Have you ever been a wrong-headed curmudgeon about an emerging tech? Gaming or otherwise?

[Zed Clampet]

As I said in another thread, one of my grandfathers wasn't happy that they were adding talking to movies, and, much later, I wrote a paper about how bad of an idea voice mail was (my theory was that everyone would stop answering their phones which would cause inefficiency). Now we have people fighting AI with everything they've got, and I often think of the Internet as the beginning of the end to humanity.

So what techs have you been totally against? Maybe they didn't turn out so bad?

As far as gaming goes, I thought Nvidia Hairworks was a waste of resources kind of like I think ray tracing is now.

 

[Johnway]

i suppose for a short time i had my reservations of Blu-ray. My main reason? it couldn't run DVD format. So what if Blurays were superior? it was such a change in format and made collections obsollete like the VHS/DVD. When someone told me that Bluray drives could read DVDs i instantly dropped the negativity and was completely on board.

Conversely back in the early 00's i was all in with Radeon but after the debacle with my pc with one in my PC, i opted to Geforce and never looked back. Geforce just worked, many games were designed for Geforce and the tech was superior. I'm still Nvidia, but the price of graphic cards is really pushing that trust.

 

[Zloth]

People keep thinking I'm against modern mobile phones (more like handheld computers that can do phone calls). I'm not! I didn't get one for a very long time, but that's just me. They're great for somebody who's out and about, running errands, picking up kids, and so on. Me, I'm near either my work computer or my home computer most of the time. I don't want to spend hundreds of dollars just so I have a computer handy when I go to the grocery store or family dinners. A flip phone is enough for emergency phone calls on the road. (Until I got a Tesla. You CAN operate it without their app, but it's rough. I've still got almost no applications on that phone, though.)

 

[Zed Clampet]

People keep thinking I'm against modern mobile phones (more like handheld computers that can do phone calls). I'm not! I didn't get one for a very long time, but that's just me. They're great for somebody who's out and about, running errands, picking up kids, and so on. Me, I'm near either my work computer or my home computer most of the time. I don't want to spend hundreds of dollars just so I have a computer handy when I go to the grocery store or family dinners. A flip phone is enough for emergency phone calls on the road. (Until I got a Tesla. You CAN operate it without their app, but it's rough. I've still got almost no applications on that phone, though.)

According to the weekly report from my iphone, last week I spent an average of 2 minutes per day on my phone. That's a lot for me. Most weeks I have no idea where my phone is. Money well spent.

 

[Colif]

I only have a mobile phone because a job I had expected me to have one. It got more use in the last 5 years as an MP3 player than a phone. I only use it now as a remote for my Wiim or I wouldn't know where it is like Zed.
I think I have called about 10 people all year. At the most. No one this month.

I am resisting AI. I realise it has its uses but I don't see any I need it for right now.

there are probably others I don't have any use for... RT comes to mind. None of the games I play use it... funny, GPU can in theory do it.

 

[isleepinabed]

I would say, for me, digital downloads.
I used to be a collector and saw the move to digital as a way to lose ownership, to demand internet connections, card purchases, not being able to trade or sell, etc. This already in a context of poor packaging, physical games starting to come without manuals, poor prints, etc.

Not to say that some of those fears have not come to pass, unfortunately...

But these days I cherish stuff simply not taking up any room, games generally being cheaper to get and I equate the purchases pretty much like I would have an arcade game: I pay my money and I get my entertainment use out of it without taking anything home.

 

[Alm]

I thought we'd never get photo realistic graphics. Also I thought that we'd never get AI in the fashion we have now.

 

[COLGeek]

Yes. Now get off my grass.

Oh, 3D movies suck. They can't make a bad movie good, but can make a good movie bad.

 

[Pifanjr]

I've never been wrong-headed about something, I'm always right.

There's definitely been things I thought weren't good enough to be used yet or were used in places they aren't necessary, but I don’t remember being against any technology in general.

One thing I am against in most cases is smart appliances or The Internet of Things. I'm pretty sure 95% of "smart" features is never used by the average consumer.

 

[March's Ghost]

Never been against anything specifically, however I have been and still are against the push for new technologies or methodologies to be adopted by the masses as soon as the fledgling first versions (or even alphas and betas) are barely out the door.

 

[Zed Clampet]

I've never been wrong-headed about something, I'm always right.

There's definitely been things I thought weren't good enough to be used yet or were used in places they aren't necessary, but I don’t remember being against any technology in general.

One thing I am against in most cases is smart appliances or The Internet of Things. I'm pretty sure 95% of "smart" features is never used by the average consumer.

You've completely misunderstood the purpose of smart appliances, which is to make you see an advertisement every time you open your refrigerator.

 

[BeardyHat]

I would say, for me, digital downloads.
I used to be a collector and saw the move to digital as a way to lose ownership, to demand internet connections, card purchases, not being able to trade or sell, etc. This already in a context of poor packaging, physical games starting to come without manuals, poor prints, etc.

Not to say that some of those fears have not come to pass, unfortunately...

But these days I cherish stuff simply not taking up any room, games generally being cheaper to get and I equate the purchases pretty much like I would have an arcade game: I pay my money and I get my entertainment use out of it without taking anything home.

Never been against DD myself, but I am very much a "Get it out of my house" type of person. I used to save boxes for everything, hardware, games, etc, etc, etc. One day, while my wife was traveling, I was home alone and wandering around the house when I had this epiphany, "Why am I saving all this garbage?" tossed it all and never looked back (though I do sometimes wish I'd kept my Half-Life and Quake 2 boxes, mostly just to look at, but I don't know what I'd do with them otherwise).

Eventually got rid of all my CD's, games on disc (except a handful that were important to me) and on and on. My parents love to clutter their house with a bunch of crap and have stored and moved boxes of crap from the 60's and 70's to numerous houses over the years, stuff they've not looked at since and I don't want to be that.

You've completely misunderstood the purpose of smart appliances, which is to make you see an advertisement every time you open your refrigerator.

I'd give this a cry emoji if I could.

I guess I kind of thought smartwatches were dumb? Then I bought a used Pebble and loved it, bought another one brand new later on and when that eventually broke, bought a Fossil Hybrid HR, which was utter garbage. Now I'm back to thinking they're dumb and am sporting a $30 Timex Expedition.

Otherwise, you'll never convince me that cars overstuffed with Tech are amazing and great. I absolutely know I'm not wrong about this.

 

[isleepinabed]

Never been against DD myself, but I am very much a "Get it out of my house" type of person. I used to save boxes for everything, hardware, games, etc, etc, etc. One day, while my wife was traveling, I was home alone and wandering around the house when I had this epiphany, "Why am I saving all this garbage?" tossed it all and never looked back (though I do sometimes wish I'd kept my Half-Life and Quake 2 boxes, mostly just to look at, but I don't know what I'd do with them otherwise).

Eventually got rid of all my CD's, games on disc (except a handful that were important to me) and on and on. My parents love to clutter their house with a bunch of crap and have stored and moved boxes of crap from the 60's and 70's to numerous houses over the years, stuff they've not looked at since and I don't want to be that.

Yes! I wish it was as easy to declutter other stuff as games are. You kind of feel guilty for chucking stuff in the trash but some stuff you just can't give it away...

 

[Colif]

Oh, 3D movies suck. They can't make a bad movie good, but can make a good movie bad.

The same can be said about graphics. Amazing graphics won't make a bad game, good. No matter how many explosions you put on screen... Suicide Squad comes to mind.

We currently have a 3d tv... I found the glasses yesterday. That or Sony make glasses now

I never used the feature. I do have one movie that is 3d but I never watched it.

We will have a new TV next week so it will never be seen... oh well. Only a Mad Max movie, seen all the good ones already.

 

[Zloth]

Oh, I thought of one! Streaming music & movies. Similar to a lot of people and their games, I want my music and my movies right here with me. Sadly, the ability to do that is fading away. I'm tempted to buy a new BluRay player just so I have a spare one in ten years.

No one this month.

I had to do some math to make sure you weren't posting that a few minutes after the month started. 😉

I thought we'd never get photo realistic graphics. Also I thought that we'd never get AI in the fashion we have now.

We still don't. Trees don't turn into low-poly versions when they get too far away in photos. Grass doesn't vanish 40m away, either. And the ray tracing in photos is absolutely astounding.

Yes. Now get off my grass.

But somebody just told me I was supposed to touch it!

Oh, 3D movies suck. They can't make a bad movie good, but can make a good movie bad.

3D in games is awesome when it works right, because the perspective is calculated constantly anyway. Tell the game how far you are from the screen, do the perspective calculation once for each eye, and you're set: perfect 3D. For movies, it's set before it's shown with only a vague idea of where the viewer might be.

 

[Colif]

I had to do some math to make sure you weren't posting that a few minutes after the month started. 😉

no, it was still last year.

 

[Pifanjr]

Oh, I thought of one! Streaming music & movies. Similar to a lot of people and their games, I want my music and my movies right here with me. Sadly, the ability to do that is fading away. I'm tempted to buy a new BluRay player just so I have a spare one in ten years.

I heard that streaming games is pretty decent nowadays, but I still don't trust it. I want to be able to play games even if my wife and kid both decide to watch YouTube videos at the same time.

It does make a lot of sense in theory though. I'd love to play modern games on high settings without having to pay hundreds of euros for a video card.

 

[Zed Clampet]

The first streaming service I tried was pretty crap. I don't remember the name of it, but it was set up like a gaming cafe and you had to pay by the hour. I would be broke in no time.

To make it work for me, assuming the tech was good, you'd have to have a fairly reasonable unlimited plan. The bigger problem is that I guarantee you they wouldn't have the games I like to play.

 

[Colif]

With music you can do both for some artists, stream and or buy, for the ones who still release CD's anyway. I see streaming as a personalised radio station without any advertising. You may own some of it but not all. Its a cheap way to find new music, I rarely listen to anything I had a year ago now unless I want to.
I didn't buy any CD last year but I made up for it in ways to listen to music.

I don't watch movies so I don't pay for those services. They harder to buy now.
Streaming games probably has latency issues still as I haven't gotten any closer to USA. I haven't really tried any. Still play games I can install locally.