This law was passed in Mexico a few months ago. It's basically a failure because of all the fake IDs out there. There's very little preventing you from registering it to someone else's name too.
To send a message to the president Felipe Calderon, a lot of people registered using his personal data.
A few days ago, one of the phone companies admitted they had at least 12,000 cell phones registered to the president's name...
Absolutely, the one big caveat of Steam is that you can't sell or even gift your games you don't use anymore.
I'd love for this to change. However I don't think this is up to Steam/Valve alone - Publishers surely would shun their platform if Valve allowed resales, are you kidding?
But in the meantime, it's just too convenient and not intrusive enough to warrant using Steam.
Maybe in the future it will change, but I wouldn't hold my breath...
I don't like this DRM business either, but Valve has been around more than 10 years, and the Steam platform for like 6 or 8 years. Honestly besides the rare internet outage I've not had any problems with them.
Valve is honestly the last great PC gaming company left, I support them whenever I can.
Hell, they're still supporting TF2 with patches and new content, 3 years after it was released.
Also Ubisoft's past title, Prince of Persia, released without any copy protection to much fanfare. I imagine that was a disaster sales-wise, and now they'd rather have the DRM.
You must have huge mutant fingers because I've been using my Dell mini netbook for months and I love it. Supposedly the keyboard is about 90% of the size of a regular keyboard, and I have absolutely no problems typing anything on it.
Maybe other netbooks are smaller and have worse keyboards, but I quite like mine. I'm probably not going to buy an iPad, I already have a Kindle, netbook and regular computer. I like the idea, however.
The problem, my dear anonymous coward, is that we want entertainment, not art. If we get art along the entertainment, great!
But we don't expect to go to a scifi movie and have what might as well be 2 hours of David Lynch jerking off in front of the audience (an opinion that movie snobs might hate but in my mind that's pretty much all he does in his movies).
I don't claim to enjoy or even understand David Lynch's "art", but I can recognize when a movie based on a very awesome book is "crap".
Didn't Wikipedia run for a couple of years on less than 5 million dollars? I dunno how much they need right now since their donations seem private, but 66 million seems incredible for a free software.
I'm sorry, but other than the huge advantage that is all the plugins available for Firefox, Opera has always been lightyears ahead of any other browser's features. http://operawiki.info/OperaInnovations Tabbed browsing and Zooming into a webpage are only the two that seem most important and were introduced by Opera, but they have always been incredibly innovative, much more so than Firefox. Yet there's not a big developer following, probably because it is not open source like FF, that's Opera's weakest part I guess, but as a browser, I love it.
I agree with you, but what bothers me is that we as gamers aren't even giving EA a chance to develop this new DLC market. So far they haven't screwed anyone, specially with Rock Band. Rock Band 2 had 84 songs and an extra 20 free downloadable songs, along with a crapload of new stuff over the first one (specially like the drum trainer).
And by the way, I think the next big thing to develop in digital sales is indeed lending of content. Maybe erase a game from my hard drive while my friend plays it, hell he can even pay a reduced price or something, and it's temporarily unavailable on my xbox, I'd be fine with that.
Aren't Kindle books shareable between any device that has the Kindle app installed?
I have a couple of Kindles and they share any books I buy (registered to the same person), although I havent tried to buy a book for the iPhone app, isn't it shared there too?
When that happens, when EA sells half a game and demands you pay for the rest of it, gaming nerds will be the first to crucify EA for it, I'm sure. That free BF game isn't doing so hot right now I think.
But so far, no one has given EA a chance for this new model to work. For a nerd site, it's like everyone is so scared of change. Everyone hates the new iPod, everyone hates the new Kindle, etc.
I personally like the idea of DLC. And I've noticed in the past year or so how much EA has changed. I used to really dislike them for basically killing the Ultima series, but this past year alone they've definitely taken some chances on great games. Mirror's Edge and Dragon Age, but also Rock Band was a big risk. I heard Dead Space was cool too. I'm also a fan of Fight Night 4.
I feel they're innovating in new franchises, not just pumping out sequels like Activision.
So, I'm a little torn right now, because I see a lot of slashdot comments complaining about some really lame stuff and then using it as a moral shield to justify their piracy, and I feel like EA is changing (or trying to at least), but maybe there's no change big enough to convince most people to buy more games they like.
I dunno, I wasn't pro-EA but after writing this I feel a lot more sympathy for them.
This just sounds wrong, honestly. You pirated the DLC because you didn't agree with EA's methods?
Why not just play the regular game, and skip the DLC, if the DLC wasn't worth it to you?
Really, the cries of gamers over a 7 dollar expansion sound so... hollow to me. Just... don't... buy it. But don't pirate it either, because that just nullifies all your arguments.
Besides, Dragon Age seems pretty damn complete to me without the expansions. Isn't it like 80 hours per playthrough? What other entertainment media gives you 80 hours for 50 bucks?
At least in Mexico, the biggest concern with Facebook is that kidnappers will use it to track your movements, friends and use all the information there to blackmail you or outright kidnap you or your family. It goes from simple phone calls to abduction or killing of family members.
The blackmails used to be based from information stolen from banks or discarded receipts, but the info is now so easily available...
I hate to break it to you, but go check out the pirate bay's most downloaded songs. Top 10 is generally full of garbage, just as the traditional top 10 pop billboards were. I'm sure you'll find Lady Gaga on or near the top, I remember it was a few weeks ago.
I dunno about Marcus Aurelius, but I can assure you Machiavelli was no leader, and he never won anything of note besides a couple of skirmishes.
In fact, most of his life he was sort of a loser, working for a government that got deposed, and then being denied from working in government again for the rest of his life. "The Prince" was written pretty much as a job application for the Medici (didn't work), and while his writings are preserved today for their uncanny relevance to human nature and politics regardless of age, he wasn't exactly a "winner of wars". He was a great renaissance man, but in his time he wasn't very appreciated the way other people were (like the Medici or the Borgias). His appreciation came with time, but I don't know that he wouldn't have loved some recognition while he was alive.
I wonder, are more folks returning to their home countries' simply because of money and career advancement? Or do they feel less welcome in the culture? Or perhaps their own home cultures are changing to where they feel they can shape them for the better?
Well, there's a clear change in attitude in the USA after 2001 in regards to traveling to the USA, for business or pleasure. Personally I was treated so badly as a tourist in the airlines, that I gave up all travel to the US in favor of slightly longer flights to Europe.
Asking me to take my shoes off is just humiliating.
Wow! Except for your personal experience on L4D (which I hear is a pretty good game), you kind of summarized exactly all the topics the article covers. Someone only read the summary;)
Slashdot Mirror
Aren't they "sort of" regulating themselves, tho? Didn't a lot of Wall Street types go broke, and a bunch of companies disappear?
The problem is that this self-regulation is not exactly the one we'd hope for... they'll fuck up the world before they're gone.
This law was passed in Mexico a few months ago. It's basically a failure because of all the fake IDs out there. There's very little preventing you from registering it to someone else's name too.
To send a message to the president Felipe Calderon, a lot of people registered using his personal data.
A few days ago, one of the phone companies admitted they had at least 12,000 cell phones registered to the president's name...
I can vouch for this. I learned to read english from american video game magazines in the 90's.
I think it worked, except now when I speak I use too many words like "Cowabunga!" and "Rad!"
Absolutely, the one big caveat of Steam is that you can't sell or even gift your games you don't use anymore.
I'd love for this to change. However I don't think this is up to Steam/Valve alone - Publishers surely would shun their platform if Valve allowed resales, are you kidding?
But in the meantime, it's just too convenient and not intrusive enough to warrant using Steam.
Maybe in the future it will change, but I wouldn't hold my breath...
I don't like this DRM business either, but Valve has been around more than 10 years, and the Steam platform for like 6 or 8 years. Honestly besides the rare internet outage I've not had any problems with them.
Valve is honestly the last great PC gaming company left, I support them whenever I can.
Hell, they're still supporting TF2 with patches and new content, 3 years after it was released.
Whoa, I've heard about the Bible promoting killing non virgins or something like that, but what's that about child sex and incest?
EA has very lenient DRM, I believe.
Also Ubisoft's past title, Prince of Persia, released without any copy protection to much fanfare. I imagine that was a disaster sales-wise, and now they'd rather have the DRM.
You must have huge mutant fingers because I've been using my Dell mini netbook for months and I love it. Supposedly the keyboard is about 90% of the size of a regular keyboard, and I have absolutely no problems typing anything on it.
Maybe other netbooks are smaller and have worse keyboards, but I quite like mine. I'm probably not going to buy an iPad, I already have a Kindle, netbook and regular computer. I like the idea, however.
The problem, my dear anonymous coward, is that we want entertainment, not art. If we get art along the entertainment, great!
But we don't expect to go to a scifi movie and have what might as well be 2 hours of David Lynch jerking off in front of the audience (an opinion that movie snobs might hate but in my mind that's pretty much all he does in his movies).
I don't claim to enjoy or even understand David Lynch's "art", but I can recognize when a movie based on a very awesome book is "crap".
Didn't Wikipedia run for a couple of years on less than 5 million dollars? I dunno how much they need right now since their donations seem private, but 66 million seems incredible for a free software.
I'm sorry, but other than the huge advantage that is all the plugins available for Firefox, Opera has always been lightyears ahead of any other browser's features.
http://operawiki.info/OperaInnovations
Tabbed browsing and Zooming into a webpage are only the two that seem most important and were introduced by Opera, but they have always been incredibly innovative, much more so than Firefox. Yet there's not a big developer following, probably because it is not open source like FF, that's Opera's weakest part I guess, but as a browser, I love it.
If that were true, Whales would be our newly welcomed overlords. I think the article is crap.
I agree with you, but what bothers me is that we as gamers aren't even giving EA a chance to develop this new DLC market. So far they haven't screwed anyone, specially with Rock Band. Rock Band 2 had 84 songs and an extra 20 free downloadable songs, along with a crapload of new stuff over the first one (specially like the drum trainer).
And by the way, I think the next big thing to develop in digital sales is indeed lending of content. Maybe erase a game from my hard drive while my friend plays it, hell he can even pay a reduced price or something, and it's temporarily unavailable on my xbox, I'd be fine with that.
Aren't Kindle books shareable between any device that has the Kindle app installed?
I have a couple of Kindles and they share any books I buy (registered to the same person), although I havent tried to buy a book for the iPhone app, isn't it shared there too?
Kindle is 259 right now. If you read a lot of books, the thing pays for itself just in shipping (specially if you're international).
When that happens, when EA sells half a game and demands you pay for the rest of it, gaming nerds will be the first to crucify EA for it, I'm sure. That free BF game isn't doing so hot right now I think.
But so far, no one has given EA a chance for this new model to work. For a nerd site, it's like everyone is so scared of change. Everyone hates the new iPod, everyone hates the new Kindle, etc.
I personally like the idea of DLC. And I've noticed in the past year or so how much EA has changed. I used to really dislike them for basically killing the Ultima series, but this past year alone they've definitely taken some chances on great games. Mirror's Edge and Dragon Age, but also Rock Band was a big risk. I heard Dead Space was cool too. I'm also a fan of Fight Night 4.
I feel they're innovating in new franchises, not just pumping out sequels like Activision.
So, I'm a little torn right now, because I see a lot of slashdot comments complaining about some really lame stuff and then using it as a moral shield to justify their piracy, and I feel like EA is changing (or trying to at least), but maybe there's no change big enough to convince most people to buy more games they like.
I dunno, I wasn't pro-EA but after writing this I feel a lot more sympathy for them.
This just sounds wrong, honestly. You pirated the DLC because you didn't agree with EA's methods?
Why not just play the regular game, and skip the DLC, if the DLC wasn't worth it to you?
Really, the cries of gamers over a 7 dollar expansion sound so... hollow to me. Just... don't... buy it. But don't pirate it either, because that just nullifies all your arguments.
Besides, Dragon Age seems pretty damn complete to me without the expansions. Isn't it like 80 hours per playthrough? What other entertainment media gives you 80 hours for 50 bucks?
At least in Mexico, the biggest concern with Facebook is that kidnappers will use it to track your movements, friends and use all the information there to blackmail you or outright kidnap you or your family. It goes from simple phone calls to abduction or killing of family members.
The blackmails used to be based from information stolen from banks or discarded receipts, but the info is now so easily available...
I hate to break it to you, but go check out the pirate bay's most downloaded songs. Top 10 is generally full of garbage, just as the traditional top 10 pop billboards were. I'm sure you'll find Lady Gaga on or near the top, I remember it was a few weeks ago.
So I think none of what you said will happen.
I dunno about Marcus Aurelius, but I can assure you Machiavelli was no leader, and he never won anything of note besides a couple of skirmishes.
In fact, most of his life he was sort of a loser, working for a government that got deposed, and then being denied from working in government again for the rest of his life. "The Prince" was written pretty much as a job application for the Medici (didn't work), and while his writings are preserved today for their uncanny relevance to human nature and politics regardless of age, he wasn't exactly a "winner of wars". He was a great renaissance man, but in his time he wasn't very appreciated the way other people were (like the Medici or the Borgias). His appreciation came with time, but I don't know that he wouldn't have loved some recognition while he was alive.
"If the input sucked to begin with the bit rate doesn't matter"
And as is the case with electronic music, most of the time the input REALLY sucks...
I wonder, are more folks returning to their home countries' simply because of money and career advancement? Or do they feel less welcome in the culture? Or perhaps their own home cultures are changing to where they feel they can shape them for the better?
Well, there's a clear change in attitude in the USA after 2001 in regards to traveling to the USA, for business or pleasure. Personally I was treated so badly as a tourist in the airlines, that I gave up all travel to the US in favor of slightly longer flights to Europe.
Asking me to take my shoes off is just humiliating.
So Kaspersky is KGB, Panda Antivirus is Scientology, who are you going with?
Wow! Except for your personal experience on L4D (which I hear is a pretty good game), you kind of summarized exactly all the topics the article covers. Someone only read the summary ;)
Don't you feel strange sucking up the resources of a website without the small payback of watching a couple of ads?