I hate to break this to you...but this has been said before. It's exactly the same thing Ben Stein said while presenting at the IDSA awards at E3 back in 2000.
He was talking about his kid and how he couldn't fathom how people could rail out at these games as anti-social when day after day, his son would be playing these games, and talking about his friends from school who had found this new way to hang out.
Shigeru Miyamoto has already given us the best ammunition to fight back against all this. If you read the book, "Game Over" (which is a decent read, if you can cut through the rampant Nintendo bias.) Miyamoto rsponds to the video games are back for you question by saying, simply:
"Video games are bad for you? That's what they said about rock and roll."
If that doesn't make anyone talking about the violent effects of games on kids pause and think about that for a second...there's no reason to listen to anything they have to say anymore...reason has departed from their body.
Eh, this goes farther than Madden. Look at the NCAA football game...Cade McNown?!
Alonzo Morning made the cover of NBA 2Night the season he got diagnosed for kidney failure. EA put out a press release talking about how Dikembe Mutombo would be their cover athlete, and was the first Atlana Hawk ever to be on a game cover...DAYS before he was traded to Philadelphia.
I've mentioned the video game cover curse for a long time now...it's powerful stuff.
Sorry, but off the top of my head, I can't think of a GOOD commercial I've seen for a game here in the US. I remember the ones they came up with for FFVII...the "reset button" ones. We told them they were stupid. They didn't listen to us.
Then the public said they were stupid and Sony would later go on to make their famous claim that basically, the public doesn't know anything, and they should just shut up and buy their games.
Then, while I was in Japan they had these ads for XBox Live that didn't make any sense at all. Some scantily clad woman who looked like she was hopped up on drugs, slinking against a wall while pie were thrown at her. What the hell was that?!
And this is Japan, where they make consistently better commercials than they do in the US.
The ads in magazines and the like that are good are the ones I don't remember...because they haven't pissed me off. But they also haven't done very much in the way of advertising.
I don't blame you, the ad agencies as much, because you aren't the ones responsible for stripping features from a game, and you aren't the ones responsible from pushing a game out the door that isn't ready to go. You aren't the ones responsible for forcing the game into a design it shouldn't be.
But honestly, no matter how good your work is, there isn't any way you can offset things like that retarded Blockbuster ad.
The same people who gave Outpost an Editor's Choice award when it shipped, and then 3 years later, said it was the worst game of all time?
The same people who named Romero's woman one of the "Heroes of the Gaming World" even though she'd only done QA and a few stupid level designs up to that point?
How exactly is everyone supposed to get an idea about a game now? IGN's pay, Gamespot's pay, and to top it off, a couple months back a bunch of game reviewers were admitting how their editors made them give special favors to advertisers.
A demo only shows 1 level, MAYBE, and you can't return games to the store. Maybe if we weren't getting so heinously screwed out of our consumer rights, we'd be a bit more "selective".
There is no end to the stupidity of the average person in the Marketing Department of your average game company.
First off, most of them have not played the game for long than 30 minutes. Most of them don't even like games, and on top of that, they come out of college with degrees in Social Sciences, and pretty much nothing at all that is applicable.
The HR department will hire someone new based on whether they think the person's nice, and will get along with them, because they figure that's all they're going to be doing...eating lunch with corporate buyers and talking them up.
Then they get back to their cube slap a bunch of buzzwords on some art, and voila. You've got stores will buy tons of product, and tons of customers who will hate it. 70% of everything wrong in the industry is the fault of marketing. The other 30% is a combination of hype, obstinance, and refusal to actually get some new ideas into the game world. (Also partially Marketing's fault...but I hold the designers more to task for this.)
If people would start taking the right people task for this garbage, there would be a lot more heads rolling. But most of the time, you find a game that crashes, and everyone's yelling at the QA department.
Most of the time, the QA dept. knows full well about this bug. But someone forced the game through. And it isn't the dev. team.
Co-op play didn't make Chocobo Dungeon 2 any fun. I do also find it sad that the thread got hijacked.
There just aren't enough good pirate games out there. This looks like it might be passable, but I'm getting a "Possible a good game, but more than likely a mediocre one" feeling from all this.
And why does the article not link to the Official Galleon site? The Interplay site hasn't updated its screenshots since 2002.
Well, here's the thing. Nintendo was #1. With the garbage N64 (I had one and left it outside in the rain, I played it so little.) they really took a hit. The GameCube was supposed to be their return to dominance...but they've found the market a bit more competitive than they expected.
I don't think Nintendo's hurting though. Not in the least. I do however, think they STILL have being #1 on their sights. I don't think Nintendo is satisfied with the plan of action you suggest, but I also don't think they're going the way of Sega anytime soon.
Especially since they've now shed their criminally insane leader.
Untrue, this is the main reason that this censorship DOES happen now.
In Brave Fencer Musashi, the Japanese release has a part in which there's someone pounding on the door to the Inn late one night because he wants pork chops. In the Japanese version, he's getting drunk at night, and the implication was that he was an alcoholic ignoring his daughter.
When you get through the dungeon, you find the store owner at the bottom, who apparently "had too much caffeine". He's all redfaced, but apparently, they thought that was good enough.
Another example, although not as well known or contemporary is "Neo Hunter". It was based off of an Orson Scott Card novel, and in the game, all the player has to shoot with are stun bullets.
You have a stun pistol, a stun machine gun, a stun shot gun, and my favorite, the stun rocket launcher. You also have stun grenades. All this was done to try and get a rating below "T", but it didn't. The ESRB still slapped a "T" on it.
With high profile names like Arnold...well...Arnold from Diff'rent Strokes, it's unlikely that you'll be getting much press, but in the event you get invited to a debate, or can bring up a stance on a subject that the other candidates will have to respond to:
Now that we've got some protection from telemarketers do you plan for consumers to actually get some legal SPAM protection in the state? It seems like something that can get easily passed (simply ignoring the SPAM lobbyists.) and something that can actually be accomplished in one's brief recall term.
On a side note, if you actually want to get elected, get the word out to colleges that your plan is for all state-run campuses not to have classes begin before noon.
The college student population is more than enough to beat out the divided factions taht are voting for the other candidates, and you'll have it in the bag. Go Geek Party!
Spot on. You're absolutely right. The best games that are going to be made off of movies are going to the be the ones where their dev. cycle is allowed to progress as they wish.
Aliens vs. Predator is great fun. That's based off of movie stuff that there isn't even a movie for. It was cool because they did it at their own pace, and it was something that fit the genre.
However, most of the movies this guy suggests in his article are retarded ideas for video games. The article's mainly a failed attempt to be funny...maybe if you're high it'll make sense.
Most of the movies that would make good games are going to be Academy Award nominated movies. If you try and take a movie that people totally followed the story to, they're going to get ticked when you take the game a different way.
On top of that, the really good games based off of movies are going to be the ones that can be put into a single genre. You always have the cool car chase sequence in the movie...and then the game tries to replicate the excitement by putting a level into the game...that still totally uses the FPS engine. And that level totally sucks. None of the movie people understand that you can't do this for some reason.
So, here are some good ones:
The Transformers. You make this into Dynasty Warriors 4. You have a bunch of non-descript robots on Cybertron that you plow through, and at the heart of them is a "General" named character baddie. Throw in the odd timed racing event, and you're all good.
Bad Boys. Be it I or II, it makes no difference. Martin and Will Smith are on some other cop mission. This leads to them blowing up a whole bunch of crap. You make it like Serious Sam, and you sell it cheap, too.
Big Trouble in Little China. Mortal Kombat is already loosely based off of it, and that series won't die, so why not just make the actual movie into a game already.
Shaolin Soccer and Ping Pong. These are both similar in subject matter. They should both be sports RPGs a la Virtua Tennis where you do things to upgrade your characters, and they take on the characters in the movies in various tour events.
Brotherhood of the Wolf. Mani and co. kicking some serious ass in a prequel to the movie. Desperado would also probably be pretty fun if done right.
I have a single 20-pound weight that I have in the office. I use that for tricep and bicep curls while I'm on the phone. Since it's not like I can do it long enough to be considered aerobic exercise, so all it does is burn off a handful of calories, but really you don't want to build up a sweat at work anyway.
The other fun thing you can do is drink a lot of ICE COLD water. Your body needs to expend calories to keep your core body temperature at 98.6. Of course, this mean you'll have to head to the can a lot, but that can also be looked at as a small form of exercise.
There isn't anything you can do to burn off enough to make a real significant difference while you're at work. Eat less, and try and get some exercise while you're off work. You should get a nice corporate discount on a gym membership, so try and take advantage of it.
That would be someone else's jurisdiction. I think what they're specifically looking at here is accounting, and nothing else...making sure the video game corporations aren't cooking their books.
I think they're starting alphabetically, because Acclaim is trading for less than a dollar, and at under $13, Activision isn't exacly shooting through the roof.
I expect they probably get it from Tecmo who promised that DOA 2 would only be on the DC, and then realeased a game called, "DOA 2: Hardcore" on the Playstation 2 months later. This stuff is way common.
Software, music and movies have the least consumer proection on them out of all products sold. Not coincidentally in my opinion, these seem to be the most pirated works.
Has it crossed your mind to strengthen OUR rights while trying to protect their IP? I currently have no way to sample a movie, or a game.
Game demos are purposely misleading, and a trailer doesn't show me anything I care about a movie.
Yet, I can only return an opened piece of software for another copy of the same piece of software. (despite the fact that the click-wrap EULA doesn't allow me to get my money back if said software doesn't even work on my machine because of it being incomplete, or whatnot.)
Most of the people I know that will download a full copy of game before buying do so because there's no other way to determine if said game is worth their $50. If they do like the game they will go out and buy it.
The simple fact of the matter is that we, as consumers don't feel that we have nearly as many rights as consumers of other products, and the ones we have are dwindling fast. So what are you going to do to protect us, the people who keep the companies in business?
First off, Ms. Kinney, if you're letting Mr. Gambardello do all your research, I highly suggest that you both find different lines of work.
Second, your information about Warriors of Freedom, is almost, but not entirely, the opposite of the truth. The first link in Google when you enter in "Warriors of Freedom" takes you here:
A page for teachers resources on the Civil War. The fact that this pops up first, a non-exact match, is proof that "Warriors of Freedom" is almost entirely unknown.
Gamerankings.com turns up no matches in its database. Mobygames.com turns up no matches in its database. Gamespot.com turns up no matches in its database. IGN.com no matches. Gamespy.com no matches. Gamers.com, no matches.
Do you see a common theme here?
If none of the major gaming sites, and none of the mid-major gaming sites have ANY information about this game at all, and bear in mind, these sites cover games overseas, games that are released for free, and everything, this game is popular in no way, shape, or form.
The actual site is too small to have even been indexed by Google. I find a page that refers to the offical page, but not the official page itself, and the one page I do find is not even the top link in Google! How much fact checking did you do after you punched "Warriors of Freedom" into Google?
What you think are matches for the actual PC game, are not sites for the game at all. When I did find the official site that you refer to in your article, which IS up and has been for all of today since your article was posted, by the way, I find a meager page for someone's piddling little online project.
Registration appears to work just fine, but that's all moot since once you actually bother to move to the next page you notice that in red text it tells you that there is a 1000 player cap on the game. That is the smallest Multiplayer Online Game I have ever heard of. By the way, did you try figuring out when the game went down? Any chance that maybe, just maybe it's been down for quite a while now, especially since nobody knows anything about it? Coincidence? No, it's common sense.
In fact, as far as I can tell, there are fewer than 10 sites that actually refer to any game, much less a PC Game.
The only information I can find on the game is here:
Which lists the game's interface as "text based", meaning that the anime figures you mention are undoubtedly from that pen and paper RPG, formerly of the same name. Especially since it lists the game being of type, "Empire Manangement" and doesn't sound one bit like the "Warriors of Freedom" pen and paper RPG, which has since changed its name to "Guardians of Har".
Since that Guardians of Har only claims copyrights from 2000-2002, one is left to assume that this name change took place sometime around last year (at the latest.) and that this game, and the PC "Game" that you and Jack Thompson are reporting is the basis for the kids' group name have nothing in common. If the anime characters from Warriors of Freedom DO exist, they're from the pen and paper RPG and have NOTHING to do with a text based PC 1,000 player maximum limit empire building game of the same name.
I can't find anything anywhere about screenshots from the game, which may since it's text-only. I'd really like to see the figures you're talking about, because I'm 99.9% positive that they bear no relationship whatsoever to the PC Game you're talking about. Connection between an anime related PC game and a kid who drew anime? Coincidence? No, merely conjured up conjecture, because there's no anime in the "Warriors of Freedom" PC game.
"Thanks for your most tempered email. I suggest you go to Google. Type in Warriors of Freedom. You will find numerous entries on the role playing game. An effort to get into the site on Monday was unsuccessful. It said it had problems. Coincidence? I'd like to think so. For the record, we reported the the trio called themselves the Warriors of Freedom before Jack Thompson ever came on the scene. (I know, you hate him. He hates you. Sort of like Israel and Palestine.) But anyway, you should also know that the Warriors of Freedom figures are in the anime style. And from what I've seen, Matthew Lovett had a future -- until Sunday, at least -- as an anime artist. Coincidence? I'll leave that to the cops, who were the ones zeroing in on video and computer games. Not us.
I'm really getting sick of all your pedantic video game demonizing. Your article was quite possibly one of the stupidest things ever commited to paper, or whatever medium you originally confined this to. Did you not post the full note, or am I completely unlike you all who wrote the article in noticing that they never refer to themselves as "Warriors of Freedom", but that hazy sepculation was just a conjecture applied by rabidly frothing Jack Thompson, who sees this unfortunate incident as something that he can use to cash in a big paycheck?
I write for the video game website Netjak.com. I have NEVER heard of the game Warriors of Freedom. I did not see it on display at E3 this year, and I knew nothing of the game until it was mentioned here. None of the people I know who play video games have ever heard of this game, and it's highly likely that neither did the kids invovled in this crime of incredible stupidity.
However, they, unlike you have an excuse. They're kids, they don't know better. Whereas you, supposedly reputable journalists, should. I don't see Jayson Blair credited in the top...did he ghost write this, or are you just not giving him credit?
While you don't out and out say that video games are evil, you sure imply it enough, and don't even bring in any to offer a counterpoint. Nope. Ol' Jack Thompson and his crusade to have so much money he can cram it in his ears is all you seem to be worried about. You could have posted this article here:
Which was up on the 6th...2 days before your fiasco ever became responsible for making the world a less intelligent place. You could have talked to any of the game makers in the industry, or, anyone who played a video game at all and enjoyed it. But, you didn't feel the need to since we're all just repressed homicidal maniacs, right? Whatever sells your papers, pal.
My favorite part about this piece of work is how you note that the reference to Neo is from the Matrix...a hugely popular movie, and then segue that into the fact that it's also a game...a game that fell well below sales expectations, and here's the best part...you can't play as Neo. Here's a quote from one of the detailed walkthroughs of the game posted at Gamefaqs.com:
"Q: Is Neo/Trinity/Morpheus/Agent Smith playable in the game?
A: Unless you are playing the PC version, everyone listed above except Neo is available in the multiplayer game. The PC game only has Neo at the time being due to mods and skins imported to the game. Sorry, doesn't look like you get to play as "the one" in this one kids."
So, your entire link to the Matrix video game is broken. I suppose that may dissuade some people from writing an article like this, but you people seem to be uncaring about research or facts, so long as you get the public more afraid of those kids with a mouse and keyboard just waiting to blow your brains out.
Then you, Ms. Yant Kinney, defend the Matrix in another article, which also drops "evidence" incriminating evidence and makes no effort whatsoever to absolve the video games. What is up with this quote:
"They called themselves the "Warriors of Freedom," after an Internet-based combat video game."
I'd like to see the full text of the letter. Did it honestly say something like, "Hi, we're the Warriors of Freedom. You may recognize our name from a little known multiplayer online game.", or are you just taking the word of the man who has the most to gain directly from drumming up fear of video games, Jack Thompson, as proof enough to print as fact? I thought we were all supposed to be in this new era of journalistic integrity and fact checking.
You continue to state, "An identity crisis rooted in the mind, not the movies."
I know, I read the summary and thought, "I see. Ol' Yamauchi is still crazy." Then I read the article, and came back to a different familiar thought. That the people here at Slashdot don't proofread.
That summary was utterly sad. Almost, but not entirely, unlike what was actually said in the article.
Slashdot Mirror
I hate to break this to you...but this has been said before. It's exactly the same thing Ben Stein said while presenting at the IDSA awards at E3 back in 2000.
He was talking about his kid and how he couldn't fathom how people could rail out at these games as anti-social when day after day, his son would be playing these games, and talking about his friends from school who had found this new way to hang out.
Shigeru Miyamoto has already given us the best ammunition to fight back against all this. If you read the book, "Game Over" (which is a decent read, if you can cut through the rampant Nintendo bias.) Miyamoto rsponds to the video games are back for you question by saying, simply:
"Video games are bad for you? That's what they said about rock and roll."
If that doesn't make anyone talking about the violent effects of games on kids pause and think about that for a second...there's no reason to listen to anything they have to say anymore...reason has departed from their body.
Eh, this goes farther than Madden. Look at the NCAA football game...Cade McNown?!
Alonzo Morning made the cover of NBA 2Night the season he got diagnosed for kidney failure. EA put out a press release talking about how Dikembe Mutombo would be their cover athlete, and was the first Atlana Hawk ever to be on a game cover...DAYS before he was traded to Philadelphia.
I've mentioned the video game cover curse for a long time now...it's powerful stuff.
Good post...but...
WRONG!
The incorrect part of your post:
"It means that the first 92 elements can be found naturally occurring..."
Element 43, Technetium, is not natural. Well...it is possible, but I don't think they're 100% sure.
I do know that not paying for garbage is better than paying for it, though.
Sorry, but off the top of my head, I can't think of a GOOD commercial I've seen for a game here in the US. I remember the ones they came up with for FFVII...the "reset button" ones. We told them they were stupid. They didn't listen to us.
Then the public said they were stupid and Sony would later go on to make their famous claim that basically, the public doesn't know anything, and they should just shut up and buy their games.
Then, while I was in Japan they had these ads for XBox Live that didn't make any sense at all. Some scantily clad woman who looked like she was hopped up on drugs, slinking against a wall while pie were thrown at her. What the hell was that?!
And this is Japan, where they make consistently better commercials than they do in the US.
The ads in magazines and the like that are good are the ones I don't remember...because they haven't pissed me off. But they also haven't done very much in the way of advertising.
I don't blame you, the ad agencies as much, because you aren't the ones responsible for stripping features from a game, and you aren't the ones responsible from pushing a game out the door that isn't ready to go. You aren't the ones responsible for forcing the game into a design it shouldn't be.
But honestly, no matter how good your work is, there isn't any way you can offset things like that retarded Blockbuster ad.
PC Gamer?!
The same people who gave Outpost an Editor's Choice award when it shipped, and then 3 years later, said it was the worst game of all time?
The same people who named Romero's woman one of the "Heroes of the Gaming World" even though she'd only done QA and a few stupid level designs up to that point?
Yeah, THAT's what I'm looking for in a magazine.
How exactly is everyone supposed to get an idea about a game now? IGN's pay, Gamespot's pay, and to top it off, a couple months back a bunch of game reviewers were admitting how their editors made them give special favors to advertisers.
A demo only shows 1 level, MAYBE, and you can't return games to the store. Maybe if we weren't getting so heinously screwed out of our consumer rights, we'd be a bit more "selective".
Oh you mean like this?
http://www.netjak.com/review.php/203
There is no end to the stupidity of the average person in the Marketing Department of your average game company.
First off, most of them have not played the game for long than 30 minutes. Most of them don't even like games, and on top of that, they come out of college with degrees in Social Sciences, and pretty much nothing at all that is applicable.
The HR department will hire someone new based on whether they think the person's nice, and will get along with them, because they figure that's all they're going to be doing...eating lunch with corporate buyers and talking them up.
Then they get back to their cube slap a bunch of buzzwords on some art, and voila. You've got stores will buy tons of product, and tons of customers who will hate it. 70% of everything wrong in the industry is the fault of marketing. The other 30% is a combination of hype, obstinance, and refusal to actually get some new ideas into the game world. (Also partially Marketing's fault...but I hold the designers more to task for this.)
If people would start taking the right people task for this garbage, there would be a lot more heads rolling. But most of the time, you find a game that crashes, and everyone's yelling at the QA department.
Most of the time, the QA dept. knows full well about this bug. But someone forced the game through. And it isn't the dev. team.
Co-op play didn't make Chocobo Dungeon 2 any fun. I do also find it sad that the thread got hijacked.
There just aren't enough good pirate games out there. This looks like it might be passable, but I'm getting a "Possible a good game, but more than likely a mediocre one" feeling from all this.
And why does the article not link to the Official Galleon site? The Interplay site hasn't updated its screenshots since 2002.
Well, here's the thing. Nintendo was #1. With the garbage N64 (I had one and left it outside in the rain, I played it so little.) they really took a hit. The GameCube was supposed to be their return to dominance...but they've found the market a bit more competitive than they expected.
I don't think Nintendo's hurting though. Not in the least. I do however, think they STILL have being #1 on their sights. I don't think Nintendo is satisfied with the plan of action you suggest, but I also don't think they're going the way of Sega anytime soon.
Especially since they've now shed their criminally insane leader.
Untrue, this is the main reason that this censorship DOES happen now.
In Brave Fencer Musashi, the Japanese release has a part in which there's someone pounding on the door to the Inn late one night because he wants pork chops. In the Japanese version, he's getting drunk at night, and the implication was that he was an alcoholic ignoring his daughter.
When you get through the dungeon, you find the store owner at the bottom, who apparently "had too much caffeine". He's all redfaced, but apparently, they thought that was good enough.
Another example, although not as well known or contemporary is "Neo Hunter". It was based off of an Orson Scott Card novel, and in the game, all the player has to shoot with are stun bullets.
You have a stun pistol, a stun machine gun, a stun shot gun, and my favorite, the stun rocket launcher. You also have stun grenades. All this was done to try and get a rating below "T", but it didn't. The ESRB still slapped a "T" on it.
With high profile names like Arnold...well...Arnold from Diff'rent Strokes, it's unlikely that you'll be getting much press, but in the event you get invited to a debate, or can bring up a stance on a subject that the other candidates will have to respond to:
Now that we've got some protection from telemarketers do you plan for consumers to actually get some legal SPAM protection in the state? It seems like something that can get easily passed (simply ignoring the SPAM lobbyists.) and something that can actually be accomplished in one's brief recall term.
On a side note, if you actually want to get elected, get the word out to colleges that your plan is for all state-run campuses not to have classes begin before noon.
The college student population is more than enough to beat out the divided factions taht are voting for the other candidates, and you'll have it in the bag. Go Geek Party!
If you pay in pesos...well, that's just even more of a challenge. :)
Spot on. You're absolutely right. The best games that are going to be made off of movies are going to the be the ones where their dev. cycle is allowed to progress as they wish.
Aliens vs. Predator is great fun. That's based off of movie stuff that there isn't even a movie for. It was cool because they did it at their own pace, and it was something that fit the genre.
However, most of the movies this guy suggests in his article are retarded ideas for video games. The article's mainly a failed attempt to be funny...maybe if you're high it'll make sense.
Most of the movies that would make good games are going to be Academy Award nominated movies. If you try and take a movie that people totally followed the story to, they're going to get ticked when you take the game a different way.
On top of that, the really good games based off of movies are going to be the ones that can be put into a single genre. You always have the cool car chase sequence in the movie...and then the game tries to replicate the excitement by putting a level into the game...that still totally uses the FPS engine. And that level totally sucks. None of the movie people understand that you can't do this for some reason.
So, here are some good ones:
The Transformers. You make this into Dynasty Warriors 4. You have a bunch of non-descript robots on Cybertron that you plow through, and at the heart of them is a "General" named character baddie. Throw in the odd timed racing event, and you're all good.
Bad Boys. Be it I or II, it makes no difference. Martin and Will Smith are on some other cop mission. This leads to them blowing up a whole bunch of crap. You make it like Serious Sam, and you sell it cheap, too.
Big Trouble in Little China. Mortal Kombat is already loosely based off of it, and that series won't die, so why not just make the actual movie into a game already.
Shaolin Soccer and Ping Pong. These are both similar in subject matter. They should both be sports RPGs a la Virtua Tennis where you do things to upgrade your characters, and they take on the characters in the movies in various tour events.
Brotherhood of the Wolf. Mani and co. kicking some serious ass in a prequel to the movie. Desperado would also probably be pretty fun if done right.
I have a single 20-pound weight that I have in the office. I use that for tricep and bicep curls while I'm on the phone. Since it's not like I can do it long enough to be considered aerobic exercise, so all it does is burn off a handful of calories, but really you don't want to build up a sweat at work anyway.
The other fun thing you can do is drink a lot of ICE COLD water. Your body needs to expend calories to keep your core body temperature at 98.6. Of course, this mean you'll have to head to the can a lot, but that can also be looked at as a small form of exercise.
There isn't anything you can do to burn off enough to make a real significant difference while you're at work. Eat less, and try and get some exercise while you're off work. You should get a nice corporate discount on a gym membership, so try and take advantage of it.
That would be someone else's jurisdiction. I think what they're specifically looking at here is accounting, and nothing else...making sure the video game corporations aren't cooking their books.
I think they're starting alphabetically, because Acclaim is trading for less than a dollar, and at under $13, Activision isn't exacly shooting through the roof.
I expect they probably get it from Tecmo who promised that DOA 2 would only be on the DC, and then realeased a game called, "DOA 2: Hardcore" on the Playstation 2 months later. This stuff is way common.
Going a bit more in-depth, I'd rather ask:
Software, music and movies have the least consumer proection on them out of all products sold. Not coincidentally in my opinion, these seem to be the most pirated works.
Has it crossed your mind to strengthen OUR rights while trying to protect their IP? I currently have no way to sample a movie, or a game.
Game demos are purposely misleading, and a trailer doesn't show me anything I care about a movie.
Yet, I can only return an opened piece of software for another copy of the same piece of software. (despite the fact that the click-wrap EULA doesn't allow me to get my money back if said software doesn't even work on my machine because of it being incomplete, or whatnot.)
Most of the people I know that will download a full copy of game before buying do so because there's no other way to determine if said game is worth their $50. If they do like the game they will go out and buy it.
The simple fact of the matter is that we, as consumers don't feel that we have nearly as many rights as consumers of other products, and the ones we have are dwindling fast. So what are you going to do to protect us, the people who keep the companies in business?
Then I countered with:
"Mr. Gambardello, and Ms. Yant Kinney:
First off, Ms. Kinney, if you're letting Mr. Gambardello do all your research, I highly suggest that you both find different lines of work.
Second, your information about Warriors of Freedom, is almost, but not entirely, the opposite of the truth. The first link in Google when you enter in "Warriors of Freedom" takes you here:
http://www.elisacarbone.com/index.2ts?page=study
A page for teachers resources on the Civil War. The fact that this pops up first, a non-exact match, is proof that "Warriors of Freedom"
is almost entirely unknown.
Gamerankings.com turns up no matches in its database. Mobygames.com turns up no matches in its database. Gamespot.com turns up no matches
in its database. IGN.com no matches. Gamespy.com no matches. Gamers.com, no matches.
Do you see a common theme here?
If none of the major gaming sites, and none of the mid-major gaming sites have ANY information about this game at all, and bear in mind,
these sites cover games overseas, games that are released for free, and everything, this game is popular in no way, shape, or form.
The actual site is too small to have even been indexed by Google. I find a page that refers to the offical page, but not the official page
itself, and the one page I do find is not even the top link in Google! How much fact checking did you do after you punched "Warriors of
Freedom" into Google?
What you think are matches for the actual PC game, are not sites for the game at all. When I did find the official site that you refer to
in your article, which IS up and has been for all of today since your article was posted, by the way, I find a meager page for someone's
piddling little online project.
Registration appears to work just fine, but that's all moot since once you actually bother to move to the next page you notice that in red
text it tells you that there is a 1000 player cap on the game. That is the smallest Multiplayer Online Game I have ever heard of. By the way,
did you try figuring out when the game went down? Any chance that maybe, just maybe it's been down for quite a while now, especially
since nobody knows anything about it? Coincidence? No, it's common sense.
In fact, as far as I can tell, there are fewer than 10 sites that actually refer to any game, much less a PC Game.
The only information I can find on the game is here:
http://www.mpogd.com/games/game.asp?ID=1754
Which lists the game's interface as "text based", meaning that the anime figures you mention are undoubtedly from that pen and paper RPG,
formerly of the same name. Especially since it lists the game being of type, "Empire Manangement" and doesn't sound one bit like the "Warriors of Freedom" pen and paper RPG, which has since changed its name
to "Guardians of Har".
Since that Guardians of Har only claims copyrights from 2000-2002, one is left to assume that this name change took place sometime around last year (at the latest.) and that this game, and the PC "Game" that you and Jack Thompson are reporting is the basis for the kids' group name
have nothing in common. If the anime characters from Warriors of Freedom DO exist, they're from the pen and paper RPG and have NOTHING
to do with a text based PC 1,000 player maximum limit empire building game of the same name.
I can't find anything anywhere about screenshots from the game, which may since it's text-only. I'd really like to see the figures you're
talking about, because I'm 99.9% positive that they bear no relationship whatsoever to the PC Game you're talking about. Connection
between an anime related PC game and a kid who drew anime? Coincidence? No, merely conjured up conjecture, because there's no anime in the "Warriors of Freedom" PC game.
Here's the response I got back:
"Thanks for your most tempered email. I suggest you go to Google. Type in Warriors of Freedom. You will find numerous entries on the role playing game. An effort to get into the site on Monday was unsuccessful. It said it had problems. Coincidence? I'd like to think so. For the record, we reported the the trio called themselves the Warriors of Freedom before Jack Thompson ever came on the scene. (I know, you hate him. He hates you. Sort of like Israel and Palestine.) But anyway, you should also know that the Warriors of Freedom figures are in the anime style. And from what I've seen, Matthew Lovett had a future -- until Sunday, at least -- as an anime artist. Coincidence? I'll leave that to the cops, who were the ones zeroing in on video and computer games. Not us.
Sincerely,
Joseph A. Gambardello
Inquirer Staff Writer"
So I fired off the following response:
"Dear "Journalists",
I'm really getting sick of all your pedantic video game demonizing. Your article was quite possibly one of the stupidest things ever commited to paper, or whatever medium you originally confined this to. Did you not post the full note, or am I completely unlike you all who wrote the article in noticing that they never refer to themselves as "Warriors of Freedom", but that hazy sepculation was just a conjecture applied by rabidly frothing Jack Thompson, who sees this unfortunate incident as something that he can use to cash in a big paycheck?
I write for the video game website Netjak.com. I have NEVER heard of the game Warriors of Freedom. I did not see it on display at E3 this year, and I knew nothing of the game until it was mentioned here. None of the people I know who play video games have ever heard of this game, and it's highly likely that neither did the kids invovled in this crime of incredible stupidity.
However, they, unlike you have an excuse. They're kids, they don't know better. Whereas you, supposedly reputable journalists, should. I don't see Jayson Blair credited in the top...did he ghost write this, or are you just not giving him credit?
While you don't out and out say that video games are evil, you sure imply it enough, and don't even bring in any to offer a counterpoint. Nope. Ol' Jack Thompson and his crusade to have so much money he can cram it in his ears is all you seem to be worried about. You could have posted this article here:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/ptech/07/06/college.g amers.ap/index.html
Which was up on the 6th...2 days before your fiasco ever became responsible for making the world a less intelligent place. You could have talked to any of the game makers in the industry, or, anyone who played a video game at all and enjoyed it. But, you didn't feel the need to since we're all just repressed homicidal maniacs, right? Whatever sells your papers, pal.
My favorite part about this piece of work is how you note that the reference to Neo is from the Matrix...a hugely popular movie, and then segue that into the fact that it's also a game...a game that fell well below sales expectations, and here's the best part...you can't play as Neo. Here's a quote from one of the detailed walkthroughs of the game posted at Gamefaqs.com:
"Q: Is Neo/Trinity/Morpheus/Agent Smith playable in the game?
A: Unless you are playing the PC version, everyone listed above except
Neo is available in the multiplayer game. The PC game only has Neo at
the time being due to mods and skins imported to the game. Sorry,
doesn't look like you get to play as "the one" in this one kids."
So, your entire link to the Matrix video game is broken. I suppose that may dissuade some people from writing an article like this, but you people seem to be uncaring about research or facts, so long as you get the public more afraid of those kids with a mouse and keyboard just waiting to blow your brains out.
Then you, Ms. Yant Kinney, defend the Matrix in another article, which also drops "evidence" incriminating evidence and makes no effort whatsoever to absolve the video games. What is up with this quote:
"They called themselves the "Warriors of Freedom," after an Internet-based combat video game."
I'd like to see the full text of the letter. Did it honestly say something like, "Hi, we're the Warriors of Freedom. You may recognize our name from a little known multiplayer online game.", or are you just taking the word of the man who has the most to gain directly from drumming up fear of video games, Jack Thompson, as proof enough to print as fact? I thought we were all supposed to be in this new era of journalistic integrity and fact checking.
You continue to state, "An identity crisis rooted in the mind, not the movies."
How hard would
Worst Peripheral of E3. #5 one one of the Worst of Show Lists, and #2 on the other. The two guest reviewers rated it as the worst thing there.
I know, I read the summary and thought, "I see. Ol' Yamauchi is still crazy." Then I read the article, and came back to a different familiar thought. That the people here at Slashdot don't proofread.
That summary was utterly sad. Almost, but not entirely, unlike what was actually said in the article.
Actually, the NHK people wil come by every year, and you have to pay them for public TV.