I don't think I am full of original ideas on this topic, but I have some thought that weren't yet in this thread when I started typing.
There is nothing wrong with game reviews being out of 100; changing that number to 4 or 5 or a 100000 has nothing to do with what's wrong with game reviews. Here's what I think is wrong:
Mechanical in nature. Many game reviews take a bunch of predetermined categories, weigh the game on each of them, then sum the categories. This in inheriently flawed as a game can't (nor should it even try) to be everything; a great game is great because it is one of the best a couple of things, and isn't bad enough at anything else to wreck it.
Not using the full scale. This has nothing to do with the size of the scale (I have known movie reviewers that have done the same thing), just how nearly every reviewer uses the scale. For some reason 60% has become horrible trash you shouldn't touch if you get it for free, while 90% is game of the year.
Perception of impropriaty. I don't know how much game reviews are influenced by fear of vendors, but clearly many people who read them think are. This perception would likely go away if reviewers gave out scores in the bottom 25% a bit more often.
Apples and Oranges. Different genres of games need to be looked at in different ways, and in some cases, by different people.
Heck, of the top 20 most viewed articles on Wikipedia, the following are missing from Citizendium:
I had never seen the list you linked to before, but it is just a ton of Slashdot articles waiting to happen:
Wii ranks higher than xbox, ps3
Halo 3 ranks higher than Bioshock
Global warming ranks higher than Bush
SSBB ranks higher than GTA IV
Masturbation ranks higher than porn
Not that these topics or any of thousands of others you might generate this way are particularily interesting, but come on, this is Slashdot. Hey, if we can get two articles on Wiki forks on the same day, I can't believe that someone isn't making an issue about this list.
He was describing interdepartmental charges (i.e. corporate "funny money").
Which is why I tend to agree that his IT department is innocent; any time I have worked in a big company and had knowledge of interdepartmental charges, they have been obscene and had little basis in reality.
Just an example from one job I worked at - the head of security requested that they get a small filing cabinet to put beside the security desk. They were told that there was no problem approving the purchase, but to rent the space it would have to sit in would cost more than security's total budget.
I know this is Slashdot, and we all really, really want to believe that MS is the Titanic, but its not. Since no one has wanted to believe me in other threads when I have pointed out the large similarities (both in sales and public attitudes) between XP and Vista during their respective first years, I decided to do some digging this time. Here is an excerpt from an article written in 2002, when XP was almost exactly the same age that Vista is now.
So, you think Windows XP is a flop? Not according to Microsoft. It says Windows XP is the fastest-selling version of Windows ever, with 32 million copies sold to date. Of course, that figure includes both OEM PC maker sales (probably something like 90 percent of the total) and retail sales. Many people buying new PCs probably would have bought Windows 98 if they'd had a choice. Most PC makers do offer a choice: Windows XP Pro or Windows XP Home. And, of course, both versions are included in the count.
The 32 million sales number also includes corporate sales of Windows XP, although by most accounts, corporations have not adopted XP in droves. But it's possible they might do so beginning next year. Larger companies that have volume licensing arrangements with Microsoft don't have to deal with product activation. And you can bet they don't have to pay $399 for a full version of Windows XP Pro either. It's consumers who are taking it on the chin with Windows XP.
But even in a year when PC sales are off, Windows XP is doing quite well. The new Windows sold 17 million copies through the 2001 holiday season -- the biggest selling season of the year. Since then it's sold another 15 million copies. And that's the strongest indicator it's doing well. The second quarter of the year is traditionally slow for PC and operating system sales. Yet XP is doing well. But that doesn't really surprise me.
So to summarize, even if you don't remember it, XP was not always the golden boy; many people hated it when it was young; in fact many of the comments I read about Vista parrot those about XP five years ago. Vista's sales are not scaring MS because Vista's sales are pretty close to what XP sold during its first year.
Very few people want Vista, but very few wanted XP either. The only thing that has changed in the last five years is that OEMs now have more leverage; this doesn't help Vista, but its not going to kill it either.
Trouble is that "console seller" games published in North America between December 26 and June 25 don't tend to move a lot of consoles
They still move them, its just harder to quantify the effect of the game. That is to say, there are going to be plenty of people, clearly some of them on Slashdot, that buy a Wii for no reason other than to play SSBB (in fact, reading some threads its clear some have already bought a Wii with no intention of playing anything but Brawl). The fact they don't buy the system+game on release day/week/month/quarter doesn't mean they don't buy the system.
Actually, Pixar's success is due to the fact that they worry about the story first, and the look second.
Something that has amazed me when watching DVD commentaries/special features for many good CG films is the incredible number of rewrites that take place. Very often the story they were working with when the animation process began has little or no resemblence to the story of the finished film. I guess that's one of the benfits of making movies this way.
I can just imagine him, sitting in his volcano lair, stroking his white fluffy cat and yelling "I'll get you next time Gamers!"
Jack Thompson is Dr. Claw? I don't think so. Doesn't this sound more like him...
"...frequently led assaults himself, but often vacillated between being a coward at heart, usually the first to turn tail in retreat whenever the tide of battle shifted unfavorably, or pushing his troops to seize victory at all costs, berating them when they turned to retreat. Impatient and frequently hysterical, he was prone to fits of rage when things went badly, often launching into extended rants. He was also greedy and egotistical, often mistreating his own troops to the point of mutiny, and on multiple occasions saw his plans foiled by his own arrogance."
That is wiki's description for Cobra Commander, and for me at least, the high pitched whine of CC is how I always imagine JT.
Every time net neutrality comes up at Slashdot, a large part of the conversation is about what is NN and what falls under other concepts (like QoS). I can't help but wonder, if a community of nerds can't stay clear on the basic concepts needed to discuss this issue then how are governments expected to? If there are nerds who don't get it, then what chance do Alaskan senators have?
I really don't see how any developer would make HD-DVD 360 games because of that very reason. Why cut most of your market out like that?
While there likely would never be a time that any developer would be willing to cut out 10 million plus users, I do think that if the HD-DVD became standard within the next year that before the end of the gen there would be more HD units than not.
I could see a developer making a game that comes out in two formats, either one HD-DVD or several DVDs.
Exactly. You'll find that people who for whatever reason are on a hundred plus flights a year, almost never have a fear of flying. On the other side of it, the fact that people get into a car so many times without having an accident is exactly why they feel cars are so safe.
(without commenting on any particular speed limits or enforcement of such, I have tried with little success to explain to people over the years why the faster you go, the greater danger you are in; the fact that these same people have regularily sped without crashing makes them feel that reaction distances and physics don't apply to them)
Some numbers I was able to find googling:
There were nearly 6,420,000 auto accidents in the United States in 2005. The financial cost of these crashes is more than 230 Billion dollars. 2.9 million people were injured and 42,636 people killed.
The average number of airline-related fatalities varies from year to year, but 1200 is about average.
Perhaps its just me, but the reason I have always felt that emotional response is not a requirement for something to be considered art is that a great many things that are considered art don't bring out any emotion in me; its pretty rare for a painting or photo to elicit emotion in me - some do, but for most its just "oh, that looks nice". While music often brings out emotions there is plenty of music, including some I quite enjoy, that don't bring out any emotion.
Meanwhile there are plenty of things that are not art by any reasonable definition that do elicit deep emotions (for example, particular sporting events).
So I don't know if I'm in the minority, but to me it seems like emotion is a poor criteria.
So glad I bought 3 extra Wii-motes, now that SSBB will use the classic controller... Thanks Nintendo!
Two things. First, for a very long time Masahiro Sakurai had publicly stated that the only way to play SSBB was going to be with game cube controllers, so if the game meant that much to you you should have been paying attention. Second, his original statement was made null when it was announced that there will be four different usable control schemes for SSBB - wiimote alone, wiimote+nunchuk, wiimote+classic, or game cube controller - three of which make use of the extra wiimotes you bought.
I still fail to see how MS or PS3 are competing against the Wii.
They are competing for the finite money that consumers have to spend, and they are competing for the finite money developers have to invest. (also, in homes where non-gamers parents are buying a system for gamer children, the differences you note between the systems are irrellevant; most of these homes will get only one system, meaning the products are competing directly)
Perhaps most importantly the three systems are competing for consumers' time; for those gamer that only have 5 hours a week to game, any one system provides more than enough to do. (making a second or third system superfluous)
Mini-vans are about as different from SMART cars as 360s from Wii, but in both cases consumers may weight one versus the other and make a choice. (in fact I made both of these choices this year)
If Hillary every abuses power like bush did (and gets caught) she will be out on her ass.
The point is that she won't have to. The balance of powers between the various branchs has shifted because of the actions of Bush, and this new unbalance will still be in place if Hillary wins in 08; the Dems expect to win the White House and that is why they are making no effort to put presidential powers back to their intended levels (or at least, that's how the argument works).
I wonder if the US governments' restrictions on exporting super computers covers game consoles as well. If it does the Xbox 360 is most certainly restricted.
(not that it is really a super computer, but if you have ever had to deal with said restrictions you know that 10 year old desktops are considered supercomputers by the US gov)
Incorrect. At birth you have a 50% chance of living out an average lifespan, but as you age, your chances of living out the average is on the increase.
If the world used median averages, then yes, but the reality is that the word average, as it is commonly used (including when studies talk about average life span) refers to the mean average.
Wii Play has sold 1.6 million more copies than Halo 3 thus far.
http://www.vgchartz.com/games/game.php?id=2666
If Wii Sports counts then of course it trumps both with 10.6 million. But this is a bundle so it doesn't really count.
Why do you not want to count Wii Sports for being a bundle, but ignore the fact that Wii Play is practically free when you take off the price of the bundled controller? (amazon lists wii play right now for 48.99 and wiimotes on their own for 39.99; that's $9 for the game)
I obviously can't speak for the millions of other buyers, buy I would never have bought Wii Play if it hadn't been bundled with a wiimote. (having said that, I like the game and it has seen more play time than several games which I paid full price for, but never the less, I wouldn't have bought it at full price)
I read a good article on this just today; a major point of the article is that any country that is drowning in media cannot get the best people to run for office because the best people all have skeletons in their closets.
Because I can't imagine any other military application behind beaming 5-10 megawatts of power to a focused location...
Yes, but this comes with plausible deniability; until the day they actually fire on someone the US can tell any other nation that complains (and many nations are against the weaponisation of space)that in fact they are not putting huge lasers up there as weapons, they are just "power generators".
The report goes on to discuss the likelihood that many Wiis are gathering dust in owners' cupboards, citing one software house president as saying, "People bought it out of curiosity, and it's likely a lot of them haven't used it."
Since the article wants to use Japan's sales numbers, let's look at Japan's sales numbers. The total HW sold by the Wii was more than any other non-portable console. The total SW sold for the Wii was more than any other non-portable console other than the PS2.
This article, like many anti-wii opinions expressed on Slashdot, is just someone who doesn't like the Wii figuring that because he doesn't like it, because his is gathering dust, that everyone's must be.
I am not an American, but my impression of American politics is that the only voters who would care that Gore won a nobel prize would have voted for him any way.
That being said, I think a "late entry" to the 2008 race might have a good chance just because of voter fatigue.
Slashdot Mirror
I love his show, but I think he has botched this.
I think you are confusing what he was trying to do with what you wish he had been trying to do.
I don't think I am full of original ideas on this topic, but I have some thought that weren't yet in this thread when I started typing.
There is nothing wrong with game reviews being out of 100; changing that number to 4 or 5 or a 100000 has nothing to do with what's wrong with game reviews. Here's what I think is wrong:
I had never seen the list you linked to before, but it is just a ton of Slashdot articles waiting to happen:
Not that these topics or any of thousands of others you might generate this way are particularily interesting, but come on, this is Slashdot. Hey, if we can get two articles on Wiki forks on the same day, I can't believe that someone isn't making an issue about this list.
Which is why I tend to agree that his IT department is innocent; any time I have worked in a big company and had knowledge of interdepartmental charges, they have been obscene and had little basis in reality.
Just an example from one job I worked at - the head of security requested that they get a small filing cabinet to put beside the security desk. They were told that there was no problem approving the purchase, but to rent the space it would have to sit in would cost more than security's total budget.
I know this is Slashdot, and we all really, really want to believe that MS is the Titanic, but its not. Since no one has wanted to believe me in other threads when I have pointed out the large similarities (both in sales and public attitudes) between XP and Vista during their respective first years, I decided to do some digging this time. Here is an excerpt from an article written in 2002, when XP was almost exactly the same age that Vista is now.
So, you think Windows XP is a flop? Not according to Microsoft. It says Windows XP is the fastest-selling version of Windows ever, with 32 million copies sold to date. Of course, that figure includes both OEM PC maker sales (probably something like 90 percent of the total) and retail sales. Many people buying new PCs probably would have bought Windows 98 if they'd had a choice. Most PC makers do offer a choice: Windows XP Pro or Windows XP Home. And, of course, both versions are included in the count.
The 32 million sales number also includes corporate sales of Windows XP, although by most accounts, corporations have not adopted XP in droves. But it's possible they might do so beginning next year. Larger companies that have volume licensing arrangements with Microsoft don't have to deal with product activation. And you can bet they don't have to pay $399 for a full version of Windows XP Pro either. It's consumers who are taking it on the chin with Windows XP.
But even in a year when PC sales are off, Windows XP is doing quite well. The new Windows sold 17 million copies through the 2001 holiday season -- the biggest selling season of the year. Since then it's sold another 15 million copies. And that's the strongest indicator it's doing well. The second quarter of the year is traditionally slow for PC and operating system sales. Yet XP is doing well. But that doesn't really surprise me.
So to summarize, even if you don't remember it, XP was not always the golden boy; many people hated it when it was young; in fact many of the comments I read about Vista parrot those about XP five years ago. Vista's sales are not scaring MS because Vista's sales are pretty close to what XP sold during its first year.
Very few people want Vista, but very few wanted XP either. The only thing that has changed in the last five years is that OEMs now have more leverage; this doesn't help Vista, but its not going to kill it either.
They still move them, its just harder to quantify the effect of the game. That is to say, there are going to be plenty of people, clearly some of them on Slashdot, that buy a Wii for no reason other than to play SSBB (in fact, reading some threads its clear some have already bought a Wii with no intention of playing anything but Brawl). The fact they don't buy the system+game on release day/week/month/quarter doesn't mean they don't buy the system.
Something that has amazed me when watching DVD commentaries/special features for many good CG films is the incredible number of rewrites that take place. Very often the story they were working with when the animation process began has little or no resemblence to the story of the finished film. I guess that's one of the benfits of making movies this way.
Jack Thompson is Dr. Claw? I don't think so. Doesn't this sound more like him...
"...frequently led assaults himself, but often vacillated between being a coward at heart, usually the first to turn tail in retreat whenever the tide of battle shifted unfavorably, or pushing his troops to seize victory at all costs, berating them when they turned to retreat. Impatient and frequently hysterical, he was prone to fits of rage when things went badly, often launching into extended rants. He was also greedy and egotistical, often mistreating his own troops to the point of mutiny, and on multiple occasions saw his plans foiled by his own arrogance."
That is wiki's description for Cobra Commander, and for me at least, the high pitched whine of CC is how I always imagine JT.
Every time net neutrality comes up at Slashdot, a large part of the conversation is about what is NN and what falls under other concepts (like QoS). I can't help but wonder, if a community of nerds can't stay clear on the basic concepts needed to discuss this issue then how are governments expected to? If there are nerds who don't get it, then what chance do Alaskan senators have?
While there likely would never be a time that any developer would be willing to cut out 10 million plus users, I do think that if the HD-DVD became standard within the next year that before the end of the gen there would be more HD units than not.
I could see a developer making a game that comes out in two formats, either one HD-DVD or several DVDs.
Exactly. You'll find that people who for whatever reason are on a hundred plus flights a year, almost never have a fear of flying. On the other side of it, the fact that people get into a car so many times without having an accident is exactly why they feel cars are so safe.
(without commenting on any particular speed limits or enforcement of such, I have tried with little success to explain to people over the years why the faster you go, the greater danger you are in; the fact that these same people have regularily sped without crashing makes them feel that reaction distances and physics don't apply to them)
Some numbers I was able to find googling:
There were nearly 6,420,000 auto accidents in the United States in 2005. The financial cost of these crashes is more than 230 Billion dollars. 2.9 million people were injured and 42,636 people killed.
The average number of airline-related fatalities varies from year to year, but 1200 is about average.
Perhaps its just me, but the reason I have always felt that emotional response is not a requirement for something to be considered art is that a great many things that are considered art don't bring out any emotion in me; its pretty rare for a painting or photo to elicit emotion in me - some do, but for most its just "oh, that looks nice". While music often brings out emotions there is plenty of music, including some I quite enjoy, that don't bring out any emotion.
Meanwhile there are plenty of things that are not art by any reasonable definition that do elicit deep emotions (for example, particular sporting events).
So I don't know if I'm in the minority, but to me it seems like emotion is a poor criteria.
Two things. First, for a very long time Masahiro Sakurai had publicly stated that the only way to play SSBB was going to be with game cube controllers, so if the game meant that much to you you should have been paying attention. Second, his original statement was made null when it was announced that there will be four different usable control schemes for SSBB - wiimote alone, wiimote+nunchuk, wiimote+classic, or game cube controller - three of which make use of the extra wiimotes you bought.
They are competing for the finite money that consumers have to spend, and they are competing for the finite money developers have to invest. (also, in homes where non-gamers parents are buying a system for gamer children, the differences you note between the systems are irrellevant; most of these homes will get only one system, meaning the products are competing directly)
Perhaps most importantly the three systems are competing for consumers' time; for those gamer that only have 5 hours a week to game, any one system provides more than enough to do. (making a second or third system superfluous)
Mini-vans are about as different from SMART cars as 360s from Wii, but in both cases consumers may weight one versus the other and make a choice. (in fact I made both of these choices this year)
There is a part of me hoping this article gets discussed by Dilbert creator/evolution denier Scott Adams, and another part dreading it. link
The point is that she won't have to. The balance of powers between the various branchs has shifted because of the actions of Bush, and this new unbalance will still be in place if Hillary wins in 08; the Dems expect to win the White House and that is why they are making no effort to put presidential powers back to their intended levels (or at least, that's how the argument works).
I agree. As an avid online poker player, I can tell you that there are plenty of adults who are rude assholes during games.
I wonder if the US governments' restrictions on exporting super computers covers game consoles as well. If it does the Xbox 360 is most certainly restricted.
(not that it is really a super computer, but if you have ever had to deal with said restrictions you know that 10 year old desktops are considered supercomputers by the US gov)
If the world used median averages, then yes, but the reality is that the word average, as it is commonly used (including when studies talk about average life span) refers to the mean average.
Why do you not want to count Wii Sports for being a bundle, but ignore the fact that Wii Play is practically free when you take off the price of the bundled controller? (amazon lists wii play right now for 48.99 and wiimotes on their own for 39.99; that's $9 for the game)
I obviously can't speak for the millions of other buyers, buy I would never have bought Wii Play if it hadn't been bundled with a wiimote. (having said that, I like the game and it has seen more play time than several games which I paid full price for, but never the less, I wouldn't have bought it at full price)
I read a good article on this just today; a major point of the article is that any country that is drowning in media cannot get the best people to run for office because the best people all have skeletons in their closets.
From dell (poweredge 6800 configure page):
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10, Up to 32 CPUs, 1 YR Subscription, FI [add $299 or $9/month1]SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10, Up to 32 CPUs, 3 YR Subscription, FI [add $769 or $23/month1]
No Operating System [Included in Price]
So it doesn't appear they are counting No OS as Linux.
Yes, but this comes with plausible deniability; until the day they actually fire on someone the US can tell any other nation that complains (and many nations are against the weaponisation of space)that in fact they are not putting huge lasers up there as weapons, they are just "power generators".
Since the article wants to use Japan's sales numbers, let's look at Japan's sales numbers. The total HW sold by the Wii was more than any other non-portable console. The total SW sold for the Wii was more than any other non-portable console other than the PS2.
This article, like many anti-wii opinions expressed on Slashdot, is just someone who doesn't like the Wii figuring that because he doesn't like it, because his is gathering dust, that everyone's must be.
I am not an American, but my impression of American politics is that the only voters who would care that Gore won a nobel prize would have voted for him any way.
That being said, I think a "late entry" to the 2008 race might have a good chance just because of voter fatigue.