Angels and demons is a fairly well flowing book with elements that tickle a modern book reader in many right ways. It may not suit your tastes, but it does for majority.
You're essentially making "linux is a better OS" argument. Sure, it may be, but it's Joe Average and his boss that decide which one will be successful, not you.
Usefulness of free channels is extremely limited when it comes to marketing, and you will be overshadowed and forgotten when competitor with similar book will have a proper marketing machine behind him.
In most cases, authors are so poor that they have to ask for a cash ADVANCE just to be able to feed themselves while working. Like the author in the OP, she got 20k in advance.
Suggesting that starting author can pay a proper editor is like suggesting that a search engine start up should just buy google level of infrastructure. Completely unrealistic.
Ultimately a publisher these days is simply a one stop shop offering a loan, editing, typesetting, cover art, promotion, distribution and a selection of other tasks that are needed to make a book successful.
No, 30 years ago that's what a publisher was. These days only a very, very small minority of those authors who get picked up by publishers get that (i.e. the ones who are already best sellers). Everyone else gets a negligible advance, negligible editing, typesetting they could have done themselves, cover art, no promotion, minimal distribution (their book goes into the distribution catalogues, but hardly onto shelves, which the author could have done on their own) and no other services.
That's how publishers worked 30 years ago too. If you're a small, unknown author, you don't get much. This is just another version of "in my days, we had to walk to school barefoot in the snow, uphill both ways".
Quite simply, this is about budgeting. If a publisher provided every writer wannabe with top level service, it would be broke within a year.
One of the easy ways to spot an experienced author is by asking him what he thinks of editors. Inexperienced ones don't think they're important. Experienced ones think they're so important, they will often try to get a long-term professional relationship going once they find an editor that works well with their writing style.
Not having a good editor is like stepping on a rake. Only dumbest of the dumb do it more then twice.
However there are very few if any good editors, fact checkers, etc who don't want a proper stable paycheck, and therefore work for publishers rather then go into the mercy of authors, who are more often then not bigger assholes then publishers. Not to mention many of them being permanently insolvent and penniless in the "artistic" way.
Difference between "books with typos" and "books where language doesn't flow properly, breaking your immersion all the time is the difference between half-life and daikatana.
Do you prefer more recent history, such as South-Korea and Japan, early industrialization (US late 1890s with its trusts), or even European dark ages when large economic interests bought aristocracy (debt) ending up controlling them, or even the infamous destruction of Knights Templar (which was the first well documented large-scale political attempt to kill a large corporation wielding too much political power).
Usually competition in capitalism is bought out or killed off. Capitalism's end game is always in fascism (or as those who dislike nazi links from WW2 to that name call it, "corporatism") where large capital-based industrial monopolies take over the government through buying out those in power.
It happened many times over the course of history.
I think you two missed my point. It's not necessary a "good" game from any single point of view, but a "good enough to pay 60USD retail price" from point of view of average consumer.
Same is not true for small mobile games, and it's been argued even here on slashdot countless times that people would NOT buy a 60USD AAA title on mobile platform.
I suppose that is one way to look at it. Another is very well presented in the forums: "I want to level on a PvP server and not get constantly ganked" vs "It's a PvP server stupid".
Very few of them are capable of making actually good games though. Look at what's most popular in mobile gaming: small games that you can play for 5 minutes at a time. It's the world of angry birds and solitaire.
Desktop and living room games are starkly different. They are meant to be immersive, to be played for hours at a time, and to generally be of significantly higher quality awarded by a much higher budget. What mobile games try to actively do is to draw entertainment budget from such games toward small ones. Publishers by far and large do NOT like this, and many of them have been very vocal about it.
Tongue in cheek, "there are good guild on US side"?
Seriously though, yes I play on EU and it was a huge problem, with forum posts bemoaning "I am on PvE realm, and all good guilds are on PvE, and I can't join one if I reroll!" on a weekly basis until the migration was allowed.
Considering how many men are in love with their cars and bikes more then they are in love with their spouse, I wouldn't discount flying car lovin' as a possibility!
On the other hand, apple would likely find most game makers highly uncooperative, as they are directly challenging their business models. So it's not that easy for apple either.
Not true on EU at least. The most crowded servers are the ones with many decent guilds, and these have long migrated to PvP servers. This issue has been massively bemoaned by people who wanted to join good guilds, but couldn't because they rolled on a PvE server and couldn't migrate to PvP. Open EU forums from the time before PvE to PvP migration was allowed, and you'll notice that they couldn't go a week without new thread on "I want to join a good PvE guild, and all good PvE guilds are on PvP realms" topic.
As far as I know, similar trend was also on US side, though I didn't follow that nearly as closely so I cannot say for certain. Therefore I'm quite uncertain where you draw your 4:1 and more crowded claims from.
It does tbh. Before I quit in the beginning of this year, I did form dungeon groups quite a lot, since I cba to tank (I was a death knight main since the beginning of wrath). I had the gear for since I was offspec tank in raids when needed, but I was DPS main and I preferred to have fun seeing who could win on meters. As a result our runs were always extremely fast, and we rarely had problems getting people to fill most spots. We may have sometimes needed to grab one person from LFG tool, but that's not much of a problem, even when missing person is a tank. If we got a baddie, we kickvote him out, I slap on my tank gear and spec and we move on.
Dead Island was a co-op multiplayer game with a very, VERY broken single player tacked on top. It really should have said "requires at least one more person to play" in requirements, or at least limit your character selection to one of the two males if you chose to play single player.
I played as chinese girl, and good lord was it retarded. Between her having no control over zombies due to her sharp weapons specialization, and her being designed to backstab while someone else is tanking, the game was everything but enjoyable solo until I got into co-op. It was like playing a WoW backstab rogue (before they removed need to hit in the back) without any control skills or stealth. Pointless, frustrating and just downright stupid.
I just hope they won't break ME3 in a similar way, essentially forcing co-op if you want to play the game properly.
In most cases you don't leave a game "because there's something better to do". You leave it because you get bored with it, or some major feature annoys you enough to get you to quit.
I would imagine that pay-to-win would certainly qualify as "feature that annoys you enough to quit" for many people.
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Angels and demons is a fairly well flowing book with elements that tickle a modern book reader in many right ways. It may not suit your tastes, but it does for majority.
You're essentially making "linux is a better OS" argument. Sure, it may be, but it's Joe Average and his boss that decide which one will be successful, not you.
Usefulness of free channels is extremely limited when it comes to marketing, and you will be overshadowed and forgotten when competitor with similar book will have a proper marketing machine behind him.
And all the new authors that need an advance so they can focus on writing their first and second books should just go to hell, right?
You don't need electricity and sanitation either. But damn, does it suck to live without it.
In most cases, authors are so poor that they have to ask for a cash ADVANCE just to be able to feed themselves while working. Like the author in the OP, she got 20k in advance.
Suggesting that starting author can pay a proper editor is like suggesting that a search engine start up should just buy google level of infrastructure. Completely unrealistic.
Ultimately a publisher these days is simply a one stop shop offering a loan, editing, typesetting, cover art, promotion, distribution and a selection of other tasks that are needed to make a book successful.
No, 30 years ago that's what a publisher was. These days only a very, very small minority of those authors who get picked up by publishers get that (i.e. the ones who are already best sellers). Everyone else gets a negligible advance, negligible editing, typesetting they could have done themselves, cover art, no promotion, minimal distribution (their book goes into the distribution catalogues, but hardly onto shelves, which the author could have done on their own) and no other services.
That's how publishers worked 30 years ago too. If you're a small, unknown author, you don't get much. This is just another version of "in my days, we had to walk to school barefoot in the snow, uphill both ways".
Quite simply, this is about budgeting. If a publisher provided every writer wannabe with top level service, it would be broke within a year.
One of the easy ways to spot an experienced author is by asking him what he thinks of editors. Inexperienced ones don't think they're important. Experienced ones think they're so important, they will often try to get a long-term professional relationship going once they find an editor that works well with their writing style.
Not having a good editor is like stepping on a rake. Only dumbest of the dumb do it more then twice.
However there are very few if any good editors, fact checkers, etc who don't want a proper stable paycheck, and therefore work for publishers rather then go into the mercy of authors, who are more often then not bigger assholes then publishers. Not to mention many of them being permanently insolvent and penniless in the "artistic" way.
Difference between "books with typos" and "books where language doesn't flow properly, breaking your immersion all the time is the difference between half-life and daikatana.
Buy a hard copy. Even better, a USED hard copy. No need to worry about "publisher setting a price".
Oh you want a convenience? Pay for it.
This isn't about "rights". This is about an ADVANCE gived before any of the work is done, in CASH.
You're comparing apples to tractors here.
Do you prefer more recent history, such as South-Korea and Japan, early industrialization (US late 1890s with its trusts), or even European dark ages when large economic interests bought aristocracy (debt) ending up controlling them, or even the infamous destruction of Knights Templar (which was the first well documented large-scale political attempt to kill a large corporation wielding too much political power).
You can take your pick.
Usually competition in capitalism is bought out or killed off. Capitalism's end game is always in fascism (or as those who dislike nazi links from WW2 to that name call it, "corporatism") where large capital-based industrial monopolies take over the government through buying out those in power.
It happened many times over the course of history.
I think you two missed my point. It's not necessary a "good" game from any single point of view, but a "good enough to pay 60USD retail price" from point of view of average consumer.
Same is not true for small mobile games, and it's been argued even here on slashdot countless times that people would NOT buy a 60USD AAA title on mobile platform.
I suppose that is one way to look at it. Another is very well presented in the forums: "I want to level on a PvP server and not get constantly ganked" vs "It's a PvP server stupid".
Very few of them are capable of making actually good games though. Look at what's most popular in mobile gaming: small games that you can play for 5 minutes at a time. It's the world of angry birds and solitaire.
Desktop and living room games are starkly different. They are meant to be immersive, to be played for hours at a time, and to generally be of significantly higher quality awarded by a much higher budget. What mobile games try to actively do is to draw entertainment budget from such games toward small ones. Publishers by far and large do NOT like this, and many of them have been very vocal about it.
Game makers don't like it when you try to change their business model from selling games for 50ish USD to 5USD.
Tongue in cheek, "there are good guild on US side"?
Seriously though, yes I play on EU and it was a huge problem, with forum posts bemoaning "I am on PvE realm, and all good guilds are on PvE, and I can't join one if I reroll!" on a weekly basis until the migration was allowed.
Considering how many men are in love with their cars and bikes more then they are in love with their spouse, I wouldn't discount flying car lovin' as a possibility!
On the other hand, apple would likely find most game makers highly uncooperative, as they are directly challenging their business models. So it's not that easy for apple either.
Not true on EU at least. The most crowded servers are the ones with many decent guilds, and these have long migrated to PvP servers. This issue has been massively bemoaned by people who wanted to join good guilds, but couldn't because they rolled on a PvE server and couldn't migrate to PvP. Open EU forums from the time before PvE to PvP migration was allowed, and you'll notice that they couldn't go a week without new thread on "I want to join a good PvE guild, and all good PvE guilds are on PvP realms" topic.
As far as I know, similar trend was also on US side, though I didn't follow that nearly as closely so I cannot say for certain. Therefore I'm quite uncertain where you draw your 4:1 and more crowded claims from.
It does tbh. Before I quit in the beginning of this year, I did form dungeon groups quite a lot, since I cba to tank (I was a death knight main since the beginning of wrath). I had the gear for since I was offspec tank in raids when needed, but I was DPS main and I preferred to have fun seeing who could win on meters.
As a result our runs were always extremely fast, and we rarely had problems getting people to fill most spots. We may have sometimes needed to grab one person from LFG tool, but that's not much of a problem, even when missing person is a tank. If we got a baddie, we kickvote him out, I slap on my tank gear and spec and we move on.
Except that it was mentioned in the NAME of the zone that it was PvP (contested area).
Still is in fact.
Dead Island was a co-op multiplayer game with a very, VERY broken single player tacked on top. It really should have said "requires at least one more person to play" in requirements, or at least limit your character selection to one of the two males if you chose to play single player.
I played as chinese girl, and good lord was it retarded. Between her having no control over zombies due to her sharp weapons specialization, and her being designed to backstab while someone else is tanking, the game was everything but enjoyable solo until I got into co-op. It was like playing a WoW backstab rogue (before they removed need to hit in the back) without any control skills or stealth. Pointless, frustrating and just downright stupid.
I just hope they won't break ME3 in a similar way, essentially forcing co-op if you want to play the game properly.
In most cases you don't leave a game "because there's something better to do". You leave it because you get bored with it, or some major feature annoys you enough to get you to quit.
I would imagine that pay-to-win would certainly qualify as "feature that annoys you enough to quit" for many people.