28 ms·

I Really Blew It (2020)

• sombremesa 6y ago
  This read to me like it belongs on reddit's /r/iamverysmart. Looks like other content from this author [0] is also not well received on HN. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1868558 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1868558 (too bad the actual site is down)
  • timvdalen 6y ago
    Looks like the page moved, this is the new URL: http://www.erasmatazz.com/personal/self/sixty.html http://www.erasmatazz.com/personal/self/sixty.html
    • jgeerts 6y ago
      That was hard to read, it doesn't feel like someone who is mentally stable, clinging on to an idea he once had. Sometimes you have to listen to the world, adjust your ideas and move on, maybe he should have listened more to the world instead of expecting the world to listen to him.
      • zekrioca 6y ago
        I understand what you meant, and it makes sense to majority of people. However, I'd argue that the ones who actually change the world are those who do not listen or adapt to the world. This is true because in the end most of us adapt to whatever is given or presented to us by the world.
  • covfiefy 6y ago
    I find the author's direct expression of his egotism refreshing, and I don't need to worry about his hidden motives as much.
    • santoshalper 6y ago
      Well, I suppose that's something, but it feels like faint praise to me.
    • thewarrior 6y ago
      You just explained the appeal of Trump in one line.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • will_pseudonym 6y ago
    the site is archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20101105111623/http://www.erasmatazz.com/Personal/page70/page453/Sixty.html https://web.archive.org/web/20101105111623/http://www.erasma...
    • sombremesa 6y ago
      Thank you. It's kind of sad to read this, though in a way that's probably unintended by the author.
  • sigmaprimus 6y ago
    I found the read all over the place with a good helping of ego. Honestly my main thought reading this was "no wonder their books didn't create the result expected" There is no order to the article, it starts out good, then morphs into the matrix, then a history lesson on phylosophy" If true, the things they have achieved are "AWESOME" and "FANTASTIC" but the rant came off kind of "AWE-TASTIC" I wonder if there may be some value in them hiring someone else to "Recompile" the books they wrote to make them more palatable. Of course I have not read the books, they may be page turners. I just wanted to offer something constructive instead of just putting them down.
  • macawfish 6y ago
    Thanks for sharing that subreddit, I'd never heard of it before. It reminds me of reading hackernews :D
• bastijn 6y ago
  There is a lot of "I" in this story. The examples given do not come over as overly genius, but rather trivial. The whole story comes over as written from the perspective the world revolves around the author rather than the author participating in the world. It seems it is the author misunderstanding the complexity of the world rather than the other way around.
  • sudosysgen 6y ago
    I agree. I went through a phase in my childhood where I tried thinking in a similar way for a month or so, and I gave up because it just wasn't an effective way to try to understand things. I suspect many people tried to do so also. It's very human to try to find mechanical, senseful représentations of the world, but the world doesn't want this.
  • aphroz 6y ago
    It feels like he spent too much time working on his own work rather than looking at what other people were doing and ended up disappointed that people didn't follow the same way as he did.
    • jsnell 6y ago
      Yes, pretty much so, and it is not a recent development. I don't think I'd seen an article from Erasmatazz for like 20-25 years. At that time, Crawford was making a lot of grandiose statements about "Erasmatron", his interactive storytelling system that would be the first actual expression of art on computers. And when it was released, it turned out to be just laughably crude and mechanistic compared to what the interactive fiction community (all of them hobbyists at the time) was producing at the time. He clearly had no idea of what the state of the art was in that domain, nor any interest in understanding it.
      • tweetle_beetle 6y ago
        > He clearly had no idea of what the state of the art was in that domain, nor any interest in understanding it. I think this is the most frustrating thing about these type of characters. They are usually very clever people, but by refusing to engage with people they look down on, they find themselves further and further entrenched in a narrow view - the ideas become stale without partnerships. Then comes the frustration and bitterness that no one is recognising their mastery while the world moves on. They are left isolated on an idea island and can only talk in terms of what they achieved decades ago. I suppose the idea of representing yourself online as one of the greatest scholars of the Renaissance unironically(?) says it all. I once read an essay about Wolfram that came across a bit like this, the difference being that he managed to create a following against the odds and a earn a living from it.
• uniqueid 6y ago
  Yes, I probably am a genius—but the issue is meaningless. So a humble genius then. Got it.
• imgabe 6y ago
  I don't want to make fun of this guy but it seems like his main insight is that you can use math to represent processes in the world. That's...what all of science and engineering do?
  • username90 6y ago
    He is closer to Aristotle than modern scientists and engineers. That is create formulas to represent the world without checking how the world works at all.
    • guerrilla 6y ago
      More like Plato, Aristotle was quite the empircist (originally a biologist of sorts) for his time despite major blunders.
    • zekrioca 6y ago
      He does write at the Introduction of one of his books [1] about it: "While this approach will fail to satisfy those few dedicated person who want to delve into the innards of the program, I think it will satisfy the needs of the greater number of people who wish to understand the concepts behind the game. Finally, I apologize to all those readers more knowledgeable about geopolitical matters than myself, who may wince at the necessary simplifications. I am first and foremost a game designer, not a political scientist. Simplification to achieve clarity is the essence of my work; clarity can be extracted from a muddy reality only by denying some of reality’s richness." [1] http://www.erasmatazz.com/library/my-books/balance-of-power-the-book/introduction.html http://www.erasmatazz.com/library/my-books/balance-of-power-...
  • onychomys 6y ago
    For example, in this post [0] he argues that a pinecone was cushioned by the snow and that's why it didn't bounce off the rail. But he fails to notice that there's the same amount of snow on the rail and on top of the pinecone. Instead of his hypothesis, what I think probably happened was that the pinecone bounced on the deck and then up to the rail, where it was before the snow started falling. It's not a matter of looking at objects vs processes like he claims, it's a matter of looking at what objects (in this case, the snow on top of the pinecone) can tell us about processes. [0]http://www.erasmatazz.com/library/science/an-odd-discovery.html http://www.erasmatazz.com/library/science/an-odd-discovery.h...
• aphroz 6y ago
  If you want to read Balance Of Power https://web.archive.org/web/20070606202930/http://www.erasmatazz.com/library/Balance%20of%20Power.txt https://web.archive.org/web/20070606202930/http://www.erasma...
• shkkmo 6y ago
  Ugh, this content might be worth reading, if the layout weren't so broken that reading on any small device is impossible
  • sudosysgen 6y ago
    The Firefox reader mode got me through it, so I'd recommend trying that if like me this happens to you often.
  • rmetzler 6y ago
    I also missed a TLDR. Is this why all his efforts failing? Because he writes so many words without saying much?
• vessenes 6y ago
  I am sure readers will dislike the genius claims, but I think it would be missing the main point to get distracted by the tone. The point I hear most loudly is that some sort of systems thinking combined with math is a pretty useful and powerful way to think about the world, but for some reason people don’t care to learn that way of thinking. I think this is pretty profound. Systems theorists are super quirky, (I highly recommend the systems bible btw) and some of the earliest writers were not mathematically inclined - they tend to balk at hard predictions for a variety of reasons. It is a vanishingly small group, but I think one that has a lot to offer. Anyway, I charitably read this as a plea to care about the systems that make up the world, and second that plea.
  • solipsism 6y ago
    Would you say the contents of this article indicate that the author is "mathematically inclined", in any significant way (compared to, for example, the early systems theorists you refer to)?
    • morelisp 6y ago
      As someone who has followed Crawford's trajectory for the past 15ish years I have to say his biggest problem may be the opposite. He is so tightly married to the idea that narrative simulations must produce concrete, written, book-like stories that he misses how effective modern simulation games (not just computer games, but also boardgames, RP, consims, "paxsims", etc) can effectively engage systems literacy - even though they do not process "natural-language" textual inputs, through a mathematical ur-model, into "natural-language" textual outputs. I think the average group of analysts running a matrix game is considerably more "mathematically-minded" in that they are much more interested in what the simulation does than whether it produces a particular form of output.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
• redisman 6y ago
  As a game developer I like Chris Crawford but it’s like someone should have told him decades ago that the first step of making game devs listen to you is to create games that are fun or interesting to play. Last thing of his I tested felt like a web toy proof of concept which wasn’t doing anything mind blowing and not really a game at all. In my professional opinion he has been far too much the “ideas guy” but without compelling execution, he’s just one of hundreds of “misunderstood” game design geniuses out there who never got a great game produced. It’s sad because I think his mission is very worthwhile. He reminds me a quite a bit of a few other tragic underground game developers like Ullillillia and “Bobs game”.
  • aidenn0 6y ago
    Someone did tell him that 30 years ago and he basically said "if that's the rules I'm leaving"
    • adenozine 6y ago
      Source of this? Unless you meant it as an anecdote
      • morelisp 6y ago
        It is probably the most famous moment of any GDC. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwZi58u1FjI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwZi58u1FjI
        • adenozine 6y ago
          Guess I'm just out of the loop! Thanks for the link
        • InitialLastName 6y ago
          Oof, comparing himself to Beethoven and Shakespeare (both fairly successful because people wanted to and continue to want to experience the products of their artistic abilities) while dismissing that nobody wants to play his game because it isn't "fun" is the biggest mental disconnect I've ever seen.
• sago 6y ago
  Oh my! "Why have I failed? ... The simple answer is that ... I’m too far ahead of my time... I’m a misunderstood genius. ... the world doesn’t yet perceive a need for the ideas I peddle. In 1885, physicists didn’t perceive a need for special relativity, and they would have rejected it out of hand." Or... you're wrong. [In the movie "Matrix"] "Neo has been revived and looks down the hall at the agents and sees the reality of the Matrix: that it is numbers. I see the same thing when I look at the real world." I've been following his work for years, And spoken to people who have been to his 'conference' (and who I suspect will be rather bemused by the way he described them here!). The general consensus was it's horribly self-referential impracticality. There is a reason he hasn't made anything practical in 35 years. Since the time when his success at 80s game development made him think it was the wrong thing that caused the success. (Hint: it was not his ad-hoc mathematical models, no matter how much post-doc justification he can ladle on them). I have wondered about him, but sadly this post is rather damning in my eyes.
  • brundolf 6y ago
    There's something intoxicating about the idea of building worlds out of systems, feeling like you've captured infinite permutations of some phenomenon in a simple set of rules. This idea of writing worlds into existence with the flick of a wrist is the thing that first got me into computers. In some sense it's the dream that still keeps me going. My perspective has been sobered quite a bit over the years - these things are rarely as simple as we might imagine they could be - but it remains heady stuff. I can see how it might give the right kind of person delusions of grandeur. The egoism on display here is pretty offputting, but I feel kinship with the "dreamer" mentality underneath. This guy had a vision, and he was uncompromising in his pursuit of it, and even if the end result wasn't worth much to anyone else, some part of me has to respect that. I'm reminded of The Room (movie)'s Tommy Wiseau. Another creative who thought he was a genius and poured his blood, sweat, and tears into his life's passion project, and it turned out to be pretty objectively bad. But it was meaningful to him, and there's something to that. There were no ulterior motives; he wanted to put this piece of himself out into the world. There's a purity of spirit. I think what's missing for these individuals is the self-awareness to know that this thing is mostly just for them, and to be okay with that idea and embrace it. That way lies happiness, I think.
• gw 6y ago
  Crawford says nobody truly followed in his footsteps but I think Jason Rohrer qualifies. The two even shot a documentary together, and the scene where Crawford showed off his Storytron project to Jason was pretty revealing. Jason called it baroque and Crawford responded that he'd consider his life a failure if the project fails: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zA_0_dSD3-Q&t=27m35s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zA_0_dSD3-Q&t=27m35s Crawford definitely is not doing enough introspection. I hope the man resets and makes an inspiring project without the self-romanticizing or self-pitying.
  • DonHopkins 6y ago
    The dragon attack at 4:05 was worth the price of admission.
  • Miraste 6y ago
    Crawford's travails remind me of the story of the pottery class (https://excellentjourney.net/2015/03/04/art-fear-the-ceramics-class-and-quantity-before-quality/ https://excellentjourney.net/2015/03/04/art-fear-the-ceramic...), in which half a studio is graded on the sheer quantity of pots they produce, while the others are graded on making one perfect pot. The "quantity" group ends up making higher quality pots because they've practiced and learned from their failures. More succinctly, "real artists ship."
• jariel 6y ago
  Self awareness, which is the 'real' topic of this post is a challenging thing. Growing up, I was naturally humble, and I knew I didn't know much and was amazed to find some confidence after ostensibly earning it to some degree. What I found was a world of BS-ers so many people convincingly telling others they are the best, and having others believe that. Then I found that many of these BS-ers believe their own drama - that's scary. It's doubly scary when these people are in fact, talented, but they project it 10x further with their egos. (Think: Kanye West etc.) I use the term 'I' here but I think this is at least a common path. But something I struggle with is just how many regular people are like this? Is tech full of 22-year holds who think they are really that smart? It's one thing to try to change the world, fine, but another to think that you know better or are entitled to that. Or is it a generational issue? I think we all have sparks of genius, and it takes a lot of hustle to communicate even basic ideas. We need to reinforce ourselves to keep it up. But on some level, we have to try to be objective as well. That's really, really hard, especially if you know something that others might not know, or at least feel that you do.
  • sombremesa 6y ago
    > But on some level, we have to try to be objective as well. That's not untrue, but it's all about marketing now. Marketing really is all there is — some people call it 'growth hacking', but in the end it's what separates the wheat from the chaff. Having knowledge or skills is all well and good, but having perceived knowledge and skills is better for all extrinsic intents and purposes, so long as you've got enough to sustain the facade. Objectivity in self-assessment isn't a bad thing, but success nowadays is defined by what you can make others believe. Of course, there's the other kind of success - the kind Saitama in One Punch Man enjoys - getting good at something almost by accident, just because you love doing it. If you can make a living just doing what you love, who gives a damn whether other people know of you?
    • username90 6y ago
      When you are an individual making games then it doesn't matter how much people perceive you to be a genius, people don't play games they find boring.
• twelfthnight 6y ago
  Hi all, it seems there is some important context to this article in the following blog posts, specifically "Seventy" and "Gemma". I think there is something to be learned from this article about loneliness as we age and look back on our impact on the world. Hope everyone reading this can find someone to appreciate the work they're doing because I find it impossible to believe that everyone isn't doing at least one thing of value to someone else.
  • solipsism 6y ago
    "Seventy" indeed was touching and sad. Made all the more sad by the delusional statements of grandeur. It must be truly sad to think you're a genius who was never appreciated. I say that without any sarcasm.
  • golly_ned 6y ago
    Thank you for noting those other blog posts. The author is seventy, has lost his closest friends, and is grieving, reflecting on his life.
    • breck 6y ago
      Thanks for that context. Personally I was amazed by the content, and didn't need the extra context, but makes it a little bittersweet. Reminds me of this visualization I just saw (warning, may cause a tightening in the chest): https://twitter.com/pavtalk/status/1360264692250288131 https://twitter.com/pavtalk/status/1360264692250288131
      • sudosysgen 6y ago
        I think the most important thing I've got from that graphic is to choose your partner very well, being careful of how they will keep you company in the very long term.
        • breck 6y ago
          This trick worked for me: find an amazing woman with bad eyesight.
• throwawaygimp 6y ago
  Keep it respectful guys - while a lot of you are earning a shit load to peddle ads, this dude make some amazing original things and more importantly spent a huge portion of his life trying to help others get value from his thoughts and ideas.
  • Badfood 6y ago
    I know who I'd want to spend an afternoon talking to
    • orange3xchicken 6y ago
      Some tier-A mathematicians working on some pretty fucking cool problems in online decision making and machine learning, or someone who writes shit like: "Young people these days, I am told, are illiterate and cannot understand the written word. They can learn only from video. So should I speak to them in the language they understand? Yes, I probably am a genius—but the issue is meaningless."
      • Donckele 6y ago
        Write shit or talk shit? I’ll take write shit.
      • sarakayakomzin 6y ago
        >Some tier-A mathematicians working on some pretty fucking cool problems in online decision making and machine learning, bahaha
      • paganel 6y ago
        Efficient matrix multiplication does not make one a “tier-A mathematician”. And to add to that, even tier-A mathematics can be pretty damn boring.
        • orange3xchicken 6y ago
          I wasn't talking about methods for matrix multiplication. The algorithms that are used by most ad recommendation services are deep enough themselves. The ICML test of time award this year was for an adaptation of a technique used to study online decision making algorithms.
• sudosysgen 6y ago
  I would suggest for the author to play "Democracy 3", "Stellaris", "Europa Universalis", "Hearts of Iron" and "Dwarf Fortress". This mode of game is not actually so uncommon. Stellaris does so much computation and simulation that some relatively modern computers cannot run them.
  • bombcar 6y ago
    I was looking for the mention of Dwarf Fortress - it appears to implement much of what he's describing in the story simulations of Worldgen.
    • kerbobotat 6y ago
      Dwarf Fortress' creator Tarn Adams is the antithesis of this guy, as far as I can see from a brief perusal of his articles beyond this one. Tarn is humble, often plays down his acheivements, is really interested in how his players and community interact with the systems, and builds out complexity based on the desires and needs of the players. I don't mean to diminish the work of Crawford, but he is building the same kind of simulationst mechanisms that Adams is, but Adams hit on success partly because of his personality.
      • bombcar 6y ago
        I agree - Adams is incredibly humble (and shy) - and he's driven by making the game he wants to play; he cares less about the mechanisms and more about the results - he wants edifying gameplay and a game that can tell STORIES. It's almost perfectly the academic/amateur divide if you will; which is amusing given Adams' background in education.
  • saberdancer 6y ago
    Aurora 4x is a great example. It's a highly niche game developed by a single programmer that models variety of systems and is completely free. It's hard to get into, but the systems it implements compliment each other really well to create a realistic space empire building game. Examples you mentioned above are all "mass market" (except DF) in comparison.
• runawaybottle 6y ago
  Hate to pile on, but the man’s post reads like an incel post, except incel’s are funny about their entitlement. Oddly, I never heard of him but find the concept of a geopolitical subversive game extremely interesting (his Balance of Power game). In a sense, our current geopolitics literally has five or six actors operating via undercurrents to destabilize a variety of forces in our world. It’s a poker game, who is doing it and can you stop it from impacting your own country? Okay, so who the hell would be interested in this game (it seems like not many), but I’m interested you little incel, why so entitled? Narcissism is like getting sprayed by a Skunk (not us, or possibly many of us, but in this case him), where you need many many washes to get rid of the smell. It’s possible, but it takes a lot of time. Talk about the work, force yourself to remove yourself from the equation at all cost, and hide your entitlement, and indulging in woe-is-me. Small-aside: If anyone wants to think about just how dangerous and self destructive this type of martyrdom thinking actually is, if you mix this post with any kind of drug or alcohol abuse, you pretty much have jet fuel for self pity and serious long term substance abuse issues. It is way too comfortable of a thing to slip into with the right lubricants on a daily basis.
• Pxtl 6y ago
  Complicated invisible simulations that the player interacts with only on the periphery do not make for good gameplay. This has been proven repeatedly. Orion 3 famously killed the MOO franchise trying this approach. A variety of space fighter games promised the player a living simulated universe to play in, forgetting that the key point of the game was not to watch stellar politics that you could only minimally manipulate.
  • username90 6y ago
    People like them in the right situations, like your enemies in strategy games. You don't interact with their populations, civic choices etc, nor have you any insight into how the AI makes these choices, but it is still all there running in the game. It isn't easy to create a hard rule of when low interaction simulations adds to the game, but it is clearly wrong to say that they are always bad.
    • Pxtl 6y ago
      I would point to "Ghandi threatening you with nuclear weapons" as a counterexample. Civ AI players were notoriously mercurial and their behavior is so bewildering that people developed elaborate theories about software bugs that are completely false to explain them (the "Ghandi becomes violent late-game because of integer rollover" myth).
      • deleted 6y ago
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• freeone3000 6y ago
  I highly doubt that anyone has not made a game whose systems complexity surpassed the algorithmic hurdle of multiplying three numbers, or two numbers and a constant. I have not previously heard of this person or of their work. Were it not for HN, I likely wouldn't ever have -- he made two 4/5 games, and sold a quarter of a million copies! This is absolutely a modest success, but this was thirty years ago. He doesn't seem to have published anything since: wikipedia says he started working on Interactive Fiction in 1991, but stopped in 2018 (having released nothing) since "humanity will take centuries to catch up". It seems as if his ego has outstripped his accomplishments.
  • jbullock35 6y ago
    > I have not previously heard of this person or of their work. In the late 1980s, he was a significant figure in computer gaming. I knew about him because of Balance of Power.
    • martin_a 6y ago
      > In the late 1980s, he was a significant figure in computer gaming. We all have our time and place. Seems like his time is long gone and he struggles to acknowledge it.
  • karmakaze 6y ago
    Don't conflate the simplicity of a formula with its significance.
  • calahad 6y ago
    I'd just throw in for context that BoP absolutely had more significance at the time than its sales numbers would show.
• sholladay 6y ago
  I relate to many of these points as inner thoughts, however it's important to play Devil's advocate and remember that the stars really have to align for your ideas or work to spread and gain recognition. It's not enough to make something great, you also have to communicate about it effectively and other people have to be personally interested in it, too, which is beyond your control. Your best ideas might be useful to you but seen as boring to others. And you shouldn't assume that the reason is that you are ahead of your time. The explanation is probably much simpler. I sometimes think to myself, "I've released a lot of open source code that's really simple and useful and better than any of the alternatives I could find. Why doesn't it get more traction?" In some cases, it very well might if I could get people to just look at the source code, but I struggle to write a compelling README that convinces people to even bother doing so. You have to accept that you might be strong at one part of the process but weak in another. Sure you could be a genius that excels at everything and are so far ahead that no one understands you. But no, you've probably dropped the ball somewhere. Take a step back, examine people's perceptions of your work, and work backwards to fix the roadblocks of success. Love it or hate it, marketing plays a big role here. Even something as simple as having a good logo can double the number of people that pay attention. And don't try to convince people that your algorithms are amazing. Convince them that those algorithms solve their problems.
  • marcus_holmes 6y ago
    He compares himself to the nearly-forgotten "hero" scientists. But he really belongs to the ranks of the unknown multitude of almost-successful "forgotten" - the people who spent their lives pursuing their ideas but those ideas were never received well, or popularised. I keep seeing startups almost succeed. They got everything "right", there's nothing they did wrong, but for some reason it didn't take off. While others don't even get the basics right and yet it soars. There doesn't seem to be any reason for it. Or at least none that I can see. We don't know why something "goes viral". We can't predict that, can't control it. Just try to make the most of it if it happens to us. There's a vast pool of people all trying to do things, in every discipline. For reasons we (and they) don't understand, some of them "succeed" and are popularised. We hear about them. The rest are mostly ignored. We don't hear about them. There's nothing we can particularly identify as making an individual succeed or not. Like everything in life, the process doesn't care about individuals. It's the genetic approach - spread the population over a large area and let the successful ones survive to the next generation. The rest of them die bitterly regretting their failure in blog posts.
• deleted 6y ago
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• kewp 6y ago
  I connected a lot with this right until the Why Failure section. I thought he was going to admit that he had a blind spot, that thinking he was the one who needed to 'imbue (others) with (his) style of thinking' was solipsistic. It reminds me a lot of myself. I'm always sitting with a feeling like I've got some special perspective, that I'm the only one trying to 'figure it all out' and I'm always on the verge to, and when I do it will be incredible. And as I get older at the heart of it I feel something much sadder - a fear and a loneliness. An inability to engage and stand my ground with the people around me. Though that could be just me.
• eCa 6y ago
  As someone who enjoyed playing Balance of Power on the Amiga (without understanding what I was doing) this was a quite interesting read. I am reminded of the game over-screen: We do not reward failure. Hopefully his fortunes will improve.
• mathgladiator 6y ago
  I read this and the comments, and I can't help but feel... a loss for everyone. I was a graduate student, and I met some fairly miserable professors toiling away. It's hard having ideas and then lacking the social skills to bring them forth. The social skills help with relevance, but also relating the internal ideas with external ideas and building real momentum. There is a lesson here for anyone young. The mistake here is to assume genius internally. Rather, it is better almost categorically to assume you are an idiot and then talk with others without the ego. "Hey, here is an idea" and many times others will not get it, and that's ok because communication is exceptionally hard. However, if you want people to call you genius, then all you have to do is be around people and then help them with their ideas. "Have you tried X?" in an applicable way, and people will respond because you bridged the gap between their problems and your deep understanding. As an example, I have a lot of dumb projects that excite me. One of them, which I refer to a large number of times, is my dumb programming language for board games ( http://www.adama-lang.org/ http://www.adama-lang.org/ ). When people don't get it, is it their failing or mine? The truth is that it is a mix of both, but it is mostly mine because I have the burden to communicate effectively.
  • unishark 6y ago
    > It's hard having ideas and then lacking the social skills to bring them forth. This article kind of reminds me of a professor I knew, but I'd describe him as the opposite: big on vision, self-promotion, and the whole social game, while not having the ability to back it up with good ideas or implementation. And for both the author and the professor I know, I'd say the social side is the source of their success, rather than its limit. Not everyone can take simple ideas that are semi-common sense to people skilled in the area, and build career success from them as an independent researcher. I always suspected the professor was bipolar, because in addition to the brimming energy and excitement about taking over the world with his vision, there were down days too where he got angry at the world for not believing in him etc.
    • kungito 6y ago
      I often feel like people formulate the problem wrong. It's not that "your idea was great but only 5% of good ideas work out" but I believe it's more "your idea was almost great but only 5% of ideas are actually great". I feel like it's less about needing luck for a great idea to work out and more about needing more luck to have a better idea. Often times these almost-geniouses are technically talented or creative but lack empathy or social intelligence to see the whole picture. You or your team need to be the whole package to be able to see a problem from all possible angles.
• reducesuffering 6y ago
  Here lie dragons of most of our ambitious plans once we turn 70.
• samwestdev 6y ago
  Guys cut him some slack. I mean dude is what, in his 70s?
  • watt 6y ago
    He is, and the heaviness of that is not lost. http://www.erasmatazz.com/personal/self/sixty.html http://www.erasmatazz.com/personal/self/sixty.html http://www.erasmatazz.com/personal/self/seventy.html http://www.erasmatazz.com/personal/self/seventy.html
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
• yesenadam 6y ago
  I looked at a few pages on the site. I kept expecting some reference to Whitehead's process philosophy from the 1920s but it never came. "Whitehead argued that reality consists of processes rather than material objects, and that processes are best defined by their relations with other processes, thus rejecting the theory that reality is fundamentally constructed by bits of matter that exist independently of one another." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_North_Whitehead https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_North_Whitehead https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_philosophy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_philosophy
• bumbada 6y ago
  Crawford is not a genius, he is a visionary. He has some idea in his mind and for him this idea is as real as reality. But it does not. The early successes he had made him overconfident. I don't see the formulas he displays as anything sort of revolutionary. Any computer game today have systems way more sophisticated than that, or even old systems like the "sims" engine(original CimCity, Spore), Civilization series, doom, mafia, a flight simulator or Age of Empires to name a few. All those systems have incredible internal mathematical models. He risked anything he had on his vision. His vision came sort. He does not accept reality. Even today he believes his visions are right and the world is wrong. The "I blew it" is not acceptance of his failures. It is an acceptance of the failures of society that was not prepared for his revolutionary ideas. Society was not yet prepared for his genius. He made the mistake of valuing society more than what is worth.
  • erikbye 6y ago
    > Crawford is not a genius, he is a visionary. Why is it that judging someone as a genius or not comes so easy to everyone? I find making that assessment incredibly challenging.
    • wizardofdos 6y ago
      Yes, i think there is many Einsteins and Mendels that weren't rediscovered after their time. Some because their ideas were wrong, but some also with innovative and correct ideas, many of which were reinvented and some probably even never reinvented and lost to obscurity.
    • imtringued 6y ago
      It's very easy because there is nothing objective about being a genius. It's purely about social perception and for this man the only social perception he cares about is himself. That's why he can confidently declare himself as genius and other people don't. Why would I care about someone whose latest accomplishment was half a decade before I was born? The complexity of modern games is so incredibly high that his equations look like toys. I once had an idea of making a simulation game about constructing dyson sphere. Now that dsyon sphere program exists do I claim credit for that even though I never communicated with the developer of that game? That's the behavior Crawford is engaging in. He's shutting himself off and blames other people for his problems and he never wants to rely on anyone else for his successes. The superiority complex is exactly the thing that is holding him back.
• trestenhortz 6y ago
  “Make something people want”.
  • morelisp 6y ago
    This is good advice if you want to make money or be popular, but - admittedly, this may be too foreign to the current startup / indie game climate to understand - he didn't really want either. This is bad advice for Crawford in the same way it would be bad advice for a mathematician or physicist. On the other hand they do need to be right, productive, and persuasive, and he wasn't the first two, and hasn't been the third for many years.
• gambiting 6y ago
  As a side note - I LOVE when people continue to use this super basic HTML 1.1 web design. It's just superior in literally every way to the garbage we use today, with its overblown everything, just so the site can scale to every device imaginable under the sun. Guess what, this is perfectly readable on a phone, I have two fingers, I can zoom in and scroll about, no need to load 70MB of javascript just to adjust it for me thanks.
  • raister 6y ago
    Yes! Me too. Check this out: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~maxion/ https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~maxion/
  • phist_mcgee 6y ago
    I like the useless horizontal scroll and the clashing colours the best.
  • Toutouxc 6y ago
    Just to provide a different perspective - the page is perfectly UNreadable on my fairly normal 1080p phone with Firefox and if I wasn't browsing HN on my Mac atm I would've closed the article immediately for that sole reason. Yes, I am that petty. I value my time, even my lazy browsing time. Also, a couple lines of CSS would be enough, no need to load 70 MB of JS.
    • bartread 6y ago
      Ah, yeah, fixed width layout: that's pretty annoying and one thing I don't miss from the "old" web. I do quite appreciate the overall aesthetic - as well as the page load speed - of this particular site. As you say, variable width and proper viewport support are easily fixed with a line or two of CSS, and if he did that it would work as well on mobile as it does on desktop.
    • lmm 6y ago
      That's crappy defaults from those browsers. I hate the point-size inflation that we've gone through because browser makers refused to do anything sensible until it was pushed by Apple and designers would always use a font size that looked right on their expensive mac, so now the only way to view a site right is to guess how old it is and then adjust your zoom to compensate. It didn't have to be like this!
• username90 6y ago
  He makes the basic error of not recognizing that the user is always right. If nobody thinks your games are great then they aren't great. You missed at least something when you made the game. If he actually made great niche games he would have built up a community around them of people who love that style in the 40 years he has been making games, but ultimately nobody cared about his games. You don't have to make everyone think your game is great, but you have to make at least a fraction of people think so. Even just 10 000 dedicated fans of the genre is more than enough to keep an indie developer going, but he couldn't even manage that.
  • redisman 6y ago
    I agree. If you want to influence a art form like games or music or writing, you have to have skin in the game and release things. Telling others their way is wrong isn’t going to change anything, the burden is on you to present that your model works and is superior in some way. You just have to have hard material you’ve created for that to happen. Everyone has their own great ideas to validate
• PeterisP 6y ago
  The style of modeling that he describes as used in Balance of Power seems the equivalent of the field of system dynamics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_dynamics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_dynamics) which is applied in various fields, in some cases also in gaming. My impression that far from being ignored, such ideas are actually applied - though they do not necessarily involve his ideas, as it's unclear whether they contribute much novel except from that particular application in the game Balance of Power, since the key concepts and methods (e.g. Jay Forrester's work) significantly predate the game and were widely published long before Chris Crawford's writings. Since Crawford seemingly does not "integrate" with that field of research, it also makes sense that people writing simulations like that (which are actually quite common in certain genres of gaming and also non-gaming use-cases) would not rely on his work but on the similar, but more developed practices of others.
• forgotmypw17 6y ago
  I've heard from several spiritual teachers that whenever one feels ready to criticize another, it's a good idea to make a mental list of all their shortcomings and then turn the gaze inwards and look for those shortcomings in yourself. I think this idea is equally applicable to the article and comments.
• alangibson 6y ago
  I thought of Ted Nelson (pioneer of hypertext) while reading this. Nelson could have contributed a lot more to the world if he hadn't convinced himself that his Project Xanadu was the answer to life, the universe and everything and that the Internet today is "a crime against humanity."
• alecco 6y ago
  Made me think of David Bowie's "Thursday's Child" https://vimeo.com/240799507 https://vimeo.com/240799507
• dgellow 6y ago
  > In 1986, Microsoft Press invited me to write a book explaining how it worked, and again I agreed that this would be a good idea. We didn’t publish source code, because it was too specific to the Macintosh, written in Pascal, using 16-bit integer arithmetic. Instead, I explained the geopolitical considerations behind the game in a series of chapters that broke it down by topic, and then provided the equations and algorithms, explaining in great detail exactly what each term meant. It was a manual on how to build a geopolitical game. Does one of you know the title of the book? That sounds fascinating. Edit: nevermind, I found it here: http://www.erasmatazz.com/library/my-books/balance-of-power-the-book/index.html http://www.erasmatazz.com/library/my-books/balance-of-power-...
• NiceWayToDoIT 6y ago
  I would like if author could read this, as I am writing this with deep compassion so I hope it won't be understood in the wrong way. I am sorry, but everything dies, and some ideas do not make it. In our fear of death, we are trying to make a dent in this world, portraying our selves in a bigger light. Truth is even big ideas, and great work dies... Imagine, there was how many people since the beginning? Give or take ~110 billion, out of that there is around 130,000,000 (130 million books). How many books do average person reads over the lifetime? It is said that super readers read about 80 books a year, equal max ~8000-10000 books, which is a 0.0076% of all books. So out of: 110,000,000,000 people Truly remembered are how many writers, scientists, inventors? How many names of famous people and their ideas average person really knows? Million? Hundred thousand? Thousand? Maybe hundred or more likely ten-ish? Einstein, Tesla, Plato, Aristotle, Shakespeare, Dickens, Twain, Mozart, Goethe ... forgive me for this random list, how many names could you write on the list? And this is for educated people, what about those who are not? I am trying to say that our ability to absorb ideas is the bottleneck, so over time many good ideas will simply die, and then maybe, just maybe they may re-appear after some time. Ideas the same way as businesses will only succeed if authors find a way, the compelling story, so they become simple enough to become viral and start spreading independently. But like with everything live, it will need fertile ground, energy and bit of luck... actually great portion of luck ;/
• A12-B 6y ago
  At the end of the day, self-awareness is the highest sign of cognition and intelligence. OK, thats not quite true, but they do use it to test self-consciousness in animals. I think it's important because, even if you have some really good ideas, and maybe this guy does, if you can't hold a mirror to them they will just end up hitting a wall. Ideas only improve if they can beat themselves up.
• tobr 6y ago
  If anyone wants to learn more about Chris Crawford, the Zachtronics podcast[1] had a rather good interview[2] with him less than a year ago. 1: https://www.zachtronics.com/podcast/ https://www.zachtronics.com/podcast/ 2: https://www.zachtronics.com/podcast-files/Zachtronics-Podcast-9.mp3 https://www.zachtronics.com/podcast-files/Zachtronics-Podcas...
• nickyvanurk 6y ago
  "I was a smart kid, but once I boasted to my dad about how smart I was, and he came down hard on me. “Don’t you ever think that you’re smarter than other people!” he snapped. I took that lesson to heart, and all my life I have reined in my assessment of my own intelligence. But of late I have tired of this pose; at seventy years of age, I shouldn’t be posing. Dammit, I’m a genius, and it’s time I admitted it to myself." - http://www.erasmatazz.com/personal/self/seventy.html http://www.erasmatazz.com/personal/self/seventy.html
• moonbug 6y ago
  Shit Wolfram speaks.
• mattlondon 6y ago
  I kinda feel for this guy. Sometimes I feel like we're under the tyrannical yoke of algorithms. Not modern algorithms that display ads, but like super-simple ones. E.g. consider a basic rope pulley or some simple gears. Rig some of those up and suddenly it becomes easier to move a weight. Why? Because Work = Force x Distance and you're increasing the distance for the same amount of work so force goes down. .... okay, I understand the maths, but why does turning a small gear more quickly than the big gear make it easier? Forget the equation that models this for a moment - intuitively my brain does not grok why it gets easier to move something by pulling a bit more rope than usual. Most explanations from the teachers at school was something like "Because physics", but I am still not comfortable understanding intuitively what precisely is going on with the physical forces without just shrugging and and going back to the mathematical model W=F*D ruling our lives without really understanding why. ...so I guess I just have to see the universe in numbers like this guy, and so am also a genius ahead of my time?
  • wizzwizz4 6y ago
    Your muscles work by contracting little strings, which transfers energy. They've got a limit for how much energy per distance-contracted (aka force) they can apply. Levers and pulleys are simple devices that move one thing a certain distance while another thing moves a different distance, but transfer the energy while doing so. They let you transfer the same amount of energy over a larger distance, so there's less energy-per-distance (force), so your muscles can cope with it. (They have to do more contraction-expansion cycles, but it's easier because there's less energy going into each of them.)
  • imtringued 6y ago
    >intuitively my brain does not grok why it gets easier to move something by pulling a bit more rope than usual Warning: This is probably wrong because I am conjuring this from my mind without looking up any resources. You have rope. The rope can carry 50lb. You want to lift something that weighs 100kg. You cut the rope in half and attach two ropes to the stone and the ceiling. Now you got a 100lb weight attached on two 50lb ropes. The cross section area of the rope is 1 square inch (random number). The rope happens to hold exactly 50lb per square inch. We write this down as 50 psi. But wait. Since we added two ropes we have increased the cross section thus we have 100lb hanging on 2 square inches of rope. We are still within 100lb/2i^2 = 50psi. What if we have 4 ropes? 100lb/4i^2 = 25psi and so on. The amount of force each rope applies on the stone is shrinking. Since 1 rope = 1 square inch we get 25 pounds of force on each rope. Now lets go back to pulleys. There is no meaningful difference between statically attaching rope (although one end has to be attached) and letting it hang off a pulley or letting an object hang off a pulley. The end result is that you have effectively attached the rope 3 times to the ceiling and what you are holding is only a faction of the cross section area that is actually holding up the stone. You have to pull more rope because there is 4 times as much rope and the wall is just holding the rope at a fixed point.
• perryizgr8 6y ago
  > I can look at a car traveling down a road and know that the distance it will cover is equal to its speed multiplied by the time interval. Is this write up supposed to be tongue in cheek? This is the most basic concept almost everybody understands.
• kristiandupont 6y ago
  I don't mean to pile on here, but this text reminded me of The Inertia Variations poems by John Tottemham: ----- BORN WINNER, SELF-MADE LOSER There was a time when I thought I might have done something by now; But that was long ago, and over the intervening Decades I have shifted from prodigy to late-bloomer To non-bloomer; I have passed my peak without having peaked Or even begun the ascent, and unless there is something inherently Salutary to the energy I expend in frustrating myself then My sacrifices have all been in vain. ----- I recommend listening to Matt Johnsons reading of them: https://open.spotify.com/track/3XrxjjUHhJ5tFVRki44ljA?si=d1f847c741384090 https://open.spotify.com/track/3XrxjjUHhJ5tFVRki44ljA?si=d1f...
  • guerrilla 6y ago
    This is how I read it too. It must be an incredibly painful state to be in, whether one is actually a genius or just a narcassist.
  • jawilson2 6y ago
    And then one day you find ten years have got behind you No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun
• randomsearch 6y ago
  It’s terrifying to be self aware enough to note that this problem, of assessing our own abilities and potential contributions, is so difficult. Over time I’ve been fortunate enough to meet people sufficiently better at mathematics than me to crush any hope I had of solving significant problems in quantum theory. So at least I’m not wasting my life there. But now I’m focused on other goals that seem more suited, but how do I know I’m not an idiot here too? Maybe I’d be better helping a genuinely smart person achieve their goals. I’ve had encouragement from a few people who know me well, which helps. I respect them so their validation is encouraging. Are there any other ways to assess yourself to ensure you’re not (amongst other things) out of your depth without being aware of it?
  • mlac 6y ago
    >"So at least I’m not wasting my life there." Do you enjoy that work and thinking about it? Sure, you may not make groundbreaking discoveries, but there is a lot of space between groundbreaking and implementation. If you can understand the groundbreaking work and see the applicability to other problems, you are in a good place. It's not a waste of life if you enjoy the work and are adding some value (e.g. someone's paying you for your output, or some other measure of value). >"how do I know I'm not an idiot here too?" Who judges what is an idiot? There's raw talent, the ability to synthesize information, the ability to retain a breadth of knowledge and draw connections between ideas, the ability to communicate ideas, and many other dimensions of "smart". You can have a truly unmotivated genius that will achieve and contribute much less than someone who is just "smart" but has the work ethic. Einstein had both. That's why he is so rare. > "Are there any other ways to assess yourself to ensure you’re not (amongst other things) out of your depth without being aware of it?" Again, IMHO, if you are still learning things and feeling out of your depth, then you are in a good spot. If you don't understand the topic, then you've either missed a step between the fundamentals and what you're working on or maybe you've hit the limit of your ability. But truly hitting that limit is rare - most times people could return to learning the basics and a few more intermediate items, return to the problem, have a "breakthrough", and keep going. Progress is not linear. But it makes sense - as you work on more and more difficult problems, it takes longer and longer to make visible progress. If it were easy, it would have been figured out already. While making progress, it never feels like you're making a big accomplishment day after day. I think working on goals that are "more suited" could stick you in a place where you've under-achieved to feel "smart" and have not achieved what you could have. Personally, I'd rather be failing (in a way that isn't life altering or career ruining) consistently to make sure that I'm not under-performing or selling myself short. It's an uncomfortable place to be, but that's where you find personal growth and progress. Last thing - to be successfully measured, it means someone needs to have covered the territory, solved all the problems, figured out and ranked how difficult the problems are, and then put them out there to judge others. If you want to compete in a space that is that mature, have fun, but it seems like you may be operating in a place where the measuring stick isn't built yet.
• VoodooJuJu 6y ago
  >Why have I failed after so much effort? The simple answer is that, as my wife says, I’m too far ahead of my time. Perhaps I’m a misunderstood genius. What a cope - damn your ego. I don't want to believe that a man of his age is so self-aggrandizing, so lacking in humility. "Oh, it's nothing wrong with me - it's them! I'm actually a messiah!" Complete and utter anti-wisdom.
• ghaff 6y ago
  I remember Balance of Power shipping on a PC with a Windows 2.0? runtime. (Windows wasn't really mainstream until 3.0+.) I also remember it was a pretty unplayable game. Perhaps instructive in the "Do you want to play global thermonuclear was?" sense but not much fun to play. And game designer friends of mine were of a similar opinion.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• ssijak 6y ago
  For somebody who calls himself a genius it is somehow funny to release a blog/website in 2014 and to till day have it so embarrassingly not responsive. I mean it could be not relevant at all but it is kind of funny.
• cumwolf 6y ago
  computer are already a form of artistic expression. this is a strange article where I feel the author is too deep into his own head and too into his own work. I admire the passion he has, wish it wasn't about some game.
• mensetmanusman 6y ago
  I work in technology and part of the wisdom of experience is knowing certain ideas are X years too early. After people over 100 years ago realized materials could compute, some were immediately theorizing about objects we now call ‘smartphones’. It was a learning curve for me to realize it isn’t yet worth pursuing some technology efforts because society won’t be ready for them for another 10-15 years. (usually readiness is some combination of baseline technologies available, competencies, etc.)
• Keyframe 6y ago
  He Wolfram'd himself, unfortunately.
• nemo44x 6y ago
  I feel like Crawford either entirely missed the games Japan released from the late 1980’s - early 2K (Square, Kojimi, etc) or he’s confused in that he doesn’t want to make games (and thus barking up the wrong tree all these years) but rather a new medium that he hasn’t been able to articulate to the world or even himself.
• rutierut 6y ago
  So if I'm getting this right, and I might not, the author: - Is a genius. Outside the bounds of usual intelligence and thus unrecognizable for average people. - He however is not able to use his genius to create value in any way. He specifically mentions failing to teach others to do so but this is because they are unable to comprehend his genius. - Finally he his also not able to signal his genius (in any of his numerous publications) in such a way that someone who does have the tools/skills(money/better communication) to exploit this enormous unused potential is willing to do so. If it's a duck but: - nobody thinks it looks like a duck, - it doesn't quack and - it isn't able to produce any offspring that - can quack or - look like a duck Is it really a duck?
  • chris_st 6y ago
    > He however is not able to use his genius to create value in any way. Well, he did create (at least) two video games that were well received -- in fact, I remember that "Balance of Power" got amazing reviews when it came out. So not entirely barren in production. I'm guessing that he's unhappy that people, when taught his ideas, don't follow them closely enough?
    • neogodless 6y ago
      Took a peek at the game[0]. From the initial game setup (options) screen: > People who play this game without reading the manual are wasting their time. Cannot judge by this emulator but I agree... started playing and had no clue how to "do" things. But then I read on Wikipedia[1]... > It was praised for its inventive non-action gameplay that was nevertheless exciting and distinct. It has been named by Computer Gaming World as one of the most innovative computer games of all time. Apparently at some point events will start to take place, and then you'll get a chance to choose how you react. [0] https://classicreload.com/balance-of-power.html https://classicreload.com/balance-of-power.html [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_of_Power_(video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_of_Power_(video_game)
    • rutierut 6y ago
      Yes "to create value in any way" is wrong, I should have written something more nuanced. I think you are right on this mainly being about his super valuable teachings not being utilized and this specific post not being about the author thinking he's a genius although he does think so[0]. [0] http://www.erasmatazz.com/personal/self/a-genius.html http://www.erasmatazz.com/personal/self/a-genius.html
• calahad 6y ago
  I feel for this guy, I get that the post comes off as narcissistic and myopic but it seems that he genuinely put a lot of effort into something with good intentions and came away disappointed. Something just leaves me profoundly sad after reading it, and I'm actually going to seek out a copy of the 'balance of power' book.
• macspoofing 6y ago
  He did blow it. He missed the last 30 years of evolution in game design. Every single game released, in one way or another, uses this idea of approximating complex human systems with simpler mathematical formulae and algorithms. Closer to home to his two hits ('Eastern Front', 'Balance of Power'), very sophisticated simulation war games have been releasing for years now that put his games to shame. With very little effort anyone can come up with a list of those. This is why it's so hard to innovate when you don't test your theories in the market of ideas. It's why you don't tend to see Lone-wolf Geniuses revolutionizing the relevant field (whether the field is physics, or game design). Even a genius like like Grigori Perelman, of Poincaré conjecture fame, who comes close to embodying this 'lone-wolf' stoic ideal, needed to use techniques developed by others in order to prove the conjecture.
  • _cs2017_ 6y ago
    Well he does say: > Perhaps I missed something, but most of my friends have been on the lookout and I have had a number of games referred to me; none of them came close to Balance of Power in algorithmic sophistication. So it's not like he missed the simulation genre evolution, he just disagrees with the direction that evolution took. And he suggests it's because the time has not yet come for his ideas. An obvious retort is: maybe people don't (and won't) want to play games with sophisticated algorithmic simulation because they are boring. He doesn't seem to offer any good argument about why his ideas are "good but too early" as opposed to merely "bad". As such, I find his post not very persuasive.
    • shawnz 6y ago
      There are plenty of commercially successful strategy games with sophisticated algorithmic simulation, like Europa Universalis for example. I wonder if there is perhaps a bias here in that it is easy to overestimate the algorithmic complexity of the code you wrote, whereas it's easy to underestimate the complexity of code you can't see.
      • breck 6y ago
        I could be wrong but I think he's saying the opposite: people are missing that his code is about processes happening over time, whereas the focus of most games nowadays is on the objects. Or, what you can see in his static code isn't important, it's what happens during the running of the code that is. Now I know almost nothing about game development so have no dataset myself or ability to understand the arguments either way. I think we're seeing an increasing short term move to more complex, black box, DL trained models that will get behavior similar to the processes he seems to emphasize, and then we'll see a swing back to taking those gains but converting them into the type of readable algorithms like in his old games. But I have no idea. Just complete 2 second conjecturing on my part. Regardless, thoroughly enjoying reading his site and find his Object <=> Process gradient cycle to be crystal clear and fascinating and important idea.
• ricardobayes 6y ago
  Being a successful game developer for Amiga is like being Puskas, the footballer in 60s. To be successful nowadays requires a different (more commercial) mindset.
• intrasight 6y ago
  Building up a complex simulation from a simple set of equations made me think of... Life, the universe, and everything. So I'll thank this visionary for spawning this interesting discussion thread, which in turn has me contemplating my existence.
• alexashka 6y ago
  I wonder about people who try at something for so long. I wonder if they haven't succeeded elsewhere in life, to learn the lesson that it's the journey, not the destination. I've given up anyone 'getting' me or appreciating what I do a while back, after I realized I don't really care to fully understand others, nor do I have the capacity it seems, and it doesn't matter! I don't even understand myself, and it's fine. The author strikes me as having a genuine childish emotion of not getting that toy he/she wanted. It's genuine, it's real, but my goodness, when are you going to grow up :)
• bo1024 6y ago
  This was really intriguing, but I wish the author was able to communicate more about this difference of perspective. Process vs objects? Those formula seem unsurprising, I wasn't able to understand. I guess if it was easy to communicate, they wouldn't be writing the post in the first place.
• karmakaze 6y ago
  Chris Crawford is a name I immediately recognize as a pioneer in early video game development, particularly the Atari 8-bit. I eagerly consumed every bit of information about the Atari in BYTE and pieces of De Re Atari (the bible for that platform) I could get my hands on. I've played Eastern Front and Balance of Power (on Atari ST) but they weren't my cup of tea--I was into graphics and animated gameplay. Similarly I preferred Risk to Avalon Hill board games. I did have a friend/roommate who was really into Balance of Power, he would play it all the time, over and over. I didn't 'get' it, but he obviously did. From Wikipedia entry[0] > I dreamed of the day when computer games would be a viable medium of artistic expression — an art form. I dreamed of computer games encompassing the broad range of human experience and emotion: computer games about [...] All of these things and more were part of this dream, but by themselves they amounted to nothing, because all of these things have already been done by other art forms. There was no advantage, no purchase, nothing superior about this dream, it's just an old rehash. All we are doing with the computer, if all we do is just reinvent the wheel with poor grade materials, well, we don't have a dream worth pursuing. But there was a second part of this dream that catapulted it into the stratosphere. The second part is what made this dream important and worthy: that is interactivity. I feel some of this too, like the poor quality games that came out with CD-ROM, and each new technology recently VR that initially only scratches the surface. I do see this has been improving steadily with the diversity, budgets, and mind share that video games are gaining. I do see the art form in many recent 'game' titles so don't despair the future of gaming. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Crawford_(game_designer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Crawford_(game_designer)
  • breck 6y ago
    Thanks for sharing that context. I don't remember his games but cool to read about his impact from a contemporary. I can relate to having friends that were into more intelligent games than me, although in my case it was was worse. (Me: WOW! DUKE NUKEM 3D HAS SWEARS!). Hopefully my tastes eventually matured.
• agumonkey 6y ago
  The lesson for this kind of problems: realize that timing is key and an art. Too early or too late and you die. Keep your passion alive, wait for the right time or find a better soil. Like moving to a different country because culture will react better to your ways and proposals (a very regular issue in France for instance)
• vonwoodson 6y ago
  HN is really showing their collective asses here. Way to thoroughly thrash someone who dared to open up on the Internet.
  • burnthrow 6y ago
    But he used the word "I" too many times. Case closed. Throw your unread TAOCP at him!
  • username90 6y ago
    Nobody wants to end up in his position, so we analyse it to try to see where he went wrong. In his case the issue is pretty obvious, I don't think it is wrong to bring that up. If you write a sob story then don't paint a huge target around yourself as the main problem and antagonist in your story.
  • carapace 6y ago
    Yeah, FFS is today "Asshole Day" or something? I played Balance of Power. It has no rivals. Have some goddamned respect people. And remember that, unless something worse happens, you'll be old too one day.
• breck 6y ago
  Picture a person's brain not as a single being, but as a forest, where the current tree in charge changes, and where trees are of different ages. Some of these trees are a lot "older" than others. They have more rings to them. Perhaps a 50 year old might have some trees in their brain that you would expect to find only in a person 500 years old. For that person, when that tree is in charge, it must feel a lot like they are very ahead of their time. The solution is patience and to go chase a ball or drink a beer and put another tree in charge for a bit. https://giphy.com/gifs/wHB67Zkr63UP7RWJsj https://giphy.com/gifs/wHB67Zkr63UP7RWJsj
• draw_down 6y ago
  I guess being a genius isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
• smokey_circles 6y ago
  It's ironic that a lot of the commenters here lack the basic comprehension skills required to see this is an old man lamenting his life's work because of a reason I struggle to pin down either - he was born to the wrong era - he didn't spend the time to create the demand for the ideas he peddled In any event: If you want to post something about how "he's not that smart": the problem is actually you. The dude's a legend, is incredibly bright, but can't articulate that well. But please, by all means waste your bandwidth being angry at an old man rationalising the long list of life decisions they have behind them
  • username90 6y ago
    Nobody here is angry at him. He just comes off as a person who refuse to acknowledge that his ideas are dated, there was a very short time when his ideas were demanded and it was exactly when he was active. People bought and enjoyed his game for a couple of years, then they moved on and no longer wanted his style of games, and demand never picked up again. It is like how Einstein refused to acknowledge quantum mechanics, and if Einstein wrote a post about how his ideas are so much better than those who studied quantum mechanics and that he was just born in the wrong time then Einstein would be ridiculed as well. Not because Einstein isn't smart or didn't add a lot of value, but because that kind of post is ridiculous.
    • piyh 6y ago
      There's so much ego involved. "I'm a misunderstood genius" is enough of a trope that it translates to "I'm above average intelligence, stubborn and can't relate to people" in my experience. >In 2018, Crawford announced that he had halted his work on interactive storytelling, concluding that it will take centuries for civilization to embrace the required concepts.[1] "No, it's the children who are wrong." Being married has taught me that in life you can be right all the time, or you can compromise and be happy. I can appreciate the people who are unbreaking in their resolve to make the world a better place, but his particular philosophical hill is not one I'd choose to die on.
    • runarberg 6y ago
      Aside: Einstein (et. al.) wrote such a post (or a series of papers) as part of the Bohr–Einstein debates. Einstein was later proven to be wrong. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tafGL02EUOA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tafGL02EUOA
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• dmux 6y ago
  >Perhaps I missed something, but most of my friends have been on the lookout and I have had a number of games referred to me; none of them came close to Balance of Power in algorithmic sophistication. Isn't this just the "worse is better" principle? Does it really matter if others weren't as algorithmically sophisticated?
• the_af 6y ago
  For anyone lacking the context (I just read someone claim "I've never heard of this author or his games"). Crawford, Eastern Front and Balance of Power were a big deal in their day. These were always niche games, but for those in the know, they were brilliant. You can read more about this period of videogame history in the freely available online book "Halcyon Days": https://dadgum.com/halcyon/ https://dadgum.com/halcyon/ Feel free to disagree with Crawford, but please don't do it out of ignorance. Know your history. Otherwise you'll be like someone who argues Charlie Chaplin has no business arguing about cinema, because he doesn't ring a bell to you and who watches silent black & white movies anyway? If there's one thing I take out of this: how easy we forget the history of computing and videogames. Past celebrities and heroes get forgotten, unlike with book and movie authors.
• jccalhoun 6y ago
  Thanks goodness for people like Chris Crawford. He is the crazy guy in his lab doing weird things. He may be misguided but it is good to have him and people like him around to be contrarians and try to push/pull things in a different direction. I think Crawford has been barking up the wrong tree with his storytron thing ( http://www.ifwiki.org/index.php/Storytron http://www.ifwiki.org/index.php/Storytron ) for decades but good for him for trying.
• weeboid 6y ago
  lol, bro it's much simpler than that. people play games to have fun, and the intersection of complex, time intensive games and those who's idea of fun is complex, time intensive games … it's a small intersection.
• kabdib 6y ago
  In the early 80s, Atari was desperate to portray video games as constructive social objects, rather than as the quarter-sucking homework-wreckers they actually were. In an effort to legitimize themselves and the market, Atari produced a "documentary" called Video Games: A Public Perspective (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gBWDlr3Rx0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gBWDlr3Rx0) which is full of stuff like "We're trying to put computer power into the hands of children..." and other projects of the fuuuuture. A powerful contingent in Atari management seemed to be ashamed of the industry's quarter-sucking past and desperately wanted to "go legitimate". There were internal mandates in some organizations that forbade the development of "shooting games". Atari had a corporate research outfit, a building not far from Corporate HQ where some luminaries like Alan Kay were seeded, and they were very plugged into the question of "Well, if we can't make shooty games, what can we do?". To answer this question they bought a lot of Vaxes and LISP machines and hired a bunch of other researchers you've definitely heard of. There was a lot going on. Atari also hired Chris Crawford to run a small group of game developers, presumably because "Your games look educational and this grants us legitimacy, do more of that." It was not a happy group (judging from the sidelines; a couple of my housemates worked in it) and its output reflected the group's turmoil. Infighting and bickering, game demos that were largely retreads of prior not-very-much-fun efforts, attempts at new forms of non-shooty games. My favorite mini-game was Gossip, a game involving facial expressions where you held conversations with virtual people and tried to get them to like each other. An anonymous member of the team turned the internal math on its head and changed the goal to "make everyone hate each other". The thing is, the politically incorrect version was MUCH more fun than the original. Crawford should have taken the hint. I don't think he ever knew how to do fun.
• jpfr 6y ago
  The situation the author describes is one of the reasons why we cannot (yet) get rid of Elsevier and the other scientific publishers. They are no longer needed for the dissemination of new research. But they are the keeper of the archive. We don‘t know which works are going to be important for future generations. And just putting out a „PDF on the net“ will be gone in 20 years if there is no publishing house maintaining the original copy. Arxiv could also take on that role. But not for the last 300 years of existing research in the publishers archives.
  • sillysaurusx 6y ago
    Arxiv could also take on that role. Didn't they?
• lnanek2 6y ago
  I'm too young to have played his games, but looking at the wiki page for Balance of Power, it looks very similar to Plague Inc.. You have a world map and you react to events. Plague Inc. is so super popular even my kid nephew plays it on his iPad and can talk at length on it for hours. Personally, I played a lot of XCOM which is a similar world map UI with random alien invading events you react to. So anyway, writing the books might have been a waste, but people seem to copy the game format quite a bit. Very influential. Probably should have written more games instead of the two books.
• curiousllama 6y ago
  > I see the same thing when I look at the real world: it is not a collection of objects, but rather a system of processes, and those processes are best understood through mathematics. This sentence gets to me. He's _so close_ to right, it's just that the answer is from a world so different than where he lives. In management consulting, I learned the exact same thing, _except_ that the best way to understand the system is through _social relations_ (read: office politics), not math. Such an understanding inevitably leads you, when you hope to create change, to FIRST establish a need, and THEN pose a solution. He didn't blow it. He just needs to learn to establish the need. > there’s no sense of desperation, ... People are still bewitched by the progress People are desperate for "artistic expression". But needs don't exist in a vacuum.
• ffggvv 6y ago
  seems very unclassy to dunk on an old lamenting his life, regardless if he is right or wrong. this is part of the problem with the internet
• ggggtez 6y ago
  >Casualties = 3 * (strength of attacker / strength of defender) Talk about out of touch. I can't imagine being so deep in your own head to think that this is the sort of thing that is comparable to Einstein's theory of relativity, or Mendel's genetics. "Not in the same league, but at least in the same sport". Unadulterated hubris, the whole article. And what is the frontier that he thinks he has carved out? Games as art? Mathematics as art? And he doesn't recognize anyone else as making strides in that area? If he has something to say, then yeah, he sure did blow it, because he is clearly incapable of explaining himself in a way that anyone cares to understand. More likely, he's just a guy who ran out of ideas 35 years ago and can't let it go.
• warbaker 6y ago
  I think he's trying to say that there's art in simulation, in taking complex real life phenomena, turning them into simple math, making a computer run that math, and giving a person a way to interact with it. Some games today do this, but it's rare. Game systems being treated as art (as opposed to the story/visuals/sound) is rarer still. Incidentally, the reason he chose to present simple formulae in the post was that he wanted to show elegant simplicity, not dazzle with mathematical wizardry. Regardless, you don't need to dunk on someone who is already dunking on himself, hard, harder than most of us are even capable of, just because in your opinion he isn't doing it in quite the right way.
  • warbaker 6y ago
    To me, there can be almost a . . . cuteness to good simulation. It's a small, holdable version of something big, like a tiny stuffed giraffe.
• anonymousisme 6y ago
  I was hoping that he might realize that more people would embrace his ideas if he shared them freely. I understand and appreciate the need to earn a living, but he's apparently been doing that anyway by writing games.
• ficklepickle 6y ago
  He got the Charles Babbage anecdote wrong. There was a need for reliable computers at the time. At that time, computers were people. Creating navigational charts was the application. Human error propagated and it was a big problem at the time. That is how he got funding. I also take exception to the claim it was never built, as that is not entirely true either. For anyone interested, I recommend the 1990 book by Doron Swade. It is excellent. I stumbled across the difference engine at the science museum in London while I was reading that book! I didn't realize the author was from there until after the fact. What a lovely coincidence. Such a fascinating device, the difference engine will always have a special place in my mind.
• mbrodersen 6y ago
  It is really off putting when people constantly try to convince the world that they are special/geniuses. In the case of Chris Crawford, he hasn’t developed anything interesting for a very long time and yet still continues to pop up from time to time demanding that everybody recognises what a special snowflake genius he is. Yes he did write some interesting games many years ago. So did many other game developers. Many with larger, longer term impact than Chris.
• ftio 6y ago
  > The goal I seek (making the computer a medium of artistic expression) is as yet of little interest to society. Excuse me, but: what? 'The computer' is and has been, in fact, a medium of artistic expression. For millions of people. For multiple decades. Has this person been living in a cave?
• badpiece 6y ago
  his load to his reflection in the mirror holy shit his games aren't even his pride but his 'design philosophy' which is immediately understood by anyone who attempted to make a game. the irony is he brushes his actual achievements aside because he saw the matrix and thought this is totally me
• Frazmatazz 6y ago
  literally every game approximates human behavior with simple equations