Simulation/Sandbox games probably do well because of their open ended nature.
My GF, daughter and me all play Stardew Valley but we play it wildly differently. It is a farming/relationship simulator for them and some kind of capitalist min/max farming and mining simulation for me.
But yes, the Sims 3 and the 700 add ons are all heavily in their rotation, they make me look like a gaming amateur if you go by hours logged.
My wife plays 'dont starve' like mad (well into 4k hours). She has never step foot in the underworld. Building huge structures on the main area. So I figured I would show her terraria and minecraft. No interest at all. She voraciously played any point and click adventure game she could. That included many hidden object games (good and terrible). There is one Sudoku game she has also several thousand hours into. The match 3 games were amusing to her for a few weeks and she gave up on them. FPS and factory sims are out for her ('they look boring'). So what sticks and doesn't is all over the place.
I guess it's like me and movies. I like sci-fi, but that's not enough for me to like a movie. I don't typically watch dramas, but if it's got enough other interesting things going for it, I can enjoy a drama film.
I really like certain directors, but not everything they make.
I know there are some that can enjoy something based on a single aspect alone, but I imagine most are like me. Then again, it's possible I'm the weird one.
Don't Starve has a certain point-and-clickiness about it. There's one player character and a lot of noticing objects of interest and clicking to pick them up. That's probably important.
If I had to guess, I would say no. Also if I had to guess she would say Rimworld is 'too scifi' and Dwarf Fortress would be wildly too much management for what she wants. I showed her Oxygen Not Included. It was too sci fi even though she liked the graphics. I can usually spot games she would like, with an occasional miss. Those two would be surprising if she did. I can usually pick out the ones she would not like. There is even a bugged out game 'tale of a pale swordsman' that she used to play all the time. But I think she has grown tired of that one. As it is bugged out on the ending.
Me on the other hand 'yeah I forgot about those two and need to check them out'. My back catalog is quite deep at the moment so I am trying not to buy anything until I play what I got.
That is the thing about suggesting games to someone. It is tough to do. Even though you wildly like the game others do not.
Isn't it kind of misguided to approach this as men studying women and trying to make more things that appeal to them?
Video game distribution is insanely low friction. Last month the best selling game was Resident Evil (6m copies) and right alongside it you have a Slay the Spire 2 (3m copies) which is made and distributed by like... 15 people maybe?
I definitely don't think I could make a better game for women than women, so hopefully more girls get into playing and making games. It is definitely one of those areas where you have an opportunity to stand out from the 10,000 games that come out every day.
> Isn't it kind of misguided to approach this as men studying women and trying to make more things that appeal to them?
Why would it be misguided? There are plenty of works that are created by women that appeal to men (Harry Potter, Animorphs, Full Metal Alchemist), so I don't think there's anything wrong with men trying to make something that appeals to women.
I think you are saying something fundamentally different than the parent comment.
I think they are saying 'make something that appeals specifically to you as the creator, and it will resonate with some people out there'.
I personally agree that this seems top result in works I enjoy. (As evidenced by behind-the-scenes content or interviews with creators espousing a similar philosophy.)
I think my advice still follows. If you're making a game for yourself, then it's best to know and understand yourself. There's often a difference between what people think they want and what will actually bring them joy.
I'm interested in helping my daughters discover content that appeals to them, and to do that I need to understand what it is about certain games that is appealing for them.
> I definitely don't think I could make a better game for women than women, so hopefully more girls get into playing and making games.
Some of my favourite game designers and authors are women. I don't think a creator needs to share the gender, sexuality, or ethnicity of their target audience in order to make games that appeal to that audience. They need to _observe and listen_.
Roberta Williams is at the top of the list; her games were a huge part of my youth. Lesser known here would be Lori Cole, who made Hero's Quest. Loved those Quest games.
Rebecca Heineman comes next; again, the games she worked on were massively influential upon me.
I have much respect for Amy Hennig, who pushed narrative gaming to new levels.
Kim Swift is responsible for _hundreds_ of hours of time lost to multiplayer games with friends of mine.
There's good odds most gamers of my age have played, and enjoyed, something worked on by Sheri Graner Ray.
Honorable mention is Corrinne Yu; I started following her career with passive interest when she was hired at 3DRealms, I expected she had the potential to be the next John Carmack.
> Lesser known here would be Lori Cole, who made Hero's Quest.
Also lesser known because due to a trademark dispute, all sequels and the VGA remakes of the series were renamed to Quest for Glory.
I deeply enjoyed that whole series in my childhood, even despite how weird the voxel-based art in the fifth game was. IIRC, I learned the "razzle dazzle root beer" cheat in Hero's Quest before I learned the Konami code, and, with the help of my dad, even learned how to hex edit my save games in Quest for Glory 2.
If we agree that women statistically have different preferences with regards to video games than men, wouldn't it also be reasonable to think that women might have difference preferences towards careers and hobbies than men?
The past 40 years we went from pinball and arcade machines, to most men playing some sort of game on a personal device (phone, console, computer etc). I could see the next 40 years capturing women in the same capacity given the right infrastructure and content.
Calling it a faux pas implies that being treated as women is a tiny, inconsequential thing for trans women. It means the world to me.
If I "retained" masculine interests, it's because I still enjoyed them, even after I no longer felt pressure to act like a man.
I played Harvest Moon, Animal Crossing, and preferred beautiful/cute games before I realized I was trans. I probably would have played more if I didn't care about my friends calling me a f--. I also like plenty of "guy" things but so do plenty of cis women. I had this exciting period of trying all sorts of new things when I came out and I'm only just starting to see what I truly enjoy when I don't worry about the opinions of others.
What do they mean by "assets"? Is it securities in the form of stocks/bonds/etc?
If so they own a bunch of bits on a server somewhere that technically represent an amount of goods/services they could never use in 10,000 lifetimes.
If Elon had 10 billion eggs in a warehouse it would be real easy to fix the price of eggs. We could also reduce healthcare costs by making Bezos & Zuck stop going to the doctor 4,000,000 times a day.
The reason peoples labor isn't granting them the goods and services they want is way more complex than just: "the billionaires are taking them all". You could kill every billionaire tomorrow and distribute all their wealth and it would only make shit cost more.
You are so close. The rich don't buy all the doctor visits, they buy whole farms/doctor practices and place a tax paid to them on every transaction. We are switching to a society structured for maximum extraction everywhere because there is so much capital at the top looking for places to park, and why wealth disparity is so bad for a society. The feudal lords got paid on every transaction and with the current disparity the rich are buying their way back to that system.
Poor spend money to survive, circulating through the system.
Rich park excess money in PE buyouts of previously owner owned dental practices, HVAC, rental properties, etc and 'optimizing' for maximum extraction. Some capital is needed to fund new things, but excess turns EVERTHING into rent extraction with barons taking their cut above all else.
More and more of the services/things in life are owned not by the person that started the business, but by the rich whose money 'is just bits and has no impact on the poors'. Rich don't compete for doctor appointments, they just extract more and more $$$ by owning every doctors visit, every practice, every corporate farm. And the poors can't compete. Hence you end up with a feudal system because of the disparity. The rich should have enough to enjoy a good life and to have freed up investment capital in the system to start new things, but not enough to re-convert society back to feudalism where they own all and get paid a percentage on everything, always, just for existing.
Couldn't you blast through all of that with some kind of warning like: "All labor and part prices are estimates, for exact pricing leave your name and number and we will get back to you".
From the Washington state attorney general’s website:
“ Estimate: You are entitled to a written price estimate for the repairs you have authorized before the work is performed, only if you deal face-to-face with the facility and the work is expected to cost more than $100. Once you receive an estimate, the facility may not charge you more than 10% above the estimated costs without your prior approval.
The estimate includes, among other things: the odometer reading; a description of the problem or the specific repair requested; choice of alternatives for the customer; the estimated cost; labor and parts necessary for the specific diagnosis/repair requested”
So the LLM builds an estimate. Maybe it’s under 10% difference when the customer walks through the door.
When it’s not, there’s a big problem. Yes, this is still before work has begun, but now you’ve wasted the customers time. And potentially wasted their money if the vehicle was towed in.
> “ Estimate: You are entitled to a written price estimate for the repairs you have authorized before the work is performed, only if you deal face-to-face with the facility and the work is expected to cost more than $100. Once you receive an estimate, the facility may not charge you more than 10% above the estimated costs without your prior approval.
I don't see how "estimates" given over the phone by the LLM and "estimate" as mentioned in this quote refers to the same thing, for the legal purpose of this statement. This would be strictly before repairs have been authorized, and it's obviously not a written estimate. If the client requests a written estimate, it would have to come at a later time after the human mechanic reviews related costs (like specialty parts availability/ship times), or the client bringing the machine in for physical inspection by the mechanic.
From my understanding of the article, it doesn't sound like the LLM is built to fully circumvent a customer phone call by the owner/mechanic before approving a job request unmanned: It's simply to not let go of a client lead because there was no one available to answer the phone, without needing to hire a full-time phone receptionist.
It seems highly unlikely a customer is towing their vehicle in without talking to the mechanic directly first, who now has some context and the ability to sift nonsense requests from realistic ones from the logs before calling or writing to the customer on their own time with all the expert nuance necessary.
I didn’t say it was a written estimate. I said the opposite.
Do you know how towing a car into this particular shop works? If so, please enlighten me.
In most shops, mechanics do not talk to customers. Mechanics get paid to work on vehicles - not talk on phones.
Regardless, the potential for sticker shock exists if the LLM and the mechanic disagree on pricing. You can and will lose customers due to this. I’ve seen it happen. That’s why service advisors are trained to only quote for diagnostics over the phone.
Finally, in the sales training we got, we were taught to not compete on price. This rule doubly applies to a high end shop. They make their money by competing on quality and timeliness. Adding the LLM to the equation compromises both of those.
I didn't mean "estimate" in some technical/legal sense, replace the word with "our best guess" or whatever terminology is used by the 1000s of companies that are using LLMs but not being held legally responsible for what they say.
Based on the post I would guess it hasn't been live long and gone through a ton of battle testing.
I wish her luck though, things get much murkier as you start stacking more intents and it is no longer just a chatbot that funnels to text to speech.
People also assume "AI" is a miracle worker now so they will be pissed when they say "Yeah just email me at charlezmcnaughton@gmail.com" and it spells it completely wrong. Like there is no reality where a transcriber is going to reliably transcribe most emails correctly, so for shit where it is vital to be 100% accurate (email, name, etc.) you have a battle on your hands.
side: I found Anthropic to be prohibitively slow for live voice chat. I was getting response times in the 1-2s range which when combined with the other parts of generating a response led to 2.5s+ silent periods before responding. Groq is insanely fast if you want pure performance from an LLM. Like <200ms to complete a response.
Seriously for audio conversations the LLM layer is fairly stable. Getting STT and TTS to be reliable has been a much bigger hurdle.
I hear the same phrases 10+ times in a day and they stress things a bit different each time, it seems like an exceptionally hard problem. My dream of a super reliable [llm output stream -> streaming TTS endpoint -> webRTC audio stream] seems pretty much impossible at this point.
Is the goal to trick people into thinking it is a human or to create a high trust robot? I am hoping as voice agents get more sophisticated the stigma around "It's making me talk to a robot" lessens so we don't need to worry so much about convincing someone it is a real person.
My GF, daughter and me all play Stardew Valley but we play it wildly differently. It is a farming/relationship simulator for them and some kind of capitalist min/max farming and mining simulation for me.
But yes, the Sims 3 and the 700 add ons are all heavily in their rotation, they make me look like a gaming amateur if you go by hours logged.
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