You are a sheep to them: corporate cultures and you

In the modern world, we've no choice but to be customers of large corporations. Even indirectly, we're affected by their attitudes towards us. That makes it a great shame that their attitudes are generally so unpleasant.

This grew from a discussion on Twitter of "moon money", the various unreal currencies games companies like us to use. Call them Nintendo Points, Microsoft Points, what you will, they're a layer of obfuscation between your money and the things you buy with that money. Sometimes, they can be bypassed; but more often, your only choice is to pay in moon money or not at all.

Part of their purpose is to allow the companies to report income sooner. Once you've bought your moon money, you're now out the real world cost of however much moon money you bought; the company issuing the moon money has the real money now, instead of however much later it is when you finally finish buying "things" (generally intangible things, mere data) to the value of the moon money you bought. They got your money as a lump sum up front, not in the dribs and drabs it would have come in had they let you pay real money; because a common feature of moon money is that it may only be bought in inconveniently large chunks. Part of this is to avoid proportionately large charges for processing small credit card transactions, but a secondary benefit for the issuing company is the decoupling of moonbucks from real money. The real money is gone, and so spending moonbucks feels like getting something for free. A further aid to this is the common oddball exchange rate; Microsoft points exchange at a rate of $10 for 800 points, which is inconvenient to remember, while being close enough that people can be tricked into assuming that the exchange rate is one point per US cent.

On the face of it, these practices seem abusive to the customer; I believe they are, but they stem naturally from the corporate culture. Any publically traded company has a duty to its shareholders to maximise profit in the short term, which will result in abuse. Consider the customer as a mature sheep; you can look after this sheep, shearing it for wool each year, taking milk (but not too much!), and gain a long term advantage of woolen clothes, healthy family from good nutrition, and so on; the farmers' way. Or, you can sweep in, take the sheep, slaughter it, and you'll get a nice sheepskin rug, some very large mutton dinners, and overall a short-term windfall; the raiders' way. The difference is that the farmers' way results in you still having a sheep all along, but gives less reward at any given time.

So the requirement to maximise instantaneous reward is what has killed any consideration for customer loyalty. There will "always" be more sheep; so slaughter them, carpet the world in sheepskin rugs, and get fat on your mutton dinners. Privately owned companies can afford to take a longer view; after twenty years, the farmers will have a lot of sheep, because well-cared-for sheep increase in number, while the raiders will have slaughtered enough sheep (in this analogy, annoyed enough people to the point of boycott) that sheep will be getting thin on the ground. Short-term thinking is not generally sustainable.

One games company which appears to be a farmer is Valve. I've said many nice things about them, but the most telling example is their system of moon money. Yes, it's still moon money; but it's denominated in dollars and cents, as if it's real money; and it's available in flexible amounts, subject to a $5 minimum purchase. You want $13.74 in Valve moon money? Go right ahead and buy it. It'll cost you $13.74, and you won't have to round up and have the $1.26 from going to $15 hanging around. But if you do round up, any leftovers can be applied as a discount to anything you buy via Steam; the one time I used Valve's moon money, I ended up with $0.02 left over, and that was knocked off my next Steam purchase automatically. Valve go to pains to make sure their moon money behaves as much like real money as possible, because they'd rather sacrifice short-term gains in favour of keeping you coming back for a long time. They can do this because they're a private company; there aren't shareholders to placate with short-term growth. They can think long-term.

Any time you're asked to exchange real money for tokens, think carefully. The entity asking you to do that is aiming to make you stop thinking of your money as money, because they want to keep your money. Casinos; arcades; points for online purchases. The root desire is to get you to stop seeing it as money.

The controls are wrong: why ported games are hard.

It's usual, these days, for videogames to be released on multiple platforms. There are plenty of good reasons to do this; for one, the difficulty of hooking up consoles to a TV goes up exponentially as you add more consoles (as I should know, having at one point attempted to have eight different wossnames hooked up to one TV, and needing multiple switchboxes to do it since the US lacks SCART and its ability to Just Work) and so most people of normal sanity will tend to buy one console and stick with it. Then there are the people who don't really have consoles; the LA and I have a Wii, which initially stomped all over the PlayStation 3 and xbox 360 in sales, but which is now mostly passed over for high-profile games releases because things can't be made quite as pretty on it as they can on Sony's and Microsoft's offerings. So to get at all the potential sales, a smart developer and publisher will release on as many platforms as possible.

And therein lies the problem. Control schemes are inevitably going to be different. The Wii has its own issues with controlling the games, and generally Wii releases aren't straightforward ports; but PS3 and xbox releases will often be the exact same code, compiled for two different platforms. The controllers for these consoles are very similar; designed to sit in both hands, with four buttons and a joystick for each thumb to waggle about, and four more buttons in trigger-like positions. Some details are different, such as where the joysticks are, or whether they actually fit human hands or are designed for tiny elves, but that's the basics; twelve buttons and two joysticks. The joysticks can also be pressed on to make two more buttons, and there are a couple more buttons used for system access, overriding the game.

You can make certain assumptions with controllers. The fact that you have two guaranteed analogue input devices means you can get fancy with driving controls, and have somewhat realistic speed sensitivity in your steering; wallop the stick hard over at speed, and you'll spin out spectacularly. And so on. The four buttons under the right thumb make a very easy reflex test, known as a quick-time event; remember Simon? A lot of games nowadays use that for "react fast" challenges such as disarming bombs.

And these control assumptions fall apart when confronted with the harsh reality of PC gaming. A keyboard and mouse make for far different control inputs. For one thing, you only have one analogue input, and it's a pointing device rather than a steering device. There's typically a direct mapping between how far the mouse is moved and how far the pointer moves; flicking the mouse will move it fast, moving the mouse slowly will turn it slower. A joystick, by contrast, varies the speed of the pointer based on how far it's pushed over; accurate pointing is much more difficult. The different control methods here are a big impact. A recent high-profile problem caused by this was discovered in id Software's tech-demo Rage; on consoles, everything looked gorgeous, all the time, while on far more powerful PCs, at the same resolution, turning around too fast would result in the player seeing a blurry mass of foot-wide pixels for a short while until the game could get the proper gorgeousness on screen. The fundamental problem was the difference between a pointing device and a steering device; consoles didn't allow the player to turn faster than the game could get the right data.

And then there's the problem of car controls in driving games. Remember the speed-sensitive steering I mentioned earlier? One of the PC games I play has that, and it's a disaster trying to drive in a straight line at high speed. The reason is, the mouse is needed for camera control, and so the steering is delegated to the keyboard. Keys have two states: on or off. This means that the steering is either straight ahead, or at full lock. This has led to my typical method of cornering in that game being to bail out of the car by opening a parachute, which gives me enough time to see a car going in the right direction and steal that one. It's far quicker than slowing down to the point at which I can avoid spinning out, and cheaper than buying a gamepad. Another console port game has a much less speed-sensitive steering mechanism; I typically turn corners in that one, although the keyboard turns them from a dexterity challenge to a timing puzzle (hit the keys with the right timing to flick the car through 90 degrees, and punch the go pedal at the right moment, as opposed to judging how hard to shove the stick)

Similar difficulties prevail going the other way, rare as that is nowadays; the consoles being where the money is, they're likely to be the primary market. I've attempted to play ports from PC to console, and they're generally clunky and awkward at best.

As long as the control assumptions remain as they are, porting in either direction will remain a problem. Input handling is one of the hardest things to get right in making a game.

Some news

I have a buffer, and more posts to add to it, so regular content drops will resume on the 17th inst., but the LA and I have just bought a house and so things will be chaotic for a while.

How to talk to me on the phone

So, one of the many things about me that's notable is that I have hearing loss. My right ear's hearing is significantly degraded, and my left ear has lost much of its high-tone sensitivity (or my brain doesn't interpret high tones correctly; that's also a possibility, given how much of a mess it is in there) due to foolishness when younger. When going to rock concerts, wear earplugs. That will go a LONG way towards avoiding what's happened to me. Take similar precautions around firearms; those things are very loud, and will damage your hearing. Between the loss of hearing and interference from chronic tinnitus, I find it difficult to follow conversations. That's actually a big part of why I'm quiet in person; I don't follow the thread of conversation well enough to join in, because I literally can't hear well enough.

A game designer and generally awesome person I follow on Twitter by the name of Eddy Webb is significantly worse off than I am by way of hearing, and he recently posted a link to an article on "how to talk with the hearing-impaired". While the advice is good, it's very much focused on face-to-face interactions, and doesn't cover telephones. Telephones are a very much harder nut to crack, when it comes to hearing difficulties.

Here's my advice, in handy bullet point form.

• Speak up. Don't shout, but do speak clearly and loudly. It helps.
• Speak slowly. Don't let your words run together.
• Sit up straight. This does actually make your voice clearer, makes it easier to project, and means I find it easier to hear you.
• Minimise background noise. If I'm straining to pick you out over music, fans, engines, or similar, I'm going to have trouble.
• Re-phrase. If I didn't catch what you said, take a moment and try different words.
• Be patient. I really am trying.

Sadly, the biggest obstacle to easy telephone communication with anyone hearing-impaired is the telephone itself. Telephone transmission involves throwing away an astoundingly large part of the voice's spectrum, to save bandwidth. Someone with good hearing can cope fine, but the worse a person's hearing is, the harder they'll find it to correct for that.

The biggest thing you can do for me, in terms of communication, is to only use the telephone when absolutely necessary. I much prefer something that doesn't require I hold large amounts of unsorted data in mind at once AND strain to hear. But if you have to call me, the checklist above will make it less annoying for both of us. Because I've no doubt whatsoever that as frustrating as it is for me to struggle through a telephone call, it's just as frustrating for you trying to get the information to me when I seem bent on mis-hearing.

Hiatus

It pains me to do this, but I'm putting the "regular content" experiment on hiatus for a short while. I've run out of buffer, and between family health issues, various sources of stress for the LA and me, excessively hot weather, and sundry other stuff I won't bore you with, I am, not to put too fine a point on it, shagged out.

So consider this a summer break. I'll aim to restart regular content drops around the middle of September. Feel free to yell at me on Twitter if that doesn't happen.

The booth babe problem

As happens all too frequently, the internet is afire with accusations of objectification, slut-shaming, feminazism, and all the wonderful fun epithets that get flung around when people with poor social skills start talking about subjects which hit gender politics. This time, the catalyst was someone complaining that there are too many attractive women at conventions.

Leaving aside the absurdity of such a statement, the real complaint is that some of the aforementioned attractive women may not be as "dedicated" to geek lifestyle as the complainer. Considering that many of his targets spend large amounts of time and significant money making excruciatingly detailed costumes for themselves, I doubt that one holds water either.

But there really is a problem with women at conventions. The problem is that commercial entities at such events have a depressing tendency to hire representatives based solely on physical appearance, with no thought to having them able to speak knowledgeably about what they're promoting. The term is "booth babe", which I dislike; it diminishes the women involved in this as people.

I've no objection to hiring attractive spokesmodels. I don't even object to having them dress up as characters from whatever you're promoting (although I'd prefer if you let them dress however they wished, and if need be display your expensively-made costume on a carefully painted mannequin). What I object to is having their value to your promotional effort be solely as eye candy. If you're trying to sell to geeks, well, yes, I'll freely admit that the pretty face will grab our attention, but we would much prefer to find out that she knows about this thing, that she cares about it, that she's going to tell us why she thinks it's great. And our social skills aren't so poor as to be unable to tell marketing guff from genuine enthusiasm.

My first assumption when I meet someone at a convention is that they're there because they think the subject matter is interesting. I'd like that to hold true for as many people as possible, regardless of gender, physical appearance, or other unimportant matters.

When to give it up

Recently, I've been discussing fasteners. Screws, bolts, Allen keys and such. There are many types of fastener, and many methods of driving screws. The most common one, in the US at least, is the venerable Philips drive; the cross-shaped slot that generally ends up burred and worn to uselessness within three drivings. Its dominance is a historical accident; it was adopted by Ford because it was available with reasonable license fees, and because it's designed to "cam out". It's very difficult to overtighten a Philips-head screw, because the tool will slip out at high torque. This meant Ford could use cheaper tools. Of course, there's a downside to the cam-out; it's easy to strip a Philips-head screw, and because it's harder to unscrew than to tighten, a securely-tightened screw will be nigh-impossible to remove. These are major reasons why Philips-head is these days largely confined to small electronics work and wood screws.

Speaking of wood screws, the major type of head in Canada is the Robertson. Robertson was offered to Ford, but it had some disadvantages; first, they wanted more money to license it, and second, it doesn't cam out. The square bit stays in the screw, and the whole setup binds. This makes it ideal for hand tools, as does the ability to securely set the screw on the bit prior to driving (anyone who's tried that with non-magnetic Philips screws will know what a boon it is to be able to put the screw on the end of the driver), but powered tools need a torque-limiting device to avoid breaking things.

Car manufacturers have never liked normal people messing with their cars, and once torque limitation had become cheap, it was inevitable that the fragile, unreliable Philips head would give way to something else. The chosen successor was Torx, a sort of six-pointed star; other than the form of the recess, it's similar to Robertson in its advantages and disadvantages. So why go with Torx, rather than Robertson? The main reason was to keep us from working on cars. Torx bits, when it was new, were a pain to get hold of, whereas anyone who can get to a hardware store could get a Robertson bit; just because it was mostly popular in Canada doesn't mean it was unkown in the US. Nowadays, Torx bits are cheap and easy to get hold of; I have at least three sets knocking around, and at least a couple of the anti-tamper ones with the hole in the middle of the bit.

So now, wood screws have Robertson, and car parts have Torx, and all the niches for Philips have a better competitor in them. Why does Philips keep knocking on?

Because it has a massive user base. Everyone, and I mean everyone, owns a Philips-head screwdriver or five. The car nuts have their Torx bits, but they always come with Philips bits as well. The people who care about woodscrews have Robertson bits, but frankly such people are a fringe group in the US. The vast majority of people buying woodscrews will buy Philips-head, because they already own the bits to drive them.

Personally, I've decided that if at all possible I'll go for Robertson woodscrews. My screwdriver collection includes all three sizes of that bit (as compared to the range from 000 to 4 needed to cover the spectrum of Philips, or the T1-Tn of Torx; although above T10 it tends to go by fives) and so I get the benefits of easy location and secure torque transfer without need for axial pressure essentially free. I may be an American these days, but I can at least admit that Canada does some things right.