Computer games
The early days of the video game business
A. It’s not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game. In the age of computers, that statement takes on new meanings, video game cannot ever really be defeated because, no matter how high the score, It is always the human who tires first or makes the fatal error. But millions of people continue to play, because microelectronic technology has enabled game designers to conveniently and inexpensively transform plain screens into playfields of extraordinary capability. At the same time, a multi-billion dollar industry has grown from very humble beginnings in just a few decades.
B. The technological roots of video game can be traced back to 1962, when an MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) graduate student demonstrated Spacewar, a science-fiction fantasy game played on a mainframe computer and a large screen. That game immediately attracted a wide cult following among computer buffs. The next important step came in 1968, when a console was developed that could be used to play game on ordinary televisions. But it was not until the early 1970s that a young University of Utah engineering student named Nolan Bushnell began working with a colleague to develop the technology to the point that adaptation of Spacewar from a large computer into coin-operated from, for use in video game arcades, was becoming economically feasible. Bushnell and his associates began working on such a machine in a converted bedroom workshop, but were unsuccessful. What they ultimately developed instead was a simple tennis-like game that they named Pong.
C. Pong took the industry by storm and quickly became the first coin-operated video-game Hit. And soon thereafter commercial Pong-style home video games also appeared. Yet despite early enthusiasm, consumer interest in this area proved less sustained than had been anticipated and, as prices started to drop and losses mounted, most of the early manufacturers withdrew from the field. Profits proved to be just as elusive at Bushnell’s company, Atari, where a rapidly growing market presence in coin-operated machine and home video required greater injections of capital and more professional management than the company was able to provide. In 1976, the founders of Atari sold their share of the company for a sum that was only equivalent to their sales in that year.
D. At that point, coin-operated video games seemed just another passing fad. But the introduction of Space Invaders--an arcade model produced by Japanese manufacturer Taito--proved otherwise. With its vibrant graphics it was so different from the previous black and white games that Space Invaders immediately captured public interest. There soon followed a rush of popular video that employed the same or better hardware and even more imaginative software. Of these, Pac-Man (in 1980) was especially significant, because now females began to take an interest.
E. By this time, the same software improvement and technological advances (faster microprocessors and larger memories) that permitted designers to produce spectacular audio and visual effects for coin-operated machines were also being applied to home video units. It was thus only a short while before the programmable consoles that had been unpopular for lack of software suddenly began to sell in large numbers: consumers had discovered that they could finally play a reasonable version of their favorite arcade games in the comfort of their own home. The impact on Atari was astounding. Unprofitable for the first three years, Atari had by the end of 1979, become a success. By either self-designing or licensing the most popular arcade concepts for cartridge format for use at home, the company had captured some 80 percent of the worldwide market for home video games.
F. All of this, however, was too good to last. By late 1982, the public’s fascination with arcade games had begun to low down, and fewer potential best-sellers were becoming available for conversion to cartridges that could be used on an Atari machine. At the same time, the market was flooded with illegal software of all types. It was thus not until the late 1980s that the unstructured nature of the industry, at least on the software side, had stabilized and become restructured in a manner similar, in many respects, to the book publishing business.
G. Until 1986, when japan-based Nintendo introduced a more technologically sophisticated and user-friendly game console, the hardware side was also in disarray. But with tight control of software development and marketing, Nintendo was able to revive and then capture up to 80 percent of a once-again booming market in which no significant competition appeared until the early 1990s. By that point, the annual operating profits of Nintendo had already grown to over $1 billion--an amount exceeding the 1991 profits of all the major Hollywood film studios combined. In 1999, sales of game hardware and software, led by Playstation, were equal in size (around $7 billion) to US domestic box-office revenues.
H. With change the only constant, the game industry has moved on to become what it is today. However, no matter what the technology or the format, the essence of a successful game will always be the same: it is simple to understand and to play on an elementary level, but it is compulsive and maddeningly difficult--in fact, forever impossible--to master fully.
Questions 1-6
Complete the notes below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
1. 1970s: Advances in technology led to cheaper 1 and the possibility of coin-operated video games.
2. The first successful coin-operated video game was 2.
3. 3 was bought from its original owners.
4. Space Invaders was successful because of its colourful 4.
5. 1980s: Pac-Man was the first game to attract 5.
6. 1990s: By the end of the decade 6 had become the biggest selling home entertainment product.
Questions 7-13
Choose the correct answer.
7. Spacewar was unpopular at first.
8. Bushnell and his team failed to create a coin-operated version of Spacewar.
9. From the beginning the home video game market has been commercially successful.
10. Atari was successful for the first time in 1979.
11. Video arcade game usage continued strongly in the 1980s.
12. The time taken to produce a video game can be compared to producing a book.
13. The qualities needed for a video game to become successful have been researched thoroughly.
Corporate Social Responsibility
A. Broadly speaking, proponents of CSR have used four arguments to make their case: moral obligation, sustainability, license to operate, and reputation. The moral appeal--arguing that companies have a duty to be good citizens and to "do the right thing"--is prominent in the goal of Business for Social Responsibility, the leading nonprofit CSR business association in the United States. It asks that its members "achieve commercial success in ways that honour ethical values and respect people, communities, and the natural environment." Sustainability emphasises environmental and community stewardship.
An excellent definition was developed in the 1980s by Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland and used by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development: "Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." Nowadays, governments and companies need to account for the social consequences of their actions. As a result, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become a priority for business leaders around the world. When a well-run business applies its vast resources and expertise to social problems that it understands and in which it has a stake, it can have a greater impact than any other organization. The notion of license to operate derives from the fact that every company needs tacit or explicit permission from governments, communities, and numerous other stakeholders to justify CSR initiatives to improve a company’s image, strengthen its brand, enliven morale and even raise the value of its stock.
B. To advance CSR, we must root it in a broad understanding of the interrelationship between a corporation and society. Successful corporations need a healthy society. Education, health care, and equal opportunity are essential to a productive workforce. Safe products and working conditions not only attract customers but lower the internal costs of accidents. Efficient utilization of land, water, energy, and other natural resources makes business more productive. Good government, the rule of law, and property rights are essential for efficiency and innovation. Strong regulatory standards protect both consumers and competitive companies from exploitation. Ultimately, a healthy society creates expanding demand for business… At the same time, a healthy society needs successful companies.
C. A company’s impact on society also changes over time, as social standards evolve and science progresses… No longer can companies be content to monitor only the obvious social impacts of today. Without a careful process for identifying evolving social effects of tomorrow, firms may risk their very survival.
D. No business can solve all of society’s problems or bear the cost of doing so. Instead, each company must select issues that intersect with its particular business… The essential test that should guide CSR is not whether a cause is worthy but whether it presents an opportunity to create shared value-- that is, a meaningful benefit for society that is also valuable to the business.
E. The best corporate citizenship initiatives involve far more than writing a check: They specify clear, measurable goals and track results over time. A good example is General Electric’s program to adopt underperforming public high schools near several of its major U.S. facilities… Effective corporate citizenship initiatives such as this one create goodwill and improve relations with local governments and other important constituencies… Their effect is inherently limited, however; it remains incidental to the company’s business.
F. Microsoft’s Working Connections partnership with the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) is a good example of a shared-value opportunity arising from investments in context… Microsoft’s $50 million five-year initiative was aimed at all three problems… Microsoft has achieved results that have benefited many communities while having a direct--and potentially significant--impact on the company.
G. At the heart of any strategy is a unique value proposition… Consider Whole Foods Market… sourcing from local farmers; screening unhealthy or environmentally damaging ingredients; stores built with minimal virgin materials; renewable wind energy credits; composting waste; vehicles on biofuels; even cleaning products are environmentally friendly. Nearly every aspect of the company’s value chain reinforces the social dimensions of its value proposition.
Questions 14-20
Reading passage 2 has seven paragraphs, A-G.
Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list below.
* Drag a heading and drop it into the blank space.
Questions 21-22
Complete the summary below.
Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS for each answer.
21. Workforce productivity generally needs health care, education and 21.
22. Improved safety standards can reduce the 22 of accidents.
Questions 23-26
Match each opinion/deed with the correct company.
23. The disposable waste. 23
24. The way company purchases as goods. 24
25. Helping the undeveloped. 25
26. Ensuring the people have the latest information. 26
Evolutionary Psychology
Charles Darwin, the brilliant anthropologist and creator of the theory of evolution, is not normally associated with the modern business world. Nevertheless, Darwinian evolutionary theory is the foundation of a new wave of ideas about human behavior in general and particularly the way people behave in the workplace; these ideas have given the title of ‘evolutionary psychology’. Evolutionary psychology revolves around the notion that our brains, like our bodies, have an inherited evolutionary design that has scarcely changed for 10,000 years. As respected evolutionary psychology experts Leda Cosmides and John Tooby comment, our modern skulls house a Stone Age mind. The US biologist Edward O Wilson sees evolutionary psychology as being a discipline which is based on both socio-biology, which is the study of the biological basis of social behavior, and psychology, which is the systematic study of human behavior.
Nigel Nicholson, an organisational psychologist from the London Business School, is a strong supporter of evolutionary psychology and on this subject has published Managing the Human Animal. His book takes the reader on a journey from the Stone Age plains of the savannah to the modern office, and includes a discussion of Darwinism and behavioural psychology together with a dissection of dysfunctional organisational behavior. It is an effective approach explaining why people behave as they do, particularly at work. Evolutionary psychology is increasingly being cited in management circles, where managers are trying to understand puzzling aspects of human behaviour and by doing so improve the workplace. Nicholson believes that evolutionary psychology can help managers understand what goes wrong in organisational life and what they can do about it.
Nicholson maintains that evolutionary psychology dismisses the long-held assumption that our minds are like blank pages just waiting for culture and experience to write on them and shape our nature. He points out that sophisticated research shows the brain actually houses a store of knowledge when we are born, and now genetic research is establishing there are certain genes that account for abilities, tastes and tendencies. The stored knowledge in the human brain has not changed much since the Stone Age. As Tooby and Cosmides stress, there have not been enough generations for a brain that is well adapted to our post-industrial life to evolve through natural selection.
The evolutionary psychology version of human nature revolves around some key elements which we have inherited from our hunter-gatherer minds. One key element is emotion. Emotion was originally essential to keep early man alive and safe from predators. Emotion was, and continues to be our radar, guiding us throughout today’s techno-defined business world. Despite this, the business world emphasises rational not emotional behaviour, and does not admit the importance of emotion. We still use the emotional part of our minds to make sense other people’s behaviour and to create an impression, so we can often be taken in by appearances. This mental predisposition actually works best in small communities (the tribe), not in much larger environments filled with people we barely know (the modern workplace). Our minds naturally try to re-create our ancestral communities with networks of no more than 150 people, where there are clear hierarchies and leaders. As a consequence, it takes very little to trigger people’s innate distrust of others because our safety in antiquity depended on supporting our near family and friends whom we valued more than other people.
So what advice does Nicholson have for the corporate world? He thinks that by knowing the reasons for people’s behaviour it is possible to mould corporate environments into places that have more chance of working efficiently and being pleasant places to work in. Nicholson admits that not everybody in the business word agrees with his belief in the effectiveness of evolutionary psychology in the workplace. One group that resist the theory of evolutionary psychology is young MBA graduates who are just beginning their careers and feel that evolutionary psychology will make their lives at work more difficult. Older and wiser executives points out that they still tend to cling to the idea of a magic formula to bring people into line with corporate strategy. But that is back-to-front thinking according to Nicholson, who contends that we should be reinventing our business structures, not our fundamental human nature.
At the end of his book, Nicholson gives his forecast of what will and will not change in the business world. He believes that most people will still prefer more traditional forms of work and throughout their lives will continue to aim at lifelong status advancement. He also maintains that the line between work and home will be less defined, but that people will prefer traditional working patterns if working from home leaves them isolated from their work community. He doubts that the high-tech ideas of virtual companies will ever be very successful because people will still want to meet each other face-to-face. Nicholson describes his ideal organisation in the future: it would be decentralized, with small sub-units: the staff would be from diverse backgrounds and be allowed a high degree of self-determination. New endeavours and creativity would replace systems and rationality. Nicholson acknowledges that there is a long way to go in terms of the translation of his ideas of evolutionary psychology into practical propositions, but he is confident more and more people will come round to his way of thinking.
Questions 27-31
Choose the correct answer.
27. The writer’s purpose in the first paragraph is to
28. In the third paragraph which view about evolutionary psychology matches Nicholson’s opinion?
29. The writer discusses the key element of emotion in order to
30. Which of the following does Nicholson predict will happen in the business world?
31. Which of the following is the most suitable title for Reading Passage 3?
Questions 32-35
Choose the correct answer.
32. Nicholson makes a persuasive argument in his book.
33. Tooby and Cosmides believe natural selection through the generations has prepared.
34. Our reliance on technology causes emotional problems in the workplace.
35. People today are more trusting than they used to be.
Questions 36-40
Complete the summary using the list of words, A-I below.
* Drag a word and drop it into the blank space.
Nicholson believes that if we know why people act the way they do, we can change 36 so employees will work more efficiently.
Nicholson’s ideas are unwelcome to 37 but some executives are more open to what evolutionary psychology says.
However, these executives still believe that there is a 38 that will make employees act according to the company’s practices.
According to Nicholson, these senior executives are engaging in 39 and we should not try to change 40 but instead we should change our business structures.