CTA: Chicago, Thinking w/ Ass

Every few months, the Chicagoland news outlets run their pieces on how the Chicago Transit Authority is in crisis mode and have issued and doomsday date at which they will completely fail and shut down due to lack of funds without some sort of government intervention/bailout/price hike. And yet, last summer, the geniuses at the CTA go and expose themselves to a breach of contract suit for prematurely pulling down Grand Theft Auto 4 advertisements from the sides of their busses and bus stops.

As a result of the suit, the CTA lost/had to acquiesce, and GTA 4 ads are now back up in time for the holidays. Victory for the games industry!

Well, for 6 weeks at any rate. Come the new year, the CTA will be turning down potential easy revenue by implementing a ban on all "M" rated game advertising on CTA property. (For what it is worth, "M" is roughly equivalent of "R" in the movie industry.) More detail here:

http://www.gamepolitics.com/2008/11/19/gta-iv-ads-back-chicago-buses-future-m-rated-game-ads-banned

I like this quote:

Last week, the CTA board voted to ban advertising for video games rated "M" and above. The ordinance, which takes effect Jan. 1, cites a "demonstrable correlation" between intensely violent video games and violent or aggressive behavior.

Ok, first things first: CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSATION. Idiots.

Second: There is nothing demonstrable at all here. There has NEVER been definitive proof that mature rated games do in fact cause behavior change.

Third: We are talking about ADVERTISEMENTS. So, even though it has never been proven that the games themselves cause violent behavior, it seems quite ridiculous to think that the CTA has taken it upon themselves to declare that exposure to video game ADVERTISEMENTS is what instigated the rash of shootings earlier this year. (The game itself was not even released at the time.)

This is insane. I could probably go on about how the video game industry has directly employed hundreds and hundreds of Chicagoans for well over 30 years. I could go on how the industry indirectly supports thousands of Chicagoans and their businesses. I could go on about how the games industry has this far proven recession proof and will continue to provide jobs and sales tax revenue to Chicago. (Highest in the country! Thanks Cook County!) Surely the CTA could use a piece of that action?

But all of this is futile. Instead, I will wait, palm at the ready, so that I can firmly deposit my face into it when the CTA once again has to run crying over the airwaves, begging for a handout yet again.

P.S. Gun control does not work.

Adobe: Welcome to 1998

Blog updates are still difficult things to manage as my living conditions are not currently condusive to optimal after hours productivity. So this will be short, but I had to find time to make this comment: Adobe, you suck.

Recently, Flash Player version 10 was released. Seeing as Flash is ubiquitous throughout the web, I felt the need to update. Unfortunately, Adobe's uptake of moderninity is glacial, and they do not support Windows XP 64bit. "A minor problem," I thought, as I figured that even though my OS of choice is XP64, I generally rely on the 32bit version of Internet Explorer running in emulation mode for my browsing. Therefore, I should be able to install and run Flash Player with no problem.

Not so fast. Adobe's brain dead Flash Player updater must do some sort of superficial OS check, and even though I should technically be able to run Flash Player 10 under 32bit Explorer, I am denied access to the update.

How about this Adobe: How about getting your head out of your ass and joining us in the year 2000 by taking 5 minutes to google up some info on 64 bit OS's and learn that 32bit apps do run on it?

In the end, I had to log into a 32bit computer, go to the update page, deny the auto update, download the package to a usb drive, and then migrate and install the distribution on my 64bit machine. I should not have to get all crafty and trick Flash Player into allowing me to install it.

For years, Adobe has irritated me. This Flash Player thing is just one more straw on the camel's back. A bigger concern for me Adobe's Photoshop, which is the defacto 2D image editing application in use throughout our industry, despite all efforts of its publisher to apparently disregard or outright discourage its use by us.

Quickly, Adobe's list of crimes against the video game industry over the years:
1.) No GPU support (SLI or otherwise.)
2.) The great TGA Alpha Channel F'up of version 7.
3.) No industry standard texture format support out of the box. (Must get 3rd party plugins)
4.) No 64bit support.
5.) No scripting (apparently this was somewhat addressed with a piecemeal add on module. I can't be bothered to look into it at this point as I only fear the worst in regards to its supposed functionality.)
8.) Horrible color optimization and palettizing tools.
9.) No animation tools, (beyond the "there today, gone tomorrow" parallel installation of Image Ready a few versions back.)

Photoshop is a dinosaur and needs to evolve or die. Otherwise we need a new solution that directly addresses the needs of the modern game industry artist. If Adobe doesn't adapt, as soon as something new comes along, I am all over it.