearances, is a relatively distant third. All of these are strictly console games! What’s worse, even though two PC games did make it into the top ten, they are both PC ports of console games, released two years after the initial release date, and neither of them has the PC version listed on their page in the top anyway. (As I said before, the top four PC games are not listed as such, though at least the third one, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, 12th overall, is an actual PC game and not a delayed port.) The highest ranked game which has the PC version listed is Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, 18th overall, and it is followed by yet another PlayStation port, Final Fantasy VII, 30th overall.
Since this top is created by users, it indicates that gamers prefer console games. However, it seems it’s not just the regular gamers. Console games tend to get better scores in official reviews too, even the console version of a game often gets a better score than the PC version of that same game, and I’m not talking about delayed ports here. I’m trying to determine why that happens…

Of course this is not something I’ve just noticed now, so I already have an opinion. I think there are three main causes for this: the hardware, the gamers and capitalism. Let me explain a little about each.
PCs are constantly evolving. The best thing right now will be mediocre next year and obsolete a couple of years after that. That makes it very hard to create games that take advantage of the latest developments, but also to enjoy the full potential of recently released games. Developers have to choose between creating games that work on weaker systems, which will disappoint all those who want “eye candy”, and taking advantage of the latest technology, which will make the game unplayable for all those who have weaker systems. They often choose the third option, especially when it comes to graphics, which is to make the game “scalable”, therefore taking advantage of the latest developments but allowing those who own weaker systems to turn off those features in order to still be able to play. When you also add the fact that, due to the desire to keep up with the latest technology, developers change parts of the code during the production process, it becomes clear that PC games require more time, money and skill to produce than console games. They are also far more likely to contain bugs. On the other hand, since console hardware is pretty fixed, it’s much easier to work with it and take advantage of all it has to offer, without compromises. But the hardware also plays a part in how gamers view the games. It’s impossible to take full advantage of the constantly evolving PC hardware, so gamers who focus on the technical aspects (which are the vast majority, actually) are unlikely to be completely satisfied with a PC game. Plus that there is the little issue of the controls. Console gamers expect relatively simple and perhaps even limited controls, but PCs have keyboard, mouse and potentially other peripherals as well. That makes PC gamers expect the controls to be nothing less than perfect, and we all know perfection is unattainable.
From this we can conclude that console games and PC games are likely to be judged differently even by the same person, with the expectations for the PC version being higher. We also conclude that PC games are harder to make. Since a person’s satisfaction is determined by how closely facts meet their expectations, PC games are likely to be less satisfying even if they turn out well, which is less likely to happen…
Next come the gamers themselves. I stick to my opinion that PC gamers are more demanding of quality and complexity than console gamers. A large number of console gamers would just be happy with something fun to waste their time on. That means that console gamers are by default more likely to enjoy a game and therefore rate it very highly. Most do not analyze it too carefully, and they have lower demands even when they do. On the other hand, many PC gamers want a lot and are more thorough, making them more likely to notice even small flaws and give lower ratings because of them.
So, up to this point, we can conclude that the games which are easier and cheaper to make, and also less likely to contain bugs, reach a less demanding (and likely also larger) audience, while those which are harder and more expensive to make, and also more likely to contain bugs because of it, reach a more demanding (and likely also smaller) audience.
That takes us to capitalism. Some developers might still make games simply because they want to, they enjoy it and want that to show, but the publishers certainly don’t care about that. They are only interested in profits, sticking firmly to the old business adage of producing as cheaply as possible as many things as you can possibly sell for as much as possible. That makes them focus on the console market, and the developers are forced to follow suit because they have unfortunately grown dependent on them. The reasoning is quite simple, good console games can be produced cheaper and faster than good PC games and they are likely to sell more copies at a higher price. (Personally, I don’t really get why do console gamers let publishers get away with selling console games for so much, but I guess that’s their problem. I guess a good part of it has to do with them being less demanding and, I don’t fear saying it, even less intelligent than PC gamers.) That means they can produce more for less and sell more for more, fulfilling all parts of the adage I mentioned above. Not to mention the whole piracy issue, which I won’t get into again. All of that makes them pay more attention to console games, making them more likely to actually be better than PC games.
Putting it all together leads to a very disheartening conclusion for PC gamers. Less demanding buyers are more likely to be satisfied with their purchase. If they are happy with their purchase, they are more likely to make another. That means higher profits for the publishers from console games, which in turn makes them focus on those, especially since they’re cheaper and easier to make, increasing both their quantity and their quality. Higher quality certainly means even higher sales, but higher quantity means more choice, which usually makes more people want to see what it’s about and therefore also potentially increasing sales. This creates an upward spiral for console games. On the other hand, more demanding buyers are less likely to be satisfied with their purchase. If they are unhappy with their purchase, they are less likely to make another. That means lower profits for the publishers from PC games, which in turn makes them turn away from those, especially since they’re more expensive and harder to make, decreasing both their quantity and their quality, which obviously means even lower sales. This creates a downward spiral for PC games.

The way out? Since the constant development and versatility are exactly the traits that make PCs what they are, those can’t be changed. Consoles could also start receiving upgrades, but that is undesirable because it would cause problems for everybody. That means the hardware problem can’t be solved. But it doesn’t need to be solved…
If the gamers would change, the problem would be partially solved. Of course, PC gamers could become less demanding, but that would be undesirable. Instead, console gamers should become more demanding and discriminating, and also stop putting up with the outrageous prices the publishers sell console games for. That would make publishers stop focusing on them at the expense of PC games so much, but, unless the balance would end up being tilted the other way, it could actually increase the quality of console games even further as well. After all, offering low quality products to discriminating customers is a quick way to bankruptcy, so they will avoid doing that.
Of course, the best way to change this situation is eliminating capitalism. If profits wouldn’t be a priority anymore, good PC games would be as likely to be produced as good console games. Without marketing and financial constraints, those who truly enjoy making games and have the skills for it would be far more likely to create good games, regardless of platform, so everybody would benefit. Yes, this would require nothing short of changing society as a whole, but most good things require that…

I got my new ID card yesterday, after standing in line for 50 minutes only to get it in 30 seconds afterwards. The interesting thing is that there were only about 10 people in front of me, so I have no idea why it took so long.
I did spot an announcement that caught my interest while there, though. It was addressed to “citizens whose last names start with the letters A-Z and currently reside in Bucharest or Ilfov County”. Excuse me, but what else could a person’s last name start with?

Moving on to something else, my monitor seems to be developing dead pixels and I don’t know why. It certainly didn’t have any when I bought it in February last year, because I checked it thoroughly.
I have started suspecting that there was one a few months ago, but I never checked too carefully because a single dead pixel wouldn’t be covered by the warranty anyway and it seemed to blend in with what was around it and therefore was hard to spot and not a problem. But a couple of weeks ago a black one appeared rather close to the center of the screen, and that one is certainly not hard to spot. That made me look more carefully, and this check revealed a few more.
Actually, the initial check only revealed one more, but I have noticed four others since then, which makes me think that the number is increasing very quickly. I guess I could have it replaced now, unless they’d find a way to claim that I have damaged it and that’s why it’s happening, but that means being without a monitor for a while, and you can’t use a computer without a monitor… I’d much rather figure out what’s going on and stop it from getting even worse, at least until I’ll have another monitor to use before I’ll get a replacement for this one if I’ll send it in, which is very unlikely to happen in the next few months.

Yahoo! has apparently decided that profiles need “improvement”, and have subsequently destroyed them. They didn’t ask or even warn the users, they just changed everything and expect people to like it. Of course, as the comments posted on the “official blog” prove, that’s not going to happen.

I won’t go into details since this is not about them, but about how it affects me. The main problem is that I can no longer see when Andra’s on-line. That indicator has been completely removed and, just like everything else, will likely not be public even if it will be reinstated, or at least not until the person specifically chooses it to be so, which she obviously won’t do. Of course it didn’t exactly do me any good to see when she’s on-line since she’s blocking me, but it was the only direct “connection” left. Thank you so fucking much for this one!
But there are other things as well. I had gotten used to checking whether or not Andreea was on-line before logging on, so I wouldn’t log on if I wouldn’t have somebody to talk to. Since that indicator is gone, that’s no longer possible either. They have also removed the “single, not looking” relationship status, which I was rather fond of. Yes, you can pick what you’re looking for and can therefore say you’re not interested in relationships, but it was nicer to have an actual status like that. What’s more, you can’t post direct links in your profile anymore and they have also lost my picture and favorite quote. They say they can recover anything that was lost if you e-mail them to request this, but I won’t bother. And, if all that wasn’t enough, you apparently can’t make your updates or connections visible to everyone even if you want to.

I’m not sure if I’m more angry than hurt or more hurt than angry because of this…

I did manage to go to the police station and do what needs to be done to renew my ID card without running away, though I’m not quite sure how. As the waiting grew longer and the number of other people trying to get in increased, I kept seeing myself making a scene and eventually running out of there in panic, ending up who knows where. What I do know is that if my dad wouldn’t have been with me I’d have never gotten in, since everybody was trying to barge in and I’d have just stepped aside each time to avoid having to say anything.
A silly moment was when I was filling out the form and had to specify the place of birth. I thought I remembered that it was sector six, but I asked dad and he said it certainly was three, so I wrote what he said. After filling out the form, while we were waiting, when I mentioned once again that I was quite sure it was six, he remembered that he had my birth certificate with him since that’s also required. He looked in it and noticed that I was right. Then I also looked on my ID card, which had been right in front of me while filling out the form, and noticed that it was also written on that. Stupid.

Moving on to a completely different topic now. A few of my dreams have recently featured a certain girl and I’m starting to be intrigued. I don’t know and I don’t remember ever seeing anybody who looks like that. What makes it even more intriguing is that during the dreams, or at least during the last one, I got the distinct impression that this is the same girl who often was in my dreams several years ago, before meeting Andra.
Considering the fact that she’s so impossibly cute and that the dreams, or at least the parts she appears in, are erotic in nature, I could say that she’s just a result of the lack of sex for so long. But I don’t think I ever actually had sex with her in a dream. Still, what really caught my attention was the feeling that it’s the same person as the one I was dreaming of back then. And there is also the fact that the dreams she appears in have some sort of mystical component.
Speaking of that component, in this last one it was very small but it caught my attention. The only thing she was wearing was a pendant, but I couldn’t make out what it was despite the fact that I was trying to focus on it. Yes, as odd as it might seem, I was trying to focus on a pendant when she was completely naked otherwise. It was a star, but it was like it kept shifting in front of my eyes and I couldn’t figure out if it was a pentagram, a Star of David or some other star shape. Couldn’t even figure out whether it was inside a circle or not. However, if she indeed is the same girl I was dreaming about back then, the most shocking such part of a dream involving her was reading something akin to a dictionary of the occult, which contained terms I certainly was not familiar with. After waking up, I went on-line to look up the few I remembered and was shocked to find that what I had read in my dream was correct. I still can’t find any reasonable explanation for that.
Back to this last dream involving her, I think it was the first time I saw her face, or at least the first time I saw it clearly. She seemed to have a bit of a tan this time (which is something I don’t like, by the way) and her breasts were somewhat larger than back then, but everything else about her body looked just the same. The color and texture of her hair were also identical, though I thought it was shorter now, but I couldn’t really tell from where I was watching. Without a face to compare I can’t be certain, but she did seem to be a slightly older “version” of that girl from back then. Not much older, though. Those dreams were six to ten years ago (they didn’t span the full four years, but I can’t place them more accurately than that) and she only looks a couple of years older, or at least that was my impression in the dream. Back then I assumed she was 14 or 15, which made sense since that’s how old I was when she first appeared in my dreams, and now I found myself wondering inside the dream whether she was “legal”, because I thought she was about 16. A more thorough analysis done after waking up puts that estimate towards the bottom of the range, because I thought she could be anything between 15 and 20, or perhaps even slightly older if she wouldn’t look her age, but I think the opinions you have about a dream while you’re dreaming it hold more weight, so I’m not sure.
One thing which could have clarified the matter would have been her scars. I clearly remember trying to look for them in the dream, but I couldn’t see that part of her body. I think they were on the left side of her back, but I’m not sure. It’s either the left side of her back or the right side of her abdomen, and I couldn’t see either when I thought to look for them in the dream. But I remember the scars themselves very clearly. Two of them, identical and side by side, looking as if they were produced by an animal’s claws. Each started like a thin line of slightly whiter skin, then they got progressively deeper and slightly wider, ending abruptly in a noticeably deeper and somewhat wider point, as if the animal had sunk its claws fully inside her flesh at that point and then pulled them straight out. They were perhaps a little over five centimeters long.
Writing it out, I just realized that I might be wrong when I say that she was always naked in my dreams. Without ever seeing her face clearly while she was naked (until now, in case it’s the same girl), I wouldn’t have recognized her with clothes on. It still is interesting that she appeared naked in my dreams all those times and we never had sex. Sometimes she had nothing to do with me, I was just an observer, other times we just talked and yet other times we hugged, kissed and caressed, but didn’t go further. I have seen her fool around with others a small number of times back then, but I think the others were always other girls and nothing more than fingers was used. This time, however, I found myself watching as she was performing oral sex on a guy. Didn’t spare him more than a glance, so I can’t say anything about him other than that he looked about her age and certainly didn’t look like me in any way. I remember thinking in my dream that it’s the first time I see her actually having sex, but I couldn’t follow that train of thought because as soon as she started I apparently finished, since I woke up sticky. Hate it when that happens.
All of this is probably only my subconscious trying to provide me with some companionship at least in my sleep, since there’s not much it can do about the time I’m awake, and it might have decided to use a character I’m familiar with in order to do that. I guess that’s not that bad, but I wish it would have taken the passage of time more accurately into consideration and made her look closer to my age, because this way it felt quite awkward. Also, if that’s the purpose, would it mind having her involved with me more often?

A couple of days ago I watched Zeitgeist: Addendum, which is far better than the first one and leads to more serious projects. Those projects are The Zeitgeist Movement and The Venus Project.
I won’t focus too much on the movie itself, it’s just a means to an end. There could be factual errors in it, but the overall message is what’s important. Also, there certainly is quite a bit of manipulation, including in directions that I don’t agree with, but that doesn’t make it less worthy of attention. This is an attempt to herd sheep the other way, which is a necessary (though far from sufficient) step towards creating any significant change in the world. Intelligent people will figure out the relevant information and pick sides according to it no matter what you do, but in order to sway the rest you need to be persuasive, and in that case you might as well make use of the methods employed by those who desire to preserve the current status quo, at least they are proven to work.
What needs to be said is that he has balls! And you need quite a big pair in order to do something like this… He also seems to have the brains to back them up with, but those brains are certainly not his alone and might even not be his at all. This partnership with The Venus Project gives some clues in that direction, though it might be just that, a partnership.

The Zeitgeist Movement’s site has just launched today and, from what I can see, the project (or “movement”) itself doesn’t have a clear plan of action. It is only an attempt to gather like-minded people and herd enough sheep in hopes of eventually reaching a critical mass and being able to actually do something concrete. This does seem to be the only realistic approach, if an attempt to completely change society can ever be called in any way realistic, and the determination is certainly commendable.
The problem is that… It can’t work. Not that you can’t change the world, history has proven that it can be changed, but that, even if it will become reality, such a society as the one advocated by this movement will not last. They correctly say that those who preserve the current state of affairs are only a symptom of the problem and the cause is the structure, the very foundation of our society, which creates such positions. They also correctly say that we can’t “fix” society as it is now, the only thing that would work would be a complete change. But then their reasoning fails because they don’t plan to put something in its place, or at least not something strong enough to preserve that new society, relying on education and their belief that informed people living in abundance would make the correct choices on their own.
History is showing us that many people will not make the correct choices, regardless of circumstances. Even if scarcity would be eliminated and all would live in relative abundance, some people would insist on defining their abundance as meaning having more than most others. Yes, completely changing the status quo so that would no longer be the norm and attempting to educate all people in this new spirit would put all the sheep on the “nice” side of the fence and would also make others who can be influenced by such things behave accordingly as long as they can see advantages for doing so, but there will always be people who won’t give in.
The very fact that such a movement exists is proof enough that education and society’s norms don’t work on all people. I don’t agree with their statement that a Gandhi baby is no different from a Hitler baby, that we all start with a clean slate. Some people do think for themselves and try to do what they consider to be right, and “right” might not be right for the world, but just right for themselves. (Plus that the issue of souls and past lives could be thrown into the mix and complicate matters further.) Since some people try to change the world now, it is only logical to say that some will try the same thing in the future. And having this prediction of the future, we must look to the past to determine the most likely direction of that change, and the past reveals a long list of actions determined by greed, violence, malice, competitiveness, desire to wield power over others or, often, plain stupidity. This leads me to conclude that any society which relies on the fact that all people are inherently intelligent and “good” is doomed to failure.
I also can’t be excited about a project that considers the idea of reducing population as “scary” and claims that, with the help of technological developments and intelligent resource management, the Earth can easily provide for a far larger number of people than currently exist. That’s simply false, because you also have to take the other species we share this planet with into account, plus that the one thing you can’t create more of is space. If more people are to live in far better conditions than they presently enjoy, you’ll need far more space, but the planet’s not getting any bigger!
Still, I think this is a great idea, because it is a solid challenge to the current world order and has the potential to gather noticeable support. The most important thing for now is agreeing that the current society needs to go and a new one needs to be created from scratch. And, if we are to dream that they could one day become reality, the goals themselves aren’t bad. If that new society will have care for the environment, sustainability, fairness and freedom among its fundamental principles, it will be much better than this one. And if it will also encourage creativity and expression, it will have the ability to evolve into an even better one, allowing the reformists of the future to take care of the loopholes and inconsistencies, and also ensure that adequate safeguards will be set in place in order to avoid a return to worse habits.

The Venus Project appears to be a rather carefully thought-out concept of the future. However, it should only be taken as a starting point, because it misses some key issues. For one, it (obviously) shares the flaws of The Zeitgeist Movement, but it’s also scary in a way.
What makes it scary is mainly the total disregard for the environment. Yes, you read that right. Despite the claims and the pretty pictures, it does not have an environmentalist foundation. It only cares for the environment in the sense that it should be exploited in such a way as to be able to continue offering benefits to humans. That does require sustainability and clean technology, but it does not require actual conservation or animal rights, which means that they are not part of the plan. It also advocates a certain degree of uniformity and the development of areas I wouldn’t be comfortable living in. That makes it a project I can’t support in its current form, but it is a decent starting point for other plans.
The problem with it is that, unlike The Zeitgeist Movement, which focuses mainly on social changes, if The Venus Project would be applied on a large scale we would not be able to go back to a previous state. (Of course, these two projects are connected and one seems to imply the other, but I’m trying to separate them according to which area each of them focuses on the most.) You can change the way things are done as needed, but once you change a part of nature there’s no going back. And once you change the entire infrastructure it is not feasible to go back. That makes this project as dangerous as it is interesting and useful.
It should be analyzed carefully and with an open mind, because it does offer a lot of good ideas, but this should be done while it’s still in the planning phase. Once this would be implemented in the current form, even if only locally, the damage would already have been done. Turning something like this into reality makes me think of primitive humans trying to bring fire into their caves for the first time during winter. We desperately need to do it, but we need to do it just right. One mistake and the damage could be tremendous.

This would be a brief overview of my thoughts regarding these two projects. Mainly the negative thoughts, of course, as we should eliminate the flaws before we think of improvements and there is not much to say about the things that are good just the way they are. I plan to write a post containing some of the changes and improvements I’d make, and the way to implement them, but that will take some time. Not to mention that I’ll need to convince myself to do it first…