Naw man...what killed Kennedy...that was an enigma wrapped inside a mystery wrapped inside an enigma...or at least that's what the animatronic robots at OliverStoneLand said.
From all that stories I've heard, the AK-47 is the Volkswagon Beetle of guns...you just smack them back into place and they start going again.
Anyway, I've seen displays on the History Channel, or in old Olympic Biathalon (ski then stop...and shoot targets...then ski again!) competitions where they can easily squeeze a round and re-aim every 1-2 second.
That was the biggest, smack-my-face-due-to-sheer-idiocy point in the whole article..."Oh look, these bullets are the same size, they should do equivalent damage."
Well, why isn't an AK-47 used for sniping then, dammit? It fires WAYYYY more bullets. The velocity is way different! F=MA.
Geez...more like the Fired Squad.
Sniper rifles require less skill and that isn't realistic with real life...so you think the reason they were giving them to 10-year olds in Somalia is because those 10 year olds were crack Commandos? Hello?! They're supposed to be easy to use, and they're supposed to be effective at killing their targets. That's why they FIRE SO DAMN SLOWLY!
Let's see...when *I* was in college...the highest paying job I had was working for the school paper. So, I'm not really envisioning the female IT guru sticking wads of cash in her ears who has her degree already. College students who are looking for something to do that requires them to basically veg and talk to people (competently) is the type of person I'm looking for. Most (if not all.) of the staff I suggested wouldn't have a degree, if they did, they'd be eating up a large portion of the hypothetical budget. (unless their job just get sent to India.)
Since this is the most correct post so far, I'd just like to add some stuff to this post.
First, off, have adequate lighting in the computer room. The only places I'd seen that run LAN gaming always turn the damn lights off. Remember that you're not only trying to get geeks in the building, you're trying to get the common man in there too (operating a business trying to specficially target a niche is like trying to run a marathon after shooting yourself in the foot. You can do it, it's just gotten a lot less likely now.) as well as help change the overall perception of geekiness.
While I'll game with the lights low at home, that's not generally what we'd consider a "friendly" environment for younger gamers, or non-gamers. Plus, even gamers don't really want to be in dimly lit surroundings that aren't their own. You can save on the electric bills by getting some of the low-energy, longer lasting bulbs, while keeping the place nicely lit.
I'd combine your snack area and the break area. In Japan the internet/gaming cafes I went to brought food to you, but considering they, as a society tend to keep businesses and such fetishistically clean, I'd concur with the above post and keep food and CPUs in seperate areas.
Stock all the consoles. Offer buybacks for games for store credit. Sell the buyback games you don't need on Ebay for a profit.
You probably want to staff a short-order cook. (Not a fancy-shmancy guy...someone who can be trusted to make smoothies, burgers, breakfast burritos, and nachos.) TV screens with a tethered remote (VERY important. If I'm the guy with the screen showing the CS action, and I'm the Average Joe trying to watch the Lakers game, I'm going to be less-than-thrilled...the tether keeps the remote from accidentally wandering off.) make the place friendly. Stock some magazines.
Also, hire janitors. Janitors do a much better job of cleaning stuff than the standard apathetic high-school student forced to wear the cashier hat and the janitor hat. Cleanliness makes your place much more conducive to return visits.
While we're on the topic of hiring, hire some women. Don't go all out trying to hire really good looking ones, just some decent looking women who have a knowledge of things geek. If they main adequate decorum, they can be a boost to return rates, without you having to be exploitative..just get a good mix of people in there. People who like your business idea, but aren't misanthropes. Simpsons Comic Book Guy is just going to get jumped in under a week.
On the other side of the coin, the people who don't know anything about games and don't care to learn are going to get chided out of the building. Have the right people on board is going to be key. You don't want EB syndrome, either.
Have people smoke outside, and make sure there's adequate ventilation. Computers + tons of bodies in seats = lots of hot air.
Most importantly...calculate out the numbers beforehand. Figure out what you're going to need to break even after determining exact operational costs and make sure you're charging enough. Have a promotional thing with a nearby school, or community college that has a draconian computer lab, and get people in to "beta" the store for you. That'll spread word of mouth, and you're set after that.
Yeah, this met with a huge tidal wave of malaise at GenCon West in Anaheim. They had these huge TV screens pimping it and everything. I saw *2* kids playing using the free keys they were giving the entire time. Upper Deck was the least visited booth at the show.
No, part of the Daily Show plan was that you were seated according to attractiveness. So, the fat-ass guys would be in Coach, whereas the supermodels would be in first-class, revisiting the Mile High Club.
I can see this increasing gym memberships. Everyone would be hitting the gym 2 months before their flight.
I know...the article says they were just giving people waivers and having them sign saying they were voluntarily giving over the CDs. What's to stop you from doing the exact same thing?
That would be so awesome. Better yet...make BSA jackets, too!
He's right. I used to live in an apartment complex near UC Irvine, and that place was just outside of the signal range of the nearest DSL location, and no other cable providers were allowed access to the cable network. Totally sucked. I was calling every other day to complain about service outages during the first 3 months.
The only thing good that came out of the Cox experience was when we paid for extra IPs, we were only supposed to be allowed 3, but the department must have been new to everything at that point, and gave us a block of 4 for the price of 3.
I don't know how this got marked as a Troll...I hated the Boomslang. Two of my friends had that mouse...it was huge and unwieldy, I could understand getting adjusted to it...but I was far better with my normal mouse...and it didn't cost nearly as much.
Seriously...how are you going to pull off a fireball with one hand? A one handed controller is ONLY going to work for RPGs. Anyone who claims that this guy can play MOST games is on crack.
Ok...let me get this straight...as I understand the MC Hammer saga...guy's rich. Then goes horribly bankrupt. Sells his mansion, and gets harassed for hanging out at a Fatburger with his homies. (obviously slumming it at this point.)
Guy's completely down & out...then ends up on the Trinity Broadcast Network, and now he's back driving around in a Hummer?!
"So...if the spirit moves you got get Rev. Hammer's Hummer some new Spinner Rims...give us a call right now!"
Exactly. I got stuff posted in a chat with the Washington Post editor after the sniper suspects were caught, chastising them all for their video game prognostications.
I also got contacted by the Philadelphia Weekly after pointing out factual errors in their reporting of the "Warriors of Freedom" case.
Bottom line...we as gamers can't just sit around using all our pertinent arguments to flame each other here. People besides US need to realize how stupid these guys are being.
Write a concise article disagreeing with the author's take on selling Take Two for moral upright reasons, and then call him out for being against video games for some reason, but not against film, tobacco, the people who dump toxins into our water supply, etc.
No cursing, no flaming, no ranting.
Everybody get involved. Someone's gotta feel the backlash.
The screenshots DON'T look cool is my problem with it. Bateau and Kusanagi look ALL wrong. This doesn't look anywhere as promising as the GITS game for the PS was.
1) Their Live series DOES still suck today. Watch the video link 3/4 of the way down the article.
2) YES! You are correct, sir! HA HA HA! I have a friend who was TOTALLY into the Sims and all expansions...waiting for TSO for at least a year. We thought he would basically disappear after the game was released.
He quit after 6 weeks. Said it felt too much like a chatroom...you NEEDED to have masses of people around you to progress, and when you were progressing, it was just sitting around.
3) BF1942 looked like fun when Desert Combat was out...I had friends playing it nonstop for a while. They've all since gotten bored and left.
I agree with your final point as well. There was a quote from some company a whlie back that said, "We're doing all right, but we're not like EA where they can afford to make mistakes, and yet they're so big it doesn't affect them at all."
They still put out good/decent games. SSX3 was pretty enjoyable for 3-4 days, and so was NBA Street, Vol. 2.
For the most part though, bloat, hype, and empty promises.
I'm sorry, but BOTH of those instances you mention of Legolas looking badass looked completely fake to me.
The scene with him getting swept up onto the horse from the last movie was one of the most fake looking things I'd seen in a movie, and I saw both Tomb Raider 2 and Charlie's Angels 2 this summer. I'm not exactly sure why you didn't expect that to happen, because you KNEW they were charging...and without a horse, Legolas wouldn't get there until everyone was dead.
The scene in this movie didn't look AS fake, but it wasn't anywhere near the best scene ever. My favorite scene in Return of the King is where Aragorn decides it's time to be King, and goes to recruit the army.
The signal fire scenes weren't all that good for me...especially since the moment the second fire gets lit, you know it's all CG. (The fires themselves, that is.) It was one of the two moments in Return that just screamed of being flagrantly "off".
It's not that they copied his game. He's saying they took idea from the work he submitted to them as part of the interview, and kept...then used the ideas in that game to make GTA. Of course, why he'd wait 6 years after the launch of GTA to bring this up is anyone's guess.
I like your poetry much better than the book author's. At least yours has a reason not to rhyme.
Unfortunately, your haiku has the un-gamer like qualities of being both spelled properly and grammatically correct. A more accurate representation would be:
Rounding da corner A head shot, UNPOSSIBLE! Dam camping fagot!
I did. But thanks for the flaming couched in what seems to be a valid response. I don't think they're trying to sell it as a valid platform. I think they're trying to get people to go "Look! N-Gage!" and pick it up without knowing any better. If they sold it for $2.50 it wouldn't fool anyone. So it's probably just artificially priced high, as they aren't trying to actual sell it based on actual functionality.
Either they were hired by Nokia...or foolish enough to believe their marketing hype. Or hoping that people stupid enough to buy an N-Gage will buy an M-Gage because they really don't know what the hell they're doing. Honestly, if I found one, I'd probably buy it for $20 or so...just for the laughs.
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Naw man...what killed Kennedy...that was an enigma wrapped inside a mystery wrapped inside an enigma...or at least that's what the animatronic robots at OliverStoneLand said.
From all that stories I've heard, the AK-47 is the Volkswagon Beetle of guns...you just smack them back into place and they start going again.
Anyway, I've seen displays on the History Channel, or in old Olympic Biathalon (ski then stop...and shoot targets...then ski again!) competitions where they can easily squeeze a round and re-aim every 1-2 second.
that needs to be beaten with a Physics textbook.
That was the biggest, smack-my-face-due-to-sheer-idiocy point in the whole article..."Oh look, these bullets are the same size, they should do equivalent damage."
Well, why isn't an AK-47 used for sniping then, dammit? It fires WAYYYY more bullets. The velocity is way different! F=MA.
Geez...more like the Fired Squad.
Sniper rifles require less skill and that isn't realistic with real life...so you think the reason they were giving them to 10-year olds in Somalia is because those 10 year olds were crack Commandos? Hello?! They're supposed to be easy to use, and they're supposed to be effective at killing their targets. That's why they FIRE SO DAMN SLOWLY!
Yeah...these are totally weak when compared to the GloWorm!! They never filed a lawsuit against it...
Let's see...when *I* was in college...the highest paying job I had was working for the school paper. So, I'm not really envisioning the female IT guru sticking wads of cash in her ears who has her degree already. College students who are looking for something to do that requires them to basically veg and talk to people (competently) is the type of person I'm looking for. Most (if not all.) of the staff I suggested wouldn't have a degree, if they did, they'd be eating up a large portion of the hypothetical budget. (unless their job just get sent to India.)
Since this is the most correct post so far, I'd just like to add some stuff to this post.
First, off, have adequate lighting in the computer room. The only places I'd seen that run LAN gaming always turn the damn lights off. Remember that you're not only trying to get geeks in the building, you're trying to get the common man in there too (operating a business trying to specficially target a niche is like trying to run a marathon after shooting yourself in the foot. You can do it, it's just gotten a lot less likely now.) as well as help change the overall perception of geekiness.
While I'll game with the lights low at home, that's not generally what we'd consider a "friendly" environment for younger gamers, or non-gamers. Plus, even gamers don't really want to be in dimly lit surroundings that aren't their own. You can save on the electric bills by getting some of the low-energy, longer lasting bulbs, while keeping the place nicely lit.
I'd combine your snack area and the break area. In Japan the internet/gaming cafes I went to brought food to you, but considering they, as a society tend to keep businesses and such fetishistically clean, I'd concur with the above post and keep food and CPUs in seperate areas.
Stock all the consoles. Offer buybacks for games for store credit. Sell the buyback games you don't need on Ebay for a profit.
You probably want to staff a short-order cook. (Not a fancy-shmancy guy...someone who can be trusted to make smoothies, burgers, breakfast burritos, and nachos.) TV screens with a tethered remote (VERY important. If I'm the guy with the screen showing the CS action, and I'm the Average Joe trying to watch the Lakers game, I'm going to be less-than-thrilled...the tether keeps the remote from accidentally wandering off.) make the place friendly. Stock some magazines.
Also, hire janitors. Janitors do a much better job of cleaning stuff than the standard apathetic high-school student forced to wear the cashier hat and the janitor hat. Cleanliness makes your place much more conducive to return visits.
While we're on the topic of hiring, hire some women. Don't go all out trying to hire really good looking ones, just some decent looking women who have a knowledge of things geek. If they main adequate decorum, they can be a boost to return rates, without you having to be exploitative..just get a good mix of people in there. People who like your business idea, but aren't misanthropes. Simpsons Comic Book Guy is just going to get jumped in under a week.
On the other side of the coin, the people who don't know anything about games and don't care to learn are going to get chided out of the building. Have the right people on board is going to be key. You don't want EB syndrome, either.
Have people smoke outside, and make sure there's adequate ventilation. Computers + tons of bodies in seats = lots of hot air.
Most importantly...calculate out the numbers beforehand. Figure out what you're going to need to break even after determining exact operational costs and make sure you're charging enough. Have a promotional thing with a nearby school, or community college that has a draconian computer lab, and get people in to "beta" the store for you. That'll spread word of mouth, and you're set after that.
Good luck. Fight the good fight.
Yeah, this met with a huge tidal wave of malaise at GenCon West in Anaheim. They had these huge TV screens pimping it and everything. I saw *2* kids playing using the free keys they were giving the entire time. Upper Deck was the least visited booth at the show.
No, part of the Daily Show plan was that you were seated according to attractiveness. So, the fat-ass guys would be in Coach, whereas the supermodels would be in first-class, revisiting the Mile High Club.
I can see this increasing gym memberships. Everyone would be hitting the gym 2 months before their flight.
When my friend was flying back to Cali from Oregon, he said they only pulled people over 60 aside to check.
"If Matlock isn't on the in-flight TV, we're all going to hell!"
I know...the article says they were just giving people waivers and having them sign saying they were voluntarily giving over the CDs. What's to stop you from doing the exact same thing?
That would be so awesome. Better yet...make BSA jackets, too!
He's right. I used to live in an apartment complex near UC Irvine, and that place was just outside of the signal range of the nearest DSL location, and no other cable providers were allowed access to the cable network. Totally sucked. I was calling every other day to complain about service outages during the first 3 months.
The only thing good that came out of the Cox experience was when we paid for extra IPs, we were only supposed to be allowed 3, but the department must have been new to everything at that point, and gave us a block of 4 for the price of 3.
Go used to be so much more fun before they invented the Aimbot.
I don't know how this got marked as a Troll...I hated the Boomslang. Two of my friends had that mouse...it was huge and unwieldy, I could understand getting adjusted to it...but I was far better with my normal mouse...and it didn't cost nearly as much.
While that may all be rightly true, they asked Al Gore what his biggest mistake was in a debate during the 2000 campaign. And his words were:
"Claiming that I invented the internet."
So if it's a misconception that you're all mad about people spreading, he's been spreading it, too.
Seriously...how are you going to pull off a fireball with one hand? A one handed controller is ONLY going to work for RPGs. Anyone who claims that this guy can play MOST games is on crack.
Ok...let me get this straight...as I understand the MC Hammer saga...guy's rich. Then goes horribly bankrupt. Sells his mansion, and gets harassed for hanging out at a Fatburger with his homies. (obviously slumming it at this point.)
Guy's completely down & out...then ends up on the Trinity Broadcast Network, and now he's back driving around in a Hummer?!
"So...if the spirit moves you got get Rev. Hammer's Hummer some new Spinner Rims...give us a call right now!"
Exactly. I got stuff posted in a chat with the Washington Post editor after the sniper suspects were caught, chastising them all for their video game prognostications.
I also got contacted by the Philadelphia Weekly after pointing out factual errors in their reporting of the "Warriors of Freedom" case.
Bottom line...we as gamers can't just sit around using all our pertinent arguments to flame each other here. People besides US need to realize how stupid these guys are being.
Write a concise article disagreeing with the author's take on selling Take Two for moral upright reasons, and then call him out for being against video games for some reason, but not against film, tobacco, the people who dump toxins into our water supply, etc.
No cursing, no flaming, no ranting.
Everybody get involved. Someone's gotta feel the backlash.
The screenshots DON'T look cool is my problem with it. Bateau and Kusanagi look ALL wrong. This doesn't look anywhere as promising as the GITS game for the PS was.
1) Their Live series DOES still suck today. Watch the video link 3/4 of the way down the article.
2) YES! You are correct, sir! HA HA HA! I have a friend who was TOTALLY into the Sims and all expansions...waiting for TSO for at least a year. We thought he would basically disappear after the game was released.
He quit after 6 weeks. Said it felt too much like a chatroom...you NEEDED to have masses of people around you to progress, and when you were progressing, it was just sitting around.
3) BF1942 looked like fun when Desert Combat was out...I had friends playing it nonstop for a while. They've all since gotten bored and left.
I agree with your final point as well. There was a quote from some company a whlie back that said, "We're doing all right, but we're not like EA where they can afford to make mistakes, and yet they're so big it doesn't affect them at all."
They still put out good/decent games. SSX3 was pretty enjoyable for 3-4 days, and so was NBA Street, Vol. 2.
For the most part though, bloat, hype, and empty promises.
What makes 28 Days Later such an awesome movie for me, personally is a story I heard from my friend when he was in line at Blockbuster:
In irate woman comes in screaming about the movie. (a paraphrase)
"I thoguht this was the sequel to 28 Days! The Juila Roberts movie! But it's got all sorts of zombies and creepy stuff in it!
You have it RIGHT NEXT to 28 Days! Why would you deliberately trick people like that?!"
Ah...the gene pool.
I'm sorry, but BOTH of those instances you mention of Legolas looking badass looked completely fake to me.
The scene with him getting swept up onto the horse from the last movie was one of the most fake looking things I'd seen in a movie, and I saw both Tomb Raider 2 and Charlie's Angels 2 this summer. I'm not exactly sure why you didn't expect that to happen, because you KNEW they were charging...and without a horse, Legolas wouldn't get there until everyone was dead.
The scene in this movie didn't look AS fake, but it wasn't anywhere near the best scene ever. My favorite scene in Return of the King is where Aragorn decides it's time to be King, and goes to recruit the army.
The signal fire scenes weren't all that good for me...especially since the moment the second fire gets lit, you know it's all CG. (The fires themselves, that is.) It was one of the two moments in Return that just screamed of being flagrantly "off".
It's not that they copied his game. He's saying they took idea from the work he submitted to them as part of the interview, and kept...then used the ideas in that game to make GTA. Of course, why he'd wait 6 years after the launch of GTA to bring this up is anyone's guess.
Well...there was also this. As far as I know it's the only one that actually involved real candidates.
I like your poetry much better than the book author's. At least yours has a reason not to rhyme.
Unfortunately, your haiku has the un-gamer like qualities of being both spelled properly and grammatically correct. A more accurate representation would be:
Rounding da corner
A head shot, UNPOSSIBLE!
Dam camping fagot!
I did. But thanks for the flaming couched in what seems to be a valid response. I don't think they're trying to sell it as a valid platform. I think they're trying to get people to go "Look! N-Gage!" and pick it up without knowing any better. If they sold it for $2.50 it wouldn't fool anyone. So it's probably just artificially priced high, as they aren't trying to actual sell it based on actual functionality.
Either they were hired by Nokia...or foolish enough to believe their marketing hype. Or hoping that people stupid enough to buy an N-Gage will buy an M-Gage because they really don't know what the hell they're doing. Honestly, if I found one, I'd probably buy it for $20 or so...just for the laughs.