Lazy Programmers, Or Arrogant Apple?

Ian Bogost: The computational ecosystem is burgeoning. We have more platforms today than ever before, from mobile devices to microcomputers to game consoles to specialized embedded systems. Yet, a prevailing attitude about making computational creativity longs for uniformity: game engines that target multiple platforms to produce the same plain-vanilla experience, authoring tools that export to…

Ian Bogost:

The computational ecosystem is burgeoning. We have more platforms today than ever before, from mobile devices to microcomputers to game consoles to specialized embedded systems. Yet, a prevailing attitude about making computational creativity longs for uniformity: game engines that target multiple platforms to produce the same plain-vanilla experience, authoring tools that export to every popular device at the lowest common denominator; and, of course, the tyranny of the web, where everything that once worked well on a particular platform is remade to work poorly everywhere.

It is a kind of computational extirpation, where everything unique is crippled or cleansed in order to service a perverted belief in universality. I consider it a kind of jingoism, and I hope we can outgrow or destroy it.

Falling into the lowest common denominator trap would devastate innovation.

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