This is disappointing. It isn’t so much about the game as it is the inspiration. We are here to show students just how awesome it is to be a scientist or an engineer, and encourage them to pursue it as a career. A critical part of the process is clearly identifying the problem (pink spends the entire kick-off day analyzing the game), and then finding the best solution for that specific problem. Yes it is fun to win, but it doesn’t compare to the rush that you feel when you see the
problem conquered – and know that it was your brain that helped conquer it. That feedback is wonderfully motivating, and makes it easy to wake up for work in the morning. This changes the problem and it kind of takes away some of the payoff.
Still, I understand that we have to be reasonably safe, and I’ll bet the GDC dislikes the change as much as we do. And in the grand scheme of things, this is probably one of those “FIRST world problem” memes
. We will just man-up and do the best we can. Who knows, maybe we will rise to the occasion and play even better.