There may well be no business model at present for HD Broadcasting, since few advertisers would want to pay the premium to advertise their crap.
But, it will not be broadcasters and advertisers that drive demand. The demand will come from consumers who want to watch their favorite TV shows in HD.
Now, it is entirely possible that even this sort of demand still wont quite be enough to justify the current sort of business model. That does not mean some new business model will come about which will allow those who wish to watch HD content to receive it. I could easily imagine an on demand business model for HD content where people pay to subscribe to an entire season and download episodes as they become available. Its not exactly broadcasting, but it may work.
HD is starting to catch on, and given the choice, people would prefer to watch their prefered shows in HD instead of standard-def. But it may still be a while before HD becomes the norm. Unlike DVD's which caught on over night, it is not yet clear what the best way to do HD content is. DVD just replaced VHS. The business model stayed the same, but just became more profitable. But HD content may require the studios to abandon the business model of the 30 second commercial spot.
As you increase the graphics capability of the target platform, the required art assets increase as well. However, while the pixels only increase by a factor of 4, the amount of graphics resources, and the difficulty of creating them, increases by much more than a factor of 4.
To put it simply, it takes longer to model and animate a character with 100 000 polygons than it does to do the same to a character with only 1000 polygons.
Lets start with the basic geometry. A faster machine can draw more triangles. Animating a low polygon character is easier than a high polygon character (fewer verticies to account for). What might have looked good enough on a low end machine will need alot more work on a high end machine. You also start having to worry about level of detail. With a faster machine, you will have to draw objects that are farther away. You still dont want to draw it at full detail though, so you make a low poly version of the same object, and decide which set of geometry and textures to use to render it at run time. So instead of making 100 enemies, your essentially making 200 (albeit half are simpler).
And lets say you add physics and destructible objects to a game that did not have them before. So now when you shoot that crate, it shatters and its bits fly around and bounce. Ok, now in addition to modeling the intact object, you have to figure out how your going to render its shattered parts, and you have to add information for things like friction and mass, and take the time to fine tune those values.
On top of that, the more game assets you have to create, the longer it takes to process all those goddamn polygons and textures when compiling the level data into a playable level file. At the start of each new console generation, it takes a while before your working on machines that can process all those disparate files. When the artists are making the levels, to test them they have to export them, play them and then tweak them. More detail means it takes longer to iterate on the game assets.
More Art means More Artists means more money.
And of course, the PS3 is nothing like the PS2, so you have to throw out or retool a great deal of tech.
Want to know why the Wii will do well? Its meant to handle geometry about on par with a standard XBox, so there its easier to generate art assets. Its api's are nearly identical to the gamecube, so about 90% of the old tech and tool chains are still viable. And the dev kits are cheap. The Wii is getting alot of developer support because its much easier to make a profit on its launch titles than it will be for a PS3 launch title.
Note: I am a game developer, and therefore have at least an informed opinion on this.
If your dead focused on going into games, then getting the GMI degree is probably a better bet. But if you want to keep your options open, go for the CS degree.
The primary difference would be that with the GMI degree, you will end up taking courses that are very important to Game development at the expense of some other skills. (ie: I would guess that the GMI degree will get you courses on Matrix and Vector math, and the particulars of pixel shaders, instead of things like compiler theory and systems programming).
The trade off is that there really aren't a whole lot of jobs out there that require the particular combination of 3d Math and graphics knowledge that game development requires. The graphics and animation stuff will come in handy if you decide to try your hand at making special effects software, but knowing how to transform a point from local space to screen space wont help you get a job doing Linux programming for a telecom company.
On top of that, the games industry is just not as mature an industry as other programming jobs. Things like the ea_spouse incident with EA's overtime practices are one aspect. And the industry as a whole needs to get a much better grip on the project management side of things. Things have been improving, but there is still a long way to go.
Anyway, if you just want to be a programmer, the CS degree is the way to go. But if you want to be a game programmer specifically, go for the GMI degree.
Given that even today, there are documented instances of men and women having sex with sheep, horses, and donkeys, and human proclivities for rape, the common genes do not necessarily mean love. One party could have simply violated the other.
People generally do not want original content in and of its self. Original content is good from time to time, but when people sit down for a few hours of hard core gaming, they dont necessarily want original content. They want good content.
You dont need to make original games, just good ones, and unlike movies, games tend to improve from one sequel to the next.
People will go for a sequel because if the original game was good, the sequel is usually at least as good, or close enough to it. Unlike movie sequels, games have more assets with which to appeal to their audience. Solid and engaging gameplay is more important than story content. The storyline for a sequel may not be as strong as the original, but most of the time the gameplay is intact. And if the gameplay is intact, it can deliver the same things that the first game did, but do so in new levels. Gameplay in sequels generally gets improved from one iteration to the next as well, since they have all the user input from the first game to fall back on. They can reduce or remove elements of the originals that did not appeal, and improve and build upon elements that did work.
Now, not all videogame sequels are as good as their predecessors, but if the orignal was a 9 out of 10 game, the sequel is probably no worse than 7 out of 10 at the worst.
Edit wars are going to take on a whole new meaning.
Wikipedia has gained a reputation for being a somewhat less than reputable source of information, due to edit wars, vandalism, and outright inaccuracies. But the intent is unquestionably been good, and while not a perfect source of information, for all non research uses, its usually good enough. And the way that the information is not controled by any one interest is seen as being good in that it prevents censorship.
Forking the project will cause alot of noise and debate, but in the end, I think the final result wont have any great signifigance. Forked or not, Wikipedia is probably not going to disappear.
I am glad to see that the advertisers are getting desperate enough to get stupid.
I like my TV shows, but there is something about the advertising industry that I find aesthetically repulsive in terms of its purpose and impact on civilization.
I am looking forward to the day when TV shows are purchased by the season commercial free. This is just one more step along that road.
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Pong != Art, therefore Video Game = Art
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Are Videogames Art?
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· Score: 1, Insightful
As a game developer, I would say that games are not quite art. There are a great many aspects of a game that can be considered art. The games visuals, the music composition, and the story are all art. But simply because the medium can make great use of art, not all aspects quite qualify.
The definition of art, for example, does not quite cover things like the gameplay design, the AI, and the game mechanics. Can anyone here actually consider the game Pong as art?
The word 'art' is all about aesthetic properties of the object or thing in question. Pong proves its possible to have a solid game with essentially nothing in it that is aesthetically pleasing. The sound effects suck, the graphics suck, and there is no narrative what so ever. It is still very much a game, but it is not art.
It is possible to create a game that has very compelling art that utterly fails as a game due to ill conceived controls, or having other short comings that basically make the game unplayable.
Art can make a game much better, but that does not mean video games in general are art. So to paraphrase the C++ inheritence concepts from Effective C++:
Games possess a 'has a' relation ship to art, not an 'is a' relationship.
Much of penny arcades humor is based on parody and satire of either popculture or videogames. To maintain this humor in a for profit video game, would they need to gain permission from those copyright holders?
Than again, I am sure that there are plenty of characters and ideas they can use which they do not get anywhere near that problem.
Than I suppose that makes Nintendo the submarine lurking below the waves, with no one quite knowing where it is or what it will ultimately do. Sure, it has a compliment of torpedo's, but will they be enough to sink either opponent?
As a disclaimer, its not like I am in any way qualified to have an opinion on this matter.
Now, as far as I kow, the big dig needed to happen, because Bostons traffic situation was essentially untenable. It was a daring solution, and one that was difficult, but at its core, it was probably the best idea to run with.
The problem is that someone wanted it done faster than was reasonable, or cheaper, or both. So corners were cut.
If the problems that currently exist are the sort that can be fixed with repairs, than all is not lost. It will just mean that an effort of pay only say, 80% of what it should have cost will instead cost 130%, plus the lives of a few motorists, and jail time for some people.
If the problems are not repairible, that is when things will get very intresting.
They go on and on about how console mascots are dead and they dont even mention Mario?
Also, the article says that Sonic failed when Sega stopped being true to what Sonic the Hedgehog was a symbol of. I suppose if you want to extend the metaphore of the article, Mario is still around because Nintendo, for better or for worse, never stopped being true to its self. I will concede that Mario is not quite the icon he once was, and while he endures as a symbol, the thing he is a symbol has changed a bit. Mario now evokes just as much nostalgia as anything else. A callback to when Games were Games, and not wannabe movies or epics.
And to quote William Shatner of all things, if Mario is a has been mascot, it also means he once was, and perhaps could be again.
Basically, they are still around. Mario never went anywhere, and the Master Cheif is about as close as it gets for Microsoft right now. I dont think Sony ever really had a mascot type game though.
Despite being still around, they just arent as important. The 3rd party devs have gotten better, and they can put out a game just as strong as any 1st party game. Sega / Sonic actually became a 3rd party game. So now, the sort of game that can become an iconic fanchise is very likely to be a multi-platform title.
I cannot much say that I like anything that I am aware of that EA has put out. But, they are the biggest beast in the industry as far as publishers go, and having EA do full scale production on the Wii means a stronger 3rd party support.
And its strong 3rd party support that Nintendo has lacked since the N64.
I would also guess that EA is supporting the Wii as much due to lower dev costs as anthing else. EA likes profit, and lower dev costs mean more potential profit.
As far as I know, Nintendo has the rights to the IP for Eternal Darkness, since they published it as a 2nd party title. Also, the split between Nintendo and Silicon Knights was somewhat rancorous as I understand it. Given that, it seems unlikely that a sequel will happen unless Silicon Knights can persuade a publisher to buy the IP from Nintendo.
The only other viable situation would be for the game to come out on the Wii, but that wont happen unless the poeple at Ninendo or those at Silicon KNights that were central to the split have parted ways or something.
Of course, I could just be wildly mistaken about who currently holds the rights to the IP.
Bean was smarter than Ender (smart to an unholy / scary degree if you read the Bean quartet). However, in battle school, Beans record as a team leader was 0 - 10 compared to Enders perfect record.
Bean's failure rate was so high because he was trying to find out what strategies worked and which ones did not, and he did so by examining strategies that no one in thier right mind would try, just to see why they failed, and what things about them potentially worked. He did this because he did not care about the win / loss record, and he was using the school environment to find out what worked and what didn't.
And when he got out of the battle school, he never failed once.
Getting back to Google, they are trying products that may or may not work. Not everything needs to be a screaming huge success, and if gmail turned into a huge disaster, its not like it would invalidate their business model for Google Search.
Having not seen the cheat in action, I cannot be certain.
I would guess that the sex game was a full feature for quite a while that was essentially cut do to legal liability. It is very possible that it was cut very late in development. Plenty of games ship with assets on the install disks that are not used by the final product.
This in turn would mean that the feature probably shows up as a feature in a design document somewhere. Take 2, being the publisher, probably has internal documentation debating keeping or cutting the feature, and quite possible a document that ultimately telling the developers to cut it.
Being late in development, the hooks to trigger the missions were probably just removed at a script level. And that would result in the possibility of someone restoring a few lines of game script to re-enable the code.
I can see why the Hollywood film studios want tired pricing. Some movies are just better than others, can they can command the higher price. Also, some movies are just more expensive to make than others.
Than again, if they want to use that arguement, why the hell does a ticket to a LotR or KingKong cost me the same amount of money to see in theaters as Gigli?
The one edge that naitve code will always have over interpreted code is that naitive code can just be loaded and fed to the CPU. An added concern is that most comptuers are doing more than one thing at a time. If all the CPU had to do was interpret one program and run it, that would be one thing. But if the CPU is trying to run 5 or 12 apps, and it has to interpret more than one of them, then there will be a bit of a logjam.
The notion that secret levels, unlockible content, and other game features of that sort are somehow an unfair exploitation of the consumer is quite frankly deeply flawed.
My counter argument is simple. Bragging rights. People like being able to say that they have acheived a difficult task, or performed a task better then their peers. If something is too easy, it is often not worth doing. Or to use a much more colourful metaphor, no one brags about nailing the villiage slut.
Complaining about difficult games that hide content, at least to me, is much like a fan of action movies complaining about the latest Meg Ryan romantic comedy not being entertaining. If you dont like working your way through level based gameplay, then why are you playing them? If you want to play in a sandbox type game with all the features instantly accessible, then play those kinds of games.
The one thing that level based gameplay does excell at is allowing a novice player to learn the game as he progresses, without having his ego crushed. Take someone who has never played Super Monkeyball, put him on a master mode level, and watch how long it takes him to throw the controller away in disgust. Compare this to the play experience of someone who started at the beginner stages and worked their way up.
The only point he does have is that MMPORG's do tend to require huge amounts of play time to get to the high level content. But while this is not an ideal situation, one must keep in mind that there is a conflict at the design level. They need you to play as long as possible to keep you paying those subscription fees.
The author almost has a point, but it is at best, a very weak point.
Apple made the iPod, and set up a business plan wherein people wanted to buy an iPod. They were not trying to sell any specific sort of music. The iTunes store is designed to work well with the iPod, but you really dont need to use iTunes to use an iPod. The only thing Apple wanted to do was get people to use iPods.
Unlike Sony, Apple is not burdened by a publishing arm that wants to sell or promote specific artists. And as the submitter mentioned, they are not trying to sell filler tracks. Apple even took the critical step of making sure that people who want to have an iPod do not need to use a Mac. They are not selling iPods, they are selling a better way to listen to the music that the potential customer already owns.
The business model is like selling transporter devices to people who normally use Cars or Airplanes. People dont want to own Cars or Airplanes, they just want to get to a specific destination. And consumers are usually smart enough to recognize when a better way of doing things show up.
Regardless of how great the Wii turns out to be, Nintendo is going to need some time to overcome the less then impressive image they have gained from the N64 and Gamecube. Part of it is that not many companies are going to be eager to bet on the guy who came in 3rd place in a 3 way race. Gamecube did better in Japan then the X-Box though, and that is why your seeing alot more Japanese publishers giving it a shot.
Aside from that issue, another more insidious problem is that people tend to hold grudges, and Nintendo has alienated many developers over the years. It took most of 2 console cycles for Square to do anything with Nintendo after Yamauchi said that Squares RPG games suck. And Nintendo also managed to drive away Silicon Knights shortly after the Metal gear port was done. There are many more companies that just dont much care for having to work for Nintendo.
The last issue is that even once the console starts to take off, most 3rd party games (except probably for those done by Sega) are just not going to feel as good to play as most of the Nintendo titles will. While the SDK is cheap, its going to take a while for the designers to get their head around the sort of things that are possible. WarioWare: Smooth Moves will be the best demo title for the sort of things someone can try with this console, and Metroid will point the way for FPS games. But beyond that, its going to take a while before 3rd parties come up with the sort of Original titles that will truly sell the system.
Its like playing a Texas Hold-em poker game, and your starting hand is 7 Jack, when your opponents have pocket aces and pocket kings. You will win once the flop comes down as 7, Jack, Jack, but its going to be a while before everyone else at the table watching the game realizes it.
I want the Revolution to succeed. I think that the controller will play a huge part in any success it has, and I am a fan of both the company, and the games they put out.
Having said that, I must say that 3rd party support is where Nintendo appears to do poorly. They really need to get the other publisher onboard with their system, unless they want to end up being reduced to a very niche player. No one doubts Nintendo's ability to make great games, but the simple fact is that they have not been able to hold the attention of the majority of typical gamers. Unless they can convince EA, Capcom, Namco, Activision, Sega, and the other big publishers that they will do well on the Revolution, they will stay away in droves.
I would have to guess that one year from now, either Lionhead will be shut down or that Molyneux will move on and start a new studio.
Molyneux tends to make games that are very high concept and that often have a more niche fanbase then say, a Project Gotham or Halo type game. Microsoft is probably not the best fit as a publisher for them. I suspect that whoever holds the purse strings will end up demanding certain changes in a given title, or that Molyneux will end up wanting to delay a game to get it perfect, and that the resulting conflict will end the working relationship.
I could be wrong, however. Microsoft is not chronically stupid. Its also possible that Microsoft as a publisher will exert a positive influence by keeping Molyneux from overhyping his games, and keep him on a track that gets his games finished in a timely fashion. Microsoft is not EA, after all, nad has been known to back some very good and original games.
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There may well be no business model at present for HD Broadcasting, since few advertisers would want to pay the premium to advertise their crap.
But, it will not be broadcasters and advertisers that drive demand. The demand will come from consumers who want to watch their favorite TV shows in HD.
Now, it is entirely possible that even this sort of demand still wont quite be enough to justify the current sort of business model. That does not mean some new business model will come about which will allow those who wish to watch HD content to receive it. I could easily imagine an on demand business model for HD content where people pay to subscribe to an entire season and download episodes as they become available. Its not exactly broadcasting, but it may work.
HD is starting to catch on, and given the choice, people would prefer to watch their prefered shows in HD instead of standard-def. But it may still be a while before HD becomes the norm. Unlike DVD's which caught on over night, it is not yet clear what the best way to do HD content is. DVD just replaced VHS. The business model stayed the same, but just became more profitable. But HD content may require the studios to abandon the business model of the 30 second commercial spot.
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As you increase the graphics capability of the target platform, the required art assets increase as well. However, while the pixels only increase by a factor of 4, the amount of graphics resources, and the difficulty of creating them, increases by much more than a factor of 4.
To put it simply, it takes longer to model and animate a character with 100 000 polygons than it does to do the same to a character with only 1000 polygons.
Lets start with the basic geometry. A faster machine can draw more triangles. Animating a low polygon character is easier than a high polygon character (fewer verticies to account for). What might have looked good enough on a low end machine will need alot more work on a high end machine. You also start having to worry about level of detail. With a faster machine, you will have to draw objects that are farther away. You still dont want to draw it at full detail though, so you make a low poly version of the same object, and decide which set of geometry and textures to use to render it at run time. So instead of making 100 enemies, your essentially making 200 (albeit half are simpler).
And lets say you add physics and destructible objects to a game that did not have them before. So now when you shoot that crate, it shatters and its bits fly around and bounce. Ok, now in addition to modeling the intact object, you have to figure out how your going to render its shattered parts, and you have to add information for things like friction and mass, and take the time to fine tune those values.
On top of that, the more game assets you have to create, the longer it takes to process all those goddamn polygons and textures when compiling the level data into a playable level file. At the start of each new console generation, it takes a while before your working on machines that can process all those disparate files. When the artists are making the levels, to test them they have to export them, play them and then tweak them. More detail means it takes longer to iterate on the game assets.
More Art means More Artists means more money.
And of course, the PS3 is nothing like the PS2, so you have to throw out or retool a great deal of tech.
Want to know why the Wii will do well? Its meant to handle geometry about on par with a standard XBox, so there its easier to generate art assets. Its api's are nearly identical to the gamecube, so about 90% of the old tech and tool chains are still viable. And the dev kits are cheap. The Wii is getting alot of developer support because its much easier to make a profit on its launch titles than it will be for a PS3 launch title.
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Note: I am a game developer, and therefore have at least an informed opinion on this.
If your dead focused on going into games, then getting the GMI degree is probably a better bet. But if you want to keep your options open, go for the CS degree.
The primary difference would be that with the GMI degree, you will end up taking courses that are very important to Game development at the expense of some other skills. (ie: I would guess that the GMI degree will get you courses on Matrix and Vector math, and the particulars of pixel shaders, instead of things like compiler theory and systems programming).
The trade off is that there really aren't a whole lot of jobs out there that require the particular combination of 3d Math and graphics knowledge that game development requires. The graphics and animation stuff will come in handy if you decide to try your hand at making special effects software, but knowing how to transform a point from local space to screen space wont help you get a job doing Linux programming for a telecom company.
On top of that, the games industry is just not as mature an industry as other programming jobs. Things like the ea_spouse incident with EA's overtime practices are one aspect. And the industry as a whole needs to get a much better grip on the project management side of things. Things have been improving, but there is still a long way to go.
Anyway, if you just want to be a programmer, the CS degree is the way to go. But if you want to be a game programmer specifically, go for the GMI degree.
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Given that even today, there are documented instances of men and women having sex with sheep, horses, and donkeys, and human proclivities for rape, the common genes do not necessarily mean love. One party could have simply violated the other.
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People generally do not want original content in and of its self. Original content is good from time to time, but when people sit down for a few hours of hard core gaming, they dont necessarily want original content. They want good content.
You dont need to make original games, just good ones, and unlike movies, games tend to improve from one sequel to the next.
People will go for a sequel because if the original game was good, the sequel is usually at least as good, or close enough to it. Unlike movie sequels, games have more assets with which to appeal to their audience. Solid and engaging gameplay is more important than story content. The storyline for a sequel may not be as strong as the original, but most of the time the gameplay is intact. And if the gameplay is intact, it can deliver the same things that the first game did, but do so in new levels. Gameplay in sequels generally gets improved from one iteration to the next as well, since they have all the user input from the first game to fall back on. They can reduce or remove elements of the originals that did not appeal, and improve and build upon elements that did work.
Now, not all videogame sequels are as good as their predecessors, but if the orignal was a 9 out of 10 game, the sequel is probably no worse than 7 out of 10 at the worst.
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Edit wars are going to take on a whole new meaning.
Wikipedia has gained a reputation for being a somewhat less than reputable source of information, due to edit wars, vandalism, and outright inaccuracies. But the intent is unquestionably been good, and while not a perfect source of information, for all non research uses, its usually good enough. And the way that the information is not controled by any one interest is seen as being good in that it prevents censorship.
Forking the project will cause alot of noise and debate, but in the end, I think the final result wont have any great signifigance. Forked or not, Wikipedia is probably not going to disappear.
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I am glad to see that the advertisers are getting desperate enough to get stupid.
I like my TV shows, but there is something about the advertising industry that I find aesthetically repulsive in terms of its purpose and impact on civilization.
I am looking forward to the day when TV shows are purchased by the season commercial free. This is just one more step along that road.
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As a game developer, I would say that games are not quite art. There are a great many aspects of a game that can be considered art. The games visuals, the music composition, and the story are all art. But simply because the medium can make great use of art, not all aspects quite qualify.
The definition of art, for example, does not quite cover things like the gameplay design, the AI, and the game mechanics. Can anyone here actually consider the game Pong as art?
The word 'art' is all about aesthetic properties of the object or thing in question. Pong proves its possible to have a solid game with essentially nothing in it that is aesthetically pleasing. The sound effects suck, the graphics suck, and there is no narrative what so ever. It is still very much a game, but it is not art.
It is possible to create a game that has very compelling art that utterly fails as a game due to ill conceived controls, or having other short comings that basically make the game unplayable.
Art can make a game much better, but that does not mean video games in general are art. So to paraphrase the C++ inheritence concepts from Effective C++:
Games possess a 'has a' relation ship to art, not an 'is a' relationship.
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Much of penny arcades humor is based on parody and satire of either popculture or videogames. To maintain this humor in a for profit video game, would they need to gain permission from those copyright holders?
Than again, I am sure that there are plenty of characters and ideas they can use which they do not get anywhere near that problem.
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Than I suppose that makes Nintendo the submarine lurking below the waves, with no one quite knowing where it is or what it will ultimately do. Sure, it has a compliment of torpedo's, but will they be enough to sink either opponent?
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As a disclaimer, its not like I am in any way qualified to have an opinion on this matter.
Now, as far as I kow, the big dig needed to happen, because Bostons traffic situation was essentially untenable. It was a daring solution, and one that was difficult, but at its core, it was probably the best idea to run with.
The problem is that someone wanted it done faster than was reasonable, or cheaper, or both. So corners were cut.
If the problems that currently exist are the sort that can be fixed with repairs, than all is not lost. It will just mean that an effort of pay only say, 80% of what it should have cost will instead cost 130%, plus the lives of a few motorists, and jail time for some people.
If the problems are not repairible, that is when things will get very intresting.
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Outside of Sony and Microsoft, has any publisher of console video games gone on record as saying they are not going to support the Wii?
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They go on and on about how console mascots are dead and they dont even mention Mario?
Also, the article says that Sonic failed when Sega stopped being true to what Sonic the Hedgehog was a symbol of. I suppose if you want to extend the metaphore of the article, Mario is still around because Nintendo, for better or for worse, never stopped being true to its self. I will concede that Mario is not quite the icon he once was, and while he endures as a symbol, the thing he is a symbol has changed a bit. Mario now evokes just as much nostalgia as anything else. A callback to when Games were Games, and not wannabe movies or epics.
And to quote William Shatner of all things, if Mario is a has been mascot, it also means he once was, and perhaps could be again.
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Basically, they are still around. Mario never went anywhere, and the Master Cheif is about as close as it gets for Microsoft right now. I dont think Sony ever really had a mascot type game though.
Despite being still around, they just arent as important. The 3rd party devs have gotten better, and they can put out a game just as strong as any 1st party game. Sega / Sonic actually became a 3rd party game. So now, the sort of game that can become an iconic fanchise is very likely to be a multi-platform title.
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I cannot much say that I like anything that I am aware of that EA has put out. But, they are the biggest beast in the industry as far as publishers go, and having EA do full scale production on the Wii means a stronger 3rd party support.
And its strong 3rd party support that Nintendo has lacked since the N64.
I would also guess that EA is supporting the Wii as much due to lower dev costs as anthing else. EA likes profit, and lower dev costs mean more potential profit.
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As far as I know, Nintendo has the rights to the IP for Eternal Darkness, since they published it as a 2nd party title. Also, the split between Nintendo and Silicon Knights was somewhat rancorous as I understand it. Given that, it seems unlikely that a sequel will happen unless Silicon Knights can persuade a publisher to buy the IP from Nintendo.
The only other viable situation would be for the game to come out on the Wii, but that wont happen unless the poeple at Ninendo or those at Silicon KNights that were central to the split have parted ways or something.
Of course, I could just be wildly mistaken about who currently holds the rights to the IP.
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Bean was smarter than Ender (smart to an unholy / scary degree if you read the Bean quartet). However, in battle school, Beans record as a team leader was 0 - 10 compared to Enders perfect record.
Bean's failure rate was so high because he was trying to find out what strategies worked and which ones did not, and he did so by examining strategies that no one in thier right mind would try, just to see why they failed, and what things about them potentially worked. He did this because he did not care about the win / loss record, and he was using the school environment to find out what worked and what didn't.
And when he got out of the battle school, he never failed once.
Getting back to Google, they are trying products that may or may not work. Not everything needs to be a screaming huge success, and if gmail turned into a huge disaster, its not like it would invalidate their business model for Google Search.
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Having not seen the cheat in action, I cannot be certain.
I would guess that the sex game was a full feature for quite a while that was essentially cut do to legal liability. It is very possible that it was cut very late in development. Plenty of games ship with assets on the install disks that are not used by the final product.
This in turn would mean that the feature probably shows up as a feature in a design document somewhere. Take 2, being the publisher, probably has internal documentation debating keeping or cutting the feature, and quite possible a document that ultimately telling the developers to cut it.
Being late in development, the hooks to trigger the missions were probably just removed at a script level. And that would result in the possibility of someone restoring a few lines of game script to re-enable the code.
In any event, I dont see the big deal about this.
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I can see why the Hollywood film studios want tired pricing. Some movies are just better than others, can they can command the higher price. Also, some movies are just more expensive to make than others.
Than again, if they want to use that arguement, why the hell does a ticket to a LotR or KingKong cost me the same amount of money to see in theaters as Gigli?
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The one edge that naitve code will always have over interpreted code is that naitive code can just be loaded and fed to the CPU. An added concern is that most comptuers are doing more than one thing at a time. If all the CPU had to do was interpret one program and run it, that would be one thing. But if the CPU is trying to run 5 or 12 apps, and it has to interpret more than one of them, then there will be a bit of a logjam.
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The notion that secret levels, unlockible content, and other game features of that sort are somehow an unfair exploitation of the consumer is quite frankly deeply flawed.
My counter argument is simple. Bragging rights. People like being able to say that they have acheived a difficult task, or performed a task better then their peers. If something is too easy, it is often not worth doing. Or to use a much more colourful metaphor, no one brags about nailing the villiage slut.
Complaining about difficult games that hide content, at least to me, is much like a fan of action movies complaining about the latest Meg Ryan romantic comedy not being entertaining. If you dont like working your way through level based gameplay, then why are you playing them? If you want to play in a sandbox type game with all the features instantly accessible, then play those kinds of games.
The one thing that level based gameplay does excell at is allowing a novice player to learn the game as he progresses, without having his ego crushed. Take someone who has never played Super Monkeyball, put him on a master mode level, and watch how long it takes him to throw the controller away in disgust. Compare this to the play experience of someone who started at the beginner stages and worked their way up.
The only point he does have is that MMPORG's do tend to require huge amounts of play time to get to the high level content. But while this is not an ideal situation, one must keep in mind that there is a conflict at the design level. They need you to play as long as possible to keep you paying those subscription fees.
The author almost has a point, but it is at best, a very weak point.
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Apple made the iPod, and set up a business plan wherein people wanted to buy an iPod. They were not trying to sell any specific sort of music. The iTunes store is designed to work well with the iPod, but you really dont need to use iTunes to use an iPod. The only thing Apple wanted to do was get people to use iPods.
Unlike Sony, Apple is not burdened by a publishing arm that wants to sell or promote specific artists. And as the submitter mentioned, they are not trying to sell filler tracks. Apple even took the critical step of making sure that people who want to have an iPod do not need to use a Mac. They are not selling iPods, they are selling a better way to listen to the music that the potential customer already owns.
The business model is like selling transporter devices to people who normally use Cars or Airplanes. People dont want to own Cars or Airplanes, they just want to get to a specific destination. And consumers are usually smart enough to recognize when a better way of doing things show up.
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Regardless of how great the Wii turns out to be, Nintendo is going to need some time to overcome the less then impressive image they have gained from the N64 and Gamecube. Part of it is that not many companies are going to be eager to bet on the guy who came in 3rd place in a 3 way race. Gamecube did better in Japan then the X-Box though, and that is why your seeing alot more Japanese publishers giving it a shot.
Aside from that issue, another more insidious problem is that people tend to hold grudges, and Nintendo has alienated many developers over the years. It took most of 2 console cycles for Square to do anything with Nintendo after Yamauchi said that Squares RPG games suck. And Nintendo also managed to drive away Silicon Knights shortly after the Metal gear port was done. There are many more companies that just dont much care for having to work for Nintendo.
The last issue is that even once the console starts to take off, most 3rd party games (except probably for those done by Sega) are just not going to feel as good to play as most of the Nintendo titles will. While the SDK is cheap, its going to take a while for the designers to get their head around the sort of things that are possible. WarioWare: Smooth Moves will be the best demo title for the sort of things someone can try with this console, and Metroid will point the way for FPS games. But beyond that, its going to take a while before 3rd parties come up with the sort of Original titles that will truly sell the system.
Its like playing a Texas Hold-em poker game, and your starting hand is 7 Jack, when your opponents have pocket aces and pocket kings. You will win once the flop comes down as 7, Jack, Jack, but its going to be a while before everyone else at the table watching the game realizes it.
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I want the Revolution to succeed. I think that the controller will play a huge part in any success it has, and I am a fan of both the company, and the games they put out.
Having said that, I must say that 3rd party support is where Nintendo appears to do poorly. They really need to get the other publisher onboard with their system, unless they want to end up being reduced to a very niche player. No one doubts Nintendo's ability to make great games, but the simple fact is that they have not been able to hold the attention of the majority of typical gamers. Unless they can convince EA, Capcom, Namco, Activision, Sega, and the other big publishers that they will do well on the Revolution, they will stay away in droves.
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I would have to guess that one year from now, either Lionhead will be shut down or that Molyneux will move on and start a new studio.
Molyneux tends to make games that are very high concept and that often have a more niche fanbase then say, a Project Gotham or Halo type game. Microsoft is probably not the best fit as a publisher for them. I suspect that whoever holds the purse strings will end up demanding certain changes in a given title, or that Molyneux will end up wanting to delay a game to get it perfect, and that the resulting conflict will end the working relationship.
I could be wrong, however. Microsoft is not chronically stupid. Its also possible that Microsoft as a publisher will exert a positive influence by keeping Molyneux from overhyping his games, and keep him on a track that gets his games finished in a timely fashion. Microsoft is not EA, after all, nad has been known to back some very good and original games.
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