AMD Open Source Driver for Vulkan - <AUTHOR> https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amdvlk-radeon-vulkan&num=1 <comment><USER2> AMD has been working for years to make them the most Linux friendly GPU option. Sadly the legacy of the Linux community talks like AMD doesn't work in Linux and NVIDIA is the only real choice. Kind of like Windows users complaining about AMD drivers when they haven't been an issue for over five years.

I had AMD on my Linux boxes for eight years and I have haven't had an issue for the past six years.

<comment><USER3> This does not mirror my experience. I have a machine with amdgpu drivers installed. I specifically installed ubuntu instead of arch or something more exotic because i knew there would be issues. And i was right. I can use the OpenCL now but I can't use x11 because the driver uses old ABIs. My experience with Nvidias binary blobs even on systems like freebsd has been stellar in comparison.

<comment><USER4> I'm using amdgpu on FreeBSD (-CURRENT, drm-next-kmod), with Vulkan (RADV) + Wayland, it's awesome :)

Yeah, OpenCL is a problem, clover crashes, the new AMD OpenCL driver is not ported yet (I guess it depends on kernel 4.15? we have amdgpu from 4.12 for now)...

I wish people started using Vulkan for compute instead of OpenCL!!

<comment><USER5> Wait Vulkan is for compute like opencl is?

<comment><USER6> It does both compute and graphics.

<comment><USER5> [https://i.imgur.com/EMrknJP.gif](https://i.imgur.com/EMrknJP.gif)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is there also a useful open-source OpenCL implementation for AMD GPUs? I would find that even more useful.

<comment><USER8> [https://github.com/RadeonOpenCompute/ROCm](https://github.com/RadeonOpenCompute/ROCm) ROCm has open-source support for OpenCL 1.2 but doesn't yet work on all mainline components (i.e. Linux kernel and LLVM changes needed), but that should change in 2018, and also only works with relatively recent AMD GPUs.

<comment><USER7> That looks very interesting. I'm OK with it only supporting recent AMD GPUs, but I hope the other changes will be upstreamed soon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Tangentially related question - is there any good Vulkan tutorial/online class one can take that would allow learning how to build own 3D engine/VR/AR system from the scratch? I am in the mood... Thanks!

<comment><USER10> Have a look at this list, hope it helps! [http://stephaniehurlburt.com/blog/2017/7/14/beginner- friendl...](http://stephaniehurlburt.com/blog/2017/7/14/beginner-friendly- vulkan-tutorials)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Any chance of this leading to a 3rd party Vulkan driver on Mac?

</comment><comment><USER12> Great. May be now radv and amdvlk can fill the gaps from each other.</comment>


Poll: Should Microsoft actively kill IE6? - <AUTHOR> http://technologizer.com/2009/08/11/should-microsoft-kill-ie6/

<comment><USER2> The problem with a poll like this, is that the only people who see the poll, are technically-minded, and there are more sides to the issue than technology.

From a technical stand-point, I completely agree - IE6 is a pain in the butt. But all the counter-arguments are more in-tune with other aspects of people lives. Most people don't give a crap what browser they use. Most people don't even know WHAT browser they use. Virtually no one who hasn't already upgraded will appreciate being forced to upgrade. If people are forced to choose certain technologies because their current choice is "holding technology back", then in my opinion the technology has failed the people.

</comment><comment><USER3> No. Companies taking the initiative with user's stuff is how we ended up with 1984 being deleted from Kindles without warning. If you're a company (or in fact if you're anyone but me), keep your hands off my computer. Period.</comment>


Desktop Software: A Failed Model - <AUTHOR> http://www.zoliblog.com/blog/_archives/2007/3/5/2783574.html?message= <comment><USER2> Webapps are sort of a throwback to the dumb terminal + mainframe model. This has certain advantages, and where those advantages apply, of course you're going to be successful. If you don't mind having less than 100 percent control over your email, and don't mind google's data mining it for [any|all] reasons, then go ahead and use gmail. Large corporations aren't going to do this, if only for legal reasons.</comment>


Vespa Search Engine Introduces TensorFlow support - <AUTHOR> http://blog.vespa.ai/post/171861434281/introducing-tensorflow-support <comment><AUTHOR> We been migrating from Elastic Search and we are delighted at the performance and how everything works. In ES often the nodes go down and need constant maintenance. If anyone want to try and need help, feel free to contact me bruno at potelo (.com.br).</comment>


Doubts About the Promised Bounty of Genetically Modified Crops - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/30/business/gmo-promise-falls-short.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=image&module=photo-spot-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=1&login=facebook <comment><USER2> I remember a famous academic study in the nineties that questioned whether PC's really produced any appreciable return on investment.

Course that would be so laughable today that no scientific journal would publish it. This article is similar in quality. Got to give it to the anti GMO folks they never give up, even after its clear that they've lost.

I worked in agriculture for over twenty years as an agronomist. I wasn't in an ivory tower, I was on the ground walking farmers fields. My customers used less insecticides with the introduction of GMO seed. They used much safer herbicides. Farmers work in an extremely low margin business. They continued to buy GMO seed because it made them more money. Farmers are the original environmentalists and the use of GMO seed was cleaning their community.

In America we spend around 11% of our income on food. In Europe it's more than double that number. In Europe a small but loud group of activists prevented the adoption of GMO seed. They destroyed research crops so that tests could never be completed on the efficacy of GMO seed.

[https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2015/06/11/bbc- panora...](https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2015/06/11/bbc-panorama- program-blasting-anti-gmo-activists-for-ignoring-science-underscores-turning- point-on-gmo-reporting/)

Europeans also convinced a starving Zambia to reject the generous US gift of life saving grain. Let people starve cause hypothetically something could be bad for them is the height of hypocrisy.

[http://www.economist.com/node/1337197](http://www.economist.com/node/1337197)

If they [the environmentalists] lived just one month amid the misery of the developing world, as I have for 60 years, they'd be crying out for fertilizers, herbicides, irrigation canals and tractors and be outraged that fashionable elitists back home were trying to deny them these things.

\- Norman Borlaug, inventor of the green revolution and winner of the 1970 Nobel Peace prize

<comment><USER3> > Europeans also convinced a starving Zambia to reject the generous US gift of > life saving grain. Let people starve cause hypothetically something could be > bad for them is the height of hypocrisy.

Zambia wasn't starving; as far as I can tell there was a regional famine, while some areas were actually experiencing an above average output. According to government sources the main issue was getting aid to affected areas inside the country, not the inability of the government to procure food from other countries.

I've tried to search for any evidence that anyone starved to death, but couldn't find any. It's telling that when searching for info about the Zambia famine, you mostly get articles talking about GMOs and can't find any (at least I couldn't) talking about anyone who starved.

This is one of those topics where whenever it comes up you can usually expect a ton of disinformation thrown about from all sides.

<comment><USER4> Look harder. Stunting means malnutrition; starvation is not the only outcome of lack of food. "4) The prevalence of stunting in children - low growth for age - is 40 percent."

[http://m.wfp.org/stories/10-facts-about-hunger- zambia](http://m.wfp.org/stories/10-facts-about-hunger-zambia)

<comment><USER5> Malnutrition in childhood also causes lower IQ for life.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is true if not somewhat misleading. Most commercial GMO crops do not target yield but lessens the amount of effort required to maintain production. Similar yields are readily achievable by throwing manpower and tons of agrochemicals at it, however that is effectively a loss of productivity and just as bad for the environment.

Ultimately one can only fit so many plants of maize on a single acre. What is yet to come are GM crops that actually prove the efficiency of photosynthesis and carbon fixing by directly engineering cellular biochemistry, making them closer to the food factory mankind has been working towards for thousands of years.

<comment><USER7> You're spot on. You could use human labor to control weeds very effectively. It would just be extremely expensive.

<comment><USER8> You could never hope to use human labor to control pests, though- and certainly not blight.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Criticism that GMOs have "not accelerated increases in crop yields" misses the point. If you pick weeds by hand, even organic farming can have great yields!

Are GMOs making food cheaper to produce? The answer is almost certainly yes -- otherwise farmers wouldn't be buying the more expensive GMO seeds, which now dominate the market for many crops.

Also, there are some crops (e.g., the Hawaiian papaya) that wouldn't even be viable today without GMOs.

Disclaimer: I used to work for a company that was acquired by Monsanto.

<comment><USER10> Living in central Wisconsin, one runs into a few farmers. I've heard the opinion on more than one occasion, that roundup ready corn & beans eliminate having to control weeds by plowing them under, thus reducing cost, fuel use, and soil runoff.

<comment><USER11> Winner, winner, chicken dinner. With the current cost of fuel, and the razor thin margins, minimizing trips over the field is the #1 way stay profitable.

<comment><USER12> Would electric tractors and combines change the equation substantially?

<comment><USER10> I'm not sure, because it's hard to guess whether the cost advantage of electric cars is due to efficiency or subsidy. By the same process, one could ask why they don't just run their tractors off of ethanol produced from their crops.

But regardless of the energy source, an extra one or two passes across the fields is going to be an added cost.

<comment><USER13> I do wonder if electric cars paid a tax equivalent to the gas tax what would the cost be?

Has anyone done the calculation? If a gallon of gas gets and average of X miles across all cars then how much electricity is that to tax the same amount? I'd be curious since I have strong privacy and persecution of poor people objections to a mileage tax.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> That's remarkable. Tons more pesticides and herbicides for no actual improvement in crop yields.

Annoyingly, the NYT article focuses repeatedly on bullshit "health" controversies, ignoring the actual reasons that GMOs are largely banned in the EU - namely, their environmental risks. It's extremely strange how virtually nobody on any side of the debate in America or in the media seems to be aware of this.

<comment><USER15> There is no wide ban of GMO's in the EU there is an authorization process (which isn't technically unique for GMO's any type of new crop or livestock has to be approved) and most of them do get authorised, only a few GMO products those which were engineered to produce biotoxins that can act as pesticide are actually banned.

[http://ec.europa.eu/food/dyna/gm_register/index_en.cfm](http://ec.europa.eu/food/dyna/gm_register/index_en.cfm)

And before you go and post the 19 countries that "opted out", this doesn't mean it's actually banned.

For example Germany has "GMO Free Zones" but they are still plenty of farmers growing GMO's.

[http://www.gmo-free-regions.org/gmo-free- regions/germany.htm...](http://www.gmo-free-regions.org/gmo-free- regions/germany.html)

This isn't a process that would take a year or even two, it is likely to take decades and in all honesty it's more likely to be reversed than expanded.

And more importantly since the GMO ban is effectively a ban only on cultivation this is more of a step to protect and subsidise the farmers in the EU rather than an ecological or public health related policy.

As long as the US, China and AfriChina (read about it) produces GMO crops and exports them it wouldn't matter.

<comment><USER16> Environmental risk of GMOs is not limited to biotoxins. I imagine parent commenter was mostly referring to the impact of Roundup, a synthetic pesticide used in GMO crops.

<comment><USER15> You do understand that normal crops require at the least as much pesticide and herbicide as GMO's right?

The environmental impact is monoculture and even that isn't exclusive to GMO's and the real one that effectively the farmers have to give in to the demands of the seed companies and they often are forced to sign exclusivity deals for their fields.

<comment><USER16> _> You do understand that normal crops require at the least as much pesticide and herbicide as GMO's right?_

Doesn't sound like you read the article. Suggest you do. Here is a supplementary source as well.

A paper published in the peer-reviewed Environmental Sciences Europe found that overall, GMO technology drove up herbicide use by 527 million pounds, or about 11 percent, between 1996 (when Roundup Ready crops first hit farm fields) and 2011. By 2011, farms using Roundup Ready seeds were using 24 percent more herbicide than non-GMO farms planting the same crops.[1]

[1][http://enveurope.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/2190-4715...](http://enveurope.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/2190-4715-24-24)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > "Monsanto pitched them as a way to curb the use of its pesticides. "We're > certainly not encouraging farmers to use more chemicals," a company > executive told The LA Times in 1994..."Figures from the United States > Department of Agriculture show herbicide use skyrocketing in soybeans, a > leading G.M. crop, growing by two and a half times in the last two decades"

As a child, I dreamed that I would grow up to a world where genetically modified organisms were the key to sustainable agriculture. We could have plants that eliminated the need for petroleum based fertilizers by enriching the soil like clover does and that are resistant to disease and insects. Instead we get Monsanto. Where they've turned large tracks of fertile land into a barren, sterile wasteland that can only grow their GMO crops. And lie to us about their GMO's reducing the use of chemicals.

It's a shame Monsanto has abused the potential of GMO to boost profits by selling more chemicals instead of using it for good.

<comment><USER18> > Where they've turned large tracks of fertile land into a barren, sterile > wasteland that can only grow their GMO crops.

Source?

> It's a shame Monsanto has abused the potential of GMO to boost profits by > selling more chemicals instead of using it for good.

Is it wrong to sell more chemicals?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm not sure we should get our science from the UN. It's a political institution. Take with a grain of salt. I'm sure the relative yields of GMO vs non-GMO crops is a well studied topic. What's the consensus? Or is it simply too political to even do objective research in this area. Not a good situation.

<comment><USER20> So how would you test this? Have two fields with different crops? Wind and insects lead to contamination.

...so two greenhouses. There are many ways to deal with things like soil enrichment, what's considered a pest and what's considered a weed. Some think that a consortium of specific "pests" and "weeds" if managed "properly" are net beneficial for instance.

There's different ways to water crops, rotate them, and the levels of biodiversity for a given acre over some time. There's climate differences by location and year, multigenerational effects not only on the plant but the soil, the insects...

How do you measure yield? What if there's 10% more product but the labor intensive expensive harvesting season in 30% longer... What if the gmo crops come out a different size, or aesthetically different, or having different shelf life, or different characteristics with regard to bruising and shipment or a different ratio of edible to non edible parts... What if there's the same average but a different variance?

Now let's presume you have all of that and one multibillion dollar company claims their patented seeds are better through a very expensive trial run.

Who funds the confirmations or the counter studies? What money is backing the non proprietary strains?

What about climatological and ecological externalities? Perhaps there's a carbon sequestration difference or toxicity not in an insect that come in contact but with the creatures that eat those insects...

If the fundamental claim is "this is better and is how we should feed billions of people; deploy this single strain globally at a massive scale..." Maybe it's OK.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The problem is with the ease of use. If you can apply roundup all-around the season, you do so. And if you do, some undesirable plants will survive, hidden out of sight. These will adapt and thus, genetically modified crops "breed" multi-pesticide resistant weeds.

In the traditional approach to farming this did happen only seldom, because the times when pesticides were applied, are severely limited. And if resistant weeds where encountered, a change of the grown culture and apply of broad-band pesticides could eliminate them.

TL,DR; Genetically Modified Crops grow resistant weeds that drastically reduce the harvest.

<comment><USER22> Pesticide resistance is much harder to develop and spread than Antibiotic resistance. Vastly smaller populations and much longer reproduction means plants adapt/evolve much less quickly. Further, lack of horizontal gene transfer means each species needs to evolve resistance independently.

<comment><USER21> Yes and yes. But you have a Million dices, being rolled every year, and some of those dices are loaded with sloppy applied, diluted, pesticides. And once the Weed is in existence, it can rely on transfer by car, truck and train.

The problem is not the GMO are not financial viable (they are, as long as there are no resistant weeds), the problem in my point of view are not health risks (though some of the in abundance used pesticides are on the carcinogenic watch list here in the EU)- the problem is the same with developing antibiotics. You do, and everyone and his dog uses it for minor injuries, resulting in a fast resistance. Meaning, this whole genetically engineering is a constant uphill game against statistics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> GMO + broadcast applied herbicides is a long term loser. For years cotton growers in the South Eastern US applied Round Up from planes. The chemical would dissipate on its way down and apply half doses to weeds. Some of these weeds could metabolize the Round Up while others would die. But the next year all that was left were the weeds that had some resistance. They bred w/ e/o and on it went. The annual selective pressure has created some pretty impressive weeds, most notably Palmer Amaranth. Growers I've talked to say, "Round up just pisses it off." It can grow over an inch a day, it has over a million seeds in its bud and once it has grown past 4 inches, no selective chemical can kill it. You can kill 98% of it one year and its population will be bigger the next year. Once you get an Amaranth population, you more or less can't get rid of it. It's a one way ratchet. As such, Palmer Amaranth is spreading.

The Dicamba story is quite interesting. Monsanto is selling Dicamba resistant seeds even though the chemical is not approved for use on those crops. As Dicamba is approved for other uses, growers can buy the Dicamba ready seeds and illegally apply it. Dicamba is finicky. In many weather conditions it volatilizes and drifts to a neighboring farm. If the neighbor doesn't have Dicamba ready seeds, he could lose his crop and have very little legal recourse. Today two growers got in a dispute about Dicamba drift and one shot and killed the other. The drift problem is forcing growers that don't use Dicamba to buy Dicamba resistant seeds as a defense mechanism. It's pretty nuts. I feel like the herbicide resistant weed problem is like a "Global Warming that nobody knows about."

More interesting is the fact that it takes decades to produce a gene / chemical pairing and get it approved for use. The weeds evolve faster than the GMO / chemical companies' ability to deliver new products.

The startup I work for, Blue River Technology, is going after this problem. We make machines that detect the crop, detect the weeds and apply non-selective chemicals to just the weeds. Because we target selectively we can use non- systemic, contact herbicides will kill resistant weeds no matter what. The grower saves on chemicals, put orders of magnitude less poison in the ground and gets better weed control.

The problems w/ this article are numerous. The guy clearly spent more time looking at UN stats than he did walking the fields and talking w/ growers. Somehow he missed the rather obvious fact that GMO + roundup is more cost effective regardless of yield. Regardless, he brought up some interesting points and I'd rather be talking about it than not.

\-- Disclaimer -- The company I work for is partially funded by both Monsanto and Syngenta. Not that anything I said is defending the status quo :)

<comment><USER23> Why use chemicals at all in your robots? Why not mechanical means like punching them into the soil?

Microwaves might also be an interesting approach. We should chat.

<comment><USER7> The main reason to avoid any sort of mechanical kill is time. Even if you could deploy and retract a puncher in 100 ms, you'd travel 10 inches during that time. The slowest operation in row crops is about 6mph. Same principle applies to microwaves & lasers. All require time over the target. Chemicals are nice b/c they do their work after your machine leaves and its easy to get a solenoid that opens and closes in 5ms.

There are other issues w/ exploding seed head making the problem worse and w/ making reliable complex moving parts in the horrible ag environment.

Happy to chat. Contact in profile.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Kevin folta breaks down the flaws in the article pretty well:

"1\. No genes for yield were ever installed. The current suite of biotech traits were not meant to improve yields, they were made to ensure yields. In other words, they help ag producers farm with lower costs, fewer insecticides, improved weed control and virus resistance in some cases. Same yield at lower cost = better for farmers."

[https://kfolta.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/rehashing-tired- argume...](https://kfolta.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/rehashing-tired- argument.html?m=1)

</comment><comment><USER25> Shun the unbeliever. Shun him.

</comment><comment><USER26> The article says that their research found "genetic modification in the United States and Canada has not accelerated increases in crop yields." Yields have been on an upward trend for 50+ years.

<comment><USER27> Did you read the article? The measurement is against places that do not use GMOs. Nowhere does it say there has been no absolute increase in yields.

> An analysis by The Times using United Nations data showed that the United > States and Canada have gained no discernible advantage in yields — food per > acre — when measured against Western Europe, a region with comparably > modernized agricultural producers like France and Germany.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'm not going to comment for or against GMOs or whatever. But can we all take a minute to appreciate the staggering stupidity of the CEO of Monsanto saying:

"Every farmer is a smart businessperson, and a farmer is not going to pay for a technology if they don't think it provides a major benefit"

This is a) obviously more marketing than anything, pandering to his customers b) Demonstrably false. It's simply untrue that every farmer is a smart businessperson. c) Besides the point. What the farmers "think" is not the same as what's real.

<comment><USER6> Back when GMO soy was banned in Brazil, farmers simply banded together and paid smugglers to bring seeds from neighboring Argentina. If the benefits were not so immediate I doubt they'd bother to break the law.

<comment><USER29> Right now there are people going to lots of trouble to smuggle rhino horns for use as an aphrodisiac. If the benefits were not so immediate I doubt they'd bother to break the law.

<comment><USER30> A wrong analogy is still a wrong analogy.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Noise Free claims Apple stole its noise-cancelling technology - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/10/3148148/noise-free-claims-apple-stole-its-noise-cancelling-technology

<comment><USER2> If Apple's patents were accepted how could they have stolen the technology? That is, unless Noise Free didn't patent their own tech...</comment>


Take control Own a cloud server FREE for Life - <AUTHOR> https://cloudrino.net/?ref=3759

<comment><USER2> By '1 IPv6' you mean at least a /64 (for the lighter plans), right? Otherwise, this seems very shortsighted...</comment>


Global Consent Manager: Firefox Extension for Managing GDPR Consent Dialogs - <AUTHOR> http://www.globalconsentmanager.com/ <comment><USER2> Suggestion: on the home page, tell me specifically what the extension does. For example, does it augment GDPR popups with additional info? Record the terms of the ones that I agree to? Simplify the process of declining optional choices?

At least on a mobile device, I read the whole home page and still didn't know what would be different if I installed it.

If the behavior is complicated to describe, show me a 20-30 second screencast of what I see with the extension.

Hope this helps!</comment>


Box - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/video-of-the-week/2013/09/25/box/

<comment><USER2> Direct link to the (amazing) video "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX6JcybgDFo"](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX6JcybgDFo")</comment>


Why does my "Windows 7 Ultimate" OS only upgrade to "Windows 10 Professional"? - <AUTHOR>

I recently opted to upgrade my current 'Windows 7 Ultimate" to the free, "Windows 10" offering, and was dismayed to find that my previous "Ultimate" product version was only upgraded to a "Professional" version of the new "10" OS.<p>Is there no comparable variant for "Windows 10", or does MS want me to pay extra for a comparable version? It appears so: http://is.gd/pQwGZ7 <comment><USER2> Seven editions, huh? Looks like Microsoft still hasn't learned from Apple ...

(No Apple fanboy here, either - I run Linux and FreeBSD and wouldn't spend money on Apple products any more than Microsoft. But this - product range management - is something they clearly get Very Right).

<comment><USER3> It is not seven editions, it is two (excluding Enterprise, which aims for a completely different area).

The rest (the other editions as you called them) is for different purposes and platforms (similarly to iOS in Apple's case).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Windows 10 Pro is the highest Version for Consumers. Enterprise is only a Target for Companies.

</comment><comment><USER5> Why are there 7 different versions of Windows? Why can't Win 7 Norwegian upgrade to Win 8 English?</comment>


Drowning in JavaScript - <AUTHOR> http://dangoldin.com/2013/12/01/drowning-in-javascript/ <comment><USER2> > Even if these libraries get cached in the browser it's still quite a lot of > JavaScript that's executed every time a site is loaded.

Is it? 39 libraries that are 35 lines of code each or just define a bunch of functions that your code can then call optionally may well not take that long to parse. How many gems does the typical Rails application use? Libraries are the equivalent on the web, only someone else doesn't resolve the dependencies; you have to include the dependencies manually. Is it that surprising that people are using a variety of helper libraries to do ads, analytics, DOM manipulation, etc, etc? That's fairly standard for development.

I think saying we're "drowning in JavaScript" because we've gotten a lot better at modularizing our code instead of copy-pasting it from everywhere seems like lamenting the wrong part of the problem by far. I would rather every site include Google Analytics, DoubleClick, jQuery, and 10 jQuery UI plugins than be subjected to the cascade of security and functionality bugs folks would run into if everyone was trying to roll their own solution for everything. There are already enough with the use of common code.

Using libraries for third party code is good, and the fact that we're doing it is a step forward, not a step back. Now, there may be room for folks to choose the third party code more wisely, but that's a perennial problem when you're willing to use code that's already been written.

<comment><USER3> Sure, but it's a leaky abstraction. Downloading 30 .js files (and thus wait for 30/x HTTP roundtrips, where x is the number of allowed concurrent connections) before any javascript on the page can run is problematic unless you're adding extra complexity by using JS minification etc.

<comment><USER4> Most properly built sites are already combining the JS and minifying it. It's a largely solved problem that is automated with the right tools. Not much added complexity in it.

<comment><USER5> But most sites are NOT "properly built" the devs just cut and paste vast librarys (some times more than once) into every site!

Trust me on this I spent my last 3 years doing analysis on a large number of sites for one of the worlds major publishers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I agree with some of the conclusions, namely that many people use Ad Block to avoid the slowness that downloading and executing oodles of JavaScript can create.

The methodology here suffers from an apparent lack of insight into what a 'library' is. Note that tech savvy companies such as Facebook and Twitter are low on the list with only a few 'libraries', while media sites have many listed. All this proves is possibly that Facebook and Twitter have less external JavaScript, and are savvy enough to combine files to reduce HTTP requests.

Listing the total KB of JavaScript executed could help clarify the matter. But then, it would also give advantage to those who minify vs those who don't. Fair enough as download time is part if the issue - though the article does not mention that file size plays a role as well as number if http requests. To accurately portray who is using the most JavaScript, you'd have to count opcodes, and combine that with http request count and total download size.

<comment><USER7> Definitely performance is a nice benefit. I don't use AdBlock; I have a few thousand lines in my /etc/hosts that map various bad actors (vast chunks of Javascript that doesn't do anything useful, 1x1 .gifs, ads, annoying widgets, etc.) to 255.255.255.255 (NXDOMAIN), and use dnsmasq on that machine to get that benefit across to the rest of the local network, regardless of browser. The thing that usually triggers another bout of "block these hosts" is if I notice that my ostensibly idle browser is burning CPU. I don't want to wait several seconds for a page to render, and I certainly don't want to waste laptop battery time on refreshing an iframe with "what people are saying about this on Twitter" or feeding someone's analytics server. Half the time a site runs really slowly, it's usually doing some nonsense that I'd be happier without, or my browser is waiting to download something that I don't need to see.

The total amount of Javascript in kB is one issue, but you don't need to hit the level of opcodes, I think. Counting the nodes in the parsetree would be useful, as well as measuring the amount of memory that is allocated by the Javascript, determining whether it runs once or continuously or on some trigger (e.g., scrolling, hovering, mouse movement). If you ran a profiler and measured the amount of time spent in the Javascript bits of your runtime (e.g., how long to parse the JS, how long to eval it, how often it runs, throw in some memory profiling) you could probably get some interesting numbers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Ghostery publishes a lot of this information too :)

[http://www.knowyourelements.com/](http://www.knowyourelements.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah thanks for that. I failed at Googling for it. Wish there was an easy way to get at the raw data though - have a list of these libraries by site.

<comment><USER8> No worries, your information is super straight-forward. Really enjoyed your post.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. One of these days I'll take a stab at using PhantomJS and trying to pull this data for more sites.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> You're definitely using the wrong metric to assess how much JavaScript is used. Look at total weight, not total requests. Just because a site combines and minifies its libraries doesn't mean its not using them.

As for why publishers use more JavaScript than tech companies, it comes down to the amount of technical talent. Maybe 10% of a digital publisher's employees work on the tech team, as opposed to ~50% for a tech company. Given these resource constraints, JavaScript requests proliferate due to two reasons:

1\. With less time, engineers turn to external libraries more often to get things done even when they could address the problem with less code if they wrote it themselves.

2\. We can't necessarily spend the time to tune everything and combine/minify libraries for peak performance.

That being said, I'm sorry performance sucks. I'm working on it. Can anyone recommend good tools for analyzing performance bottlenecks on the web?

<comment><USER10> In actual practice, total number of requests may have as much or more impact on observed load time than total bytesize. Depending on speed and latency of the network. Requests can be expensive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This Business Insider article has over 100 scripts: [https://github.com/gorhill/httpswitchboard/wiki/Quick- tour-%...](https://github.com/gorhill/httpswitchboard/wiki/Quick- tour-%232%3A-3-of-3)

For a barely six-paragraph article...

</comment><comment><USER12> I only use Disconnect because I like interactive sites but don't like being tracked. This blog post reports 11 blocked scripts. So even if you think sprinkling some social stuff onto your blog doesn't put you in this category, it does.

<comment><USER13> Just so you're aware, Disconnect actively breaks some sites, even when they aren't trying to be forcefully invasive.

I have a site that logs AJAX requests to Google Analytics (since that's essentially the only "page views" on the particular site). I was doing a test for if (_gaq) before trying to push into the array, because I wasn't more concerned with giving the users a good experience than tracking page views, and that did work if Google Analytics was being blocked from loading at all. Unfortunately, I eventually learned that Disconnect was causing that test to throw a JavaScript exception instead of just blocking GA from loading and leaving _gaq undefined. As you can imagine, narrowing down that it was Disconnect causing the problem from a few random users' "the site isn't working" complaints was a lot of fun...

It's not a huge site, but I do spend a couple thousand dollars a year keeping it online. I'll be damned if I'm going to spend that to keep a free site online and then feel bad about running some advertising and analytics to make sure it doesn't end up in the red.

<comment><AUTHOR> John Resig talks about a similar problem and a potential solution - [http://ejohn.org/blog/fixing-google-analytics-for- ghostery/](http://ejohn.org/blog/fixing-google-analytics-for-ghostery/)

<comment><USER13> That's essentially what I was doing previously, but the if (_gaq) test was throwing an unusual reference error when Disconnect was installed. I ended up finding that doing an explicit if (typeof _gaq === 'object') was safe (and then wrapped that in a try/catch for good measure).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I was surprised at the amount of trackers on the net after I installed Ghostery. News publishers are the worst in my experience - up to 20 ad/tracking plugs on one page. Insane. Sadly, some sites do not work properly if you (Ghostery) disables them.

Unlike the author, it's not the amount of JS that bothers me, but the amount of trackers involved. Companies you never hear about collecting loads of data on your online activity.

I was looking for shoes on one site then days later visited a totally unrelated resource. They showed me ad with the exact boots I viewed. Thankfully, with Ghostery this doesn't happen.

</comment><comment><USER15> Not surprised to see forbes.com at the top of the list of shame. I wonder if they end up losing readers by trying to monetize too much

</comment><comment><USER11> How do you define "Javascript libraries"?

I just tried Forbes' front page, and I got 108 scripts being pulled + [all inline JS of top page combined] = 109 scripts.

Just for ad.doubleclick.net, it's 30 external javascript files pulled.

And I got this result without the 19 iframes which were blocked, and which certainly would have raise further the script count.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was relying solely on the Ghostery numbers. In theory I should use a headless browser that executes to the JS to track everything it's doing but that's still on my to do list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It seems the author of this article is confusing the delivery of physical JavaScript libraries (as separate files) with number of libraries used.

"Five of the 13 publishers I looked at included at least 20 JavaScript libraries while the most libraries included by a social network was 4, which was Pinterest"

For example, he claims 4 on Pinterest, but I quickly looked and one of those files, called: bundle.e3e1df0f.js which has compressed MANY LIBRARIES IN IT (975 KB worth, without gzipping), like JQuery, underscore, backbone, require.JS, Google closure, etc...

Just because a site is packaging up 30 JavaScript libraries into one file, doesn't mean it's not using all these libraries.

I'll also add, that I think a lot of the 3rd party tracking libraries don't really work if you bundle them up and deliver them with your own code, which is why they're usually referenced separately.

</comment><comment><USER17> These sorts of realizations always make me a little bearish on the future. Sure, we've got a thousand times as much bandwidth as we did fifteen years ago, but performance sure hasn't improved a thousand-fold.

Sure, despite the best efforts of the industry, performance improvement will sneak in here or there. Things probably will trend upwards. But so, so much slower than they could.

<comment><USER18> Paul Allen (of Microsoft and Ticketmaster fame) refers to this as a "complexity brake" in his critique of Kurzweil's Singularity concept.

Bandwidth is well and good, but latencies are non-fungible, as are other overheads.

<comment><USER18> Link for those interested: [http://www.technologyreview.com/view/425733/paul- allen-the-s...](http://www.technologyreview.com/view/425733/paul-allen-the- singularity-isnt-near/?p1=A3)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It's not surprising your top 10 sites are mostly news site. News websites have tons of third-party ads/tracking, and many of them use third party video/login/comment/sharing systems. These kinds of websites are just not your typical single page web app.

</comment><comment><USER20> Seems like an inverse correlation between the ability to make money online and the number of libraries.

</comment><comment><USER21> I wonder if they're serving the files from different domains? Browsers can only download a few files from one domain at a time. So if there are four sub- domains setup for the 35 files, this would make the JavaScript load quicker.

Am I right?

</comment><comment><USER22> Would be interesting to see if the pages are still usable (i.e. you can get to and read the content) if they just load the css and html.

</comment><comment><USER23> Including the total size of these libraries and response time would be useful too.

</comment><comment><USER24> whitehouse.gov minifies, obfuscates, and shards their scripts, giving them anonymizing "filenames." Yes, obviously "files are myths."

I'd rather sites explicitly set scripts so that I can cherry-pick what to block.

<comment><USER24> Well, it was that way at one point...

[Previous post made from my phone.]

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> "I suspect most people use AdBlock not because of ads but because of the degraded performance"

Oh come on. Practically speaking, "most people" don't care about the "degradation" of a site due to Javascript. Most people wouldn't even know what that meant.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think that people blame the ads for the performance and experience issues and that's what causes them to search for ad blockers rather than the getting rid of ads for the sake of getting rid of ads. I might of course be wrong.

<comment><USER9> > I think that people blame the ads for the performance and experience issues

And they're right. Ads slow things down, especially because many ad networks are still using archaic JavaScript. (Lots of document.write...)</comment></comment></comment>


Closed city - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_city <comment><USER2> This reminds me of China Miéville's novel _The City & The City_, ostensibly a police procedural where two cities overlay the same physical space:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_%26_the_City](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_%26_the_City)

<comment><USER3> I read that several years ago, and my impression was it was inspired by how different subcultures occupy the same space in real life cities, but it's taboo for them to communicate or sometimes even acknowledge each others' presence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Getting a visitor's permit is (or maybe was — I don't know about the situation of last 2-3 years) relatively straightforward even for foreign tourists. That's in Russia, I don't know much about China.

Having grown up in relatively closed city of Omsk, Russia, I knew (like every other boy of my age) the exact coordinates of probable nuclear strikes in case of war (ICBM silos perimeter, tank production plant officialy known as transport machinery plant, nuclear weapons maintenance plants etc.) All of which were supposedly secret, but everyone knew everything anyway.

<comment><USER5> I was born in the city of Severomorsk.¹ Current population 50,000+. I'm living in another city now. And I can't go the place of my birth unless I prepare the papers two weeks before the visit.² Forget about the spontaneous visits to my friends living there.

¹ [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severomorsk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severomorsk)

² My friend helped me with the papers. I don't remember exactly, but simply saying "I want to visit my friends" is not enough. It's more complicated than that.

<comment><USER4> Do you still hold the Russian passport? Also, yes, I haven't said it doesn't take time, unfortunately.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I once read a blog about a guy that was hitchhiking in China and ended up in a city that he was escorted out from (first being threatened with jail, deleting photos, etc). He couldn't find it on a map either (but he just knew the main road which he used, not exactly where he left it, so..).

Apparently there were lots of kids with badges, many sport venues. His guess was a some sort of talent building city for olympics.

edit: Here it is through translate (haven't checked how bad it is) [https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%...](https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hogy.sk%2Fako- som-v-cine-nasiel-co-som-najst-nemal)

</comment><comment><USER7> America had secret cities too at one point; from 1942 until 1949, Oak Ridge, a city of 75,000 people did not exist on maps.

[http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2012/06/the-secret- city/100...](http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2012/06/the-secret-city/100326/)

<comment><USER8> Likewise Los Alamos, NM and Richland, WA as the article mentions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm curious about US cities that are effectively closed today. What happens if you try to drive to Pilcher, OK or Love Canal, NY?

<comment><USER9> Since both cities are highly contaminated with chemicals from mining and from toxic-waste disposal, I'd venture to guess that the result of driving there is that you will die a slow, painful death from poisoning.

<comment><USER10> Love Canal is not a city, it's a neighborhood of Niagara Falls, roughly 16 acres of the worst of which is fenced. Since the toxins have been buried probably nothing would happen unless you went digging around the soil and eating with dirty hands; or maybe spent a few years living in a tent above it.

Perhaps a more interesting case is Centralia PA.

<comment><USER11> I visited Centralia several years ago, and it was fascinating. I don't recall pedestrian access being impeded at the time, but there was definitely gas and smoke rising from a few spots around town. I happened to visit on a cloudy morning, and it had an eerie, ethereal feel to it.

There were several areas where the road was damaged, and it was clear that it wouldn't be wise to put too much weight over top, but there are still people living in the area.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Why the strong focus on Russian/Ex-Soviet cities in the article, though? It seems odd that there is a detailed list of present-day closed cities in Russia but only passing mention of other countries.

<comment><USER13> The most likely explanation is because that's where they were the most prevalent or most well-documented. The lead of the article notes: "Closed cities are a feature of heavily militarized countries and secretive regimes, and many still exist in the successor countries to the Soviet Union."

Or it could just be that whoever added the content has Russia-centric knowledge or interests and contributed that. Wikipedia knowingly suffers from systematic bias [0] and many articles will have a tag like this one [1] for being too US-centric. The problem with addressing that is that most editors are American and don't really have access to other language reliable sources. Though in this case the sources are in English so it could just be that English-language sources all focus on that area.

[0]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Systemic_bias](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Systemic_bias)

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Globalize](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Globalize)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I would add to the list many US "cities". If we define a city as a community large enough to meat the general needs of its inhabitants (health, commerce, work/home etc) then lots of places in the US qualify as closed cities. Most of the large military bases a de facto cities, and they are closed.

Louisiana State prison (aka Angola) is a closed city imho. It has a golf course, farms, an air strip and cemetery.

My point is that wikipedia gives the impression that such cities are the mark of oppressive or secretive regimes, listing only a handful of formerly-closed cities in the US. And those were all relate in some way to the Manhattan project. But there are plenty of other closed cities in the US of today ... so um well ... read into that what you will.

<comment><USER15> A closed city is not a prison keeping people in. It keeps people out.

It's easy to get to the Louisiana State prison, just commit a crime appropriate to the security level of the prison and make going to that prison part of your plea bargain.

<comment><USER14> By wikipedia's def, a closed city is one where anyone entering has to provide identification and a reason for them to be there. You don't get into a large prison without a reason. You don't enter an army base without good reason.

<comment><USER15> By that definition every country with visa requirements is a closed city.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This concept is interesting as a way to secure critical government employees against espionage and extortion.

It would seem much more difficult to provide security/surveillance details for critical personnel (to prevent assassination or compromise by foreign agents) and their families (to prevent kidnap/extortion) living in bustling open cities, than to provide housing in secure facilities where such threats cannot even get near them.

If I were (say) Iran, I might not want my nuclear scientists living among the masses.

</comment><comment><USER17> 45% of USA is uninhabited :)

</comment><comment><USER18> "No 404 Factory of China National Nuclear Corp"

AKA factory not found.</comment>


1+1=? - <AUTHOR> http://larrycheng.com/2009/09/29/11/

<comment><USER2> Critique which might be taken personally, please don't read unless you're prepared:

You might want to run these blog posts past a proofreader before submitting to avoid things like"1+1=5-4." Also, if you're trying to impress a site full of hackers, you should probably brush up really quick on very basic algebraic field theory on wikipedia and pretend you know it, instead of admitting you don't even recognize it.

I'm sure you're very good at psychology and internet application investment, but I don't think this blog post really showcased your strengths.</comment>


Show HN: Q&A – an app for video Q&A on Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://www.qnawith.co/intro.html <comment><AUTHOR> Q&A is a fast and easy way to host video question & answer session with your large number of twitter followers.

Format of Q&A:

• Your followers will ask questions in text & upvote others' questions

• You will get a feed of questions sorted by upvotes. Swipe left to answer a question with a video.</comment>


The video game industry can't go on like this - <AUTHOR> https://kotaku.com/the-video-game-industry-cant-go-on-like-this-1836606033 <comment><USER2> For those of us that don't care for the latest FPS or Battle Royale, the games industry is going perfectly fine.

Never before has it been so easy for someone to get their game into the hands of millions. Games like Factorio, made by people who are passionate about games. With modern distribution platforms, companies like Paradox Interactive find it viable to continue adding content to their games many years after they were released.

Couldn't give two hoots about what EA and Activision are up to. They don't make games for me.

<comment><USER3> The picture illustrating the article is of Mortal Kombat 11

11.

I had no idea they did more than 2.

When do you stop beating a dead horse?

<comment><USER4> The horse perhaps has never been healthier.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortal_Kombat_11](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortal_Kombat_11)

"Mortal Kombat 11 proceeded to be the best selling video game software in North America for the following month of May, for both Xbox One and PlayStation 4. The sales of the game is nearly doubled comparably to previous entries of the series."

<comment><USER5> This baffles me. Who are these people that buy games like MK11, a new FIFA game every year(?), go watch obviously purely commercial 'blockbusters' at the cinema, etc.?

Do some people genuinely find these things really enjoyable?

<comment><USER6> >> _This baffles me. Who are these people that buy games like MK11, a new FIFA game every year(?)_

I see your point, but Mortal Kombat is not really the best example of a cash- cow franchise that keeps selling the same game over and over. The successive games in this series have huge differences, especially since the reboot a few years back. If you like this style of fighting games, there are plenty of reasons to buy the latest version every few years.

FIFA on the other hand is terrible in this regard. I can say with confidence because I've been buying each entry since FIFA'09, and while there have been a few major changes in 10 years that are worthwhile improvements, you _are_ indeed more or less buying the same game every year. I sometimes wonder why I even keep doing it, I guess it's just because it's become a tradition I cannot get away from, getting the game on release date and inviting my brother to play it until deep in the night.

<comment><USER7> >a tradition I cannot get away from, getting the game on release date and inviting my brother to play it until deep in the night

Probably well worth the cost just to spend the time with your brother. I wish I lived close enough to my brother to do a yearly video game night with him-- and wouldn't care what the video game was or how much it cost (within sane reason of course).

<comment><USER8> If you can't do every year, what about every 2 or every 3 years?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This article is all over the place.

It's about the reduction of single player games, nevermind it's about the the move to cloud gaming, surprise it's about Google's data center energy production, just kidding it about developer work environments, nope just the environment.

<comment><USER10> Yeah it reads like a clumsy hit piece - not that the industry doesn't have problems but it falls so short of professional writing standards you have to ask if they get paid for it.

<comment><USER11> The Journalism industry can't go on like this.

<comment><USER12> Journalism isn't really an industry so much as a lifestyle for well-to-do people who don't need real jobs

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > In 2008, those three publishers released 98 games; in 2018 they released > just 28, not including expansions. In short, the single-player game was not > sustainable. So why should we think the current model is?

The single player game was 'dead' because video game companies decided they were dead, not because of any market forces. They realized that games with multiplayer features sold a bit better, so they decided to focus on those, to the point of (mostly) abandoning single player games.

Big publishers decided to make fewer, bigger games. But indies (and other mid- tier devs) filled a huge market gap (Kickstarter, anyone?), so nothing really changed much.

<comment><USER5> I may be wrong on any of these points, but:

1\. Keeping up with latest technology (graphics) is important for games, as those create the first impression. It is difficult to market a game built on outdated technology.

2\. The above means that making games gets more and more expensive, probably faster than the market expands (if it is still expanding).

3\. Multiplayer games are more profitable than single-player games.

This means that getting funding to make a single-player game gets more difficult, as it may provide a very poor return on investment, if at all. Only exceptions are low-risk existing franchises, which is why we mostly see those in the single-player scene. The original Deus Ex, System Shock 2 or even Metal Gear Solid would be nearly impossible today as those projects would be considered to be too high risk / low reward.

<comment><USER14> 1\. Minecraft is the biggest selling game, or was at one point. Games should be fun, pretty is an after thought.

3\. Its harder to pirate multiplayer games than single player only, thats why they ditched them.

I don't think single player games are high risk / low reward but the games industry is defiantly laser focused on high risk / unrealistic rewards.

<comment><USER15> >pretty is an after thought.

Pretty is a design choice (or should be). Minecraft's low resolution works well with people who appreciate low resolution worlds, aka kids. Minecraft's true genius, intended or not, is being a game that grows up with the kid as they play.

You start off singleplayer by yourself just getting by in survival mode and you end up building massive city sized projects in multiplayer learning to co- operate on a grand scale. That learning process can cover 5yr old to 16yr olds.

Photoreal is going to become cheaper and cheaper so making an artist aesthetic is going to be more important for standing out than 'better' graphics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> People have been saying this for about 35 years. Back in the 80s Imagine hyped two games called Psyclapse and Bandersnatch saying they were groundbreaking, huge, and _really_ expensive to make. They were never released and stories of the devs working long hours and sleeping under desks came out. There have been similar games and stories every year since then.

The story of the Bandersnatch game is the basis of the Black Mirror episode of the same name. The writer, Charlie Brooker, is a big gaming fan.

<comment><USER17> It's really convenient that you picked your start date to be right after the Video Game Crash of 1983.

I'm not sure we would ever see anything like that again. The fact of the matter is that the big names like EA and Ubisoft make boatloads of money and aren't in danger of losing it. Mass appeal games and the audiences they cater to are surprisingly un-finicky

<comment><USER18> I think the next major crash in video games will be e-sports. And I love e-sports (three time TI attendee). As Peter Dager (ppd), ex-CEO of Evil Genius and industry professional says best:

>Esports is a phenomenon brought on by the introduction of the internet, it does not have to be run the same way that professional sports operate. Many professional sports do not expect to fill a stadium. 99% of our audience is online and prefer to sit in their rooms on their PCs so lets please focus our resources on improving the broadcast and player/talent treatment. Too many irresponsible "businessmen" have latched on to esports over the past couple of years and have convinced billionaires that they are sitting on top of a golden egg. Yes esports is new, yes it is exciting to be at the front of an emerging industry but you are setting everyone else who is to follow up for failure by creating unrealistic standards and expectations.

>The [e-sports] audience is not going to grow immensely, let's build sustainable events so we can continue to enjoy the game we love so much.

I think if investor expectations are not well-managed, this is going to cause an e-sports 'winter' if you will. If this happens, it's definitely going to affect some major game-changing genres like MOBAs and some FPSs. I genuinely feel like it could cause a huge stumble for AAA companies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is not the graph of industry revenue for an industry that "can't go on like this".

[https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/graph/png/Video_ga...](https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/graph/png/Video_game_industry/0/f85d13c567f225f5e4fc8fd52f98c3f775e42591.png)

The game industry is probably in better health than book publishing, music, film or TV. For consumer the plethora of things available has never been greater.

<comment><USER20> I think a sizable chunk[1] of that revenue may be coming from mechanics that are more properly classified as gambling. If/when regulators catch on, things might change very quickly.

[1] Mobile seems to be the fastest growing segment and it's dominated by gambling and psychologically manipulative micro transactions.

<comment><USER21> The only game I've bothered to put on my new phone since buying it 6 months ago is an open source Scrabble clone I found on F-droid called "Crossword". Every so often I'll look on the Play Store for a game, but I find nothing but pay-to-win advertising-flooded lookalikes and abandon the search.

I'm perfectly happy to pay a one-time price for a fun game that includes all content and is playable offline. Unfortunately they seem to be in rather short supply.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I am floored at how cheap games are these days.

Ultima IV had a street price of $50-55; in 1985. That's ~$130 in 2019. Teams were far far smaller then. Of course a "successful" game was also a far different standard; as within 4 years of release it had sold only 400,000 copies; despite being a pretty great game.

Whenever people talk about how expensive games are I feel very very old, because games (and the systems) used to actually be expensive.

The C64 was an amazing budget system, and was originally $595. That's like $1600 today. Yes it was a "computer" as well, but people balk at the price of $300 systems today and call $1000 computers too expensive.

<comment><USER23> Teams were _so_ much smaller.

Ultima IV was about as big-budget as a video game got. Here are the credits for the DOS version: [https://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/ultima-iv-quest-of- the-av...](https://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/ultima-iv-quest-of-the- avatar/credits)

19 people, total, for the original development and production on the Apple II version, plus the PC, Atari and Amiga ports.

<comment><USER24> > 19 people, total

Still it was much smaller. Witcher 3 dev team is about 250.

<comment><USER23> According to [https://www.gamespot.com/articles/this-is-how-much-the- witch...](https://www.gamespot.com/articles/this-is-how-much-the- witcher-3-cost-to-make/1100-6430409/), 240 is just the number of in-house staff. The full count of people who worked on the project came to more like 1,500.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Kotaku has been publishing this kind of article for years. Most video game journalism is about creating enough content to keep an audience with a microsecond attention span. Doing so requires creating hype, controversy, and doubt.

</comment><comment><USER26> I am probably not the standard gamer so all this is personal opinion. I am still playing Skyrim. I don't like FPS games, I don't like multi-player games and I don't like sports games.

The $60 soft-cap makes sense. That is normally for the core game- Skyrim had three official add-ons, I think $5 each. Game developers have created bad reputations for themselves- you expect new games to be sold unfinished requiring huge updates right after release and to still be buggy for months afterwards. I tried Assassins Creed but within the first week I had multiple ~10GB updates, never made it further than the first 10 minutes of the game. Micro-transactions and in-game advertising are probably subconsciously factored into a games prices by customers now. I stopped buying EA games because every loading screen or background object had "EA" written on it (golf). $60 used to be the purchase price of a disc you bought and you owned the game, pop it in and it works. $60 is now the price for a download link to "rent" the game until the publisher or host decides to no longer keep it up and running.

I hate "cloud" gaming. Friday night at 8pm and you decide to play some videos- forced 12GB update means the game will be ready to play sometime Monday morning, assuming the update didn't mess things up. If your Internet is down, sorry, can't play the games you bought and downloaded.

Of course customers aren't going to spend more than $60 for a broken buggy game filled with ads that they don't truly own. Bethesda had moved on from Skyrim but fans have not. (Hopefully TES6 stays similar to the series) 8 years after release people are still playing the game. New mods and full add-ons created by fans are still coming out. The market is there for quality single- player games.

I stopped reading when the article started talking about energy.

<comment><USER27> Check out Witcher 3 if you haven't. Thought it would be hard to top Skyrim...but actually...

</comment></comment><comment> Joe-Z That's an environmentalism article luring you in with how single player games have developed in the last 10 years. Nothing against environmentalism but I was hoping to read more about how actual game development will change and not the same topics that every other technology company faces equally due to climate change and the resulting policies to mitigate it.

<comment><USER28> To be honest, if one is concerned with environmentalism, addressing automobile dependency will do a lot more for the environment than addressing data center[1] electricity usage's contribution to GHG's which has, ironically, lessened over the last decade[0].

[0] [https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas- emis...](https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions)

[1] EDIT: Total electricity usage(for both industry AND commercial/residential) is actually a big contributor to GHG's still, but it's declining and a lot of things, like the reply points out, contribute to it, chiefly things like air conditioning and heating during the winter.

<comment><USER29> Not to mention it sounds like he's arguing against data center driven games. Which seems like the wrong thing to argue against. Add up all the energy used by the consoles and TVs and I'd imagine it dwarfs the data center energy.

<comment><USER10> The transmission and encoding/decoding is probably significant however even if the processing may be more efficient in bulk- look at streaming vs downloaded energy useage for one.

But it is still probably a win over retail distribution.

<comment><USER29> And that said, talking energy to entertainment ratio, I'd think the proliferation of giant screen televisions that are just on all the time would be an even larger concern.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The article makes two points, one centered around the profitability of making games under current business models, the other one centered around the environmental impact of the newer games-as-a-sevice models.

The point that the traditional games publishing model is bad for profits holds, but the point about environmentalism is ridiculous.

First, high environmental impact would mean nothing for the ability for the GaasS models to draw a profit.

Secondly, GaaS should actually be good for the environment. The alternative to computing in data centers is computing in personal computers and consoles, which leads to worse environmental outcomes both in the hardware itself and in their lower efficiency. Besides, computing in data centers leads to more opportunities for efficiency since redundant computations among different devices and users can be parallelized.

The main environmental impact here is one the author completely misses: the energy required for the bandwidth of streaming videos.

<comment><USER31> I agree with you. I would add another huge efficiency advantage of a data- center over a console, that is better heat dissipation.

<comment><USER32> Also shipping. You only need to ship the platform in a GaaS model once, and you build a data center once. From there you're just uploading/transferring code. With physical games you need to produce the games and ship them each time a new one comes out. Not to mention packaging etc.

<comment><USER33> Well, but most games are delivered digitally now ([https://www.statista.com/statistics/190225/digital-and- physi...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/190225/digital-and-physical- game-sales-in-the-us-since-2009/)). I wonder how the bandwidth to deliver the full game compares to the bandwidth to stream video of the game if you're playing it 100% over the internet.

<comment><USER31> I think we can consider the devices where the content is accessed as thin clients. There is some literature supporting the thin client architecture (e.g. [https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/55689271.pdf](https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/55689271.pdf)) and it seems that the power consumption can reduce significantly (3x). These studies do not take in account this particular case but I think they can give you an idea of the scale.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I don't think the tangent off into the topic of cloud-based computing makes a lot of sense.

PUE is a measure of efficiency for the data centre itself — how much power is going into computing vs the data centre. It says nothing about the efficiency of the hardware itself, which can easily beat the efficiency of consumer hardware by enough of a margin that it burns overall _less_ energy.

One obvious place for such savings is storage — there's no reason you need a separate copy of a game for each compute node that's running it!

Then they run into the problem of e-waste, which is precisely the sort of thing that cloud-based/streaming consoles would actually make better!

</comment><comment><USER35> This is click bait. The author points out some trends in gaming and then suddenly jumps to the conclusion that "this can't go on forever".

</comment><comment><USER36> This article is very questionable.

> When you adjust for inflation, the retail cost of video games has never been > cheaper, and it's been this way for some time. The $60 price point for a > standard big-budget release has held steady for nearly 15 years...

I guess the constantly growing addressable market just doesn't matter? The human cost has nothing to do with price points or gamer expectations and everything to do with supply and demand. Lots of people want to make games. Developers/publishers take advantage.

> you'll get a stark—if unscientific—picture of how each big publisher's > release slate has thinned out in the last five years, relying on recurring > cash cows like sports games and annualized franchises and little else. In > 2008, those three publishers released 98 games; in 2018 they released just > 28, not including expansions.

Yeah, because the big publishers _aren't needed_. The tooling a platform like Steam provides has made it much easier to self-publish, or use a small-time publisher instead - your game doesn't need to be on retail shelves to be successful anymore, there's tons of free marking channels available today, all of which combine to make publishers less necessary.

> The foremost takeaway is that while data centers are growing in number, > their energy consumption is starting to plateau out of necessity, as the > dramatic increase in cloud computing has actually forced tech companies to > become more efficient.

This has literally nothing to do with gaming or its sustainability. As the computing/electronics industry moves in more efficient or green directions, gaming hardware (not even the game industry) will follow.

There's problems with the game industry - gambling mechanics, exploitation of "whales", discovery/marketing/shovelwear, how to handle growing international audiences, and so on, but I don't see any of these mentioned in the article.

</comment><comment><USER37> I'd honestly prefer the games industry collapsed and maybe started over. This whole concept of massive thousand people teams working on huge scale games that take many years to finish only manages to produce games devoid of passion. Back when games were made by small teams where every individual was able to contribute significantly to the game did it feel right.

Obviously that is just my personal opinion, but despite games getting more graphically impressive they have been getting worse overall.

</comment><comment><USER38> >kotaku opinion article about the games industry at large

Like hearing a 4-year old talk about philosophy.

<comment><USER39> Your reply should be at the top. LOL

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I wonder what if video games can be contrasted against data we know for book publishing. There was a time books were a huge novelty. Now we only talk about the ones that a REALLY good. When I was younger almost ANY video game impressed me. Nowadays not so much.

Funny thing is to the industry is doubling down on graphics graphics graphics. But damn it if I'm the only one who thinks they're just not fun anymore. I mean have you guys tried Anthem? It's awful.

Where is the goofiness that is battle toads. The narrative that is FFVI. The precision that is a flight sim. There are obviously exceptions and some amazing games. (Witcher III, BOTW, anything Mario, Stardew) But it feels like the big publishers still think it's 2003.

<comment><USER41> _" Where is the goofiness that is battle toads. The narrative that is FFVI. The precision that is a flight sim. There are obviously exceptions and some amazing games. (Witcher III, BOTW, anything Mario, Stardew) But it feels like the big publishers still think it's 2003."_

The indie scene, man. I've been following Failbetter Games, and they've got so much narrative over three games that are essentially about exploring a big crazy world and all the people living in it, fully fleshing out the people you meet, their pasts and presents, and what their lives say about the world they live in.

I've never been so mildly horrified with my own unintended consequences and revelations in that 'world' since I dropped the companion cube into the incinerator in Portal.

<comment><USER42> > I've never been so mildly horrified with my own unintended consequences and > revelations in that 'world' since I dropped the companion cube into the > incinerator in Portal.

For me, dropping the companion cube just meant that the door opened and I could continue to move forward.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> The future isn't about "buying games" or "cloud gaming subscriptions". It will be a form of mobile/casual gaming overtaking interest of mainstream gaming culture by providing similar quality of expirience in the browser, for free.

Its likely will look like self-contained web games, utilizing WebGL+WebAssembly and procedurally generated assets on the client side. It would be powered by ads, microtransactions and donations, without "sale" or "subscription" paradigm - just load the webpage and play.

<comment><USER44> > for free. […] powered by ads, microtransactions and donations

So, not actually for free.

<comment><USER43> In free-to-play model, you don't have to pay anything. You can block ads, ignore microtranactions and don't donate anything, so its essentially free.

<comment><USER45> Well, when the game is designed around microtransactions free to play means more free to pay, as playing without paying is not enjoyable at all. Look at EAs mobile offerings.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I wonder what another Great Games Crash would even look like. Publishers go out of business but platforms like Steam prosper as they already have more superb games that anyone can play in a lifetime? And what would be the resurrection of the industry? Who knows, but I sort of agree with the sentiment that something is about to give.

<comment><USER47> In a hypothetical scenario where all publishers go out of business, it would be hard to see how much the sales decline overall - i.e. how much sales was driven purely by marketing and how much is people really wanting to buy and play video games.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> I only play single player games, and I have more games than I have time. I've completed Horizon Zero Dawn 5 times. Just finished Days Gone. My kid finished indie classic Celeste earlier this year and is grinding through Dead Cells. I didn't like Last of Us, personally (too depressing), but it did quite well, I'm told. I've got Monster Hunter and Sekiro downloaded and waiting for me to get bored of Days Gone.

I read that HZD has made a profit (after development and marketing costs) of over $300m, having sold 10m copies.

Finally played an Assassins Creed game this year. Microtransactioned to death. Never buying one of those again.

</comment><comment><USER49> > Let's run down the Big Three. We're more than halfway through 2019, and > Electronic Arts has only published one single-player game, the indie Sea of > Solitude. Last year was much the same, with two indies as its only single- > player releases: Fe and Unraveled 2. Activision's portfolio of single-player > games looks even thinner: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is the only exclusively > single-player, non-remake game that the publisher has released

Right, but, isn't that ok? I don't want to go FIFA on games like Sekiro. I like it better when a team is given 3-5 years to churn out a dank single player experience.

</comment><comment><USER50> _studios shuttered, developers burned out, and toxic work culture fostered environments hostile to marginalized people_

People have been banging on about this for quite some time. One would figure that someone would put together a team that isn't toxic, then succeed. There must be some kind of outside force which makes the whole industry toxic. Probably the same market pressures which turn people into frenemies in other media industries.

</comment><comment><USER51> The argument about the $60 price point seems specious to me. Video games have massive economies of scale and the market has been growing steadily faster than inflation, meaning that while the price point has been the same, the volume of sales have increased with a low marginal cost for each unit sold.

Along with sheer sales volume, digital distribution has lowered publishing costs, created after-markets for DLC, and reduced the secondary market. Digital distribution also allows for much greater price elasticity.

If anything, you could argue that digital publishers like Steam, PlayStation Store, etc, should lower their cut, but it seems like that's starting to happen on the PC with increased competition in the space from Epic, Origin, etc.

I think the real problem with the industry is that video games are a hit business where a handful of games make almost all the profit. The best way to profit in a space like this is to crank out content as cheaply as possible.

This is evidenced by the fact that game developers have been working crunch since back in the 90s when a $50 game was worth $80 in 2018 dollars.

Edit: Why not comment instead of censoring with downvotes?

<comment><USER52> > _Video games have massive economies of scale_

In what way? The code and art/music/voice/story assets are custom for each game; the only thing that might be shareable is the engine.

<comment><USER51> Like I said, cost per unit sold is almost nothing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Amount of electronic waste and low percentage of recycling seems quite big issue, much bigger than problems in gaming.

How many phones, laptops, tvs, desktop pcs, consoles, music devices, cameras and other related devices have you stopped using lets say past 10 years? How many have you recycled?

</comment><comment><USER54> once the race to the bottom ends someday we'll have companies making good games again. there's 1 or 2 big studios who still take time for stuff, but most large ones are pretty much hitting the bottom now and people are stopping to buy their games and content. once people are fed up enough and sales take a big enough dive they will wake up. - so in reality, gamers, it's in your hands to change the industry. not in the developers hands. they just make what sells. so buy what's good and they will focus on that.

</comment><comment><USER55> More incoherent gibbering from kotaku. There are plenty of good games. Obviously the AAA titles are quite garbage these days, but who cares?

</comment><comment><USER56> Starts with the state of the game industry and goes on to climate change... ok?

</comment><comment><USER57> > In short, the single-player game was not sustainable. So why should we think > the current model is?

The single-player game is very sustainable. It's just not as lucrative unless you double-down on in-game monetization like Ubisoft does. Devolver Digital is plenty stable, even though it makes a tiny fraction of the revenue we see from "AAA" publishers.

> In 2008, those three publishers released 98 games; in 2018 they released > just 28, not including expansions.

Well there's the problem. If you focus all of your effort on a few large-scale projects, you will have to milk those projects for all you can. There's still a huge market for small and medium-scale projects, though. The indie market is thriving.

> Independent developers, meanwhile, continue to fight for the smallest slice > of an impossibly crowded market.

How is this an indication of a struggling industry? This just tells me that the market is easy to break into, which should be hailed as a positive. Of course "indie" studios aren't going to individually be responsible for a large slice of the market. They don't have the budgets to fund massive projects with a ton of marketing.

However, I'd be pretty interested in seeing just how much money "indie" titles as a whole bring in and how that has compared to the rest of the market over time. I'd guess it's grown significantly over time and that's the real reason why "AAA" publishers struggle with smaller scale games. There's a reason "AAA" publishers like EA want to be associated with some of these games.

> And Sony already offers a streaming service, PlayStation Now, which is > likely to expand in the next generation.

If PlayStation Now is anything to go by, I wouldn't put a lot of stock in xCloud or Stadia. There's a lot of buzz around it now, but I doubt game streaming will get any mainstream traction for a long time.

> [a bunch of talk about data center power efficiency and climate change]

And how does this compare to the amount of energy spent running games natively? I'm sure Microsoft's, Sony's, and Google's servers are configured to utilize hardware much more efficiently than my gaming PC.

This seems like an out-of-nowhere tangent to me and the article doesn't provide enough information about it to really go anywhere so it devolves into lamenting the "current political climate".

I think this article makes the mistake of conflating the state of several large "AAA" publishers with the state of the games industry as a whole. I've long-since stopped caring about almost anything the "Big Three" (EA, Activision, and Ubisoft) have a hand in, and most other "AAA" publishers have damaged their reputation so much that I have practically zero anticipation for new games.

There are many things companies in the gaming industry should do better, but I don't think the industry as a whole is in near as dire a state as the author describes. I wouldn't shed a tear if most of the "AAA" publishers disappeared tomorrow. There's still plenty of great games coming out from developers and publishers with much cleaner reputations.

</comment><comment><USER58> > Artists who work on gory cinematics integral to games like Mortal Kombat > suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

This makes me wonder how surgeons and morticians manage. Surely something must be done for them too.

<comment><USER41> Pitch black humor and medical school training to dissociate appropriately from the patient. But it's still very difficult, psychologically.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Kotaku's content is so heavily editorialized that it's hard to take seriously. Every time I read an article it seems that I'm being told how to feel about something rather than being informed about it.

<comment><USER60> You know that this is explicitly and intentionally an editorial piece, right? I'm not sure what you're criticizing other than something completely fundamental about how all journalism works.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> I am going to be downvoted, but this needs to be said.

The problem with the indie developers is that many of them are driven by greed and only greed. But that is hidden behind a veil of "we are the underdogs, passionate people, like you!". In reality, it's just a job like any other, and the "we are passionate", is the equivalent of "we are changing the world by... uhh disrupting!" that startup kool-aid drinkers say.

Let me give you an example. I dated a twitter semi-famous indie dev a while ago. She has a day job but makes games on the side. I have a day job and I make music on the side. I remember I was in a room with her, and was looking in ordering Aztec death whistles (it's a whistle that sounds like a human scream), to use into my music. She asked me "oh and how many people will like that?" To which I answered, "Right now I have 10 listeners. After the death whistles maybe I will have 5" and grinned. I make music for me, not for anyone else. If somebody happens to like it, that's fine. It's a hobby and a form of self-expression, like people cook for themselves or practice archery for themselves. I am not looking into becoming famous. In a sense, I am free to create what i want, and I am limited only but my skills and what I can do, not by what I must do.

She looked troubled... So I stopped and observed. She was looking at how many copies a game sold, and was chatting on FB with another on-twitter-all-day indie dev, about how many copies his game sold. Then she proclaimed that the next title would be different, way more appealing to the masses. I put my guitar down, stopped trying to sing "love will tear us apart" but in tuvan throat singing! And proclaimed, wait you 're selling out? How can you be selling out, the game doesn't even exist yet!!

She replied "So what? There is no same in wanting to make a good living from your art. Not everybody is like you and is happy with just... playing. Never advancing to the next stage. Never making something meaningful.".

I WAS SHOCKED. I still am. No wonder it didn't work out in the end. But... she told me, she had started making games because the game industry was full of stereotypes. Boys are the space marine, and girls play barbie's mini games, barbie pets her horse, barbie goes on a date with Ken, bullshit. That she wanted to make a difference, it was her passion, she wanted to prove that there can be fun games that are not gender-biased and that everyone can enjoy. I thought it was a noble, experimentation, passion project, like music is for me.

No. No, making games is not the end itself. Making games is means to an end. Indie devs are greed-driven. Not passion driven.

I hanged out with a few of them in GDC this year. They all care about money. I felt like I was at a dinner with C* level people that just like gossiping about IPOs and how much money some friends, or friends of friends of friends raised. All about money. "This game sold 700k copies!!! It uses unity assets". "That guy from romania made X million dollars!?!?".

There was a guy, who put a game on early access, then delayed the game's release for 10 years, because he made enough money to buy a house in San Francisco, and just did... nothing afterwards. Just talks to people with a "holier than thou" attitude. Meanwhile the game aged so bad, it went from a 7/10 to a 3/10 when it finally got out 9 years late!!!! How dare you! All these people who paid you because they believed in you, and you just shit on them when you hit a certain $$$ in your savings account. But I guess... why wouldn't he. He already accomplished his end goal of MONEY.

Early access, what a shitty thing. No self-respecting musician would say; Here are the first 2 tracks of the album. And some drum tracks from the 3rd and 4th piece. Maybe in 5 years you will get the bass track for the 3rd piece too! No movie director would say; we released the green screen version, and when we raise enough money you will get to see the dragons and the elves. Only game devs do that.

The inherent problem I see with indie devs, is that they lie to their audience as much as themselves as well. When I see the new GTA V game, I know what I am getting into. I will pay $60 to run over some people. But with indie devs I am being schooled about the exploration and experimentation. About feelings, about difficult subjects that noone dared to mention in game medium before. I am intrigued, I am captivated, I am in love! And then... you find out that that indie-game, scooby-do-esque pulling the mask off it was Michael Bay, and Michael Bay's 30th transfomers film all along! All about money, all about making investors happy!

Music has forever changed. We musicians accepted that we won't be rich from our music, so we are liberated to scavenge for a few bucks to rent a van and go touring playing in 20-people shows. Usually when I hang out with musicians, we end up smoking weed and committing to jam sessions that may never happen. And then everyone gets really really excited when I pull the death whistle out.

</comment><comment><USER62> The game industry needs to unionize.

</comment><comment><USER63> This is drivel that doesn't warrant a comprehensive critique, so I must be really bored.

>At about this time next year, we'll have a pretty good idea of what the next generation of video games will look like.

The current Sony and Microsoft consoles seemed to have few games worth owning and then released incompatible versions recently, yet a new version is warranted?

>as studios shuttered, developers burned out, and toxic work culture fostered environments hostile to marginalized people.

The only one of these that's valid is the developer overworking. A studio closing and ''sexism'' don't even come close, but anything to conflate the real issues, I suppose.

>When you adjust for inflation, the retail cost of video games has never been cheaper, and it's been this way for some time. The $60 price point for a standard big-budget release has held steady for nearly 15 years, unadjusted for inflation even as the cost to make big-budget video games has risen astronomically with player expectations.

Sixty dollars is already high enough for a game and yet the next few paragraphs discuss ways companies increase the price by selling an incomplete product. Well, if the price ever rises, these companies would have no reason to stop, so you'd have higher prices and the same garbage. Anyone who tells you the price of a product such as this really isn't enough is likely a mindless drone.

>In short, the single-player game was not sustainable. So why should we think the current model is?

Why should I care if a type of video game is deemed ''sustainable''; what makes this claim valid, anyway? If there are games that don't appeal to me, I won't purchase them. Why would I ever think ''Gee, there aren't any new games that appeal to me; I guess I'll buy one that doesn't.'' when there is such a breadth of video games over several decades? That would be like buying a fashion magazine because the book store didn't have any programming books you wanted. If only ''Indie'' groups are releasing games I want, why would that be an issue?

>In short, the single-player game was not sustainable. So why should we think the current model is?

If you're a capitalist, you can only figure the market will eventually correct itself, on its own, so why care? The article then spends several paragraphs discussing climate issues, which are irrelevant.

>Video games cannot do this forever. If any of these things were to collapse—the people who make them, the economy they're sold in, the ecosystem we're all a part of—it would be catastrophic. All of them at once? That's a disaster we need to talk about, openly. Because there are solutions to these problems.

Again, why should anyone care, considering the breadth of current games available? Should I give a damn if a publisher is struggling, considering there are more books, and about topics I like at that, than I could ever read in my lifetime?

The article then suggests all of the children and men with nothing better to do who regularly read Kotaku call their politicians about climate issues. The last few paragraphs of this article are a mess.

>It's unlikely that video games will ever truly go extinct. We'll probably always have something called "video games," but what those games will look like is still very much in flux. There's no guarantee that the way games are currently made will remain viable for another 10 years—games aren't even made today the same way they were 10 years ago.

This is such a stupid paragraph. This is clearly written for a lowbrow audience they expect to easily manipulate.

>They will look different. They will change because they can, and because they must. Hopefully, all the ways games change will be on our terms—otherwise disaster will change them for us.

This is an entertainment medium, one that has a lot of garbage in it, at that. This is about video games and some idiot was paid to write this.

In closing, this isn't a great critique, but the article was garbage. I dislike there were enough cretins to put this on the front page, while interesting material written by interesting people goes entirely ignored. Those are my thoughts.</comment>