One solution to both this (and the cheating problem) is smaller communities, preferably of people who already know each other.
I agree. The real hurdle though is to find trustworthy opponents at roughly the same skill level who are *anonymous*. Yes I can sometimes hook up with a friend who likes the same game when we both have spare time, but the whole appeal of internet play is being able to play whenever I want with real people. It just seems almost impossible to find matches like that. Bots or pros -- they're basically the same thing to me. I'm devolving back into a single-player gamer.
Of course you're right about the image recognition, I totally goofed on that (still, I wonder.. put a determined player/hacker on the problem.. maybe they'd invent some limited image recognition solutions!)
C-Robots?:) A human/digital hybrid could be interesting -- i.e., all bots allowed. May the best man-bot win! Only for hacker geeks though; it'd never make it in the mass-market.
IMHO the only way around this is to have name registration or some kind of account system(it would have to be global in order to prevent cheaters from just switching servers). Then you could ban cheaters permanatly.
Heh, then players who plunked down their $40 for the game are punished by essentially getting their purchase repo'ed. Can you imagine the Slashdot crowd reaction to this?:)
Seriously though, it might not be a bad idea.. for, say, a subset of servers. e.g., the "The League of honorable Quakers".. or something.
..the problems faced by the file sharing apps out there? There seems to be a lot of talk about fixing Freenet, Gnutella, etc. to filter spammers but there don't seem to be any solutions as of yet. Perhaps when they solve one, they will solve the other?
Personally, I don't think they will solve the problem. It's always easier to hack than to prevent hacks, is it not?
One of the main problems with online games is that by the time I pick up a game and try it out online (like, 2 days after being released), the community is already playing at "pro" level -- they've figured out every subtle nuance, trick and "feature" in the game that gives you an edge. And all I wanted is to have a little fun. In this sense, whether they're cheating, or simply too good to be healthy, it's the same difference: not very fun:(
You guys aren't even talking about copyrights. What you're trying to discuss sounds like some kind of artistic patent or trademark. That ain't what this article is about.
SHOULD be: "People want free information". That IS natural; people always want something for free. That's why we needed to make laws to discourage stealing.
If say we had a maximum of 5 years to copyright profits from sale could still be made (aplenty methinks). Giving copanies, authors whoever, time enough to come up with something new.
I think the most effective thing might be to limit the lifetimes of copyrights that are sold. IOW, if an artist never sells his copyright, it lasts until he dies. If someone buys it, it winds up in the public domain after X years; no renewals (yeah, like that would ever happen, *sigh*)
The only problem I have with this is that once its in the public domain, does an artist really want to see GM, MS, NBC, political parties, etc. using it in ads/propaganda (since they presumably don't need permission)? They already do this with Van Gogh, Mozart, etc. It kinda makes me sick, personally.
Don't record companies, publishers, film studios, TV production companies, etc. Act in some ways similar to these "patrons".
Yeah, but they're ultimately driven to provide what the public wants, or they'll go broke. Sometimes that means giving us The Beatles, sometimes its Britney, sometimes its even something I like. And even if you and I and everyone else reading this likes the most obscure material out there, we (with our dollars) ultimately decide what gets made.
The bottom line is it's about a zillion times better than listening to what some rich patron (Bill Gates?) or advertiser (MS?) decides I should be listening to.
I echo the often-put-forth proposal limiting ALL copyrights - music, film, and software - to 8-10 years. This stuff has made all the money it's going to at that point, and greedy companies trying to make money of creative work that was done 30 years ago are going to have to ADD SOME VALUE to get people to buy it again.
The problem is that some works continue to generate large revenue for decades (think of Disney films). The games industry is probably hoping the same thing, holding on to each old title like a lottery ticket (heck, they probably have accountants who've worked out the profit potential like, we have X games, that gives us a 60% chance of Y dollars in 50 years, or whatever). This was no doubt Hasbro's motivation when it bought all those old classic titles from Atari (though I don't think it's panned out for them the way they hoped).
OTOH, I would hope that an artist lucky enough to see a resurgence in interest in a work that got passed by years earlier could reap some reward, even 20 years after the fact.
So I would be more in favour of limiting the duration of a copyright that was sold. This will probably never happen though; the entertainment industry will fight to the death for these rights. I suppose it could also be argued that this would devalue the resale value of one's creative (since the buyer's profit potential could be seriously limited).
Software's a bit different than games. Adobe's stance may be that for every 15-year old who gets a cracked copy of PS, there's a future professional who will eventually be running a licensed copy. That same strategy doesn't work for games.
Still, if the ISP hopped on board, could they not divulge who was using what IP at what time? Could be an interesting way for ISPs to offer "free" or discounted service.
If the X-Box is based on PC architecture, it will probably not be as powerful as the PS2. It might however be easier to work with due to a larger pool of developers who are familiar with the PC architecture, and thus put out more impressive stuff quicker (provided it ever gets made).
Slashdot Mirror
One solution to both this (and the cheating problem) is smaller communities, preferably of people who already know each other.
I agree. The real hurdle though is to find trustworthy opponents at roughly the same skill level who are *anonymous*. Yes I can sometimes hook up with a friend who likes the same game when we both have spare time, but the whole appeal of internet play is being able to play whenever I want with real people. It just seems almost impossible to find matches like that. Bots or pros -- they're basically the same thing to me. I'm devolving back into a single-player gamer.
Of course you're right about the image recognition, I totally goofed on that (still, I wonder.. put a determined player/hacker on the problem.. maybe they'd invent some limited image recognition solutions!)
C-Robots? :) A human/digital hybrid could be interesting -- i.e., all bots allowed. May the best man-bot win! Only for hacker geeks though; it'd never make it in the mass-market.
IMHO the only way around this is to have name registration or some kind of account system(it would have to be global in order to prevent cheaters from just switching servers). Then you could ban cheaters permanatly.
:)
.. or something.
Heh, then players who plunked down their $40 for the game are punished by essentially getting their purchase repo'ed. Can you imagine the Slashdot crowd reaction to this?
Seriously though, it might not be a bad idea.. for, say, a subset of servers. e.g., the "The League of honorable Quakers"
Even then, how do you guard against player augmentation? :(
..the problems faced by the file sharing apps out there? There seems to be a lot of talk about fixing Freenet, Gnutella, etc. to filter spammers but there don't seem to be any solutions as of yet. Perhaps when they solve one, they will solve the other?
Personally, I don't think they will solve the problem. It's always easier to hack than to prevent hacks, is it not?
One of the main problems with online games is that by the time I pick up a game and try it out online (like, 2 days after being released), the community is already playing at "pro" level -- they've figured out every subtle nuance, trick and "feature" in the game that gives you an edge. And all I wanted is to have a little fun. In this sense, whether they're cheating, or simply too good to be healthy, it's the same difference: not very fun :(
Umm, you think more IE users have been "hacked via their browser" than have been fooled into viewing goatse.cx? I find that hard to believe.
Undoubtedly there are people who think the former is worse anyhow.
Unfortunately, they're the only reason sites like Slashdot can stay in business. Or would you prefer to pay for each website you visit?
You guys aren't even talking about copyrights. What you're trying to discuss sounds like some kind of artistic patent or trademark. That ain't what this article is about.
The problem becomes how to make money on having a reputation, which copyright will still protect.
:)
You could do like open-source people do: become a whore. But is that the rep you want?
SHOULD be: "People want free information". That IS natural; people always want something for free. That's why we needed to make laws to discourage stealing.
If say we had a maximum of 5 years to copyright profits from sale could still be made (aplenty methinks). Giving copanies, authors whoever, time enough to come up with something new.
I think the most effective thing might be to limit the lifetimes of copyrights that are sold. IOW, if an artist never sells his copyright, it lasts until he dies. If someone buys it, it winds up in the public domain after X years; no renewals (yeah, like that would ever happen, *sigh*)
The only problem I have with this is that once its in the public domain, does an artist really want to see GM, MS, NBC, political parties, etc. using it in ads/propaganda (since they presumably don't need permission)? They already do this with Van Gogh, Mozart, etc. It kinda makes me sick, personally.
Don't record companies, publishers, film studios, TV production companies, etc. Act in some ways similar to these "patrons".
Yeah, but they're ultimately driven to provide what the public wants, or they'll go broke. Sometimes that means giving us The Beatles, sometimes its Britney, sometimes its even something I like. And even if you and I and everyone else reading this likes the most obscure material out there, we (with our dollars) ultimately decide what gets made.
The bottom line is it's about a zillion times better than listening to what some rich patron (Bill Gates?) or advertiser (MS?) decides I should be listening to.
I think mainstream DJs that play their own selections went out in the 70's.
On second thought I take that back, I think then they had payola. But back in those days, it was illegal.
At least it would be interesting to see if your theory is wrong.
jrtrd s goc/ jp[r oy jr;[d@
DOH!
No wonder why your voter turnout is so low then.
I echo the often-put-forth proposal limiting ALL copyrights - music, film, and software - to 8-10 years. This stuff has made all the money it's going to at that point, and greedy companies trying to make money of creative work that was done 30 years ago are going to have to ADD SOME VALUE to get people to buy it again.
The problem is that some works continue to generate large revenue for decades (think of Disney films). The games industry is probably hoping the same thing, holding on to each old title like a lottery ticket (heck, they probably have accountants who've worked out the profit potential like, we have X games, that gives us a 60% chance of Y dollars in 50 years, or whatever). This was no doubt Hasbro's motivation when it bought all those old classic titles from Atari (though I don't think it's panned out for them the way they hoped).
OTOH, I would hope that an artist lucky enough to see a resurgence in interest in a work that got passed by years earlier could reap some reward, even 20 years after the fact.
So I would be more in favour of limiting the duration of a copyright that was sold. This will probably never happen though; the entertainment industry will fight to the death for these rights. I suppose it could also be argued that this would devalue the resale value of one's creative (since the buyer's profit potential could be seriously limited).
Software's a bit different than games. Adobe's stance may be that for every 15-year old who gets a cracked copy of PS, there's a future professional who will eventually be running a licensed copy. That same strategy doesn't work for games.
Still, if the ISP hopped on board, could they not divulge who was using what IP at what time? Could be an interesting way for ISPs to offer "free" or discounted service.
No, you're using a website that whores itself out to corporate sponsors.
If the X-Box is based on PC architecture, it will probably not be as powerful as the PS2. It might however be easier to work with due to a larger pool of developers who are familiar with the PC architecture, and thus put out more impressive stuff quicker (provided it ever gets made).
But the space program is a veritable island in a sea of pork.
Shouldn't that be "vegetable"?