Except the actual P(ego|ent, sim) is not based on the percentage of cases where the game includes a self-insert, but the cases where such a self-insert is to be glorified in the simulation.
Your D&D reference makes an interesting point. Close to 100% of computer games do involve glorification of the self-insert—whether that’s a basketball game or Grand Theft Auto. (Almost all of the counterexamples, as measured by gameplay instances, were designed by Will Wright.) But a high percentage of roleplaying games don’t involve glorification of the self-insert. BUT, these non-self-glorifying roleplaying games are not mass-merchandise products. (The mass market for D&D and White Wolf games ARE self-glorifying munchkins.)
I’m not aware of, for example, any Sid Meyer games where the self-insert glorification is of the game’s programmer(s), as opposed to the game’s player.
I’m talking about the player. There’s no reason to talk about the programmer. You think God is the programmer? That doesn’t correspond to what we see in our world today. You are assuming God lives in a society with an economy so primitive it doesn’t have skill specialization.
’m talking about the player. There’s no reason to talk about the programmer. You think God is the programmer?
Just the opposite. My assumption is that God is not the programmer, therefore he has no independent ability whatsoever to actually follow-through. The only person who can build follow-through into the simulation is the programmer. If every God was a programmer (like JoshuaZ suggests), ten percent of the God-programmers bothering to build in follow-through for the simulated beings that gratified their egos might make sense. But, assuming specialization where God is just a player, why would the programmer design in a Heaven to reward simulated people who worshiped and glorified the player? The simulated beings never did the slightest thing for the programmer, after all.
Maybe there would be a lot of demand for games with follow-through, but how many current games do you know of that spend the time and effort not just to program in a Heaven for dead characters, but then spend resources actually simulating it while the program runs? Where the Heaven is actually a Heaven, as opposed to another simulated world of troubles and suffering existing to entertain the player?
So my expectation is that a follow-through value of 0.1 is orders of magnitude too high. Not even 10% of the simulations are going to even have the option of an afterlife, and then most people won’t turn it on in the options screen because they’d rather spend the computing power on a bigger/better primary simulation.
why would the programmer design in a Heaven to reward simulated people who worshiped and glorified the player?
It’s part of the game. It’s not something that happens after the game end. Possibly Heaven and Hell keep getting fuller and fuller as the game goes on.
Your D&D reference makes an interesting point. Close to 100% of computer games do involve glorification of the self-insert—whether that’s a basketball game or Grand Theft Auto. (Almost all of the counterexamples, as measured by gameplay instances, were designed by Will Wright.) But a high percentage of roleplaying games don’t involve glorification of the self-insert. BUT, these non-self-glorifying roleplaying games are not mass-merchandise products. (The mass market for D&D and White Wolf games ARE self-glorifying munchkins.)
I’m talking about the player. There’s no reason to talk about the programmer. You think God is the programmer? That doesn’t correspond to what we see in our world today. You are assuming God lives in a society with an economy so primitive it doesn’t have skill specialization.
Just the opposite. My assumption is that God is not the programmer, therefore he has no independent ability whatsoever to actually follow-through. The only person who can build follow-through into the simulation is the programmer. If every God was a programmer (like JoshuaZ suggests), ten percent of the God-programmers bothering to build in follow-through for the simulated beings that gratified their egos might make sense. But, assuming specialization where God is just a player, why would the programmer design in a Heaven to reward simulated people who worshiped and glorified the player? The simulated beings never did the slightest thing for the programmer, after all.
Maybe there would be a lot of demand for games with follow-through, but how many current games do you know of that spend the time and effort not just to program in a Heaven for dead characters, but then spend resources actually simulating it while the program runs? Where the Heaven is actually a Heaven, as opposed to another simulated world of troubles and suffering existing to entertain the player?
So my expectation is that a follow-through value of 0.1 is orders of magnitude too high. Not even 10% of the simulations are going to even have the option of an afterlife, and then most people won’t turn it on in the options screen because they’d rather spend the computing power on a bigger/better primary simulation.
It’s part of the game. It’s not something that happens after the game end. Possibly Heaven and Hell keep getting fuller and fuller as the game goes on.