More sequels that cash in on great games from the 90's! Whoo Hoo! You've just, like, totally proved me wrong, MAAAAN!
It has Halo.
Is that supposed to mean something? Halo is a run-of-the-mill first person shooter. It's big claim to fame was bringing a computer FPS experience to consoles. Considering that we're talking about PC Gaming, I'm not all that impressed.
Secondly, it *does* have "genre-busters"
Really? Well, this ought to be good.
for instance, Black and White, trucking sims, train sims, or THE Sims.
Trucking Sims? Like this one? A train sim? Like this one? (Oh, but it's from Microsoft, so it's new and shiny!) Black and White and THE Sims are both questionable, but I'll be nice and let you have them because they're "must haves" for you. Apparently you've never seen a decent simulation game before.
I think you had this gripe about how gaming was so much better "in the olden days" all thought up and probably half-written before you even glanced at the article in question.
Listen, sonny. I may be so old I remember when the dinosaurs stomped across the Earth, but I *do* remember what composed original and entertaining games. Even your best examples are pushing it, and don't come anywhere near to the impact that the classic games from the 90's had on the market. Thanks to you young'uns and your fancy eye-candy-and-sequels-in-place-of-real-gameplay, we old fogies have lost our wonderful community filled with pointy sticks and coconut monkeys! So don't go lecturing me, ya' whippersnapper! Now get back to yer' trendy dance pads and XBoxs, and quit trying to argue with the adults!
It has nothing to do with the quality of the games, but instead what people most frequently purchase at store
Which tells you a lot about where the industry is going. Think about it. The game studios see these exact same numbers. When they find that putting out a POS like Frogger or Atari's Classic Collection nets them big bucks, which do you think they're going to invest in: The innovative games or the rehashed brands?
However, a large class of digital signals, those in audio and video, include no such error correction! You have excessive reflection on a DVI connector, you lose information, digital or not.
The difference is that a digital connector is either rated to carry the signal or not. If it's rated to carry the signal, it's going to carry the signal regardless of gold connectors. (Unless you've got a particularly unusual environment that's far from FCC compliant.)
If the cable is not rated to carry the signal, then you're going to notice. Digital signals don't degrade, they outright scramble. So if your start seeing weird smears on your TV, or the color goes from flesh to blue, then it's worth looking into a new cable.:-)
Firstly, it's on half the timeframe of the 90s you cite.
3/5th's, actually. And all the best stuff was out by the mid-90's. (Being DOS-based and all.)
More to the point, it's not a DECLINE, it's just a wider variety of people buying games
I would agree if the titles on the list were all exemplary in their categories. But they're not. The Atari packages & Frogger remake are perfect examples of this. These packages were piss-poor excuses for releases, playing entirely on existing franchises without actually delivering on that franchise. The fact that they made more money than a franchise that actually *did* deliver (e.g. the aforementioned Star Trek games) says a lot about the market today.
you complain about using old games, and yet you refer to the Wing Commander series and the Command and Conquer RTSes. You can't have it both ways...
Actually, I can have it both ways. The Wing Commander and C&C series were born and were at their height throughout the 90's. e.g. Wing Commander I - III spanned 1990-1994. The later games carried the franchise all the way to 1998, but without as much success. Similarly, C&C through Red Alert spanned 1995-1996. The games that are released under that banner today have almost nothing to do with those Genre-busters of the day. As a result, the "Command and Conquer", "SimCity", or "Frogger" games are poor attempts to cash in on the name rather than massive efforts to carry the franchises forward.
I don't even remember the last time I used the words "gaming goodness" in context.:(
Also, I saw at least 4 MMORPGs
Which ones? I only spotted WoW. (Not counting the Everquest "expansion pack". I'm not sure how that qualifies as a full game, anyhow.)
This is just completely bogus. Half of these crazy ass games that out shot the major hits I haven't even heard of...I mean seriously BARBIE PET RESCUE number 28 on the list... Anyone else find these to be a bit bogus?
It's just shocking how much this article exposes the decline of PC Gaming. In the 90's, top sellers were the Wing Commander Series, LucasArt Adventure Games, Command and Conquer RTSes, Doom, Tomb Raider, and other Genre-busters. On the other hand, the list for this decade breaks down to:
- 1/3 "Edutainment" games - 1/3 "Classic" Shovelware - 1/3 Playing off of names from movies and OLD video games - 1 MMORPG that took the PC community by storm
What's really shocking is that I can't find a single "must have" game on that list. (Unless you count WoW as a "must have" game rather than a service.) I'm tempted to blame the fact on the lack of originality from game makers, but the lack of a single instance of Activision's Star Trek properties on that list probably says a lot about how the PC Gaming market currently views originality. I mean, you'd think that Bridge Commander would be on there. Not to mention the Elite Force and Armada series. (Even if they are based on tired properties.) Each of those games showed a lot of innovation that was surprisingly not rewarded.
You know what? It's just unreadable. Let's try this again:
Wolfenstein 3D - because it was the first.
Historical Correction: Wolf3D was the first popular First Person Shooter. It was preceeded by Id Software's Catacomb 3D, which was itself preceeded by Hov ertank3D. The main technological difference between Hovertank and Catacomb is that Catacomb introduced textured walls.
Wolf3D's success over Catacomb probably had more to do with Apogee's marketing muscle than with it being truly the first FPS.
Historical Correct: Wolf3D was the first popular First Person Shooter. It was preceeded by Id Software's [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catacomb_3D]Cata comb 3D[/url], which was itself preceeded by [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hovertank_3D]Hov ertank 3D[/url]. The main technological difference between Hovertank and Catacomb is that Catacomb introduced textured walls.
Wolf3D's success over Catacomb probably had more to do with Apogee's marketing muscle than with it being truly the first FPS.
It seems applix7 has a great many "check out X's wrongdoing" posts to various threads.
Yep, that's why I decided to speak up. His goal is sound enough, but his research is severely lacking. His site makes no mention of many of Sun's earlier intentional and unintentional misdeeds. For example, Jini was not a technology that just appeared out of the blue. It was a complicated aquisition that ended up with accusations of technology theft and poor morals.
That's all in the past now, but it's quite a bit more damning than "Sun outsources". His problems with other companies are similarly researched poorly.
Hey, speaking of Sun and different lines of chips, what about the clockless chip I used to hear about? Is that still in development, or has it been canned?
Last I heard they were still in the research phase. They weren't expecting any production chips until at least the next generation. That being said, clockless chips have started appearing for embedded applications where real-time reactions are better than clocked sampling.:)
You know, that's the second time I've seen that website, and I'm still not impressed.
Class action lawsuit due to patent infringement of Kodak's patents, related Java. There was a patent lawsuit. I don't know where you get "class action" part from. Sun also settled and licensed the technology immediately after the judge decided they were infringing. So you proved... how responsible Sun is?
Sun has done some questionable things, but those aren't it.
Yep, I'm not surprised. In my experience, the INTx types tend to have a very different outlook on life and social interactions. So much so, that female INTx types don't react to social situations in the same way as other females.
Of course, I'm just an armchair psychologist, so take this with a grain of salt.:)
As far as how a guy breaks into a mostly female clique, I suspect most Slashdotters would desperately love to know that one. So if anyone has more insight into that general conundrum, tey should post it.;-)
I have it on good authority that joining the Barbie: Horse Adventures focus group works quite well.:-P
There was a rumor which stated that Nintendo was "punking" everyone by demonstrating games with worse graphics than the Wii can produce; now I think the spirit of the rumor is completely wrong (I don't think Nintendo is holding back the graphics to wow us later) but there may be a vain of truth in the rumor.
It's a bit more complicated than that. From what I understand, Nintendo started a lot of the developers with GameCube hardware while they continued to develop the Wii hardware. As a result, a lot of the demonstrations either ran on a modified GameCube or weren't taking advantage of the underlying Wii. Thus the situation with games like Red Steel where the promo-shots look amazing while the demos look washed out.
The question is simple: what can a girl in IT do when she finds herself on the outside of those cliques of boy coworkers?
*sigh* It's probably not a "clique". It looks like a clique because you're applying female social interactions to a male environment. Guys don't work that way. Guys usually interact with others they feel comfortable with rather than explicitly ostracising others. They're probably giving you a wide berth because they don't know how to interact with you. Being far from "people persons" in the first place, your gender is just making it that much harder for them to become comfortable with you.
If you want to be social with the guys, talk about cool technology, fun video games, military hardware, or the latest in high horsepower vehicles. (Come on, if you're in technology, you should be interested in at least some of those topics?) That should allow the guys to relax a bit and forget that you're female. Worst case, stay on the job long enough and they'll get to know you.:)
from the be-nice-gentlemen dept.
What? I wasn't going to say anything. (AKAImBatman tries to look innocent.)
I wasn't aware that Snakes on a Plane was the sequel to a universally-panned movie. You know, because that's the only way your comparison could possibly make any sense.
And yet comparing it to a $225 million dollar movie makes more sense?
Anaconda was intended as a serious thriller with nearly twice the budget of its sequel. ($45 million, in case you're wondering.) The fact that it only grossed $16 million on its first weekend is actually quite pathetic. The second movie was disconnected from the first, merely trying to drum up hype based on the existing brand. It did quite well for itself on its budget.
OK, so you've completely missed the point of the argument, which is that the PS3 is the "high-budget flick" while the Wii is the "campy B-movie" with the stupid name. Fine, then.
Oh yeah. You knocked that strawman down good. I'm betting it's really smarting from that encounter. Don't forget to yell, "you don't come back now, ya' hear?!?"
[...]
Oh, and don't forget to prop it back up when you're done.
Go cry in your Princess Peach body pillow.
Insults? How childish.
Still, I suppose it could be "fun" *cough* to get "caught up" in an insult fling. Here we go...
What could the sales figures of Anacondas, the sequel to a universally-panned movie, possibly have to do with the sales figures of Snakes on a Plane?
Oh, I don't know. Maybe because they're competing in the same market space?
You really have no clue, do you? BTW, I like your attempts to compare Snakes on a Plane's returns (campy B-Movie on a relatively low budget) to Pirates of the Caribbean (a high budget flick). Never mind that Pirates had 6 times the budget as Snakes on a Plane, SoaP must be a failure because it doesn't do better in absolute numbers. Oh, and apples are far superior to oranges. (*rolls eyes*)
OK, now I know you're just trolling me.
Considering that you have been setting up strawmen, aruging with non-points, and generally stiring up trouble in thread, I'd say this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
The crash had nothing to do with games being prurient; it had to do with them being bad.
That's actually an urban legend. The Video Game Crash was a result of too many games for the market to support, combined with a general feeling by the public that they were just a fad. While the likes of E.T. and Pacman didn't help anything, they certainly weren't the cause. The cause was attempts by retailers to clear their excess stock by marking down large numbers of titles. This started a chain reaction that lead the public to stop buying console games and focus on computers.
Slashdot Mirror
More sequels that cash in on great games from the 90's! Whoo Hoo! You've just, like, totally proved me wrong, MAAAAN!
Is that supposed to mean something? Halo is a run-of-the-mill first person shooter. It's big claim to fame was bringing a computer FPS experience to consoles. Considering that we're talking about PC Gaming, I'm not all that impressed.
Really? Well, this ought to be good.
Trucking Sims? Like this one? A train sim? Like this one? (Oh, but it's from Microsoft, so it's new and shiny!) Black and White and THE Sims are both questionable, but I'll be nice and let you have them because they're "must haves" for you. Apparently you've never seen a decent simulation game before.
Listen, sonny. I may be so old I remember when the dinosaurs stomped across the Earth, but I *do* remember what composed original and entertaining games. Even your best examples are pushing it, and don't come anywhere near to the impact that the classic games from the 90's had on the market. Thanks to you young'uns and your fancy eye-candy-and-sequels-in-place-of-real-gameplay, we old fogies have lost our wonderful community filled with pointy sticks and coconut monkeys! So don't go lecturing me, ya' whippersnapper! Now get back to yer' trendy dance pads and XBoxs, and quit trying to argue with the adults!
Oh, and stay off my lawn! Damn kids.
Which tells you a lot about where the industry is going. Think about it. The game studios see these exact same numbers. When they find that putting out a POS like Frogger or Atari's Classic Collection nets them big bucks, which do you think they're going to invest in: The innovative games or the rehashed brands?
The difference is that a digital connector is either rated to carry the signal or not. If it's rated to carry the signal, it's going to carry the signal regardless of gold connectors. (Unless you've got a particularly unusual environment that's far from FCC compliant.)
If the cable is not rated to carry the signal, then you're going to notice. Digital signals don't degrade, they outright scramble. So if your start seeing weird smears on your TV, or the color goes from flesh to blue, then it's worth looking into a new cable.
But Best Buy has the gold connectors for the absolute BEST video quality! </sarcasm>
You don't even want to know how much their "Geek Squad" USB cables cost. Oh, and I love how they no longer carry any brand except "Geek Squad".
3/5th's, actually. And all the best stuff was out by the mid-90's. (Being DOS-based and all.)
I would agree if the titles on the list were all exemplary in their categories. But they're not. The Atari packages & Frogger remake are perfect examples of this. These packages were piss-poor excuses for releases, playing entirely on existing franchises without actually delivering on that franchise. The fact that they made more money than a franchise that actually *did* deliver (e.g. the aforementioned Star Trek games) says a lot about the market today.
Actually, I can have it both ways. The Wing Commander and C&C series were born and were at their height throughout the 90's. e.g. Wing Commander I - III spanned 1990-1994. The later games carried the franchise all the way to 1998, but without as much success. Similarly, C&C through Red Alert spanned 1995-1996. The games that are released under that banner today have almost nothing to do with those Genre-busters of the day. As a result, the "Command and Conquer", "SimCity", or "Frogger" games are poor attempts to cash in on the name rather than massive efforts to carry the franchises forward.
I don't even remember the last time I used the words "gaming goodness" in context.
Which ones? I only spotted WoW. (Not counting the Everquest "expansion pack". I'm not sure how that qualifies as a full game, anyhow.)
Been to Walmart lately?
It's just shocking how much this article exposes the decline of PC Gaming. In the 90's, top sellers were the Wing Commander Series, LucasArt Adventure Games, Command and Conquer RTSes, Doom, Tomb Raider, and other Genre-busters. On the other hand, the list for this decade breaks down to:
- 1/3 "Edutainment" games
- 1/3 "Classic" Shovelware
- 1/3 Playing off of names from movies and OLD video games
- 1 MMORPG that took the PC community by storm
What's really shocking is that I can't find a single "must have" game on that list. (Unless you count WoW as a "must have" game rather than a service.) I'm tempted to blame the fact on the lack of originality from game makers, but the lack of a single instance of Activision's Star Trek properties on that list probably says a lot about how the PC Gaming market currently views originality. I mean, you'd think that Bridge Commander would be on there. Not to mention the Elite Force and Armada series. (Even if they are based on tired properties.) Each of those games showed a lot of innovation that was surprisingly not rewarded.
CAPITAL ONE!
[...]
Wait, what was the question again?
Historical Correction: Wolf3D was the first popular First Person Shooter. It was preceeded by Id Software's Catacomb 3D, which was itself preceeded by Hov ertank3D. The main technological difference between Hovertank and Catacomb is that Catacomb introduced textured walls.
Wolf3D's success over Catacomb probably had more to do with Apogee's marketing muscle than with it being truly the first FPS.
Hovertank 3D
:P
Catacomb 3D
Sorry about that. I'm not awake yet.
Historical Correct: Wolf3D was the first popular First Person Shooter. It was preceeded by Id Software's [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catacomb_3D]Cat
Wolf3D's success over Catacomb probably had more to do with Apogee's marketing muscle than with it being truly the first FPS.
Yep, that's why I decided to speak up. His goal is sound enough, but his research is severely lacking. His site makes no mention of many of Sun's earlier intentional and unintentional misdeeds. For example, Jini was not a technology that just appeared out of the blue. It was a complicated aquisition that ended up with accusations of technology theft and poor morals.
That's all in the past now, but it's quite a bit more damning than "Sun outsources". His problems with other companies are similarly researched poorly.
Last I heard they were still in the research phase. They weren't expecting any production chips until at least the next generation. That being said, clockless chips have started appearing for embedded applications where real-time reactions are better than clocked sampling.
You know, that's the second time I've seen that website, and I'm still not impressed.
Class action lawsuit due to patent infringement of Kodak's patents, related Java.
There was a patent lawsuit. I don't know where you get "class action" part from. Sun also settled and licensed the technology immediately after the judge decided they were infringing. So you proved... how responsible Sun is?
Sun has done some questionable things, but those aren't it.
Yep, I'm not surprised. In my experience, the INTx types tend to have a very different outlook on life and social interactions. So much so, that female INTx types don't react to social situations in the same way as other females.
:)
Of course, I'm just an armchair psychologist, so take this with a grain of salt.
*Ahem*
Try this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1H7omJW4TI
Here goes my W.A.G. (Wild Ass Guess) for the day, but you're not of the INTJ or INTP type are you?
I have it on good authority that joining the Barbie: Horse Adventures focus group works quite well.
It's a bit more complicated than that. From what I understand, Nintendo started a lot of the developers with GameCube hardware while they continued to develop the Wii hardware. As a result, a lot of the demonstrations either ran on a modified GameCube or weren't taking advantage of the underlying Wii. Thus the situation with games like Red Steel where the promo-shots look amazing while the demos look washed out.
If you want to be social with the guys, talk about cool technology, fun video games, military hardware, or the latest in high horsepower vehicles. (Come on, if you're in technology, you should be interested in at least some of those topics?) That should allow the guys to relax a bit and forget that you're female. Worst case, stay on the job long enough and they'll get to know you.
What? I wasn't going to say anything. (AKAImBatman tries to look innocent.)
You're so funny! (In an off-beat, don't-even-realize-it type of way.)
Anaconda was intended as a serious thriller with nearly twice the budget of its sequel. ($45 million, in case you're wondering.) The fact that it only grossed $16 million on its first weekend is actually quite pathetic. The second movie was disconnected from the first, merely trying to drum up hype based on the existing brand. It did quite well for itself on its budget.
Oh yeah. You knocked that strawman down good. I'm betting it's really smarting from that encounter. Don't forget to yell, "you don't come back now, ya' hear?!?"
[...]
Oh, and don't forget to prop it back up when you're done.
Insults? How childish.
Still, I suppose it could be "fun" *cough* to get "caught up" in an insult fling. Here we go...
Dude, I know you! You are Commander Rob! Wow.
[...]
Um. Are we having "fun" yet?
You really have no clue, do you? BTW, I like your attempts to compare Snakes on a Plane's returns (campy B-Movie on a relatively low budget) to Pirates of the Caribbean (a high budget flick). Never mind that Pirates had 6 times the budget as Snakes on a Plane, SoaP must be a failure because it doesn't do better in absolute numbers. Oh, and apples are far superior to oranges. (*rolls eyes*)
Considering that you have been setting up strawmen, aruging with non-points, and generally stiring up trouble in thread, I'd say this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
Seven words: Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid
Anacondas Opening Weekend
- $12,812,287 (USA) (29 August 2004) (2,905 Screens)
- £194,597 (UK) (14 November 2004) (157 Screens)
Motherfn' Snakes on the Motherfn' Plane Opening Weekend
- $15,206,301 (USA) (20 August 2006) (3,555 Screens)
- £1,069,608 (UK) (20 August 2006) (354 Screens)
Obviously the hype has had some effect. When the movie is out of the theaters we'll have to see how much it fully trounces Anacondas' numbers.