They reason they meet in obscure locations is because everyone who signed up to vote and stuff gets to vote at meetings. If they have them where you, me, everyone in the pissant public can't get to, then they pretty much eliminate the possibility of people discussing pertinent things at their meetings, and instead get to wonder, "What the heck do you call people from Ghana? Ghana-reans?"
Nintendo has ALWAYS raked in huge profits off their cartridge based systems. Back on the NES the only way to get cartridges made was to pay Nintendo to make them for you, and if they didn't like you for some reason, your cartridge shipment got limited, pushed back in the queue, etc.
This is also one of the big reasons the N64 was cartridge based...Nintendo figured that CDs wouldn't be able to bring in as much cash as cartridges that needed to be produced at Nintendo.
So the piracy thing bothers them, but not nearly as much as the fact that this product basically allow anyone who wants to go out and write their own GBA software without paying the money for a GBA dev kit, and the fact that they are really, really close to losing a big revenue stream less than a year into the GBA launch. Moral of the story...go buy one now. Nintendo's going to try and kill this now and forever.
20 does seem a bit low...especially since there's one in Irvine, CA, right near me. My personal experience is that if it's near me, everyone has it. Anyway, I saw Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within on the digital projector. It crashed, and they had to run the previews again, which meant I had to sit through the preview of Max Keeble's Big Move twice!!! Digital didn't make that movie any more watchable, and I doubt it'll do much for Episode II as well. So, unless you're a fan boy who's going to save the ticket stub and laminate to prove you went to the first night digital showing, spare yourself the hassle, and just watch it like the rest of us...matinee.:)
How large a percentage of valid, well thought out, salient responses to the DMCA Access Control Circumvention Exceptions and UCITA were posted, and then ignored, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of respnoses were against the two?
Now the public responds with overwhelming numbers and goverment wonders why there was no substance to most of our concern? Maybe if you goverment bastards would actually listen to the arguments we present, we'd bother to write them.
This is all just a smokescreen so the government can say, "Oh, these responses from ignorant internet users, we can ignore them, so, obviously, we should just let Microsoft go, because that's what the pulic really wants."
I don't understand why you keep thinking I'm trying to divide the watts over time. There are 3 100-watt bulbs, every second they consume 300 watts. "Watt per second" isn't a unit I'm trying to define. I would just use "joules" if I wanted to do a scientific proof, but I was trying to keep it with the same term as the article was written. It's easier to point out the flaws there without changing the units, because either way, the underlying math is wrong.
"Energy per unit time". Is not a second a unit of time? Maybe I didn't phrase it properly, but I'm guessing everyone outside of Alex Trebek can see beyond the usage of "per" in there.
Just change the damn kWH to kWS. If you weren't so busy trying to condemn me for the tiny grammar slip-up, you could have done the fairly simple math to figure out what was going on.
If the 3 100-watt bulbs draining 4.5 kilowatts didn't destroy the claim enough, his math isn't even right.
Even if he's using the literal definition of KW, and not the more widely used KWH, it'd be 300 watts per second * 90 seconds...or 27 KW. Where does he get 4.5 from? The only way I figure it is instead of mutiplying by 90 seconds, he did a quick multiplication. 15 * 300 is the only way I see to get 4500 there...anyone else?
That this guy makes the strongest points for your side.
But I would most strongly emphasize the rerouting the money issue, and the security holes. People love throwing out numbers of how much cash was lost trying to get rid of the latest virus that hits a Microsoft flaw is.
If you want to be really dirty (and in politics, this translates to "successful"), you'd catch your opponents off guard, and promise a couple things to the people that you could allocate funds to creating.
When your oppoenents ask how you plan to do this, seeing as how you wouldn't have enough money, point out that you would do this through open source software, bring figures, and show that you Microsoft proponent nemeses would have to raise taxes to do what you want to do, all because they feel like lining Gates' pockets...and then compare the whole situation to Enron.
I don't see how there's even an argument about this being better...it's the SAME, isn't it?
Am I just missing something here, or isn't this process going to be essentially harvesting the water in the ocean for hydrogen?
And when we're all out of seawater AND oil, then what? Find a way to rip out Earth's molten core and use that to power our spaceships to get us off this planet?
I withhold no judgement. I did play it.
on
XBox Released
·
· Score: 1
Here's a review I wrote on the thing when I messed with it at E3, and then added onto once I played with it again at the Tokyo Game Show, and screwed with it when I could find a working kiosk.
A couple of my friends got to see previews, and wrote reviews. One saw it at the Squaresoft employee viewing, and the other caught it a couple days ago:
This seems utterly rediculous to me. I mean, for every insane human rights violation story on the Chinese there's on the US doing some completely idiotic piece of foriegn policy. When did the idiot at my high school start running the government?
This is almost as retarded as that time the US didn't want to allow someone to ship some supercomputers over to China because they would be able to do hyper accurate predictions of the weather, and make their missile more accurate. If they can make hyper accurate predictions of the weather, how come the weather people here can't tell if it's going to rain or not? That doesn't seem to need a "hyper accurate" level of computing to me.
This all feels like a game of Civ2...where Abraham Lincoln coms knocking on Sony's door backed with the threat of nuclear weapons demanding that Sony doesn't give the Chinese the secret of Pottery or something.
Oh no, they've got DVDs...now they can make those guns from Beverly Hills Cop 3 with the microwaves, stereo systems, and DVD playback.
I think the US Government's idea of what the Chinese tech level at is a bit skewed. Has anyone ever seen some of the recent HK movies out? There's a CG production group over there named Centro that can basically do anything any major Hollywood studio can do, and sometimes better. Check out "Wind & Cloud" and "A Man Called Hero" for some exmaples of their work.
On top of that, if they could take apart the PS2, and rig it up to do military operations, would it stand to reason that they probably ALREADY make chips of similar technical complexity, instead of just stealing everyone else's work? How about giving some non-US nations some credit?
If I had moderator points, I'd drop your post just because it's incorrect. On my system I have nothing but Japanese pop music, and songs by my unsigned friend's band. If I log on to Napster, I am allowed to share *0* files.
These new filters don't worth a damn, unless their sole purpose was to filter out *all* music. There is currently 21 gigs being shared right now, and when I went on last night, it was at 12. I think I have more music than that by myself.
Napster's dead, don't even bother. The next time you'll hear anything about them is on fuckedcompany.com.
People don't tend to fork over larger amounts of cash for smaller payments. A lot of the Asian video stores I used to rent movies from (I usenetflix.com now.) would charge you $50 to rent a video from them before they'd let you open an account. Then all the rentals you made after that were debited from your original $50.
Most of those stores aren't around anymore, because people hate doing that. There's this psychological barrier that customers have to overcome. They start thinking, "Am I really going to use $10 worth of this content?"
Now this works really good for the pr0n industry, because there are certain brain circumventing hormones at work there, including the well documented powers of L.I.B.F. (Lust Induced Brain Freeze.) Nobody ever goes, man, I need some hot humor, now! (Or if they do, they need help.)
But I dunno, maybe something like that would work...but it'd also require a whole different set-up, and putting up the infrastructure for that is going to run someone some cash, too...
Here's the thing. McCloud gos to talk about how PVP only needs a penny a click to break even, right?
Tycho's right. There are just too many younger readers who don't have access to credit cards or any way to make an online transaction. Kids in the 12-17 range, who make up a good deal of the online world (I mean, look at all the trolls here, hlaf of them at least have to be under 18.) just simply are not able to make those micropayments, even though some of them would like to.
I didn't have a checking account until my sophomore year...of college. Up until that point I didn't have enough money to necesitate an account. It's not that I wouldn't have wanted to pay for strips like Penny Arcade, and Megatoyko, it was just that, quite simply, I couldn't.
I don't think I'm a single case either. In some way or another most of these 300,000 users are not going to be able to make the micropayments, either they're too lazy, don't have a valid credit card, can't send the money, or they just won't.
On top of that, most of the micropayment solutions out there right now will take a percentage of the transaction. To process a credit card costs the processor a 1.25% fee. That's the bare minimum, but the Amazon and Paypal methods take a cut more than that, even.
For every $10 attaboy I send off to the guys at PA, there's 50 cents to a buck missing. Credit Card processors are NOT going to let you send a penny.
Right now the best way I can see for these guys to make any sort of cash is to leverage their popularity, and I don't even know if that'll really fly.
Say the PA guys link to an online game store to get a cut off of the game sales. Or maybe they start selling a few more autographed prints. Possibly even sell a few t-shirts that are as funny as the strips, or let the users design their own for a small fee. (because right now their selection of t-shirts is kinda lame.)
But let's face it. There aren't a whole lot of ways to leverage internet popularity into profitability. A whole lot of startups and a whole lot of venture capitalists found about that the hard way. Until someone finds a honest to goodness solution, and doesn't just write a comic about the way things MIGHT work out, Tycho's right to get mad. He's probably pounding his head against a wall trying to figure out a way to make this strip keep itself afloat, and here comes some guy saying, "Oh, it's SO simple, just do what I say!"
I'd flame that guy too, and most of the people here on/. would, as well.
I can see it now. You're wearing your Discman that hooks to your shoes...if you don't run fast enough your Discman goes off until you run around some more.
@Home blocks a metric crapload of the servers already. One of my roommates moved out and got DSL at his new place, and all of a sudden, voila, all the newgroups he'd been looking for before. This is nothing new, although, it is new in the sense that they announced that they were doing it this time...
So far, I've found that the only way to play the GBA that isn't in the sunlight, or that force me to become a contortionist is under multiple light sources. Like the chandelier in my dining room works great.
Here's what will happen if you try and use it with a Worm Light.
And here are my impressions of the system in general.
If they were just going to make it so you couldn't see...they should let you hook it to a TV or something.
I think one of the coolest things you'll probably be able to show the kids is something they can go home, or wherever and show off.
You'll definitely want to show them some basic HTML, and set up some nice little webpages for them. (Hopefully you can shell out some cash to get a small domain hosted for the class, you don't want some nasty long-ass URL for all their efforts.)
Also, with some nice shareware copies of Paint Shop Pro, and a digital camera, you can show them some basic desktop publishing, and the HTML work should give them some word processor experience. (If they start putting text in AlTeRnAtInG caps, then beat them...with a nail bat.)
That should cover all the basics for your students who aren't really super interested in computing at least have a foundation in the computing fundamentals necessary to be at least a secretary, or an office assistant.
Depending on what the individual childs interest is, you can take the last half of the class dividing them up into sectioned learning. If they like to code/game, give them a look at Logo, Flash, and some world editors for popular games.
If they're looking like they're prolific writers, give them a chance to write about things they like, by taking them to sites where they can get read, like epinions.com, and have them write reviews of stuff they own, or some small editorials.
If they're artistic in nature, givem them a look at Photoshop, maybe even Premiere depending on how much you've got to spend.
Have them put it all together at the end in a sort of "comptuer quilt" on the web, and they can be really proud of what they've accomplished, and get a little taste of what's it's like to work as a development team. Social, team-building skills are sorely lacking in computer world anyway, might as well start from the ground up.
Of course, I've never taught before...I can't really say if any of this will work. But I strongly recommend the part where you beat the kids who type in altermating caps.
The most important thing is the Design Doc. It shows the potential buyer that you've done all your footwork.
The problem is that most people haven't written a significant design document anywhere near long enough. I used to think 10-20 pages was fine, you'd hammer out all the details later, right?
Wrong. Average game design doc will be in the area of 150-200 pages. You've got to list out the formulae you're using to determine random encounters and calculate experience, you've got to have the entire plot tree listed, consequences of every action, etc. etc.
If you drop your doc on the table in a silent room, and it doesn't startle people, you aren't done.
The stupid thing about all of this is that during the course of making the game, you throw out 1/2 of the stuff in there, and redesign the other half. But you need to have it done, to show your potential investors that you know what you're getting into, or else you reek of vaporware, and everyone's going to hate that.
Remember. Every gamer and their mom thinks they have an idea for the next hit game. Maybe 10% percent of them actually have something that is originalt, and of those maybe 1% have the leadership, ambition, and ability to carry it through. (Unfortunately, most of those people end up getting shouted down by the John Romeros of the world.)
The publishers use the design doc to measure how much drive the person has to get the game made, and how much work they're willing to put in. A lot of games end up half-finished ideas, and those don't make anyone any money. Others end up as half-finished ideas that the company has invested too much in, and they ship them anyway.
673 impressions in less than a day.
4 hits, for a clickthrough of 0.59%
Man, that's pretty darn weak. After checking, I think I got more hits from posters on Slashdot who were interested in the link, than I did from the Google link.
So, in conclusion...a fairly descriptive write-up with a link on Slashdot will get you more results...and it's free.
As far as the guy who replied...sorry if don't think I was being a professional jorunalist in my review. First off, I'm not really a professional. I tell it like it is. I tell it like I think it's going to be, too.
In regards to the "unfounded" claim that Microsoft was probably cranking up the specs on the fake XBoxes...I didn't know if Microsoft was doing that for sure, but it's common practice at E3 to demo software on the top of the line machines, and then tell the people that came by that the game was running on a system that just met the game's requirements. (I know because I worked at a company that did this, and had contacts at other companies, who told me they were doing the same.)
I figure it's a valid assumption. If you don't, fine, whatever, that's just my speculation. It doesn't take anything away from the fact that the XBox still made a poor showing, whether it was cranked up or not.
Slashdot Mirror
They reason they meet in obscure locations is because everyone who signed up to vote and stuff gets to vote at meetings. If they have them where you, me, everyone in the pissant public can't get to, then they pretty much eliminate the possibility of people discussing pertinent things at their meetings, and instead get to wonder, "What the heck do you call people from Ghana? Ghana-reans?"
Then they'll vote on it and go home.
Nintendo has ALWAYS raked in huge profits off their cartridge based systems. Back on the NES the only way to get cartridges made was to pay Nintendo to make them for you, and if they didn't like you for some reason, your cartridge shipment got limited, pushed back in the queue, etc.
This is also one of the big reasons the N64 was cartridge based...Nintendo figured that CDs wouldn't be able to bring in as much cash as cartridges that needed to be produced at Nintendo.
So the piracy thing bothers them, but not nearly as much as the fact that this product basically allow anyone who wants to go out and write their own GBA software without paying the money for a GBA dev kit, and the fact that they are really, really close to losing a big revenue stream less than a year into the GBA launch. Moral of the story...go buy one now. Nintendo's going to try and kill this now and forever.
20 does seem a bit low...especially since there's one in Irvine, CA, right near me. My personal experience is that if it's near me, everyone has it. Anyway, I saw Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within on the digital projector. It crashed, and they had to run the previews again, which meant I had to sit through the preview of Max Keeble's Big Move twice!!! Digital didn't make that movie any more watchable, and I doubt it'll do much for Episode II as well. So, unless you're a fan boy who's going to save the ticket stub and laminate to prove you went to the first night digital showing, spare yourself the hassle, and just watch it like the rest of us...matinee. :)
That this case will invoke the DMCA at some point?
How large a percentage of valid, well thought out, salient responses to the DMCA Access Control Circumvention Exceptions and UCITA were posted, and then ignored, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of respnoses were against the two?
Now the public responds with overwhelming numbers and goverment wonders why there was no substance to most of our concern? Maybe if you goverment bastards would actually listen to the arguments we present, we'd bother to write them.
This is all just a smokescreen so the government can say, "Oh, these responses from ignorant internet users, we can ignore them, so, obviously, we should just let Microsoft go, because that's what the pulic really wants."
"Watt per sec = W/s = ????"
I don't understand why you keep thinking I'm trying to divide the watts over time. There are 3 100-watt bulbs, every second they consume 300 watts. "Watt per second" isn't a unit I'm trying to define. I would just use "joules" if I wanted to do a scientific proof, but I was trying to keep it with the same term as the article was written. It's easier to point out the flaws there without changing the units, because either way, the underlying math is wrong.
Try reading more carefully.
"Energy per unit time". Is not a second a unit of time? Maybe I didn't phrase it properly, but I'm guessing everyone outside of Alex Trebek can see beyond the usage of "per" in there.
Just change the damn kWH to kWS. If you weren't so busy trying to condemn me for the tiny grammar slip-up, you could have done the fairly simple math to figure out what was going on.
If the 3 100-watt bulbs draining 4.5 kilowatts didn't destroy the claim enough, his math isn't even right.
Even if he's using the literal definition of KW, and not the more widely used KWH, it'd be 300 watts per second * 90 seconds...or 27 KW. Where does he get 4.5 from? The only way I figure it is instead of mutiplying by 90 seconds, he did a quick multiplication. 15 * 300 is the only way I see to get 4500 there...anyone else?
I think the e-book's for people who may be too poor to get the money for eternal life rings, but still have access to a public computer terminal.
That this guy makes the strongest points for your side.
But I would most strongly emphasize the rerouting the money issue, and the security holes. People love throwing out numbers of how much cash was lost trying to get rid of the latest virus that hits a Microsoft flaw is.
If you want to be really dirty (and in politics, this translates to "successful"), you'd catch your opponents off guard, and promise a couple things to the people that you could allocate funds to creating.
When your oppoenents ask how you plan to do this, seeing as how you wouldn't have enough money, point out that you would do this through open source software, bring figures, and show that you Microsoft proponent nemeses would have to raise taxes to do what you want to do, all because they feel like lining Gates' pockets...and then compare the whole situation to Enron.
I don't see how there's even an argument about this being better...it's the SAME, isn't it?
Am I just missing something here, or isn't this process going to be essentially harvesting the water in the ocean for hydrogen?
And when we're all out of seawater AND oil, then what? Find a way to rip out Earth's molten core and use that to power our spaceships to get us off this planet?
Here's a review I wrote on the thing when I messed with it at E3, and then added onto once I played with it again at the Tokyo Game Show, and screwed with it when I could find a working kiosk.
XBox Review
Scroll to the bottom of the review for all the new info.
Here's a first look review of Dead or Alive 3, as well.
DOA3 Preview
A couple of my friends got to see previews, and wrote reviews. One saw it at the Squaresoft employee viewing, and the other caught it a couple days ago:
Review #1
Review #2
So far, this is sounding like a far cooler movie than Tomb Raider, and that went over $100 million. So hopefully this does as well.
This seems utterly rediculous to me. I mean, for every insane human rights violation story on the Chinese there's on the US doing some completely idiotic piece of foriegn policy. When did the idiot at my high school start running the government?
This is almost as retarded as that time the US didn't want to allow someone to ship some supercomputers over to China because they would be able to do hyper accurate predictions of the weather, and make their missile more accurate. If they can make hyper accurate predictions of the weather, how come the weather people here can't tell if it's going to rain or not? That doesn't seem to need a "hyper accurate" level of computing to me.
This all feels like a game of Civ2...where Abraham Lincoln coms knocking on Sony's door backed with the threat of nuclear weapons demanding that Sony doesn't give the Chinese the secret of Pottery or something.
Oh no, they've got DVDs...now they can make those guns from Beverly Hills Cop 3 with the microwaves, stereo systems, and DVD playback.
I think the US Government's idea of what the Chinese tech level at is a bit skewed. Has anyone ever seen some of the recent HK movies out? There's a CG production group over there named Centro that can basically do anything any major Hollywood studio can do, and sometimes better. Check out "Wind & Cloud" and "A Man Called Hero" for some exmaples of their work.
On top of that, if they could take apart the PS2, and rig it up to do military operations, would it stand to reason that they probably ALREADY make chips of similar technical complexity, instead of just stealing everyone else's work? How about giving some non-US nations some credit?
If I had moderator points, I'd drop your post just because it's incorrect. On my system I have nothing but Japanese pop music, and songs by my unsigned friend's band. If I log on to Napster, I am allowed to share *0* files.
These new filters don't worth a damn, unless their sole purpose was to filter out *all* music. There is currently 21 gigs being shared right now, and when I went on last night, it was at 12. I think I have more music than that by myself.
Napster's dead, don't even bother. The next time you'll hear anything about them is on fuckedcompany.com.
People don't tend to fork over larger amounts of cash for smaller payments. A lot of the Asian video stores I used to rent movies from (I use netflix.com now.) would charge you $50 to rent a video from them before they'd let you open an account. Then all the rentals you made after that were debited from your original $50.
Most of those stores aren't around anymore, because people hate doing that. There's this psychological barrier that customers have to overcome. They start thinking, "Am I really going to use $10 worth of this content?"
Now this works really good for the pr0n industry, because there are certain brain circumventing hormones at work there, including the well documented powers of L.I.B.F. (Lust Induced Brain Freeze.) Nobody ever goes, man, I need some hot humor, now! (Or if they do, they need help.)
But I dunno, maybe something like that would work...but it'd also require a whole different set-up, and putting up the infrastructure for that is going to run someone some cash, too...
Here's the thing. McCloud gos to talk about how PVP only needs a penny a click to break even, right?
/. would, as well.
Tycho's right. There are just too many younger readers who don't have access to credit cards or any way to make an online transaction. Kids in the 12-17 range, who make up a good deal of the online world (I mean, look at all the trolls here, hlaf of them at least have to be under 18.) just simply are not able to make those micropayments, even though some of them would like to.
I didn't have a checking account until my sophomore year...of college. Up until that point I didn't have enough money to necesitate an account. It's not that I wouldn't have wanted to pay for strips like Penny Arcade, and Megatoyko, it was just that, quite simply, I couldn't.
I don't think I'm a single case either. In some way or another most of these 300,000 users are not going to be able to make the micropayments, either they're too lazy, don't have a valid credit card, can't send the money, or they just won't.
On top of that, most of the micropayment solutions out there right now will take a percentage of the transaction. To process a credit card costs the processor a 1.25% fee. That's the bare minimum, but the Amazon and Paypal methods take a cut more than that, even.
For every $10 attaboy I send off to the guys at PA, there's 50 cents to a buck missing. Credit Card processors are NOT going to let you send a penny.
Right now the best way I can see for these guys to make any sort of cash is to leverage their popularity, and I don't even know if that'll really fly.
Say the PA guys link to an online game store to get a cut off of the game sales. Or maybe they start selling a few more autographed prints. Possibly even sell a few t-shirts that are as funny as the strips, or let the users design their own for a small fee. (because right now their selection of t-shirts is kinda lame.)
But let's face it. There aren't a whole lot of ways to leverage internet popularity into profitability. A whole lot of startups and a whole lot of venture capitalists found about that the hard way. Until someone finds a honest to goodness solution, and doesn't just write a comic about the way things MIGHT work out, Tycho's right to get mad. He's probably pounding his head against a wall trying to figure out a way to make this strip keep itself afloat, and here comes some guy saying, "Oh, it's SO simple, just do what I say!"
I'd flame that guy too, and most of the people here on
I can see it now. You're wearing your Discman that hooks to your shoes...if you don't run fast enough your Discman goes off until you run around some more.
@Home blocks a metric crapload of the servers already. One of my roommates moved out and got DSL at his new place, and all of a sudden, voila, all the newgroups he'd been looking for before. This is nothing new, although, it is new in the sense that they announced that they were doing it this time...
So far, I've found that the only way to play the GBA that isn't in the sunlight, or that force me to become a contortionist is under multiple light sources. Like the chandelier in my dining room works great.
Here's what will happen if you try and use it with a Worm Light.
And here are my impressions of the system in general.
If they were just going to make it so you couldn't see...they should let you hook it to a TV or something.
It's 30 minutes of actor/director commentary, and 5 1/2 hours of them beating Jar Jar with sticks and apologizing for his existance.
Whoa...that tosses me into the way back machine.
I think one of the coolest things you'll probably be able to show the kids is something they can go home, or wherever and show off.
You'll definitely want to show them some basic HTML, and set up some nice little webpages for them. (Hopefully you can shell out some cash to get a small domain hosted for the class, you don't want some nasty long-ass URL for all their efforts.)
Also, with some nice shareware copies of Paint Shop Pro, and a digital camera, you can show them some basic desktop publishing, and the HTML work should give them some word processor experience. (If they start putting text in AlTeRnAtInG caps, then beat them...with a nail bat.)
That should cover all the basics for your students who aren't really super interested in computing at least have a foundation in the computing fundamentals necessary to be at least a secretary, or an office assistant.
Depending on what the individual childs interest is, you can take the last half of the class dividing them up into sectioned learning. If they like to code/game, give them a look at Logo, Flash, and some world editors for popular games.
If they're looking like they're prolific writers, give them a chance to write about things they like, by taking them to sites where they can get read, like epinions.com, and have them write reviews of stuff they own, or some small editorials.
If they're artistic in nature, givem them a look at Photoshop, maybe even Premiere depending on how much you've got to spend.
Have them put it all together at the end in a sort of "comptuer quilt" on the web, and they can be really proud of what they've accomplished, and get a little taste of what's it's like to work as a development team. Social, team-building skills are sorely lacking in computer world anyway, might as well start from the ground up.
Of course, I've never taught before...I can't really say if any of this will work. But I strongly recommend the part where you beat the kids who type in altermating caps.
The most important thing is the Design Doc. It shows the potential buyer that you've done all your footwork.
The problem is that most people haven't written a significant design document anywhere near long enough. I used to think 10-20 pages was fine, you'd hammer out all the details later, right?
Wrong. Average game design doc will be in the area of 150-200 pages. You've got to list out the formulae you're using to determine random encounters and calculate experience, you've got to have the entire plot tree listed, consequences of every action, etc. etc.
If you drop your doc on the table in a silent room, and it doesn't startle people, you aren't done.
The stupid thing about all of this is that during the course of making the game, you throw out 1/2 of the stuff in there, and redesign the other half. But you need to have it done, to show your potential investors that you know what you're getting into, or else you reek of vaporware, and everyone's going to hate that.
Remember. Every gamer and their mom thinks they have an idea for the next hit game. Maybe 10% percent of them actually have something that is originalt, and of those maybe 1% have the leadership, ambition, and ability to carry it through. (Unfortunately, most of those people end up getting shouted down by the John Romeros of the world.)
The publishers use the design doc to measure how much drive the person has to get the game made, and how much work they're willing to put in. A lot of games end up half-finished ideas, and those don't make anyone any money. Others end up as half-finished ideas that the company has invested too much in, and they ship them anyway.
Hey Alex, since you have all this free time due to your newfound immortality, what are you spending it on?
Well, here are the final results:
673 impressions in less than a day.
4 hits, for a clickthrough of 0.59%
Man, that's pretty darn weak. After checking, I think I got more hits from posters on Slashdot who were interested in the link, than I did from the Google link.
So, in conclusion...a fairly descriptive write-up with a link on Slashdot will get you more results...and it's free.
As far as the guy who replied...sorry if don't think I was being a professional jorunalist in my review. First off, I'm not really a professional. I tell it like it is. I tell it like I think it's going to be, too.
In regards to the "unfounded" claim that Microsoft was probably cranking up the specs on the fake XBoxes...I didn't know if Microsoft was doing that for sure, but it's common practice at E3 to demo software on the top of the line machines, and then tell the people that came by that the game was running on a system that just met the game's requirements. (I know because I worked at a company that did this, and had contacts at other companies, who told me they were doing the same.)
I figure it's a valid assumption. If you don't, fine, whatever, that's just my speculation. It doesn't take anything away from the fact that the XBox still made a poor showing, whether it was cranked up or not.