I'm generally of the opinion that games are a lesser evil than TV so I'm slightly happier when the kids turn on the Xbox instead of open the flix. However, if there is a gap of a few days, the downloads start ... And we cant play without the updates. A simple solution could be let people play the version they already have while the update is in progress. But no, the services have to be on the internet and their economics perhaps doesn't consider it worthy enough to support the last week's version.
When I was growing up .. to program, my friend and I connected the zxspectrum to a TV and switched it on to instantly get a BASIC prompt. Now I don't know what to do to get kids to experience the joy of programming (yeah I know about scratch yadayada). Making 2d games doesn't cut it for them since they're seen visual Nirvana before they got to create it. Strangely there seem to be some corners still fresh - like this surprise I got https://sriku.org/blog/2019/07/16/prolog-is-magic/ .
Minecraft is the other sane and creative place that I let the kids hang out on. Relatively infrequent updates (thank you from the bottom of heart) and open ended creative play that could be seen as a programming/learning activity if I squint the right way.
As Raph Koster put it - "fun is another word for learning".
Another factor I wonder about is whether the economic system incentivizes this degradation. By shareholders insisting that their companies keep increasing their profits - even giving it an inviolable religious name like "fiduciary responsibility" - people at the helm could easily be forced to not "do the right thing" for the people. A few like Jobs may have been strong enough at one point ... But they are very few and most have no stomach or vision to challenge / fight that force.
When I was growing up .. to program, my friend and I connected the zxspectrum to a TV and switched it on to instantly get a BASIC prompt. Now I don't know what to do to get kids to experience the joy of programming (yeah I know about scratch yadayada). Making 2d games doesn't cut it for them since they're seen visual Nirvana before they got to create it. Strangely there seem to be some corners still fresh - like this surprise I got https://sriku.org/blog/2019/07/16/prolog-is-magic/ .
Minecraft is the other sane and creative place that I let the kids hang out on. Relatively infrequent updates (thank you from the bottom of heart) and open ended creative play that could be seen as a programming/learning activity if I squint the right way.
As Raph Koster put it - "fun is another word for learning".
Another factor I wonder about is whether the economic system incentivizes this degradation. By shareholders insisting that their companies keep increasing their profits - even giving it an inviolable religious name like "fiduciary responsibility" - people at the helm could easily be forced to not "do the right thing" for the people. A few like Jobs may have been strong enough at one point ... But they are very few and most have no stomach or vision to challenge / fight that force.
(Excuse typos due to mobile)