Gamifying Guns

[Slash2x]

1. Free enterprise so market your product to the people who will buy em.
2. As a former military member almost ALL of the people I worked with were gamers and military people love to buy guns...
3. If you want to say that something COULD be used for not so nice things, and we should not make them because of that. Well we all need to live in mud huts and get rid of EVERYTHING that could be pointy, or dangerous...
4. Before anyone says guns are made to kill people no they are not they are made to send a projectile at a target. The problem is the jackass pulling the trigger that we need to deal with.

Semi automatic rifles only have one real use and that is to kill people. They are useless for hunting and target shooting. Yes you can kill someone with a car but you can drive to work in one, you can stab someone with a kitchen knife but you can cut the Sunday joint with it. There is no non human killing use of semi auto rifle that cant be done more effectively by a 303 bolt action rifle. However you can't walk into classroom and fire 156 bullets in 2 minutes with a 303 rifle. If you have no intent to kill a human you don't need those weapons.

Ehh if you want to go for numbers a can of gas, a chain, a lock, and timing you can get a whole building of people in a few minutes. Want to restrict gas sales? To answer the next question yes people do this and yes it is terrible but there are no bang sticks involved so the media ignores it.

And if I do want a gun for killing people the that is what I have my 1911 .45 Colt for. Right to bear arms and all that protecting my family you know. For every one idiot out there you have hundreds of thousands of responsible gun owners.

But this is a debate no one ever wins. I choose to not blame an inanimate object for people dying I blame the person using it. I also choose to keep my family protected and not trust other people, like the police or government, to keep them safe.

If someone else makes a different choice, that is their issue to deal with. You do not hear about gun owners who were upset they had a gun when their house is broken into, you hear about people who did not have a gun when they get attacked. If you want to find stories with them, just look for the word victim in the story.

 

[itsthesheppy]

snip

Where did your idea that hunting is a glorious/romantic battle between man and nature come from?

From hunters, largely.

 

[Something Amyss]

3. If you want to say that something COULD be used for not so nice things, and we should not make them because of that. Well we all need to live in mud huts and get rid of EVERYTHING that could be pointy, or dangerous...

ah, the logical fallacy of comparing firearms with less germane objects because ponies. It'll never go away, will it?

 

[Slash2x]

3. If you want to say that something COULD be used for not so nice things, and we should not make them because of that. Well we all need to live in mud huts and get rid of EVERYTHING that could be pointy, or dangerous...

ah, the logical fallacy of comparing firearms with less germane objects because ponies. It'll never go away, will it?

Ahh people who rely on others to keep them safe, by carrying guns, so the can claim logical high ground. They never seem to go away do they? More people are killed with cars every year than guns yet we keep giving cars to 16 year olds.

 

[loa]

Your one and only concern is that it's "cheating" because loltechnology?
How about the fact that this thing is on a gaming expo of all places???
What do actual real guns have lost on a bloody gaming expo?
Computer guided sniper rifles even.

What the hell is wrong with people.

 

[Fluffythepoo]

snip

Where did your idea that hunting is a glorious/romantic battle between man and nature come from?

From hunters, largely.

Huh, ive been left with an almost opposite impression :/

Where do you live? Maybe canadian hunting culture is just different

 

[itsthesheppy]

snip

Where did your idea that hunting is a glorious/romantic battle between man and nature come from?

From hunters, largely.

Huh, ive been left with an almost opposite impression :/

Where do you live? Maybe canadian hunting culture is just different

New Hampshah, kid. There's wicked huntahs around heah. They like to go up to Maine, shoot some dee-ah, crack open a millah and connect with naycha, you know?

 

[Chunga the Great]

Hell, near the start of the latest war in Afghanistan, an American pilot rocketed the shit of 5 Canadian ground soldiers. Woops! Even though he was told not to shoot. A robot wouldn't have fucked up that bad.

Robots wouldn't have been ordered to take an arseload of amphetamines to keep up with the heavy mission load they were saddled with.

Amphetamines are meant to keep you alert, not make you retarded.

It's incredibly difficult to discern friend from foe when you are in an aircraft high above the battle, even in a temperate, non-dusty environment.

Air-to-Ground friendly fire happens far more often than you think.

 

[Shnazz]

Since I am a gamer and a recreational shooter, I feel the need to throw in my two cents. The fun of target shooting is sighting in my rifle and then seeing how well I as a shooter score on the target. This "device" has no appeal to me. In addition, for all of the electronics to remain functional after recoil and possible trauma from dropping the gun, it will have to be expensive as hell for the build quality. Build quality is the reason that you see rifle scopes priced from $50 to $3,000.

Personally, trying to integrate gaming and real shooting does not sound like fun at all. I am perfectly happy keeping my gaming and my shooting separate. This has become more difficult with the political climate here in America, especially after that cringe-worthy press conference from the NRA. "Realistic" games are so laughably far from the real thing. It is unfortunate that both sides of the political fence are going after my hobbies to further a personal agenda.

PS: The purpose of dumping $3,000 on a rifle scope is you you can mount the scope on a rifle, throw the rifle with all of your might, have the scope land on a jagged rock, and still be able to see if that naked girl standing over a mile away has crabs or not.

 

[The Random One]

Lots of people already gave their position on the guns and gamers thing, but I'd like to bring up something much closer to my heart.

In the article, you mentioned that this is part of the democratization of games, and mention Anna Anthropy's dys4ia (which you mispelled in the text BTW - it's supposed to be in lowercase) as a counterpart to this app. I am sorry, but that is an utterly asinine comparison to draw.

The democratization of game making, championed and exemplified by Anna, is about more people being able to create games by using easy-to-learn tools and the internet as a means of distribution. That means that groups that are usually disenfranchise by popular culture - homosexuals, people of colour, transgenders, etc - can contribute meaningfully and consistently to culture, without having to deal with barriers, neither direct (having to convince an investor to back your personal queer game in an industry that still think female characters without huge boobs are certain to doom your game) nor indirect (learning to code in an specific language, paying for certification, pandering to expectation etc). This means a more diverse gaming landscape. An app produced by a company worth billions of dollars, for sale in Apple's walled garden, is the precise opposite of what they champion. One is about more people taking the tools to create; other is about more people having a device that runs games on them all the time, making games a viable avenue of marketing. Their app may end up being taken off the App Store if their gun is indeed used in a mass shooting of some sort; apps about homosexual content have been taken off without the need for any tragedy.

 

[WarpZone]

I can't fault TrackingPoint for understanding the appeal. But as I looked down those costly optics, I felt my back tense up as I thought: Please don't let a madman kill someone with this gun, because if he did, and trained for the murder on the iPad, we're all in serious trouble.

Um. Yes, Rob. Yes you can fault TrackingPoint. For conflating their product with video games. And you can award them extra Hipocracy Points for doing it not a month after the president of the NRA tried to blame the deaths caused by their product on your industry.

And no, Rob, if some madman kills somebody with that gun, and they "trained for murder" on the iPad, "we" are not in serious trouble. The murderer is.

That's the way it fucking works. Stop acting like the people blaming violence on video games have a leg to stand on. They don't.

If a gun manufacturer starts trying to use iphone apps to sell guns to murderers, you still blame the murderers before you blame the gun manufacturer, and you blame the gun manufacturer before you blame the guy who wrote the iphone app. This is common sense. This is real life. Get your facts straight before you sound off in a public venue again.

 

[Karma168]

Regarding senators, some of us who've studied American history recognize that sometimes senators need shooting. I think we as a country miss the era in which senators were nervous about the dangers of revolution turning violent.[footnote]Note how the peaceful OWS demonstration was cleaned up by law enforcement, discreetly at night at the behest of corporate influences on the state. When someone does shoot a senator, they can point at things like that and say "we said our piece and no-one listened."[/footnote] It might be nice to see our senators start behaving like they really don't want to be shot, and acknowledge that no-one has actually shot them on account of everyone choosing not to do so.[footnote]And yes, I know this resonates with typical pro-gun vitriol, but this is one of their points I agree with: People in high places who aren't afraid of us proletarians tend to lose touch with our tribulations until we bust out the guillotines. And then it's too late.[/footnote]

All this would do is cause politicians to pander to the side most likely to kill them if they don't agree. Take gun control (for the most obvious example), the pro-gun control side probably aren't likely to shoot a senator for voting against gun control. but what about the other way round? It's more likely a pro-gun nut would try shoot a senator than an anti-gun nut (though you could have a sort of 'false-flag' situation).

Politicians will always pander for votes but if they are pandering to avoid injury then you'll be less likely to see pandering to the 'less' dangerous opinion.

 

[weirdee]

at the very least, the specific type of ammo will make it largely obvious that it's being used

 

[TotalerKrieger]

This firearm is not really any more of danger to the public than any other rifle. The pricetag alone will keep it out of the hands of most people. How often do you hear of criminals using a Barret .50cal sniper rifle? It is completely legal for civilians to own, but the vast majority of firearm-related crimes are commited with cheap and disposable handguns, not ridiculously expensive uber-weapons.

People going on about political assassinations and such need to remember that JFK's killer used a short-barreled bolt-action designed in 1891, hardly advanced technology. If someone is going to commit murder with a rifle, the only real pre-requistes are availability of ammunition and target practice. Even in 2013, a successful assassination could be potentially carried out with a breech-loaded musket as those with rifled barrels are plenty accurate within a reasonable distance.

 

[5mj7R7yf4Dwr3gdZyyu9PeGNwYjlNrjzuh3iTXQG]

Regarding senators, some of us who've studied American history recognize that sometimes senators need shooting. I think we as a country miss the era in which senators were nervous about the dangers of revolution turning violent... It might be nice to see our senators start behaving like they really don't want to be shot, and acknowledge that no-one has actually shot them

All this would do is cause politicians to pander to the side most likely to kill them if they don't agree...

Politicians will always pander for votes but if they are pandering to avoid injury then you'll be less likely to see pandering to the 'less' dangerous opinion.

We already see this exact thing and the end results. Not regarding gun control[footnote]Gun enthusiasts don't usually get violent until we actually send officers to go collect their armaments, which we do in rare circumstances.[/footnote] but abortion, in which we've actually seen bombings and assassinations, not of representatives, but of providers. And that really does not do well for the anti-abortion cause.

Similarly, Muslim radicals have a strong foothold in Europe, and they will occasionally take a potshot at a representative that offends them (though they seem to like authors and journalists more), and so far all this does is make us infidels more resentful of the presence of Islam at large. (I'm not sure the radicals care, since they seem to want to have a go at purging the nonbelievers, but that's speculation).

But we've already seen that representatives enjoy the publicity bump of getting shot at (e.g. when it doesn't kill them or prevent them from continuing to function as a representative). It's not when the radicals are shooting at you that's a problem. It's when the rational folk think you're better off dead than alive that you have to fear, because they'll coordinate a coup. (See the July 20 Plot.)

238U

 

[Spartanmk1]

At the price tag I would not worry about it for a good long time.

I personally think it's neat. A bit extreme, but neat.

I'd like to try it out. I get a kick out of hitting steel at 200 yards, let alone a mile plus.

 

[DarkSpectre]

As a system which might give the civilian populace a means with which to help level the asymmetry in warfare with a governmental force it appears great. It won't make up totally for lack of training in a revolution but it might give them a fighting chance against trained soldiers. Pity it is so expensive.
Personally I wouldn't want it for hunting or target practice. It would become a crutch. Would make it boring too.

 

[SiskoBlue]

I was surprised to find out a few months ago that second-hand gun sales in America don't require any vetting like buying a new gun does.

One thing I've very curious about. How come bullets, guns and all this other paraphenalia isn't logged on a national database? It's almost impossible to buy a car in the UK without ID, and a confirmed address. Would it be so difficult to ensure that all firearms made are tracked by owner, and if you sell a firearm without proper identification and reporting it, you get a massive fine?

And would it be beyond the realms of possibility to label each bullet so you know where it was made and sold? They can do it with eggs so can't imagine a bullet would be harder.

I know people would find ways around these systems but it would mean finding the responsible shooter in any incident would be a lot easier. But that's what they're avoiding isn't it. People may not buy their guns and ammo if it means they lose the annonymity if they decide to kill someone.

No one has bought a pistol without having the thought of when they'd shoot someone with it. That's disturbing.