Hey, don't construe me as being in support of them banning re-sale!! I'm not.
I'm just saying, I believe it would be in the studio's best interest monetarily if it were to happen. And I completely believe it would be a travesty if it did happen, it opens up a whole can of worms just like you said.
Selling it on craigslist or ebay is essentially bartering, since you're dealing directly with another customer (no middleman). To clarify, assume that each customer starts with 100 dollars to buy and trade games... they can indefinitely continue buying and re-selling games on ebay/craigslist with just that initial money. In this case, there is no potential profit for the studio. I understand there is some cash flow to UPS and Ebay, but it is trivial.
However... I can see where the studios are coming from when it comes to B&M re-sellers (like EB) that are screwing them on profits. I'd be pissed to, but it's really the customer's fault for using them instead of better alternatives that would be in both their and the studio's best interest.
There are some absolutely GREAT games out there that cost a lot to develop with relatively low replay value past a month.
Well, "GREAT", particularly with an entertainment product, is subjective. IMO, if it doesn't have replay value for substantially more than a year, its not a "great" game, and probably isn't even a "good" game.
There are plenty of games (any SimCity title except Societies, any of the 'main' PC versions of the Sims [not the console or stories titles], any version of the Civ or CtP franchises, anything in the Total War series, anything in the Delta Force series, and lots more) that have enough replay value, for me, that I only stop playing them because a newer, better version with compelling new features comes along that fits in my budget, and I'd still enjoy playing the older ones.)
Yeah, tightly scripted games tend to either run out of gameplay or present inordinate frustration factors to stretch the gameplay. That's one reason, IMO, such games are generally worth less than more open-ended games.
Exactly! I'm part of a demographic of paying customers that doesn't care if a game is over in a month if the game was REALLY good! The fact that my demographic exists renders your proposed solution of making all games be replayable for greater than 3 months defunct.
Believe it or not, I don't WANT most of my games to be replayable for much longer than 3 months. Unless it is specifically designed as such, like an MMORPG, some really good multiplayer FPS game or maybe a game like Guitar Hero.
I honestly like having titles that they put tons of effort into making as good as they could without really caring about if you would play through it 30 times and still enjoy it.
I'm talking about games like Ninja Gaiden, Gears of War, Half-Life 2, Fallout 3, Metal Gear Solid, Oblivion... etc. I didn't play any of these games for more than 3 months, but I played through them all at least once. I have honestly zero desire to ever play through them again (I'd probably start then get bored since I've already done it). I also feel that the studios deserve full price for all of those games, they are all very well made (well, I rented GoW).
That's what I like to call the stupid way. Don't use EB. Seriously. There's never a reason to use EB/Gamestop. Ever. If you want something on release day go to the big-box. They have hundreds of copies. Hell via bestbuy.com can order it for in store pickup before the store opens thus guaranteeing you a copy. There are local stores in my town that pay more than EB and sell the games for less than EB.
What about ebay?
What about craigslist?
There are plenty of ways to get more money than EB/Gamestop will give you. EB/GS is literally the worst possible choice for a gamer.
I used the term "EB" generically to represent a brick and mortar re-seller. I apologize, I should have specified "brick and mortar reseller" but I figured you would get the point.
Customers exchanging games directly via ebay and craigslist is essentially a zero-sum game and doesn't really affect game sales since there's no potential money (I hope that makes sense to you, not sure how to describe it better).
I can see where the game companies are coming from getting pissed off at B&M re-sellers that are buying dirt cheap and under-cutting their prices. This is where there is a lot of potential customer money that is getting taken out of the developer's pockets. I mean, they are essentially competing against their own game title on the same shelf (one is 60 and the other is 55).
I agree with you wholeheartedly that there are better solutions than the big B&M re-seller chains, but this is where the big bucks are being made. This is where the game companies would end up making a lot more money if re-selling was disallowed. I honestly hope those types of B&M re-sellers all go out of business really, customers could spend less and developers could get more money! It's kinda like spam mail though, as long as people keep on clicking it, it'll still exist.
I understand that it could be considered marketing, I just have a really hard time believing that the reduction in profits from sales gained by marketing from re-sale would be greater than the profit gained from increased sales of both older and newer games. I find it VERY hard to believe actually.
IAMNAE and I don't have the numbers, and I know you don't either... it's an interesting theory it just seems very unlikely to me.
No used:
Alice buys GoW for $60 from studio.
Bob buys GoW from studio for $30 once its price drops (it currently costs 30 dollars new actually).
Billy-Bob buys GoW II for $60 from studio cuz it got a good rating on Gamespot and he just bought a 360 and his buddy has it and he wants to play co-op.
Alice waits for GoW II to come down in cost and buys it from $30 from studio.
Studio gets $180
Used:
Alice buys GoW for $60 from studio.
Alice sells GoW for $10 to EB.
EB re-sells GoW to Bill for $30.
Billy-Bob buys GoW II for $60 from studio.
Billy-Bob sells GoW II for $10 to EB.
EB re-sells GoW II to Alice for $40.
EB gets $50.
Studio gets $120.
Let me clarify... I think you should be able to re-sell, cuz it benefits me and the law says you can... however I firmly believe that removing re-sale will increase the profits of the studios and that arguments against that do not hold water.
The solution, I think, is something that'll never come to pass: a waiting period on trading in games. If you buy a game, you would not be able to sell it to a gamestop like store for a predefined period (say 3 months). If you got stuck with a game you didn't like, you'd have to do some networking to try to sell your game to someone else interested in the game (using a service like Craig's list, perhaps).
Wrong!
The real solution is to sell games that I would want to continue playing longer than 3 months. If I wanted to continue playing it (because it is still fun), then I don't want to sell it. If I don't want to sell this fun game, there will be no used game market. If there is no used game market, the next game I want, I will buy brand new.
Or the game developers can keep pushing the same old crap and complaining about their customers.
There are some absolutely GREAT games out there that cost a lot to develop with relatively low replay value past a month. Just saying...
You're forgetting one thing though, and that's competition. Developer A may want to keep prices at $60 and simply increase sales, but if Developer B can increase sales even further by lowering the price to $50 while still turning a profit, then they're going to do it, which in turn forces Developer A to lower their price to $50 or risk losing too many sales to Developer B.
Competition already exists... I would also think that there is reduced competition if re-sellers are gone. By that logic then you could potentially see increased game prices.
Not all games are created equal. Killer apps and really well made games would potentially have higher costs and see much greater new sales if they can't be re-sold.
Unless developers and producers are going to illegally collude on prices, then the price will always approach the margin, and the margin in an industry that has eliminated used sales is lower than the margin in an industry that hasn't.
IAMNAE, specifically what industries are you referring to and how are they similar to games?
The main focus of the argument is not that "people shouldn't be able to resell their new purchases". The focus is on some of the tactics that our retail channels engage in to convert new sales into higher-margin used sales. Since the margin on a used game sale is huge compared to a new sale, retailers like Gamestop will actively encourage people who bring New copies of a game to the register to purchase the used one instead.
The secondary issue is that a person who purchases a new game for $60 is then willing to turn around and sell it a week or two later for $25 to an entity which clearly values the used title at $55, since that's what they resell it for. I agree that games should cost less money, but as long as a consumer will choose to purchase the "5 dollars cheaper" version and then resell it for 30% of that price a few weeks later it's a strange economic uphill battle.
I agree completely. Customers re-selling to each other is almost a zero-sum re-distribution game. The middle man re-sellers are getting major profits from the customers.
Another way of looking at it... if they disallow re-sellers from making a profit, but allow direct customer re-sale, it would result in all actual profits going to the developers. This could lead to more higher quality games? More likely just more money in the pockets of game development CEO's, but it is an interesting perspective.
Developers and publishers are under the, mistaken, impression that they're missing out on huge revenue stream through used games. Let's assume that I buy a game for $60. Once I'm done with it, I sell it, either through Gamestop or Amazon for about $20 net. They take a $10 commission and sell it to someone else for $30. In this scenario developers seem to think that they've missed out on a single $60 from the person who bought it at $30 used, but that just isn't the case.
First of all, the person who waited for a used copy at $30 isn't going to spend $60 in the absence of a used copy. They're going to wait until the new copies are about $30 and buy it then. Giving them fewer choices of how to spend their money does not magically give them more money to spend. Also, the person who bought the game at $60, didn't just buy a game. They bought a game that they knew they could sell for ~$20. By stripping out the ability to resell the game you lower the value of the game to the initial buyer as well. So without the used option, the developer doesn't get two $60 sales, they get one $40 sale and one $30 sale. But they have to pay for all the production, shipping, packing, etc... costs for a second copy of the game as well. So at the end of the day the net gain is more or less zero.
I completely disagree. If you aren't allowed to resell games, then there's only ONE source of a game, and that's brand spankin' new directly from the developer. They'd see about the same amount of new sales as before plus a VAST increase in profits from sales of older games at reduced prices, these are profits that the resellers are presently getting.
Combine that with them being able to reduce the price of older games at their own pace. Basically, a good chunk of the money EB is currently getting is going to go to EA and EB is going to go out of business.
It shouldn't happen though, copyright should only extend to the first sale.
I wonder whether their assembler is deterministic. Operating on source code in general could be great, but compilation with optimizers and linkers is not necessarily deterministic, so a different sort of integrity protection system would be needed to validate the results of the process.
Yah, that was my question kind of too (I'm assuming it is). Generally, I'd think that you want everyone with the same version to have the exact same deliverables.
It looks like Tolkien & co where less saavy 40 years ago, and essentially signed up to get screwed.
Less savvy or just not very forward thinking in terms of technology.
[nerd-speak]
Tolkien pretty much gave away the movie rights because he (and whom else ever in his camp) never thought you could even make a movie out the LOTR. Would you have wanted to see a film adaptation using early 1970's film technology? Not as fun to watch if the Balrog looks Godzilla and the
Nazgûl like some kind of Medieval Mothras, not to mention Treebeard looking worse than he even did in the films, or primitive miniatures making the cities of Middle Earth look like something made of Lego(s).
Technology may have been Saruman's downfall, but it allowed for a pretty cool set of movies.
While these movies weren't, by any means, great (although I thoroughly enjoyed The Hobbit movie as a kid). With a story that good, and popular, I have a hard time being convinced that they believed there would be no possibility of a good selling LOTR universe movie being created. To the point that they would just say, "Hey screw it lets give it away."
I'm pretty sure they just screwed up if they signed a "net profit" contract.
The thing is if the economy tanks that badly, gold probably won't be worth much either. Which is why buying large boxes of ammo, cigarettes, and toilet paper is the way to go!
Just have to find the downed airship for the Firelance and pick up some Alien Power Cells.
It is also an important strategic advantage to have a ship that is more fuel efficient as it can stay in the arena for longer before it needs to be refuelled.
This is likely a main driver for this research.
I wonder if they add solar, wind and/or hydro power regeneration into the equation if a ship could get stranded without fuel, recharge their cells and then hobble back in.
I'm guessing these things use a shitton of energy to move, but I'm also guessing they have a shitton of surface area for something like solar (although I'm not too sure about the strategic impact of a highly reflective material on the surface of a military vessel).
Exactly.... you can even set it up to automatically identify which HD has failed (with like 2 or 3 drive parity), hot swap out the hard drive (or add more) and have it resort the array without a reboot. This article is st00pid. Also, the guy who says you need an 1100 dollar controller is st00pid.
So I'm sure that studio special effects people like Ray Harryhausen and the people who did/Forbidden Planet/ would have done just as well.
I totally disagree. While I enjoy Forbidden Planet for what it is, Star Wars was so appealing to me when I first watched it not in small part because it was a pioneer in special effects and really was fun to watch. I agree that the story holds its own, but can you imagine having the same kind of intensity if Luke's fighter was a cardboard flat grey "rocketship" firing super crappily animated lasers into a super obviously cardboard deathstar?
Basically, I think that Star Wars story was kind of cheesy, but the effects legitimized parts it and made it feel somewhat feasible. It's the difference between having a scene where you get really into it and hear "Use the force Luke!", then react with a "hahaha" "yea right" when you see the crappy effect. And hearing "Use the force Luke!", and then getting the hairs on the back of your neck on end and reacting with an "ooohh!" "hell yea, nice!" after the semi-realistic effect.
That's why there is a group of us that loved "hardcore" PvP in MMORPG's (ala Shadowbane). Once you max out, everyone is on the same playing field as far as innate player skills and experience goes, but there is a LOT of customizability and there are a LOT of tradeoffs to be made to make the character how you want to play it based on your actual skills/strategy/style/etc.
MMORPG's that do it right and really have the PvP open give this element. I'd say it's very difficult to implement well and those that don't like PvP won't like it at all.
Is cost represented on a linear scale? What does cost really represent? Would the cost vary by nation of manufacture? What point in time was the cost estimation created?
Maybe a more accurate title would be:
As of the writing of this article, the monetary manufacturing cost in the US, including labor and materials, of Nanopillar Solar may be lower by a factor of 10 than that of current Silicon based solar technologies.
Too bad the title line is only 50 characters. And I still made a lot of assumptions even there, there are still a lot of leaps to be made regarding cost.
Maybe you just don't realize how many assumptions you are making even by saying "1/10 the cost". That one more assumption to say "10x less" isn't really that much of a leap. Or better yet, maybe the title of an article isn't supposed to explain the entire article, it's just supposed to tell you what it's about and get you to read it.
If I was buying a car or signing some contract I'd worry about shit like that......
If you had trouble with the title though, here's some help... "less" is some constant variable representing the "new cost" that when multiplied by 10 equals the "old cost".
Officially, the space agency is still on track with a 4-year-old plan to spend $35 billion to build new rockets and return astronauts to the moon in several years. However, a top NASA manager is floating a cut-rate alternative that costs around $6.6 billion.
The new system could also launch a year earlier, and fewer space workers would have to be laid off because of that, he said.
Something about those two statements doesn't make sense. Maybe it's the 30 billion dollars that I severely doubt is just material costs between the systems. It's like he's trying to sell the layoffs in one segment and disregarding fewer work done in others, hence lower costs.
This is such typical business shit that NASA should be somewhat immune to. They have a chance here to "refactor" and really make some advances that can be used down the line. Instead they're proposing the cheaper alternative which is to complete it in the short term. Short term gain at the expense of long term?
I know it's just a proposal and I know very little about the situation aside from a few hundred word article, but I hope they really look into the aspect of not giving up advances they could get from researching and using new technology rather than just recycling the older stuff.
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Hey, don't construe me as being in support of them banning re-sale!! I'm not.
I'm just saying, I believe it would be in the studio's best interest monetarily if it were to happen. And I completely believe it would be a travesty if it did happen, it opens up a whole can of worms just like you said.
Selling it on craigslist or ebay is essentially bartering, since you're dealing directly with another customer (no middleman). To clarify, assume that each customer starts with 100 dollars to buy and trade games... they can indefinitely continue buying and re-selling games on ebay/craigslist with just that initial money. In this case, there is no potential profit for the studio. I understand there is some cash flow to UPS and Ebay, but it is trivial.
However... I can see where the studios are coming from when it comes to B&M re-sellers (like EB) that are screwing them on profits. I'd be pissed to, but it's really the customer's fault for using them instead of better alternatives that would be in both their and the studio's best interest.
Well, "GREAT", particularly with an entertainment product, is subjective. IMO, if it doesn't have replay value for substantially more than a year, its not a "great" game, and probably isn't even a "good" game.
There are plenty of games (any SimCity title except Societies, any of the 'main' PC versions of the Sims [not the console or stories titles], any version of the Civ or CtP franchises, anything in the Total War series, anything in the Delta Force series, and lots more) that have enough replay value, for me, that I only stop playing them because a newer, better version with compelling new features comes along that fits in my budget, and I'd still enjoy playing the older ones.)
Yeah, tightly scripted games tend to either run out of gameplay or present inordinate frustration factors to stretch the gameplay. That's one reason, IMO, such games are generally worth less than more open-ended games.
Exactly! I'm part of a demographic of paying customers that doesn't care if a game is over in a month if the game was REALLY good! The fact that my demographic exists renders your proposed solution of making all games be replayable for greater than 3 months defunct.
Believe it or not, I don't WANT most of my games to be replayable for much longer than 3 months. Unless it is specifically designed as such, like an MMORPG, some really good multiplayer FPS game or maybe a game like Guitar Hero.
I honestly like having titles that they put tons of effort into making as good as they could without really caring about if you would play through it 30 times and still enjoy it.
I'm talking about games like Ninja Gaiden, Gears of War, Half-Life 2, Fallout 3, Metal Gear Solid, Oblivion... etc. I didn't play any of these games for more than 3 months, but I played through them all at least once. I have honestly zero desire to ever play through them again (I'd probably start then get bored since I've already done it). I also feel that the studios deserve full price for all of those games, they are all very well made (well, I rented GoW).
That's what I like to call the stupid way. Don't use EB. Seriously. There's never a reason to use EB/Gamestop. Ever. If you want something on release day go to the big-box. They have hundreds of copies. Hell via bestbuy.com can order it for in store pickup before the store opens thus guaranteeing you a copy. There are local stores in my town that pay more than EB and sell the games for less than EB.
What about ebay?
What about craigslist?
There are plenty of ways to get more money than EB/Gamestop will give you. EB/GS is literally the worst possible choice for a gamer.
I used the term "EB" generically to represent a brick and mortar re-seller. I apologize, I should have specified "brick and mortar reseller" but I figured you would get the point.
Customers exchanging games directly via ebay and craigslist is essentially a zero-sum game and doesn't really affect game sales since there's no potential money (I hope that makes sense to you, not sure how to describe it better).
I can see where the game companies are coming from getting pissed off at B&M re-sellers that are buying dirt cheap and under-cutting their prices. This is where there is a lot of potential customer money that is getting taken out of the developer's pockets. I mean, they are essentially competing against their own game title on the same shelf (one is 60 and the other is 55).
I agree with you wholeheartedly that there are better solutions than the big B&M re-seller chains, but this is where the big bucks are being made. This is where the game companies would end up making a lot more money if re-selling was disallowed. I honestly hope those types of B&M re-sellers all go out of business really, customers could spend less and developers could get more money! It's kinda like spam mail though, as long as people keep on clicking it, it'll still exist.
I understand that it could be considered marketing, I just have a really hard time believing that the reduction in profits from sales gained by marketing from re-sale would be greater than the profit gained from increased sales of both older and newer games. I find it VERY hard to believe actually.
IAMNAE and I don't have the numbers, and I know you don't either... it's an interesting theory it just seems very unlikely to me.
Oh.. and Alice has $10 dollars left over to buy snacks or a sammich, or snacks and a sammich, possibly some pop.
More likely scenario:
Alice has $90.
Bob has $30.
Billy-Bob has $60.
No used:
Alice buys GoW for $60 from studio.
Bob buys GoW from studio for $30 once its price drops (it currently costs 30 dollars new actually).
Billy-Bob buys GoW II for $60 from studio cuz it got a good rating on Gamespot and he just bought a 360 and his buddy has it and he wants to play co-op.
Alice waits for GoW II to come down in cost and buys it from $30 from studio.
Studio gets $180
Used:
Alice buys GoW for $60 from studio.
Alice sells GoW for $10 to EB.
EB re-sells GoW to Bill for $30.
Billy-Bob buys GoW II for $60 from studio.
Billy-Bob sells GoW II for $10 to EB.
EB re-sells GoW II to Alice for $40.
EB gets $50.
Studio gets $120.
Let me clarify... I think you should be able to re-sell, cuz it benefits me and the law says you can... however I firmly believe that removing re-sale will increase the profits of the studios and that arguments against that do not hold water.
Even if they only got 1/10 of the pirated/resold sales, it's still a gain... I just don't buy re-sale as marketing.
Wrong!
The real solution is to sell games that I would want to continue playing longer than 3 months. If I wanted to continue playing it (because it is still fun), then I don't want to sell it. If I don't want to sell this fun game, there will be no used game market. If there is no used game market, the next game I want, I will buy brand new.
Or the game developers can keep pushing the same old crap and complaining about their customers.
There are some absolutely GREAT games out there that cost a lot to develop with relatively low replay value past a month. Just saying...
You're forgetting one thing though, and that's competition. Developer A may want to keep prices at $60 and simply increase sales, but if Developer B can increase sales even further by lowering the price to $50 while still turning a profit, then they're going to do it, which in turn forces Developer A to lower their price to $50 or risk losing too many sales to Developer B.
Competition already exists... I would also think that there is reduced competition if re-sellers are gone. By that logic then you could potentially see increased game prices.
Not all games are created equal. Killer apps and really well made games would potentially have higher costs and see much greater new sales if they can't be re-sold.
Unless developers and producers are going to illegally collude on prices, then the price will always approach the margin, and the margin in an industry that has eliminated used sales is lower than the margin in an industry that hasn't.
IAMNAE, specifically what industries are you referring to and how are they similar to games?
The main focus of the argument is not that "people shouldn't be able to resell their new purchases". The focus is on some of the tactics that our retail channels engage in to convert new sales into higher-margin used sales. Since the margin on a used game sale is huge compared to a new sale, retailers like Gamestop will actively encourage people who bring New copies of a game to the register to purchase the used one instead. The secondary issue is that a person who purchases a new game for $60 is then willing to turn around and sell it a week or two later for $25 to an entity which clearly values the used title at $55, since that's what they resell it for. I agree that games should cost less money, but as long as a consumer will choose to purchase the "5 dollars cheaper" version and then resell it for 30% of that price a few weeks later it's a strange economic uphill battle.
I agree completely. Customers re-selling to each other is almost a zero-sum re-distribution game. The middle man re-sellers are getting major profits from the customers.
Another way of looking at it... if they disallow re-sellers from making a profit, but allow direct customer re-sale, it would result in all actual profits going to the developers. This could lead to more higher quality games? More likely just more money in the pockets of game development CEO's, but it is an interesting perspective.
Developers and publishers are under the, mistaken, impression that they're missing out on huge revenue stream through used games. Let's assume that I buy a game for $60. Once I'm done with it, I sell it, either through Gamestop or Amazon for about $20 net. They take a $10 commission and sell it to someone else for $30. In this scenario developers seem to think that they've missed out on a single $60 from the person who bought it at $30 used, but that just isn't the case.
First of all, the person who waited for a used copy at $30 isn't going to spend $60 in the absence of a used copy. They're going to wait until the new copies are about $30 and buy it then. Giving them fewer choices of how to spend their money does not magically give them more money to spend. Also, the person who bought the game at $60, didn't just buy a game. They bought a game that they knew they could sell for ~$20. By stripping out the ability to resell the game you lower the value of the game to the initial buyer as well. So without the used option, the developer doesn't get two $60 sales, they get one $40 sale and one $30 sale. But they have to pay for all the production, shipping, packing, etc... costs for a second copy of the game as well. So at the end of the day the net gain is more or less zero.
I completely disagree. If you aren't allowed to resell games, then there's only ONE source of a game, and that's brand spankin' new directly from the developer. They'd see about the same amount of new sales as before plus a VAST increase in profits from sales of older games at reduced prices, these are profits that the resellers are presently getting.
Combine that with them being able to reduce the price of older games at their own pace. Basically, a good chunk of the money EB is currently getting is going to go to EA and EB is going to go out of business.
It shouldn't happen though, copyright should only extend to the first sale.
I wonder whether their assembler is deterministic. Operating on source code in general could be great, but compilation with optimizers and linkers is not necessarily deterministic, so a different sort of integrity protection system would be needed to validate the results of the process.
Yah, that was my question kind of too (I'm assuming it is). Generally, I'd think that you want everyone with the same version to have the exact same deliverables.
It looks like Tolkien & co where less saavy 40 years ago, and essentially signed up to get screwed.
Less savvy or just not very forward thinking in terms of technology.
[nerd-speak]
Tolkien pretty much gave away the movie rights because he (and whom else ever in his camp) never thought you could even make a movie out the LOTR. Would you have wanted to see a film adaptation using early 1970's film technology? Not as fun to watch if the Balrog looks Godzilla and the Nazgûl like some kind of Medieval Mothras, not to mention Treebeard looking worse than he even did in the films, or primitive miniatures making the cities of Middle Earth look like something made of Lego(s).
Technology may have been Saruman's downfall, but it allowed for a pretty cool set of movies.
[/nerd-speak]
I'm going to pretty much shoot down your argument with a link to The Hobbit, circa 1977. There was also The Lord of the Rings (1978) and The Return of the King (1980).
While these movies weren't, by any means, great (although I thoroughly enjoyed The Hobbit movie as a kid). With a story that good, and popular, I have a hard time being convinced that they believed there would be no possibility of a good selling LOTR universe movie being created. To the point that they would just say, "Hey screw it lets give it away."
I'm pretty sure they just screwed up if they signed a "net profit" contract.
The thing is if the economy tanks that badly, gold probably won't be worth much either. Which is why buying large boxes of ammo, cigarettes, and toilet paper is the way to go!
Just have to find the downed airship for the Firelance and pick up some Alien Power Cells.
Also, there is a huge difference in how one designs a battery for a ship versus a tiny, dinky little car.
Good point, they probably don't care nearly as much in a submarine about cost/weight/size of the batteries as they do in a production vehicle.
It is also an important strategic advantage to have a ship that is more fuel efficient as it can stay in the arena for longer before it needs to be refuelled.
This is likely a main driver for this research.
I wonder if they add solar, wind and/or hydro power regeneration into the equation if a ship could get stranded without fuel, recharge their cells and then hobble back in.
I'm guessing these things use a shitton of energy to move, but I'm also guessing they have a shitton of surface area for something like solar (although I'm not too sure about the strategic impact of a highly reflective material on the surface of a military vessel).
This is cool stuff though.
The only way to win is... to not install either OS?
To go outside?
Exactly.... you can even set it up to automatically identify which HD has failed (with like 2 or 3 drive parity), hot swap out the hard drive (or add more) and have it resort the array without a reboot. This article is st00pid. Also, the guy who says you need an 1100 dollar controller is st00pid.
So I'm sure that studio special effects people like Ray Harryhausen and the people who did /Forbidden Planet/ would have done just as well.
I totally disagree. While I enjoy Forbidden Planet for what it is, Star Wars was so appealing to me when I first watched it not in small part because it was a pioneer in special effects and really was fun to watch. I agree that the story holds its own, but can you imagine having the same kind of intensity if Luke's fighter was a cardboard flat grey "rocketship" firing super crappily animated lasers into a super obviously cardboard deathstar?
Basically, I think that Star Wars story was kind of cheesy, but the effects legitimized parts it and made it feel somewhat feasible. It's the difference between having a scene where you get really into it and hear "Use the force Luke!", then react with a "hahaha" "yea right" when you see the crappy effect. And hearing "Use the force Luke!", and then getting the hairs on the back of your neck on end and reacting with an "ooohh!" "hell yea, nice!" after the semi-realistic effect.
That's why there is a group of us that loved "hardcore" PvP in MMORPG's (ala Shadowbane). Once you max out, everyone is on the same playing field as far as innate player skills and experience goes, but there is a LOT of customizability and there are a LOT of tradeoffs to be made to make the character how you want to play it based on your actual skills/strategy/style/etc.
MMORPG's that do it right and really have the PvP open give this element. I'd say it's very difficult to implement well and those that don't like PvP won't like it at all.
At what point does intimate knowledge of a game's mechanics make a player skilled?
I'd say that this is the definition of skill for an online game.
Oblig. Bruce Lee quote:
Knowing is not enough, you must apply.
Is cost represented on a linear scale? What does cost really represent? Would the cost vary by nation of manufacture? What point in time was the cost estimation created?
Maybe a more accurate title would be:
As of the writing of this article, the monetary manufacturing cost in the US, including labor and materials, of Nanopillar Solar may be lower by a factor of 10 than that of current Silicon based solar technologies.
Too bad the title line is only 50 characters. And I still made a lot of assumptions even there, there are still a lot of leaps to be made regarding cost.
Maybe you just don't realize how many assumptions you are making even by saying "1/10 the cost". That one more assumption to say "10x less" isn't really that much of a leap. Or better yet, maybe the title of an article isn't supposed to explain the entire article, it's just supposed to tell you what it's about and get you to read it.
If I was buying a car or signing some contract I'd worry about shit like that......
If you had trouble with the title though, here's some help... "less" is some constant variable representing the "new cost" that when multiplied by 10 equals the "old cost".
silicon.cost = 10 * lesser.nanopillar.cost
Officially, the space agency is still on track with a 4-year-old plan to spend $35 billion to build new rockets and return astronauts to the moon in several years. However, a top NASA manager is floating a cut-rate alternative that costs around $6.6 billion.
The new system could also launch a year earlier, and fewer space workers would have to be laid off because of that, he said.
Something about those two statements doesn't make sense. Maybe it's the 30 billion dollars that I severely doubt is just material costs between the systems. It's like he's trying to sell the layoffs in one segment and disregarding fewer work done in others, hence lower costs.
This is such typical business shit that NASA should be somewhat immune to. They have a chance here to "refactor" and really make some advances that can be used down the line. Instead they're proposing the cheaper alternative which is to complete it in the short term. Short term gain at the expense of long term?
I know it's just a proposal and I know very little about the situation aside from a few hundred word article, but I hope they really look into the aspect of not giving up advances they could get from researching and using new technology rather than just recycling the older stuff.
If you can beat either of those 2 games on the hardest difficulty on the first play through without dying repeatedly, I'll suck your dick.