Not all video game genres are popular on PCs and Macs.
The only video game genres that have some degree of popularity on consoles but not PCs are party games that are mostly just found on the Wii, such as Mario Party or Mario Kart.
For example, how many people are going to plug two to four USB gamepads into an iMac to play a multiplayer game?
Thanks to Xbox Live, that barely happens on consoles these days either (with perhaps the Wii being a bit more of an exception). By far most of the multiplayer these days on a console happens just like it does on PCs: one gamer with one console connecting to other players through the internet. And for that, the PC is superior to the console in every way, except ease-of-use.
GP didn't even imply that corporations should be forced to do good. He says they should be closely regulated so they can be involved in good outcomes. Those are two entirely different things.
If we consider the supply to be infinite digital copies, then yes, the supply is effectively more than the demand. If we consider the supply to be the insanely huge amount of new work that "artists" are cranking out for money these days, supply is still virtually unlimited.
FTFY.
Are you saying that copyright laws are a handout? Though the current system is broken, at their core they are just laws that allow people to distribute a product and have a chance at making a profit.
Copyright laws now allow someone to spend a few hours creating "art" and reaping profit from it for the rest of their life, and allow the next person in line to profit for the next 75 years. Given that a lot of this crap is stuff that wasn't even original to begin with, YES it is most definitely a handout.
There are laws in place to protect all kinds of occupations. I don't see how artists deserve any less.
Currently, they're getting about 100x more. Profiting from the same work for the next 150 years? Having the feds go after replicas of stuff because it might maybe perhaps reduce the potential profit by 1%? Asking border crossing security to search electronic storage for infringing material? And the list goes on and on.
We're still paying royalties on "Happy Birthday", ffs, and the person who originally got the copyright didn't even write the damn music, she stole it from someone else. [sarcasm] Oh, but of course the words! They're so novel and creative! [/sarcasm]
That's just one example among hundreds of millions of how copyright law is insanely excessive and is being heavily abused.
I have no problem with artists making a fair amount of profit from their work. I have a huge problem with the current system today. And the worst part of all is, it isn't even the artists making most of the profits. It's the media cartels. Fuck them.
Damn, seeing these posts about that part of the state makes me miss it. Lived in Mimbres Valley 20 years ago when I was a kid. Silver City was where we did our shopping.
I didn't say there wasn't demand. What I said is the supply far exceeds the demand.
The only film I worked on used limited animation (think late night Cartoon Network) and it still took dozens of animators thousands of hours- and that's just part of making the film, even if you take out all of the business and advertising stuff.
Doesn't change the nature of art: It's still only ever worth what someone is willing to pay for it. It won't make my job more efficient, won't feed my kids, won't fix my car, won't make my life more convenient, or any of the myriads of other things that non-art products provide. If you choose to spend that time making that art, that's your choice. But don't go crying to the government for a handout when your art didn't make you the money you thought it would.
Take a look at your ipod.
Don't have one. Music isn't really a big deal to me. If I listen to music, it's generally FM radio in my car (rare), Pandora, or indie music streamed online.
Take a look at your DVD shelf.
Also not too much here. Nothing I couldn't live without. Plenty of stuff on Youtube and other free sites that's sufficiently entertaining to get the job done if the DVDs didn't exist.
Take a look at the art on your walls.
The handful of artsy things that will be on my walls if I ever get around to hanging them were all made by relatives or close friends, and given as gifts.
It's now relatively easy to live with all your art and entertainment provided for free (legally!). The internet has changed everything. Welcome to the 21st century.
It's because the best of their devs who made all those good games left, shortly before WoW released. The alpha (or possibly early beta) build of WoW was the last work some of these guys did for Blizzard.
Some of them formed ArenaNet and developed Guild Wars, which (unsurprisingly) proved to be a huge success. I'm not sure where the rest went.
Blizzard is still making good games, but they're a huge step down from the great games they once produced.
Parent isn't trolling. It's simple truth (granted, with a bit of exaggeration to make the point), as anyone who has been involved in end-game in each expansion should know. Here's the next stage in the devolution: In the next expansion they're doing away with talent trees all together (apparently it wasn't simple enough to force people to spec in only one tree). Now instead of talents and talent points you get tiers with 3 abilities per tier, one every 15 levels. You must choose one (and only one!) ability per tier. But don't take my word for it, go see for yourself. Here's the Death Knight "talent calculator": http://us.battle.net/wow/en/game/mists-of-pandaria/feature/talent-calculator#d. I almost couldn't believe it at first, but there it is.
If there was anything they could have done to ensure with absolute certainty that I will never return to the game, this is it.
But then, that gets right at the heart at the problem. There's way too much supply and not enough demand. Lots of people are expecting to spend 40+ hours a week "making art" and get paid a sufficient wage to live on it.
See the thing is, your art is only worth what some generous (that's right) individual is willing to pay for it. No one needs your particular works. Whatever it is, someone else is almost certainly creating very similar works from their own creativity for a much lower price, and likely for free (or at least for only the cost of materials). That same individual is holding another job to pay the bills, and creating art because it's his/her passion. That is, has always been, and will always be the case. It's only in very recent history that more than a very very small percentage of the population is able to make an actual living doing nothing but creating art or entertaining.
Guess what's going to be one of the hardest-hit industries if we really do hit another real depression?
I'll give you a hint: a few hundreds of millions of would-be artists are going to find out what real work is.
I get that this is supposed to be a ~Big Evil Movie Industry~ article
Actually, that's just to grab your attention. If you read the whole article, you'll see at the end he explains why uniform pricing exists. He doesn't say it's a good or bad thing, but the way he presents his explanations implies he considers it at least reasonable, if not good.
I believe he's saying you're still only making a "partial payment" on a locked phone, because the carrier expects to make up the rest of the payment from you paying for more service long-term. This then is the partial payment that really can't be measured.
So many people seem to forget that Star Wars (original trilogy at least) wasn't action film, nor sci fi - it was space opera. The drama is the real point of the films. Realism in small details is pretty much irrelevant. That's what they lost in the prequels, which is why so many Star Wars fans despise them.
Thanks for that. My quick search didn't reveal that. So then, none of the previously mentioned stories are from Disney.
It's truly appalling how Disney keeps pushing for longer and stronger copyright, when they'd have almost nothing at all if the laws they're asking for now had been in effect 100 years ago. Sure, it was fine for them to benefit from other artists' work, but God forbid anyone else get the same benefit from their work!
I'm not sure exactly what point you were trying to make, but of the items you listed only Bambi is a Disney original creation. All the rest were borrowed from someone else.
Your original point was that Apple charges more than other vendors for the same hardware. You have failed to demonstrate that point.
Wrong. Every "spec" you listed for the Macbook that the Acer doesn't have is a trivial feature. The Acer has equally as many trivial features the Macbook doesn't have, such that they balance each other out. Indeed, for the average user the hardware advantages the Acer has are more useful. You knew all this, and yet still proceeded with throwing out trivial differences. You were posting things even you know aren't really true or meaningful, for the sole purpose of stirring things up. That's the very definition of trolling.
Since you clearly didn't get the message earlier, I'll make it easy for you to understand: We're done here. Go troll someone else.
A DVD burner, backlit keyboard, FireWire 800 port and a couple more memory card formats are worth a $570 premium.
God, I'd love to sell you hardware.
I could go on, but why bother? You know none of this has anything to do with my original point, which means you're just trolling. Have fun with that. My work here is done.
Most of what you said I can agree with (or at least concede) but:
This meme has been poked down a couple times. Conventional wisdom is that they are comparably priced with other similar hardware. I'm sure I could find an example and you could find a counter-example. One big difference is that apple only plays in the higher-end of the market, so you'll never find a barebones mac that could compare to a barebones PC.
No. You clearly have not done price comparisons, either recently, or ever. I did one just today, for someone essentially making the same claim as you, in another thread on this same story. Apple computers are very consistently around 90 to 100% more expensive than a typical PC with identical components. It can vary as much as 50-150%, but the disparity is usually greater the higher up the price scale you go.
Pick any computer in their store there, and I'd bet you good money I can find you the same 50% price reduction on an equivalent PC from a reputable vendor.
So someone who doesn't want those things can go buy a PC laptop with the same specs as your Macbook Pro for roughly $500-$700. About half the price. Here, for example is one for $629 with exactly the same specs as your $1,199 Macbook Pro: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834215180
You're exactly right. I've priced them out many times over the years, and Apple computers are always 50-150% more expensive than their PC counterparts with the exact same (or better) hardware components.
I will concede that Apples have their benefits over PCs for some people, but I am certainly not in that demographic.
No, the point is that they specifically referred to a counterfeit as the real thing without getting permission. You can do whatever you want, as long as you have permission from the IP holders. Not only did WB not bother with getting permission, they were even warned before the film was released and still did whatever they wanted. Now they get to taste their own shit. Hope they like it.
That's already been covered in previous articles about Hollywood accounting. Sell the movie for $1 to a parrent/affiliate company. Done. Here's your 5% of the gross: $0.05. Don't spend it all in one place.
Slashdot Mirror
...shouldn't even be an issue. Episodes 4-6 should already be in the public domain. And would be, if it weren't for infinite copyright.
-1 redundant. You posted that shit above and it was already answered. Quit trolling.
Not all video game genres are popular on PCs and Macs.
The only video game genres that have some degree of popularity on consoles but not PCs are party games that are mostly just found on the Wii, such as Mario Party or Mario Kart.
For example, how many people are going to plug two to four USB gamepads into an iMac to play a multiplayer game?
Thanks to Xbox Live, that barely happens on consoles these days either (with perhaps the Wii being a bit more of an exception). By far most of the multiplayer these days on a console happens just like it does on PCs: one gamer with one console connecting to other players through the internet. And for that, the PC is superior to the console in every way, except ease-of-use.
GP didn't even imply that corporations should be forced to do good. He says they should be closely regulated so they can be involved in good outcomes. Those are two entirely different things.
If we consider the supply to be infinite digital copies, then yes, the supply is effectively more than the demand. If we consider the supply to be the insanely huge amount of new work that "artists" are cranking out for money these days, supply is still virtually unlimited.
FTFY.
Are you saying that copyright laws are a handout? Though the current system is broken, at their core they are just laws that allow people to distribute a product and have a chance at making a profit.
Copyright laws now allow someone to spend a few hours creating "art" and reaping profit from it for the rest of their life, and allow the next person in line to profit for the next 75 years. Given that a lot of this crap is stuff that wasn't even original to begin with, YES it is most definitely a handout.
There are laws in place to protect all kinds of occupations. I don't see how artists deserve any less.
Currently, they're getting about 100x more. Profiting from the same work for the next 150 years? Having the feds go after replicas of stuff because it might maybe perhaps reduce the potential profit by 1%? Asking border crossing security to search electronic storage for infringing material? And the list goes on and on.
We're still paying royalties on "Happy Birthday", ffs, and the person who originally got the copyright didn't even write the damn music, she stole it from someone else. [sarcasm] Oh, but of course the words! They're so novel and creative! [/sarcasm]
That's just one example among hundreds of millions of how copyright law is insanely excessive and is being heavily abused.
I have no problem with artists making a fair amount of profit from their work. I have a huge problem with the current system today. And the worst part of all is, it isn't even the artists making most of the profits. It's the media cartels. Fuck them.
Damn, seeing these posts about that part of the state makes me miss it. Lived in Mimbres Valley 20 years ago when I was a kid. Silver City was where we did our shopping.
I didn't say there wasn't demand. What I said is the supply far exceeds the demand.
The only film I worked on used limited animation (think late night Cartoon Network) and it still took dozens of animators thousands of hours- and that's just part of making the film, even if you take out all of the business and advertising stuff.
Doesn't change the nature of art: It's still only ever worth what someone is willing to pay for it. It won't make my job more efficient, won't feed my kids, won't fix my car, won't make my life more convenient, or any of the myriads of other things that non-art products provide. If you choose to spend that time making that art, that's your choice. But don't go crying to the government for a handout when your art didn't make you the money you thought it would.
Take a look at your ipod.
Don't have one. Music isn't really a big deal to me. If I listen to music, it's generally FM radio in my car (rare), Pandora, or indie music streamed online.
Take a look at your DVD shelf.
Also not too much here. Nothing I couldn't live without. Plenty of stuff on Youtube and other free sites that's sufficiently entertaining to get the job done if the DVDs didn't exist.
Take a look at the art on your walls.
The handful of artsy things that will be on my walls if I ever get around to hanging them were all made by relatives or close friends, and given as gifts.
It's now relatively easy to live with all your art and entertainment provided for free (legally!). The internet has changed everything. Welcome to the 21st century.
It's because the best of their devs who made all those good games left, shortly before WoW released. The alpha (or possibly early beta) build of WoW was the last work some of these guys did for Blizzard.
Some of them formed ArenaNet and developed Guild Wars, which (unsurprisingly) proved to be a huge success. I'm not sure where the rest went.
Blizzard is still making good games, but they're a huge step down from the great games they once produced.
Parent isn't trolling. It's simple truth (granted, with a bit of exaggeration to make the point), as anyone who has been involved in end-game in each expansion should know. Here's the next stage in the devolution: In the next expansion they're doing away with talent trees all together (apparently it wasn't simple enough to force people to spec in only one tree). Now instead of talents and talent points you get tiers with 3 abilities per tier, one every 15 levels. You must choose one (and only one!) ability per tier. But don't take my word for it, go see for yourself. Here's the Death Knight "talent calculator": http://us.battle.net/wow/en/game/mists-of-pandaria/feature/talent-calculator#d. I almost couldn't believe it at first, but there it is.
If there was anything they could have done to ensure with absolute certainty that I will never return to the game, this is it.
But then, that gets right at the heart at the problem. There's way too much supply and not enough demand. Lots of people are expecting to spend 40+ hours a week "making art" and get paid a sufficient wage to live on it.
See the thing is, your art is only worth what some generous (that's right) individual is willing to pay for it. No one needs your particular works. Whatever it is, someone else is almost certainly creating very similar works from their own creativity for a much lower price, and likely for free (or at least for only the cost of materials). That same individual is holding another job to pay the bills, and creating art because it's his/her passion. That is, has always been, and will always be the case. It's only in very recent history that more than a very very small percentage of the population is able to make an actual living doing nothing but creating art or entertaining.
Guess what's going to be one of the hardest-hit industries if we really do hit another real depression?
I'll give you a hint: a few hundreds of millions of would-be artists are going to find out what real work is.
If it's a fake, there's no real value and hence not worth to return.
Not true. This was a violin, not merely art. Even a basic violin is worth several hundred bucks, provided it's functional.
I get that this is supposed to be a ~Big Evil Movie Industry~ article
Actually, that's just to grab your attention. If you read the whole article, you'll see at the end he explains why uniform pricing exists. He doesn't say it's a good or bad thing, but the way he presents his explanations implies he considers it at least reasonable, if not good.
I believe he's saying you're still only making a "partial payment" on a locked phone, because the carrier expects to make up the rest of the payment from you paying for more service long-term. This then is the partial payment that really can't be measured.
Wish I could mod you up.
So many people seem to forget that Star Wars (original trilogy at least) wasn't action film, nor sci fi - it was space opera. The drama is the real point of the films. Realism in small details is pretty much irrelevant. That's what they lost in the prequels, which is why so many Star Wars fans despise them.
Thanks for that. My quick search didn't reveal that. So then, none of the previously mentioned stories are from Disney.
It's truly appalling how Disney keeps pushing for longer and stronger copyright, when they'd have almost nothing at all if the laws they're asking for now had been in effect 100 years ago. Sure, it was fine for them to benefit from other artists' work, but God forbid anyone else get the same benefit from their work!
I'm not sure exactly what point you were trying to make, but of the items you listed only Bambi is a Disney original creation. All the rest were borrowed from someone else.
Your original point was that Apple charges more than other vendors for the same hardware. You have failed to demonstrate that point.
Wrong. Every "spec" you listed for the Macbook that the Acer doesn't have is a trivial feature. The Acer has equally as many trivial features the Macbook doesn't have, such that they balance each other out. Indeed, for the average user the hardware advantages the Acer has are more useful. You knew all this, and yet still proceeded with throwing out trivial differences. You were posting things even you know aren't really true or meaningful, for the sole purpose of stirring things up. That's the very definition of trolling.
Since you clearly didn't get the message earlier, I'll make it easy for you to understand: We're done here. Go troll someone else.
So let me break down what you're claiming:
A DVD burner, backlit keyboard, FireWire 800 port and a couple more memory card formats are worth a $570 premium.
God, I'd love to sell you hardware.
I could go on, but why bother? You know none of this has anything to do with my original point, which means you're just trolling. Have fun with that. My work here is done.
Which will never happen, because the people who could make that happen are the same ones collecting the money.
Most of what you said I can agree with (or at least concede) but:
This meme has been poked down a couple times. Conventional wisdom is that they are comparably priced with other similar hardware. I'm sure I could find an example and you could find a counter-example. One big difference is that apple only plays in the higher-end of the market, so you'll never find a barebones mac that could compare to a barebones PC.
No. You clearly have not done price comparisons, either recently, or ever. I did one just today, for someone essentially making the same claim as you, in another thread on this same story. Apple computers are very consistently around 90 to 100% more expensive than a typical PC with identical components. It can vary as much as 50-150%, but the disparity is usually greater the higher up the price scale you go.
Here's the example I gave earlier: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834215180
$629 Acer laptop with all the same specs as its $1,199 Macbook Pro counterpart. http://store.apple.com/us/configure/MD313LL/A?select=select&product=MD313LL%2FA
Pick any computer in their store there, and I'd bet you good money I can find you the same 50% price reduction on an equivalent PC from a reputable vendor.
So someone who doesn't want those things can go buy a PC laptop with the same specs as your Macbook Pro for roughly $500-$700. About half the price.
Here, for example is one for $629 with exactly the same specs as your $1,199 Macbook Pro: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834215180
It's always been that way.
You're exactly right. I've priced them out many times over the years, and Apple computers are always 50-150% more expensive than their PC counterparts with the exact same (or better) hardware components.
I will concede that Apples have their benefits over PCs for some people, but I am certainly not in that demographic.
Clearly we're supposed to do whatever we can to make reality match our expectations.
No, the point is that they specifically referred to a counterfeit as the real thing without getting permission. You can do whatever you want, as long as you have permission from the IP holders. Not only did WB not bother with getting permission, they were even warned before the film was released and still did whatever they wanted. Now they get to taste their own shit. Hope they like it.
That's already been covered in previous articles about Hollywood accounting. Sell the movie for $1 to a parrent/affiliate company. Done. Here's your 5% of the gross: $0.05. Don't spend it all in one place.