Ok, let's work through this a bit. The incentive for them to allow you to resell books is presumably to appeal to you enough to get you to buy the product and purchase their books in the first place. Unfortunately, for every book you resell, the publisher loses a sale, because a consumer will always have the option to purchase one or the other, and all things being equal, will purchase the cheaper one.
So every single book you buy and resell is a wash for them... and actually, it's worse than that. A book that is bought and resold once is a wash for the publisher if it means a lost sale. But it gets worse from there every time it is resold. Since eBooks never degrade and could be placed on an extremely accessible marketplace, the number of "first sales" they could replace is limitless. Consider how libraries work. Early on, they purchase a large number of copies of a popular title because demand is initially high. As demand drops, they have tons of copies, but they aren't being checked out, so they usually get rid of them. Similarly, we'd find an initial scarcity for books, but after that, the used market would be sufficiently saturated to sustain itself almost indefinitely, with no new influx of supply.
It's a book, not a 2000 year old relic. If it is is a 200 year old book, a 2 week old one with the same copy is just as good. The story is the value, not the medium.
For you. I know people (including myself) who are extremely careful with their books, and extremely picky about their condition. I'm perfectly willing to pay extra for a new book with fresh, uncracked bindings, no corner bent pages, no writing in the margins, and so on and so forth. And while I might be able to find used books with those traits, it generally isn't worth the effort to me.
Last time I bought a used book was in college, where money was more of a concern.
There is a massive problem with this. As another poster mentioned, eBooks do not wear with use. So the copy you are selling is every bit as desirable to a purchaser as a copy Amazon is selling, and at no particular inconvenience to purchaser, if everybody puts their "used" books up on a common marketplace. Therefore, if the "used" copy is cheaper, no one will buy a "new" copy from Amazon. If it's not cheaper.... then why would I want to give you my money instead of giving it to the content creators?
And from Amazon's perspective, if they forced you to charge no less than they do for new books, they still are stuck with just the fee they charge you for the transaction. I don't think they're likely to facilitate their own financial downfall by providing a marketplace in which you can out-compete them.
The only way this could work for Amazon is if they saved on licenses from the publisher, allowing them to profit off the multiple sales of a single licensed product. But the publishers wouldn't go for that, because there's no upside for them.
As for first sale, the problem is that you don't own the eBook. You have what amounts to a limited license to view the eBook. It's sort of like if you could rent movies for an indefinite amount of time (but they still retain ownership and control over the property). If not owning the thing you paid for means you don't want to pay for it, that's fine, but there are plenty of conveniences, many of which you pointed out yourself. For that matter, there are plenty of other things out there I imagine you pay money for and you don't have the right to resell. Presumably, for example, you've rented things before.
If you fail to renew or return on time (including returning the aforementioned recalled books) you can easilly end up with fines that are way more than the book is worth.
Wrong.
At every public library I've ever used (including 3 where my mother served as the director in the 70s/80s/90s), the maximum fine has been limited to the replacement cost of the book (generally, publisher's list price plus a few dollars for S&H).
Don't forget the shelving fee. I mean, you're right, the liability is capped, but it's well in excess of what you would expect to pay for the book at a Barnes and Noble or something. Just asked my girlfriend about it and, for example, they'll charge up to 15 bucks over the replacement cost of the book at her library. 5 bucks in late fees, 10 bucks for processing (presumably a combination of shipping and shelving), and then the price of the book itself. And the previous library she worked at would hit you a bit harder than that, she said. For example, they'd send a collection agency after you that would damage your credit rating.
So I don't know if I'd emphatically declare the guy wrong. Depends on what you'd consider "way" more. If the book is worth 15 bucks, you'd pay up to twice its value at the library my girlfriend works for. *shrug*
Let me start this off by saying that I do, in fact, think Duke is extremely badass. He has some great one-liners, and his general attitude is fantastic. With that in mind, I do think there are some inconsistencies here, and I also think you're a bit unfair to some of the characters in question.
Machismo is not badassery.
Perhaps not.... but Duke is dripping with it. Duke is the poster child for manliness. Cigars, alcohol, women, big boots, giant guns, one liners... can you imagine Duke ever crying or sharing his feelings? He's an over the top action stereotype. Schwarzenegger from the 80s.
Badass, to me anyway, is a "fuck everything" attitude where you're so confident that you don't care what happens, you'll just deal with whatever comes up, keeping your cool throughout. No pretentiousness,
Pretentiousness? Were any of the guys I mentioned remotely pretentious? "10 shitloads" Fenix? "Thought I'd try shooting my way out" Master Chief? "RRARAGH BWAAAA BLOOD!!!" Brick? Honestly, I can't think of any action characters who are both supposed to be badass and are pretentious.... James Bond, maybe.
no showboating,
What, like kicking an alien's eyeball through the uprights? Don't get me wrong, it was totally awesome, but Duke showboats all the time... Not like Dante from Devil May Cry. That guy is all showboating, but Duke does it more than the other guys I listed.
just a frank ass kicking in the name of personal freedom. It's not about roid-raging up and down the street while holding your crotch.
Except.... Duke pops steroids. Explicitly. As a power up. They make him run faster, apparently.
A badass is someone you know not to mess with. A macho is someone you feel compelled to mess with, because they're all bark and no bite.
Well, every one of the guys I listed is much more bite than bark. Brick is maybe the most bark of all, but he's punching you in the face repeatedly with an exploding fist while he's shouting, so I give him a pass.
Duke, in that sense, was badass. He saw aliens, he didn't like them, so he killed them all. Problem solved. Cool maintained.
Mostly. He was supposedly pretty damned pissed to find that our chicks had been stolen. And actually, it's better/funnier that way, that Duke gets pissed at those sorts of things.
Back to hookers and booze.
Marcus Fenix is a douchebag with a do-rag, not badass.
Well, he has the do-rag, yes, but he keeps his cool for the most part. He yells and screams occasionally, but no more than Duke does when he's getting shot. And his actions speak pretty loudly. Fenix delivers a high ass kicking quotient in those games.
Master Chief ? He's a cyborg carrying out his orders, not badass.
Even when he gave the Covenant their bomb back? Come on, he totally Strangeloved them. If that's not badass, nothing is.
Brick ? Roid-rage, not badass.
Well, he may or may not take steroids, but Duke definitely does. But what makes Brick badass as a play experience is the fact that you, as the player can get really pissed at the enemies shooting you, and you have an option that's utterly unheard of in shooters. Don't run away like a pussy and go find some health or wait for your shields to recharge. Hit the "I'm pissed off" button and have your character go totally apeshit on them.
not all this pretentious teen crap we see every generation.
Like what? I think there's tons of genuinely badass stuff out there. In fact, games today are overflowing with hyped up machismo. Some would say this isn't a good thing, but we have our Gears of War, our Halo, our Resistance, and tons of other games with big burly manly badasses. Gearbox has a game (Borderlands) where you can play a dude who can get so pissed off that he puts away his gun and instead just punches everything to death while screaming crazily. I guess you could always say they aren't *actually* badass somehow, but you've completely lost me if you call Master Chief, Brick, or Marcus Fenix either pretentious or a teen.
Well, yes, this is exactly what I thought was going on, too, but I figured I'd give him the opportunity to surprise me with a point of view I didn't anticipate:)
Nah, it's real time first person shooting. The "RPG" elements are in the level-up mechanics (and related talent trees) and the loot grinding. Imagine a first person shooter version of an MMO set in a Fallout-like wasteland, without the persistent world and with a max of four player simultaneous play. The whole thing can be soloed, as well.
And while that may be an accurate description, it's better than that makes it sound
This claim seems strange to me. What games back then do you think had soul? And what new games have you played that you felt lacked soul? It's a sort of nebulous concept, so I could benefit from some examples. Maybe some explanation of what gave those examples soul.
Second, if I'm playing music through my phone and also doing something else, no I don't want the second app to prevent me from adjusting the device volume when a louder song comes on, that's just freaking annoying.
It would be annoying to me too, but I'd like the option of choosing not to buy it rather than having Apple make that decision for me.
It's kinda funny about the torture/experimentation thing since Master Chief wasn't exactly *tortured*, but the genetic experimentation he went through as a child sits on dubious moral ground. But otherwise, Master Chief is supposed to be a faceless protagonist to conflict less with the player. Cloud's problem is that he isn't.... and yet still isn't that interesting. Nothing highlighted that better for me than playing Crisis Core. I *loved* Zack in Crisis Core, and find Cloud severely wanting by comparison.
Ain't it the truth. It'd be nice if they'd at least do so constructively. Like if you said you liked Applebees burgers and they said something like "Yeah, they're not bad. You ought to try X's burgers. I think you might like them even better."
But no, the point is not to help you to experience something you'd like. The point is to emphasize that what you like isn't as good as what they like, which makes them better than you. Only it doesn't, because it makes them jerks.
I mean, there is stuff out there that is legitimately awful (say, Meet the Spartans). But even then, if a person on the internet loved that film, the last thing I'd do is tell them how stupid they are for it. I might, out of curiosity explore for a bit what it is they like about it, but there's no reason to hurt someone's feelings over something like that
I used to avoid naming specifics, but recently, I've decided I'd go back to proudly stating what I like, whether it's cool/hip or not. Then when someone inevitably tells me my tastes are unrefined, mainstream, or just plain shit, I have a convenient shortcut for who to ignore.... possibly after giving into the temptation to respond once.....
Every title after that game has been the same ingredients, just mixed in different ways.
Actually, it was true before that. I think that wouldn't even be an issue if the stories were good. Lost Odyssey isn't my favorite game of the last few years, but it's a very solid game that I quite enjoyed, and it's pretty old school in its gameplay. With JRPGs, it's always been the story that's supposed to draw you in, and lately, Square just hasn't been telling great stories.
Is it just me, or did you use the word "etc" to mask the fact that you named exactly the same number of studios?:)
Also, I wouldn't put any of the Japanese studios you named in the same league as the American ones you named. Particularly Square-Enix, which maybe once deserved the honor of being listed as one of the greats, but, in my eyes, has been on an impressive string of misses lately. Crisis Core was the last game with Square's name on it that I played and really liked.
Also, no Rockstar or Bethesda? I'd consider Volition, but only because I love SR2 so much. And I feel like I have to give Naughty Dog some serious credit for Uncharted 2 and Infinity Ward credit for the Modern Warfare games, even if those are pretty much the only games of theirs I've ever played.
I don't have any examples for you of either kind off the top of my head because I'm not planning to give the question much thought, but why is something automatically not innovative or fresh if it's a sequel?
Uncharted 2, for example, represents a maturation for Naughty Dog. Uncharted is a decent game, but Uncharted 2 is balls to the wall amazing. Phenomenal environment graphics, amazing action setpieces, the game shows just what Naughty Dog was capable of doing with the series... it just took them two games to get there.
I think you've set the bar high for innovation. Also, I think you've set it in the wrong place. A developer doesn't have to invent an entirely new genre in order to be innovative, and a new game in an existing franchise may have certain expectations regarding its place in the larger series, but that doesn't mean they can't take it in exciting new directions.
Take WoW, for example. It builds on warcraft lore.... but it literally has nothing else in common with the previous games. And as an MMO, it was extremely innovative. I played Square's outing (FFXI, specifically), and when I defected to WoW, it was like I finally understood what an MMO was *supposed* to be.
And then Dragon Age. It shares the tactical gameplay of Balder's Gate, so it's loosely in the same gameplay genre, but it's set in a different world with an all new story. Many of the ideas are borrowed from western fantasy literature, but it goes its own direction in some fascinating ways.
Or Fallout 3, which, gameplay-wise, owes more to Elder Scrolls than Fallout
Or even Halo: Reach, which is fundamentally Halo and yet innovative in small but significant ways, like improving the AI and personality of the enemies, or increasing customization. It may not seem like much to the PC crowd, but Halo 3's forge, ability to save films, and file sharing/editing is all very innovative for a console shooter.
Innovation doesn't have to be about a complete reinvention of a genre or every game being a fresh IP that owes nothing to what came before. The goal is merely to avoid stagnation, and you can do that as much by improving a good formula as making an all new one.
No wonder their bunny hopping shiny green Power Ranger games are the laughingstock of the FPS world...
I always thought that was sour grapes. The Halo games are great. Personally, I prefer, say, the Half-Life series, but Halo hardly sucks just because I like something else better. They're only reviled because they are popular. Bungie makes good games. This should be a settled issue by now.
If you're going to go the "slippery slope" route, then you have to provide some good arguments and evidence that the slope is indeed slippery.
Wish I had mod points. This is exactly the problem with slippery slope arguments. It's not that they're automatically invalid because they're classified alongside other logical fallacies, it's that they are usually framed in an invalid way. Commonly there's some sort of equivocation (in this case, the government is vaguely accused of having done something like this before), but there's little or no analysis of the slope itself and what allegedly makes it slippery. Others in this thread have commented that if you "give power to the government, they'll just try to take more" to paraphrase. Seems weird to me. Why aren't they continually trying to take more? They've been given power in the past. And if they *are* trying to take more, what's stopping them? People aren't going to vote them out of office over this. All I can see stopping them is corporate interest.
And yet the semi is still very frightening to a responsible driver. I'm fairly confident I'll never run into a semi. I can control for that. But I can't control for the semi driver's behavior. I've had them cut me off, tailgate me on icy roads, etc.
But the entire point of buying something is to enjoy it for a pretty long time.
Well, it certainly *can* be, but that's relative to the sort of thing you're buying and heavily limited by its nature. Basically, if you want something, you weigh your options. Food is used once and gone, but you can't rent food, so, since you need it, you are forced to buy it. Clothes can be reused, but they eventually wear out. Generally people buy clothes, since it's the only way, though expensive items you'll only wear on rare occasions (like tuxedos) can be rented, and probably should. Other clothes will wear out, but even if someone provided a rental service, you'd probably get a better deal from buying unless you don't like to wear clothes more than once. And so now we come to video games. Video games *can* be rented, but the lifespan of multiplayer support numbers in *years*. There's no cost effective way to rent a video game for years, so the best deal is still to buy. If the experience is something that's important to you, you'll therefore buy it, just as surely as you buy food and clothes.
As for reducing the price, why would they? People will pay the higher price, and, in loose terms, they work every bit as hard to craft a great multiplayer game as a great singleplayer game. A video game costs less than, say, concert tickets (depending on the concert), and the concert tickets are good for a comparatively *very* short time.
I'd love your idea if I didn't have the worry that we'd be wasting time that could be vastly better spent on teaching science. I mean, yes, it would make the point very elegantly... just not very efficiently. There's always a certain hilarity to the fantasy of turning a person's flawed arguments back on him and watching him flounder about with the resulting conundrum. "Debunk my own argument or permit this unacceptable outcome?"
Sadly, I just don't think the outcome is acceptable to us either, which makes it more of a bluff than anything.
That doesn't seem like wasted space to you? I mean, presumably, you could ask a question that requires both addition *and* higher level math at the same time.
Slashdot Mirror
Lack of availability
Ok, let's work through this a bit. The incentive for them to allow you to resell books is presumably to appeal to you enough to get you to buy the product and purchase their books in the first place. Unfortunately, for every book you resell, the publisher loses a sale, because a consumer will always have the option to purchase one or the other, and all things being equal, will purchase the cheaper one.
So every single book you buy and resell is a wash for them... and actually, it's worse than that. A book that is bought and resold once is a wash for the publisher if it means a lost sale. But it gets worse from there every time it is resold. Since eBooks never degrade and could be placed on an extremely accessible marketplace, the number of "first sales" they could replace is limitless. Consider how libraries work. Early on, they purchase a large number of copies of a popular title because demand is initially high. As demand drops, they have tons of copies, but they aren't being checked out, so they usually get rid of them. Similarly, we'd find an initial scarcity for books, but after that, the used market would be sufficiently saturated to sustain itself almost indefinitely, with no new influx of supply.
It's a book, not a 2000 year old relic. If it is is a 200 year old book, a 2 week old one with the same copy is just as good. The story is the value, not the medium.
For you. I know people (including myself) who are extremely careful with their books, and extremely picky about their condition. I'm perfectly willing to pay extra for a new book with fresh, uncracked bindings, no corner bent pages, no writing in the margins, and so on and so forth. And while I might be able to find used books with those traits, it generally isn't worth the effort to me.
Last time I bought a used book was in college, where money was more of a concern.
There is a massive problem with this. As another poster mentioned, eBooks do not wear with use. So the copy you are selling is every bit as desirable to a purchaser as a copy Amazon is selling, and at no particular inconvenience to purchaser, if everybody puts their "used" books up on a common marketplace. Therefore, if the "used" copy is cheaper, no one will buy a "new" copy from Amazon. If it's not cheaper.... then why would I want to give you my money instead of giving it to the content creators?
And from Amazon's perspective, if they forced you to charge no less than they do for new books, they still are stuck with just the fee they charge you for the transaction. I don't think they're likely to facilitate their own financial downfall by providing a marketplace in which you can out-compete them.
The only way this could work for Amazon is if they saved on licenses from the publisher, allowing them to profit off the multiple sales of a single licensed product. But the publishers wouldn't go for that, because there's no upside for them.
As for first sale, the problem is that you don't own the eBook. You have what amounts to a limited license to view the eBook. It's sort of like if you could rent movies for an indefinite amount of time (but they still retain ownership and control over the property). If not owning the thing you paid for means you don't want to pay for it, that's fine, but there are plenty of conveniences, many of which you pointed out yourself. For that matter, there are plenty of other things out there I imagine you pay money for and you don't have the right to resell. Presumably, for example, you've rented things before.
If you fail to renew or return on time (including returning the aforementioned recalled books) you can easilly end up with fines that are way more than the book is worth.
Wrong.
At every public library I've ever used (including 3 where my mother served as the director in the 70s/80s/90s), the maximum fine has been limited to the replacement cost of the book (generally, publisher's list price plus a few dollars for S&H).
Don't forget the shelving fee. I mean, you're right, the liability is capped, but it's well in excess of what you would expect to pay for the book at a Barnes and Noble or something. Just asked my girlfriend about it and, for example, they'll charge up to 15 bucks over the replacement cost of the book at her library. 5 bucks in late fees, 10 bucks for processing (presumably a combination of shipping and shelving), and then the price of the book itself. And the previous library she worked at would hit you a bit harder than that, she said. For example, they'd send a collection agency after you that would damage your credit rating.
So I don't know if I'd emphatically declare the guy wrong. Depends on what you'd consider "way" more. If the book is worth 15 bucks, you'd pay up to twice its value at the library my girlfriend works for. *shrug*
Duke *does* scream and yell. Maybe you were so awesome at the game that you never got shot.
Perhaps he should just take your word for that rather than traveling more.
Machismo is not badassery.
Perhaps not.... but Duke is dripping with it. Duke is the poster child for manliness. Cigars, alcohol, women, big boots, giant guns, one liners... can you imagine Duke ever crying or sharing his feelings? He's an over the top action stereotype. Schwarzenegger from the 80s.
Badass, to me anyway, is a "fuck everything" attitude where you're so confident that you don't care what happens, you'll just deal with whatever comes up, keeping your cool throughout. No pretentiousness,
Pretentiousness? Were any of the guys I mentioned remotely pretentious? "10 shitloads" Fenix? "Thought I'd try shooting my way out" Master Chief? "RRARAGH BWAAAA BLOOD!!!" Brick? Honestly, I can't think of any action characters who are both supposed to be badass and are pretentious.... James Bond, maybe.
no showboating,
What, like kicking an alien's eyeball through the uprights? Don't get me wrong, it was totally awesome, but Duke showboats all the time... Not like Dante from Devil May Cry. That guy is all showboating, but Duke does it more than the other guys I listed.
just a frank ass kicking in the name of personal freedom. It's not about roid-raging up and down the street while holding your crotch.
Except.... Duke pops steroids. Explicitly. As a power up. They make him run faster, apparently.
A badass is someone you know not to mess with. A macho is someone you feel compelled to mess with, because they're all bark and no bite.
Well, every one of the guys I listed is much more bite than bark. Brick is maybe the most bark of all, but he's punching you in the face repeatedly with an exploding fist while he's shouting, so I give him a pass.
Duke, in that sense, was badass. He saw aliens, he didn't like them, so he killed them all. Problem solved. Cool maintained.
Mostly. He was supposedly pretty damned pissed to find that our chicks had been stolen. And actually, it's better/funnier that way, that Duke gets pissed at those sorts of things.
Back to hookers and booze.
Marcus Fenix is a douchebag with a do-rag, not badass.
Well, he has the do-rag, yes, but he keeps his cool for the most part. He yells and screams occasionally, but no more than Duke does when he's getting shot. And his actions speak pretty loudly. Fenix delivers a high ass kicking quotient in those games.
Master Chief ? He's a cyborg carrying out his orders, not badass.
Even when he gave the Covenant their bomb back? Come on, he totally Strangeloved them. If that's not badass, nothing is.
Brick ? Roid-rage, not badass.
Well, he may or may not take steroids, but Duke definitely does. But what makes Brick badass as a play experience is the fact that you, as the player can get really pissed at the enemies shooting you, and you have an option that's utterly unheard of in shooters. Don't run away like a pussy and go find some health or wait for your shields to recharge. Hit the "I'm pissed off" button and have your character go totally apeshit on them.
not all this pretentious teen crap we see every generation.
Like what? I think there's tons of genuinely badass stuff out there. In fact, games today are overflowing with hyped up machismo. Some would say this isn't a good thing, but we have our Gears of War, our Halo, our Resistance, and tons of other games with big burly manly badasses. Gearbox has a game (Borderlands) where you can play a dude who can get so pissed off that he puts away his gun and instead just punches everything to death while screaming crazily. I guess you could always say they aren't *actually* badass somehow, but you've completely lost me if you call Master Chief, Brick, or Marcus Fenix either pretentious or a teen.
Well, yes, this is exactly what I thought was going on, too, but I figured I'd give him the opportunity to surprise me with a point of view I didn't anticipate :)
Nah, it's real time first person shooting. The "RPG" elements are in the level-up mechanics (and related talent trees) and the loot grinding. Imagine a first person shooter version of an MMO set in a Fallout-like wasteland, without the persistent world and with a max of four player simultaneous play. The whole thing can be soloed, as well.
And while that may be an accurate description, it's better than that makes it sound
This claim seems strange to me. What games back then do you think had soul? And what new games have you played that you felt lacked soul? It's a sort of nebulous concept, so I could benefit from some examples. Maybe some explanation of what gave those examples soul.
Second, if I'm playing music through my phone and also doing something else, no I don't want the second app to prevent me from adjusting the device volume when a louder song comes on, that's just freaking annoying.
It would be annoying to me too, but I'd like the option of choosing not to buy it rather than having Apple make that decision for me.
It's kinda funny about the torture/experimentation thing since Master Chief wasn't exactly *tortured*, but the genetic experimentation he went through as a child sits on dubious moral ground. But otherwise, Master Chief is supposed to be a faceless protagonist to conflict less with the player. Cloud's problem is that he isn't.... and yet still isn't that interesting. Nothing highlighted that better for me than playing Crisis Core. I *loved* Zack in Crisis Core, and find Cloud severely wanting by comparison.
Ain't it the truth. It'd be nice if they'd at least do so constructively. Like if you said you liked Applebees burgers and they said something like "Yeah, they're not bad. You ought to try X's burgers. I think you might like them even better."
But no, the point is not to help you to experience something you'd like. The point is to emphasize that what you like isn't as good as what they like, which makes them better than you. Only it doesn't, because it makes them jerks.
I mean, there is stuff out there that is legitimately awful (say, Meet the Spartans). But even then, if a person on the internet loved that film, the last thing I'd do is tell them how stupid they are for it. I might, out of curiosity explore for a bit what it is they like about it, but there's no reason to hurt someone's feelings over something like that
I used to avoid naming specifics, but recently, I've decided I'd go back to proudly stating what I like, whether it's cool/hip or not. Then when someone inevitably tells me my tastes are unrefined, mainstream, or just plain shit, I have a convenient shortcut for who to ignore.... possibly after giving into the temptation to respond once.....
Every title after that game has been the same ingredients, just mixed in different ways.
Actually, it was true before that. I think that wouldn't even be an issue if the stories were good. Lost Odyssey isn't my favorite game of the last few years, but it's a very solid game that I quite enjoyed, and it's pretty old school in its gameplay. With JRPGs, it's always been the story that's supposed to draw you in, and lately, Square just hasn't been telling great stories.
Is it just me, or did you use the word "etc" to mask the fact that you named exactly the same number of studios? :)
Also, I wouldn't put any of the Japanese studios you named in the same league as the American ones you named. Particularly Square-Enix, which maybe once deserved the honor of being listed as one of the greats, but, in my eyes, has been on an impressive string of misses lately. Crisis Core was the last game with Square's name on it that I played and really liked.
Also, no Rockstar or Bethesda? I'd consider Volition, but only because I love SR2 so much. And I feel like I have to give Naughty Dog some serious credit for Uncharted 2 and Infinity Ward credit for the Modern Warfare games, even if those are pretty much the only games of theirs I've ever played.
I don't have any examples for you of either kind off the top of my head because I'm not planning to give the question much thought, but why is something automatically not innovative or fresh if it's a sequel?
Uncharted 2, for example, represents a maturation for Naughty Dog. Uncharted is a decent game, but Uncharted 2 is balls to the wall amazing. Phenomenal environment graphics, amazing action setpieces, the game shows just what Naughty Dog was capable of doing with the series... it just took them two games to get there.
I think you've set the bar high for innovation. Also, I think you've set it in the wrong place. A developer doesn't have to invent an entirely new genre in order to be innovative, and a new game in an existing franchise may have certain expectations regarding its place in the larger series, but that doesn't mean they can't take it in exciting new directions.
Take WoW, for example. It builds on warcraft lore.... but it literally has nothing else in common with the previous games. And as an MMO, it was extremely innovative. I played Square's outing (FFXI, specifically), and when I defected to WoW, it was like I finally understood what an MMO was *supposed* to be.
And then Dragon Age. It shares the tactical gameplay of Balder's Gate, so it's loosely in the same gameplay genre, but it's set in a different world with an all new story. Many of the ideas are borrowed from western fantasy literature, but it goes its own direction in some fascinating ways.
Or Fallout 3, which, gameplay-wise, owes more to Elder Scrolls than Fallout
Or even Halo: Reach, which is fundamentally Halo and yet innovative in small but significant ways, like improving the AI and personality of the enemies, or increasing customization. It may not seem like much to the PC crowd, but Halo 3's forge, ability to save films, and file sharing/editing is all very innovative for a console shooter.
Innovation doesn't have to be about a complete reinvention of a genre or every game being a fresh IP that owes nothing to what came before. The goal is merely to avoid stagnation, and you can do that as much by improving a good formula as making an all new one.
No wonder their bunny hopping shiny green Power Ranger games are the laughingstock of the FPS world...
I always thought that was sour grapes. The Halo games are great. Personally, I prefer, say, the Half-Life series, but Halo hardly sucks just because I like something else better. They're only reviled because they are popular. Bungie makes good games. This should be a settled issue by now.
If you're going to go the "slippery slope" route, then you have to provide some good arguments and evidence that the slope is indeed slippery.
Wish I had mod points. This is exactly the problem with slippery slope arguments. It's not that they're automatically invalid because they're classified alongside other logical fallacies, it's that they are usually framed in an invalid way. Commonly there's some sort of equivocation (in this case, the government is vaguely accused of having done something like this before), but there's little or no analysis of the slope itself and what allegedly makes it slippery. Others in this thread have commented that if you "give power to the government, they'll just try to take more" to paraphrase. Seems weird to me. Why aren't they continually trying to take more? They've been given power in the past. And if they *are* trying to take more, what's stopping them? People aren't going to vote them out of office over this. All I can see stopping them is corporate interest.
And yet the semi is still very frightening to a responsible driver. I'm fairly confident I'll never run into a semi. I can control for that. But I can't control for the semi driver's behavior. I've had them cut me off, tailgate me on icy roads, etc.
I suppose they would store their inventory in an armory?
But the entire point of buying something is to enjoy it for a pretty long time.
Well, it certainly *can* be, but that's relative to the sort of thing you're buying and heavily limited by its nature. Basically, if you want something, you weigh your options. Food is used once and gone, but you can't rent food, so, since you need it, you are forced to buy it. Clothes can be reused, but they eventually wear out. Generally people buy clothes, since it's the only way, though expensive items you'll only wear on rare occasions (like tuxedos) can be rented, and probably should. Other clothes will wear out, but even if someone provided a rental service, you'd probably get a better deal from buying unless you don't like to wear clothes more than once. And so now we come to video games. Video games *can* be rented, but the lifespan of multiplayer support numbers in *years*. There's no cost effective way to rent a video game for years, so the best deal is still to buy. If the experience is something that's important to you, you'll therefore buy it, just as surely as you buy food and clothes.
As for reducing the price, why would they? People will pay the higher price, and, in loose terms, they work every bit as hard to craft a great multiplayer game as a great singleplayer game. A video game costs less than, say, concert tickets (depending on the concert), and the concert tickets are good for a comparatively *very* short time.
I'd love your idea if I didn't have the worry that we'd be wasting time that could be vastly better spent on teaching science. I mean, yes, it would make the point very elegantly... just not very efficiently. There's always a certain hilarity to the fantasy of turning a person's flawed arguments back on him and watching him flounder about with the resulting conundrum. "Debunk my own argument or permit this unacceptable outcome?"
Sadly, I just don't think the outcome is acceptable to us either, which makes it more of a bluff than anything.
That doesn't seem like wasted space to you? I mean, presumably, you could ask a question that requires both addition *and* higher level math at the same time.