"Will the metaverse actually be thousands of gated community metaverses?"
I sure hope not. If the Stephensonian concept of a Metaverse were ever to take off in full cyberpunk force--VR goggles, gloves, and fiber lines in all glory--I sure don't want it to be a community of gated communities.
The entire idea of a Metaverse embolized existentialist absurdity: the idea of an "unending avenue of lights," 24 hours a day, is supposed to suspend reality. We're supposed to make this irrational and, frankly, just have fun with it.
For the thousands who don't work for IBM, Sun, or have some other connections, a gated Metaverse will be a bad place and waste of time. Not everyone (especially those who have few friends in real life) will have these connections. A Metaverse could be the perfect place to interact and meet others who want nothing else to do but relax and enjoy a little digital vice. This triumphs over EQ or WoW because you DON'T have a goal: it's not competitive and you can just relax.
In short: a filfilling Metaverse could be a great place for the (bored/lonely/connectionless/antisocial). Making it a world of gated communities will only make it some fancy social party.
As others have mentioned, there's more to this than the RIAA "double-dipping":
-The fingering charts. As others noted, RedOctane employees have made these charts for four levels, and any StepMania fan knows that it's not quite an easy job to match icons to timed, sometimes rhythmically-complex music. RedOctane has skilled musicians/nerds doing this dirty work, and they require money.
-Re-recording the songs. A lot of people are missing this--maybe because the covers on Guitar Hero are so well-performed and recorded. Not only are some older releases (think the 60s and 70s rock) not up to scuff in quality, but one must think about the track issue. To think that each artist's studio has kept each individual track in storage for decades is naieve, and that's even assuming that RedOctane had access to the studios' recordings--or that some of the originals were even recorded track-by-track.
We're also assuming that even IF RedOctane had access to each track AND that they were, as a whole, up to scuff, that, when soloed, the bass/drum tracks alone or guitar track(s) soloed are absolutely perfect in technique.
Re-recording songs takes expensive studio time (the tracks are well-produced) and bands also cost money. Not only the cover bands, but:
-RIAA, record label, and royalty fees. It goes without saying that each part are taking their fair (or, in the case of the RIAA, maybe not so fair...) share for each song licensed.
-Microsoft and game production fees. I'm not an expert on how Microsoft and publishers push online content, but I assume someone's paying for the bandwidth these downloads chew up--and it may be the developers/publishers.
Clearly, with all the fees involved, $2 isn't so bad: Microsoft's refusal to sell the songs a-la-carte is just annoying.
Slashdot Mirror
"Will the metaverse actually be thousands of gated community metaverses?"
I sure hope not. If the Stephensonian concept of a Metaverse were ever to take off in full cyberpunk force--VR goggles, gloves, and fiber lines in all glory--I sure don't want it to be a community of gated communities.
The entire idea of a Metaverse embolized existentialist absurdity: the idea of an "unending avenue of lights," 24 hours a day, is supposed to suspend reality. We're supposed to make this irrational and, frankly, just have fun with it.
For the thousands who don't work for IBM, Sun, or have some other connections, a gated Metaverse will be a bad place and waste of time. Not everyone (especially those who have few friends in real life) will have these connections. A Metaverse could be the perfect place to interact and meet others who want nothing else to do but relax and enjoy a little digital vice. This triumphs over EQ or WoW because you DON'T have a goal: it's not competitive and you can just relax.
In short: a filfilling Metaverse could be a great place for the (bored/lonely/connectionless/antisocial). Making it a world of gated communities will only make it some fancy social party.
I supposed I missed that the GH1 Xbox tracks were already released for PS2. I suppose the above argument only holds if the tracks were new.
As others have mentioned, there's more to this than the RIAA "double-dipping":
-The fingering charts. As others noted, RedOctane employees have made these charts for four levels, and any StepMania fan knows that it's not quite an easy job to match icons to timed, sometimes rhythmically-complex music. RedOctane has skilled musicians/nerds doing this dirty work, and they require money.
-Re-recording the songs. A lot of people are missing this--maybe because the covers on Guitar Hero are so well-performed and recorded. Not only are some older releases (think the 60s and 70s rock) not up to scuff in quality, but one must think about the track issue. To think that each artist's studio has kept each individual track in storage for decades is naieve, and that's even assuming that RedOctane had access to the studios' recordings--or that some of the originals were even recorded track-by-track.
We're also assuming that even IF RedOctane had access to each track AND that they were, as a whole, up to scuff, that, when soloed, the bass/drum tracks alone or guitar track(s) soloed are absolutely perfect in technique.
Re-recording songs takes expensive studio time (the tracks are well-produced) and bands also cost money. Not only the cover bands, but:
-RIAA, record label, and royalty fees. It goes without saying that each part are taking their fair (or, in the case of the RIAA, maybe not so fair...) share for each song licensed.
-Microsoft and game production fees. I'm not an expert on how Microsoft and publishers push online content, but I assume someone's paying for the bandwidth these downloads chew up--and it may be the developers/publishers.
Clearly, with all the fees involved, $2 isn't so bad: Microsoft's refusal to sell the songs a-la-carte is just annoying.