You do have to admit, though--System Shock 2 also had a lot of advertising in it, even if it was all for fictitious in-game products. Heck, the replicators advertised themselves every time you used one. And let's not forget the shopping mall level... --
Well, that's why the contract would specify a lump sum for product placement, more than likely, rather than a continuing thing--just like for in movies.
And anyway, it's not unheard of for a game to be reissued with a sponsor (or other element) removed. Witness the old NES game Mike Tyson's Punch-Out! which subsequently became just Punch-Out! with a different boss at the end.
But where period-licensed ads will really come into their own is in MMORPGs, such as Neocron, which I plugged in an earlier post. Since the game world is evolving and constantly changing, a billboard that's not rented can go back to being a fictitious corporation (or a "Want to advertise here? Call 1-800-XXX-XXXX!" notice) if the rent's not paid at the end of the period. If those help keep playing costs down, and can be kept "in-theme" as Neocron promises, I'm all for 'em! --
That's just the thing, though. You don't consciously pay attention. Heck, people haven't been consciously paying attention since way before there were invasive ad techniques. You think billboards leaped out in front of people's faces in the 1930s, 40s, 50s? Heck no. But the theory goes that people may not remember individual impressions, but over time, the image becomes ingrained in the subconscious--and when you're thirsty and indecisive, "Coke" suddenly comes into your mind.
Of course, actually getting conscious attention does help, which is why people are always trying to make ads that do that--and they were even decades back--take the "Burma Shave" ad signs, for example. But just seeing the brands, logos, images supposedly implants a subconscious brand awareness that can be leveraged. That's why people still pay for banner ads even when the clickthrough rates are abysmal. (Though, given how they're beginning not to pay for banner ads, perhaps peoples' impressions of this are changing...)
Anyway, the game designers aren't terribly stupid. I don't think they'll throw in any interruptive ads in anywhere except where they'd be displaying something non-game anyway (Half-Life's "Loading..." screen, for instance). If they did, then people simply wouldn't buy. --
I rather think it's a neat idea, myself. I still remember back in Spy Hunter for the 8-bit NES, that there were billboards for Bally and Sunsoft and the like placed along the roads every so often. It sort of added to the verisimilitude of the thing--you know, you see billboards when you're in the real world, why not billboards in a game world, too? There's no reason you have to pay any more attention to them there than you do in real life.
What I find interesting is the idea of using that to make virtual worlds more lifelike. Sure, you wouldn't see an ad for Coca-Cola in Everquest or Asheron's Call without suffering a bit of disbelief--but imagine a futuristic cyberpunk virtual world project like Neocron, whose screenshotsalready reveal advertisements for fictitious in-game products like "Tyrell Bionic Implants". In fact, in the Miscellaneous section of their FAQ, they note:
Are there any plans on how to keep the cost of the game down?
There may be billboards around the city advertising "real" products, which will help to keep the cost down and give the game a more realistic touch. The billboard advertisements will fit in with the theme of Neocron.
You see that? Not only will it reduce costs, and make the advertisers happy, it'll enhance the verisimilitude, the realism, of the game by making it seem more and more like you really are in such a city. I think that's all to the good. --
Only a couple of Arsene Lupin novels or books are available anywhere on the Internet--and one of those in only partial form. It's very frustrating to me, as many of them would have passed into the public domain before the Sonny Bozo--er, Bono act extended copyright. I even have a couple of them in dead-tree form--but nobody's Gutenberged them yet. (I started typing one of them in--got about a third of the way through, then lost everything in a hard drive crash.:( ) --
I fail to see what the big problem is. It's a simple economic transaction. You expend resources (time and effort) to get something, and you sell it for remuneration. In the case of a magic weapon, you could sell it for virtual currency to another character in the game, or you could sell it for real currency to another player. Either way, an exchange of value is taking place, with each party getting something they want in exchange for something else. That's one of the founding principles of economies, and it's foolish to think you can create a new, working economy within the confines of a game without it interfacing with the genuine economy in a substantial way. If something has value, someone will trade something else of value for it.
That being said, while I have no problem with people selling virtual items or money, I personally think that selling whole characters goes just a little too far. A character is supposed to be something personal, something that you put yourself into, not just a more powerful interface to hacking and slashing. My character for Neocron, whenever it comes on-line, will be something unique and special to me, and I'll never sell him (or her). Though, if I get high level enough that money and items start coming to me easily, I might just sell a few of them. (So far, Reakktor, the company putting the game together, have said they don't plan to forbid such sales unless it becomes a problem in the game.) --
There are some folks out there doing amazing things with CGI these days. It's almost to the point where any schmuck can sit down at his home computer and make a movie. Of course, that point is still a few years away, yet, but check this out.
Triton Films, a group of machinima/CGI artists, have made several movies already and are now working on their Magnum Opus--a fully CGI piece called "Quake: The Movie". They've got a couple of trailers out already, and they're really something to see! --
Being from Ashcroft's hometown of Springfield, Missouri, I have to point out that the reason he lost to a dead man was that when he heard Carnahan had died, he immediately pulled all his campaign ads out of respect for the deceased and his family. Now, I may not agree with Ashcroft's politics (far from it!), but I think it's a damned shame we don't have more politicians willing to show that kind of respect when the cost is so high.
As for Ashcroft's stance on video game control, well, what do you expect? He's a 7th Day Adventist, and doesn't even believe in dancing. But I don't think the gun control nuts whom Salon sets up as his opposition are necessarily right, either.
I really don't know what to say anymore. Maybe we do need some kind of controls on violent video games, equivalent to the "R" rating of the MPAA, so they aren't banned altogether. I think we could use a little more control over guns, of the "trigger lock" variety, but quail (or Quayle?:) at anything more harsh--in fact, I'd like to see a nationwide concealed carry law. As for the overall solution, well, I'd plug parental responsibility here, but the cynic in me points out that there's no way to legislate that.
I don't know quite what's going to happen, but something tells me it's all going to get worse before it gets any better. --
There was an article in Salon Magazine about this very thing just a couple of days ago. It talked about how entrenched "pay-for-play" has become, even despite the anti-payola laws of the '60s. It seems payola is "okay" as long as there is a middleman between the record label and the radio station. Let me see if I can find it . . .
At a former company we had scan-guns which had LCD-displays and button key pads, they could communicate IR, RF, or direct link, and could be hooked to small bar-code printers. They weren't NCR products, but the broad expanse of this old patent would appear to have been infringed upon many ways by that device, as well.
This is true--unless the makers of that device licensed the technology from NCR.
I suspect the people you're talking about would be Symbol Technologies, who have for years made portable bar-code readers for use in retail and other outlets. For instance, the Toys'R'Us where I used to work and the K-mart where I work now both use gun-shaped bar-code reader/data terminals with UPC readers and keypads. At one point, I even watched a manager process a K-Mart credit card application through one, on the spot!
The really interesting thing is that Symbol makes a line of bar-code-reading devices that are essentially Palm IIIs (or VIIs?) with bar-code scanners attached. It's interesting that they apparently aren't named in the suit--could it be that they do license the NCR patent technology? --
Although it's not related to that specific example, Heinlein did come up with the idea of a waterbed in fiction ten years before someone actually invented one and tried to patent it. Because Heinlein had already come up with the idea and placed it in the public domain by writing it into a story, the inventor was unable to get a patent. For the specifics, go to the Heinlein FAQ and text-search on "waterbed". --
The explanation that you seek can be found here, complete with a link to the shockwave movie in question.
Remember, for great justice, take out every zig. --
Re:Who's their targetted audience?
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Paper Phones
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· Score: 2
I don't know about that. My parents don't have a cellphone because they don't feel they can afford one, and wouldn't use it all that much anyway. On the other hand, they're both avid horseback riders, and horseback riding does carry with it the risk of physical injury. I could see them picking up one of these phones to stick in a saddlebag for just in case of emergencies, or to put in the glovebox of their car for a long trip. And I could see a lot of other people doing the same thing.
Yes, sure, there will be more trash. But on the other hand, this brings the option of on-the-spot emergency help to people who could never have afforded it before. It'll save lives. Aren't a few lives saved worth a little more trash? --
Re:Invention without Ethics
on
Paper Phones
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· Score: 2
I think Einstein said that he believed only two things were infinite--the universe, and human stupidity--and he wasn't sure about the first one.:) --
Re:end of pay phones?!?
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Paper Phones
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· Score: 2
Well, the thing is, pay phones are on the way out anyway. According to a recent article in Wired News, 30% of people in the US no use cellphones...and in many cases, it will be cheaper or more convenient for these people to use those than to use a pay phone. Which means fewer calls on pay phones now, which makes less money for the phone companies--many pay phones are now or will soon be no longer even paying for their own upkeep.
Even without the paper cellphone, the regular cellpone has been biting into pay phones' revenues. With the advent of this new disposable, which will put cell calling within reach of even those people who don't want to spend all that money on a calling plan . . . well, you do the math. --
I read a lot of e-books on my Visor, too. It's a perfect e-book reading machine, and a lot of the time, I'd rather have it than a "real" book. You can't put a dozen "real" books in your pocket. --
In all fairness, though, Baen isn't even trying to make money from their e-books; they're using them as a form of advertisement. Some of Baen's authors have even decided to give e-copies of their books away for free, foregoing even the token Webscription fees altogether.
Of course, some Baen authors aren't altogether happy with the idea of their books being posted cheaply with no copy protection . .. --
Fictionwise, another e-lit publisher, which, if I'm not mistaken, actually has a contract to publish some of Harlan Ellison's works.
Peanut Press, which publishes e-books for Palms & PocketPCs--and was bought by NetLibrary.
Now, granted, most of what these sites deal in is reprints, and save for Peanut Press, they focus more toward short stories than entire books. But they seem to be doing rather well, even in the age of the dot-com crash. --
I've considered submitting this as an Ask Slashdot, but I doubt it would be approved, and here comes a topic that's almost perfect for discussing it anyway . . .
What about the rent-a-computer-lab?
A few blocks from me, sitting in the top floor of an old house which also houses an ISP, is a place called Springfield Powergames--sort of an Internet cafe without the cafe, a rent-time-on-a-computer center that offered a high-speed LAN and high-speed Internet connection with about 20 networked computers, for the purpose of playing first-person shooters or other network games against each other and/or other folks on-line.
It just went out of business. Apparently the older hardware it offered couldn't compete with the cablemodem and DSL connections rolling out here in Springfield.
Is there any market left for such a place? How would one make it profitable, what with the high cost of computer hardware and the ease of getting together in one's own home instead? There is something fun about playing in person--being able to hear the other guy swearing when you take his head off with a railgun--but how do you draw people out of their cablemodem-equipped homes and pay the bills at the same time? --
Actually, from what I heard at a Trek convention, the reason these aliens were never heard from again is that the Trek story editor changed soon afterward. This is partly why Trek TNG had trouble getting and keeping cohesive continuing storylines--they went through something like 15 different story editors, and with each change, old story elements that were the former story editor's favorite project got lost. The same thing happened for those fish-like aliens that were kidnapping members of the Trek crew into another dimension and performing anatomical experiments on them in a later season--they dispatched a probe into this dimension, but were never seen again. --
I agree. But on the other hand, DeSantos has said he respects Hatch, and would like to see what he's put together. And Hatch is being very diplomatic about the whole thing so far. We'll have to see what happens. --
The trailer had Lorne Greene in them? He died back in '87!
Yes, it did, and yes, he did. How he appeared in the trailer, then, should be easy enough to guess. (Hint: Hatch asked for and got Greene's family's permission.)
Yes, that's right, stock footage--in this case, a "holographic recording" made with footage taken from the laserdisc of the original Galactica movie.
Interestingly, Hatch suggests that it might be possible in his Galactica Second Coming for Adama to have left behind recordings of wisdom and advice to be played back at certain times--and that it might even include footage Greene didn't shoot. Hatch suggests that they might use the same magic of CGI and effects tricks that let dead celebrities appear in ads for soft drinks, and Hank Williams Jr. do a music video duet with Hank Williams Sr. of a sing Hank Sr. never played on-camera ("There's a Tear in My Beer," for those who care).
Of course, this opens up a whole can of worms about who should decide who gets to use the dead likeness of who--but then, that can was opened a while ago already. And Hatch did set a good precedent of getting permission from the next of kin, at least . .. --
Slashdot Mirror
You do have to admit, though--System Shock 2 also had a lot of advertising in it, even if it was all for fictitious in-game products. Heck, the replicators advertised themselves every time you used one. And let's not forget the shopping mall level...
--
And anyway, it's not unheard of for a game to be reissued with a sponsor (or other element) removed. Witness the old NES game Mike Tyson's Punch-Out! which subsequently became just Punch-Out! with a different boss at the end.
But where period-licensed ads will really come into their own is in MMORPGs, such as Neocron, which I plugged in an earlier post. Since the game world is evolving and constantly changing, a billboard that's not rented can go back to being a fictitious corporation (or a "Want to advertise here? Call 1-800-XXX-XXXX!" notice) if the rent's not paid at the end of the period. If those help keep playing costs down, and can be kept "in-theme" as Neocron promises, I'm all for 'em!
--
Of course, actually getting conscious attention does help, which is why people are always trying to make ads that do that--and they were even decades back--take the "Burma Shave" ad signs, for example. But just seeing the brands, logos, images supposedly implants a subconscious brand awareness that can be leveraged. That's why people still pay for banner ads even when the clickthrough rates are abysmal. (Though, given how they're beginning not to pay for banner ads, perhaps peoples' impressions of this are changing...)
Anyway, the game designers aren't terribly stupid. I don't think they'll throw in any interruptive ads in anywhere except where they'd be displaying something non-game anyway (Half-Life's "Loading..." screen, for instance). If they did, then people simply wouldn't buy.
--
What I find interesting is the idea of using that to make virtual worlds more lifelike. Sure, you wouldn't see an ad for Coca-Cola in Everquest or Asheron's Call without suffering a bit of disbelief--but imagine a futuristic cyberpunk virtual world project like Neocron, whose screenshots already reveal advertisements for fictitious in-game products like "Tyrell Bionic Implants". In fact, in the Miscellaneous section of their FAQ, they note:
You see that? Not only will it reduce costs, and make the advertisers happy, it'll enhance the verisimilitude, the realism, of the game by making it seem more and more like you really are in such a city. I think that's all to the good.--
I had a scanner at the time, but I couldn't use it lest I risk damaging the book's spine. This is an old, old book, and rather fragile.
--
Only a couple of Arsene Lupin novels or books are available anywhere on the Internet--and one of those in only partial form. It's very frustrating to me, as many of them would have passed into the public domain before the Sonny Bozo--er, Bono act extended copyright. I even have a couple of them in dead-tree form--but nobody's Gutenberged them yet. (I started typing one of them in--got about a third of the way through, then lost everything in a hard drive crash. :( )
--
That being said, while I have no problem with people selling virtual items or money, I personally think that selling whole characters goes just a little too far. A character is supposed to be something personal, something that you put yourself into, not just a more powerful interface to hacking and slashing. My character for Neocron, whenever it comes on-line, will be something unique and special to me, and I'll never sell him (or her). Though, if I get high level enough that money and items start coming to me easily, I might just sell a few of them. (So far, Reakktor, the company putting the game together, have said they don't plan to forbid such sales unless it becomes a problem in the game.)
--
Triton Films, a group of machinima/CGI artists, have made several movies already and are now working on their Magnum Opus--a fully CGI piece called "Quake: The Movie". They've got a couple of trailers out already, and they're really something to see!
--
As for Ashcroft's stance on video game control, well, what do you expect? He's a 7th Day Adventist, and doesn't even believe in dancing. But I don't think the gun control nuts whom Salon sets up as his opposition are necessarily right, either.
I really don't know what to say anymore. Maybe we do need some kind of controls on violent video games, equivalent to the "R" rating of the MPAA, so they aren't banned altogether. I think we could use a little more control over guns, of the "trigger lock" variety, but quail (or Quayle? :) at anything more harsh--in fact, I'd like to see a nationwide concealed carry law. As for the overall solution, well, I'd plug parental responsibility here, but the cynic in me points out that there's no way to legislate that.
I don't know quite what's going to happen, but something tells me it's all going to get worse before it gets any better.
--
. . . ah, here it is.
--
I suspect the people you're talking about would be Symbol Technologies, who have for years made portable bar-code readers for use in retail and other outlets. For instance, the Toys'R'Us where I used to work and the K-mart where I work now both use gun-shaped bar-code reader/data terminals with UPC readers and keypads. At one point, I even watched a manager process a K-Mart credit card application through one, on the spot!
The really interesting thing is that Symbol makes a line of bar-code-reading devices that are essentially Palm IIIs (or VIIs?) with bar-code scanners attached. It's interesting that they apparently aren't named in the suit--could it be that they do license the NCR patent technology?
--
Although it's not related to that specific example, Heinlein did come up with the idea of a waterbed in fiction ten years before someone actually invented one and tried to patent it. Because Heinlein had already come up with the idea and placed it in the public domain by writing it into a story, the inventor was unable to get a patent. For the specifics, go to the Heinlein FAQ and text-search on "waterbed".
--
Remember, for great justice, take out every zig.
--
Yes, sure, there will be more trash. But on the other hand, this brings the option of on-the-spot emergency help to people who could never have afforded it before. It'll save lives. Aren't a few lives saved worth a little more trash?
--
I think Einstein said that he believed only two things were infinite--the universe, and human stupidity--and he wasn't sure about the first one. :)
--
Even without the paper cellphone, the regular cellpone has been biting into pay phones' revenues. With the advent of this new disposable, which will put cell calling within reach of even those people who don't want to spend all that money on a calling plan . . . well, you do the math.
--
...that after they make these things, they're careful to remember where they put them.
--
I read a lot of e-books on my Visor, too. It's a perfect e-book reading machine, and a lot of the time, I'd rather have it than a "real" book. You can't put a dozen "real" books in your pocket.
--
Of course, some Baen authors aren't altogether happy with the idea of their books being posted cheaply with no copy protection . . .
--
Alexlit, one of the first e-lit sites, which started out with an ubercool collaborative filtering book recommendation system and added on from there.
Mind's Eye Fiction, which Alexlit subsequently bought.
Fictionwise, another e-lit publisher, which, if I'm not mistaken, actually has a contract to publish some of Harlan Ellison's works.
Peanut Press, which publishes e-books for Palms & PocketPCs--and was bought by NetLibrary.
Now, granted, most of what these sites deal in is reprints, and save for Peanut Press, they focus more toward short stories than entire books. But they seem to be doing rather well, even in the age of the dot-com crash.
--
What about the rent-a-computer-lab?
A few blocks from me, sitting in the top floor of an old house which also houses an ISP, is a place called Springfield Powergames--sort of an Internet cafe without the cafe, a rent-time-on-a-computer center that offered a high-speed LAN and high-speed Internet connection with about 20 networked computers, for the purpose of playing first-person shooters or other network games against each other and/or other folks on-line.
It just went out of business. Apparently the older hardware it offered couldn't compete with the cablemodem and DSL connections rolling out here in Springfield.
Is there any market left for such a place? How would one make it profitable, what with the high cost of computer hardware and the ease of getting together in one's own home instead? There is something fun about playing in person--being able to hear the other guy swearing when you take his head off with a railgun--but how do you draw people out of their cablemodem-equipped homes and pay the bills at the same time?
--
I thought Dr. Zimmerman on Voyager was supposed to be Rimmer.
--
Actually, from what I heard at a Trek convention, the reason these aliens were never heard from again is that the Trek story editor changed soon afterward. This is partly why Trek TNG had trouble getting and keeping cohesive continuing storylines--they went through something like 15 different story editors, and with each change, old story elements that were the former story editor's favorite project got lost. The same thing happened for those fish-like aliens that were kidnapping members of the Trek crew into another dimension and performing anatomical experiments on them in a later season--they dispatched a probe into this dimension, but were never seen again.
--
I agree. But on the other hand, DeSantos has said he respects Hatch, and would like to see what he's put together. And Hatch is being very diplomatic about the whole thing so far. We'll have to see what happens.
--
Yes, it did, and yes, he did. How he appeared in the trailer, then, should be easy enough to guess. (Hint: Hatch asked for and got Greene's family's permission.)
Yes, that's right, stock footage--in this case, a "holographic recording" made with footage taken from the laserdisc of the original Galactica movie.
Interestingly, Hatch suggests that it might be possible in his Galactica Second Coming for Adama to have left behind recordings of wisdom and advice to be played back at certain times--and that it might even include footage Greene didn't shoot. Hatch suggests that they might use the same magic of CGI and effects tricks that let dead celebrities appear in ads for soft drinks, and Hank Williams Jr. do a music video duet with Hank Williams Sr. of a sing Hank Sr. never played on-camera ("There's a Tear in My Beer," for those who care).
Of course, this opens up a whole can of worms about who should decide who gets to use the dead likeness of who--but then, that can was opened a while ago already. And Hatch did set a good precedent of getting permission from the next of kin, at least . . .
--