4) Improved out-of-the-box multi-monitor support (it's been likened with Ultramon, but without requiring third-party software).
That's nice, but pretty useless for the laptop I run 90% of the time. The few times I have used multiple monitor displays (work, mainly) the standard support in friggin XP does everything I need it to.
5) Client HyperV. If you do anything with virtualization on your PC, or have even thought you might like to, this is a solid reason to look at Win8. There simply aren't any better virtualization solutions available for client Windows versions right now, certainly not at anything close to the same proce.
Client what now? For most people including myself this isn't remotely useful. Under what circumstances does the average consumer need to make use of virtualisation?
6) If you use multiple computers (most of us, probably, just like I imagne most use multiple monitors when posible), the ability to use Lindows Live for single-sign-on and profile roaming is excellent.
Woo, more cloud bullshit and opportunities to give M$ control over my personal life. Again, I can't think of many circumstances where this would actually be useful. People who need to keep accessing the same files from different computers all the time (for some reason) are probably already well equipped with established cloud services or even *gasp* memory sticks.
7) The Windows Store, which holds both "Metro-style" and desktop apps (at least on the x86 version of Win8). You may choose to avoid it for its tablet-friendly UI, or for the fact that it's basically a DRM system (like other commercial and integrated "app stores"), but you may find the ease of software discovery, installation, and updating to be useful.
Well isn't this Windows 8's Un-unique Selling Point. i.e. their answer to the App Store. Hint: most people with a fetish for walled gardens are probably already well established with Apple. Those of us who actually value a choice and freedom already know how to use Google to find free Apps (remember when we didn't have the need to abbreviate and capitalise the word 'applications').
8) Built-in antivirus. Just like a certain vocal portion of/. has been clamoring for MS to add for ages.
Because criticising M$'s grasp on anything related to security is like picking on the disabled kid in the playground, I'll just mention that Windows Defender already exists (and contradicting myself here, isn't actually too bad). The vast majority of the planet who are already using older M$ products no doubt already have one or more antivirus solutions. Since as anyone with half a brain knows, it's lunacy to rely on a single point of protection. So again, while this is a nice feature (and arguably should have been standard on an OS since at least a decade ago) what exactly new does it bring to the table?
Of course, all the above counter arguments for upgrading are pretty irrelevant since there is still enough momentum in the Windows empire that you can guarantee new PCs will be sold with it as standard before long. However, this release probably has the least compelling reasons to upgrade thus far. XP and 7 were tangible and substantial improvements over their predecessors. Vista was a turd as we all know, but at least it was a shiny turd. People won't be as impressed by the UI changes this time around. I'm thinking from the point of view of the average non-geek and I still can't see why anyone would rush out to buy this.
It's no coincidence that publicly traded companies like EA and Activision are the pioneers of this garbage, and privately-held Valve refuses to participate (see their longstanding refusal to charge for DLC on the Xbox, for example). Valve knows that in the long-run, angering their customers will result in fewer gamers and a declining industry.
What the fuck? I guess your brain must have selectively filtered out the unremovable ads that have been present in CS 1.6 for years (courteousy of Massive Inc no less). Unfortunately there are too many people like you being duped by Valves Reality Distortion Field, and are doing gamers a tremendous disservice by giving Valve a free ride on several issues. Steam is and has always been a resource sucking DRM scheme dressed up as something less repugnant. Shame you won't find out until you want to play 10 year old games on machine from that same era, or find your account suddenly disabled with no explanation. You remind me of Apple fanbois.
If I found out that an idiot with a toy helicopter was causing my wifi to drop on a regular basis, I would do my best to ensure that it experienced an mysterious loss of control. Preferable while 100ft above a lake or busy highway.
How fortunate that the medium of games is, by it's nature, more than feasible for the hobbyist or non-commercial to contribute to. I'm never really concerned about the Jack Thompsons of the world and those who favour yet more nanny-state laws. Censor what appears on the shelves until you are blue in the face, you will not stop modders and independent developers from releasing their stuff for free.
You fail to realise that the worst-case laws that outlaw all anonymising software, open wifi access points, p2p software, and the introduction of total internet surveillance will happen ANYWAY, EVERYWHERE in the world. Only when this situation has been suffered for many years will the pendulum start to swing the other way with a change in culture and peoples tolerances, possibly even revolution. The sooner the dystopia starts, the sooner it will end.
In the past most game demos were not a cheap copy of the games first few levels. Half-Life's Uplink demo was a short high quality standalone episode that is worth playing in its own right, and was an awesome incentive (for me at the time) to buy the full game. Darwinia also had an addictive demo featuring a unique level not included in the full game. When custom made demos such as these are released, completing them is far more satisfying than walking through some random door and have a message saying "Please buy the full version to continue". When I play a game for the first time I want it to be a fresh experience, not something I have already seen in the demo.
This modern trend and the whole tone of the article just stink of the greed and laziness that pervade the mature games industry.
This is similar to other moral questions such as whether it is moral to dump radioactive waste into a river, sell your children into slavery, profit from fraud, etc.
Aside from the debate surrounding the morality of software patents, the fact that you are comparing their alleged negative effects with those of human rights abuses, or deliberate nuclear release, shows that you are out of touch with reality. Unfortunately this doesn't make it any easier to not take what you say with dubiety.
you will likely get screwed out of any real profit, and be a tool in the hands of others
Are you talking from experience? Or basing the probability of this happening from what you have read on your favourite nerd websites. Somewhere in the world people are getting screwed over every day, in all aspects of life. Maybe it's safer to shut yourself away 24/7 so that your ideas never see daylight (or languish in some repository which every company is afraid to touch). Of course, risk/reward dictates that you won't ever achieve much either. Someone better tell that to all the successful inventors out there who had legal and business sense as well as being brilliant innovators.
Sell out. Patenting the ideas is going to cost you time and money, whereas if they are truly worth the attention of the 'evil corporations' you stand to make a substantial gains from making them available to a company with the required resources to put them to use. Around here a higher than average subset adhere to strange personal religions that financial benefit from your own ingenuity is somehow immoral, and that the world is better off if real companies can't use these ideas and make them a practical reality (but that's ok, some guy sitting in his parents basement will knock off a buggy implementation in 10 years time, for freeeeeee man). You decide which of these outcomes you would rather see.
There are only small number of people for which simply blogging their ideas would:
a.) get them taken seriously, or even noticed at all,
b.) be worthwhile for them personally in terms of personal reputation and the longer term benefits of that.
Those are people who are already recognised within specific (usually comparatively small) technical communities, often with freelance careers for which reputation is important. I'm going to guess that you are not in this position because all this would be obvious to you otherwise. It is also rather naive to think that articles simply posted on a web page will stand up as prior art in courtroom against competent lawyers. This is simply pragmatism.
I'm going to make another assumption, that you are posting this question out of a genuine uncertainty of how to reap the results of your own creativeness (which is something that anyone deserves). If you are simply seeking group endorsement (perhaps subconsciously) then my reply probably hasn't been of much help to you.
I don't know why the term piracy was co-opted in popular press for copyright infringement, but as far as I can tell, there's no basis in law.
Unauthorised radio stations that would be illegal in a particular country used to broadcast from boats outside territorial waters, hence 'pirates' For most people the shift in meaning to unauthorised copying of music/video media wasn't much of a jump.
There is only one reason why certain people in the games industry want to push consoles over PC's for mainstream gaming - control. They see PC gamers having fun modifying their games, downloading other's modifications for free, and they want a way make us bend over and pay money for it. This is most feasible on a closed console platform. The same goes for online multiplayer servers. No way in hell am I going to pay Microsoft a subscription for the 'privilege' of accessing someone else's hosted server.
Slashdot Mirror
4) Improved out-of-the-box multi-monitor support (it's been likened with Ultramon, but without requiring third-party software).
That's nice, but pretty useless for the laptop I run 90% of the time. The few times I have used multiple monitor displays (work, mainly) the standard support in friggin XP does everything I need it to.
5) Client HyperV. If you do anything with virtualization on your PC, or have even thought you might like to, this is a solid reason to look at Win8. There simply aren't any better virtualization solutions available for client Windows versions right now, certainly not at anything close to the same proce.
Client what now? For most people including myself this isn't remotely useful. Under what circumstances does the average consumer need to make use of virtualisation?
6) If you use multiple computers (most of us, probably, just like I imagne most use multiple monitors when posible), the ability to use Lindows Live for single-sign-on and profile roaming is excellent.
Woo, more cloud bullshit and opportunities to give M$ control over my personal life. Again, I can't think of many circumstances where this would actually be useful. People who need to keep accessing the same files from different computers all the time (for some reason) are probably already well equipped with established cloud services or even *gasp* memory sticks.
7) The Windows Store, which holds both "Metro-style" and desktop apps (at least on the x86 version of Win8). You may choose to avoid it for its tablet-friendly UI, or for the fact that it's basically a DRM system (like other commercial and integrated "app stores"), but you may find the ease of software discovery, installation, and updating to be useful.
Well isn't this Windows 8's Un-unique Selling Point. i.e. their answer to the App Store. Hint: most people with a fetish for walled gardens are probably already well established with Apple. Those of us who actually value a choice and freedom already know how to use Google to find free Apps (remember when we didn't have the need to abbreviate and capitalise the word 'applications').
8) Built-in antivirus. Just like a certain vocal portion of /. has been clamoring for MS to add for ages.
Because criticising M$'s grasp on anything related to security is like picking on the disabled kid in the playground, I'll just mention that Windows Defender already exists (and contradicting myself here, isn't actually too bad). The vast majority of the planet who are already using older M$ products no doubt already have one or more antivirus solutions. Since as anyone with half a brain knows, it's lunacy to rely on a single point of protection. So again, while this is a nice feature (and arguably should have been standard on an OS since at least a decade ago) what exactly new does it bring to the table?
Of course, all the above counter arguments for upgrading are pretty irrelevant since there is still enough momentum in the Windows empire that you can guarantee new PCs will be sold with it as standard before long. However, this release probably has the least compelling reasons to upgrade thus far. XP and 7 were tangible and substantial improvements over their predecessors. Vista was a turd as we all know, but at least it was a shiny turd. People won't be as impressed by the UI changes this time around. I'm thinking from the point of view of the average non-geek and I still can't see why anyone would rush out to buy this.
I'd be more interested if they were releasing the sound assets. Open, free to use sound effects are hard to come by.
Oh great, I hadn't even finished reading your post before making the Apple fanboy statement. Some things really do speak for themselves.
It's no coincidence that publicly traded companies like EA and Activision are the pioneers of this garbage, and privately-held Valve refuses to participate (see their longstanding refusal to charge for DLC on the Xbox, for example). Valve knows that in the long-run, angering their customers will result in fewer gamers and a declining industry.
What the fuck? I guess your brain must have selectively filtered out the unremovable ads that have been present in CS 1.6 for years (courteousy of Massive Inc no less). Unfortunately there are too many people like you being duped by Valves Reality Distortion Field, and are doing gamers a tremendous disservice by giving Valve a free ride on several issues. Steam is and has always been a resource sucking DRM scheme dressed up as something less repugnant. Shame you won't find out until you want to play 10 year old games on machine from that same era, or find your account suddenly disabled with no explanation. You remind me of Apple fanbois.
If I found out that an idiot with a toy helicopter was causing my wifi to drop on a regular basis, I would do my best to ensure that it experienced an mysterious loss of control. Preferable while 100ft above a lake or busy highway.
How fortunate that the medium of games is, by it's nature, more than feasible for the hobbyist or non-commercial to contribute to. I'm never really concerned about the Jack Thompsons of the world and those who favour yet more nanny-state laws. Censor what appears on the shelves until you are blue in the face, you will not stop modders and independent developers from releasing their stuff for free.
You fail to realise that the worst-case laws that outlaw all anonymising software, open wifi access points, p2p software, and the introduction of total internet surveillance will happen ANYWAY, EVERYWHERE in the world. Only when this situation has been suffered for many years will the pendulum start to swing the other way with a change in culture and peoples tolerances, possibly even revolution. The sooner the dystopia starts, the sooner it will end.
In the past most game demos were not a cheap copy of the games first few levels. Half-Life's Uplink demo was a short high quality standalone episode that is worth playing in its own right, and was an awesome incentive (for me at the time) to buy the full game. Darwinia also had an addictive demo featuring a unique level not included in the full game. When custom made demos such as these are released, completing them is far more satisfying than walking through some random door and have a message saying "Please buy the full version to continue". When I play a game for the first time I want it to be a fresh experience, not something I have already seen in the demo. This modern trend and the whole tone of the article just stink of the greed and laziness that pervade the mature games industry.
More likely its actually that campers favorite from Half-Life the tau cannon..
This is similar to other moral questions such as whether it is moral to dump radioactive waste into a river, sell your children into slavery, profit from fraud, etc.
Aside from the debate surrounding the morality of software patents, the fact that you are comparing their alleged negative effects with those of human rights abuses, or deliberate nuclear release, shows that you are out of touch with reality. Unfortunately this doesn't make it any easier to not take what you say with dubiety.
you will likely get screwed out of any real profit, and be a tool in the hands of others
Are you talking from experience? Or basing the probability of this happening from what you have read on your favourite nerd websites. Somewhere in the world people are getting screwed over every day, in all aspects of life. Maybe it's safer to shut yourself away 24/7 so that your ideas never see daylight (or languish in some repository which every company is afraid to touch). Of course, risk/reward dictates that you won't ever achieve much either. Someone better tell that to all the successful inventors out there who had legal and business sense as well as being brilliant innovators.
Sell out. Patenting the ideas is going to cost you time and money, whereas if they are truly worth the attention of the 'evil corporations' you stand to make a substantial gains from making them available to a company with the required resources to put them to use. Around here a higher than average subset adhere to strange personal religions that financial benefit from your own ingenuity is somehow immoral, and that the world is better off if real companies can't use these ideas and make them a practical reality (but that's ok, some guy sitting in his parents basement will knock off a buggy implementation in 10 years time, for freeeeeee man). You decide which of these outcomes you would rather see.
There are only small number of people for which simply blogging their ideas would:
a.) get them taken seriously, or even noticed at all,
b.) be worthwhile for them personally in terms of personal reputation and the longer term benefits of that.
Those are people who are already recognised within specific (usually comparatively small) technical communities, often with freelance careers for which reputation is important. I'm going to guess that you are not in this position because all this would be obvious to you otherwise. It is also rather naive to think that articles simply posted on a web page will stand up as prior art in courtroom against competent lawyers. This is simply pragmatism.
I'm going to make another assumption, that you are posting this question out of a genuine uncertainty of how to reap the results of your own creativeness (which is something that anyone deserves). If you are simply seeking group endorsement (perhaps subconsciously) then my reply probably hasn't been of much help to you.
Yeah if someone tried this with a high ranking government official in China or somewhere, they would indeed mysteriously 'disappear' in 60 seconds.
Who don't have any friends.
For a moment I read the title of this article as "Game Developers Should Ignore Software Patents"
I don't know why the term piracy was co-opted in popular press for copyright infringement, but as far as I can tell, there's no basis in law.
Unauthorised radio stations that would be illegal in a particular country used to broadcast from boats outside territorial waters, hence 'pirates' For most people the shift in meaning to unauthorised copying of music/video media wasn't much of a jump.
There is only one reason why certain people in the games industry want to push consoles over PC's for mainstream gaming - control. They see PC gamers having fun modifying their games, downloading other's modifications for free, and they want a way make us bend over and pay money for it. This is most feasible on a closed console platform. The same goes for online multiplayer servers. No way in hell am I going to pay Microsoft a subscription for the 'privilege' of accessing someone else's hosted server.
Chuck Norris doesn't need high performance supercomputers, he can threaten any old 486 into running twice as fast.