Except the registry has a rather simple (ish) and iron clad method of demanding proof of "parentage". Require a certification of the gene sequence that states it is identical to the parent, with a tag saying it's a clone copy. Proving it hasn't been genespliced is just as easy a procedure, and inability to prove its genetic code is a match is a marketing death knell.
(Yes I know that gene sequencing isn't the cheapest thing in the world, but it's been dropping by leaps and bounds and frankly at this level I can't see it being a barrier to entry).
As someone who worked in one of those post offices, there's a few more bonuses to go this way.
First off, most local post offices in Canada (the govt operated ones) keep banker's hours more or less. Which means that if you have a real job then you probably won't have time to pick up your parcel or registered letter. Which means convenience for the actual consumers of the service.
Secondly, the employees are paid at the cashier rate rather than postal employee rate. Even if you're a long term lifer, your pay is still less than almost any actual postal employee (which makes it cheaper for Canada Post and the local store to afford it).
Thirdly, having a post office drives an impressive amount of foot traffic. People coming to pick up passport applications, mailing/collecting said, the same for parcels, even people just going in to drop off their letters inside a post office instead of a mail box (you'd really be suprised how much of a driving factor that is; people generally prefer a post office to a corner mailbox if only because they can find out when it will be picked up). All these people walk through your store, and some of them will buy something. You'll notice that these post offices are NEVER at the front of the store (not suprising either, since they need secure storage for postal supplies IE stamps, and inbound and outbound mail. Canada Post is pretty damn retentive about security in my experience).
Oddly enough, from the store's point of view they aren't really money-makers themselves. 99% of your stock for them comes from Canada Post, and your margin for the stuff is at best 5%. Compared to perfume or house-brand products (which can go from 50% to 250% markup), selling a book of stamps dosen't make any business sense on its own.
The software I use is done by a Dutch company called Collectorz (Yes, it sounds VERY reputable). It's one of the few bits of software I've genuinely felt worth purchasing for the value. It does pretty much everything you are looking at, cleanly and effectively. It allows you to export databases in a variety of formats, and has a matching app for android and apple products.
It does the classic things like search Amazon for books, either by ISBN or author/title, but it can also hit the Library of Congress as well as several other major national libaries (I know it does the UK as well as Canada). Multiple hits on a single ISBN/title let you select which you import in, and there's a wide selection of data tags you can use, as well as several user defined fields
One thing you may find useful is that the book assigns, in addition to everything else, a unique ID number to each book, which can be used in lieu of a barcode or more cumbersome ID method.
Yeah, the figures here are in millions. Now, the numbers...
Cost of Sales is another term for Cost of Goods. This involves costs directly related to production, manufacturing and delivery to customer. We're talking factory wages, raw materials, lease payments on factory space, etc.
Selling, informational and admin would encompass management, marketing, sales discounts, and possibly some of the regulatory costs (this depends on exactly how they market things)
R&D would include actual researchers wages, patent litigation fees (possibly. might be under admin), as well as other costs related to R&D like lab leases
No, their first priority is protection of their own IP which they must defend vigorously. Any unofficial "blessing" or slack with that takedown can be used as a chink in their case to retain the IP at a later legal engagement. Rather unlikely, but the law is not filled with many absolute certainties.
I'm certain that the first comment from Blizzard (and not their lawyers) to him was "We apologize for the takedown, but we have to cover our bases. Now, please tell us more about your project. We're a bit curious..." Once actual intent is discovered and identified, I'm willing to bet that they've extended a formal notice of approval to allow him to continue work, and posting videos in the future. Mark my words, in a few days that video will be back up on youtube.
Unfortunately, for the past... thirty years or so the basic view of a LOT of shareholders, a view that became steadily more and more common, was that they wanted a positive return each year, each quarter, etc. The boards that existed could see this tide rising steadily, as other boards that failed to deliver were eventually turfed out by shareholders and their proxies who DID want more returns. This then gave pressure to the boards to deliver on these results. Note that this means the boards are beholden to their shareholders. IE the Board has the (non-legal) obligation to follow the shareholder's majority goals. Failure to do so can result in the board being wiped clean (Note that in many companies boards are elected as a slate IE all or nothing).
Nobody likes losing a job, especially one with six figures attached to it, means that most boards will then work towards giving the shareholders what they want. So, one gets cost cutting and other charming crap. That being said, it's pretty much impossible to sue for a failure to generate profits, so long as there is an honest intention generate them (now there's a legal loophole for ya!).
One good thing at least, is that a lot of companies have recognized that chasing the ever-growing stock value (which is what shareholders want after all) is bad for long term business, and have begun working to persuade shareholders to take a longer, more strategic view. Some corps are leveraging this with environmental concerns, or economic stability, but it is happening.
This I can top. My local store has us pay for bags (voluntarily, mind you) by ringing in a PLU code. Only five cents per plastic bag. Pretty common fare around here. Anyhow, so I tell it I grabbed one plastic bag, and then it asks me if I wanted a bag for it. Which would then mean I'd have to plug in another PLU code, and then it would ask me for ANOTHER bag... and so on and so on....
I can't say how it is down in the States, but I know in Canada the way that scratch tickets work is that they have a bar code on the back, and a serial number hidden under the scratch portion. In order to validate the ticket, the retailer scans the bar code, and then looks for the serial number. The bar code is just a digital representation of the serial number, EXCEPT for the last three digits. The retailer plugs in the last three digits, and then the validator talks to the lotto central server and spits back a result of "Legit win", "Already redeemed" or "Not a Winner".
If Canada does it this way, I'd be surprised if a lot of the US lotto organizations don't either.
The player who actually created the PLEXes got exactly what they wanted. If they had wanted game time instead of ingame currency, they would have created the PLEX, and then immediately used it. Or even more likely, just used the game time code to add play time to their account without even creating a PLEX in the first place.
The way PLEXes work is that a player buys a gametime code from an authorized online retailer. The player then docks up at a station, and enters the code into a menu. This converts the codes into PLEXs (two PLEX per code). These PLEXes can then be put it onto the market and sold like other items
Now, in this situation all these PLEXes were purchased from multiple sellers in Jita (THE trade hub in EVE). The pilot then decided to move them out of Jita on a small, poorly defended and very weak ship. By all accounts the pilot had bought them in order to move them elsewhere and sell them at a considerable markup and make profit. Unfortunately, some hostiles were waiting outside of the undock point at the Jita space station (not uncommon). They saw a hostile target undock, and they engaged. Boom.
You may notice that the player(s) who actually created the PLEXes were compensated. They made ISK from their sales. The person who bought them however... just did something astronomically stupid.
The decision against Schmeiser was partially reversed and effectively nullified on appeal. See Schmeiser's web site.
That's interesting, except for the fact that the Supreme Court of Canada is the highest court in the land. You cannot appeal such a decision anymore than you can appeal one made by the Supreme Justices of the United States. True, the victory was not total (damages were not extensive) but Schmeiser was still found guilty.
... and keep your insurance in force. If said pool on the cheap leaked or burst, flooding your own house or the neighbour's, then the insurance adjuster can look to see if it was a properly installed pool. If it wasn't, then that would be pretty good grounds to have your coverage refused. That would then potentially leave you on the hook for paying any damages that would be your fault. Of course, you could try to sue the pool builder, but I'll wager he'll be quite long gone.
Building inspectors, on this note, will be conducting rounds every now and again to monitor compliance in any case. Google just allows them to do it faster, and with less environmental damage. That means conceivably, the inspectors can look at more serious issues like possibly unsafe decks and wiring. It's also interesting to note that this has been used elsewhere. I recall seeing an article last fall in the local newspaper about how Greek inspectors were doing the same. There, you not only have to have a permit, but there's a yearly tax as well. They looked at a certian suburb of Athens (middle-upper class area) and figured there were about 200 or so legally registered pools. They then did a look through Google Earth, and discovered 1700 pools in the same suburb.
I'm a business major, about to graduate with a BBA in Accounting, and the calculator is by no means a crutch. It is a tool to let me do a LOT of tedious, repetitive math far more accurately and quickly than by hand.
You CAN calculate out a mortgage, depreciation on assets, or a compounded investment portfolio by hand. Each period is only a few basic math steps. You just have to recalculate each period, write down a value, and do it over and over again. Care to estimate how many mistakes you might make just with writing and re-reading or entering numbers? Would you like your mortgage consultant to do that for you? And bill you for that time?
Didn't think so. A calculator automates the tedious parts of my profession so that I can work better. It does the math, but I have to understand HOW it does it, how the variables affect the results, and how to interpret it. Push coming to shove, I could do it by hand. But reality just makes it much easier to use a calculator to crunch out the raw data.
That's what I was taught in University. We do it by hand to understand how our tools work, and then we do it via calculator or Excel to do something usable with it. Understand the basics, and then leverage the power of something that's better at it. You don't slam a carpenter for using a table saw when he could use a handsaw do you? The value of his work isn't what does the cutting, it's the knowledge he has to pick the right tool to give you the result that you want. Why should the usage of a calculator be any different?
Presumably you checked to see what actually constitutes a full stop in your jurisdiction, yes? Because some areas actually state quite deliberately what is considered a full stop.
But at the same time, the tabletop games industry is also evolving in ways that conventional gaming isn't. The fact that outside of a few core lines (DnD, WoD), pretty much every major range has gotten hammered and bled white. A lot of smaller companies have folded and disappeared, and some "universes" have ceased publishing, but just as many small companies have reoriented their business and are still pushing new, creative products. Online retail has worked to supplant many smaller run games and keep them functional when distributors refuse to carry them. Online also allows smaller communities to organize and help sustain themselves. I know (not personally) of several small-time game "designers" and writers who are using POD and 3d prototyping to give their muses form in a commercially viable way. Not enough for them to live off, but enough for them to have pride in the fact that the stuff they made is out there and "they made it".
Sadly the bar needed for computer games to accomplish the same is brutally higher. Tabletop has the luxury of using comparatively static deliverables: Dice (already mass produced), printed and bound books (ditto), and normal table space. The depth of creativity seen depends entirely on how they wish to present their product. Clean line-art, home done diagrams and perhaps a nice 3d image for the cover can be done with surprisingly little resources that bankrupt few, and can often be done by a single person. Marketing, if done, can often be sustained merely by being involved with the community on a few websites, posting snippets of information and eliciting play tests and kibitzing.
Barring something along the lines of Tarn Adams' "Dwarf Fortress" (in my opinion, probably one of the most impressive tour de forces in game design, and an avowed decision to play the red queen's race for graphics), any game has at a core four big "hats" that must be worn. Someone must have an overall vision for how the game goes, how things should happen and with what words. Someone must be able to code and create this game, IE doing the actualization of the vision. Another person must create the appearance, graphics and sounds. Finally, someone must pitch (less charitable people would say pimp) the game to the populace. Any one of these tasks can become a full 12 hour a day job. Having one person by themselves wearing two of them is brutal, and accomplishing all four by oneself is virtually murder.
The final fact that shields classic tabletop from the same eventual fate is the nature of the deliverables themselves. A computer game must have all three elements delivered at once; vision, implementation, and appearance. They must all work together, or the product will fail. The tabletop can go into impressive depths on each of these points without killing itself entirely in any one way. Games Workshop excels at artistic vision and actual appearance; their implementation in my opinion is flawed, but that does not deter a large amount of fans. Avalanche Games has impressive implementation and appearance for their products, but being historical game producers their "vision" is hamstrung by historical fact. Ad Astra Games makes products that have clear vision and amazing implementation, but given cost constraints their appearance is considerably lower on the scale than other, larger producers.
In each of these cases, products can stand on two of the three legs safely, and enjoy commercial success in a pool just as crammed full of jaded consumers as video/computer games, competing for a crazy quilt of niches and markets. Games gutted for their laughable rules still get bought for art. Games with art done by physics students get bought due to excellent rules, and games that have no implementation or appearance are still bought for the ideas they impart. A computer game that has terrible graphics (but is strong in the other points) is derided as being ugly and a point of ridicule. Ones with no vision are laughed at for being cookie-cutter money grabs, and ones that have terrible implementation are dismal failures across the board.
TL;DR
Lower barriers to entry allow people to create table top games that can reach the market and possibly become a hit without sacrificing themselves on a producer's altar.
But they'll never sue the 'guys' who built your house really cheaply, without any of those annoying permits or inspections or actual concrete. Of course, you never asked when there were all these curious body-shaped voids in the foundation footing either.
But hey, the price!
Because it presents the appearance of doing something to "protect the children" while not actually having to -implement- anything. It's warm conservative-feel-good legislatural mush.
from the Cervantes Institute of Reality Ignorance. The award, called "Tilting at Windmills" is awarded to the most impossible and pointless decision regarding governance.
Admittedly this was back-of-napkin math, but it additionally helps that I live in Soviet Canuckistan, so we buy our fuel by the litre:P
But then even if I strip my argument down, hit the theatre on cheap Tuesday, walk to the nearest theatre (which isn't too far), and just get a popcorn, I'm still paying more to see a crap movie than to play EVE for a month. Even moreso, I switched my subscription to be charged every six months, which offers a lower per-month cost. I'm effectively paying for the cost of -renting- a movie and buying some microwave popcorn and a 2 litre of coke. Economically, EVE (and any MMO at this math) is incredibly good entertainment for your dollar
If you're talking about entertainment justification, it's not overly hard to do. I think of the cost of playing EVE as being about the same as seeing one hollywood "blockbuster" per month. 15$ USD for the game subscription essentially boils down to the cost of a ticket at a good first-rank theater, popcorn, drink, and gas going back and forth.
Myself, I think I get a lot more entertainment out of EVE than I would going to see one movie in the theater a month
But then again, the First Foundataion had access to the cutting edge of Empire tech, such as it was. And the developmental freedom to build on that tech to make more miniaturized hardware...
This isn't that surprising - the reason the similarities are so striking is because the oil companies are hiring the exactsamepeople the tobacco industry used.
I have to wonder though - wouldn't the oil companies know that their propaganda artists are the same ones who failed the tobacco lobby?
They aren't being hired in order to kill the global warming issue (that won't work) they're just working on getting enough FUD out there, murky enough water for them to get through their tenure as CEO and retire with an awesome severance package. It costs a company let's say 10 million a year to hire these guys and run their operations (number pulled from thin air), whereas for them to recognize the issue and go with the flow would mean billions of billions of dollars to realign their company. Any sane CEO looking out for his own rear will go pay the little bit to stall and leave someone else with the problem.
The only question is how long they can keep tossing the potato before it ends up being too hot and gets dropped in a lap
And what, twenty years ago you could say the same thing about China, probably even moreso. India has massive problems, yes. But they are problems that can be addressed, even better, dealt with in a manner far more farmilliar to western firms than in China. Twenty years ago, Chinese goods were invariably described as crap. Nowadays, the description varies from "meh, it's alright" to "they made that in China?". It all depends on which company is doing the manufacturing and how closely they watch their suppliers.
As for sweatshops, a large reason you've seen them dissapear to an extent in China and other countries is not government crackdowns (any country that has large amounts of sweatshops is invariably one that will not do more than token raids and legal pressure) but from the companies employing said labor because the public outcry about using said labor can be business-killing.
Give India the same capital and time that China got, and I'm certian that we'll see the at the least the same selection of quality. But with far more positive social benefits for India.
Slashdot Mirror
Except the registry has a rather simple (ish) and iron clad method of demanding proof of "parentage". Require a certification of the gene sequence that states it is identical to the parent, with a tag saying it's a clone copy. Proving it hasn't been genespliced is just as easy a procedure, and inability to prove its genetic code is a match is a marketing death knell.
(Yes I know that gene sequencing isn't the cheapest thing in the world, but it's been dropping by leaps and bounds and frankly at this level I can't see it being a barrier to entry).
As someone who worked in one of those post offices, there's a few more bonuses to go this way.
First off, most local post offices in Canada (the govt operated ones) keep banker's hours more or less. Which means that if you have a real job then you probably won't have time to pick up your parcel or registered letter. Which means convenience for the actual consumers of the service.
Secondly, the employees are paid at the cashier rate rather than postal employee rate. Even if you're a long term lifer, your pay is still less than almost any actual postal employee (which makes it cheaper for Canada Post and the local store to afford it).
Thirdly, having a post office drives an impressive amount of foot traffic. People coming to pick up passport applications, mailing/collecting said, the same for parcels, even people just going in to drop off their letters inside a post office instead of a mail box (you'd really be suprised how much of a driving factor that is; people generally prefer a post office to a corner mailbox if only because they can find out when it will be picked up). All these people walk through your store, and some of them will buy something. You'll notice that these post offices are NEVER at the front of the store (not suprising either, since they need secure storage for postal supplies IE stamps, and inbound and outbound mail. Canada Post is pretty damn retentive about security in my experience).
Oddly enough, from the store's point of view they aren't really money-makers themselves. 99% of your stock for them comes from Canada Post, and your margin for the stuff is at best 5%. Compared to perfume or house-brand products (which can go from 50% to 250% markup), selling a book of stamps dosen't make any business sense on its own.
The software I use is done by a Dutch company called Collectorz (Yes, it sounds VERY reputable). It's one of the few bits of software I've genuinely felt worth purchasing for the value. It does pretty much everything you are looking at, cleanly and effectively. It allows you to export databases in a variety of formats, and has a matching app for android and apple products.
It does the classic things like search Amazon for books, either by ISBN or author/title, but it can also hit the Library of Congress as well as several other major national libaries (I know it does the UK as well as Canada). Multiple hits on a single ISBN/title let you select which you import in, and there's a wide selection of data tags you can use, as well as several user defined fields
One thing you may find useful is that the book assigns, in addition to everything else, a unique ID number to each book, which can be used in lieu of a barcode or more cumbersome ID method.
Yeah, the figures here are in millions. Now, the numbers...
Cost of Sales is another term for Cost of Goods. This involves costs directly related to production, manufacturing and delivery to customer. We're talking factory wages, raw materials, lease payments on factory space, etc.
Selling, informational and admin would encompass management, marketing, sales discounts, and possibly some of the regulatory costs (this depends on exactly how they market things)
R&D would include actual researchers wages, patent litigation fees (possibly. might be under admin), as well as other costs related to R&D like lab leases
No, their first priority is protection of their own IP which they must defend vigorously. Any unofficial "blessing" or slack with that takedown can be used as a chink in their case to retain the IP at a later legal engagement. Rather unlikely, but the law is not filled with many absolute certainties.
I'm certain that the first comment from Blizzard (and not their lawyers) to him was "We apologize for the takedown, but we have to cover our bases. Now, please tell us more about your project. We're a bit curious..." Once actual intent is discovered and identified, I'm willing to bet that they've extended a formal notice of approval to allow him to continue work, and posting videos in the future. Mark my words, in a few days that video will be back up on youtube.
Pretty much this.
Unfortunately, for the past... thirty years or so the basic view of a LOT of shareholders, a view that became steadily more and more common, was that they wanted a positive return each year, each quarter, etc. The boards that existed could see this tide rising steadily, as other boards that failed to deliver were eventually turfed out by shareholders and their proxies who DID want more returns. This then gave pressure to the boards to deliver on these results. Note that this means the boards are beholden to their shareholders. IE the Board has the (non-legal) obligation to follow the shareholder's majority goals. Failure to do so can result in the board being wiped clean (Note that in many companies boards are elected as a slate IE all or nothing).
Nobody likes losing a job, especially one with six figures attached to it, means that most boards will then work towards giving the shareholders what they want. So, one gets cost cutting and other charming crap. That being said, it's pretty much impossible to sue for a failure to generate profits, so long as there is an honest intention generate them (now there's a legal loophole for ya!).
One good thing at least, is that a lot of companies have recognized that chasing the ever-growing stock value (which is what shareholders want after all) is bad for long term business, and have begun working to persuade shareholders to take a longer, more strategic view. Some corps are leveraging this with environmental concerns, or economic stability, but it is happening.
This I can top. My local store has us pay for bags (voluntarily, mind you) by ringing in a PLU code. Only five cents per plastic bag. Pretty common fare around here. Anyhow, so I tell it I grabbed one plastic bag, and then it asks me if I wanted a bag for it. Which would then mean I'd have to plug in another PLU code, and then it would ask me for ANOTHER bag... and so on and so on....
Why, did you want to borrow one?
I can't say how it is down in the States, but I know in Canada the way that scratch tickets work is that they have a bar code on the back, and a serial number hidden under the scratch portion. In order to validate the ticket, the retailer scans the bar code, and then looks for the serial number. The bar code is just a digital representation of the serial number, EXCEPT for the last three digits. The retailer plugs in the last three digits, and then the validator talks to the lotto central server and spits back a result of "Legit win", "Already redeemed" or "Not a Winner".
If Canada does it this way, I'd be surprised if a lot of the US lotto organizations don't either.
The player who actually created the PLEXes got exactly what they wanted. If they had wanted game time instead of ingame currency, they would have created the PLEX, and then immediately used it. Or even more likely, just used the game time code to add play time to their account without even creating a PLEX in the first place.
Nice Try, but no.
The way PLEXes work is that a player buys a gametime code from an authorized online retailer. The player then docks up at a station, and enters the code into a menu. This converts the codes into PLEXs (two PLEX per code). These PLEXes can then be put it onto the market and sold like other items
Now, in this situation all these PLEXes were purchased from multiple sellers in Jita (THE trade hub in EVE). The pilot then decided to move them out of Jita on a small, poorly defended and very weak ship. By all accounts the pilot had bought them in order to move them elsewhere and sell them at a considerable markup and make profit. Unfortunately, some hostiles were waiting outside of the undock point at the Jita space station (not uncommon). They saw a hostile target undock, and they engaged. Boom.
You may notice that the player(s) who actually created the PLEXes were compensated. They made ISK from their sales. The person who bought them however... just did something astronomically stupid.
The decision against Schmeiser was partially reversed and effectively nullified on appeal. See Schmeiser's web site.
That's interesting, except for the fact that the Supreme Court of Canada is the highest court in the land. You cannot appeal such a decision anymore than you can appeal one made by the Supreme Justices of the United States. True, the victory was not total (damages were not extensive) but Schmeiser was still found guilty.
Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_Canada_Inc._v._Schmeiser#Judgment
... and keep your insurance in force. If said pool on the cheap leaked or burst, flooding your own house or the neighbour's, then the insurance adjuster can look to see if it was a properly installed pool. If it wasn't, then that would be pretty good grounds to have your coverage refused. That would then potentially leave you on the hook for paying any damages that would be your fault. Of course, you could try to sue the pool builder, but I'll wager he'll be quite long gone.
Building inspectors, on this note, will be conducting rounds every now and again to monitor compliance in any case. Google just allows them to do it faster, and with less environmental damage. That means conceivably, the inspectors can look at more serious issues like possibly unsafe decks and wiring. It's also interesting to note that this has been used elsewhere. I recall seeing an article last fall in the local newspaper about how Greek inspectors were doing the same. There, you not only have to have a permit, but there's a yearly tax as well. They looked at a certian suburb of Athens (middle-upper class area) and figured there were about 200 or so legally registered pools. They then did a look through Google Earth, and discovered 1700 pools in the same suburb.
I'm a business major, about to graduate with a BBA in Accounting, and the calculator is by no means a crutch. It is a tool to let me do a LOT of tedious, repetitive math far more accurately and quickly than by hand.
You CAN calculate out a mortgage, depreciation on assets, or a compounded investment portfolio by hand. Each period is only a few basic math steps. You just have to recalculate each period, write down a value, and do it over and over again. Care to estimate how many mistakes you might make just with writing and re-reading or entering numbers? Would you like your mortgage consultant to do that for you? And bill you for that time?
Didn't think so. A calculator automates the tedious parts of my profession so that I can work better. It does the math, but I have to understand HOW it does it, how the variables affect the results, and how to interpret it. Push coming to shove, I could do it by hand. But reality just makes it much easier to use a calculator to crunch out the raw data.
That's what I was taught in University. We do it by hand to understand how our tools work, and then we do it via calculator or Excel to do something usable with it. Understand the basics, and then leverage the power of something that's better at it. You don't slam a carpenter for using a table saw when he could use a handsaw do you? The value of his work isn't what does the cutting, it's the knowledge he has to pick the right tool to give you the result that you want. Why should the usage of a calculator be any different?
Presumably you checked to see what actually constitutes a full stop in your jurisdiction, yes? Because some areas actually state quite deliberately what is considered a full stop.
But at the same time, the tabletop games industry is also evolving in ways that conventional gaming isn't. The fact that outside of a few core lines (DnD, WoD), pretty much every major range has gotten hammered and bled white. A lot of smaller companies have folded and disappeared, and some "universes" have ceased publishing, but just as many small companies have reoriented their business and are still pushing new, creative products. Online retail has worked to supplant many smaller run games and keep them functional when distributors refuse to carry them. Online also allows smaller communities to organize and help sustain themselves. I know (not personally) of several small-time game "designers" and writers who are using POD and 3d prototyping to give their muses form in a commercially viable way. Not enough for them to live off, but enough for them to have pride in the fact that the stuff they made is out there and "they made it".
Sadly the bar needed for computer games to accomplish the same is brutally higher. Tabletop has the luxury of using comparatively static deliverables: Dice (already mass produced), printed and bound books (ditto), and normal table space. The depth of creativity seen depends entirely on how they wish to present their product. Clean line-art, home done diagrams and perhaps a nice 3d image for the cover can be done with surprisingly little resources that bankrupt few, and can often be done by a single person. Marketing, if done, can often be sustained merely by being involved with the community on a few websites, posting snippets of information and eliciting play tests and kibitzing.
Barring something along the lines of Tarn Adams' "Dwarf Fortress" (in my opinion, probably one of the most impressive tour de forces in game design, and an avowed decision to play the red queen's race for graphics), any game has at a core four big "hats" that must be worn. Someone must have an overall vision for how the game goes, how things should happen and with what words. Someone must be able to code and create this game, IE doing the actualization of the vision. Another person must create the appearance, graphics and sounds. Finally, someone must pitch (less charitable people would say pimp) the game to the populace. Any one of these tasks can become a full 12 hour a day job. Having one person by themselves wearing two of them is brutal, and accomplishing all four by oneself is virtually murder.
The final fact that shields classic tabletop from the same eventual fate is the nature of the deliverables themselves. A computer game must have all three elements delivered at once; vision, implementation, and appearance. They must all work together, or the product will fail. The tabletop can go into impressive depths on each of these points without killing itself entirely in any one way. Games Workshop excels at artistic vision and actual appearance; their implementation in my opinion is flawed, but that does not deter a large amount of fans. Avalanche Games has impressive implementation and appearance for their products, but being historical game producers their "vision" is hamstrung by historical fact. Ad Astra Games makes products that have clear vision and amazing implementation, but given cost constraints their appearance is considerably lower on the scale than other, larger producers.
In each of these cases, products can stand on two of the three legs safely, and enjoy commercial success in a pool just as crammed full of jaded consumers as video/computer games, competing for a crazy quilt of niches and markets. Games gutted for their laughable rules still get bought for art. Games with art done by physics students get bought due to excellent rules, and games that have no implementation or appearance are still bought for the ideas they impart. A computer game that has terrible graphics (but is strong in the other points) is derided as being ugly and a point of ridicule. Ones with no vision are laughed at for being cookie-cutter money grabs, and ones that have terrible implementation are dismal failures across the board.
TL;DR Lower barriers to entry allow people to create table top games that can reach the market and possibly become a hit without sacrificing themselves on a producer's altar.
But they'll never sue the 'guys' who built your house really cheaply, without any of those annoying permits or inspections or actual concrete. Of course, you never asked when there were all these curious body-shaped voids in the foundation footing either. But hey, the price!
Day one's battles have already been posted on Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/user/CCPGAMES#g/c/29BA4E251AA2A6F8 , in 720p HD for your viewing pleasure.
Because it presents the appearance of doing something to "protect the children" while not actually having to -implement- anything. It's warm conservative-feel-good legislatural mush.
from the Cervantes Institute of Reality Ignorance. The award, called "Tilting at Windmills" is awarded to the most impossible and pointless decision regarding governance.
Admittedly this was back-of-napkin math, but it additionally helps that I live in Soviet Canuckistan, so we buy our fuel by the litre :P
But then even if I strip my argument down, hit the theatre on cheap Tuesday, walk to the nearest theatre (which isn't too far), and just get a popcorn, I'm still paying more to see a crap movie than to play EVE for a month. Even moreso, I switched my subscription to be charged every six months, which offers a lower per-month cost. I'm effectively paying for the cost of -renting- a movie and buying some microwave popcorn and a 2 litre of coke. Economically, EVE (and any MMO at this math) is incredibly good entertainment for your dollar
If you're talking about entertainment justification, it's not overly hard to do. I think of the cost of playing EVE as being about the same as seeing one hollywood "blockbuster" per month. 15$ USD for the game subscription essentially boils down to the cost of a ticket at a good first-rank theater, popcorn, drink, and gas going back and forth.
Myself, I think I get a lot more entertainment out of EVE than I would going to see one movie in the theater a month
But then again, the First Foundataion had access to the cutting edge of Empire tech, such as it was. And the developmental freedom to build on that tech to make more miniaturized hardware...
Don't see dear leader's hut having THAT...
This isn't that surprising - the reason the similarities are so striking is because the oil companies are hiring the exact same people the tobacco industry used.
I have to wonder though - wouldn't the oil companies know that their propaganda artists are the same ones who failed the tobacco lobby?
They aren't being hired in order to kill the global warming issue (that won't work) they're just working on getting enough FUD out there, murky enough water for them to get through their tenure as CEO and retire with an awesome severance package. It costs a company let's say 10 million a year to hire these guys and run their operations (number pulled from thin air), whereas for them to recognize the issue and go with the flow would mean billions of billions of dollars to realign their company. Any sane CEO looking out for his own rear will go pay the little bit to stall and leave someone else with the problem.
The only question is how long they can keep tossing the potato before it ends up being too hot and gets dropped in a lap
As for sweatshops, a large reason you've seen them dissapear to an extent in China and other countries is not government crackdowns (any country that has large amounts of sweatshops is invariably one that will not do more than token raids and legal pressure) but from the companies employing said labor because the public outcry about using said labor can be business-killing.
Give India the same capital and time that China got, and I'm certian that we'll see the at the least the same selection of quality. But with far more positive social benefits for India.