Slashdot Mirror

But there are so many games to play on Mac!

You must be a camper.

It's a legitimate strategy!

Apple blacklisted Gizmodo after they bought a stolen iPhone prototype a few years ago and refused to give it back before doing a full disassemble and report on every little detail. Since then, they've been left as the only major blog or news outlet that can't do firsthand reporting on the keynotes and product announcements, which has left them a little bitter. Small wonder that Gizmodo (Jesus Diaz in particular, of recent) has been saying all sorts of nonsense about Apple ever since.

Even if we ignore the chip on their shoulder, their reporting is shoddy and slimy, with them sometimes substantially altering their articles after they're posted. For instance, Briam Lam's account of returning the iPhone makes it sound like they got a letter from Apple's legal team and they sent it right back. What you don't see in that version of his account is that Brian received a personal phone call from Steve Jobs, asking for it. Brian responded with an e-mail in which he refused to return it until Apple went on record, then altered the online version of the e-mail he sent to Apple's legal department, since the original version made him look like an ass. The original reporting also contained a rosy accounting of a lot of those facts, but even that was later edited out in an effort to sweep it under the table as the original text of his correspondences leaked from other sources.

And that's far from being the only incident, though it is the most famous. RoosterTeeth lampooned Gizmodo and their "reporting" a few years back. They're a bunch of classless jackasses who treat facts as malleable ideas for their own benefit and cannot be trusted.

Kinda reminds me of something.

The Tetris Movie

The Angry Birds movie.

Rooster Teeth did it better, I think.

Unrealistic as it may seem, Griffin is real. She's in the Pajamachievements and does the comic over at RoosterTeeth.com

Rooster Teeth Shorts, Immersion (Pilot)

Not cool that Gizmodo didn't give them credit. These are the same guys that do the Red Vs Blue machinima.

Jump through two articles to get to the source....here ya go C/O Rooster teeth, enjoying the riches gained from RvB I'm sure.

I enjoyed it, but this is idle/humor material.

http://images.roosterteeth.com/assets/media/9_4a1565e0d4f1f.jpg

eh?

(Might as well get a free bleep bloop!)

I'll bite. Gimme my achievement.

I wonder when Microsoft is going to start suing all the websites that have started doing this. I know of this one and Rooster Teeth off the top of my head. I'm sure there are others.

I wonder if there's a chapter in it titled "first".

Now I wonder if there's a chapter covering the top ten things never heard in an internet forum...

Why does everybody seem to see politics as binary red/blue issues?

You mean like this? I would have thought it's obvious - the republicans are the reds, the democrats are the blues, and both are too useless too actually be effective.

Or would you prefer Red vs Blue?

"Blue vs Red.... No one says Red vs Blue; it sounds stupid when you say it backwards."
-- Caboose, Reconstruction: Blue vs. Red, 4th Chapter

Nonsense, it won't be a bad day at Scrabble until it's HHDDVVDDBVD!

Why would a robot want to eat our brains exactly?

Unless you're talking about ZOMBIE robots, in which case I'll have to update my Zombie Plan

Well, it's a good thing Red vs Blue just ended, or else it would have to end now.

From TFA:

The creation of anything "pornographic or obscene ... or otherwise objectionable." The vagueness of this rule upset many creators.

I'm sure some parents would call the language used in RvB "obscene" (and if parents don't, I know a lawyer who will...)

The sale of any works that use Microsoft intellectual property. The company said it's OK to sell ads on sites that host machinima, but that's it.

And that is the death of RvB right there. In fact, I hope it isn't retroactive, or else they can't sell the dvds anymore. And then there will be the giddy microsoft junior lawyer trying for a promotion who gets a part of the t-shirt sales too because it was quotes used in a video using microsoft ip, so it is "fruit of the poisonous tree". (IANAL)

On the other hand, this may not apply to roosterteeth at all, as they were even invited to bungie to try out the new versions before they were released.

Of course they could be making roosterteeth anti-comptetive like they are, by not allowing anyone to do what they did, so they have the monopoly :^) (no I don't think they'd ever do that)

My comment is a gag from the Halo-inspired show "Red v. Blue". I thought it was appropriate for the subject matter. :P

Still, not like I really care too much about video game tournament coverage. I'm guessing that they'll most likely be studying from the same lesson plans on this that was used by G4, meaning that it'll pretty much suck,...

The main reason that we don't see much video game tournament coverage on television is because it's not designed for that type of passive media. Video games, by nature, are supposed to be interactive. The vast majority of television viewers don't want to watch some overly pimple-enladen teenage punk playing some video game; we'd rather play the game ourselves. Sure, there some watching going on; you watch during a two player game while your buddy makes his/her moves, or you might watch someone to gain skills, and such. But the real entertainment value of video games comes from the interactive part.

If CBS really wanted to get some bang for its advertising dollar out of airing video games on its airwaves, do something really creative with the games, like the Red vs. Blue guys, or these WoW addicts,...

"Keep it all locked up in a nice blue box and what do you get? "

Red vs Blue

Where blu-ray becomes red-ray...

and HD-DVD's become HHDDVVDBVD's.

Sarge is my HERO. RVB Forever!! http://roosterteeth.com/

Season 1
Season 2
Season 3
Season 4
Season 5

or Google Video RvB seasons if you prefer.

That all seems over-complicated. Why not just give away the music and live on the proceeds of t-shirts and compilation sales? Sites like Penny Arcade, PvP or Red vs Blue suggest that sort of model can work for some forms of art. The question is, can it for musicians (who do also have the concert as another revenue stream) and how many can it support.

Sorry about the confusion. I was quoting the popular comic webseries Red vs. Blue, you can see the episode here

I'm Piquan. I meet both of those criteria. I've also never downloaded a movie from the Internet*. Pleased to meet you.

* Except some legal ones.

Or he could be implying that there's no such thing as a Mac gamer.

http://www.roosterteeth.com/archive/episode.php?id =118

I, for one, have already chuckled when I heard the word "nubbin."

O'Malley: Where's the mouse on this thing?

Doc: It has one of those little red rubber dot thingies on the keyboard. That's way better than a mouse. I call it the nubbin. Who wants to touch my nubbin?

-Red vs. Blue, Episode 45

That why there is this video Mac Gamer.

There are a lot of other videos that I do this with as well. If I find an interesting video linked here, at Fark, etc. that I don't have the time to watch, again I just download it for my iPod and watch it later. This is for me the best part of Google Video.

No, no, due to the major studio cancellation of the movie, Bungie has reached a deal with production company Rooster Teeth to complete the Halo movie project. It will be exclusively released via the Xbox Marketplace for $8 per download.

Why don't they just trash the script as-is and set aside the rest of the budget to make a Red vs. Blue movie?

We've already got lots of little Halo movies which, I suspect, are far better than anything Hollywood could do with it.

I haven't heard a single complaint from Microsoft about Red vs Blue, and that was arguably a commercial venture for at least awhile. In fact, Bungie included features in Halo 2 specifically to help RVB -- the ability to lower your weapon, for one.

Ok, fine, it wasn't a game, it's a TV series, but isn't that reasonable competition for, say, the Halo movie?

Not to mention that this actually hurts MS more than it helps them, though it probably won't have much of an effect.

Can anyone give me a moral and/or legal downside to leaving the mod team alone? Or maybe signing some rights over to them, if you need to make it legal?

I doubt they'll do anything about it. Look at the popular machinima Red vs Blue. They used Bungie's Halo game without permission from Bungie, who is owned by Microsoft. Bungie even let them start selling DVD's for their Red vs Blue series. I bet Microsoft will take the high road and let it be.

Funny, Roosterteeth made a parody of the Switch ads, and that guy ALSO made the mistake of thinking Photoshop was a game.

That's the first thing I thought of when I read the title!

If you don't get it, download the video here.

this. As they say, "Ever hear of a Mac gamer? Neither have we."

Which is of roughly zero relevance to 99% of users. Having app A installed does not stop me using app B that happens to do mostly the same thing.

Ah, but it does matter to businesses that windows users have IE there by default. This way IE defaults to 90% of computers, so you _must_ code for IE (you know they have IE, but you're not sure they have firefox). This just throws the responsibility for compatibility to the web developers, rather than it being microsoft's responsibility to make IE standards compliant. So even if you don't want to realize that alot of businesses just default to IE and forget about standards alltogether, you still have to recognize the amount of work people are doing just to preserve IE compatibility. If IE was uninstallable and as non standards compliant as it is today, people could code by standards and the burden would be on MS to fix their archaic browser.

Yes, just like they can only write software for Windows and be assured it will work on most computers.

The difference being the web or the internet in general is not and should not be platform specific as the native code you are talking about. It doesn't make any business sense, let aside ideological reasons. The only business sense about it, is that Microsoft with these anti-competetive moves, makes it a better cost-effective decison to tie stuff with their products.

No, it's a business decision. Criticise the people writing the web pages/software/media/whatever, if they're not writing it the way you'd prefer.

And I'm judging it as just that, a business decision: In the case of IE, as I pointed out above, you _have_ to code for IE, or else you are surely missing a big audiance. I often send out emails criticizing web developers, but the sad fact is that by having IE in the system by default, microsoft is making their life hard because they _have_ to implement workarounds for IE's shortcomings. Why should they have to be the ones coding out of standards and doing microsoft's job for them? Because some company for some untold reason, will not let IE be uninstalled. Some just irresponsibly decide to code only for IE. Same with media. Let wmp be uninstallable, or ship all codecs by default. It would be a better customer experience if I could just play any file they send me as I do in linux, than to have to hunt down codecs...

No, they'd ship commonly used codecs (which they do). Divx - outside of DVD ripping - is *not* a commonly used codec.

I don't know what side of the internet you live on, but over here divX is used alot in all sorts of videos. I recieve divX files by email with funny videos as much as I recieve wmv files, if not more. DivX is a fairly popular video format that windows just does not have support for. Just as it doesn't play quicktime movies out of the box. Or is that also not a commonly used codec? It's a political decision and not one based on your satisfaction as a customer, deal with it. Quicktime IMHO is and always was a superior format than anything microsoft. Remember MS ripping off Apple and reaching a settlement over it?. Just as in IE, it doesn't make sense for a business to distribute a divX or a quicktime file, because then 90% of their users need to install the appropriate codec. So it's easier to just distribute a wmv file (or mpeg, but they are lower quality and have bigger file sizes). This is how Windows media, through sane business decisions, gets unfairly popular. Once you let wmp be there by default, the rest are just logical steps businesses will take.

At which point you destroy most of the reason for having it there in the first place - common code reuse.

I keep seeing you post this. I don't think it means what you think it means, unless you have more information than I do. There is no reason you can not uninstall IE without breaking any dependencies. If so, microsoft has really made a monstrosity of code. Keep in m

Seems like a good time to mention the great animation done using Halo over at Red vs Blue:

http://rvb.roosterteeth.com/home.php

I do hope that nobody actually paid for this news.

"All researchers at the BlueHat are responsible,"

No, no, no, you all are missing what truly is going on! This is the ole smoke and mirrors bait and switch tactic. M$ has commissioned Bungie to take over the Vista project! So now when booting windows you will see a Halo 2 loading screen and your mouse curser will be replaced with crosshairs. You know that feeling of wanting to blowup your computer with a rocket launcher after it crashes/glitches?? Well the answer to your dreams isn't too far off.

And of course your bouncing text screensaver will be replaced with the famed Red vs. Blue team videos.

The Halo movie has had a director for a few years now. It's all right here.

What do you mean, "Stop being an ass!" That's not a Halo movie??

(Oh, come on. You knew that someone had to do it!)

I have to give Peter Jackson credit, though. He doesn't want to direct because he wants to take a break. After what he's done over the past few years, I certainly grant him that a break is deserved. I still wonder what a Halo movie would be like under his direction, but that might also come down to a possible difference between passion (like he had with LotR and KK) or just being a fan.

Hey, let's get George Lucas to do it! At least then we'd be assured of a quality movie! *cough* Of course, if that's the case who wants to bet that red fires first theatrically then blue fires first in the DVD with GL stating "That's how I wanted it from the beginning."

Oh, well. It's only karma. :)

Uh, I think you missed the point.

Red vs Blue is a machinima series done by some fans of Halo. Been going on for several years, won some awards, and become the defacto standard to compare new machinima series to.

It's actually got some very funny parts, especially if you're familiar with Halo.

If you look here. They are selling t-shirts for flood relief.

I got my start doing Machinima in Planetside. The response that I got from the community was really impressive. I could give people about a week's notice and have a turnout of 10-20 people just from my server willing to help me with a film project.

Sometimes it was really hard to express what I wanted them to do and there is always the inevitable people that will screw off and not really pay attention, as well as those that have no idea that there's filming going on and ruin the fun by playing the game the "right" way.

However, all in all, I've had a very rewarding experience. In fact, in Planetside, I ended up deleting my character and switching sides (this was before you could have characters on multiple factions. it was really painful to delete a fairly high level character and restart as a newbie) to get into a clan that had been helping me a lot. To this day, I'm still an active member in that clan, although I've stopped playing Planetside awhile ago.

Film is a very expressive form and Machinima is no different. There are humorous series, like those done by the Rooster Teeth bunch, there are extremely artsy works like those that won the Make Something Unreal Contest Machinima catagory, there are music videos and there are even video memorials for players that have passed away in real life. Machinima is a lot of fun and a lot of work. While the goal is always to create something visual and compelling, along the way, you immerse yourself with the community and make something as equally important as a good film; friendships.

I appologize if that came off really sappy, but I've had Machinima films succeed and I've had them fail, but regardless of the outcome of a project, I couldn't have gotten as far as I did with it without the help of many other people.

Since we're duping movies we've seen before, I might as well point out the funniest Switch parody I've ever seen... http://www.roosterteeth.com/archive/download.php?i d=499

The typical gamer does not actually need to play every game 3 months earlier

Totally. Macs rule for gaming.

I think you're missing the point of RvB.

These guys use the Halo engine to cut together their own comedy show, a technique called machinima. It's similar in principle to using modelling clay and a video camera to produce animation comedy. You download and watch videos of this from their website. You can also buy DVDs of past series. It's not like you're actually playing Halo with them!

If you like their style of humour, you'll find it pretty damn funny.

Try it out, see what you think.