Also most businesses on the Internet understand that bandwidth costs money but it's an expense that they have to pay for. They get the convienence of letting people download their software instead of having to run an operation that presses cds, handles ordering and a warehouse to ship people cds.
An analogy that would hold IF there were a shelf at the local computer store marked FREE and another marked $9.95
$10 a month is quite reasonable, and there appears to still be an option to get the free updates. I don't see the problem.
As fascinating as the book sounds, individual developers or teams that are writing (and debugging, and debugging, and debugging) code to calculate the acceleration of a mass on a curved path are not using their time productively.
These functions are based on laws of physics, and should be the last thing to be reinvented.
Game development as a whole will be of a far higher quality when games don't have to be developed one molecule at a time.
I am curious as to why this game wasn't released. Why did it remain vaporware?
Some game company management committee, who probably couldn't find their own a** with a both hands, a search party and a helicopter, bet against Lord of the Rings and lost, huge.
oh wait, are we supposed to only play games based on old engines
clones
and previous games??
sequels.
That is correct. This is what the "game industry" prefers, since it involves near zero risk and comes with a built-in excuse (in the form of a great "yeah, but" remark) for instantly rejecting anything "new" WITHOUT having to think about it.
...that graphics don't matter. Two articles back, there were comments about the "Uplink" game, which probably didn't use a state of the art game engine.
The positive-negative ratio of comments here looks about the same. People complain anyway.
All companies have to do is look to the Final Fantasy movie for further proof. Best graphics possible with modern technology (and budgets). Didn't translate into hyper-success though, despite "critical acclaim."
That's right, let's find a reason to say that it isn't worth the money. Then we can all justify not buying the game so the company will stop offering it and we can all go back to playing $CLONE and $SEQUEL on $WINDOWS_VERSION_OF_THE_WEEK
I mean, we certainly wouldn't want to encourage anything *original* or *different* would we?
Not ever again having to listen to those #%)&@$*#% radio commercials OVER AND OVER AGAIN!!!!! I'm reminded of the Simpsons episode where Homer "reacts" to the guy that said he invented the "two people talking" commercial format.:)
If I hear that Smart n' Final "professional chef" commercial or that stupid "O come all ye file folders" Office Supply place commercial again, I'm going to perform an "instant disassembly" on my radio.
The morning show on our talk station does TWELVE MINUTE COMMERCIAL BREAKS TWICE AN HOUR!!! That's just wrong.
There just might be a market for satellite radio if they can reduce the advertising to at least tolerable levels.
Office or no Office, companies are still chasing the
PC Magazine/Comdex/MS/drag-and-drop graphically-perfect computing world. They will not change to Linux, EVEN IF it is proven to be better in every category, and they don't have to explain themselves. For developers it is a foregone conclusion. There are certain kinds of development I wouldn't even attempt on any Win* platform.
I have NOT ONCE heard a well-reasoned technical argument pro or con regarding current development, languages, architecture, or networking from any supervisory personnel at any job, ever. The standard answer is, well, that's the "standard."
The thing that most developers have trouble understanding is:
Nobody cares if it's wrong.
Just as long as they aren't late to the cake and soda in the meeting room or to Blockbuster after work.
What is it about people, journalists in particular, that makes them believe that the U.S. "market" is so well insulated by the McDisney cultural powerhouse, that nothing can ever be "successful" in the United States.
The number of "foreign" products, games, whatever, that are seeing tremendous success here is staggering, but the "yeah, but" crowd just continues to bury their head in the demographics reports. I'll guarantee that some tie-wearing cynical #*@&!~*@%& at some arrogant company said Harry Potter would never be a "success" either. Can't you just hear it? Some haircut in a grey suit holding his hand over his #%&@#*()%# cell-phone and saying "a kid with glasses and a broom? Give me a break!"
Just a reaction to the "far too foreign to make a truly successful crossover title" remark in the article. What is truly successful? How much? A billion? A hundred billion? What?
This is what causes the money-grab mindset of businesses now. If it doesn't lead to a 100000% market-cap increase and an IPO and put us in the Fortune 100, and the creative team can't PROVE that will happen, then we'd rather just have another meeting.
I just read a few articles about "Dance Dance Revolution." Here's another product that U.S. companies probably laughed at. Yet, whenever I see the game, some kid is putting money in it, and 437 other kids are lined up around the corner to play it, and 300 other people are watching, and 10,000 other people are putting up web sites about it.
Keep having meetings and keep running your mouths, U.S. corporate-types. There's a million little companies out there with a million little really neat ideas that are eventually going to eat your %#&@$()* lunch.
I worked at Origin during the Wing Commander IV era, and EA's revolving door management, and utter intolerance for any new ideas out of Austin, made certain that Origin would never do anything innovative again. All EA wanted to hear from Origin was "Yes, Master, the new Ultima/Wing Commander/Crusader game is on schedule and under budget. May we please refrain from laying off our staff this year?"
A big company stopping innovation and insisting on clones and sequels for constant, growing revenue and unattainable profits? Say it isn't so!
Sigh... what wonders have been lost but for the crushing weight of dull, grey, uninspired, witless corporate bureaucracy.
Which is better: a student using a mouse to draw and color, or a student actually cuts-n-pastes and colors with (God forbid) crayons? Schools are lacking more in such hands-on activities.
Probably because they are lacking in crayons too.
That means $11,580,000 is being spent at a time when teacher shortages are happening everywhere. I would rather have a smaller class size with or without the laptops than a crowded class with technology being used ineffectively.
Agreed. However the teacher shortages have more to do with most potentially good teachers' inability to tolerate the bureaucracy and nonsense that goes on in the "education establishment."
In addition to that fact, roughly 75% of the money spent on education in this state at least is spent outside the classroom, and not on teachers. THAT is the problem.
Oh, great. 9,000 companies create a typhoon of Chapter 11 filings that when spread out page at a time cover enough area to be seen from orbit, and *this* company has to explain their stock price. That's fair.
"Your Honor, the combined losses of capital value in the NASDAQ and NYSE listed companies over the past 18 months exceeds the national debt..."
"So, what are some of the projects you've worked on previously?"
"Well, let's see... I.. accomplishment, accomplishment, WROTE A UNIX-TYPE OPERATING SYSTEM, accomplishment, accomplishment..."
"Hmmm... you don't seem to have any ASP experience... are you sure you can contribute to this project?"
It really is no wonder the entire computer industry is in the tank. The whole "IT new economy revolutionary blah" really was just all about upgrading to the next Intel this and Microsoft that. Eighty thousand billion dollars worth of shrinkwrap, heatsinks and icons.
LOAN OFFICER: "So, Mr. Customer, what's your business plan?"
CUSTOMER: "Well, see, I'm going to compete with a multi-billion dollar Japanese company by building a product that will lose $2 billion over the next three years, then break even, hopefully."
LOAN OFFICER: "Sounds great! We'll finance whatever you need."
(Customer walks into bank in the real world)
LOAN OFFICER: "So, Mr. Customer, what's your business plan?"
CUSTOMER: "Well, see, we need a small loan to help expand our business. We saved our nickels and dimes, ate soup and drove 15-year old cars for three years and built this product and generated some sales, but now we want to make the product better with more features and perhaps get some part-time employees."
LOAN OFFICER: "Sounds great! Naturally, you'll need cash exceeding the value of the loan as collateral deposited here at our bank in our lowest-interest account, platinum-lined credit that rings softly in a light breeze, 12 references, a 50-page annotated business plan, three years of financials audited by a big-six accounting firm, an autobiography, two full-time sources of secondary income, oh, and real estate, LOTS of real estate... financial projections for five years showing sustainable 20% weekly growth with full supporting documentation, a large portfolio of blue-chip equity holdings and nice fat juicy municipal bonds, three co-signers and a silver partridge in a golden pear tree, and please fill out this 40 page application. Your loan will be reviewed by the committee at the next meeting in... four months."
2) A few "multimedia" computers in the library playing movies of cheetahs. This was during the era when "multimedia" was first rearing its head. Each one of these 486s with a CD-ROM and monitor probably cost the district $3,000, and possibly more.
Here we go...
for purchase and maintenance of those units would be around $8,000 for a classroom of 28 students. Can you imagine the jump in the quality of teaching applicants a district would receive if even $4,000 of that amount were being given to the teacher?
It is easier to get approval to build a two-mile suspension bridge than it is to be successfully hired as a credentialed teacher. $4,000 makes no difference at all.
The process of becoming (and remaining) a credentialed teacher is as sure to crush the very life from any possible inspiration to impart knowledge as being a cubicle-dwelling "team player" programmer is to destroy any joy in writing great and useful programs. Fix that problem, and you'll have all the great teachers you need.
We spend $150K/year per classroom per year in this state. Teacher makes $40K if they are lucky. See any problem here? How many classrooms in the average school? District? Where's *that* money? That's a far more important question than the tiny sum spent on computers.
Meanwhile, people just keep saying things like "we don't spend that much!" while the budget is quietly increased to $175K. Schools don't have pencils, paper, current textbooks, reference materials, properly maintained buildings, etc.
Name one, ONE public school band, athletic team, club, whatever (besides football) ANYWHERE that has their uniforms/equipment replaced at district expense on a regular basis (and the football team pays from their own ticket sales.. nice try).
When problems like that are solved, the teacher pay problem will be solved with them.
I thought R&D was critical for a company's survival. Judge from the amount of layoffs I guess the fat cats think they can make product on their own.
Oh well, I guess they'll start looking for people when their funds run out.
Meanwhile, companies with selling product couldn't get a loan if they carried a solid bar of platinum labeled "collateral" into a loan committee meeting.
We didn't see or hear anything from ZZ for a couple of years after that. One day we had a big project that wasn't going well and our manager hired a consulting company to come in and help straighten things out. He asked for their best man. As you've probably guessed, the engineer who showed up was none other than ZZ himself. He had taken a year off to motorcycle across Asia before joining the consulting company. He was making 3 times what he was before. Our manager had to grit his teeth and refer to ZZ as "Mister ZZ" (ZZ insisted) until the project was completed.
(Wipes tear from eye) *sniff* That was beautiful...;)
Slashdot Mirror
Also most businesses on the Internet understand that bandwidth costs money but it's an expense that they have to pay for. They get the convienence of letting people download their software instead of having to run an operation that presses cds, handles ordering and a warehouse to ship people cds.
An analogy that would hold IF there were a shelf at the local computer store marked FREE and another marked $9.95
$10 a month is quite reasonable, and there appears to still be an option to get the free updates. I don't see the problem.
As fascinating as the book sounds, individual developers or teams that are writing (and debugging, and debugging, and debugging) code to calculate the acceleration of a mass on a curved path are not using their time productively.
These functions are based on laws of physics, and should be the last thing to be reinvented.
Game development as a whole will be of a far higher quality when games don't have to be developed one molecule at a time.
Where is the team that is being paid for this development?
They're in a meeting.
Some game company management committee, who probably couldn't find their own a** with a both hands, a search party and a helicopter, bet against Lord of the Rings and lost, huge.
It's nothing new.
"Someone posted a Slashdot article about some Lord of the Rings game on one of our sites.. and the movie premieres in four days..."
At what age does a game enter the public domain?
HAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
oh, I can't stand it... ahem.. sorry..
heheheheheeeeee....
clones
and previous games??
sequels.
That is correct. This is what the "game industry" prefers, since it involves near zero risk and comes with a built-in excuse (in the form of a great "yeah, but" remark) for instantly rejecting anything "new" WITHOUT having to think about it.
...that graphics don't matter. Two articles back, there were comments about the "Uplink" game, which probably didn't use a state of the art game engine.
The positive-negative ratio of comments here looks about the same. People complain anyway.
All companies have to do is look to the Final Fantasy movie for further proof. Best graphics possible with modern technology (and budgets). Didn't translate into hyper-success though, despite "critical acclaim."
That's right, let's find a reason to say that it isn't worth the money. Then we can all justify not buying the game so the company will stop offering it and we can all go back to playing $CLONE and $SEQUEL on $WINDOWS_VERSION_OF_THE_WEEK
I mean, we certainly wouldn't want to encourage anything *original* or *different* would we?
Not ever again having to listen to those #%)&@$*#% radio commercials OVER AND OVER AGAIN!!!!! I'm reminded of the Simpsons episode where Homer "reacts" to the guy that said he invented the "two people talking" commercial format. :)
If I hear that Smart n' Final "professional chef" commercial or that stupid "O come all ye file folders" Office Supply place commercial again, I'm going to perform an "instant disassembly" on my radio.
The morning show on our talk station does TWELVE MINUTE COMMERCIAL BREAKS TWICE AN HOUR!!! That's just wrong.
There just might be a market for satellite radio if they can reduce the advertising to at least tolerable levels.
eeeheheheheheheeee...
:)
great signature...
Office or no Office, companies are still chasing the
PC Magazine/Comdex/MS/drag-and-drop graphically-perfect computing world. They will not change to Linux, EVEN IF it is proven to be better in every category, and they don't have to explain themselves. For developers it is a foregone conclusion. There are certain kinds of development I wouldn't even attempt on any Win* platform.
I have NOT ONCE heard a well-reasoned technical argument pro or con regarding current development, languages, architecture, or networking from any supervisory personnel at any job, ever. The standard answer is, well, that's the "standard."
The thing that most developers have trouble understanding is:
Nobody cares if it's wrong.
Just as long as they aren't late to the cake and soda in the meeting room or to Blockbuster after work.
where the object is to run face first into a member of the opposing team in order to knock him down.
Ow.
That would probably be better if it were shoulder pads first, preferably around the shoulder area?
Or, by reversing the process, a Postscript file can become an eight-minute fusion solo...
What is it about people, journalists in particular, that makes them believe that the U.S. "market" is so well insulated by the McDisney cultural powerhouse, that nothing can ever be "successful" in the United States.
The number of "foreign" products, games, whatever, that are seeing tremendous success here is staggering, but the "yeah, but" crowd just continues to bury their head in the demographics reports. I'll guarantee that some tie-wearing cynical #*@&!~*@%& at some arrogant company said Harry Potter would never be a "success" either. Can't you just hear it? Some haircut in a grey suit holding his hand over his #%&@#*()%# cell-phone and saying "a kid with glasses and a broom? Give me a break!"
Just a reaction to the "far too foreign to make a truly successful crossover title" remark in the article. What is truly successful? How much? A billion? A hundred billion? What?
This is what causes the money-grab mindset of businesses now. If it doesn't lead to a 100000% market-cap increase and an IPO and put us in the Fortune 100, and the creative team can't PROVE that will happen, then we'd rather just have another meeting.
I just read a few articles about "Dance Dance Revolution." Here's another product that U.S. companies probably laughed at. Yet, whenever I see the game, some kid is putting money in it, and 437 other kids are lined up around the corner to play it, and 300 other people are watching, and 10,000 other people are putting up web sites about it.
Keep having meetings and keep running your mouths, U.S. corporate-types. There's a million little companies out there with a million little really neat ideas that are eventually going to eat your %#&@$()* lunch.
return rant();
I worked at Origin during the Wing Commander IV era, and EA's revolving door management, and utter intolerance for any new ideas out of Austin, made certain that Origin would never do anything innovative again. All EA wanted to hear from Origin was "Yes, Master, the new Ultima/Wing Commander/Crusader game is on schedule and under budget. May we please refrain from laying off our staff this year?"
A big company stopping innovation and insisting on clones and sequels for constant, growing revenue and unattainable profits? Say it isn't so!
Sigh... what wonders have been lost but for the crushing weight of dull, grey, uninspired, witless corporate bureaucracy.
Which is better: a student using a mouse to draw and color, or a student actually cuts-n-pastes and colors with (God forbid) crayons? Schools are lacking more in such hands-on activities.
Probably because they are lacking in crayons too.
That means $11,580,000 is being spent at a time when teacher shortages are happening everywhere. I would rather have a smaller class size with or without the laptops than a crowded class with technology being used ineffectively.
Agreed. However the teacher shortages have more to do with most potentially good teachers' inability to tolerate the bureaucracy and nonsense that goes on in the "education establishment."
In addition to that fact, roughly 75% of the money spent on education in this state at least is spent outside the classroom, and not on teachers. THAT is the problem.
Guy goes and invents something, and gets griped at non-stop.
No wonder big companies don't try new ideas.
Oh, great. 9,000 companies create a typhoon of Chapter 11 filings that when spread out page at a time cover enough area to be seen from orbit, and *this* company has to explain their stock price. That's fair.
"Your Honor, the combined losses of capital value in the NASDAQ and NYSE listed companies over the past 18 months exceeds the national debt..."
"you're right. Case dismissed."
From a potential upcoming job interview:
"So, what are some of the projects you've worked on previously?"
"Well, let's see... I.. accomplishment, accomplishment, WROTE A UNIX-TYPE OPERATING SYSTEM, accomplishment, accomplishment..."
"Hmmm... you don't seem to have any ASP experience... are you sure you can contribute to this project?"
It really is no wonder the entire computer industry is in the tank. The whole "IT new economy revolutionary blah" really was just all about upgrading to the next Intel this and Microsoft that. Eighty thousand billion dollars worth of shrinkwrap, heatsinks and icons.
sigh...
(Customer walks into bank)
LOAN OFFICER: "So, Mr. Customer, what's your business plan?"
CUSTOMER: "Well, see, I'm going to compete with a multi-billion dollar Japanese company by building a product that will lose $2 billion over the next three years, then break even, hopefully."
LOAN OFFICER: "Sounds great! We'll finance whatever you need."
(Customer walks into bank in the real world)
LOAN OFFICER: "So, Mr. Customer, what's your business plan?"
CUSTOMER: "Well, see, we need a small loan to help expand our business. We saved our nickels and dimes, ate soup and drove 15-year old cars for three years and built this product and generated some sales, but now we want to make the product better with more features and perhaps get some part-time employees."
LOAN OFFICER: "Sounds great! Naturally, you'll need cash exceeding the value of the loan as collateral deposited here at our bank in our lowest-interest account, platinum-lined credit that rings softly in a light breeze, 12 references, a 50-page annotated business plan, three years of financials audited by a big-six accounting firm, an autobiography, two full-time sources of secondary income, oh, and real estate, LOTS of real estate... financial projections for five years showing sustainable 20% weekly growth with full supporting documentation, a large portfolio of blue-chip equity holdings and nice fat juicy municipal bonds, three co-signers and a silver partridge in a golden pear tree, and please fill out this 40 page application. Your loan will be reviewed by the committee at the next meeting in... four months."
CUSTOMER: "But we'll be out of business by then!"
LOAN OFFICER: "Have a nice day!"
If every kid has a laptop, something else has got to go.
How about the administrator? Every district has a 1:1 ratio of administrators to students anymore.
Maybe they could go get jobs as managers or HR people.. you know.. the kind of people in big companies that never lose their jobs?
2) A few "multimedia" computers in the library playing movies of cheetahs. This was during the era when "multimedia" was first rearing its head. Each one of these 486s with a CD-ROM and monitor probably cost the district $3,000, and possibly more.
Here we go...
for purchase and maintenance of those units would be around $8,000 for a classroom of 28 students. Can you imagine the jump in the quality of teaching applicants a district would receive if even $4,000 of that amount were being given to the teacher?
It is easier to get approval to build a two-mile suspension bridge than it is to be successfully hired as a credentialed teacher. $4,000 makes no difference at all.
The process of becoming (and remaining) a credentialed teacher is as sure to crush the very life from any possible inspiration to impart knowledge as being a cubicle-dwelling "team player" programmer is to destroy any joy in writing great and useful programs. Fix that problem, and you'll have all the great teachers you need.
We spend $150K/year per classroom per year in this state. Teacher makes $40K if they are lucky. See any problem here? How many classrooms in the average school? District? Where's *that* money? That's a far more important question than the tiny sum spent on computers.
Meanwhile, people just keep saying things like "we don't spend that much!" while the budget is quietly increased to $175K. Schools don't have pencils, paper, current textbooks, reference materials, properly maintained buildings, etc.
Name one, ONE public school band, athletic team, club, whatever (besides football) ANYWHERE that has their uniforms/equipment replaced at district expense on a regular basis (and the football team pays from their own ticket sales.. nice try).
When problems like that are solved, the teacher pay problem will be solved with them.
I thought R&D was critical for a company's survival. Judge from the amount of layoffs I guess the fat cats think they can make product on their own.
Oh well, I guess they'll start looking for people when their funds run out.
Meanwhile, companies with selling product couldn't get a loan if they carried a solid bar of platinum labeled "collateral" into a loan committee meeting.
We didn't see or hear anything from ZZ for a couple of years after that. One day we had a big project that wasn't going well and our manager hired a consulting company to come in and help straighten things out. He asked for their best man. As you've probably guessed, the engineer who showed up was none other than ZZ himself. He had taken a year off to motorcycle across Asia before joining the consulting company. He was making 3 times what he was before. Our manager had to grit his teeth and refer to ZZ as "Mister ZZ" (ZZ insisted) until the project was completed.
(Wipes tear from eye) *sniff* That was beautiful... ;)