As an ex-game programmer, there's TONS of stuff we left in various games. Some intentional, some not so intentional.
I can't speak for how GTA is setup, but in our case some of the stuff went out because of a lock down in the code/data. When *any* change would be considered a potential to introduce bugs it was safer to lock down *everything* and go as it was.
Is it the MPAA's fault for rating Disney's "The Rescuer's" G when there were pictures of naked women in the movie?
How about the original poster of Disney's "The Little Mermaid" containing a penis?
The code wasn't meant to be seen and can't be seen in the normal course of the game without running a special patch. Whereas the x rated material in the Disney stuff was right out in the open.
But somehow the ESRB is "undermined" because they didn't look for hidden easter eggs?
More likely this is the DEATH KNELL for easter eggs period!
Doubleclick's animated ads don't walk across the content I'm trying to read and play annoying music.
In the offline world, my newspaper isn't locked up with a push button that, when pushed forces me to watch an ad before it will allow me to open the paper.
In the offline world, my newspaper doesn't try to steal my identity.
In the offline world, my newspaper doesn't inject me with a virus that records everything else I read and displays ads when I'm trying to read important things like traffic signs or other documents.
"While the negotiators unanimously recommended that the contract be approved, they did so only reluctantly after failing to get member support for a strike.
Even then, with almost no other option but to accept the gaming industry's final offer, some of the more militant negotiators still demanded that the contract be rejected, sparking one of the most embarrassing rebellions in recent memory. "
They don't want this contract and only want Restore Respect out so they can bully the union into striking against the game industry.
It's illegal "wink wink nudge nudge" to copy Windows 3.1/98 but it helps spread windows users so that's a good thing.
It's illegal "wink wink nudge nudge" to use our faster service, but it helps support Microsoft so that's a good thing.
(It's not a bad idea, if it gets popular enough they can just roll it into Office and charge huge $$$ for it like their MSN Messenger 8...er... Microsoft Virtual Meeting...)
While I'm all for the idea of a more database-esque file system, I see this as bad for consumers.
If only applications manage particular files than you become "locked" to that application for managing those files.
Think of it, it makes it far easier to force DRM (I'm sorry, you can't even SEE your files unless you use the approved application, citizen). Plus you're condemned to THAT application because it doesn't necessarily have to release its data store to other applications.
I was working there when this happened. So this is a personal account from my own recollection. I don't remember any press about it at the time. WC4 had a film shoot with all the actors on real sets (as opposed to the green screen of WC3) in Hollywood. The union found out and got the studio hands to walk off and unionize (or shut down the production in some way until union workers could be invovled... I wasn't involved in the particulars). That turned WC4 into a "union" production and, as such, the entire work was protected. Voiceover work was done back in Austin by the regular playtesters, programmers, artists, designers; etc. Whomever wanted to do it and then got listed in the credits. Afterwards, the union sent letters to those who did the voiceovers basically stating they had gotten a "freebie" for doing voiceover work on a union project and that if they ever wanted to do that again, they'd have to join the union.
I'm not being hard nosed against the actors here. I don't know why you're being so hard nosed against the programmers, the artists and the game designers.
Don't believe me?
Monkey Island had no voice actors. Super Mario Brothers had no voice actors. ICO had no voice actors. Origin did voice work in house with the regular staff. When Wing Commander 4 was done with union work (because the union came in and shut production down until it became a union job) All the inhouse staff that did voicework received cease and desist notices that they were forbidden from doing future voice work until they joined the union.
But I suppose all those games were designed and built by off the shelf coders that do kewl and elite IMAP modules and artists who learned photoshop in their mom's basement.
I'm not denying voice actors fair compensation for game work.. BUT GET IN FRIGGIN' LINE!
Yaahh...That was the only way I could get video game money...by scrimping on lunch.
Okay, seriously... in grade school lunches were paid up front to the teacher a week in advance. Then I went to the lunch line and was given whatever the days' lunch was. My only "choice" was white or chocolate milk. This was done using pen and paper.
In middle school I paid for lunch daily with cash and my choices were "expanded" to include an additional "malt" (in quotes because it wasn't a malt.. it was a reformulated dairy product they called a malt.). This was done with cash, or parents could still prepay and it was done with..pen and paper...
In high school, I could leave the campus and go to any fast food place I wanted. What kind of control is that? Right after I graduated, the campus (all of them in the area) were "locked down" and students were not allowed to leave... for their own safety.
So now the schools are offering cookies and other non-healthy items (making more money that way) and then got the school system to pony up for a new computer system to track what the students are purchasing under the guise of "helping the parents make more informed decisions" (making more money that way), all the while getting students accustomed to the idea that monitoring of their purchasing activities is a GOOD THING(TM)?!?
It's no wonder our students are so dumb... they're being educated to be sheep.
People make these complaints during the first launch and MS says "no no... the sun is shining bright, everything's cool!"
Now it's, the first launch was a disaster... but with the XBox 360..."the sun is shining bright and everything's cool!"
The first launch wasn't a disaster. Sure there were missteps (controllers being too big which I think was an honest mistake going for "larger" American audiences) and the lack of support in Japan.
But... "disaster"? (and remember kids, we *love* the XBox classic and will continue to support it wholeheartedly. Just like Windows ME!)
No, but they had the staff of Ra medallion, Threepios' Arm plus other props, a two story library complete with stained glass and a one-piece carved wood circular stairway... all in a beautiful victorian era mansion.
I mean, you KNOW Lucas made gajillions on Star Wars but you don't *KNOW* exactly what that means until you see what he did with it.
Though I think, legally, that violations before this would still be valued the same as they were (although iTunes prices could be the check for that at a buck a song or thousands of dollars of damages instead of hundreds of thousands...) (Though I could be wrong about that.)
"Until Longhorn is fully operational we are vulnerable. Linux is too well equipped. It's more dangerous than you realize."
"Dangerous to your OS division, not to my Office line."
"Linux will continue to gain support along with OpenOffice as long as Red Hat continues to..."
"Red Hat will no longer be of any conern to us. I've just received word that the Emperor has purchased Red Hat and has ordered a completely new version of Linux that will be released sometime in the near future... IE not at all. The last remants of Unix have been swept away."
In the state legislature in Indiana it's against the rules to attach riders to bills that have nothing to do with the bill itself.
In this last legislative session, this got to be a real problem because political maneuvers blocked 100s of bills from being introduced, allowing only several dozen bills through.
Following the rules, the bills should've died. Instead they were attached to the existing bills through "creative interpretation".
Some bills couldn't get handled this way no matter how much bending of the wording they could do. In those cases, they stripped the entire language of the bill out and replaced it with the language of the more important bill. (For instance, Bill xxx "Raise the speed limit from 65 to 70" was gutted and became a bill to enact Daylight Savings Time... but was still titled the "speed limit bill".
So as you see, it doesn't matter what restrictions are put on the process. Politicians will get their way.
Slashdot Mirror
But the original versions of those movies weren't RE RATED!
As an ex-game programmer, there's TONS of stuff we left in various games. Some intentional, some not so intentional.
I can't speak for how GTA is setup, but in our case some of the stuff went out because of a lock down in the code/data. When *any* change would be considered a potential to introduce bugs it was safer to lock down *everything* and go as it was.
Is it the MPAA's fault for rating Disney's "The Rescuer's" G when there were pictures of naked women in the movie?
How about the original poster of Disney's "The Little Mermaid" containing a penis?
The code wasn't meant to be seen and can't be seen in the normal course of the game without running a special patch. Whereas the x rated material in the Disney stuff was right out in the open.
But somehow the ESRB is "undermined" because they didn't look for hidden easter eggs?
More likely this is the DEATH KNELL for easter eggs period!
I'm all for supporting open formats. But is this more of an anti-Microsoft gesture or a true move to "open" formats?
Doubleclick's animated ads don't walk across the content I'm trying to read and play annoying music.
In the offline world, my newspaper isn't locked up with a push button that, when pushed forces me to watch an ad before it will allow me to open the paper.
In the offline world, my newspaper doesn't try to steal my identity.
In the offline world, my newspaper doesn't inject me with a virus that records everything else I read and displays ads when I'm trying to read important things like traffic signs or other documents.
"While the negotiators unanimously recommended that the contract be approved, they did so only reluctantly after failing to get member support for a strike.
Even then, with almost no other option but to accept the gaming industry's final offer, some of the more militant negotiators still demanded that the contract be rejected, sparking one of the most embarrassing rebellions in recent memory. "
They don't want this contract and only want Restore Respect out so they can bully the union into striking against the game industry.
The union is holding out to try to get EVERY job in the game development hierarchy unionized. They're after POWER. That's where the true money lies.
And how could this be?
Because SAG is trying to get the games industry to go COMPLETELY union.
I paid $70 and drove ~300 miles.
It's illegal "wink wink nudge nudge" to copy Windows 3.1/98 but it helps spread windows users so that's a good thing.
It's illegal "wink wink nudge nudge" to use our faster service, but it helps support Microsoft so that's a good thing.
(It's not a bad idea, if it gets popular enough they can just roll it into Office and charge huge $$$ for it like their MSN Messenger 8...er... Microsoft Virtual Meeting...)
So those who do NOT want a national ID are going to register their ID's in a centralized database...
hmmm...
Seriously, go get 'em guys.
While I'm all for the idea of a more database-esque file system, I see this as bad for consumers.
If only applications manage particular files than you become "locked" to that application for managing those files.
Think of it, it makes it far easier to force DRM (I'm sorry, you can't even SEE your files unless you use the approved application, citizen). Plus you're condemned to THAT application because it doesn't necessarily have to release its data store to other applications.
I was working there when this happened. So this is a personal account from my own recollection. I don't remember any press about it at the time. WC4 had a film shoot with all the actors on real sets (as opposed to the green screen of WC3) in Hollywood. The union found out and got the studio hands to walk off and unionize (or shut down the production in some way until union workers could be invovled... I wasn't involved in the particulars). That turned WC4 into a "union" production and, as such, the entire work was protected. Voiceover work was done back in Austin by the regular playtesters, programmers, artists, designers; etc. Whomever wanted to do it and then got listed in the credits. Afterwards, the union sent letters to those who did the voiceovers basically stating they had gotten a "freebie" for doing voiceover work on a union project and that if they ever wanted to do that again, they'd have to join the union.
I'm not being hard nosed against the actors here. I don't know why you're being so hard nosed against the programmers, the artists and the game designers.
Don't believe me?
Monkey Island had no voice actors.
Super Mario Brothers had no voice actors.
ICO had no voice actors.
Origin did voice work in house with the regular staff. When Wing Commander 4 was done with union work (because the union came in and shut production down until it became a union job) All the inhouse staff that did voicework received cease and desist notices that they were forbidden from doing future voice work until they joined the union.
But I suppose all those games were designed and built by off the shelf coders that do kewl and elite IMAP modules and artists who learned photoshop in their mom's basement.
I'm not denying voice actors fair compensation for game work.. BUT GET IN FRIGGIN' LINE!
And that would be true... if the actors were PERFORMING and carrying the story which, for the most part, they're not.
The REAL performers in games are the ones built by the Programmers and the game designers... not the actors.
Yaahh...That was the only way I could get video game money...by scrimping on lunch.
Okay, seriously... in grade school lunches were paid up front to the teacher a week in advance. Then I went to the lunch line and was given whatever the days' lunch was. My only "choice" was white or chocolate milk. This was done using pen and paper.
In middle school I paid for lunch daily with cash and my choices were "expanded" to include an additional "malt" (in quotes because it wasn't a malt.. it was a reformulated dairy product they called a malt.). This was done with cash, or parents could still prepay and it was done with..pen and paper...
In high school, I could leave the campus and go to any fast food place I wanted. What kind of control is that? Right after I graduated, the campus (all of them in the area) were "locked down" and students were not allowed to leave... for their own safety.
So now the schools are offering cookies and other non-healthy items (making more money that way) and then got the school system to pony up for a new computer system to track what the students are purchasing under the guise of "helping the parents make more informed decisions" (making more money that way), all the while getting students accustomed to the idea that monitoring of their purchasing activities is a GOOD THING(TM)?!?
It's no wonder our students are so dumb... they're being educated to be sheep.
Doesn't stop the MPAA from going after people there...
If they put it out on the internet, is that considered piracy because the US wants private industry to charge for the same service?
People make these complaints during the first launch and MS says "no no... the sun is shining bright, everything's cool!"
Now it's, the first launch was a disaster... but with the XBox 360..."the sun is shining bright and everything's cool!"
The first launch wasn't a disaster. Sure there were missteps (controllers being too big which I think was an honest mistake going for "larger" American audiences) and the lack of support in Japan.
But... "disaster"? (and remember kids, we *love* the XBox classic and will continue to support it wholeheartedly. Just like Windows ME!)
No, but they had the staff of Ra medallion, Threepios' Arm plus other props, a two story library complete with stained glass and a one-piece carved wood circular stairway... all in a beautiful victorian era mansion.
I mean, you KNOW Lucas made gajillions on Star Wars but you don't *KNOW* exactly what that means until you see what he did with it.
I wonder what happens to it?
(Especially when he dies).
Been there once. It was... quite a thing to see...
Point, Cuban.
Though I think, legally, that violations before this would still be valued the same as they were (although iTunes prices could be the check for that at a buck a song or thousands of dollars of damages instead of hundreds of thousands...) (Though I could be wrong about that.)
"Until Longhorn is fully operational we are vulnerable. Linux is too well equipped. It's more dangerous than you realize."
"Dangerous to your OS division, not to my Office line."
"Linux will continue to gain support along with OpenOffice as long as Red Hat continues to..."
"Red Hat will no longer be of any conern to us. I've just received word that the Emperor has purchased Red Hat and has ordered a completely new version of Linux that will be released sometime in the near future... IE not at all. The last remants of Unix have been swept away."
In the state legislature in Indiana it's against the rules to attach riders to bills that have nothing to do with the bill itself.
In this last legislative session, this got to be a real problem because political maneuvers blocked 100s of bills from being introduced, allowing only several dozen bills through.
Following the rules, the bills should've died. Instead they were attached to the existing bills through "creative interpretation".
Some bills couldn't get handled this way no matter how much bending of the wording they could do. In those cases, they stripped the entire language of the bill out and replaced it with the language of the more important bill. (For instance, Bill xxx "Raise the speed limit from 65 to 70" was gutted and became a bill to enact Daylight Savings Time... but was still titled the "speed limit bill".
So as you see, it doesn't matter what restrictions are put on the process. Politicians will get their way.
if the reviewers LIKED it, those screen shots could've stayed up...