Enough with the Games, already.

[F14Scott]

"Working is one of the most dangerous forms of procrastination."
Gretchen Rubin

I just don't give a rat's ass about the "entertainment" features that seem to figure prominently in Elon's vision for the cars. I would rather have him take those coding teams and devote their engineering horsepower to better wipers, cross-traffic alerts, CarPlay and Android Auto, text message integration, sentry mode on the dashboard and mobile app, etc.

Anybody else not care one bit for Fart Mode 2 and Enhanced Missile Command?

 

[Atari2600]

Games are important. Tesla is getting one new customer because the games put them over the top of wanting one. This happened to someone I gave a ride to last week.

 

[muleferg]

I was asked to show my P3D+ to a class at Patton High School in Morganton, NC They liked the Beach Buggy more than anything.

Student engineers build electric vehicles at local school

 

[DriveMe]

Personally, I don't care too much about games, Easter eggs, etc. But a lot of kids do! And that matters!
I think it's good for Tesla to incorporate games and entertainment. Just one more thing that makes the car different and more enjoyable.
And I don't think it takes any focus away from other software features. Developers who are working on porting games are not part of the Autopilot team for example. Most likely they are external game developers, I would think. So, they can't be switched to other "more important" tasks. It just doesn't work that way.

 

[boaterva]

This has been said too many times. Whoever is doing the games is not detracting from AP work. People who think an experience AP programmer is working on games has no knowledge of modern programming or how modular programming works.

 

[NedH]

This is an old argument. One person's opinion versus another's. No useful information here--move on.

 

[Rottenapplr]

Can we get some freakifnnretro games lol. Like streets of rage 2! Chrome trigger. That would be awesome!

 

[F14Scott]

This has been said too many times. Whoever is doing the games is not detracting from AP work. People who think an experience AP programmer is working on games has no knowledge of modern programming or how modular programming works.

Well, that would be me.

While you are almost certainly right, that one could not say, "Bob, today you shall stop work on Asteroids and, instead, work on Enhanced Summon," I have to believe that the Asteroid budget could be reduced to zero and the Asteroid bucket of money could be transferred to the budget of the Summon team.

 

[F14Scott]

This is an old argument. One person's opinion versus another's. No useful information here--move on.

Thank you for your input. I'm glad you stopped by to see the non-useful information and expended your valuable time and expertise commenting on it. The forum is a better place for having your sort of quasi-moderation.

 

[DriveMe]

I don't know how much it costs Tesla to have the games ported, but it's probably not too much (per car). Software is relatively cheap compared to hardware. Since Tesla has the best in-car computer with the biggest screen already built in, it only makes sense to take full advantage of it and to port some software.

 

[F14Scott]

Games are important. Tesla is getting one new customer because the games put them over the top of wanting one. This happened to someone I gave a ride to last week.

Would we expect a different answer from "Atari2600"? (I had one as a boy.)

 

[FoverM]

Where is the choice "Enough with the complaining about games, already"?

Seriously, having a few games in the car's software makes absolutely zero difference in the development of other features. I don't have any inside info but, having worked in software development for a long time, I imagine the games are either a side project by the mainline devs (i.e. fun/stress reliever) or a project given to interns to help them learn the capabilities of the system (learning experience). For example, and I'll be a little vague to preserve anonymity, I was a mainline dev at a company and one night, after a few too many Coronas, decided to create a little app to show off my area of the product. The thing spread like wildfire throughout the company, was made "official" and shipped with it, then was used in TV commercials, etc. As a user of the overall product, you probably said, "why are they wasting time with stupid eye candy when there are real bugs in the product" but the fact is that it took almost zero time and was a fun side project.

 

[F14Scott]

Where is the choice "Enough with the complaining about games, already"?

Seriously, having a few games in the car's software makes absolutely zero difference in the development of other features. I don't have any inside info but, having worked in software development for a long time, I imagine the games are either a side project by the mainline devs (i.e. fun/stress reliever) or a project given to interns to help them learn the capabilities of the system (learning experience). For example, and I'll be a little vague to preserve anonymity, I was a mainline dev at a company and one night, after a few too many Coronas, decided to create a little app to show off my area of the product. The thing spread like wildfire throughout the company, was made "official" and shipped with it, then was used in TV commercials, etc. As a user of the overall product, you probably said, "why are they wasting time with stupid eye candy when there are real bugs in the product" but the fact is that it took almost zero time and was a fun side project.

Fair point. But, Elon's tweet didn't list games last...

 

[DriveMe]

One other important point you might be missing. Tesla is developing the Autopilot software. But it's not developing games, it's porting them! There is a huge difference in cost between developing software and porting it to a new platform. Something that takes years to develop might take weeks or even days to port.

 

[davewill]

Well, that would be me.

While you are almost certainly right, that one could not say, "Bob, today you shall stop work on Asteroids and, instead, work on Enhanced Summon," I have to believe that the Asteroid budget could be reduced to zero and the Asteroid bucket of money could be transferred to the budget of the Summon team.

They are almost certainly licensed and developed out of house. The budget is probably a drop in the bucket.

 

[XLR82XS]

I don't mind the games. I love the 80s and this is nostalgia for me. Also assists with boredom and recharging stops.

 

[silentcorp]

Don't use them? It's pretty easy to never interact with those pieces of the software, who cares?

 

[kaffine]

The games can also serve as training for the programmers. Do you want the programmer that just graduated start programming FSD or would you prefer he gets a bit of training from senior programmers on how Tesla writes code first? Learning the company procedures and how they expect the code to be written and documented is important and is better done on non critical functions. It makes it easier to do code review if how the code is written is consistent.

 

[Eno Deb]

I agree with the OP. I get that there is a marketing value to these gimmicks, but at this point it seems like a waste of resources to me that could be better used for other things (doesn't have to be "rocket science" stuff like Autopilot; there are many other software features lacking where the programmers could be put to good use). I haven't even started most of the games once.

Also, even though I am a fan of the classic Atari games (grew up with them), playing them on the center screen is not very enjoyable unless you carry around a gamepad in your car, since using touch controls on a screen mounted in front of you is not very ergonomic. I guess even kids would enjoy playing games on their Ipads more after a few minutes.

I think another entertainment feature would be more useful for charging breaks: a way to watch Netflix/Hulu or whatever on the screen, which would require video streaming support in the web browser and providing Wifi connectivity at the superchargers ...

 

[Watts_Up]

Even if the majority of people will never use it, the central console with Arcade Games is the first thing that people talk about and want to see.

It's just a cheap gimmick, unique so far to Tesla.

Sure, I'd like better instead to have other features implemented, such as "Wait Points" on the NoA Itinerary map....