I can't imagine what they hope to accomplish by this new announcement, other than to perhaps go out with a bang rather than a whimper.
The real threat of North Korea is probably pretty close to what you say. When the USSR was about to dissolve, some military minded people considered invading West Germany and going out with a bang instead of letting the state collapse. Now, the thing to understand that is that the USSR was thankfully run by a ruling party that was big enough to nix truly insane ideas (like nuking the US and invading West Germany). By the time the USSR was getting ready to break up, the old way of having a single all powerful leader was already well on the way out.
The problem with North Korea is that North Korea is ruled by a man who is by all accounts truly insane. Further, he rules with absolute authority. To make matters worse, the North Korean people are brainwashed to a level that we can't even begin to appreciate. Read any travel log to North Korea or any true story that takes place in North Korea. You will hear one thing over and over and over again; the people are totally brainwashed. You raise through the ranks with your ability to shut out reality and tote the party line.
Now, you have an ugly situation. You have a man who is by all accounts totally insane. You have a group of people that are brainwashed enough to follow whatever our he gives. Now, this guy has a few nukes. Mix in a dissolving nation that could collapse at any moment, and you have an ugly situation in the making made worse because the guy at the helm can't be trusted to think rationally.
The only thing Take Two (and EA for that matter) did was buy up franchise naming rights. Whoop-de-fuckin'-do. In the same way a shirt is still a shirt regardless if it has an Abercrombie and Fitch logo smeared across it or not, a baseball game is still a baseball game regardless if it uses "official" names and logos. If a baseball game can not be a success without the proper logos and celebrity player names smeared across it, that is a commentary on the people who buy these games the lack of creativity of the developers who make them, not Take Two's business practices.
EA and Take Two just bought the rights to use another company's logos and player names. It is like Mattel buying the rights to produce American Idol dolls. The fact that a small horde of people can't contemplate their life without an official American Idol doll or official MBA and NFL video game is nobody's fault but their own. This isn't a monopoly, this is people being horribly dependent upon a single brand name.
As for the gaming industry, I consider it a good thing. Instead of stat whoring, someone can now try for something innovative without bothering to consult said corporate overlords at the NFL and MBA. If someone feels like throwing in steroid use into their next video game about baseball or football, the MBA and NFL will not be able to utter a peep. Maybe it will force a little creativity in developers such that they start to develop some serious games with strong multiplayer components and balance. Weaning developers from the tit of their respective sports franchise and forcing a little creativity is only a good thing.
Look at the bright side, if all developers piss themselves in fear of making a game without official NFL and MBA branding, and EA and Take Two are the only two games in town, it is only fucking football and baseball. Nothing important.
To be blunt, who cares? I don't want celebrities, I want video games. Getting a spot in the tabloid section won't make me feel like video games are suddenly legitimate.
The simple fact of the matter is that video games bring in more money the movies. Period. They are going to keep making more and more money. The people that matter are taking it seriously and pumping millions of dollars into the industry.
The rest of this crap is just ego stroking and people being insecure with themselves. I don't care if video game makers get their ego stroked as much as the guy who makes my computer (which is to say not at all outside of engineering circles). I also don't care if some people feel insecure because video games don't have the same pop acceptance of MTV and fill in shitty boy band of the month here.
Tsunamis are caused by earthquakes and world health is and has been dramatically improving. The median world life expectancy goes up every single year. So, unless the earth is a real person that throws out earthquakes just to be a dick, the earth isn't trying to tell us anything. If you want to argue that the climate is changing, go for it, but arguing that earth quakes have anything to do with global warming is just stupid and ignorant.
No, you could compare Iraq and Japan very easily. Iraq's goal was and always has been to unify the Middle East under a single banner, much in the same way Japan wanted its Pacific Coprosperity Sphere. Iraq has invaded two of its neighbors, Iran and Kuwait. There was also well founded fear that Iraq wanted to invade Saudi Arabia.
Next, the United Nations did not mandate the occupation of those nations after World War II until after they were already occupied. The UN just rubberstamped what had already been done. Further, the UN had absolutely no say in anything east of West Germany, where the Soviets implemented their brutal political systems.
Finally, the US has proven itself more then capable of installing a democracy without the help of the UN. If you recall, the US and NATO allies launched is military campaign in the Yugoslavia region WITHOUT UN support, ended a genocide, and helped install democracies in all of those nations without the UN. The UN finally gave into UN pressure to certify the military operation AFTER the US had already started dropping bombs. The point is that when the US started to bomb Serbia, the operation was, according to the UN, illegal.
In other examples the US got UN support to defend South Korea from North Korea, but ONLY because the USSR (foolishly) boycotted the security council meeting where the vote took place. If the USSR had not been foolish, North Korea would have been just as 'illegal' as Iraq.
Finally, there is the case of Afghanistan. Afghanistan had a democracy installed very successfully by the US and its NATO allies. Afghanistan has already had one very successful election with a 70% turnout and has managed to disarm all of the major warlords that once ruled the non-Taliban controlled areas. All of that was done, and it was done quickly with less then 20,000 soldiers.
As far as Iraq goes, I think you drastically underestimate the conditions of that nation. Iraq WILL have a democracy. The populace will vote in the upcoming elections. Both the Kurds and the Shiites, which make up over 70% of the population will vote. It certainly won't be perfect, but it sure as hell beats the old system. Better to have a couple of years of civil strife as they work themselves out and learn how to tolerate each other without a brutally oppressive dictator then spend the next hundred years as an autocratic society.
Poster Two The mod system is exactly like Bush! It eats babies!
Jesus, can we get through a post without finding a way to make every single post a flamebait about Bush? Who rates this flamebate informative? For fucks sake. I can't wait for the guy to fucking leave office just so that I can go a few minutes without reading a post in some totally unrelated subject crying about him. Think of what a reduced post count each article would have if Kerry had won.
You actually can have freedom shoved down your throat, it just takes a whole hell of a lot more force then the US is willing to use these days. Case in point, look at Germany and Japan. These are both nations that were occupied by the US and now are thriving democracies.
For better or for worse, no one can stomach the formula that seemed to work so well on those nations. The real problem is that the first step in making both of those nations was to completely destroy them and blatently target the civilian populace. IE, wage total war on them and win. Whatever Iraq is, it is not an example of total war.
So, to keep going with the analogy, you might not like it if I shove chocolate down your throat, but you probably won't complain if I first beat the living piss out of you. After the beating you might decide that didn't like the beating, but the chocolate sure was yummie.
Your bitch is that a few hundred people snagged out of a war zone who were not wearing uniforms are not getting a fair trail by American standards? Let me try and hold back the tears. The moral of the story is that if you are going to fight the US and want to be treated like a soldier, wear a uniform. If you are not going to wear a unform, don't be surprised when the US is leery about just sending you free on your merry way.
Comparing Gunantamo bay to China is like comparing a bully who hit another kid to an axe murderer. Yeah, they are both guilty of violence, clearly it is the same thing.
As for Iraq, the damage done by people being directly killed by American weapons is pocket change, even by the most liberal estimates, compared to the number dead from sanctions that were on Iraq before the war. The sanctions were imposed by the UN. If your nation is a member of the UN, guess what? Your nation merrily helped to starve the people of Iraq too.
You clearly don't understand the WTO if you think the US is ignoring its regulations. The WTO is basically a way for nations to agree upon rules of trade. If a nation breaks one of those rules, it can then go to the WTO. Recognizing that nations are sovereign and not about to give up their right to determine fiscal policy, enforcement of the rules is handled through sanctions. So, if the US decides to break the rules, the WTO can't simply change US law. What it can do is prescribe a method of restitution that other nations will follow.
An example of this is that US got in a trading tift with Europe. I forget the details off of the top of my head, but basically the US argued that they had not done anything wrong. The EU went to the WTO and the WTO ruled that the US was indeed violating their agreement. At that point it started to impose sanctions on the US that got increasingly harsher the longer the US continued with its practices. The US eventually caved and the sanctions were lifted.
I am an adult. I like adult games. Sure, I can sit through Lion King and to some extent enjoy it, but I would much rather watch Band of Brothers. It isn't so much that kids games are not fun, but more that they can't touch on themes and setting that I enjoy. I like gritty, violent, and edgy games. That isn't to say that the first game to throw a gallon of blood over my screen is going to get my money, but a game that holds back a gallon of blood just to keep it kid appropiate is a little irksome.
My girlfriend loves Kingdom Hearts, which to me is a kids game. She loves it, but I personally can't stand the melodrama and the fact that the main character is a kid who hasn't yet grown his pubes. I just feel no connection to the character.
My point is that kids games are not fun, it is that I like more then just kids games. I don't want to by a system that self censors itself. It is the difference between HBO and NBC. Both are networks with a pile of money and the ability to produce their own shows. The difference is that HBO doesn't need to meet any standard of censorship. If HBO feels like kicking out a TV show about the mob, war, or homosexuals, it can. NBC on the other hand is always censoring itself such that it doesn't cross any lines. I personally like it when entertainment is less obsessed with drawing a line in the sand and more interesting in exploring the medium. This is why I will never by a Nintendo system.
You vote with your wallet by taking the consumer whore level down a notch. If football and/or baseball gets you hard, you can still play football and baseball games not from EA or Take 2. Unfortunately for brand name whores, it means that you might have to play a game that doesn't include your favorite logo and steroid chugging players name. You might actually have to enjoy the game for its own sake instead of deluding yourself into thinking that somehow fanatic consumer loyalty to brand named sports is different from fanatic consumer loyalty to brand name jeans.
There is a very large and very wide world of entertainment out there. The fact that people are so upset with a single company is able to sell off rights to make its video games to another company pisses off so many people should be a pretty clear signal that your obsession with that brand name has hit a low. So, "vote with your wallet" and stop buying this shit with such fanatical zeal. If other people don't do the same, who gives a fuck? At least your are no longer being yanked around by your balls by some brand name.
Christ, it isn't like the average American is living a hard life. How fucking hard is it to stop the bitching about being dragged around by your balls by corporations and actually take some actions. When I say 'take some action', I don't mean go to your local college campus, join the socialist club, and make group outings to go protest and clog up traffic. I mean just stop being a consumer whore. It doesn't take that much work. God forbid someone have to go a few days without their favorite logo stamped on their video game.
No, if you repeat press releases enough people tend to get bored and wander away. Maybe a few stupid ones keep staring into the light, but well, we can only hope natural selection will work its magic one those few.
Most people hate press releases because they are always without exception upbeat to absurd levels and completely devoid of information. The only people that like a press release are lazy journalist who spew it back like it is news. Uncoincidently, those news reports tend to have the same effect as the press release.
I tend to agree that people equate Nintendo with kids. Hell, I think that the perception is actually somewhat correct. True, Nintendo has its grown up games, but not many. GTA3 is the reason why I bought my PS2. I want a grown up game complete with violence and cursing. As cute as Mario and a cute little cartoon Zelda is, it simply isn't what I want.
Maybe I should look a little harder, but as far as I can tell, Nintendo promotes cartoons. The few exceptions to the rule are FPS - which I would never buy on consol because I have a perfectly good computer with superior controls and graphics. When I think Nintendo, I think Pokemon, Mario, Donkey Kong, Star Fox, and a whole host of other cartoon games. Hell, each one of those games DID have a cartoon follow up on TV.
Games used to be for kids, but I think what has been proven in this new centaury is that games were for kids because kids picked them up the faster then anyone else. Now those kids are adults, and unlike normal toys, they didn't throw them out. People who grew up with games still like them. Not only do they still like them, but now that have a paycheck each week and the ability to spend significantly more on video games. I am not saying that video game markers should abandon the kids market, just that you would be a fool ignore all of the adults with too much money in their pockets when you make your games. If you want to appeal to adults, you need to make games for them. If people think of your consol and could never imagine playing GTA or some violently and vulgar game, chances are you have been branded a kids consol.
Don't you hate it when corporations send out their black death squads to KILL the competition? Wal-Mart has not death squads, neither does Starbucks. Nations hold a monopoly on force that corporations can't even begin to contemplate competing against. If the US government, or even the government of ass backwards mud-hut-vil decides that it is kicking a corporation out by force and taking all of their stuff, then that corporation is going to lose, every single time.
Further, you miss the larger point that even if a corporation decides to run around with guns, the only thing they can get their hands on are mercenaries. Mercenaries are in it for the money. People like that don't risk their lives. You can inspire a nationalist do go charging head first into a machine gun nest or charge a beach head. We did it all the time in World War II. Hell, people still do it today. When a guy jumps into a car loaded with a bomb and drives it into a check point, he knows that when he pulls the trigger he is going to die.
Fear of corporate armies is silly and stupid. Even if corporations became powerful enough to create their own, and even if nation states didn't smack them down long before they got powerful, you still couldn't override the simple fact that you can inspire a nationalist (military or civilian) to go get himself killed to take an objective, but that a mercenary will tell you to go fuck yourself.
You read WAY too much Sci-Fi and take it for face value. The evil corporate death squads are not going to eat you.
Again, you are missing the point. What damage has he done that would really set off a conservative enough to vote for Kerry? World opinion? Who cares? The US was hero and savior to the world 15 years ago. 60 years ago Germany and Japan was all that was evil. 10 years latter and world opinion had shifted such that the USA was suddenly evil imperialist and Germany and Japan were pretty decent nations. Bush isn't doing any long term damage in a world where opinions hold for less then 10 years.
As to the war, the complaint conservatives had about the war was less that it happened, and more that it was done in a messy manner. A change in leadership wouldn't fix anything now. Conservatives like the idea of liberating a nation, they just don't like when it doesn't work. Kerry never offered up way to win. The best he could articulate was "I have a plan."
As to fiscal responsibility, try convincing a Republican that a Democrat will spend less. It isn't going to happen.
Look, the Democratic party is being killed by conservatives because they simply don't understand them. It is like they are being willfully ignorant and refusing to see the other side of the picture.
I drove around some people canvassing for the Democrats before the election in NH. I cringed every time they ran into someone who was just right of center. There are people that didn't like Bush and probably could have been convinced to vote for Kerry with the slightest of nudges. Alls they needed to do was pick the key topics that the slightly conservative person wanted to hear, and they would have been convinced. Instead, every time they ran into a slight conservative they ended up lambasting GW as a Nazi and finding themselves utterly unable to even see where the conservative was coming from.
If what I saw was anything like the grassroots movements in other places, I think the wildly successful grassroots campaign was the downfall of the Democrats. Sending out wildly fanatical democrats (mostly college students and government employees) to convince a guy who is in the middle of the road not to vote for Bush by being rapidly anti-Bush was a horrible idea. They might have reached a lot of people, but I would be willing to bet a lot of the people they reached walked away disgusted at the other sides inability to articulate a different position and not understand there's.
I personally think it is a massive problem with the democrats. Screaming "no blood for oil" doesn't win anyone. It tends to just piss off commuters. It might energize the base, but it turns everyone else off. If the Democrats could do anything next election, I think it would be to reign in their more radical people truly try to articulate an argument that is in understanding of the opposing sides point of view.
Let me just go ahead and call bull shit on that one. That was never said. Some idiot posted that on the internet and you dutifully quoted it back. For fucks sake people. If it sounds too stupid to be true, it probably is. Take a moment and actually check your sources if you are going to post something that is obviously stupid and untrue.
It isn't irrational, it is just a value judgment. Pretend for a moment that you are a conservative American. Your agenda might look something like lower taxes, inclusion of faith based charity, reduce abortions, reduce government spending, reduce nationalized industries, and general government reduction. This isn't some evil guy out to eat your children, he just believes that the world runs smoother when bureaucrats have less say and less money. None of these views need to be an extreme, they just have to be right of center.
Now, the elections come up. It is pretty clear the Bush is a douche bag in that he charged into Iraq made a mess, and now is struggling to pick up the pieces. You might even agree that invading Iraq was an okay thing to do, but you can't help but agree that Bush did it poorly. Who do you vote for? Yes, you don't like Bush. He spends money and fucks up wars, but what is the alternative? You could pick Kerry, and you might think he is a smart guy, but being the better guy doesn't make his policies any more tolerable. He IS a democrat and likely has a pile of social spending programs that he wants to kick out the door. You also don't want a guy who is going to bow to the UN, an organization that some how elects nations like Libya and Syria onto the human rights committee. Further, Iraq is a mess already and it isn't like a change of command is going to make things better. As far as world opinion? Who cares about world opinion? Eh, heroes one day villains the next. If the world changes its mind about the US as fast as it did once the cold war was over and the USSR wasn't there to scare people, you can safely ignore fickle world opinion.
How does this all add up in the mind of a conservative? It adds up that Bush is no conservative hero, but he certainly is better then a democrat. If this is such a hard exercise, then just think of the inverse. Imagine it was Clinton Vs Dole and Clinton had just gotten, dismantling welfare, decided not to pursue universal health care, signing the largest free trade deal in history, and was accused of being a rapist. Would you still vote for him over Dole? Hell yeah! He might not have been the embodiment of all that is liberal, but he sure as hell beats a Republican if you hold liberal values.
The point is that people pretend to be shocked when they learn that even when the other side has a jackass for a leader they still vote for them. It isn't because they want a jackass to lead, they just don't want the other guy. Better to have an idiot making an attempt to implement your policies then a smart guy in the office dead set against your policies. Keep this in mind and it isn't surprising that Bush managed to get over 50% of the vote. It isn't a ringing endorsement of Bush, it is an endorsement of conservative values (which for the record I disagree with) despite Bush.
What would happen in that case? The same thing that would happen if someone threw some nails out into the road or a cinder block. There are a lot of ways to screw up a car. People intentionally breaking each other's cars is not the problem.
I have a monopoly on long winded rants written by myself do I need a lawsuit? EA has a monopoly on the monopoly of sports crap sold by ESPN. If you narrow down the type of product enough you can claim monopoly on anything. Owning the rights to produce video games based off of another corporations work is by no stretch of the imagination a monopoly in any way, shape, or form. The only reason why it irks people is because they are hopelessly devoted to a brand name. If you want to hitch your life to a brand name, don't be surprised when that brand name has the ability to pull you around by the balls.
If Mattel won the rights to produce American Idol dolls that wouldn't make Mattel a monopoly. There are people that can't live without buying their American Idol doll of Justin (or whatever the fuck one of them is named), just in the same way there are people that simply can't contemplate not buying their official NFL video game complete with all their favorite player stats and names. Begging the government to use the force of law to protect their narrow brand name obsession without a doubt earns the use of words like "whiney", "gutless", "spineless", and "obnoxious".
More to the point, if you want to use the argument that "We have laws in this country that are there to protect competition" you can rest easy in the knowledge that none of those laws have been violated by one company buying up the rights to produce a spin off product using the brand name of another company. Perhaps we should call our congressmen to get them to get Uncle Sam to twist the arms of these corporations to give us the appropriate rights to all the American Idol dolls and Official NFL® football video games that we so rightly deserve.
There are plenty of instances when I am more then happy to see the state wade into the market and act as an arbitrator in cases of disputes and monopolies. A company selling off rights to your favorite brand name to produce a spin off product that you so desperately want doesn't qualify as one of the times when I want the force of law to protect gutless consumerism. If you really think this is the end of the world, do yourself a favor and try a football game without a brand name attached. Even better, realize that the market for entertainment is infinitely vast and that instead of giving money to EA, the NFL, or ESPN, you could be posting angry rants about gutless consumerism on Slashdot and getting just as much entertainment without paying a cent.
There is nothing wrong with a fantasy league other then that people want to use the real thing. Now people are terrified that EA has a monopoly on that name that everyone wants so badly. To this I say, who gives a fuck? Get a grip. This isn't an OS by stretch of the imagination where at least crying monopoly makes sense. This is a sport. A piece of recreation. EA and ESPN hold absolutely no monopoly over the things I can do to recreate. Don't like the way NFL or ESPN is doing business, DON'T WATCH. People have the power to make every stupid corporation under the sun vanish over night, they just are too lazy to do it.
A good friend of mine is a sociologist. She will preach endlessly about how evil Wal-Mart and globalization is - then go to Wal-Mart to buy stuff instead of a mom and pop shop because they offer the largest selection at the lowest price. For fuck's sake. You don't need government action to take these companies down, just a week or two of not giving them your money.
ESPN, the NFL, and EA are perfect examples of this. So ESPN enters into an agreement with EA that any right thinking person should immediately recognize as stifling innovation in sports games. The real question is not when EA is going to get nailed for being a monopoly, but when are YOU going to stop giving ESPN and EA your money. This is football for fuck's sake. Grow a pair of balls, suck it up, and don't watch the shit if you think their practices stink. This is a luxury we are talking about it. It is something that doesn't require loss of life or limb to boycott.
People are whiny and obnoxious these days. I bet easily 95% of the people here that complain about this move on Slashdot are going to bitch up a three page essay on why EA is evil, then fork over a couple of twenties for their NFL 2005. Bah. The whiney masses are so gutless and spineless they deserve to have corporations like EA and ESPN walk all over them.
The US wants very badly to leave Iraq as soon as possible. Even if the US is 100% evil, it isn't making any evil points by pissing around in Iraq. Right now Iraq is one big expense for the US. It is costing money, lives, and the ability to project strength in other places in the world. There is a reason why US is beating on Iraq repeating "HAVE ELECTIONS NOW" over and over again. The US wants Iraq to have government that they are not responsible for so that they can start handing over the responsibility of that place to someone else - and when I say handing over responsibility, I mean they want to write a check and run.
The only reason why the US has not simply packed up and left is because even the US is not that short sighted. If the US left it would create a security vacuum that would be quickly filled with civil war. I can't possibly see how leaving Iraq tomorrow would be compassionate to the Iraqi people. If the US left tomorrow, Iraq would be made up of three (or more) warring nations the next day. The US is willing to spill blood, but it isn't willing to have the amount of blood that would be spilled in the security vacuum of its leaving would create on its hands. Take even the most liberal figures of dead Iraqis and move the decimal point over once or twice if you want to understand the level of bloodshed that a security vacuum in that nation would create.
I see lots of people say that the US should just leave, but then what? What do YOU think would happen if the US left tomorrow? Would Iraq become a happy utopia land? I doubt it. If you understand even a little about the religious and ethnic friction in Iraq, you know that Iraq has all the makings of being the next Serbia. Like the Communist government that held Serbia's ethnic groups back from killing each other, the US is the only thing holding them back right now - and a quick glance at the news shows that even most powerful military on the world is having a damn hard time keeping them from killing each other. Remove the most powerful military in the world that is currently acting as a buffer between these groups and you are talking about some truly horrible bloodshed.
If you have a better idea, that doesn't involve a few million dead Iraqis locked in a civil war that would almost certainly include Syria, Iran, and Turkey, I am all ears.
I don't know why people don't realize this, but I would happily PAY to see the episodes on my computer. Not only would I pay, but I would pay MORE then whatever it is they get per person on advertising. I WANT to watch Enteprise and BSG. I want to watch it in order on my own schedual. I will happily pay for it. I will happily to pay FAR more then what they get on advertising. I have no idea what idiot is preventing me from giving my money to them, but I wish the bastard would get fired.
I wouldn't lose much sleep over one guy vaugly assosiated with the army blowing air out his ass. I highly doubt the US army has a new policy of wasting time fighting cheaters. Some low level guy assosiated with a low level project is just being a dick.
the expansion promises to provide some interesting new features for Norrathians of all stripes insert completely non-inovative tweaks to the game here.
To put it bluntly, who in the hell cares? You are either horribly addicted to the game such that your addiction defies reason and rationality and you will buy any crap they put out, or you are playing WoW. Either you are addicted and already lined up to buy this crap, or you came to your senses a couple years ago and are playing something different.
Not that WoW is the end all be all of inovation, but Everquest sure as shit isn't either. This isn't news. Lots of new games are announced. Why in the hell another Everquest expansion that only caters to addicts with absolutely nothing inovative in it was announced on Slashdot is completely beyond me.
I think the real reason why MMORPGs are starting to fail is only partly because of the points you make. True, the market is limited, but only because the games are. MMORPGs right now take a crack addict like addiction in order to play. They all reward people for spending hundreds of hours on these games per month. There is a fanatical core that will happily pay such games. There is a much larger core of gamers (like myself) that have a pile of money from work to throw around but not that amount of time. I would love to get my fantasy kicks in a massive multiplayer world, but I sure as shit am not going to spend a few hundred hours doing it. Only unemployed, people in school, single people, and soon to be single people have that kind of time to throw around. I don't have a problem shelling out $25 a month for a game I enjoy as that is pocket change, but I do have a problem throwing away hundreds of hours.
MMORPGs simply have failed miserably to be accessible to gamers with jobs and wives. Massive multiplayer worlds and gamers on a limited time budget are not mutually exclusive, but you wouldn't know that from the MMORPGs out there. Until MMORPGs get their shit together and open up to a larger audience they are going to continue to have many miserable failure simply do the small audience which they can appeal to. When I can fire up UT2004 or CS: Source and be death incarnate few hours, why in the hell would I fire up an MMORPG where the best I can do is whack rats for hours on end?
Sure, I might suffer at the hands of some punk who spends every waking moment playing Counter Strike on occasion, but the fact that I AM a gamer means that I generally suffer very little, very rarely, and no matter how good he is I can always get lucky and pop a bullet between his eyes. In an MMORPG, because I don't throw my entire life away in the game I will never ever be able to compete. A level 1 character will never ever beat a level 50 character, even if that level 50 character walks away from the computer for an hour to have dinner. If you think that type of game play is even a little bit appealing to someone with a limited time budget - well, don't be surprised when more redundant time sink MMORPGs get canned due to a lack of an audience. Lots of people want to be apart of a vibrant massive multiplayer world. The problem is that most of those people also have lives that they need to take care as well.
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I can't imagine what they hope to accomplish by this new announcement, other than to perhaps go out with a bang rather than a whimper.
The real threat of North Korea is probably pretty close to what you say. When the USSR was about to dissolve, some military minded people considered invading West Germany and going out with a bang instead of letting the state collapse. Now, the thing to understand that is that the USSR was thankfully run by a ruling party that was big enough to nix truly insane ideas (like nuking the US and invading West Germany). By the time the USSR was getting ready to break up, the old way of having a single all powerful leader was already well on the way out.
The problem with North Korea is that North Korea is ruled by a man who is by all accounts truly insane. Further, he rules with absolute authority. To make matters worse, the North Korean people are brainwashed to a level that we can't even begin to appreciate. Read any travel log to North Korea or any true story that takes place in North Korea. You will hear one thing over and over and over again; the people are totally brainwashed. You raise through the ranks with your ability to shut out reality and tote the party line.
Now, you have an ugly situation. You have a man who is by all accounts totally insane. You have a group of people that are brainwashed enough to follow whatever our he gives. Now, this guy has a few nukes. Mix in a dissolving nation that could collapse at any moment, and you have an ugly situation in the making made worse because the guy at the helm can't be trusted to think rationally.
The only thing Take Two (and EA for that matter) did was buy up franchise naming rights. Whoop-de-fuckin'-do. In the same way a shirt is still a shirt regardless if it has an Abercrombie and Fitch logo smeared across it or not, a baseball game is still a baseball game regardless if it uses "official" names and logos. If a baseball game can not be a success without the proper logos and celebrity player names smeared across it, that is a commentary on the people who buy these games the lack of creativity of the developers who make them, not Take Two's business practices.
EA and Take Two just bought the rights to use another company's logos and player names. It is like Mattel buying the rights to produce American Idol dolls. The fact that a small horde of people can't contemplate their life without an official American Idol doll or official MBA and NFL video game is nobody's fault but their own. This isn't a monopoly, this is people being horribly dependent upon a single brand name.
As for the gaming industry, I consider it a good thing. Instead of stat whoring, someone can now try for something innovative without bothering to consult said corporate overlords at the NFL and MBA. If someone feels like throwing in steroid use into their next video game about baseball or football, the MBA and NFL will not be able to utter a peep. Maybe it will force a little creativity in developers such that they start to develop some serious games with strong multiplayer components and balance. Weaning developers from the tit of their respective sports franchise and forcing a little creativity is only a good thing.
Look at the bright side, if all developers piss themselves in fear of making a game without official NFL and MBA branding, and EA and Take Two are the only two games in town, it is only fucking football and baseball. Nothing important.
To be blunt, who cares? I don't want celebrities, I want video games. Getting a spot in the tabloid section won't make me feel like video games are suddenly legitimate.
The simple fact of the matter is that video games bring in more money the movies. Period. They are going to keep making more and more money. The people that matter are taking it seriously and pumping millions of dollars into the industry.
The rest of this crap is just ego stroking and people being insecure with themselves. I don't care if video game makers get their ego stroked as much as the guy who makes my computer (which is to say not at all outside of engineering circles). I also don't care if some people feel insecure because video games don't have the same pop acceptance of MTV and fill in shitty boy band of the month here.
Tsunamis are caused by earthquakes and world health is and has been dramatically improving. The median world life expectancy goes up every single year. So, unless the earth is a real person that throws out earthquakes just to be a dick, the earth isn't trying to tell us anything. If you want to argue that the climate is changing, go for it, but arguing that earth quakes have anything to do with global warming is just stupid and ignorant.
No, you could compare Iraq and Japan very easily. Iraq's goal was and always has been to unify the Middle East under a single banner, much in the same way Japan wanted its Pacific Coprosperity Sphere. Iraq has invaded two of its neighbors, Iran and Kuwait. There was also well founded fear that Iraq wanted to invade Saudi Arabia.
Next, the United Nations did not mandate the occupation of those nations after World War II until after they were already occupied. The UN just rubberstamped what had already been done. Further, the UN had absolutely no say in anything east of West Germany, where the Soviets implemented their brutal political systems.
Finally, the US has proven itself more then capable of installing a democracy without the help of the UN. If you recall, the US and NATO allies launched is military campaign in the Yugoslavia region WITHOUT UN support, ended a genocide, and helped install democracies in all of those nations without the UN. The UN finally gave into UN pressure to certify the military operation AFTER the US had already started dropping bombs. The point is that when the US started to bomb Serbia, the operation was, according to the UN, illegal.
In other examples the US got UN support to defend South Korea from North Korea, but ONLY because the USSR (foolishly) boycotted the security council meeting where the vote took place. If the USSR had not been foolish, North Korea would have been just as 'illegal' as Iraq.
Finally, there is the case of Afghanistan. Afghanistan had a democracy installed very successfully by the US and its NATO allies. Afghanistan has already had one very successful election with a 70% turnout and has managed to disarm all of the major warlords that once ruled the non-Taliban controlled areas. All of that was done, and it was done quickly with less then 20,000 soldiers.
As far as Iraq goes, I think you drastically underestimate the conditions of that nation. Iraq WILL have a democracy. The populace will vote in the upcoming elections. Both the Kurds and the Shiites, which make up over 70% of the population will vote. It certainly won't be perfect, but it sure as hell beats the old system. Better to have a couple of years of civil strife as they work themselves out and learn how to tolerate each other without a brutally oppressive dictator then spend the next hundred years as an autocratic society.
Poster One
I don't like mod system on slashdot.
Poster Two
The mod system is exactly like Bush! It eats babies!
Jesus, can we get through a post without finding a way to make every single post a flamebait about Bush? Who rates this flamebate informative? For fucks sake. I can't wait for the guy to fucking leave office just so that I can go a few minutes without reading a post in some totally unrelated subject crying about him. Think of what a reduced post count each article would have if Kerry had won.
You actually can have freedom shoved down your throat, it just takes a whole hell of a lot more force then the US is willing to use these days. Case in point, look at Germany and Japan. These are both nations that were occupied by the US and now are thriving democracies.
For better or for worse, no one can stomach the formula that seemed to work so well on those nations. The real problem is that the first step in making both of those nations was to completely destroy them and blatently target the civilian populace. IE, wage total war on them and win. Whatever Iraq is, it is not an example of total war.
So, to keep going with the analogy, you might not like it if I shove chocolate down your throat, but you probably won't complain if I first beat the living piss out of you. After the beating you might decide that didn't like the beating, but the chocolate sure was yummie.
Guantanamo bay.
Your bitch is that a few hundred people snagged out of a war zone who were not wearing uniforms are not getting a fair trail by American standards? Let me try and hold back the tears. The moral of the story is that if you are going to fight the US and want to be treated like a soldier, wear a uniform. If you are not going to wear a unform, don't be surprised when the US is leery about just sending you free on your merry way.
Comparing Gunantamo bay to China is like comparing a bully who hit another kid to an axe murderer. Yeah, they are both guilty of violence, clearly it is the same thing.
As for Iraq, the damage done by people being directly killed by American weapons is pocket change, even by the most liberal estimates, compared to the number dead from sanctions that were on Iraq before the war. The sanctions were imposed by the UN. If your nation is a member of the UN, guess what? Your nation merrily helped to starve the people of Iraq too.
You clearly don't understand the WTO if you think the US is ignoring its regulations. The WTO is basically a way for nations to agree upon rules of trade. If a nation breaks one of those rules, it can then go to the WTO. Recognizing that nations are sovereign and not about to give up their right to determine fiscal policy, enforcement of the rules is handled through sanctions. So, if the US decides to break the rules, the WTO can't simply change US law. What it can do is prescribe a method of restitution that other nations will follow.
An example of this is that US got in a trading tift with Europe. I forget the details off of the top of my head, but basically the US argued that they had not done anything wrong. The EU went to the WTO and the WTO ruled that the US was indeed violating their agreement. At that point it started to impose sanctions on the US that got increasingly harsher the longer the US continued with its practices. The US eventually caved and the sanctions were lifted.
I am an adult. I like adult games. Sure, I can sit through Lion King and to some extent enjoy it, but I would much rather watch Band of Brothers. It isn't so much that kids games are not fun, but more that they can't touch on themes and setting that I enjoy. I like gritty, violent, and edgy games. That isn't to say that the first game to throw a gallon of blood over my screen is going to get my money, but a game that holds back a gallon of blood just to keep it kid appropiate is a little irksome.
My girlfriend loves Kingdom Hearts, which to me is a kids game. She loves it, but I personally can't stand the melodrama and the fact that the main character is a kid who hasn't yet grown his pubes. I just feel no connection to the character.
My point is that kids games are not fun, it is that I like more then just kids games. I don't want to by a system that self censors itself. It is the difference between HBO and NBC. Both are networks with a pile of money and the ability to produce their own shows. The difference is that HBO doesn't need to meet any standard of censorship. If HBO feels like kicking out a TV show about the mob, war, or homosexuals, it can. NBC on the other hand is always censoring itself such that it doesn't cross any lines. I personally like it when entertainment is less obsessed with drawing a line in the sand and more interesting in exploring the medium. This is why I will never by a Nintendo system.
You vote with your wallet by taking the consumer whore level down a notch. If football and/or baseball gets you hard, you can still play football and baseball games not from EA or Take 2. Unfortunately for brand name whores, it means that you might have to play a game that doesn't include your favorite logo and steroid chugging players name. You might actually have to enjoy the game for its own sake instead of deluding yourself into thinking that somehow fanatic consumer loyalty to brand named sports is different from fanatic consumer loyalty to brand name jeans.
There is a very large and very wide world of entertainment out there. The fact that people are so upset with a single company is able to sell off rights to make its video games to another company pisses off so many people should be a pretty clear signal that your obsession with that brand name has hit a low. So, "vote with your wallet" and stop buying this shit with such fanatical zeal. If other people don't do the same, who gives a fuck? At least your are no longer being yanked around by your balls by some brand name.
Christ, it isn't like the average American is living a hard life. How fucking hard is it to stop the bitching about being dragged around by your balls by corporations and actually take some actions. When I say 'take some action', I don't mean go to your local college campus, join the socialist club, and make group outings to go protest and clog up traffic. I mean just stop being a consumer whore. It doesn't take that much work. God forbid someone have to go a few days without their favorite logo stamped on their video game.
No, if you repeat press releases enough people tend to get bored and wander away. Maybe a few stupid ones keep staring into the light, but well, we can only hope natural selection will work its magic one those few.
Most people hate press releases because they are always without exception upbeat to absurd levels and completely devoid of information. The only people that like a press release are lazy journalist who spew it back like it is news. Uncoincidently, those news reports tend to have the same effect as the press release.
I tend to agree that people equate Nintendo with kids. Hell, I think that the perception is actually somewhat correct. True, Nintendo has its grown up games, but not many. GTA3 is the reason why I bought my PS2. I want a grown up game complete with violence and cursing. As cute as Mario and a cute little cartoon Zelda is, it simply isn't what I want.
Maybe I should look a little harder, but as far as I can tell, Nintendo promotes cartoons. The few exceptions to the rule are FPS - which I would never buy on consol because I have a perfectly good computer with superior controls and graphics. When I think Nintendo, I think Pokemon, Mario, Donkey Kong, Star Fox, and a whole host of other cartoon games. Hell, each one of those games DID have a cartoon follow up on TV.
Games used to be for kids, but I think what has been proven in this new centaury is that games were for kids because kids picked them up the faster then anyone else. Now those kids are adults, and unlike normal toys, they didn't throw them out. People who grew up with games still like them. Not only do they still like them, but now that have a paycheck each week and the ability to spend significantly more on video games. I am not saying that video game markers should abandon the kids market, just that you would be a fool ignore all of the adults with too much money in their pockets when you make your games. If you want to appeal to adults, you need to make games for them. If people think of your consol and could never imagine playing GTA or some violently and vulgar game, chances are you have been branded a kids consol.
Don't you hate it when corporations send out their black death squads to KILL the competition? Wal-Mart has not death squads, neither does Starbucks. Nations hold a monopoly on force that corporations can't even begin to contemplate competing against. If the US government, or even the government of ass backwards mud-hut-vil decides that it is kicking a corporation out by force and taking all of their stuff, then that corporation is going to lose, every single time.
Further, you miss the larger point that even if a corporation decides to run around with guns, the only thing they can get their hands on are mercenaries. Mercenaries are in it for the money. People like that don't risk their lives. You can inspire a nationalist do go charging head first into a machine gun nest or charge a beach head. We did it all the time in World War II. Hell, people still do it today. When a guy jumps into a car loaded with a bomb and drives it into a check point, he knows that when he pulls the trigger he is going to die.
Fear of corporate armies is silly and stupid. Even if corporations became powerful enough to create their own, and even if nation states didn't smack them down long before they got powerful, you still couldn't override the simple fact that you can inspire a nationalist (military or civilian) to go get himself killed to take an objective, but that a mercenary will tell you to go fuck yourself.
You read WAY too much Sci-Fi and take it for face value. The evil corporate death squads are not going to eat you.
Again, you are missing the point. What damage has he done that would really set off a conservative enough to vote for Kerry? World opinion? Who cares? The US was hero and savior to the world 15 years ago. 60 years ago Germany and Japan was all that was evil. 10 years latter and world opinion had shifted such that the USA was suddenly evil imperialist and Germany and Japan were pretty decent nations. Bush isn't doing any long term damage in a world where opinions hold for less then 10 years.
As to the war, the complaint conservatives had about the war was less that it happened, and more that it was done in a messy manner. A change in leadership wouldn't fix anything now. Conservatives like the idea of liberating a nation, they just don't like when it doesn't work. Kerry never offered up way to win. The best he could articulate was "I have a plan."
As to fiscal responsibility, try convincing a Republican that a Democrat will spend less. It isn't going to happen.
Look, the Democratic party is being killed by conservatives because they simply don't understand them. It is like they are being willfully ignorant and refusing to see the other side of the picture.
I drove around some people canvassing for the Democrats before the election in NH. I cringed every time they ran into someone who was just right of center. There are people that didn't like Bush and probably could have been convinced to vote for Kerry with the slightest of nudges. Alls they needed to do was pick the key topics that the slightly conservative person wanted to hear, and they would have been convinced. Instead, every time they ran into a slight conservative they ended up lambasting GW as a Nazi and finding themselves utterly unable to even see where the conservative was coming from.
If what I saw was anything like the grassroots movements in other places, I think the wildly successful grassroots campaign was the downfall of the Democrats. Sending out wildly fanatical democrats (mostly college students and government employees) to convince a guy who is in the middle of the road not to vote for Bush by being rapidly anti-Bush was a horrible idea. They might have reached a lot of people, but I would be willing to bet a lot of the people they reached walked away disgusted at the other sides inability to articulate a different position and not understand there's.
I personally think it is a massive problem with the democrats. Screaming "no blood for oil" doesn't win anyone. It tends to just piss off commuters. It might energize the base, but it turns everyone else off. If the Democrats could do anything next election, I think it would be to reign in their more radical people truly try to articulate an argument that is in understanding of the opposing sides point of view.
Let me just go ahead and call bull shit on that one. That was never said. Some idiot posted that on the internet and you dutifully quoted it back. For fucks sake people. If it sounds too stupid to be true, it probably is. Take a moment and actually check your sources if you are going to post something that is obviously stupid and untrue.
It isn't irrational, it is just a value judgment. Pretend for a moment that you are a conservative American. Your agenda might look something like lower taxes, inclusion of faith based charity, reduce abortions, reduce government spending, reduce nationalized industries, and general government reduction. This isn't some evil guy out to eat your children, he just believes that the world runs smoother when bureaucrats have less say and less money. None of these views need to be an extreme, they just have to be right of center.
Now, the elections come up. It is pretty clear the Bush is a douche bag in that he charged into Iraq made a mess, and now is struggling to pick up the pieces. You might even agree that invading Iraq was an okay thing to do, but you can't help but agree that Bush did it poorly. Who do you vote for? Yes, you don't like Bush. He spends money and fucks up wars, but what is the alternative? You could pick Kerry, and you might think he is a smart guy, but being the better guy doesn't make his policies any more tolerable. He IS a democrat and likely has a pile of social spending programs that he wants to kick out the door. You also don't want a guy who is going to bow to the UN, an organization that some how elects nations like Libya and Syria onto the human rights committee. Further, Iraq is a mess already and it isn't like a change of command is going to make things better. As far as world opinion? Who cares about world opinion? Eh, heroes one day villains the next. If the world changes its mind about the US as fast as it did once the cold war was over and the USSR wasn't there to scare people, you can safely ignore fickle world opinion.
How does this all add up in the mind of a conservative? It adds up that Bush is no conservative hero, but he certainly is better then a democrat. If this is such a hard exercise, then just think of the inverse. Imagine it was Clinton Vs Dole and Clinton had just gotten, dismantling welfare, decided not to pursue universal health care, signing the largest free trade deal in history, and was accused of being a rapist. Would you still vote for him over Dole? Hell yeah! He might not have been the embodiment of all that is liberal, but he sure as hell beats a Republican if you hold liberal values.
The point is that people pretend to be shocked when they learn that even when the other side has a jackass for a leader they still vote for them. It isn't because they want a jackass to lead, they just don't want the other guy. Better to have an idiot making an attempt to implement your policies then a smart guy in the office dead set against your policies. Keep this in mind and it isn't surprising that Bush managed to get over 50% of the vote. It isn't a ringing endorsement of Bush, it is an endorsement of conservative values (which for the record I disagree with) despite Bush.
What would happen in that case? The same thing that would happen if someone threw some nails out into the road or a cinder block. There are a lot of ways to screw up a car. People intentionally breaking each other's cars is not the problem.
I have a monopoly on long winded rants written by myself do I need a lawsuit? EA has a monopoly on the monopoly of sports crap sold by ESPN. If you narrow down the type of product enough you can claim monopoly on anything. Owning the rights to produce video games based off of another corporations work is by no stretch of the imagination a monopoly in any way, shape, or form. The only reason why it irks people is because they are hopelessly devoted to a brand name. If you want to hitch your life to a brand name, don't be surprised when that brand name has the ability to pull you around by the balls.
If Mattel won the rights to produce American Idol dolls that wouldn't make Mattel a monopoly. There are people that can't live without buying their American Idol doll of Justin (or whatever the fuck one of them is named), just in the same way there are people that simply can't contemplate not buying their official NFL video game complete with all their favorite player stats and names. Begging the government to use the force of law to protect their narrow brand name obsession without a doubt earns the use of words like "whiney", "gutless", "spineless", and "obnoxious".
More to the point, if you want to use the argument that "We have laws in this country that are there to protect competition" you can rest easy in the knowledge that none of those laws have been violated by one company buying up the rights to produce a spin off product using the brand name of another company. Perhaps we should call our congressmen to get them to get Uncle Sam to twist the arms of these corporations to give us the appropriate rights to all the American Idol dolls and Official NFL® football video games that we so rightly deserve.
There are plenty of instances when I am more then happy to see the state wade into the market and act as an arbitrator in cases of disputes and monopolies. A company selling off rights to your favorite brand name to produce a spin off product that you so desperately want doesn't qualify as one of the times when I want the force of law to protect gutless consumerism. If you really think this is the end of the world, do yourself a favor and try a football game without a brand name attached. Even better, realize that the market for entertainment is infinitely vast and that instead of giving money to EA, the NFL, or ESPN, you could be posting angry rants about gutless consumerism on Slashdot and getting just as much entertainment without paying a cent.
There is nothing wrong with a fantasy league other then that people want to use the real thing. Now people are terrified that EA has a monopoly on that name that everyone wants so badly. To this I say, who gives a fuck? Get a grip. This isn't an OS by stretch of the imagination where at least crying monopoly makes sense. This is a sport. A piece of recreation. EA and ESPN hold absolutely no monopoly over the things I can do to recreate. Don't like the way NFL or ESPN is doing business, DON'T WATCH. People have the power to make every stupid corporation under the sun vanish over night, they just are too lazy to do it.
A good friend of mine is a sociologist. She will preach endlessly about how evil Wal-Mart and globalization is - then go to Wal-Mart to buy stuff instead of a mom and pop shop because they offer the largest selection at the lowest price. For fuck's sake. You don't need government action to take these companies down, just a week or two of not giving them your money.
ESPN, the NFL, and EA are perfect examples of this. So ESPN enters into an agreement with EA that any right thinking person should immediately recognize as stifling innovation in sports games. The real question is not when EA is going to get nailed for being a monopoly, but when are YOU going to stop giving ESPN and EA your money. This is football for fuck's sake. Grow a pair of balls, suck it up, and don't watch the shit if you think their practices stink. This is a luxury we are talking about it. It is something that doesn't require loss of life or limb to boycott.
People are whiny and obnoxious these days. I bet easily 95% of the people here that complain about this move on Slashdot are going to bitch up a three page essay on why EA is evil, then fork over a couple of twenties for their NFL 2005. Bah. The whiney masses are so gutless and spineless they deserve to have corporations like EA and ESPN walk all over them.
The US wants very badly to leave Iraq as soon as possible. Even if the US is 100% evil, it isn't making any evil points by pissing around in Iraq. Right now Iraq is one big expense for the US. It is costing money, lives, and the ability to project strength in other places in the world. There is a reason why US is beating on Iraq repeating "HAVE ELECTIONS NOW" over and over again. The US wants Iraq to have government that they are not responsible for so that they can start handing over the responsibility of that place to someone else - and when I say handing over responsibility, I mean they want to write a check and run.
The only reason why the US has not simply packed up and left is because even the US is not that short sighted. If the US left it would create a security vacuum that would be quickly filled with civil war. I can't possibly see how leaving Iraq tomorrow would be compassionate to the Iraqi people. If the US left tomorrow, Iraq would be made up of three (or more) warring nations the next day. The US is willing to spill blood, but it isn't willing to have the amount of blood that would be spilled in the security vacuum of its leaving would create on its hands. Take even the most liberal figures of dead Iraqis and move the decimal point over once or twice if you want to understand the level of bloodshed that a security vacuum in that nation would create.
I see lots of people say that the US should just leave, but then what? What do YOU think would happen if the US left tomorrow? Would Iraq become a happy utopia land? I doubt it. If you understand even a little about the religious and ethnic friction in Iraq, you know that Iraq has all the makings of being the next Serbia. Like the Communist government that held Serbia's ethnic groups back from killing each other, the US is the only thing holding them back right now - and a quick glance at the news shows that even most powerful military on the world is having a damn hard time keeping them from killing each other. Remove the most powerful military in the world that is currently acting as a buffer between these groups and you are talking about some truly horrible bloodshed.
If you have a better idea, that doesn't involve a few million dead Iraqis locked in a civil war that would almost certainly include Syria, Iran, and Turkey, I am all ears.
I don't know why people don't realize this, but I would happily PAY to see the episodes on my computer. Not only would I pay, but I would pay MORE then whatever it is they get per person on advertising. I WANT to watch Enteprise and BSG. I want to watch it in order on my own schedual. I will happily pay for it. I will happily to pay FAR more then what they get on advertising. I have no idea what idiot is preventing me from giving my money to them, but I wish the bastard would get fired.
I wouldn't lose much sleep over one guy vaugly assosiated with the army blowing air out his ass. I highly doubt the US army has a new policy of wasting time fighting cheaters. Some low level guy assosiated with a low level project is just being a dick.
the expansion promises to provide some interesting new features for Norrathians of all stripes insert completely non-inovative tweaks to the game here.
To put it bluntly, who in the hell cares? You are either horribly addicted to the game such that your addiction defies reason and rationality and you will buy any crap they put out, or you are playing WoW. Either you are addicted and already lined up to buy this crap, or you came to your senses a couple years ago and are playing something different.
Not that WoW is the end all be all of inovation, but Everquest sure as shit isn't either. This isn't news. Lots of new games are announced. Why in the hell another Everquest expansion that only caters to addicts with absolutely nothing inovative in it was announced on Slashdot is completely beyond me.
I think the real reason why MMORPGs are starting to fail is only partly because of the points you make. True, the market is limited, but only because the games are. MMORPGs right now take a crack addict like addiction in order to play. They all reward people for spending hundreds of hours on these games per month. There is a fanatical core that will happily pay such games. There is a much larger core of gamers (like myself) that have a pile of money from work to throw around but not that amount of time. I would love to get my fantasy kicks in a massive multiplayer world, but I sure as shit am not going to spend a few hundred hours doing it. Only unemployed, people in school, single people, and soon to be single people have that kind of time to throw around. I don't have a problem shelling out $25 a month for a game I enjoy as that is pocket change, but I do have a problem throwing away hundreds of hours.
MMORPGs simply have failed miserably to be accessible to gamers with jobs and wives. Massive multiplayer worlds and gamers on a limited time budget are not mutually exclusive, but you wouldn't know that from the MMORPGs out there. Until MMORPGs get their shit together and open up to a larger audience they are going to continue to have many miserable failure simply do the small audience which they can appeal to. When I can fire up UT2004 or CS: Source and be death incarnate few hours, why in the hell would I fire up an MMORPG where the best I can do is whack rats for hours on end?
Sure, I might suffer at the hands of some punk who spends every waking moment playing Counter Strike on occasion, but the fact that I AM a gamer means that I generally suffer very little, very rarely, and no matter how good he is I can always get lucky and pop a bullet between his eyes. In an MMORPG, because I don't throw my entire life away in the game I will never ever be able to compete. A level 1 character will never ever beat a level 50 character, even if that level 50 character walks away from the computer for an hour to have dinner. If you think that type of game play is even a little bit appealing to someone with a limited time budget - well, don't be surprised when more redundant time sink MMORPGs get canned due to a lack of an audience. Lots of people want to be apart of a vibrant massive multiplayer world. The problem is that most of those people also have lives that they need to take care as well.