Look at the exceptions to your "rule." Sins of a Solar Empire is a wonderful 4X RTS on the PC that has been on shelves for at least a year and brought in a hell of a lot of money for Stardock. It didn't cost that much to make, but had fun and inventive gameplay. It sold. It sold a lot. The publisher got a very good reward. A game that makes more money than it cost to make it? What on earth is that?!
Now, look at Prince of Persia. Ubisoft didn't put DRM on it. They set it up so they could gloat about how piracy ruined their profits; they almost did before the game was released. But they didn't utter a peep, in the end. The game didn't sell (or get pirated) any more or less than the DRM'ed Assassin's Creed because both games weren't all that great. PoP was a shadow of the last-gen precursor The Sands of Time, and all of Ubisoft's games on the PC have been terrible quality ports.
Which FF game are you talking about? A number of the FF games have had fairly dark plots underneath their superficially colorful graphics; FF6, Tactics, 10, and 12 all come to mind immediately.
FF6 was great, but hell, Tactics was a bit of a mess plotwise (though still fun), 10 was a bunch of teenage brooding ("AW MAN I HATE YOU DAD" sort of whiny crap) and 12 was fairly lightweight on story.
If you think THOSE are dark, man, go play the Diablo games or really anything by Blizzard. Now THERE'S there's some dark stuff underneath the colorful graphics.
The Unreal engine is a mess, on the end-user side of things. Just trying to get it to work on a modern computer is a piece of work, and it wasn't even that optimized on computers of the time period. If that stupid engine was removed and the game's loose ends were all tied, I would pay double or triple the MSRP. I'd go and buy four copies and give the extras to people I know.
The original is among the best games ever made. It could be so much better, though. Can we reboot Warren Spector?
Not quite. Wikipedia states (on a locked page, no less):
In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room or collaborative content community with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional or disciplinary response or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion.
You probably weren't a troll for the last bit, but you can never tell 'round these parts.
You assume the same people are posting on the GPL stories as well as the copyright stories, but this isn't the case most of the time. Slashdot's "readership" is made up of so many faucets your blanket statement is silly at best.
Speaking from experience (watching my classmates around me in the past ten years or so - I'm fairly young) everyone's capacity to use computers was very, very high at first. It took a downward spike somewhere around middle school.
Not statistical, but honestly, I've been convinced just by remembering my friends around me as we went from Mac to Windows to Mac again. A child can learn computer interfaces without even thinking about it. Give a seven year old an Ubuntu GUI and then swap it to KDE and ask them to change. They'll do with without blinking.
I doubt this is worth much to you, but that's what I've seen.
Slashdot Mirror
Look at the exceptions to your "rule." Sins of a Solar Empire is a wonderful 4X RTS on the PC that has been on shelves for at least a year and brought in a hell of a lot of money for Stardock. It didn't cost that much to make, but had fun and inventive gameplay. It sold. It sold a lot. The publisher got a very good reward. A game that makes more money than it cost to make it? What on earth is that?!
Now, look at Prince of Persia. Ubisoft didn't put DRM on it. They set it up so they could gloat about how piracy ruined their profits; they almost did before the game was released. But they didn't utter a peep, in the end. The game didn't sell (or get pirated) any more or less than the DRM'ed Assassin's Creed because both games weren't all that great. PoP was a shadow of the last-gen precursor The Sands of Time, and all of Ubisoft's games on the PC have been terrible quality ports.
I don't even want to guess what would happen with Wario...
Three belts and a gunblade.
Nearly each iteration of the series is a reboot.
And yet they all play exactly like the old NES game. Wind Waker is the only exception.
I agree. And also, he's wrong. Half-Life 2: Episode 2 is above and beyond anything else Valve has ever done. It's an astonishingly good game.
Which FF game are you talking about? A number of the FF games have had fairly dark plots underneath their superficially colorful graphics; FF6, Tactics, 10, and 12 all come to mind immediately.
FF6 was great, but hell, Tactics was a bit of a mess plotwise (though still fun), 10 was a bunch of teenage brooding ("AW MAN I HATE YOU DAD" sort of whiny crap) and 12 was fairly lightweight on story.
If you think THOSE are dark, man, go play the Diablo games or really anything by Blizzard. Now THERE'S there's some dark stuff underneath the colorful graphics.
Yes yes yes yes yes.
The Unreal engine is a mess, on the end-user side of things. Just trying to get it to work on a modern computer is a piece of work, and it wasn't even that optimized on computers of the time period. If that stupid engine was removed and the game's loose ends were all tied, I would pay double or triple the MSRP. I'd go and buy four copies and give the extras to people I know.
The original is among the best games ever made. It could be so much better, though. Can we reboot Warren Spector?
I have faith after Project: Snowblind.
Elite, but mass market? Hell no. It would render all other games obsolete.
Among different definitions, it does mean "having or marked by foresight and imagination."
And even if it didn't, common usage can change words' meanings, regardless of the dictionary. Because "gay" still means "happy," right? Right.
Not quite. Wikipedia states (on a locked page, no less):
In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room or collaborative content community with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional or disciplinary response or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion.
You probably weren't a troll for the last bit, but you can never tell 'round these parts.
No, that makes total sense. It's a shame you can't really count on common sense these days.
They'd still be making more money, though, even with half readership, which is what matters to them.
The pragmatists see this as proof that they've got a beer.
But it's not free beer, now is it?
It's so good my praise wins me karma. I'm serious, people, history is being made.
it's amusing when Slashdot's readership
You assume the same people are posting on the GPL stories as well as the copyright stories, but this isn't the case most of the time. Slashdot's "readership" is made up of so many faucets your blanket statement is silly at best.
This is quite possibly the best Slashdot post I've ever read.
The cutscenes in WarCraft III were awesome. Cut and paste, Raimi, cut and paste.
And Mr. DJPretzel, I want to sincerely thank you for OCRemix. Donations are heading your way, once I'm not poor anymore.
Of course, it burst to life just as you posted. Yee haw.
The first song is amazing.
The torrent isn't working for me. Am I alone in this?
You're confusing yourself with Mac users. Try to keep up.
You mean the world hasn't exploded yet?
I myself will be acquiring this album on the back of a whale as we fly to the moon.
He's pointing out that we are not forced into buying an iPhone. DRM that we don't buy cannot lock us in.
Speaking from experience (watching my classmates around me in the past ten years or so - I'm fairly young) everyone's capacity to use computers was very, very high at first. It took a downward spike somewhere around middle school.
Not statistical, but honestly, I've been convinced just by remembering my friends around me as we went from Mac to Windows to Mac again. A child can learn computer interfaces without even thinking about it. Give a seven year old an Ubuntu GUI and then swap it to KDE and ask them to change. They'll do with without blinking.
I doubt this is worth much to you, but that's what I've seen.
The Linux world is a pretty good niche, if you don 't get scared away by the stereotypes.