I'm guessing you haven't heard of anti-discrimination laws then; they say that you cannot discriminate against an employee due to race, religion or sex. The reason for this should be obvious, if companies can say that they won't hire people of a certain race, religion or sex then that means that getting a job isn't about your skill but about being a part of the right sort of groups; this means that becoming a part of a religion is not so much a personal, spiritual choice but a required choice for a particular career. If atheists controlled your industry and you had to become an atheist to join the industry, you would raise hell, wouldn't you? Or if you're an atheist, if you were forced to become a part of a religion you'd let the lawsuits fly too.
Erm...am I the only one that sees it as being really simple? Take a look at F.E.A.R.; granted, there's a mix of action and horror, but the horror portions of the game are scary/creepy because you can't harm Alma (at least, not until the end of the game) but she can harm you. I think that horror games, if they want to continue to be about genuinely being scary should focus on this aspect.
Call of Cthulu did something similar for much of the game, to similar results; you either couldn't kill everything after you or you simply couldn't kill certain creatures. The lack of physical safety was combined with audio and visual hallucinations for a heightened scare factor. In short, Call of Cthulu went back to what made survival horror scary, a lack of ammo/ability to kill things with simple physical force. Condemned 2 was similarly structured as well; most of the game your only defense is whatever blunt object is handy.
Really, nothing says that modern-day developers can't just make you feel physically threatened in the game by restricting what you can physically harm or by making ammunition scarce.
While I do enjoy turn-based RPGs myself; I think a big part of the reason that they are "disappearing" is because the technology has evolved enough that stats and situation can be easily (in real time) be turned into a chance of success of the action in real time. In the old days, particularly with consoles, RAM and storage was so small that doing such calculations while maintaining high quality (for the time) graphics was extremely difficult.
Additionally, moving in real time opens the game up to a larger audience, meaning better sales. In a game such as Oblivion and Fallout 3 the player doesn't necessarily need to be a big RPG fan in order to do well; they can pick a pre-made class and then just need to be good at working in a first-person perspective.
All of that said, if you're looking for a good turn-based RPG for the PS3, Valkyria Chronicles is a lot of fun; though it does mix in some first-person aiming and a bit of real-time third-person action, it is still based on the one turn, one action concept. Or if you want pure turn-based action, Persona 4 was just released for PS2, while I'm not a fan of the series (the whole "day at a time" bit bores and frustrates me a bit) it might slake your thirst for turn-based RPGs.
He can still appeal, which could (and likely would) take long enough for him to continue serving for at least a few months (assuming it is denied or the new trial rules he is guilty). If he is convicted without a successful appeal and he wins the election he would definitely be removed from the senate
As others have pointed out (http://irc.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/pubs/fulltext/nrcc49212/nrcc49212.pdf), Daylight Savings Time likely doesn't save us any energy. This, of course, makes sense as if people are getting up earlier to avoid it being dark when they get home, they're still using electricity in the morning which is now dark. In short, the only way that daylight savings time in the modern day is beneficial to anyone is people who want to play sports or do something else outdoors after work. Not only that, but studies have shown that Daylight Savings Time often actually costs companies money due to needing to change clocks, employees who show up late/early to work during time changes and computer errors resulting from time changes. The solution, is to abolish Daylight Savings Time and save us all some time, money and bother.
An easy way to motivate people is to demonstrate who's a complete idiot; in Japan this is exactly what happens. The test scores of every student are posted publicly with their name in the order of who did best to who did the worst. Even though Americans value being attractive or popular more than education and intelligence, I imagine people would quickly not want to be the "dumbest person in the school" and would quickly change their ways if this sort of thing was public, and eventually the whole class/school would get better grades because everyone is afraid of being last.
Actually, BG&E is getting a sequel, though there hasn't been anything more than a teaser trailer released yet (and one that shows no gameplay, at that).
If you split up sci-fi and fantasy, then the first on this list is #16 Eclipse, a modern-day sci-fi story about vampires. If you keep them together, then Harry Potter would come in at #11; or for a "pure" sci-fi novel, I Am Legend comes in at #72 due to its re-release for the movie.
Waterstone took a survey to find what people considered to be the 100 best novels of the past century; #1 is Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, #2 is Orwell's 1984 and #3 is Orwell's Animal Farm.
As of this writing, the current #1 in book sis Brisingr, a fantasy novel by Christopher Paulini; again, if you consider fantasy and sci-fi to be the same. If you don't, then #5 is Twilight is another vampire novel set in the modern day or #52 Anathem, is a "pure" sci-fi book.
So...which lists of best books or novels were you looking at?
"High Art" is mostly bullshit; it's an attempt to say that something is greater than it is and has no clear definition. Art is art, there are various ways that art is expressed but ultimately they all serve to "explore the human condition", generally "high art" is used as an excuse for snobbery. In short, "high art" is a good way of saying "things are this way because I say so"; when Roger Ebert was given ample proof that video games are art, he hid behind the "high art" shield and those with any sense dismissed him as an idiot (which he is).
I'd say trying to isolate the rules of the game is a disservice to games as art; or art in general. If we take the "rules" away from various forms of poetry and just studied them, they're just rules governing structure in writing poetry; by the same token, if we just take the rules of a game away from it, they're just rules as to how the character interacts with the world. Instead of looking at the rules of an artform, we should instead look at the piece as a whole; as we do for any other form of art.
As an example, Haiku consists of a rather strict set of rules, but we still consider (good) haiku to be art. Game art isn't just about the rules that you set down, but what you do with them; the games in the Prince of Persia series uses a fairly simple set of rules, but what is done within those rules is not only incredibly entertaining but highly artistic as well. Something that many modern artists and art admirers forget is that sometime the art of a work is in working within constraints to create something moving.
...an article on Slashdot a while back about how the APA (American Psychological Association) doesn't think that there is such a thing as addiction to video games yet? That they wanted more research?
And for that matter, I think the word "addiction" has been overused; obsession is the correct term for the so-called internet addiction, sex addiction and others. The problem is that the word obsession just doesn't hit home to people that they may need help; so they call it addiction, but pretty soon that will make the word addiction worthless too. Does anyone else see a pattern here? What will people be "addicted" to next?
1. Take a look at a hell of a lot of movies from the 70's, 80's and 90's that were just as violent, if not more so, than our current crop of movies that received the same rating. Scarface easily stacks up to todays movies in terms of violent activity (not to mention drugs and sex).
2. The idea that continuous observation of violence desensitizes people to violence has not been proven; there has not been one conclusive studies that shows, over time, that people who view violence become more violence. Note that some actually claim that viewing violence makes people less violent as it releases stress; but this again has not been proven.
3. Perhaps 24 is just a representation of the fact that some Americans have decided that torture is okay as long as it is a "bad guy". Art imitates life, this is generally not the other way around; artists are inspired by the times they live in.
The idea barely works for music, an industry vastly different from the video game industry; to-date, in the course of two years, Sellaband has only had 23 bands reach the 50,000 $10.00 "parts" mark. Do you know how many more "parts" would be required to just pay the costs for AAA video games? Some games cost upwards of $30 million to make; even if you instead do $50 increments, that's still 600,000 parts just to cover the cost of development, nevermind profits.
I'm simply more realistic; I've yet to see one person suggest a viable solution to making a profit from software without charging people for a copy of the game. If there's anything Americans should have (but probably didn't) learn in the past few years it's that idealism doesn't work without a solid plan to back it up.
You're speaking more in terms of the publisher/developer relationship now. It is true that if a publisher doesn't feel that a developer held up his end of the bargain, that they do not pay the developer, but the employees there still do get paid. I assumed that you meant paying the publisher, or some combo of the publisher/developer; but instead it seems that you are saying we the people should become the publisher, that strikes me as a bit off.
Additionally, if there is a guarantee that people will get a product back or their money back, then what you're talking about is a nightmare of legal paperwork which nobody in their right mind would deal with. You'd have so many new investors coming in, old investors getting out etc. that you'd have to hire an entire department just to deal with that and it would eat up a large part of your budget.
That's in the words of the individual who wrote the summary, not in the words of those reviewing the game. Chances are good that they (along with myself) would say that 7.8 is significantly better than 5.5.
You're confusing service industries with production; which may be your fundamental problem, I'll address each of your examples in turn.
With a haircut, you are paying for the service of having your hair cut a certain way; your hair at the end of the service may or may not be exactly like what you expected, but hair dressers do their best and then are paid for their services. As you noted, this service (not product) works on word of mouth pretty much exclusively, but again it's a service, not a product. Even if the hairdresser messes up, they'll give you a refund or a free haircut next time; your hair will grow back anyway.
The same can be said of fixing your car; save that most car shops have guarantees in place to help reassure customers that even if the mechanic messes up, they will be compensated for the mistake. Again, as a service (not a product) their business is based on word of mouth.
Finally, there is your pool example; but here is a service that actually produces a product, a pool. However, I still am not paying the contractor for the product, I'm paying them for their work. There are contractual obligations in place, of course, to make sure that they do said work though; more than the other two examples, there is a guarantee that if they don't get the work done, they won't get paid. That said, it's still entirely possible that they will do some work, get paid and not produce a pool but legally not be required to pay you; they could run into a restriction by the city or they could find out that electrical lines or a water pipe is running under your yard. If something happens where they can't build the pool, but have done some work, you will be required to pay them anyway.
However, there is a fundamental difference between all of them; in all cases you are paying for services, not a product.
What you are suggesting, though you don't realize it, is a small investment that instead of paying money, pays in the form of a finished product. This, however, is simply not how the market works, particularly on such a small pay scale. Investors want money in return for money; they are betting that you will do well enough to pay out more than you were paid, it's a form of legal gambling, really, save that you also own a certain portion of the company. In investment, there is no guarantee that a payout will occur; this is why nobody will pay for a software product that doesn't exist yet.
In any service, there is a certain amount of guarantee relative to the cost and effort of the project; in investment there is no guarantee. If I invest in your product, there is no guarantee I will get a product out or that I will get my money if you don't come back with a product I like. That is why the idea fails; there is no backup plan or guarantee that the finished product will be pleasant. That said, if you really want to try it, go ahead; set up a website, announce your idea and see how far it goes; I'd be very surprised if you can prove me wrong.
This game has been in development for something like seven years, on an off; the last major bit of news we heard about it before its release is that they were suing the makers of the engine they were using. I said at the time that this was a desperation move by Silicon Knights to excuse their own failings and it looks like I was right, funny that. I like the concept of a viking setting in a futuristic world, but an interesting concept, badly executed, makes for a bad game.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm guessing you haven't heard of anti-discrimination laws then; they say that you cannot discriminate against an employee due to race, religion or sex. The reason for this should be obvious, if companies can say that they won't hire people of a certain race, religion or sex then that means that getting a job isn't about your skill but about being a part of the right sort of groups; this means that becoming a part of a religion is not so much a personal, spiritual choice but a required choice for a particular career. If atheists controlled your industry and you had to become an atheist to join the industry, you would raise hell, wouldn't you? Or if you're an atheist, if you were forced to become a part of a religion you'd let the lawsuits fly too.
It is...*rolls*...a pleasure to meet you!
Erm...am I the only one that sees it as being really simple? Take a look at F.E.A.R.; granted, there's a mix of action and horror, but the horror portions of the game are scary/creepy because you can't harm Alma (at least, not until the end of the game) but she can harm you. I think that horror games, if they want to continue to be about genuinely being scary should focus on this aspect.
Call of Cthulu did something similar for much of the game, to similar results; you either couldn't kill everything after you or you simply couldn't kill certain creatures. The lack of physical safety was combined with audio and visual hallucinations for a heightened scare factor. In short, Call of Cthulu went back to what made survival horror scary, a lack of ammo/ability to kill things with simple physical force. Condemned 2 was similarly structured as well; most of the game your only defense is whatever blunt object is handy.
Really, nothing says that modern-day developers can't just make you feel physically threatened in the game by restricting what you can physically harm or by making ammunition scarce.
While I do enjoy turn-based RPGs myself; I think a big part of the reason that they are "disappearing" is because the technology has evolved enough that stats and situation can be easily (in real time) be turned into a chance of success of the action in real time. In the old days, particularly with consoles, RAM and storage was so small that doing such calculations while maintaining high quality (for the time) graphics was extremely difficult.
Additionally, moving in real time opens the game up to a larger audience, meaning better sales. In a game such as Oblivion and Fallout 3 the player doesn't necessarily need to be a big RPG fan in order to do well; they can pick a pre-made class and then just need to be good at working in a first-person perspective.
All of that said, if you're looking for a good turn-based RPG for the PS3, Valkyria Chronicles is a lot of fun; though it does mix in some first-person aiming and a bit of real-time third-person action, it is still based on the one turn, one action concept. Or if you want pure turn-based action, Persona 4 was just released for PS2, while I'm not a fan of the series (the whole "day at a time" bit bores and frustrates me a bit) it might slake your thirst for turn-based RPGs.
How many teenagers (girl or boy) honestly talk to their parents about their problems?
He can still appeal, which could (and likely would) take long enough for him to continue serving for at least a few months (assuming it is denied or the new trial rules he is guilty). If he is convicted without a successful appeal and he wins the election he would definitely be removed from the senate
As others have pointed out (http://irc.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/pubs/fulltext/nrcc49212/nrcc49212.pdf), Daylight Savings Time likely doesn't save us any energy. This, of course, makes sense as if people are getting up earlier to avoid it being dark when they get home, they're still using electricity in the morning which is now dark. In short, the only way that daylight savings time in the modern day is beneficial to anyone is people who want to play sports or do something else outdoors after work. Not only that, but studies have shown that Daylight Savings Time often actually costs companies money due to needing to change clocks, employees who show up late/early to work during time changes and computer errors resulting from time changes. The solution, is to abolish Daylight Savings Time and save us all some time, money and bother.
An easy way to motivate people is to demonstrate who's a complete idiot; in Japan this is exactly what happens. The test scores of every student are posted publicly with their name in the order of who did best to who did the worst. Even though Americans value being attractive or popular more than education and intelligence, I imagine people would quickly not want to be the "dumbest person in the school" and would quickly change their ways if this sort of thing was public, and eventually the whole class/school would get better grades because everyone is afraid of being last.
Actually, BG&E is getting a sequel, though there hasn't been anything more than a teaser trailer released yet (and one that shows no gameplay, at that).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkCXE1l5MVI
You can use USB mice and keyboards with the PS3.
Think of the mess that a facial would make in zero-G environments...the whole ship would be all sticky.
Oh really?
http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100bestnovels.html
#13 1984 George Orwell, all time according to this list.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2008-01-16-top-100-books_N.htm
If you split up sci-fi and fantasy, then the first on this list is #16 Eclipse, a modern-day sci-fi story about vampires. If you keep them together, then Harry Potter would come in at #11; or for a "pure" sci-fi novel, I Am Legend comes in at #72 due to its re-release for the movie.
http://home.comcast.net/~antaylor1/waterstones100.html
Waterstone took a survey to find what people considered to be the 100 best novels of the past century; #1 is Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, #2 is Orwell's 1984 and #3 is Orwell's Animal Farm.
Finally, the current Amazon top 100:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books
As of this writing, the current #1 in book sis Brisingr, a fantasy novel by Christopher Paulini; again, if you consider fantasy and sci-fi to be the same. If you don't, then #5 is Twilight is another vampire novel set in the modern day or #52 Anathem, is a "pure" sci-fi book.
So...which lists of best books or novels were you looking at?
"High Art" is mostly bullshit; it's an attempt to say that something is greater than it is and has no clear definition. Art is art, there are various ways that art is expressed but ultimately they all serve to "explore the human condition", generally "high art" is used as an excuse for snobbery. In short, "high art" is a good way of saying "things are this way because I say so"; when Roger Ebert was given ample proof that video games are art, he hid behind the "high art" shield and those with any sense dismissed him as an idiot (which he is).
I'd say trying to isolate the rules of the game is a disservice to games as art; or art in general. If we take the "rules" away from various forms of poetry and just studied them, they're just rules governing structure in writing poetry; by the same token, if we just take the rules of a game away from it, they're just rules as to how the character interacts with the world. Instead of looking at the rules of an artform, we should instead look at the piece as a whole; as we do for any other form of art.
As an example, Haiku consists of a rather strict set of rules, but we still consider (good) haiku to be art. Game art isn't just about the rules that you set down, but what you do with them; the games in the Prince of Persia series uses a fairly simple set of rules, but what is done within those rules is not only incredibly entertaining but highly artistic as well. Something that many modern artists and art admirers forget is that sometime the art of a work is in working within constraints to create something moving.
Shrapnel already happens with high-powered bullets; and most bullet or laser shrapnel is small enough to generally not cause serious injury or death.
...an article on Slashdot a while back about how the APA (American Psychological Association) doesn't think that there is such a thing as addiction to video games yet? That they wanted more research?
And for that matter, I think the word "addiction" has been overused; obsession is the correct term for the so-called internet addiction, sex addiction and others. The problem is that the word obsession just doesn't hit home to people that they may need help; so they call it addiction, but pretty soon that will make the word addiction worthless too. Does anyone else see a pattern here? What will people be "addicted" to next?
1. Take a look at a hell of a lot of movies from the 70's, 80's and 90's that were just as violent, if not more so, than our current crop of movies that received the same rating. Scarface easily stacks up to todays movies in terms of violent activity (not to mention drugs and sex).
2. The idea that continuous observation of violence desensitizes people to violence has not been proven; there has not been one conclusive studies that shows, over time, that people who view violence become more violence. Note that some actually claim that viewing violence makes people less violent as it releases stress; but this again has not been proven.
3. Perhaps 24 is just a representation of the fact that some Americans have decided that torture is okay as long as it is a "bad guy". Art imitates life, this is generally not the other way around; artists are inspired by the times they live in.
The idea barely works for music, an industry vastly different from the video game industry; to-date, in the course of two years, Sellaband has only had 23 bands reach the 50,000 $10.00 "parts" mark. Do you know how many more "parts" would be required to just pay the costs for AAA video games? Some games cost upwards of $30 million to make; even if you instead do $50 increments, that's still 600,000 parts just to cover the cost of development, nevermind profits.
I'm simply more realistic; I've yet to see one person suggest a viable solution to making a profit from software without charging people for a copy of the game. If there's anything Americans should have (but probably didn't) learn in the past few years it's that idealism doesn't work without a solid plan to back it up.
You're speaking more in terms of the publisher/developer relationship now. It is true that if a publisher doesn't feel that a developer held up his end of the bargain, that they do not pay the developer, but the employees there still do get paid. I assumed that you meant paying the publisher, or some combo of the publisher/developer; but instead it seems that you are saying we the people should become the publisher, that strikes me as a bit off.
Additionally, if there is a guarantee that people will get a product back or their money back, then what you're talking about is a nightmare of legal paperwork which nobody in their right mind would deal with. You'd have so many new investors coming in, old investors getting out etc. that you'd have to hire an entire department just to deal with that and it would eat up a large part of your budget.
That's in the words of the individual who wrote the summary, not in the words of those reviewing the game. Chances are good that they (along with myself) would say that 7.8 is significantly better than 5.5.
You're confusing service industries with production; which may be your fundamental problem, I'll address each of your examples in turn.
With a haircut, you are paying for the service of having your hair cut a certain way; your hair at the end of the service may or may not be exactly like what you expected, but hair dressers do their best and then are paid for their services. As you noted, this service (not product) works on word of mouth pretty much exclusively, but again it's a service, not a product. Even if the hairdresser messes up, they'll give you a refund or a free haircut next time; your hair will grow back anyway.
The same can be said of fixing your car; save that most car shops have guarantees in place to help reassure customers that even if the mechanic messes up, they will be compensated for the mistake. Again, as a service (not a product) their business is based on word of mouth.
Finally, there is your pool example; but here is a service that actually produces a product, a pool. However, I still am not paying the contractor for the product, I'm paying them for their work. There are contractual obligations in place, of course, to make sure that they do said work though; more than the other two examples, there is a guarantee that if they don't get the work done, they won't get paid. That said, it's still entirely possible that they will do some work, get paid and not produce a pool but legally not be required to pay you; they could run into a restriction by the city or they could find out that electrical lines or a water pipe is running under your yard. If something happens where they can't build the pool, but have done some work, you will be required to pay them anyway.
However, there is a fundamental difference between all of them; in all cases you are paying for services, not a product.
What you are suggesting, though you don't realize it, is a small investment that instead of paying money, pays in the form of a finished product. This, however, is simply not how the market works, particularly on such a small pay scale. Investors want money in return for money; they are betting that you will do well enough to pay out more than you were paid, it's a form of legal gambling, really, save that you also own a certain portion of the company. In investment, there is no guarantee that a payout will occur; this is why nobody will pay for a software product that doesn't exist yet.
In any service, there is a certain amount of guarantee relative to the cost and effort of the project; in investment there is no guarantee. If I invest in your product, there is no guarantee I will get a product out or that I will get my money if you don't come back with a product I like. That is why the idea fails; there is no backup plan or guarantee that the finished product will be pleasant. That said, if you really want to try it, go ahead; set up a website, announce your idea and see how far it goes; I'd be very surprised if you can prove me wrong.
And your business model doesn't really work in the real world because nobody will pay upfront for an item that doesn't exist.
This game has been in development for something like seven years, on an off; the last major bit of news we heard about it before its release is that they were suing the makers of the engine they were using. I said at the time that this was a desperation move by Silicon Knights to excuse their own failings and it looks like I was right, funny that. I like the concept of a viking setting in a futuristic world, but an interesting concept, badly executed, makes for a bad game.
No, I already paid them in full; just like I paid I don't pay every time I log into Windows, I already paid in full, dumbass.