In addition, that programmer's mindset still is the dominant one throughout the industry. These are the sorts of people who'll look at anything overtly religious and write it off as either an overbearing attempt to "save" them, or merely an exercise in preaching to the choir (in a fairly literal sense).
I'd probably be annoyed if my rhythm game told me in all candor to praise or worship anything (side effects of the programmer's bias, I suppose, but I am a programmer), but it is refreshing to see more variety entering the industry - especially a vastly different sort of variety, which is what stands the best chance of expanding the medium. I wish them good luck.
-Bongo Bill
In Response to "Dancing for Jesus" from The Escapist Forum: I think it has less to do with programmers specifically and more to do with human nature. I don't think it matters if you're a programmer, a physicist, a doctor, a musician, a secretary, or a mini-mart clerk: faith is a deceptively difficult thing to understand.
Plus, I think there is a common misconception that science is the enemy of religion, especially with current political climates being what they are. But, that idea is only a throwback to 15th century thinking (Galileo, Copernicus, et al) perpetuated by zealots on both sides of the argument. Reality probably lies somewhere in between.
Anyway, my point is that the denial of the existence of God is not so much the property of scientifically-minded folks as it is the property of anyone who might not believe in something that they cannot empirically experience. But, yeah, religious games are usually teh stinky.
- DrRosenRosen
In Response to "Guitar Heroics" from The Escapist Lounge: It comforts me to know that there is someone else out there who bought a PS2 for the sole purpose of rocking. They all thought I was crazy, they said there were other games out there, but it didn't matter to me. I had no aspirations to roll the universe into a ball, destroy ancient Chinese armies, or hit my opponents in the nads repeatedly with a polearm or pike.
My PS2 isn't a game console so much as it is a guitar simulator. When Guitar Hero 2 hits, my friends and I will most likely go missing for several days until our wrists start to deform into immobile claws.
- zackola
In Response to "<Gran Tourismo HD: game Not Included" from The Escapist Lounge: I don't want to interrupt all the fun you lot are having with your rant, but I think you might be a bit confused with respect to the facts of the case.
GT-HD comes in two versions, "Classic" and "Premium". Stephen Rokiski may want the Premium version, but the rest of you without a doubt want Classic, which comes with 750 cars and 51 tracks included in the price. The Premium version is the one to which the quoted prices apply. There are far fewer cars and tracks available currently because they're all being modelled (both visually and behaviourally) to a ridiculous degree of precision.
To say that having a product like that released commercially is bad for gaming is a very odd position to take. High production values and meticulous attention to detail are something I'm personally very happy to see and use of micropayments for vehicles seems like an intelligent way to balance the high cost of producing the game assets with the desire to keep the game moderately accessible to those who want to try it.
