The article doesn't make that claim. For example, the service n7 is used by multiple other nodes, namely n3 and n4. There is no cycle there, so it's okay.
Doesn't your advice contradict the BBC's phrasing? Collectively, the band lost its spot in the top ten. And, collectively, the crew has 35 seconds to prepare the stage for the next performer.
Why the focus on scorekeeping? I feel like an AI model is overkill here, when you have text-based sources readily available such as news apps, Twitter feeds, and apps such as Livescore which would be easier and cheaper to scrape. They probably cover more matches that aren't televised too.
I'd be curious to see what useful insights could be gleamed from the match commentary. You have the main commentator giving play-by-play objective reporting and then a 'colour' commentator giving some subjective analysis during breaks in play. I bet there's a lot of interesting ways this could be used.
Conversely, I think this book is applicable to non-game software too. I could just as well have called this book More Design Patterns, but I think games make for more engaging examples. Do you really want to read yet another book about employee records and bank accounts?
That being said, while the patterns introduced here are useful in other software, I think they’re particularly well-suited to engineering challenges commonly encountered in games:
- Time and sequencing are often a core part of a game’s architecture. Things must happen in the right order and at the right time.
- Development cycles are highly compressed, and a number of programmers need to be able to rapidly build and iterate on a rich set of different behavior without stepping on each other’s toes or leaving footprints all over the codebase.
- After all of this behavior is defined, it starts interacting. Monsters bite the hero, potions are mixed together, and bombs blast enemies and friends alike. Those interactions must happen without the codebase turning into an intertwined hairball.
- And, finally, performance is critical in games. Game developers are in a constant race to see who can squeeze the most out of their platform. Tricks for shaving off cycles can mean the difference between an A-rated game and millions of sales or dropped frames and angry reviewers.