Hacker News Reader

Comment by bathtub365 | Hacker News Reader

The Olympics doesn't currently include any competition fully controlled by a corporation. Why would you want to introduce this?

View on HN

At the very least, the client and server code would have to be open to inspection by experts from any competing country. Ideally the code would actually be Free Software, and countries could vote on pull requests for features and balance patches.

Let esports have their own competitions, as they've done for years now. The Olympics is not esports.

Bad idea and completely unnecessary.

> Bad idea

Why? The source code forms the authoritative rules of the game, and the Four Freedoms¹ apply to those in all Olympic sports, right?

1: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

Are the athletes also expected to be software developers? Are the viewers? Are the judges, broadcasters, and commentators? This is like telling a football player they should have a kinematics textbook in their pocket just in case they disagree with a referee.

> This is like telling a football player they should have a kinematics textbook in their pocket

That's as ridiculous a strawman as saying "The Olympics mustn't have any rules about performance enhancing drugs, otherwise athletes would have to carry bio-chemistry textbooks in their pockets".

There is no obvious solution to balance changes. Using an open source structure or a committee for this would probably be slow, or doesn't work at all as it prevents meaningful/drastic changes. Those are often very opinionated. However, those are necessary due to the nature of video games. Games need to evolve in some capacity to remain interesting.

As for the inspection, I guess it would be nice. But an esport Olympics would include multiple games so at some point it's too inconvenient. Also, all player play with the same client/server technology. So you'd have to think very cynical to think that there would be any tempering by the developers.

At some point there is a remaining risk. Same hold for traditional sports where there are judges who introduce their subjective opinions.

> They need to evolve in some capacity to remain interesting.

The meta or something has to evolve, but not the rules. The basic rules of soccer, etc. don't evolve.

And video games are in some respect a form of art, so any judgement like this is incredibly subjective. Just as many people prefer classic art to modern, some people prefer classic games (eg. old, harder Tetris to new, Super Smash Bros Melee to newer Smash).

(Edit) But to say "Using an open source structure or a committee for this would probably be slow, or doesn't work at all as it prevents meaningful/drastic changes." seems wrong. As an anecdote, I considered myself a "gamer" in middle school, and beat the highest rated game of all time (LoZ:Oot). As I've aged I've gamed less, but during the pandemic I've played a bit of NetHack, and found it a more interesting game, and its decades of history and evolution seem to show more dedication than any proprietary game has received to me.

> The basic rules of soccer, etc. don't evolve.

That's absolutely not true, unless by basic you mean things like "played with a vaguely round ball". FIFA change the actual rules every year. The new handball and wall rules are pretty big changes.

https://soccer.nbcsports.com/2019/06/02/new-handball-goal-ki...

By basic I meant the sort of things I as not a fan of soccer would have heard of, like the basic rule that player's generally shouldn't touch the ball with their hands. And I (who don't really follow sports in general) would assume that sports like running would have even less change (I think they've refined rules against starting too soon?).

I assumed you meant, given the context, if the rule changes appreciably affected the meta, i.e. the way the game is played. If you zoom out far enough, all sports have the same rules, contests between humans with a physical component.

The rules for swimming and running are similarly changing constantly. Google the controversy about the faster water in Beijing that was used to cause more records to be set, or the rules about shoes in running.

The fact that someone who doesn't know about a sport thinks it's not changing doesn't mean it isn't. Ignorance does not convey some kind of deeper insight.

> controversy about the faster water

Thanks for helping me make my point ;) : change in highly competitive sports is often viewed as a bad thing

Most sports are controlled by corporations - for example fencing by the FIE, football by the FIFA, etc.

I can play any of those sports without making an account with the FIE or FIFA. How do they have control? They have great influence, obviously, but not control.

You literally can't play fortnite without a license from epic or epic's servers. You can play soccer with a ball and a field, no FIFA involved.

Except you can't in any serious organised form, like the olympics would be, or they'll come after you / the payers.

There is a difference between commercial corporation creating a game with purpose of making money for shareholders and non-profit organization with elected president created by people doing an existing sport.

Too late AI will make it boring, unless it's AI vs AI?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com