LINK

I don' t know who this Robertson person is but her article has some funny points.

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" To the outside observer, all games can seem pretty pointless. But even to gamers who know they' re not, there' s a whole subset of pointlessness."
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" Even stranger, most gamers are used to games which do their best to help you win while they try all-out to beat you."
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" Many gun-based games have an auto-aim option, which means the game is busy processing how best to swing your reticule over the target at exactly the same time it' s trying to process how to get enemies to pop up in corners you didn' t expect."
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" Why don' t we ever wonder if the game is using a slightly dumber AI to proffer tips than it is to guide its own moves?

Can we be sure the so-called auto-aim isn' t doing the software equivalent of jogging our elbow every time we shoot?

We can, but only because there' s an instinctive understanding that - despite all the indications to the contrary - the games aren' t trying to win."
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" When you play, what you' re doing is going up against the men behind the machine."
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" But at its best, gaming isn' t about our machines or their machines.

At its best, the machine disappears, becoming instead an invisible conduit between you and these dozens of men and women who' ve spent years bending their immense imaginations and arcane skills to creating something designed purely to make you happy.

You put your trust in their instincts, and in their sincerity in trying to build an extraordinary, satisfying experience for you.

It' s one of the ways in which game players have a much more intense relationship with game creators than is true of consumers of most other artforms.

Directors, writers or musicians can let you down, by making something you don' t like, but they can rarely betray your trust.

Gamers have to put their faith in their heroes every time they play.

It' s perhaps part of what enables game companies to engender the kind of fanatical loyalty that Nintendo does amongst its fans, and what accounts for the viciousness of the vitriol that unpopular products can produce."

Now my head hurts.

Your head hurts and my butt hurts. Maybe, if we rub them against each other, the pain will go away????

....er this isnt the right thread at all I must be lost...

no.