So if Form 1 software is tweaked not to do this, then it would not infringe. At the same time, by the filing of the lawsuit, 3D Systems may have done irreperable harm to Form 1. Counter suit anyone?
You are suggesting that they remove the part that they are being sued for, which pretty much indicates that the plaintiff was correct. Then they countersue because the plaintiff's totally valid patent suit did them irreparable harm? Sounds foolproof!
I went to the article and the "links" in the sample page all directed students to the e-book of "Art History" by Marilyn Stokstad. Is there a free e-book of this out there? It's like $184 for a Kindle version. Am I missing something?
You couldn't afford $5 or $10? How cheap were these used games??
What's wrong with Steam? Just that it's basically a rental instead of a purchase? That's pretty much how I consider it. I concede that Steam doesn't really "sell" games. They can take my whole library away at a whim. And maybe like twice a year (gaming every day), Steam won't load because of interent problems or whatever.
But the thing is, I only paid a few bucks for each game. That seems a fair compromise to me.
Valve is in a great position regarding this. You can already gift games to other players; They just need to enable gifting of currently owned games and Bob's your mother's brother. Hell, it may occur that Steam gets more subscribers as games are gifted to people who aren't currently subscribed. Licenses held in escrow until someone creates an account to redeem them? PayPal does that with money already.
This will never happen. If Valve suddenly let everyone trade games, it would have a terrible effect on sales.
Trading physical objects is a bit of pain. Trading Steam games will make it super easy for complete strangers to swap games quickly. It'll take like 24 hours for a gigantic "lending library" to appear. With my huge library of games, I'd have little problem getting anything I want in the future by trading. I guess that'd be awesome?
Well, no, it wouldn't. I actually like giving the developers of a game some money. I don't like giving them $60 for 6 hours of gameplay though. But Valve has already solved this problem. You can get AAA games for less than $10 easily through their sales.
Everyone wins in the current system. You can get games cheaply and the developers get paid. The lack of trading is completely mitigated by the huge drop in price on games in the last 10 years. A law/judgement allowing free trading will absolutely destroy what has pretty much been a new Golden Age for PC gaming.
Also, if that happened, it would guarentee that all future games will be tied to online servers, which is something I really hate.
Yeah, imagine if the test has a whole bunch of these word problems and is timed. Make like 90% of the word problems really, really easy. Then throw out thos really easy ones before scoring.
In that situation I imagine a lot people would get those two questions wrong.
Oh yeah, also, historically speaking, we're paying much less for a new game than we used to be. Ditto consoles.
That's nice, but it really doesn't have anything to do with it. Why do I care what I paid for games in the past? What I care about now is how much money I have to spare on entertainment now, and comparing how much a gaming costs versus some other entertainment.
For me, gaming is fantastic because, at least on PC, it's so extremely cheap. They definitely aren't going to pull in any PC gamers if they find a way to keep the prices in the $60 range for longer.
It doesn't matter how much it cost in the past or how much it cost to make. The only thing that matters is what people are willing to pay for it now.
I'm not so poor that paying $10 to see a movie I'm excited about is a problem, nor am I so poor or easily amused that I value my entertainment at $1 an hour.
I could pay $1/hour for my entertainment, but since I have the option not to, I don't. I actually keep a detailed spreadsheet, so I know that I actually pay about $.30/hour overall (for games).
I've never bought a game at $60, but I'm primarily a PC gamer. I paid $40 for Skyrim, but spent 120 hours on it so far. Several indie games cost less than $10 but I've got insane hours out of (Minecraft, Dwarf Fortress*, A Valley Without Wind, Crusader Kings, etc.).
And I don't feel like I'm hurting the developers; I'm supporting them! I spent like $300+ on games last year. I really don't see how $60 is needed even for a AAA game when you can get huge numbers of sales at $20.
Anyway, the reason people don't want to pay $60 is that the market is moving away from that. That doesn't mean you only get $1/$5 crappy iOS games. You get a wide range of games at a good price and everyone wins.
*I gave Tarn Adams $30 for DF last year, and will probably give more this year.
Unfortunately, the consumer suffers. But what's new, huh?
How has the consumer sufferred under Steam?
Before Steam, even like 20 years ago, my "price point" for a game was around $20. I knew that once the price (used or new) dropped below that, I had a window to grab the game before it dissapeared from the store.
My price point is now well under $10 for a AAA game. Go on a PC gaming website forum like RockPaperShotgun and ask how many games people have. You'll see a thread filled with, "More than I have time to play." Steam has streamlined the whole process and delivered huge price cuts on all levels of gaming (indie to AAA). Steam also has some great competition from GOG, Gamersgate, even GameStop Downloads, so they're not a monopoly either.
As long as the developers play along, I only have to worry about Steam's DRM. I'd prefer none, but Steam's not bad. I can install my games on whichever computer I want.
Sure, I can't sell my old games, but I really don't care. I really don't want to bother trying to get $1 on a trade-in for a game I spent $5 on. I wouldn't buy used with prices like that either. I really don't mind directly supporting the game makers, especially since I buy so much indie stuff.
And you were somehow able to get these games of "baseball" started within minutes of getting home every day?
Nothing about using an XBox stops someone from managing to get everyone together to play ball, but it does make it really easy to quickly get together with absolutely no effort. How is that bad?
It doesn't matter if the book is in the public domain or not since this isn't (just) about copyright. Trademarks last for as long as the owner continues to use and defend them.
I've been playing the Sims 3, which has been out for quite awhile now. There are several expansion packs for it. It is an extremely popular PC franchise with a large rabid community. Despite all that, the game is still buggy.
My first playthrough featured a loss of two hours when I hit "Error Code 16". Basically you can't save your game. Game save bugs are amongst the worst types of bugs.
I have a pet fireman. One of my Sims wanted to "be in a fire". So I had him start grilling some hot dogs and then sit down nearby to play some chess. Cue fire and ridiculous Sims jumping around. The Fireman shows up in a little red firepickuptruck and puts out the fire. Then he stands there. You can't interact with him. I thought he was stuck on the grill that burned, but I moved that out of the way. Even once in awhile he will stumble and look sheepish.
One day while a Sim was watching TV I randomly clicked on the fireman. "Join: Watch TV" was there! I clicked and the fireman moved! Hooray! Problem solved. Except now he is permanently on my couch. That was worse, so I used the same technique to move him back out to the lawn. You can't talk to him, but he will join you in activities.
Having a pet fireman is fine. There's always a chess opponent nearby. He never seems to get hungry/dirty. However, his truck is a problem. First, the garish light is always on. Luckily, no sounds. The big problem is that it blocks the street. Any time a car comes to pick someone up they park really far away.
Anyway, you'd think they'd fix this stuff after several expansions. Actually, the Word Adventures expansion apparently created the "Error Code 16" problem, even for players who didn't buy the expansion.
I think he meant that you will be able to use Netflix without the disk using PSN+ for a month or so, and then that will be rolled out to everyone. You currently have to put the stupid red disk in your PS3 to use Netflix because of MS's exclusivity deal that is finally running out.
Starcraft wasn't a success because of its single-player missions, the new single-player missions weren't what sold most copies of the Starcraft: Brood War expansion.
That's not necesarily true. You might find this interesting. I think it is quite possible that less than half of people who bought Starcraft (ie, gave Blizzard money) actually played the multiplayer (at least within the first few years of it's release). Of course the multiplayer is what kept the game alive for so long, especially in Korea. I imagine a good RTS like Company of Heroes has a similar number of single players as Demigod did (only 23% even attempted it).
People assume that FPSs and RTSs are mostly played for the multiplayer, but this really isn't true. I think the average PC gamer will run from Starcraft II multiplayer. The campaign is definitely something that consumers are interested in. If you don't want to invest a lot of time, SCII multiplayer is going to be pretty scary. Who wants to spend hours every night getting pounded on by SC veterans? OTOH, how about having some fun pounding on on the PC player?
I guess one could always say... What do you expect from people who believe they are a product of incest not once, but at least twice. Adam, Eve had 3 sons. Eve was the first Cougar. Then god decided his populous game was going badly and flooded everyone out so the boat people got busy with each other. With that muddled of a gene pool it's surprising we've lasted this long.
Err... didn't it work pretty much the same way under evolution? Once you have a new species, I'm guessing the gene pool is really small. Also you have situations where the gene pool is reduced to a very small size due to near-extinction (gee whiz, just like the flood). I'm pretty sure that doesn't mean every generation is afflicted with massive birth defects or something.
As someone already explained, you won't blow any Christian's mind with the whole free will vs omnipotent God thing. It's something that's been considered for over a thousand years.
This is just EA's "Project Ten Dollar" and it is not limited to just he sports games. It has already been featured in Dragon Age Origins and Mass Effect 2. Both games included content that you got for free with a code that came with the game, but you had to pay $10 to get if you bought it used.
You also get to skip on the console-fee for your games. Games cost more on consoles because the makers have to pay the MS and Sony. You can get games at 50% or more off within just a month or two for the PC. Prices on console titles stay at $60 for a long time. So, if you are the kind of gamer who buys lots of games, you can save big.
PC's also have an insanely huge back catalogue of fantastic games. If you really want some fun, cheap gaming, just buy the cheapest desktop (or laptop!) you can find and check out Good Old Games.
Adventure Games (and flight sims) did not die because of some rush for big bucks. I've always enjoyed Adventure Games, but nothing will change the fact that they really kinda' suck. That style of gameplay doesn't make much sense anymore.
I especially like how AG fans will try to argue that AGs are "smarter" or have "good stories" and other nonsense. How smart do you have to be to spam every item with every other item and then apply that to all the scenery? And the stories aren't any better in AGs than in any other genre that bothers to put a story together. So, you just left with gameplay, and AGs are just really stiff and boring compared to other genres. I think the only thing that could really bring them back is following the game mechanics of Penumbra, which actually had fun gameplay. Too bad they picked the "horror" genre for those games, which many Adventure Gamers don't like.
Sure, shooting/slashing at people/monsters shouldn't be the only gameplay mechanic that exists. It is too bad that you don't see more games like Portal. Portal is a smart game with a great story. It is a better GAME than 99% of AGs.
Flight Sims were cool on early computers. Oh wow, I'm flying. Most people who bought them did not really get into them. They are now, like sub sims, an extremely small niche.
PC Gaming is not being killed because of the lack of good Adventure Games and Flight Sims. It might be dying for you though.
(I don't know what you are talking about when it comes to strategy. There are tons of strategy games out there right now.)
Why go to the store and spend $70 on a disc with 5-6 good tunes and a bunch of filler, when there's more money to be made with DLC ?
Well, if you wait a few months you can get the disk much cheaper. I can't stand spending $2 per song when I can get like 80 songs for like $30. I guess I'm just not that concerned with how awesome the music is. I don't actually listen to a lot of what they offer anyway. I just like playing along to whatever song. I even enjoy playing songs by bands I hate if they are fun to play.
No, it was just flawed. Stability and performance were a problem and the Social Club+GFWL sucked, but GTAIV did a whole lot correctly. The game seamlessly switched from keyboard/mouse to controller. You could drive around with the controller, then switch to sniping with the mouse. Very few ports do this. It came with high res graphics for the PC, if you could manage to use them. That is becoming increasingly rare unfortunately. It came with a fantastic video editor. The video editor alone is good for hours of fun, if you like GTA. The editors controls were great. I've never edited a video and I made some fun clips in just a few hours. I had a riot doing it. Having some random thing happen in a game is funny. Watching it in slo-mo with a panning camera is hilarious.
GTA IV could have been one of the best ports ever, but it was marred with problems.
If you want to play a terrible port of a really fun game, try Saints Row 2.
I was just joking that adventure games are on old forgotten genre. You might as well play Pac-man or something. I love AGs by the way, and am happy when a good one comes out. I've visited those websites before.
That's not really true for PC Games. I don't even know of a store who sells used PC Games. I guess you can get them on EBay or something, unless they require Steam. Many PC gamers download their games (Steam, D2D, Impulse, etc.), so there are no used sales there. Used sales are a really big problem for consoles though. That's why there is a growing trend to only offer certain content to the first purchaser. Google "Project Ten Dollar".
I think UbiSoft is just making it harder for the scene to create 0-day cracks. If important parts of the game's code is stored on their server, Ubi might get a few piracy free weeks which would probably have a good impact on sales. Of course, the damage to their reputation by implementing this harsh DRM might hurt future sales.
The other possible nefarious plan is to allow them to shut down single player games in a year or so to encourage you to move on. That just seems too crazy to be true though...
Slashdot Mirror
You are suggesting that they remove the part that they are being sued for, which pretty much indicates that the plaintiff was correct. Then they countersue because the plaintiff's totally valid patent suit did them irreparable harm? Sounds foolproof!
I went to the article and the "links" in the sample page all directed students to the e-book of "Art History" by Marilyn Stokstad. Is there a free e-book of this out there? It's like $184 for a Kindle version. Am I missing something?
Funny, but I guess it probably isn't really true ...
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+debunking+of+Torpenhow+Hill-a098250320
I got that link from the Wikipedia article on the subject.
You couldn't afford $5 or $10? How cheap were these used games??
What's wrong with Steam? Just that it's basically a rental instead of a purchase? That's pretty much how I consider it. I concede that Steam doesn't really "sell" games. They can take my whole library away at a whim. And maybe like twice a year (gaming every day), Steam won't load because of interent problems or whatever.
But the thing is, I only paid a few bucks for each game. That seems a fair compromise to me.
This will never happen. If Valve suddenly let everyone trade games, it would have a terrible effect on sales.
Trading physical objects is a bit of pain. Trading Steam games will make it super easy for complete strangers to swap games quickly. It'll take like 24 hours for a gigantic "lending library" to appear. With my huge library of games, I'd have little problem getting anything I want in the future by trading. I guess that'd be awesome?
Well, no, it wouldn't. I actually like giving the developers of a game some money. I don't like giving them $60 for 6 hours of gameplay though. But Valve has already solved this problem. You can get AAA games for less than $10 easily through their sales.
Everyone wins in the current system. You can get games cheaply and the developers get paid. The lack of trading is completely mitigated by the huge drop in price on games in the last 10 years. A law/judgement allowing free trading will absolutely destroy what has pretty much been a new Golden Age for PC gaming.
Also, if that happened, it would guarentee that all future games will be tied to online servers, which is something I really hate.
Those are physical objects that degrade over time. A digital copy of software will be in perfect shape forever. They are not comparable things.
Yeah, imagine if the test has a whole bunch of these word problems and is timed. Make like 90% of the word problems really, really easy. Then throw out thos really easy ones before scoring.
In that situation I imagine a lot people would get those two questions wrong.
That's nice, but it really doesn't have anything to do with it. Why do I care what I paid for games in the past? What I care about now is how much money I have to spare on entertainment now, and comparing how much a gaming costs versus some other entertainment.
For me, gaming is fantastic because, at least on PC, it's so extremely cheap. They definitely aren't going to pull in any PC gamers if they find a way to keep the prices in the $60 range for longer.
It doesn't matter how much it cost in the past or how much it cost to make. The only thing that matters is what people are willing to pay for it now.
I could pay $1/hour for my entertainment, but since I have the option not to, I don't. I actually keep a detailed spreadsheet, so I know that I actually pay about $.30/hour overall (for games).
I've never bought a game at $60, but I'm primarily a PC gamer. I paid $40 for Skyrim, but spent 120 hours on it so far. Several indie games cost less than $10 but I've got insane hours out of (Minecraft, Dwarf Fortress*, A Valley Without Wind, Crusader Kings, etc.).
And I don't feel like I'm hurting the developers; I'm supporting them! I spent like $300+ on games last year. I really don't see how $60 is needed even for a AAA game when you can get huge numbers of sales at $20.
Anyway, the reason people don't want to pay $60 is that the market is moving away from that. That doesn't mean you only get $1/$5 crappy iOS games. You get a wide range of games at a good price and everyone wins. *I gave Tarn Adams $30 for DF last year, and will probably give more this year.
How has the consumer sufferred under Steam?
Before Steam, even like 20 years ago, my "price point" for a game was around $20. I knew that once the price (used or new) dropped below that, I had a window to grab the game before it dissapeared from the store.
My price point is now well under $10 for a AAA game. Go on a PC gaming website forum like RockPaperShotgun and ask how many games people have. You'll see a thread filled with, "More than I have time to play." Steam has streamlined the whole process and delivered huge price cuts on all levels of gaming (indie to AAA). Steam also has some great competition from GOG, Gamersgate, even GameStop Downloads, so they're not a monopoly either.
As long as the developers play along, I only have to worry about Steam's DRM. I'd prefer none, but Steam's not bad. I can install my games on whichever computer I want.
Sure, I can't sell my old games, but I really don't care. I really don't want to bother trying to get $1 on a trade-in for a game I spent $5 on. I wouldn't buy used with prices like that either. I really don't mind directly supporting the game makers, especially since I buy so much indie stuff.
And you were somehow able to get these games of "baseball" started within minutes of getting home every day?
Nothing about using an XBox stops someone from managing to get everyone together to play ball, but it does make it really easy to quickly get together with absolutely no effort. How is that bad?
It doesn't matter if the book is in the public domain or not since this isn't (just) about copyright. Trademarks last for as long as the owner continues to use and defend them.
I've been playing the Sims 3, which has been out for quite awhile now. There are several expansion packs for it. It is an extremely popular PC franchise with a large rabid community. Despite all that, the game is still buggy.
My first playthrough featured a loss of two hours when I hit "Error Code 16". Basically you can't save your game. Game save bugs are amongst the worst types of bugs.
I have a pet fireman. One of my Sims wanted to "be in a fire". So I had him start grilling some hot dogs and then sit down nearby to play some chess. Cue fire and ridiculous Sims jumping around. The Fireman shows up in a little red firepickuptruck and puts out the fire. Then he stands there. You can't interact with him. I thought he was stuck on the grill that burned, but I moved that out of the way. Even once in awhile he will stumble and look sheepish.
One day while a Sim was watching TV I randomly clicked on the fireman. "Join: Watch TV" was there! I clicked and the fireman moved! Hooray! Problem solved. Except now he is permanently on my couch. That was worse, so I used the same technique to move him back out to the lawn. You can't talk to him, but he will join you in activities.
Having a pet fireman is fine. There's always a chess opponent nearby. He never seems to get hungry/dirty. However, his truck is a problem. First, the garish light is always on. Luckily, no sounds. The big problem is that it blocks the street. Any time a car comes to pick someone up they park really far away.
Anyway, you'd think they'd fix this stuff after several expansions. Actually, the Word Adventures expansion apparently created the "Error Code 16" problem, even for players who didn't buy the expansion.
I think he meant that you will be able to use Netflix without the disk using PSN+ for a month or so, and then that will be rolled out to everyone. You currently have to put the stupid red disk in your PS3 to use Netflix because of MS's exclusivity deal that is finally running out.
That's not necesarily true. You might find this interesting. I think it is quite possible that less than half of people who bought Starcraft (ie, gave Blizzard money) actually played the multiplayer (at least within the first few years of it's release). Of course the multiplayer is what kept the game alive for so long, especially in Korea. I imagine a good RTS like Company of Heroes has a similar number of single players as Demigod did (only 23% even attempted it).
People assume that FPSs and RTSs are mostly played for the multiplayer, but this really isn't true. I think the average PC gamer will run from Starcraft II multiplayer. The campaign is definitely something that consumers are interested in. If you don't want to invest a lot of time, SCII multiplayer is going to be pretty scary. Who wants to spend hours every night getting pounded on by SC veterans? OTOH, how about having some fun pounding on on the PC player?
You should check out the Adam Corolla podcast.
Err... didn't it work pretty much the same way under evolution? Once you have a new species, I'm guessing the gene pool is really small. Also you have situations where the gene pool is reduced to a very small size due to near-extinction (gee whiz, just like the flood). I'm pretty sure that doesn't mean every generation is afflicted with massive birth defects or something.
As someone already explained, you won't blow any Christian's mind with the whole free will vs omnipotent God thing. It's something that's been considered for over a thousand years.
This is just EA's "Project Ten Dollar" and it is not limited to just he sports games. It has already been featured in Dragon Age Origins and Mass Effect 2. Both games included content that you got for free with a code that came with the game, but you had to pay $10 to get if you bought it used.
You also get to skip on the console-fee for your games. Games cost more on consoles because the makers have to pay the MS and Sony. You can get games at 50% or more off within just a month or two for the PC. Prices on console titles stay at $60 for a long time. So, if you are the kind of gamer who buys lots of games, you can save big.
PC's also have an insanely huge back catalogue of fantastic games. If you really want some fun, cheap gaming, just buy the cheapest desktop (or laptop!) you can find and check out Good Old Games.
Adventure Games (and flight sims) did not die because of some rush for big bucks. I've always enjoyed Adventure Games, but nothing will change the fact that they really kinda' suck. That style of gameplay doesn't make much sense anymore.
I especially like how AG fans will try to argue that AGs are "smarter" or have "good stories" and other nonsense. How smart do you have to be to spam every item with every other item and then apply that to all the scenery? And the stories aren't any better in AGs than in any other genre that bothers to put a story together. So, you just left with gameplay, and AGs are just really stiff and boring compared to other genres. I think the only thing that could really bring them back is following the game mechanics of Penumbra, which actually had fun gameplay. Too bad they picked the "horror" genre for those games, which many Adventure Gamers don't like.
Sure, shooting/slashing at people/monsters shouldn't be the only gameplay mechanic that exists. It is too bad that you don't see more games like Portal. Portal is a smart game with a great story. It is a better GAME than 99% of AGs.
Flight Sims were cool on early computers. Oh wow, I'm flying. Most people who bought them did not really get into them. They are now, like sub sims, an extremely small niche.
PC Gaming is not being killed because of the lack of good Adventure Games and Flight Sims. It might be dying for you though.
(I don't know what you are talking about when it comes to strategy. There are tons of strategy games out there right now.)
Well, if you wait a few months you can get the disk much cheaper. I can't stand spending $2 per song when I can get like 80 songs for like $30. I guess I'm just not that concerned with how awesome the music is. I don't actually listen to a lot of what they offer anyway. I just like playing along to whatever song. I even enjoy playing songs by bands I hate if they are fun to play.
No, it was just flawed. Stability and performance were a problem and the Social Club+GFWL sucked, but GTAIV did a whole lot correctly. The game seamlessly switched from keyboard/mouse to controller. You could drive around with the controller, then switch to sniping with the mouse. Very few ports do this. It came with high res graphics for the PC, if you could manage to use them. That is becoming increasingly rare unfortunately. It came with a fantastic video editor. The video editor alone is good for hours of fun, if you like GTA. The editors controls were great. I've never edited a video and I made some fun clips in just a few hours. I had a riot doing it. Having some random thing happen in a game is funny. Watching it in slo-mo with a panning camera is hilarious.
GTA IV could have been one of the best ports ever, but it was marred with problems.
If you want to play a terrible port of a really fun game, try Saints Row 2.
I was just joking that adventure games are on old forgotten genre. You might as well play Pac-man or something. I love AGs by the way, and am happy when a good one comes out. I've visited those websites before.
Try an adventure game.
But he said he didn't just want to play old games\genres like Pole Position ...
That's not really true for PC Games. I don't even know of a store who sells used PC Games. I guess you can get them on EBay or something, unless they require Steam. Many PC gamers download their games (Steam, D2D, Impulse, etc.), so there are no used sales there. Used sales are a really big problem for consoles though. That's why there is a growing trend to only offer certain content to the first purchaser. Google "Project Ten Dollar".
I think UbiSoft is just making it harder for the scene to create 0-day cracks. If important parts of the game's code is stored on their server, Ubi might get a few piracy free weeks which would probably have a good impact on sales. Of course, the damage to their reputation by implementing this harsh DRM might hurt future sales.
The other possible nefarious plan is to allow them to shut down single player games in a year or so to encourage you to move on. That just seems too crazy to be true though ...