"because all FPS games are more or less the same game": I should have said "all FPS games to some degree *REDUCE* to the most basic element of point-and-shoot-fragging.
=== First let me get to the comment of "Wait till you fire up the tutorial and you'll know what I mean." Reply: === --First of all you do not need to play the tutorial. So that makes your point moot. --Second of all the tutorial was annoying I agree... but for approximately 1 minute... after which you actually got to play the game with a bot. --My third point is actually a question. If the tutorial was SOOO annoying/boring/condescending, you obviously beat the bot perfectly without dieing or even losing health? What's that you didn't? Personally I was happy to have a 5 minute tutorial match by myself... so that I could remember how to play the game and not completely suck when playing live with others.
=== Second let me get to the comment of "Spawn, Load-up, frag... Spawn, load-up, frag." Reply: === I agree FPS games have come a long way. Look at the battlefield series, COD series, TF2. Each of them has much more complex team-oriented, and more nuanced goals to achieve rather than just fragging.
However newer FPS games lack in purity. Take TF2. In TF2 there is a pyro class with a flamethrower, the pyro class encourages the player to learn how to ambush but doesn't emphasize aiming skills. In other more recent games, there are other compromises that are more "fun" but less of pure-point-and-shoot-action.
=== Q3 does have an edge in one way that other games don't: === Q3 has a very fast smooth gameplay that is oriented towards pure-point-and-shoot. It does that better than any game out there today in that one regard.
=== Off topic - Why I still play Q3-live? Because it helps me get better at the games I play today: === I think to some degree all FPS games reduce to some varient of pure-point-and-shoot-action... but nobody ( myself included ) wants to play the same thing over and over and that is why we have different games like the ones I mentioned ( TF2, Battlefield, etc ).
BUT I think if you can woop-ass in Q3... I think you will woop ass in *ANY* online FPS... because all FPS games are more or less the same game.
Two options: (1.) wifi directional antenna (2.) sat-phone sub.
Option 1: My advice is to get a nice directional wifi antenna. That way when you are in a port you can easily snoop the port for open wifi networks and get free internet. I will list three antennas of interest. They are ordered from best to worst gain ( dBi i.e. how much the antenna amplifies a weak signal )... or in terms of least to most practical ( i.e. how large the antenna is... do you have to mount it ). (a.) 9 dBi gain, 6x3x3 inches, needs mounting, http://www.l-com.com/item.aspx?id=21852 (b.) 8 dBi, 4.5x4.5x1 inches, needs flat wall, http://www.l-com.com/productfamily.aspx?id=6300 (c.) 5 dBi, 6.5x1.0x0.2 inches, attaches to the back of a laptop, http://www.l-com.com/item.aspx?id=21330
I kind of like the smallest one the most because the datasheet shows it being attached to the back of laptop
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Option 2: Sign up for a sat-phone service that serves your part of the globe. Try: Inmarsat/ISat, Thuraya. You might be able to get a DECENT rate on a data plan. Expect a high price for any satellite access.
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I am really interested in how it works out! At some point I plan on sailing around the world! So I would like to know what happens.
Blizzard would like to congratulate you for spending at least 1 year of man hours or 2920 hours. As a token of appreciation, we have changed your subscription cost to be X percent less expensive and we have sent you a complimentary pair of socks for... your needs....
Take for example my old school Boston University. They stopped teaching C/C++ for Electrical Engineering and Computer Systems Engineering majors... and replaced C/C++ with Matlab. Why? I'm not sure why. Matlab is too slow and too inflexible to EVER be used as a finished commercial product. I would never have a job if I didn't have experience with C because the job I got does all C programming where performance is the number one priority and when it isn't the number one priority it is a close second.
I point out how my old school made the wrong decision to show how decision making by colleges about programming languages... i guess old guys who never learned how to program properly will never make the right decision.
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I feel like your physics guys never learned how to program. And when they did... they learned excel... and that became what they thought of as a 'programming' language. So that is what is driving all the defensiveness in your department. ( I feel like the same thing happened in my old school with Matlab )
My suggestion is to make some really cool examples that illustrate why you need something more than Excel. Then it will become abundantly obvious.
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Which programming language would I suggest to you? Well physics tends to be more about research and less about speed and flexibility. So I would say something high level that lets you easily do complex operations. Like Matlab.
( p.s. Matlab is an elaborate script language in my opinion. Very elaborate... but still a script language in my opinion. And once again you could never have a commercial final product made with Matlab. )
FYI, BDTI is a company that specializes in designing benchmarks for GPP and DSP chips. Their benchmarks are widely used around the world when designers need to compare the power usage, performance, and memory usage of chips.
The type of coding I do is applied mathematics ( see Digital Signal Processing ) where most of the code is procedural C code ( see NOT object oriented ) and we abuse the rules of C a lot. There are tons of small abuses and warnings. Most of these could be easily found but are not found until it freezes our embedded system and then we have to physically hit a jumper or power cycle the box.
So if we had one of these it would prevent that sort of thing from happening a lot more... make our code much more robust... and increase our productivity.
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I don't see how it would be helpful for Java though... because those languages already have *very* robust warnings from the compiler... and the languages themselves are designed to be more dummy proof ( C trusts that you know exactly what you are doing... java trusts that you don't know what you are doing ).
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So for languages like C where there is lots of potential to screw up these would be excellent. But for more dummy proof languages like Java / C# the payoff would be less.
The mobile world does lots of wireless communication ( My cellphone alone does: bluetooth v1 / 2, IR, GSM, Wifi ). The best chips suited for these wireless communication tasks are DSP / CISC chips. Given that there is lots of wireless communication tasks I forsee DSPs / CISC chips having a significant percentage of the tasks.
BUT the DSPs / CISC chips won't ever REPLACE the General Purpose Processors / RISC chips. Most cellphones today are actually a combo platform with a General-Purpose-Processor that does the user interface ( other related tasks ) and a DSP ( to do the wireless communication and heavy lifting tasks ).
Previously, the only reason for getting the PS3 was to avoid having to buy two expensive devices: one for games + one for the Blu-Ray playing. Now that both will have Blu-Ray... you have to re-evaluate XBox 360 vs PS3.
XBox: +1 price +2 XBox multiplayer community ( ease-of-use , friends , performance ) +1 easier for developers to develop on the XBox... so XBox games are more "robust" +1 multi-platform games are usually developed on the XBox then ported to PS3 ( resulting in more robust games on the XBox )
Vs
PS3: +1 controller +1 cell processor... yeaa! umm... 7 individual processors! +1 more fanboy community support ( see people who pay for PS3 )
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XBOX at +5 is greater than PS3 at +3
XBOX is now the winner for me. Previously, the PS3 used to have blu-ray. That is like +2 or +1.
promoting a new car engine that everyone wants b/c it is so "good" ( lots of horsepower, torque, etc )... but the desirable "good" traits come at the price of a tradeoff of more "good" vs less miles-per-gallon.
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Aside from the horrible metaphor to explain my point. I am basically saying that it sounds very much like ray tracing is something Intel wants everyone to use... b/c by using it everyone will need faster computers... the need for faster computers means everyone needs to buy more Intel products.
I guess my question is, wouldn't it be better to invest 5 years in current "rasterization" rather than 5 years in "ray tracing" ?
It seems like rasterization will get the similar quality but for require less processing!?
So why would you use a technology that requires more expensive hardware to do the same thing but with less expensive hardware?
Lots of times I want to do some signal processing or plotting or visualize what I am working on... but I don't have a convenient way to visualize the data I am processing.
I found out recently that you can move your data from C to Matlab and then I can plot the data and actually visualize what I am working on .
Example 3 - Origin Studios: "In 1997, they released one of the earliest and most successful graphical MMORPGs, Ultima Online. After this title, Electronic Arts decided that Origin would become an online-only company after the completion of Ultima IX in 1999. However, within a year's time, EA canceled all of Origin's new development projects, including Ultima Online 2, Privateer Online, and Harry Potter Online. Richard Garriott left Origin shortly after and founded Destination Games in 2000."
Example 4 - Westwood studios: "In August 1998, Westwood was acquired by Electronic Arts (EA) for $122.5 million in cash, and at the time Westwood had 5% to 6% of the PC game market.[1]. In response to what was perceived as an unwillingness to maintain the Westwood brand and independence from EA, many long-time employees quit over the next few years.... One of the last games released by Westwood, Command & Conquer: Renegade... failed to meet consumer expectations and commercial goals Westwood and EA had set for it. In March of 2003, Westwood Studios (along with EA Pacific) was liquidated by EA and all willing staff were assimilated into EA Los Angeles."
Example 1 - Dungeon Keeper series by Bullfrog: "Bullfrog had decided not to do any other RTS of any kind. This decision was in effect the end of Bullfrog as a brand; the company had already been owned by EA for several years, and EA laid off some employees and put the remainder onto other projects such as the Harry Potter line."
"2004 met the final end of Bullfrog when Electronic Arts combined their side studios into EA UK."
Lord British - talking about how EA is a ONE TRICK PONY: "Richard Garriott: The short explanation was, as they say, fundamental creative differences. If you've seen any of the Ultimas, you know they contain very large virtual worlds, deep story lines and they took me each years to develop. But EA's core business is making sports games, and they've got a machine and a process that does that very, very successfully. Frankly, EA wasn't convinced that the MMOG business model was the way of the future and so that ultimately led to my retirement from EA. In fact, when I left in 2000, I fully anticipated that if EA wasn't interested in MMOGs, that Microsoft or some other big company would dive into this bold new world that we'd opened up and then dominate the market segment. After a year of retirement -- and with no one approaching us -- my brother Robert and I decided to put together a company to create MMOGs that we briefly called Destination Games. "
"There are VOIP applicaitions freely available for most of them (with Nokias it's even built into the firmware). Google are doing nothing particularly new here":
Yes there is VOIP applications available for cellphone hardware. The things Google speaks about probably have been offered in one form or another.
However the difference is that Google will be offering a data service as the PRIMARY service. Offering a data service as their primary wireless service IS DEFINITELY something "particularly new here".
If you are wondering, "why would google want to provide the internet in a different form factor?" the answer to that question is: b/c when people have access to the internet they will use google --> using google means using google ads --> using google ads means lots of money going to google.
So yes Google is being selfish in wanting to provide internet for the masses because it means more money for their coffers, BUT at the same time having internet also means that you can use the internet... and plus its not like you HAVE to use Google when you have access to the internet.
In a nutshell, the modern cellphone corporation's business model is meant to screw over it's users as best as possible while looking SLIGHTLY better than the competiting cellphone corporation.
To describe what I mean in a more rational sense: The current cellphone corporation is trying to maximize ARPU. For those who aren't in the know ARPU stands for "Average Revenue Per User". All the cellphone corporations even go so far as to have entire HUGE conferences that focus ENTIRELY on ARPU (or what I refer to as "screwing over it's users as best as possible"). See David Pogue's article that claims United States cellphone corporations are calcified, http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/07/05/are-us-cellphone-carriers-calcified/ .
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The thing that pisses me off most about the cellphone carriers is that they design all cellphones to make you use their proprietary services... or more technically, cellphone hardware is merely a tool that is leveraged to maximize ARPU.
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Once cellphones become generic TCP / IP traffic riding on some standardized physical layer... that is when we will see innovation. If you were wondering what Google is trying to do... they are trying to achieve some sort of all TCP / IP wireless schema. That makes me very excited because it will mean your phone bill will disappear ( almost completely ) and you will only pay for some sort of internet service.
The ESRB rates video games not by playing them but by getting a video of important parts in the video game.
Here is my thought experiment: What happens if you somehow got that same video that usually gets sent to the ESRB but instead had it sent to the movie rating group[1]? ( [1] Assuming that the movie rating group actually rates the movie and instead of ignoring it and not reviewing it. )
My guess is that the movie rating people would not bat an eyelash at any video game like manhunt 2.
Once you start broadcasting stuff wirelessly it radiates outward and it may only be strong enough at a small range of say 10 feet away with the ORIGINAL included antenna --> however using a GOOD directional antenna + amplifiers + filters --> that same tiny signal will be strong enough from 100 to 1000 feet away!
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The sound card is basically being used for it's onboard hardware. Any soundcard has a good A/D IC onboard that does 44.1KHz or 88KHz sampling. That means with a soundcard you can easily listen in on high data rate signals with your soundcard. Then to get the actual bits from the signal you run a software demodulator / receiver.
I would have to guess that he is being disbarred because he continues to come to court with a case that is not based on substantial evidence and is not supported by the law.
1.) He tries to put the ESRB in court for selling games to minors. But the ESRB has nothing to do with selling games to minors. The retail store is responsible for not selling games to minors. Yet he doesn't go after the retailers. I'm not sure why.
2.) He tries to stop the game "Bully" from being released in Florida / Miami. But the case he brought to court was basically 'the content of this game is bad we need to censor the content by not releasing it'. First, he was wrong that the content was not that bad. Second, he was wrong because you can't just censor something just because you deem it 'bad'.
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I think the real reason for disbarment is because he is advocating Censorship on a specific type of media as opposed to Censorship on content. He thinks that just because something is in the form of a video game it is bad... he doesn't actually look at the content of the media.
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Oh ya and there is the fact that all of his claims that 'video games negatively affect society' have no scientific foundation to stand upon.
I will quote two description of two games made for the Atari 2600... Before Nintendo, Sony, and MS started to require their permission before a game is released on their console.
A short description of Custer's Revenge:
"well you are both completely naked. What's happening... well there are spears dropping from out of the sky. And you gotta avoid them. So the goal of the game is to get over there and rape her. That's terrible I can't believe I'm playing this! Ya fuck her fuck her! That's how you score in this game.'
Ya that's funny right? Well its funny for about two minutes. Then it gets boring.
All you do is. Bang the chick. Dodge the spears. Bang the chick. Dodge the spears.
You know... you gotta give this guy credit. He's under attack and he still has the nerve to go over and screw this woman against a cactus. "
A short description of Beat 'em and eat 'em:
"Beat em... and eat em... oh dear what have I gotten myself into. All you do is move these two sluts back and forth to catch this... *stuff* this guy shoots down... *licking of mouth action happens onscreen* oh... yummy. "
The real reason that Nintendo, Sony, and MS do not allow AO rated games is actually quite simple. All one has to do is examine history to find out why the console makers do not allow AO rated games:
It all boils down to one word, "Mystique".
"Mystique was the name of a company that produced a number of pornographic video games for the Atari 2600, such as Beat 'Em and Eat 'Em, Bachelor Party and the below mentioned Custer's Revenge."
"The games caused the 2600's image to suffer. Atari sued Mystique over such games, but lost the suit in court."
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If I were a console maker I would definitely be fearful of having something as notorious as "Custer's revenge" coming out on my console!
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p.s. I won't even go into depth about all the *horrible* ( horrible gameplay ) religious games that came out on atari and later SNES.
p.p.s. I won't even go into depth about how they portrayed the religions that these games were trying to teach you about. Oh dear lord...
===1st point===
Your supposed new ideas of a gravity gun or portal gun in the game... are idiotic. Yes these are fun and cool guns. Yes they would be interesting in the game. Would you have a cohesive team experience with lots of push and pull and multiple solutions to an offense / defense problem? No.
===2nd point===
If the grav gun or portal gun were in multiplayer. They would be one huge gimmick. After a while they would be really old after everyone got accustumed to looking at the really cool yet shallow gameplay offered by the guns.
===3rd point===
There is no way to balance those two guns no matter what you try.
Slashdot Mirror
I guess you should replace the word "pure" with "simple".
Playing a simpler game is fun just like coding in a simpler language like C is fun.
"because all FPS games are more or less the same game":
I should have said "all FPS games to some degree *REDUCE* to the most basic element of point-and-shoot-fragging.
=== First let me get to the comment of "Wait till you fire up the tutorial and you'll know what I mean." Reply: ===
--First of all you do not need to play the tutorial. So that makes your point moot.
--Second of all the tutorial was annoying I agree... but for approximately 1 minute... after which you actually got to play the game with a bot.
--My third point is actually a question. If the tutorial was SOOO annoying/boring/condescending, you obviously beat the bot perfectly without dieing or even losing health? What's that you didn't? Personally I was happy to have a 5 minute tutorial match by myself... so that I could remember how to play the game and not completely suck when playing live with others.
=== Second let me get to the comment of "Spawn, Load-up, frag... Spawn, load-up, frag." Reply: ===
I agree FPS games have come a long way. Look at the battlefield series, COD series, TF2. Each of them has much more complex team-oriented, and more nuanced goals to achieve rather than just fragging.
However newer FPS games lack in purity. Take TF2. In TF2 there is a pyro class with a flamethrower, the pyro class encourages the player to learn how to ambush but doesn't emphasize aiming skills. In other more recent games, there are other compromises that are more "fun" but less of pure-point-and-shoot-action.
=== Q3 does have an edge in one way that other games don't: ===
Q3 has a very fast smooth gameplay that is oriented towards pure-point-and-shoot. It does that better than any game out there today in that one regard.
=== Off topic - Why I still play Q3-live? Because it helps me get better at the games I play today: ===
I think to some degree all FPS games reduce to some varient of pure-point-and-shoot-action... but nobody ( myself included ) wants to play the same thing over and over and that is why we have different games like the ones I mentioned ( TF2, Battlefield, etc ).
BUT I think if you can woop-ass in Q3... I think you will woop ass in *ANY* online FPS... because all FPS games are more or less the same game.
Two options: (1.) wifi directional antenna (2.) sat-phone sub.
Option 1:
My advice is to get a nice directional wifi antenna. That way when you are in a port you can easily snoop the port for open wifi networks and get free internet. I will list three antennas of interest. They are ordered from best to worst gain ( dBi i.e. how much the antenna amplifies a weak signal )... or in terms of least to most practical ( i.e. how large the antenna is... do you have to mount it ).
(a.) 9 dBi gain, 6x3x3 inches, needs mounting, http://www.l-com.com/item.aspx?id=21852
(b.) 8 dBi, 4.5x4.5x1 inches, needs flat wall, http://www.l-com.com/productfamily.aspx?id=6300
(c.) 5 dBi, 6.5x1.0x0.2 inches, attaches to the back of a laptop, http://www.l-com.com/item.aspx?id=21330
I kind of like the smallest one the most because the datasheet shows it being attached to the back of laptop
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Option 2:
Sign up for a sat-phone service that serves your part of the globe. Try: Inmarsat/ISat, Thuraya. You might be able to get a DECENT rate on a data plan. Expect a high price for any satellite access.
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I am really interested in how it works out! At some point I plan on sailing around the world! So I would like to know what happens.
Sincerely,
Trevor
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p.s. if you REALLY want to be cool go with one of the parabolic wifi antennas! Like this small 14 dBi, 10x10 inch http://www.l-com.com/productfamily.aspx?id=6150 parabolic
My job has about 100 some odd people with 2 IT people. That is like 50 to 1.
We are a lean mean ... IT... fight... ing... machine.
Your claim is that life does not have any reason or explanation as to WHY you are alive or WHY am I doing this or that ?
If life has to reason to explain why you do something... what governs your decision making ?
p.s. let me guess... you are a relativists or nihilist or both?
Blizzard would like to congratulate you for spending at least 1 year of man hours or 2920 hours. As a token of appreciation, we have changed your subscription cost to be X percent less expensive and we have sent you a complimentary pair of socks for ... your needs. ...
Congratulations.
p.s. please look for our new game called "world of world of warcraft" ( http://www.theonion.com/content/video/warcraft_sequel_lets_gamers_play ) we know you don't have any life... i mean... we know you will like it.
Take for example my old school Boston University. They stopped teaching C/C++ for Electrical Engineering and Computer Systems Engineering majors ... and replaced C/C++ with Matlab. Why? I'm not sure why. Matlab is too slow and too inflexible to EVER be used as a finished commercial product. I would never have a job if I didn't have experience with C because the job I got does all C programming where performance is the number one priority and when it isn't the number one priority it is a close second.
... i guess old guys who never learned how to program properly will never make the right decision.
I point out how my old school made the wrong decision to show how decision making by colleges about programming languages
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I feel like your physics guys never learned how to program. And when they did... they learned excel... and that became what they thought of as a 'programming' language. So that is what is driving all the defensiveness in your department. ( I feel like the same thing happened in my old school with Matlab )
My suggestion is to make some really cool examples that illustrate why you need something more than Excel. Then it will become abundantly obvious.
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Which programming language would I suggest to you? Well physics tends to be more about research and less about speed and flexibility. So I would say something high level that lets you easily do complex operations. Like Matlab.
( p.s. Matlab is an elaborate script language in my opinion. Very elaborate... but still a script language in my opinion. And once again you could never have a commercial final product made with Matlab. )
"DSP Or A GPP? You Decide" , http://electronicdesign.com/Articles/Index.cfm?AD=1&ArticleID=7722 --> "Solutions that mix a GPP and a DSP in one chip have many advantages, but they significantly increase the complexity of the underlying system."
"Lost cost General Purpose Process vs low cost DSP" , http://www.bdti.com/articles/evolution/sld024.htm , GPP gets score 7 vs DSP gets score of 10.
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FYI, BDTI is a company that specializes in designing benchmarks for GPP and DSP chips. Their benchmarks are widely used around the world when designers need to compare the power usage, performance, and memory usage of chips.
The type of coding I do is applied mathematics ( see Digital Signal Processing ) where most of the code is procedural C code ( see NOT object oriented ) and we abuse the rules of C a lot. There are tons of small abuses and warnings. Most of these could be easily found but are not found until it freezes our embedded system and then we have to physically hit a jumper or power cycle the box.
... make our code much more robust... and increase our productivity.
So if we had one of these it would prevent that sort of thing from happening a lot more
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I don't see how it would be helpful for Java though... because those languages already have *very* robust warnings from the compiler... and the languages themselves are designed to be more dummy proof ( C trusts that you know exactly what you are doing... java trusts that you don't know what you are doing ).
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So for languages like C where there is lots of potential to screw up these would be excellent. But for more dummy proof languages like Java / C# the payoff would be less.
The mobile world does lots of wireless communication ( My cellphone alone does: bluetooth v1 / 2, IR, GSM, Wifi ). The best chips suited for these wireless communication tasks are DSP / CISC chips. Given that there is lots of wireless communication tasks I forsee DSPs / CISC chips having a significant percentage of the tasks.
BUT the DSPs / CISC chips won't ever REPLACE the General Purpose Processors / RISC chips. Most cellphones today are actually a combo platform with a General-Purpose-Processor that does the user interface ( other related tasks ) and a DSP ( to do the wireless communication and heavy lifting tasks ).
Previously, the only reason for getting the PS3 was to avoid having to buy two expensive devices: one for games + one for the Blu-Ray playing. Now that both will have Blu-Ray ... you have to re-evaluate XBox 360 vs PS3.
... yeaa! umm ... 7 individual processors!
XBox:
+1 price
+2 XBox multiplayer community ( ease-of-use , friends , performance )
+1 easier for developers to develop on the XBox... so XBox games are more "robust"
+1 multi-platform games are usually developed on the XBox then ported to PS3 ( resulting in more robust games on the XBox )
Vs
PS3:
+1 controller
+1 cell processor
+1 more fanboy community support ( see people who pay for PS3 )
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XBOX at +5 is greater than PS3 at +3
XBOX is now the winner for me. Previously, the PS3 used to have blu-ray. That is like +2 or +1.
promoting a new car engine that everyone wants b/c it is so "good" ( lots of horsepower, torque, etc ) ... but the desirable "good" traits come at the price of a tradeoff of more "good" vs less miles-per-gallon.
... b/c by using it everyone will need faster computers... the need for faster computers means everyone needs to buy more Intel products.
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Aside from the horrible metaphor to explain my point. I am basically saying that it sounds very much like ray tracing is something Intel wants everyone to use
I guess my question is, wouldn't it be better to invest 5 years in current "rasterization" rather than 5 years in "ray tracing" ?
It seems like rasterization will get the similar quality but for require less processing!?
So why would you use a technology that requires more expensive hardware to do the same thing but with less expensive hardware?
Lots of times I want to do some signal processing or plotting or visualize what I am working on ... but I don't have a convenient way to visualize the data I am processing.
I found out recently that you can move your data from C to Matlab and then I can plot the data and actually visualize what I am working on .
Example 3 - Origin Studios:
... One of the last games released by Westwood, Command & Conquer: Renegade ... failed to meet consumer expectations and commercial goals Westwood and EA had set for it. In March of 2003, Westwood Studios (along with EA Pacific) was liquidated by EA and all willing staff were assimilated into EA Los Angeles."
"In 1997, they released one of the earliest and most successful graphical MMORPGs, Ultima Online. After this title, Electronic Arts decided that Origin would become an online-only company after the completion of Ultima IX in 1999. However, within a year's time, EA canceled all of Origin's new development projects, including Ultima Online 2, Privateer Online, and Harry Potter Online. Richard Garriott left Origin shortly after and founded Destination Games in 2000."
Example 4 - Westwood studios:
"In August 1998, Westwood was acquired by Electronic Arts (EA) for $122.5 million in cash, and at the time Westwood had 5% to 6% of the PC game market.[1]. In response to what was perceived as an unwillingness to maintain the Westwood brand and independence from EA, many long-time employees quit over the next few years.
Example 1 - Dungeon Keeper series by Bullfrog:
"Bullfrog had decided not to do any other RTS of any kind. This decision was in effect the end of Bullfrog as a brand; the company had already been owned by EA for several years, and EA laid off some employees and put the remainder onto other projects such as the Harry Potter line."
"2004 met the final end of Bullfrog when Electronic Arts combined their side studios into EA UK."
Lord British - talking about how EA is a ONE TRICK PONY:
"Richard Garriott: The short explanation was, as they say, fundamental creative differences. If you've seen any of the Ultimas, you know they contain very large virtual worlds, deep story lines and they took me each years to develop. But EA's core business is making sports games, and they've got a machine and a process that does that very, very successfully. Frankly, EA wasn't convinced that the MMOG business model was the way of the future and so that ultimately led to my retirement from EA. In fact, when I left in 2000, I fully anticipated that if EA wasn't interested in MMOGs, that Microsoft or some other big company would dive into this bold new world that we'd opened up and then dominate the market segment. After a year of retirement -- and with no one approaching us -- my brother Robert and I decided to put together a company to create MMOGs that we briefly called Destination Games. "
"There are VOIP applicaitions freely available for most of them (with Nokias it's even built into the firmware). Google are doing nothing particularly new here": Yes there is VOIP applications available for cellphone hardware. The things Google speaks about probably have been offered in one form or another. However the difference is that Google will be offering a data service as the PRIMARY service. Offering a data service as their primary wireless service IS DEFINITELY something "particularly new here".
If you are wondering, "why would google want to provide the internet in a different form factor?" the answer to that question is: b/c when people have access to the internet they will use google --> using google means using google ads --> using google ads means lots of money going to google.
So yes Google is being selfish in wanting to provide internet for the masses because it means more money for their coffers, BUT at the same time having internet also means that you can use the internet... and plus its not like you HAVE to use Google when you have access to the internet.
In a nutshell, the modern cellphone corporation's business model is meant to screw over it's users as best as possible while looking SLIGHTLY better than the competiting cellphone corporation.
To describe what I mean in a more rational sense: The current cellphone corporation is trying to maximize ARPU. For those who aren't in the know ARPU stands for "Average Revenue Per User". All the cellphone corporations even go so far as to have entire HUGE conferences that focus ENTIRELY on ARPU (or what I refer to as "screwing over it's users as best as possible"). See David Pogue's article that claims United States cellphone corporations are calcified, http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/07/05/are-us-cellphone-carriers-calcified/ .
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The thing that pisses me off most about the cellphone carriers is that they design all cellphones to make you use their proprietary services... or more technically, cellphone hardware is merely a tool that is leveraged to maximize ARPU.
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Once cellphones become generic TCP / IP traffic riding on some standardized physical layer... that is when we will see innovation. If you were wondering what Google is trying to do... they are trying to achieve some sort of all TCP / IP wireless schema. That makes me very excited because it will mean your phone bill will disappear ( almost completely ) and you will only pay for some sort of internet service.
The ESRB rates video games not by playing them but by getting a video of important parts in the video game.
Here is my thought experiment:
What happens if you somehow got that same video that usually gets sent to the ESRB but instead had it sent to the movie rating group[1]? ( [1] Assuming that the movie rating group actually rates the movie and instead of ignoring it and not reviewing it. )
My guess is that the movie rating people would not bat an eyelash at any video game like manhunt 2.
Once you start broadcasting stuff wirelessly it radiates outward and it may only be strong enough at a small range of say 10 feet away with the ORIGINAL included antenna --> however using a GOOD directional antenna + amplifiers + filters --> that same tiny signal will be strong enough from 100 to 1000 feet away! ----- The sound card is basically being used for it's onboard hardware. Any soundcard has a good A/D IC onboard that does 44.1KHz or 88KHz sampling. That means with a soundcard you can easily listen in on high data rate signals with your soundcard. Then to get the actual bits from the signal you run a software demodulator / receiver.
I would have to guess that he is being disbarred because he continues to come to court with a case that is not based on substantial evidence and is not supported by the law.
1.) He tries to put the ESRB in court for selling games to minors. But the ESRB has nothing to do with selling games to minors. The retail store is responsible for not selling games to minors. Yet he doesn't go after the retailers. I'm not sure why.
2.) He tries to stop the game "Bully" from being released in Florida / Miami. But the case he brought to court was basically 'the content of this game is bad we need to censor the content by not releasing it'. First, he was wrong that the content was not that bad. Second, he was wrong because you can't just censor something just because you deem it 'bad'.
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I think the real reason for disbarment is because he is advocating Censorship on a specific type of media as opposed to Censorship on content. He thinks that just because something is in the form of a video game it is bad... he doesn't actually look at the content of the media.
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Oh ya and there is the fact that all of his claims that 'video games negatively affect society' have no scientific foundation to stand upon.
I will quote two description of two games made for the Atari 2600... Before Nintendo, Sony, and MS started to require their permission before a game is released on their console. A short description of Custer's Revenge:
"well you are both completely naked. What's happening... well there are spears dropping from out of the sky. And you gotta avoid them. So the goal of the game is to get over there and rape her. That's terrible I can't believe I'm playing this! Ya fuck her fuck her! That's how you score in this game.'
Ya that's funny right? Well its funny for about two minutes. Then it gets boring.
All you do is. Bang the chick. Dodge the spears. Bang the chick. Dodge the spears.
You know... you gotta give this guy credit. He's under attack and he still has the nerve to go over and screw this woman against a cactus. "
A short description of Beat 'em and eat 'em:
"Beat em... and eat em... oh dear what have I gotten myself into. All you do is move these two sluts back and forth to catch this... *stuff* this guy shoots down... *licking of mouth action happens onscreen* oh... yummy. "
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/23884.html . Quotations and descriptions are courtesy of "the angry video game nerd. =P
The real reason that Nintendo, Sony, and MS do not allow AO rated games is actually quite simple. All one has to do is examine history to find out why the console makers do not allow AO rated games:
It all boils down to one word, "Mystique".
"Mystique was the name of a company that produced a number of pornographic video games for the Atari 2600, such as Beat 'Em and Eat 'Em, Bachelor Party and the below mentioned Custer's Revenge."
"The games caused the 2600's image to suffer. Atari sued Mystique over such games, but lost the suit in court."
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If I were a console maker I would definitely be fearful of having something as notorious as "Custer's revenge" coming out on my console!
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p.s. I won't even go into depth about all the *horrible* ( horrible gameplay ) religious games that came out on atari and later SNES.
p.p.s. I won't even go into depth about how they portrayed the religions that these games were trying to teach you about. Oh dear lord...
===1st point===
Your supposed new ideas of a gravity gun or portal gun in the game... are idiotic. Yes these are fun and cool guns. Yes they would be interesting in the game. Would you have a cohesive team experience with lots of push and pull and multiple solutions to an offense / defense problem? No.
===2nd point===
If the grav gun or portal gun were in multiplayer. They would be one huge gimmick. After a while they would be really old after everyone got accustumed to looking at the really cool yet shallow gameplay offered by the guns.
===3rd point===
There is no way to balance those two guns no matter what you try.