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Oldschool demos getting vendor locked?

category: general [glöplog]
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casual gaming

i don't think the term in itself is relevant at all actually -- casual games have existed for a good portion of the history of video games. doesn't really matter when you heard of it or when it came into wide use, one could probably effectively have marketed pong as a "casual game". it's just a buzzword anyway, an excuse to release something quick and simple in the shadow of really immersive and clever games.
added on the 2014-02-19 20:03:13 by linde linde
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Again, it is highly unlikely that people are ever going to do their taxes on their phone, even if it were possible (currently there's no app for phones anyway). They would rather sit down at a PC, and take their time to do it right.

Just wait until you can just lay you phone next to your tv, press a button and wirelessly connect phone, tv, a keyboard and a mouse.
added on the 2014-02-19 20:08:07 by cruzer cruzer
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think of all the facebook games


Facebook open to general public: since 2006.
iPhone: since 2007.
Hence:
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I had never even *heard* of the term 'casual gaming' until a few years ago, when smartphones and tablets started to become popular.


Casual gaming was also the big thing with the Nintendo Wii, also from 2006.

The drive then was about finding a market where there wasn't one, not carving up the existing market. Thats exactly what we're talking about here with mobile gaming too isn't it?
added on the 2014-02-19 20:49:50 by Canopy Canopy
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Again, it is highly unlikely that people are ever going to do their taxes on their phone, even if it were possible (currently there's no app for phones anyway). They would rather sit down at a PC, and take their time to do it right.

Just wait until you can just lay you phone next to your tv, press a button and wirelessly connect phone, tv, a keyboard and a mouse.


Well, the discussion was about Windows disappearing.
I'm pretty sure that if we get to that point, that Windows will be the OS.
Just like currently Windows tablets are the only ones that can be docked and used as a regular laptop. Android and iPad are toys, with a toy OS that can't run desktop apps.
added on the 2014-02-19 21:23:41 by Scali Scali
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Casual gaming was also the big thing with the Nintendo Wii, also from 2006.


I don't agree that 'casual gaming' is the right name for the Wii. It's more like 'family gaming', then again, Nintendo was always about that (remember Famicom? Family Computer).

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The drive then was about finding a market where there wasn't one, not carving up the existing market. Thats exactly what we're talking about here with mobile gaming too isn't it?


That's what I'm saying. Mobile games are not cannibalizing PC/console games, it's a different market.
added on the 2014-02-19 21:26:03 by Scali Scali
JFYI, I heard the term casual games long before 2006. Just not very known. For example, PopCap games, Bejeweled, etc were considered casual. Or all these hidden object or cooking mama games. They weren't very well known during their PC times. More suited for the web and tablets though.
added on the 2014-02-19 21:41:12 by Optimus Optimus
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Then again, I don't think there's been much serious exploration of touch-based coding tools - everything is based around typing code, not manipulating and connecting things with our fingers. Perhaps in 10 years we'll look back at the clumsy keyboard oriented tools we have now and laugh. Or perhaps we'll still be typing on keyboards.


Well, if they manage to improve touch interfaces so well that it will be similar or better than keyboards, I really want to see how they will achieve that.

But for now, it seems to me like the keyboard is the natural tool for typing and touch controls and virtual keyboard are only trying to emulate what is there and works perfectly, with less degrees of accuracy and speed. Before touch controls, the mouse was already introduced long time ago and someone could claim that one day we will be using only mice for everything and laugh at our clumsy keyboard. But the keyboard is here to stay as the common denominator for typing.

That's the same problem I have with consoles controllers for FPS gaming. My accuracy and speed in FPS is much less than what I can achieve with the mouse/keyboard compo. They say that one can become accustomed to it, but I still think that even if I get better, I will still be touching a fraction of what already works perfectly. FPS were first born on PCs and then the consoles liked them but had to emulate the proper controls with controllers that don't do for the job.
added on the 2014-02-19 21:50:34 by Optimus Optimus
True.. Several times on this post I've been reading on my iPad (while the mrs is cooking, having a ciggie or whatever) and grabbed my vaio to actually reply..

The problem with PCs for the demoscene is one of varied environments and configurations within it. The classic commodore systems (and the rest) hold appeal because you know the playing field is level. Just reading Preachers recent post about how c64 certain affects we're achieved lights up the part of my brain that loves that innovative side.

Posted from my iPad (for a change and it was a pain in the arse)
added on the 2014-02-19 22:16:04 by Canopy Canopy
What Optimus says about coding...

It's ok to use RSI demomaker (or scratch or whatever...) with a touchpad if the demomaker can cope with the idea you have in mind ... But i'm quite sure there will remain programs that will need to do lower level coding, and this will require a keyboard.

I prefer my sysadmin to know his vi than knowing his voice recognition system...
added on the 2014-02-19 22:26:58 by baah baah
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I can definitely see coding working on a tablet to some degree at least. I mean, you can make a demo with werkzeug. And I can imagine a touch-based version of werkzeug working well - perhaps better than the desktop version if it was well designed. So who knows?


I've never used werkzeug... It sure is a fantastic tool, but is it really coding?
added on the 2014-02-19 22:31:18 by baah baah
Weird discussion. You do know that there are bluetooth keyboards that work just fine with iPads, right? Like this one http://www.logitech.com/en-us/product/ultrathin-keyboard-cover
There are even USB devices that work with iPads, with an adapter. MIDI and audio interfaces, as long as they're "class compliant" and don't require the iPad to supply too much power.

What this has to do with oldschool demos, beats me.
added on the 2014-02-19 22:40:56 by yzi yzi
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Android and iPad are toys, with a toy OS that can't run desktop apps.


Is that actually a quote from MS' marketing? o_0 Seriously, the world has moved on. You can use an iPad as a toy, sure, but you can use a PC for playing games too. Both also have plenty of serious apps.

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JFYI, I heard the term casual games long before 2006. Just not very known. For example, PopCap games, Bejeweled, etc were considered casual. Or all these hidden object or cooking mama games. They weren't very well known during their PC times. More suited for the web and tablets though.


I'd say games like 'the sims' were casual games too. Things you can pick up and play a bit, then put down and come back to later. Those games are indeed much better suited to phones and tablets. They also happen to be the top selling PC games of all time according to wikipedia.

But my point really is that there's PC games and mobile games, but they're not separate things. Some games only work well on one or the other, but there's a huge number of games that fall between casual and hardcore, and mobile will eat into that. It won't affect the high end of the PC market, but it will affect the rest.

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Well, if they manage to improve touch interfaces so well that it will be similar or better than keyboards, I really want to see how they will achieve that.


The assumption though is that coding means typing stuff. Does that have to be the case? Or have we designed programming around the input we had, which was the keyboard? Before the keyboard we were punching holes in cards, so we've transitioned from one input method already, maybe we'll find something better than typing next, and keyboards will be the new punchcards :) Who knows, but I'd like to see some research on that.
added on the 2014-02-19 22:55:08 by psonice psonice
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Weird discussion. You do know that there are bluetooth keyboards that work just fine with iPads, right? Like this one http://www.logitech.com/en-us/product/ultrathin-keyboard-cover
There are even USB devices that work with iPads, with an adapter. MIDI and audio interfaces, as long as they're "class compliant" and don't require the iPad to supply too much power.

What this has to do with oldschool demos, beats me.


USB keyboards work too, with the camera adaptor. But I've coded on my iPad (i wrote a ray tracer in Codea :), and while it's OK (with a hardware keyboard ;) the experience is still way behind a laptop. Unless you're using a mobile version of vim or something, the touchscreen just doesn't match a mouse / trackpad for something as text heavy as coding. The coding environment is built around keyboard + mouse.
added on the 2014-02-19 22:58:46 by psonice psonice
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Is that actually a quote from MS' marketing? o_0 Seriously, the world has moved on. You can use an iPad as a toy, sure, but you can use a PC for playing games too. Both also have plenty of serious apps.


I said *desktop apps*, as in the apps you'd normally use on a desktop machine.
You can't use those on Android or iOS.

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I'd say games like 'the sims' were casual games too. Things you can pick up and play a bit, then put down and come back to later. Those games are indeed much better suited to phones and tablets. They also happen to be the top selling PC games of all time according to wikipedia.


Are they? I don't think I've seen a lot of people playing The Sims on tablets or phones.
It seems that the more popular mobile games are quite different from the games in the list of best-selling games on PC: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_PC_games

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But my point really is that there's PC games and mobile games, but they're not separate things.


That's the point you're *trying* to make, and consistently fail at.

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Some games only work well on one or the other, but there's a huge number of games that fall between casual and hardcore, and mobile will eat into that. It won't affect the high end of the PC market, but it will affect the rest.


Again, as I say, the console market has already eaten into that area a long time ago, so it's not going to change now.
added on the 2014-02-19 23:11:59 by Scali Scali
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I said *desktop apps*, as in the apps you'd normally use on a desktop machine.
You can't use those on Android or iOS.


Oh man. Why the hell would you want to? It'd be like using vim with only a mouse. *Of course* you don't use desktop apps on a mobile device, just like you don't use mobile apps on a desktop. Because it sucks. (Notice how windows 8 has been so popular? Guess why!)

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Are they? I don't think I've seen a lot of people playing The Sims on tablets or phones.
It seems that the more popular mobile games are quite different from the games in the list of best-selling games on PC: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_PC_games


Just had a quick look at the sims on iOS. The free version (released 2011) is #55 in the free games chart, and the sims 3 (released 2009) is #89 in the paid chart. Considering they're both old and the sims was getting old when they came out, both seem to be doing well.

I agree that the most popular games are different to some extent (I've not seen an FPS high in the iOS charts for a while). But not *that* different. E.g. strategy games are popular on both, so are RPGs. This is the middle area I'm talking about.

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That's the point you're *trying* to make, and consistently fail at.


*sigh* see above - the sims is successful on both platforms. So are strategy games, RPGs, and others. There are even actual FPS games that play well on a mobile device, and good ports of PC games. Of course mobile and PC games aren't totally separate things with no overlap, there's an absolute ton of evidence.
added on the 2014-02-19 23:29:44 by psonice psonice
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Linux may be used for dev work, by misguided souls (just as most open source software is developed by misguided souls). Real developers use Windows and Visual Studio.


Oh.


Dear.
added on the 2014-02-19 23:33:04 by ringofyre ringofyre
wow, i missed that one. Even with the bit you missed off at the end (which does have some truth to it).. wow. Blinkers on!
added on the 2014-02-19 23:42:10 by psonice psonice
To be fair he was right about the last bit (hence its omission). But, yeah....
added on the 2014-02-20 03:57:24 by ringofyre ringofyre
"real developers use ..."

sounds like a serious case of zealotry.
added on the 2014-02-20 04:12:48 by psenough psenough
Look we all say things in the heat of an internet argument that we may not have fully thought thru. I may even have been guilty of it my self on occasion! ;]

Tbh - I think Scali maybe isn't aware of the rather large community of linux developers that he managed to completely disrespect with his statement. Because of course everyone would rather use FrontPage and IIS rather than say Apache for their webservers. And almost no medical imaging software runs on linux anywhere. Same with most household routers and other things like say... most modern Smart TVs. There are virtually no embedded linux devices anywhwere - apparently WinCE is just too good an OS. Of course when it comes to laptop/desktop os's Windows is the top of the heap. I mean, this is the same company that brought us Internet Explorer ffs!

But I do agree with what he said about *nix not having anything like VS and as I have already said - eclipse is shit, I use several tools (geany, ddd, nasm etc.) rather than 1 IDE. I personally can't stand VS and it's "hold your hand" wysiwyg approach.

Another reason I think why we need "Delete" and "Edit" post buttons.
@Scali - most of what I've said I've tried to make as tongue-in-cheek as possible, it's meant to be a *bit* piss-takey. However I'm really not looking for a fullblown flamewar here. Just maybe think before you hit "Submit" sometimes. It's beer o'clock here so I'll end this with - "Cheers!"
added on the 2014-02-20 06:19:15 by ringofyre ringofyre
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Oh man. Why the hell would you want to?


Why else would you want to dock your tablet/phone to a keyboard/mouse and a monitor/TV?
I would really like to just have a phone that is *also* a laptop/desktop when I dock it, so I can just use Visual Studio, 3dsmax and all those kinds of apps when docked. That way I would no longer require a separate PC (ignoring obvious performance advantages because of different size and power envelopes here).

Android and iOS are toys because you simply can't do that, and there are no native alternatives to these apps either.
Sure, in theory there could be ports of Xcode, 3dsmax and whatnot for these OSes, but what's the point, if you could just use Windows on your phone/tablet and use the same software as on your PC?

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*sigh* see above - the sims is successful on both platforms.


But by no means equally successful.

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There are even actual FPS games that play well on a mobile device, and good ports of PC games.


Again, by no means equally successful.
Don't try to equate what isn't remotely equal.
added on the 2014-02-20 09:16:45 by Scali Scali
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Tbh - I think Scali maybe isn't aware of the rather large community of linux developers that he managed to completely disrespect with his statement.


No, I am perfectly aware of the community of linux developers, and their complete lack of skill and knowledge: http://scalibq.wordpress.com/2013/07/19/linux-the-dunning-kruger-os/
It's just one big circle-jerk of clueless developers, keeping the myth alive that they actually know what they're doing.

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But I do agree with what he said about *nix not having anything like VS and as I have already said - eclipse is shit, I use several tools (geany, ddd, nasm etc.) rather than 1 IDE.


Which proves the above circle-jerk theory just fine: all *nix zealots just 'know' that *nix is the shit when it comes to developing. But ahhh... where are the actual cutting edge development tools? There's a bunch of IDEs, which are all shit. GCC also gets its arse handed to it by the Intel and MS compilers in most cases.
If these linux developers are really so good, then why can't they build better tools?

But, as you can read in my blog, even Linus Torvalds himself is absolutely clueless. The rest of the linux community simply doesn't notice, because they are even more clueless than he is.
added on the 2014-02-20 09:21:48 by Scali Scali
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Why else would you want to dock your tablet/phone to a keyboard/mouse and a monitor/TV?

Clearly not a user of numpad.
added on the 2014-02-20 09:27:42 by ringofyre ringofyre
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Tbh - I think Scali maybe isn't aware of the rather large community of linux developers that he managed to completely disrespect with his statement. Because of course everyone would rather use FrontPage and IIS rather than say Apache for their webservers. And almost no medical imaging software runs on linux anywhere. Same with most household routers and other things like say... most modern Smart TVs. There are virtually no embedded linux devices anywhwere - apparently WinCE is just too good an OS. Of course when it comes to laptop/desktop os's Windows is the top of the heap. I mean, this is the same company that brought us Internet Explorer ffs!

Well you're extremely deluted if you think serious work isn't done on Linux. And it's not only server stuff. A huge part of high end VFX is done on Linux. It's not just to check a box that high-end VFX software gets ported to Linux (like Maya, Houdini, Nuke, Mari, Katana, PRMan and Arnold).

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Android and iOS are toys because you simply can't do that, and there are no native alternatives to these apps either.

So whether or not an OS is a toy is determined by the software available for it? And even if that wasn't a ridiculous definition Android and iOS aren't toy OSes. You can get a lot of serious non-toy stuff done on them. Lots of people use Android and iOS based devices professionally every day to get actual work done.
added on the 2014-02-20 09:31:18 by paldepind paldepind
Go make a demo about it.
I mean, seriously. Why hasn't any of you lunix wankers ever managed to produce a demo that is worthwhile on that pathetic platform of yours?
Don't come crying here that we don't take your platform seriously. You've never given us any proof of the contrary. All you have ever produced is shit. Which is because you're clueless and unskilled. If you weren't, you probably wouldn't be so impressed with linux in the first place... QED
added on the 2014-02-20 09:36:55 by Scali Scali

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