When I think about that period in gaming I just trip out.
We are as far away from that period now as that period was from the birth of video games. Tennis for Two, Space Wars, Pong, Super Mario, DOOM, Quake, Half-Life.
Compare that 20-year evolution to the evolution of gaming in the last 20 years. You can see areas where games have gotten vastly better, not just graphically or cinematically, but with level design, mission design, characterization, contextual integration, procedural elements.
But still nowhere near the explosion of the first 20 years as innovation poured in, and all of the main players were scrappy young companies, ready to innovate in an atmosphere where it still meant something to create entirely novel experiences that challenged the player.
You can also very easily see an industry-wide shift in game design after both GTA and Minecraft, which seemed so far apart at the time but really were about a decade apart. What comes next?
As a teenager during that time it feels easy to say that we idealize those periods of youth, but objectively speaking there was never a period in gaming history with such drastic speed of innovation between the late 90s and early 200s.
For sure; if you look at 15, 20 year old games now vs today's, you can see it's more evolution than revolution, in terms of gameplay mechanics, graphics, scale, etc.
Not that it's not impressive; look at the PS5 tech demos (large scale areas that players can go through fast without loading times thanks to fast storage), or the Unreal Engine demos, e.g. the Matrix one you can download to the PS5 or the one where they highlight generative level creation.
But it doesn't feel as revolutionary anymore. Mind you, that may just be fatigue, or "getting used to" things quickly.
I think objectively 2D to 3D was a massive jump. Also the FPS genre which is maybe the most successful gaming genre of all time being invented. Can't even think of a new genre of game that's been created in the last 10 years. I guess the sandbox game Minecraft was a little over 10 years ago, that's one.
Even Minecraft didn't really invent the sandbox, it just polished and popularized it.
A new genre in the last 10 years? Probably nothing really. We're probably past the point of new genres being invented until the technology dramatically changes.
We'll see some wild Genre Fusion though. I'm excited for that. I can't wait to see what happens when we stop just stapling "RPG" to every genre and start to really innovate.
Nanite and Lumen are definitely witchcraft. That tech demo left me in awe at what humanity has been able to accomplish. "More evolution than revolution", what a fitting phrase.
I wonder if we will live to see another such revolution in the wake of mature generative AI tools? If creating a game of the density and caliber of Red Dead Redemption 2 becomes feasible with a modest team of 10?
It was a wild time; as they said, Doom was made in (just) one year; while in a sense the games of back then are comparable to indie games of today, even indie games take longer to build these days.
That said, it's a work/life balance thing too; the Doom team did pretty much a year of grinding, pizza and coffee fueled 14+ hour workdays.
And just six years between that and HL2/Doom 3, the first big games to introduce proper physics. Shooting a box and watch it move, or the pick up a soda can/shipping container and throw it around was mind blowing at the time.
Not to mention the graphics evolution; compare G-man from HL to HL2.
Deus Ex didn't have full "the cube can rotate" physics but it did a lot to move this kind of thing forward. You can totally throw a can of soda at a cop.
And Splinter Cell (2002) had curtains that moved around you as you passed under them. Many games had individual features that were innovative physics-wise, but I still think HL2 and Doom 3 were the big mind blowing ones, both for me personally and the media coverage at the time.
Deutsche Boerse tried to buy LSE for years, but the EU blocked it in 2017. I fail to see how this deal would be any better; financial markets are global so why does it matter where the acquirer sits.
In Germany Ordnungshaft (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordnungsmittel) is the measure for refusing to testify. It is strongly regulated and can't extend longer than 6 weeks without going to a higher court.
Erzwingungshaft is incarceration for failure to pay fines or penalties.
Retroreflective road signs get close to 100% light returned and are a problem for most LIDARs because they blind the sensor. Some companies are working on car paint with higher visibility for LIDAR systems (https://automotive.basf.com/news/read/improve-lidar-detectio...) but that seems the wrong approach to me. The LIDAR needs to work with legacy infrastructure and nature.
I'm currently thinking through and costing out converting a classic pickup to EV / more modern control systems. It may not last 30 years but it's not getting self driving anytime maybe ever... and all the stuff we're making now is legacy.
Just pricing out some 98-'02 hondas and acuras for daily mileage gobblers as well, they're insanely cheap and pretty reliable. This is a 20 year old car that is in high availability very very cheap ($1700 in seattle), and I hvae no complaints about driving.
30 years may be optimistic except that the kids aren't learning to drive as much being the down pressure.
Super cool that this stuff is getting into pricing ranges reachable by mere mortals.
A patchwork regulatory framework. Take a look at what's going on with online poker. Any poker site that wants to operate in a state that allows it has to comply with that state's regulatory framework. One of the most notable things about this is that states generally only allow you to play players within your own state (I think some states may have compacts that allow inter-state play with other specific states). They may also require the company to be operating within the state itself. So, even if Draft Kings starts a normal bookmaking operation, they can't necessarily just offer those services to players in any state that allows it. A lot of it will depend on how states settle on their regulations.
I just got an email from DraftKings about how stoked they are to make betting through their app completely legal. So I think they are already planning to get it done.
This decision doesn't legalize sports betting. It allows the individual States to do so if they wish. DraftKings is (was?) operating under a loophole in Federal law that allows fantasy sports, and had, until now, the advantage of actual betting being illegal while "fantasy sports" were not.
Now that states can allow betting directly, they can do things like require a gaming license to operate, require a physical location, etc. Many may still prohibit online gambling. Federal law that prohibits online gambling can still also prevent straightforward betting over the Internet.
Nothing, assuming states pass laws legalizing sports wagering in which Draft Kings and the like operate.
The major problem I see is that while the current DK business model must be extremely profitable (just hosting contests that you don't have a stake in and taking a rake), running a sportsbook is an entirely different business. One that typically brings minimal profits and can sometimes bring enormous losses because now they are taking the action themselves. Sportsbooks are not typically profit centers for casinos but loss-leaders to bring in people to buy drinks and gamble on more profitable games.
I'm sure they must have been worried about this happening but probably will try and get out in front of it to become an online bookmaker. My own hot take is that this cannot be viewed as anything but a negative for them. I have to believe it would be very difficult to compete with huge casinos that can build their own platforms and bundle betting with their rewards programs. I also agree with the OP's assumption that most people currently using daily fantasy sites would much prefer to simply bet on games.
>One that typically brings minimal profits and can sometimes bring enormous losses because now they are taking the action themselves. Sportsbooks are not typically profit centers for casinos but loss-leaders to bring in people to buy drinks and gamble on more profitable games.
While this is true for places with competition among sportsbooks, like, say Nevada or the internet, it's not necessarily true for the states. If they start running a sportsbook (either themselves or, more likely, through a contractor) with a monopoly in their particular state, then they'll be able to charge more per-bet than they otherwise could. Instead of the standard 11:10 line, they could charge 12:10 or even 13:10 and they'd still get gobs of bettors wanted to put money down at the only legal game in town.
Is that true for the majority? While I don't play myself, it seems a part of the appeal of fantasy sports (at least football) is the drafting/management of your team.
There's traditional fantasy sports, which take place generally over the course of the season, and then there's daily fantasy, which takes place on a given day or weekend. The former is generally played among groups of friends, usually with money involved, but primarily as a recreational group activity. The latter is played primarily for the purpose of winning money against strangers on the internet. I've played both and while the actual draft event is my favorite part when playing in my league with friends, it's far less enjoyable for me in daily fantasy sports. Daily fantasy is technically a skill game, but it really feels like gambling.
Traditional fantasy sports, where you draft a team and manage them in a set league over a season or multiple seasons, is very different and will still exist because, as you say, it can be fun.
What DraftKings and FanDuel provide is basically a loophole in the federal law which made gambling via fantasy sports legal. You draft a new team every day, and gamble that your team will do better on that particular day than other people. It's kind of a pain in the butt to do, when what you really want is to just watch the games and root for one team...
I just got an email from DraftKings about how stoked they are to make betting through their app completely legal. So I think they are already planning to get it done.
It will legalize DraftKings I believe on a state-by-state basis. This was a law I understand pushed by Nevada casino/bookmakers who wanted a monopoly on this to protect their profits.
There was already a federal exemption because of the way daily fantasy was constructed (it was considered a game of skill not tied to the win/loss of a sports team, since you had to pick individuals from different teams). However, several states made it illegal.
Yeah, with DFS (daily fantasy sports) you're even limited to x number of players from a given game, so that you're not effectively betting on the outcome of that game by selecting an entire team.
I never really understood how they got around the limitation with stuff like NASCAR, where you really are essentially betting on the outcome of a single race. Maybe it's like PGA where the tournament is the culmination of a set of matches or something.
It's big for them. When you signed up for, and logged into DraftKings (or FanDuel) you would have to list your state/it would detect your state. I was never in a state that barred sports gambling, but I suspect it would block access if you were.
I believe they licensed the mycelium technology from a NY based startup called Ecovative, that has been shopping it around for furniture for some time.
>According to Minister of Defense Agustin Rossi, the MLU cost some 100 million Argentine Pesos (12.4 million dollars) and comprised more than 500,000 work hours in which the boat was cut in half and had its four MTU engines and batteries replaced. The MLU was under way at CINAR since August 2007. He blamed the delay on the lack of funds and qualified labor.
> Rossi called the re-delivery an important milestone for Argentina, as the state had lost its ability to repair submarines following the previous Domecq Garcia shipyards being disbanded.[1]
Distinct lack of details; though the article says crew of 37 when every current article about it missing states 44.
edit: The lack of maintenance facilities is worrying, though it sounds like the overhaul has created a grannies broom; there's not much of the original sub left.
A few of my software products have gone through multiple frameworks and rewrites, but from the user's point of view they appear to have remained one evolving entity. My phone/personal-digital-assistant also has kept its name for 21 years, but has gone through a series of reincarnations.
I have been using ThinPads exclusively for almost two decades. I just took a look at my old TPs, everything is better in the new laptops except for DEL/INS/PGUP/PGDN/HOME/END key placement and the 4:3 aspect ratio.
I remember how attached I was to my ThinkPad keyboard and how worried I was when they changed to the new one. Comparing the new with the old the new seems to be much more responsive and rock solid -- the old flexed a bit and is not that crispy. I guess that is just memory trick that makes us think that the old was better -- especially when we were so attached to the old keyboard -- this was and still is the most important selling point for me and many other people.
I did not have high hopes for the screen -- probably nobody produces 4:3 laptop displays and they will certainly not adapt entire process and start production just for one, niche laptop.
Aren't those 3:2 ARs just like the iPads and surface tablets?
4:3 screens aren't really made anymore at least not in the quality people expect.
You still can find 5:4 screens and 1:1 screens which are made for medical usecases but those are expensive as frack.
