4 ms·

It's still seen as a waste of time, I think. Just has finally been accepted as normal. And while you may have been firing up hex editors, that probably wasn't t

by lkbm 12y ago

It's still seen as a waste of time, I think. Just has finally been accepted as normal. And while you may have been firing up hex editors, that probably wasn't the norm. YOu are right, though, that the computer games of the nineties offered a lot more hackability than iPhone apps. ZZT was an introduction to OOP for many kids, Red Alert had rules.ini that defined the stats for each unit, and Duke3D had configuration files in C. Mods and "Total Conversions" were a things. That ecosystem isn't just unavailable in mobile games, but would probably be hated by many companies who want full control over their product. So two things we should do: write more moddable games, include defaults that don't assume we're all male (or white, for that matter.

userbinator 12y ago
The "hackability" (and decrease thereof) isn't something exclusive to games - just look at what happened to the UIs of popular programs like browers, for example. Everything is becoming hidden away and more difficult to configure. In contrast to the many menus and dialogs we had before that encouraged users to explore and customise, it seems that apps now are far more opaque to the point that many users don't even realise some things are options that can be changed. That ecosystem isn't just unavailable in mobile games, but would probably be hated by many companies who want full control over their product Perhaps it's a bit of a stretch, but I think the whole "war on general-purpose computing" has played some part in this too.
- indians_pro 12y ago
  The latest versions of firefox are a painful reminder.
  - cbd1984 12y ago
    Then get the UI you want. That's possible in Firefox, as opposed to Chrome, for example.
    - indians_pro 12y ago
      Yes but why are they doing it in the first place? When the whole point of firefox is its customizability and 'non-proprietary' nature over chrome. I don't understand.
zanny 12y ago
I got into programming a decade ago with Quake 2 engine forks and Neverwinter Nights private servers. You would never have avenues into that kind of thing from the ios platform at all. It is very much like how anyone from the Windows GUI generation never touched a terminal so they do not even know what a program / file / etc really is to begin with.
- marssaxman 12y ago
  I don't know about that. I grew up on classic Mac OS with nary a command line in sight, and I found my way under the skin just fine. I was building compilers and writing device drivers before I ever learned how shell scripting worked. I think people who want to get inside will generally figure out how; the information is all out there for the asking. My pet theory is that there are just as many people interested in the inner workings as ever, but that we're a much smaller proportion of the total computer-using population now, and so we have a much smaller influence on the culture around computers and networks than we used to.
  - zanny 12y ago
    Except getting into Windows isn't a thing, even today, and even for all but the most professional engineers behind huge companies with Microsofts ear. Literally the limit of Windows is registry editing and trying to reverse engineer the horrible contents of some file in system32. There are no guts to see, no knobs to tweak, because its one massive black box. Earlier OSes, even Mac OS, has to be much more open because resources were much more limited and you could not obscure the implementation behind the black box without degrading the experience too much. More performance let MS get away with that, and if not for modable game engines there would have been nothing in my childhood to tinker with.
- e12e 12y ago
  It's not the GUI per se -- I'd say that a classic smalltalk-80 system (or a pc set to boot into Pharo) would be way more "hackable" than even a standard GNU/Linux install (you can look at/change the whole window system, blitter etc while it is running). One could make a solid argument that knowing what a file/program "really is" is entirely redundant: it's all von neuman architecture after all: why make the distinction? That said, I absolutely agree on your sentiment about the ios platform being way too locked down. Most annoyingly, it's entirely arbitrary: it could very well ship with something along the lines of hypercard/applescript or something better out of the box.
tracker1 12y ago
I don't think the assumption is that all the users are male... it seems to me a lot of the assumption is that "girls are more likely to pay for a character change than boys" which may or may not be correct, without actual data. That said, I feel that most (not all) apps with in-game purchases are pretty sleazy.
zobzu 12y ago
Interestingly in many games of the 90s... - there were both genders more often (in, fact, i can name very few of the games I played that were male only... yeah DukeNukem for ex. I know a couple female only games, tho) - when different genders were proposed it was OF COURSE for free. Now u gotta pay because u like a red hat better or what not.

by lkbm 12y ago

userbinator 12y ago

The "hackability" (and decrease thereof) isn't something exclusive to games - just look at what happened to the UIs of popular programs like browers, for example. Everything is becoming hidden away and more difficult to configure. In contrast to the many menus and dialogs we had before that encouraged users to explore and customise, it seems that apps now are far more opaque to the point that many users don't even realise some things are options that can be changed. That ecosystem isn't just unavailable in mobile games, but would probably be hated by many companies who want full control over their product Perhaps it's a bit of a stretch, but I think the whole "war on general-purpose computing" has played some part in this too.

indians_pro 12y ago
The latest versions of firefox are a painful reminder.
- cbd1984 12y ago
  Then get the UI you want. That's possible in Firefox, as opposed to Chrome, for example.
  - indians_pro 12y ago
    Yes but why are they doing it in the first place? When the whole point of firefox is its customizability and 'non-proprietary' nature over chrome. I don't understand.

zanny 12y ago

I got into programming a decade ago with Quake 2 engine forks and Neverwinter Nights private servers. You would never have avenues into that kind of thing from the ios platform at all. It is very much like how anyone from the Windows GUI generation never touched a terminal so they do not even know what a program / file / etc really is to begin with.

marssaxman 12y ago
I don't know about that. I grew up on classic Mac OS with nary a command line in sight, and I found my way under the skin just fine. I was building compilers and writing device drivers before I ever learned how shell scripting worked. I think people who want to get inside will generally figure out how; the information is all out there for the asking. My pet theory is that there are just as many people interested in the inner workings as ever, but that we're a much smaller proportion of the total computer-using population now, and so we have a much smaller influence on the culture around computers and networks than we used to.
- zanny 12y ago
  Except getting into Windows isn't a thing, even today, and even for all but the most professional engineers behind huge companies with Microsofts ear. Literally the limit of Windows is registry editing and trying to reverse engineer the horrible contents of some file in system32. There are no guts to see, no knobs to tweak, because its one massive black box. Earlier OSes, even Mac OS, has to be much more open because resources were much more limited and you could not obscure the implementation behind the black box without degrading the experience too much. More performance let MS get away with that, and if not for modable game engines there would have been nothing in my childhood to tinker with.
e12e 12y ago
It's not the GUI per se -- I'd say that a classic smalltalk-80 system (or a pc set to boot into Pharo) would be way more "hackable" than even a standard GNU/Linux install (you can look at/change the whole window system, blitter etc while it is running). One could make a solid argument that knowing what a file/program "really is" is entirely redundant: it's all von neuman architecture after all: why make the distinction? That said, I absolutely agree on your sentiment about the ios platform being way too locked down. Most annoyingly, it's entirely arbitrary: it could very well ship with something along the lines of hypercard/applescript or something better out of the box.

tracker1 12y ago

I don't think the assumption is that all the users are male... it seems to me a lot of the assumption is that "girls are more likely to pay for a character change than boys" which may or may not be correct, without actual data. That said, I feel that most (not all) apps with in-game purchases are pretty sleazy.

zobzu 12y ago

Interestingly in many games of the 90s... - there were both genders more often (in, fact, i can name very few of the games I played that were male only... yeah DukeNukem for ex. I know a couple female only games, tho) - when different genders were proposed it was OF COURSE for free. Now u gotta pay because u like a red hat better or what not.