One might argue that this is because Intuit has competition, while Hollywood is in fact several dominant companies working together in a de facto monopoly.
Providing an alternative to the MPAA that will be as attractive to an average consumer is not really feasiable, but for the RIAA it can be done.
Imagine a P2P sharing network that contains only legal content (how? probably something to do with only allowing non-anonymous posting, and a DMCA-protected login (flame away), among other things). Consumers have a legal, non-threatening way to get so much new music RIAA can feel a two-digit-percentage sales drop (on top of the current situation). You'll effectively be cutting off the RIAA's "ear supply", if you will.
In less than a year, they'll sign up for accounts to post some of their own tainted music.
and that excuses the unplayability of the game? that the developer was rushed? are you really the developer, looking for some understanding? there should be a certain amout of quality assurance; if a game is unplayable, it shouldnt be released. its that simple.
It's not that simple. Why "shouldn't" the game be released if it's unplayable? Why "should" there be a certain amount of QA? Is that a business viewpoint, or a moral one?
E.T. Still sold over a million copies. True, the low quality of the game may have hurt Atari in the long run (just like the original Pac-Man cartridge) but we'll never know if releasing it was the wrong business decision.
When you have your own multi-million software company, I hope you can make the moral decision every time, but experience suggests real life doesn't work this way. Even in today's marketplace, releasing low-quality games is better than discarding them, and it is a viable long-term business strategy; look at, oh, Acclaim.
No, I am not Howard Scott Warshaw, but this interview tells his side.
i cant believe no one has mentioned the unholy ET and M&M atari game. not only was it blatant advertising, but the damned game was imposssible to play
E.T. was impossible to play because the only developer had to complete the thing in 6 weeks to cash in on the movie premiere. Now, licensed games are completely different than in-game ads, please don't confuse the issues.
And if you're willing to go back as far as the Atari 2600, you'll find stuff like Kool aid man, Ralston-Purina's Chase the chuckwagon, and one of the worst marketing ideas of all time, Coke wins.
Action Biker signifies a depressing trend to link grotty software with expensive advertising campaigns. Let's kill this off instantly by refusing to buy such garbage.
That well reported problem was not caused my using a number as the wrong type of unit. It was caused by continouslly converting units and the inherent error that crept it.
So the approach needed may be something like "save all values in the original units and convert to the necessary units just before computing the final result every time". Or eliminate the error by using fractional numbers instead of floats whenever possible. Or any one of a number of other approaches.
I never could figure out why there are almost no languages/libraries with fractional types. That way, you can multimply and divide all you want and still come up with the right result - just convert to float/double whenever you need to, which may be never.
With three switchable characters, each with their different strengths (jump, dash, swing sword, shoot arrow, block with shield). A GBA version was released a couple of months ago, and a macromedia flash demo seems to be available.
Can any of you remember the classic "head over heels" for the C64/Spectrum/Amstrad? Head could jump and shoot, heels could run and carry stuff. They started the game apart, and once you got them together they'd move as one unit until you had to take them apart again. At one point, the game had been tentatively titled "foot and mouth".
Good times.
Does anybody have any favorite games with a similar mechanism?
1. Prevent people from finding which track the lyrics they remember are from. 2. People can't find out which CD to buy. 3. Watch sales plummet even further. 4. Blame file sharing for lost revenue. 5. ??? 6. Profit!
I don't know that a subscriber base 20% the size of the market leader's necessarily a flop. If an installed base of, say, 20% that of microsoft windows a flop?
P.S. It's certainly better than Sega's old online model - charge $30-$50 for game with free online play, then make some games fee-based and shut down the servers for others altogether (anybody interested in starting a class action thingy?)
Alien Front Online was online less than ten months, although according to the company the problem was that the server's IP address was hard coded in the client with no way to change it, the company lost control over the (outsourced?) IP address, there was no system to distribute patches, and sending customers updates was too costly. Yet the company felt no need to compensate customers in any way, since the game had an offline mode too.
When a spammer forges a _name_ in the "from" line, their name should be legally changed to that name. After a few people's names are changed to "free porn" and "toner discounts" I doubt we'll see very much of that. At the very least, it will give us something to laugh about.
One could say that a popup add "accesses" your computer in some way. Since it is also unauthorized, could it be illegal?:)
Of course it's authorized. Your browser preferences allow pop-up to be displayed, or you'd never see them. The combination of your browser configuration and your request for a web page that contained Javascript code, plus the fact you authorized your browser (and by extension, the sites you access) to run such code, is all the authorization that is needed.
Don't try solve technical problems by legal means. It wastes your time and annoys the pig.
Or are they just going to milk the phrase "Final Fantasy" like the cash cow it is?
Yes, they are. FF is a brand, not a series. Remember all those games that had nothing to do with FF but had FF tacked onto the name to move more units?
FF adventure was really the prequel to the Secret of Mana. FF legend 1-3 were really the first 3 SaGa games.
Did I miss anything? I think FF mystic quest was actually a FF game.
this is what you do [accs-net.com], and more precisely and more corresponding to the attitude on this site: RTFM
I can do that - I have the time, the inclination, and the necessary skills. But if you want pop-up ads to stop being financially viable, you'll have to provide a way that works for everybody.
How many people use computers? How many of them can block hosts? What's the best way to improve the ratio? Is it by trying to educate users, or by making the change easier to perform?
1. Enter site 2. Realize site sucks because they have audio popups you can't tur off 3. Edit host file 4. Never come back even by accident
Great plan, Mr. I-know-enough-about-computers-to-edit-my-host-file . But if you want to make a dent in the marketplace, you'll have to provide normal users (who may know much more than you about, say, medical, legal or financial matters but less about the internal workings of their OS) with the means to do the same.
The market is going to be flooded with handheld systems and eventually Nintendo's product will come out victorious. That's how it has been for the last decade, why wouldn't it continue that way?
Slashdot Mirror
I'd like to sue Sony's Playstation 2 DVD REMOTE for not having a properly working fast forward.
Um, you're supposed to sue the company, not individual products.
One might argue that this is because Intuit has competition, while Hollywood is in fact several dominant companies working together in a de facto monopoly.
Providing an alternative to the MPAA that will be as attractive to an average consumer is not really feasiable, but for the RIAA it can be done.
Imagine a P2P sharing network that contains only legal content (how? probably something to do with only allowing non-anonymous posting, and a DMCA-protected login (flame away), among other things). Consumers have a legal, non-threatening way to get so much new music RIAA can feel a two-digit-percentage sales drop (on top of the current situation). You'll effectively be cutting off the RIAA's "ear supply", if you will.
In less than a year, they'll sign up for accounts to post some of their own tainted music.
and that excuses the unplayability of the game? that the developer was rushed? are you really the developer, looking for some understanding? there should be a certain amout of quality assurance; if a game is unplayable, it shouldnt be released. its that simple.
It's not that simple. Why "shouldn't" the game be released if it's unplayable? Why "should" there be a certain amount of QA? Is that a business viewpoint, or a moral one?
E.T. Still sold over a million copies. True, the low quality of the game may have hurt Atari in the long run (just like the original Pac-Man cartridge) but we'll never know if releasing it was the wrong business decision.
When you have your own multi-million software company, I hope you can make the moral decision every time, but experience suggests real life doesn't work this way. Even in today's marketplace, releasing low-quality games is better than discarding them, and it is a viable long-term business strategy; look at, oh, Acclaim.
No, I am not Howard Scott Warshaw, but this interview tells his side.
i cant believe no one has mentioned the unholy ET and M&M atari game. not only was it blatant advertising, but the damned game was imposssible to play
E.T. was impossible to play because the only developer had to complete the thing in 6 weeks to cash in on the movie premiere. Now, licensed games are completely different than in-game ads, please don't confuse the issues.
And if you're willing to go back as far as the Atari 2600, you'll find stuff like Kool aid man, Ralston-Purina's Chase the chuckwagon, and one of the worst marketing ideas of all time, Coke wins.
Domino's Pizza - Avoid the noid
Ford - Ford Simulator
Dunlop - Dunlop 911 TS
KP skips - Action Biker
The last link is to a review. A few choice words:
Way to go microsoft. We know it's easy to get most government agencies to work for you if you're a big enough company, but the army?
That well reported problem was not caused my using a number as the wrong type of unit. It was caused by continouslly converting units and the inherent error that crept it.
So the approach needed may be something like "save all values in the original units and convert to the necessary units just before computing the final result every time". Or eliminate the error by using fractional numbers instead of floats whenever possible. Or any one of a number of other approaches.
I never could figure out why there are almost no languages/libraries with fractional types. That way, you can multimply and divide all you want and still come up with the right result - just convert to float/double whenever you need to, which may be never.
Just make sure that all of your coders are using the same measurment system.
.value and .unit members, and math functions that perform conversions whenever necessary.
Or write a class that has both
Q. When will the X-traFun cartridge be available for purchase by consumers?
A. Q1, 2003
By my calculations, Q1 2003 is already over.
Furthermore, the top of the web site proudly displays both the GBA and the GBC logos, although the FAQ states it's a GBA-only product.
The 'developers' section contains no useful material of any kind, and the 'click here to upload your software applications' link is broken.
Are we supposed to take this product/company seriously?
With three switchable characters, each with their different strengths (jump, dash, swing sword, shoot arrow, block with shield). A GBA version was released a couple of months ago, and a macromedia flash demo seems to be available.
Can any of you remember the classic "head over heels" for the C64/Spectrum/Amstrad? Head could jump and shoot, heels could run and carry stuff. They started the game apart, and once you got them together they'd move as one unit until you had to take them apart again. At one point, the game had been tentatively titled "foot and mouth".
Good times.
Does anybody have any favorite games with a similar mechanism?
1. Prevent people from finding which track the lyrics they remember are from.
2. People can't find out which CD to buy.
3. Watch sales plummet even further.
4. Blame file sharing for lost revenue.
5. ???
6. Profit!
This makes either the GBA or the GCN the first console to host two Metroid titles.
No, that would be the Dreamcast.
I don't know that a subscriber base 20% the size of the market leader's necessarily a flop. If an installed base of, say, 20% that of microsoft windows a flop?
P.S. It's certainly better than Sega's old online model - charge $30-$50 for game with free online play, then make some games fee-based and shut down the servers for others altogether (anybody interested in starting a class action thingy?)
Alien Front Online was online less than ten months, although according to the company the problem was that the server's IP address was hard coded in the client with no way to change it, the company lost control over the (outsourced?) IP address, there was no system to distribute patches, and sending customers updates was too costly. Yet the company felt no need to compensate customers in any way, since the game had an offline mode too.
When a spammer forges a _name_ in the "from" line, their name should be legally changed to that name. After a few people's names are changed to "free porn" and "toner discounts" I doubt we'll see very much of that. At the very least, it will give us something to laugh about.
One could say that a popup add "accesses" your computer in some way. Since it is also unauthorized, could it be illegal? :)
Of course it's authorized. Your browser preferences allow pop-up to be displayed, or you'd never see them. The combination of your browser configuration and your request for a web page that contained Javascript code, plus the fact you authorized your browser (and by extension, the sites you access) to run such code, is all the authorization that is needed.
Don't try solve technical problems by legal means. It wastes your time and annoys the pig.
Dear moderators, parent was _not_ off topic. Read the article title again.
Or are they just going to milk the phrase "Final Fantasy" like the cash cow it is?
Yes, they are. FF is a brand, not a series. Remember all those games that had nothing to do with FF but had FF tacked onto the name to move more units?
FF adventure was really the prequel to the Secret of Mana.
FF legend 1-3 were really the first 3 SaGa games.
Did I miss anything? I think FF mystic quest was actually a FF game.
Because any website can pop up a fake window with a little GIF of a lock in the corner
Why not just prevent them from doing that, then?
Don't you just hate these annoying pop-ups?
this is what you do [accs-net.com], and more precisely and more corresponding to the attitude on this site: RTFM
I can do that - I have the time, the inclination, and the necessary skills. But if you want pop-up ads to stop being financially viable, you'll have to provide a way that works for everybody.
How many people use computers? How many of them can block hosts? What's the best way to improve the ratio? Is it by trying to educate users, or by making the change easier to perform?
1. Enter site
e . But if you want to make a dent in the marketplace, you'll have to provide normal users (who may know much more than you about, say, medical, legal or financial matters but less about the internal workings of their OS) with the means to do the same.
2. Realize site sucks because they have audio popups you can't tur off
3. Edit host file
4. Never come back even by accident
Great plan, Mr. I-know-enough-about-computers-to-edit-my-host-fil
The market is going to be flooded with handheld systems and eventually Nintendo's product will come out victorious. That's how it has been for the last decade, why wouldn't it continue that way?
Because now SEGA's developing GBA software.
movies own YOU!
Oh wait, that's actually kind of scary.
How can one software project show that "most open source programs still start as tiny hobby projects"?