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Top 20 Gaming Lows of 2004
An anonymous reader writes "Gamepro has posted a story about the gaming lows in 2004 -- a fair roundup of all the junk that's happened this past year. Those poor smugglers..."
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I think it is a low, because while I'm not in favor of legislating morality, I think this will actually give video games a hand up. Rather than people saying "Oh how dare the video game companies make games such as this that children can play!" once this legislation is in place, no one will be able to blame the game companies anymore. It will become "How dare the parents of these children buy (insert game) for them and allow them to play it!" Which should have been that already, but isn't.
And when children blame their misdeeds on the video game, the parents will be blamed and not the industry.
The parent poster will probably get modded troll or flamebait, but he's right.
At first I thought that my expectations for it had just been too high, or that my tastes in gaming had begun to change... but now that HL2 is out, I can be sure that neither of these things were true, and Doom 3 was, in fact, just a crappy game. Ravenholm was one of my favorite parts of HL2, and that kind of atmosphere was what I expected throughout Doom 3. It didn't deliver.
HL2's Steam system being on this list while Doom's craptasticness is omitted is unjust.
2)Fileplanet World of Warcraft final stress test fiasco.
Fileplanet offered a subscription-only WoW final stress test download that was by no means wait-free, as many users had to wait an excess of 24 hours to be able to download, and once they were able to download, it was a ripping-fast average rate of 3k/s.
1)Gamespy/Fileplanet still exists.
By reading this you acknowledge that you have read it.
Heh... just thinking of Ultima Online could make up for a whole book of low-downs.
Everything from the release of Age of Shadows (turning UO into a item-based PVP game and trying to make it a gigantic Diablo 2 clone) to the release of 7th anniversary edition (yet another expansion-pack for UO which wasn't worth the money).
Oh, and did I mention that EA is the one holding the lashes?
That's gotta be one of the bigger stories over, well, the past two years or so: EA and Vivendi constantly 'consolidating' development studios as they eat them up and shut them down. The industry is turning into an arena of untouchable behemoths and tiny indy groups who can't hope for decent sales, but can hope to get rich by being bought out and shut down by the large corporations. That's a bigger scandal than EA's bad work policies, is their constant takeovers of mid-size developers only to drive them out of business. RIP Westwood, Origin, Acclaim, Sierra, Maxis.....
Bashing steam is so popular that it's difficult to find an article that is actually objective. Cutting out the publisher only makes sense. Most of the purchase money goes into their hands, and it seems unjustified. Most games today no longer contain pretty manuals, maps, or even jewel CD cases. The percentage valve actually makes off each retail purchase is surprisingly low. Broadband users, whose number and capabilities are always rising, are able to obtain games in a manner more conveniant by using Steam. Furthermore their games are kept up to date easily and they should theoretically be cheaper (due to a contract with VU this was not so for HL2). I'm not trying to say there haven't been difficulties in the Steam system thus far, but that's to be expected in the first years of such an ambitious idea. Support the idea of Steam.
They forgot about Lucas Arts canceling the long awaited Sam and Max game. The original almost always gets listed as one of the best games of all time and one of the more fondly remembered games produced by Lucas Arts.
But Lucas Arts sales people canceled it because the only thing they know how to market is yet another Star Wars title.
Is Lucas Arts planning on producing any title in the near future that is not a rehash of the Star Wars franchise?
I expect "JarJar's Big Adventure" or "Jedi of Gor" and day now...
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
> NEXT->
> that most web browsers
> NEXT->
> have these things called
> NEXT->
> "scroll bars", don't you?
Hey, I know you! You're the guy from Tom's Hardware Guide!
Steam tells you want to do
Play games
when you can do it
When you're logged in with your games fully updated which is done automatically from servers faster than waiting lets say, in-line at fileplanet or searching for a mirror on google or filemirrors.
how you can do it
You can play offline if you save your login info in your pc. Otherwise, configure it as you want like HL1 (before Steam) via user-specific configs or use whatever tool to launch games. It's not any different.
and can pull the plug for ANY reason
That's right. If you hack and are caught, you're banned. If you're cd-key is spreaded among people, then your account is banned. Otherwise, its one account to have as long as Steam is online.
What if Valve gets bought out by Sony, for example, and Sony decides to crack down on MP3 and Divx files?
Valve made two games until now. Half-Life and Half-Life 2. That and several mods that they bought the rights or ported such as Counter-Strike and Day of Defeat. They are on top of their game and the last thing they'd do is let this company be acquired by a giant. Won't happend unless Valve screws up somewhere.
What if Valve decides to charge a monthly access to Steam?
Do you have a chain around your neck saying that you are owned by them? If they somehow decide that fees should be payed to use Steam for whatever reason, people aren't stupid, they will leave and so would I.
What if Valve goes out of business or its servers get shut down?
Steam servers going offline is the only thing that worries me. Without those servers, our copies would be useless but I guess a company that wouldn't want to lose loyal fans would release some kind of patch so we could play even at that worst possible scenario.
What if Steam makes mistakes and people who validly paid for the game gets screwed out of ALL of their Valve games?! Does Valve really think it has created the first perfect system in all of humanity
It could happend. If that happends, then nothing's stopping you from taking action against them. You have rights as a consumer and federal laws say so from Canada, US, UK, Germany, and many others. (Correct me if I'm wrong)
It's far from a perfect system but until now, it's doing the job that it's suppose to do. A lot of europeen customers got screwed because their dvd drive couldn't read their media. Valve ignored for a long time (I was going nuts too) but they eventually gave in and now theres no cd-check. They don't completely ignore us.
With Steam buyers of Half-Life 2 have given up any resale rights. They have given up any right to play the game off line. And despite the fact that the game is validated every time you play it, you're still stuck using the CD when you play.
Ignorant. Read my last statement. Valve did remove the cd-check. The file "Source Shared Securom.gcf" is no longer downloaded by Steam.
And where is the advantage to the user?! If Steam eliminated all piracy of Half-Life 2, why isn't it cheaper?!
I don't understand that logic. So if a product can be pirated, then it has to be more expensif? Damn dude! Lets Raise the price of Windows up to $5000 USD!
That's it that's all.
I'm surprised to see what a burden it is for some people to actually have to pull out their ID to show it to a cashier before purchasing an M rated game.
Listen, I work video game retail and my company requires that myself and all of my employees verify that a purchaser is 17 years or older before buying an M rated game. In many cases, it's certainly not necessary, but if you're carding one person, you should probably, as a rule, card everyone. I've seen 16 year olds who look like they're 29 and 29 year olds who look like they're 16.
"But I have a full beard!" Congratulations - I knew this girl in middle school who was rocking some chin hair for awhile. All of the kids used to send her to get pork rinds, Hustler and cigarettes from the local Exxon. Now I'm an overweight, porn addicted chain smoker.
If someone asks to see your ID and you're insulted or inconvenienced, talk to your doctor about changing your meds. We're not playing surrogate parent, we're just trying to enforce the ESRBs ratings here. I have had some of my employees NOT card teenagers when purchasing an M rated game and there have been instances where the parent came back wondering why we sold them Mortal Theft Autohunt: Streets of LA. This isn't a particularly good situation to be in for a company (or a store manager who has to calm an irate parent), so it's a good practice to have.
And trust me, I for one think that there are indeed many children not "of age" who are "mature" enough to play Manhunt or Halo 2. But it's not my job to decide that and there's certainly no harm in erring on the side of caution. Hell, you're going into your wallet anyhow; your ID is already right there, man!