I have a long string of "-site:xxxxxxxxx.com" to add to pretty much any search query I use, simply to weed out the useless pages. Just add "-site:wsj.com" to yours.
I wish Google would offer the option to store such a string and add it automatically to every query you send. I'm pretty sure that information would be enlightening, also to their advertisers...
Because it doesn't work that way. Paying for the game is the necessary evil for the player, not an intrinsic part or even an engaging experience, no matter how various companies try to spin it.
I agree that it would be a good idea to make sure that buying the game gains you some additional benefit you don't get when you copy it, but that's hard to do in a world where digital distribution is the norm rather than the exception. As long as games came in boxes, there was at least the chance to get a printed manual, a poster, some other trinkets or goodies in the box. Rarely, if ever, it was the case. But what do you want to do now that you don't even get the game on a physical medium anymore?
I spend quite a bit of my spare time playing video games. The last game i bought that came on a physical medium was Supreme Commander when it was released. According to Wikipedia, that was about 10 years ago.
What additional benefit would you want to give me?
I absolutely agree that DRM devalues the product and selling a product that's worth less for more is insane, and that's exactly what happens in the struggle of game makers trying to fight copying, but how would you increase the value of the legal copy? Aside of leaving out the part that makes it worth less to its user.
Quite the opposite! This would ensure that no flights would be grounded just because of some minor mishaps and all planes would arrive on time. At their destination or some house.
Do you have a faint idea how much profit was lost that day due to planes not flying?
Private businesses are (or at least should be) concerned with turning a profit. Any kind of goods or services they provide is a means to that end. That good or service will be as good as necessary to make it good enough to be bought and it will serve a single purpose: Turning a profit.
Governments are (or at least should be) concerned with providing goods or services. If that turns a profit, so be it, but the primary use governments get out of any operation that provides goods or services are actually those goods or services.
Allow me to present an example.
A private corporation running public transport will be concerned with profit, as stated above. It will do this in such a way that, by the laws of supply and demand, ticket prices might go up during hours when lots of people want to use their system (e.g. in the morning and evening hours) or install other ways to avoid buying more trains for those spike hours because during the off-hours those trains would run empty and be dead capital.
A government's primary concern with public transport is to move people, and to keep people from using their own cars and contribute to the congestion of the roads. If necessary that means buying more trains because the peak hours is exactly when they need to move the most people to ensure people will rather use public transport rather than drive themselves, because that additional trains are still cheaper than having to build new roads. They will also probably operate those trains during the nights which is totally unprofitable, of course, but keeps people from driving their car to a bar and drive drunk on the way home, because government is also concerned with traffic accidents that will put a strain on other government budgets.
You have very different goals between private corporations and governments. That's also why it's often nonsensical to compare operational costs for certain services. Yes, government running services may be more expensive. I'm fairly sure that a government run public transport system will be more expensive in this respect than one run by a private corporation, but as you can see there are other benefits you can gain from it. Your private corporation isn't concerned with your congested roads or the damage drunk drivers cause to your environment and population.
They are in the game for profit, and nothing else.
You can easily see how this works when you look at businesses that were sustained by government or government-owned companies for the longest time and then privatized. Governments are concerned with running services because that's the business they're in. Private corporations are concerned with making money, running the service is only the necessary evil, the means to the end.
So what they do is cut maintenance and reinvestment to the bare minimum to allow the service to continue. That means that the first couple years you don't notice much, but you eventually notice that the sustainability of the service has been axed when it shows that new people don't receive the training that their old counterpart got (because, why bother, the older ones who received the training can pick up their slack... at least until they retire), it shows that repairs and replacements didn't get the attention they needed and so on.
No, they would not stay for long. Anyone taking such a job would do it because they need some money now for something they wish to buy but UBI doesn't cover. For the time necessary to get the money together they need.
Would you find people doing the job for 2.40? Depends on how badly you want them. Supply and demand, if a lot of people need money and few no-skill jobs are available, you might have to pay more. More likely, though, you'll get some new temp agencies that deal exactly with this, matching supply and demand.
What will most likely happen is what has been suggested elsewhere in the thread, that low-skill jobs that are easy or even fun to do will get cheaper, while low-skill jobs that are dangerous and/or hard will get significantly more expensive.
I'm pretty sure he likes the idea that people enjoy his work, but I am equally certain that he enjoys eating. And until the supermarket cashier lets him go home with his groceries in exchange for the appreciation of his shelf stocking ability...
Why bother with hacks and cracks? You want to sell me your game, you deliver a trial or you can stick it where the sun doesn't shine, I'll go and buy one that offers me what I want instead.
1) The kind who will simply buy the game. 2) The kind who will buy it if they can't copy it and 3) The kind who will only copy it and simply go without if they'd have to pay for it.
And copy protection only affects group 2. You'd be surprised how tiny this group it.
Group one are the fanboys and the "honest gamers". Fanboys will buy the latest installment of their franchise no matter what. And the honest player are either console users or people who use Steam or some similar service to get their games in a hassle-free way, spoon-fed and delivered to their PC.
Group 3 is all the people who don't buy stuff "on principle", the whole "stick it to the man" and all that bullshit. And of course those that are constantly broke (especially after buying a new 2000 bucks PC). The kind of people who will not spend a dime if they can find a way to not do it, legal or illegal, and if they can't get this game they'll simply move on to the next.They will probably wait for 3 months for the copy protection to be removed, but they would never even think of buying it instead.
Now ponder for a moment what people you know that play games. And ponder how many of those don't fit into group 1 and group 3.
In the NFL, at least my sadist streak of potentially getting to watch someone get hurt is tickled, but with esports... Sorry, but carpal tunnel isn't as interesting as watching a concussion happen.
Then let's filter them through Congress. Might even make a show out of it. "American Idiot" would be a cool name, along the lines of a similarly named show.
No, I suggest that no minimum wage is necessary because if you offer too little for a fucked up job, people can easily give you the finger instead of having to grin and bear it.
Minimum wage is a necessity exactly because people lack that bargaining position right now.
"Cyber" is a buzzword. Much like the Cloud, the Internet of Things or Web 2.0. Usually used by people who can barely spell it correctly, let alone use it in any sensible context.
Basically it has turned into yet another square at the weekly bullshit bingo speech from marketing.
There isn't any cyber either. Unless you take the definition of "cyber" from our internal use dictionary where it's defined as "I don't know what I'm talking about but want to sound cool".
It's right next to the definition of "cloud" which means "I don't understand storage".
Slashdot Mirror
Over at github, and if you're more into prose, you'll find it here. Why're you asking?
I have a long string of "-site:xxxxxxxxx.com" to add to pretty much any search query I use, simply to weed out the useless pages. Just add "-site:wsj.com" to yours.
I wish Google would offer the option to store such a string and add it automatically to every query you send. I'm pretty sure that information would be enlightening, also to their advertisers...
Because it doesn't work that way. Paying for the game is the necessary evil for the player, not an intrinsic part or even an engaging experience, no matter how various companies try to spin it.
I agree that it would be a good idea to make sure that buying the game gains you some additional benefit you don't get when you copy it, but that's hard to do in a world where digital distribution is the norm rather than the exception. As long as games came in boxes, there was at least the chance to get a printed manual, a poster, some other trinkets or goodies in the box. Rarely, if ever, it was the case. But what do you want to do now that you don't even get the game on a physical medium anymore?
I spend quite a bit of my spare time playing video games. The last game i bought that came on a physical medium was Supreme Commander when it was released. According to Wikipedia, that was about 10 years ago.
What additional benefit would you want to give me?
I absolutely agree that DRM devalues the product and selling a product that's worth less for more is insane, and that's exactly what happens in the struggle of game makers trying to fight copying, but how would you increase the value of the legal copy? Aside of leaving out the part that makes it worth less to its user.
Quite the opposite! This would ensure that no flights would be grounded just because of some minor mishaps and all planes would arrive on time. At their destination or some house.
Do you have a faint idea how much profit was lost that day due to planes not flying?
p.s. They should also make it a felony for airport personnel to steal items from passenger luggage.
Wait, what is it? A misdemeanor or ... where in the world is theft NOT a felony?
The point is a different one.
Private businesses are (or at least should be) concerned with turning a profit. Any kind of goods or services they provide is a means to that end. That good or service will be as good as necessary to make it good enough to be bought and it will serve a single purpose: Turning a profit.
Governments are (or at least should be) concerned with providing goods or services. If that turns a profit, so be it, but the primary use governments get out of any operation that provides goods or services are actually those goods or services.
Allow me to present an example.
A private corporation running public transport will be concerned with profit, as stated above. It will do this in such a way that, by the laws of supply and demand, ticket prices might go up during hours when lots of people want to use their system (e.g. in the morning and evening hours) or install other ways to avoid buying more trains for those spike hours because during the off-hours those trains would run empty and be dead capital.
A government's primary concern with public transport is to move people, and to keep people from using their own cars and contribute to the congestion of the roads. If necessary that means buying more trains because the peak hours is exactly when they need to move the most people to ensure people will rather use public transport rather than drive themselves, because that additional trains are still cheaper than having to build new roads. They will also probably operate those trains during the nights which is totally unprofitable, of course, but keeps people from driving their car to a bar and drive drunk on the way home, because government is also concerned with traffic accidents that will put a strain on other government budgets.
You have very different goals between private corporations and governments. That's also why it's often nonsensical to compare operational costs for certain services. Yes, government running services may be more expensive. I'm fairly sure that a government run public transport system will be more expensive in this respect than one run by a private corporation, but as you can see there are other benefits you can gain from it. Your private corporation isn't concerned with your congested roads or the damage drunk drivers cause to your environment and population.
They are in the game for profit, and nothing else.
Invisible hand... is that the non-visible thingie in those hentai that rapes the poor widdle girls?
Just make it the hens that cluck too loudly and try to warn about foxes guarding the hen house and you should do great.
You get what you pay for.
No, but they love short-term profits.
You can easily see how this works when you look at businesses that were sustained by government or government-owned companies for the longest time and then privatized. Governments are concerned with running services because that's the business they're in. Private corporations are concerned with making money, running the service is only the necessary evil, the means to the end.
So what they do is cut maintenance and reinvestment to the bare minimum to allow the service to continue. That means that the first couple years you don't notice much, but you eventually notice that the sustainability of the service has been axed when it shows that new people don't receive the training that their old counterpart got (because, why bother, the older ones who received the training can pick up their slack... at least until they retire), it shows that repairs and replacements didn't get the attention they needed and so on.
Oh yeah, because the question who shits where is the really big issue in the country. I'm so glad we have no bigger problems.
No, they would not stay for long. Anyone taking such a job would do it because they need some money now for something they wish to buy but UBI doesn't cover. For the time necessary to get the money together they need.
Would you find people doing the job for 2.40? Depends on how badly you want them. Supply and demand, if a lot of people need money and few no-skill jobs are available, you might have to pay more. More likely, though, you'll get some new temp agencies that deal exactly with this, matching supply and demand.
What will most likely happen is what has been suggested elsewhere in the thread, that low-skill jobs that are easy or even fun to do will get cheaper, while low-skill jobs that are dangerous and/or hard will get significantly more expensive.
I'm pretty sure he likes the idea that people enjoy his work, but I am equally certain that he enjoys eating. And until the supermarket cashier lets him go home with his groceries in exchange for the appreciation of his shelf stocking ability...
Really? The Electronic Rats shut down the SimCity servers and now you have a collection of dead code sitting on your computer if you bought it?
Do you happen to have a link?
If there is no decent trial, NEXT!
Why bother with hacks and cracks? You want to sell me your game, you deliver a trial or you can stick it where the sun doesn't shine, I'll go and buy one that offers me what I want instead.
There's 3 kinds of gamers:
1) The kind who will simply buy the game.
2) The kind who will buy it if they can't copy it and
3) The kind who will only copy it and simply go without if they'd have to pay for it.
And copy protection only affects group 2. You'd be surprised how tiny this group it.
Group one are the fanboys and the "honest gamers". Fanboys will buy the latest installment of their franchise no matter what. And the honest player are either console users or people who use Steam or some similar service to get their games in a hassle-free way, spoon-fed and delivered to their PC.
Group 3 is all the people who don't buy stuff "on principle", the whole "stick it to the man" and all that bullshit. And of course those that are constantly broke (especially after buying a new 2000 bucks PC). The kind of people who will not spend a dime if they can find a way to not do it, legal or illegal, and if they can't get this game they'll simply move on to the next.They will probably wait for 3 months for the copy protection to be removed, but they would never even think of buying it instead.
Now ponder for a moment what people you know that play games. And ponder how many of those don't fit into group 1 and group 3.
It was a game by itself. And unlike many of those old games, it was actually winable. :)
In the NFL, at least my sadist streak of potentially getting to watch someone get hurt is tickled, but with esports... Sorry, but carpal tunnel isn't as interesting as watching a concussion happen.
Not to someone who doesn't care much about football, I guess.
Whether something is educative is up to the recipient, not the sender.
Then let's filter them through Congress. Might even make a show out of it. "American Idiot" would be a cool name, along the lines of a similarly named show.
The difference would be that the headline instead of the story is the same.
No, I suggest that no minimum wage is necessary because if you offer too little for a fucked up job, people can easily give you the finger instead of having to grin and bear it.
Minimum wage is a necessity exactly because people lack that bargaining position right now.
"Cyber" is a buzzword. Much like the Cloud, the Internet of Things or Web 2.0. Usually used by people who can barely spell it correctly, let alone use it in any sensible context.
Basically it has turned into yet another square at the weekly bullshit bingo speech from marketing.
There isn't any cyber either. Unless you take the definition of "cyber" from our internal use dictionary where it's defined as "I don't know what I'm talking about but want to sound cool".
It's right next to the definition of "cloud" which means "I don't understand storage".