For those of you who do not know me or are possibly new to reading my often lengthy blog posts about random stuff that interests me; my name is Andrew Spiering I am currently a Software engineer for the company Unknown Worlds working on the game Natural Selection 2 and prior to that I spent the last 5 ½ years working for Blizzard Entertainment on Starcraft 2 and Battle.net. I have spent the last 6 ½ year working in the game industry and I have come across so many amazing people and worked with some of the best of the best in their fields and during these travels I have picked up some of the wise words of soo many amazing people. This has allowed me to make some interesting observations as a someone who has played many many video games and worked on several successful triple a titles I feel like I can provide some insight into these wise words.

The specifics of this article where about “Minecraft, done right” now as those who know me may know that I am not a huge fan of Notch and I really do not enjoy Minecraft at all but I respect what Mojang is trying to do and I admire their ability to grow and create a thriving community. The article poster was arguing that Mojang should hire 20 programmers and have them work on a bunch of community mods and thus making the game “done right” because as we all know the company knows best.

The question is does the company know best? Do video game companies take their customers serious? Do they spend the time working on games that allow those who are willing the ability to customize their games making them better? Often times the answer yes… So many of the amazing games that we have today are built from the basis of a great game but furthermore are built from the basis of a great modding community and game that allows for it and I might add this is very specific to the PC gaming community as many console platforms do not allow for modding.

We take a look to the basis of so many first person shooters and we see that at that core we have games like Counter-Strike, Quake World CTF, Day of Defeat, and so many others and yet this poster would like to argue that somehow the game companies know best. I recall a time while standing in the Zodiac Club back in 2000 and among my company was a young Eric Johnson of valve and a very vibrant Doug Lombardi and among the topics of conversation was the idea of how mods allowed Valve to make money. In Eric’s own words, “There would be no valve if we had not invested in mods”, and 5 years later I would find myself starting at Blizzard Entertainment who had just shipped World of Warcraft and during my time there you would here about how Blizzard struggled to stay alive having not shipped a title since 2001 and a lot of that was Warcraft . Recent numbers indicated 6 million people worldwide playing Warcraft 3 still and much of that is playing a mod we call Dota this mod would be the catalyst for games like League of Legends, Heroes of Neworth, Dota 2 and many others and even in my current place of employment the company I work for now is based on the ideas of a mod created on Half-Life 1.

A very wise Lead Designer once said to me, “I don’t give a shit what our customers think, as if we allowed them to make the game it would be total ass” and there is some truth to that in that often times players are very selfish and they don’t think about the game but themselves and mods are really no different here… they are often created out of a dislike or like for something or people who think they can do better and there are def 100’s of upon 100’s of very crappy mods that really do take away from the game. But is that bad? Could the game company ever really catch what the game wants? The goal of the video game company is not to make games people will not play but to make games people will enjoy and furthermore make games that allow people to go beyond the resources of the game company and create content they want. The moment we start removing this ability from the customers hands and put it into the hands of the game company we will see a lot of games people don’t want to play.

I have always felt that people before I always express my views on something better than I do and I think this case is no different, Matt Groening once said,

“Living creatively is really important to maintain throughout your life. And living creatively doesn’t mean only artistic creativity, although that’s part of it. It means being yourself, not just complying with the wishes of other people”

I think any video game that allows you to be you and express yourself through your own content or the ability to go beyond the square box it was built in is a game that we will see around for a very long time.

original article (http://www.jumblebag.com/mdr.html)

“It was not by accident or coincidence that the rights to freedom in speech and press were coupled in a single guaranty with the rights of grievances. All these, though not identical, are inseparable. They are cognate rights, and therefore are united in the first Article’s assurance.”
~ Associate Supreme court Justice Wiley B. Rutledge ~ 1944

It is often we forget that in order to retain out rights we as human beings are forced to give into what is sometimes the most unimaginable. We hope that the justice system will do the right thing and make right a wrong but in many cases even the highest system of justice is held to a power beyond itself. It’s a power of checks and balances… a power of which this nation was founded on; one, which time and time again has been sought out for guidance when it comes to questions of ethics or morality.

The constitution while not black and white has always been the beacon of light when it comes to issues of political correctness as it’s left to spell out the rights of every man and woman with regards to personal self. Sometimes the issues of this country are not always clear and we are forced once again to seek out the guidance of this document and recently we needed to do so. The issue in question is whether the members of an anti-gay church have the right to protest at funerals of openly gay soldiers.

The Supreme Court has always applied the same test with regards to freedom of speech issues; as to whether those who are practicing their right to freedom of speech are pressuring or in sighting others to break the law or putting others in danger… if so then it is within the rights of the law to punish these people accordingly this is often referred to as the “Clear and Present Danger” question. This litmus test provides the court with the tools needed to see what is and is not protected under the first amendment.

Due to recent events in the world the government has been under huge scrutiny as to how it deals with first Amendment issues, in the post 9/11 society we often hear of wire tapping, people being unable to talk about certain issues, cloak and dagger government tactics and yet in some cases like the one mentioned above its clear as day in how we should proceed. Do the people of the anti-gay church have the right to protest? YES! Do I agree with what they are saying? NO! But sometimes part of protecting the law of every man and woman is going along with what’s right and not with what we want to be right.

Like Justice Rutledge; I am left to believe that the right to hold an opinion while positive or negative; is one that we should protect regardless of its misdirected hate or un-proportional glorification of any topic and today I stand with the Supreme Courts decision to uphold the anti-gay churches right to protests.

The request, with all its political indirectness is one within reason and should not be shunned for it would seem unwise to do so. We should rethink how we spend our money and place value on the things we as a people find important or valuable and as we move forward in this technology driven society we should not push away from educating our people but embrace the idea that part of this sacrifice is to take some burden unto ourselves to ensure that those after us are placed in a much better situation then our current.

It was not that long ago that we sat in a time where people were living the life; extravagant dinners, houses, cars and more were a common way of thinking. Families could afford vacations once or twice a year and now they are left with nothing but in that nothing we are left a glimmer of hope that by pushing forward we can provide what we thought was important then… now! During the period of the 19070’s-1990’s the value of education and moral obligation was like no other, the United States while not leading the way in education placed a huge importance and obligation on those select few who make a much greater sacrifice to help educate the future.

It was the likes of Steve Jobs, or Bill Gates who while not finishing their education will tell you more so than most that what they learned from those teaching it was far more valuable than anything they had learned thus far. It’s the “Experience: the most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my god do you learn.” C.S Lewis would go on to say it is within these words that we must make a sacrifice and take on a burden to make sure these people are given the tools they need to ensure that the people of tomorrow are as valuable as those of yesteryear.

Of course there are those who feel we need to remove these tools and further hinder an already complicated endeavor. Who feel that teachers are already given way too much and that we should downsize their ability to teach and give them what they are worth. I ask those who feel this, at what point would you stop doing your own job, if the tools needed to do so were slowly removed? I am pretty sure most would not take much before bidding farewell and in that bon voyage your discourse will impact not only the present but the future as the knowledge you impart will now be lost.

The argument that as an educator you should be required to get paid for the time you work and no more or that in the United States they work so little that we should pay them less because they work so few months out of the year is just absurd. It is not just a job but a way of life, those who impart knowledge onto others do not do so for the money they do so as a means of being; we are often hearing about those who within their own time outside the classroom are continuing the fight to fill the education gap in America as abroad; who are volunteering their time everywhere to make sure that someone’s life is just a little better than before.

But, when we talk about money and how we should spend it. Those at the top are the same folks who allowed the system to become dilapidated and careless AND WHOS FAULT IS THAT? Its not the teacher’s fault; they were asked to reduce the amount of school days because their boss could not balance a budget; they did not ask that the cost of living be increased beyond their pay grade by those who think careless spending is OK! They did not ask, that what they can teach and how they teach be dictated by religious zealots who have lost sight of the times… instead day in and day out they work tirelessly trying to make sure that people have a place in this world, and while not all of them are the best; we should not allow the sour of one apple to plague the many who truly make an impact on our lives everyday.

Once again I ask that we as a people who feel that we are owed something in this society; question those who want to rid us of those who gave us the ability to do so… we are all educators and we should all do our part to make sure that those who need help and those who need knowledge be given the chance an opportunity to learn it.

John Adams wrote in April of 1776,

“Laws for the liberal education of youth, especially of the lower class of people, are so extremely wise and useful, that, to a humane and generous mind, no expense for this purpose would be thought extravagant”

It was this placed importance that Adams would ensure his own education and the effect it would have on his life; which impart played a major role in founding this nation. There is no greater cause that ensuring the safety and plentifullness of the mind and the role that it plays in creating the freedoms we so much cherish.

I am reminded of Adams due diligence with regards to the current state of our education system and the people who dedicate their lives to help further the concepts and freedoms of our founding fathers, whom which fought so hard to ensure that their children could impart the knowledge of mathematics, writing, reading and so forth to a new era of young people; it for this reason that we must not place blame of those who like us all, give up so much of their own lives to help remind us why we are all here. The public educators of this great nation are people whom we should help champion the youth of tomorrow and in doing so it is our responsibility not as political foes, nor as combatants of right or left but to put our differences aside and not put our children’s education at risk and punish those whom occupy such a rare space by removing what is crucially required for them to uphold their profession.

I call upon all citizens of this country to give back and help the education system where they can; to provide not only what was given to you but what is required to survive in this world as a free nation. We could argue left and right about how the money could or should be spent and we could spend days, months and years on every penny but while doing so we are putting an undue burden on what is important, our children. Call your local Congressman and let them know that you expect better of them and that by cutting funding to our public educators and education you are not only hurting our nation but you are hurting the millions of young people who ought to have the right to learn.

I am forced to close with a quote from whom which I opened with,

“The science of government it is my duty to study, more than all other sciences; the arts of legislation and administration and negotiation ought to take the place, indeed exclude, in a manner, all other arts. I must study politics and war, that our son may have the liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, and naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture in order to give their children the right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain”

We mustn’t forget the liberties we are endowed and the rights we have in using them. So make the humane choice and support your public educators and put the political differences aside and support your children’s right to learn.

If you do not know whom your elected officials are you can visit a wonderful website which provides information for both state and federal levels http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml