Since us gamers just got the early Christmas of a lifetime with the release of the Xbox (hush your mouth) and Gamecube, not to mention the amazing games that are flooding the market for the PS2, it's going to be hard NOT to buy a good game/system for Christmas. Anywhoo... here are some suggestions on games to get (or avoid) for Christmas.
Playstation 2
-------------
Metal Gear Solid 2: Yes, it's as bad assed as it wants to be. The intro looks like something from Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer's wildest imaginations. The game itself is pretty dang fun even if I do keep getting confused on which button does what (play it, you'll see what I mean). I want to play this game some more, but there's so much more to see!
NFL 2K2: This game is hands down the best looking football game I've ever seen. If you can handle the slightly more arcade type feel to the game, it has it all over Madden 2002. It sure would be nice to have some equivalent of the Madden Cards but even without it - this is one helluva football game. You can't coach that.
Gran Turismo 3: Okay, yes this game has been out for six months now, but I had to put some more time into it after playing Metropolis Street Racer for the Xbox. This game is damn near flawless. Well, with the exception of a lack of skid marks (almost unforgivable), crash modeling, and complete lack of ability to turn up the volume on the background music (really). Outside of that, the cars handle just like you think they would - and this game is deep enough to keep you busy for months. Literally. If you're going to own one driving game, this is it.
Grand Theft Auto III: I don't mean to rain on anybody's parade but please, give me a friggin' break. The way people were talking about this game, you'd of thought that it'd be fun. Marketed as a 'mature' game, I guess a large part of the fun of this game is suppoed to come from all the bad things you can do. Hmm... maybe I haven't gotten far enough in this game (roughly 6-7 hours into it) but picking up a hooker (read: woman with fishnet stockings) to take her to a policeman's ball isn't criminal - it's a taxi service. I was thinking this would be a criminal Shenmue type game, but it's just not there. The palatte of colors used in the game is muted, the storyline isn't that engaging, in short - I don't get the appeal of this game. I'm sure some of you will LOVE it, but if I'm going to spend several hours driving around, I'd just as soon drive in a game with realistic handling. Skip it.
Xbox
-----
Halo: I'm not the biggest fan of first person shooters. Personally, the last time I spent a lot of time on one was when 007's Goldeneye came out for the N64. But Halo pretty much rocks. It's the best looking FPS I've seen, and it has a high nervous quotient to it in the beginning because you just get dropped into the action - so you have to learn everything on the fly. I've only spent an hour with this game, but it deserves some more time.
NASCAR Thunder 2002: I know what you're thinking... it's NASCAR. And you're right. But it's also one fun racing game. They've crammed 43 cars onto one track, built in a nice drafting system and they put you on the NASCAR tracks and let you go to it. It's pretty fun to start a race in the middle of the pack and to be passing cars the entire race. If you like to race, this is a great game.
Project Gotham Racing: Do you remember Metropolis Street Racer on the Dreamcast? No? Shame on you. Yes? Well, this is like MSR 2. It's really good. It looks good, the sound is awesome and there are enough tracks and cars to keep you busy for the next 3 months. It has a kudos system to reward good driving, and the game demands expertice to beat it. It's a really fun title.
Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2x: I'm a Tony Hawk freak. Ever since THPS1 on the Dreamcast, I've logged more hours on THPS games than any other game I can remember playing with the exception of some Final Fantasy games - or maybe some game for the NES back in the day when I didn't have anything better to do. I own a bunch of them, THPS 1 and 2 on the Dreamcast, THPS3 on the PS2, THPS2x on the Xbox and THPS3 on the Gamecube. So I feel TOTALLY qualified to say what's right and wrong with this game. And this game has an issue - it's the controller. The Xbox controller is about the size of New Hampshire. It's friggin' huge. I just haven't gotten used to the controls on this game yet. Otherwise, this is THPS 2 on the DC with marginally better graphics, a few new areas on existing levels to explore, a new menu system, supposedly THPS 1 is in the game somewhere - so you can now manual throughout that game (they added the manual after THPS 1) and there are six new levels. It's fun, but if you have THPS 1 and 2 for the Playstation or Dreamcast already... you can pretty much pass this title up.
Dead or Alive 3: This game is basically Dead or Alive 2 with better graphics. I've never been a huge fan of this series because I personally like to beat the crap outta people without having to be graceful about it. And best I can tell, DoA3 asks for grace. You have to know just when to block, just when to counter and just when to attack. There's no run-away command to back up quickly, so everything is pretty much hand to hand short distance combat all the time. It's fun for about 10 minutes, but then I just want to play Soul Calibur for the Dreamcast - if I'm going to play a fighter.
Gamecube
--------
Luigi's Mansion: Okay, I thought this was a dumb as hell idea for a game. Give Luigi a vacuum cleaner and a flashlight and let him run thru some mansion stunning ghosts so he can suck them up in his vacuum cleaner. But I have to admit, this game is fun. It brings back some of that original Mario feel to a 3D game. It's silly, and ultimately, pretty stupid, but give it up for the game and the system. I woke up this morning wanting to play it some more. And now that I've finished it - I have to admit - it's one of the best looking games I've ever seen. Seeing Bowser rendered in all his 3D splendor alone was worth the purchase.
Rogue Squadron II: This is supposed to be the game that got everybody's juices flowing when they saw it. And it comes pretty damn close to the hype that preceeded it. The original Rogue Squadron came out for the N64, and that game was bad ass. This game is just as cool. It looks at times just as good or better than the Star Wars movies. This isn't like Star Wars Starfighter on the PS2 where you can do barrel rolls while flying your craft. Starfighter feels a bit more like a sim game, where you really have to have skills to blow stuff up. This game is all about recreating the fun of the dogfights from the movies. The explosions are amazing. And when you fire a missle down a shaft, you see the light from the missle light up the shaft as it flys down it... majorly cool. This game is way fun. And the sound is amazing. Add to that, this is the first game I know of that has a making of documentary built in, and you've got a title that you pretty much need to own if you have a GameCube.
Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3: Like I said above, I rock these games. Off the bat, I like this game better than the PS2 version. Mostly because I could pick up the game without looking at the manual and I could trick all day long, so the controls are really good. There are a few issues with the game being too forgiving with landings or how you do tricks - but I almost prefer it to the PS2 version where everything has to be perfect. I guess maybe I'm just somewhat of a sloppy skater. But the game is super fun. If you're a THPS fan and have a Gamecube... consider this a must buy.
Wave Race: I wasn't so sure about this game. I've never really liked any other wave race type games (the one for the N64 comes to mind) bascially because I was bad at it. The waves frustrated me, and there was nothing compelling enough about the title to make me put serious time into it. But this game changes all of that. The water is hands down the best, most amazing beautiful water in any game you've ever seen period stop end of discussion. It's that good. It looks great in all conditions. But when it's raining outside, it especially looks cool. The water will splash up on the camera and leave water marks. The graphics are gorgeous. Once I got the hang of the controls (not hard to master), this game totally rocked. This was the big surprise game for me. With tons of tracks, and tons of characters to choose from - I can already tell that this game will get some good play for weeks to come.
Lastly, if you're on a budget, but you want to be happy-happy on Dec. 25th, go buy a Dreamcast and a bunch of used games. Systems run $80, and your typical used game goes for around $20. Try Soul Calibur, Crazy Taxi, NFL 2K2, Samba de Amigo, Shenmue, Sonic I & II, Virtua Tennis, Skies of Arcadia, THPS 1 & 2, Metropolis Street Racing, Ferrari 355 Challenge, and, Test Drive LeMans among the many other great games for this underappreciated system.
What's the point of this? To put more people in jail? To increase the coffers of local governments? It seems to me that alerting the police is unnecessary... why not just tie the receptor to the starter and prevent drunk drivers from being able to start their car? That way no one goes to jail and no one gets hurt. Geez, the job of technology like this should be to safeguard society, not lock it up.
"...and that the Sony Playstation has done something to this industry that Nintendo is trying to prevent from happening - and that (Playstation) is preventing developers from making new and original games and stopping them from making new ideas - instead they just release game after game after game which don't have any different gameplay in them..."
While I'll agree with you that most games can be stereotyped by gameplay these days, don't forget Sega is easily the most innovative game company around. Look at games like Jet Grind Radio with the innovative cell shading technology and cartoon look that the new Zelda look borrows ideas from. Look at games like Samba De Amigo, Seaman, Shenmue, and Crazy Taxi. Jet Grind Radio, Shenmue and Samba De Amigo were hailed almost universally by video game reviewers, but both Samba and JGR never sold as well as the positive reviews indicated they should have. Does this mean that they were bad games either from a design point of view or an execution stand point? No. More likely it means that for the most part, gamers like their games somewhat predicable.
I appreciate the innovative approach that Nintendo is taking with Zelda, but remember that as far as innovation is concerned, Sega is firmly in the drivers seat.
Regardless of whether or not Excite@Home has the authority to monitor their networks for copyrighted materials, it seems obvious to me that they're only going to monitor their network for selected copyrighted materials.
My guess is that Excite@Home is going to patrol for copyrighted works by major record labels and movie studios, leaving your average copyright holder in the cold. Because essentially everything has a copyright attached to it, they're going to have to make a judgement call as to which works they're going to patrol for. If you want to find out what those works are, I'd follow the money trail.
Even better, TLC (or was it the Discovery Channel?) was running a show about Atlantis several weeks ago and came up with idea that Atlantis is actually close to Malta.
Without going too deep into details, Plato said that Atlantis existed 9000 before his time, but a simple calandar mistranslation could have actually placed that time at 900 years before Plato. Additionally, Plato supposedly wrote that Atlantis was the size of Asia and Libya combined, but again, the word combination could also be translated to mean 'between', which Malta is. Plato also said that it was beyond the Pillars of Hercules, which are traditionally to the west of Athens, which led many to speculate that Atlantis was somewhere in the Atlantic ocean, but there was another Pillars of Hercules to the east of Athens, and much closer to where Plato was born and spent his childhood. The area around Malta would be beyond these Pillars of Hercules.
The kicker is that the in the legend of Atlantis, there was supposedly advanced warning of Atlantis' impending distruction. Near Malta they have been excavating a site for a quarter of a century (I don't remember the name of the site off-hand), and in that time they've found homes that had two pipes for running water, one hot and one cold. They've found paintings on walls that depict in great detail animals that previously were not known to live in the area. They've excavated blocks of the city, but in all this time, they haven't found any money or bodies. The site was preserved because of a large volcano that blew a nice chunk out of the island.
The show came to the conclusion, that this was the fabled Atlantis. And I have to admit, the show put together a pretty good argument.
The suck article was an interesting read, but if failed at bringing up an important point. I remember hearing the president of the Fraunhofer Institute several years ago talk about how more user-restrictive types of digital music formats would replace mp3 if they were easier to use than mp3. The same idea holds true with CDs and DVDs. Most people can't remember the days before serial numbers or calling an 800 number to activate software... it's part of doing business in the computer age. However, it will be difficult to convince these same people to do the same thing with their CDs or DVDs. Copyright protection can't complicate the listening/watching process. If it does, the wonders of capitalism will take over, and give new companies an inroad to the music/movie market.
"Others have written to us wondering whether today's Premium is simply a nose-in-the-tent kind of deal, preparing the way for an entirely subscribers-only site in the future. (An erroneous media report misquoting our founder, David Talbot, outlining such a plan helped fan such suspicions.) That's not our plan."
Has there ever been a point in history where kids weren't bullying each other? It's part of growing up. Biology teaches us that at our most basic, we are competing against everyone else for resources. In school, these resources tend toward the social kind rather than food or shelter for survival. Bullying, posturing, and picking on people is an easy way to put yourself above someone else on the social totem pole if for no other reason than it attracts attention. To do so is an immature way to achieve social significance, but then again, we're talking about kids, and kids are supposed to be immature (it's a part of that whole growing up thing).
Anti-bullying programs are an interesting idea - but I'm almost sure the idea came from some 60 hour work week parent who can't half remember the name of his own child.
The point of intervention remains, as it always has, in the home. Placing the blame on TV, video games, or movies is just an attempt to eliminate the need to raise your children.
Kids kill themselves or others for one reason - they feel like they've lost control. If there's no olive branch to grab onto, then extreme measures all of the sudden don't seem so extreme. The people responsible for protecting and teaching children about the world - both the good and bad parts of it - are their parents. I wonder about Tempest Smith's parents and if the first clue they had about her problems was when they saw her cold body hanging from her bed. I'm sure that the late nights at work and the new episodes of Survivor were worth it...
Maybe Eminem said it best: "Get aware, wake up, get a sense of humor/Quit tryin to censor music, this is for your kid's amusement/But don't blame me when lil' Eric jumps off of the terrace, you shoulda been watchin him - apparently you ain't parents."
I haven't seen any mention of it on/. but is anyone aware that Strauss Zelnick AND Michael Dornemann just resigned from BMG on November 5th?
There's no way that the Napster deal didn't have something to do with that. Dornemann is the number three guy and Zelnick is number four. Both oversee BMG Entertainment. In fact, Dornemann is the Chairman of BMG Entertainment and Zelnick is President and Chief Executive Officer of BMG Entertainment.
As one record producer I know put it: "It's like God and baby God just resigned."
I gotta think that the Napster deal and the resignations are somehow related. My guess is that Zelnick and Dornemann didn't move on Napster early enough and probably believed that the future of digital music didn't involve Napster. Middlehoff, meanwhile, knew that to get rid of Napster would be the worst thing that could happen to the labels. (Peer to peer networking without a central server sure does make it more difficult to serve subpoenas.) So I think he made the deal and then removed those who had held up the deal in the past.
Slashdot Mirror
but I do wonder how they assigned the date "of at least 6000 years ago" to this
They probably just read the sign:
The Lost City
est. 6000 BC (yes we know what C stands for)
pop.: depends on the date
Since us gamers just got the early Christmas of a lifetime with the release of the Xbox (hush your mouth) and Gamecube, not to mention the amazing games that are flooding the market for the PS2, it's going to be hard NOT to buy a good game/system for Christmas. Anywhoo... here are some suggestions on games to get (or avoid) for Christmas.
Playstation 2
-------------
Metal Gear Solid 2: Yes, it's as bad assed as it wants to be. The intro looks like something from Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer's wildest imaginations. The game itself is pretty dang fun even if I do keep getting confused on which button does what (play it, you'll see what I mean). I want to play this game some more, but there's so much more to see!
NFL 2K2: This game is hands down the best looking football game I've ever seen. If you can handle the slightly more arcade type feel to the game, it has it all over Madden 2002. It sure would be nice to have some equivalent of the Madden Cards but even without it - this is one helluva football game. You can't coach that.
Gran Turismo 3: Okay, yes this game has been out for six months now, but I had to put some more time into it after playing Metropolis Street Racer for the Xbox. This game is damn near flawless. Well, with the exception of a lack of skid marks (almost unforgivable), crash modeling, and complete lack of ability to turn up the volume on the background music (really). Outside of that, the cars handle just like you think they would - and this game is deep enough to keep you busy for months. Literally. If you're going to own one driving game, this is it.
Grand Theft Auto III: I don't mean to rain on anybody's parade but please, give me a friggin' break. The way people were talking about this game, you'd of thought that it'd be fun. Marketed as a 'mature' game, I guess a large part of the fun of this game is suppoed to come from all the bad things you can do. Hmm... maybe I haven't gotten far enough in this game (roughly 6-7 hours into it) but picking up a hooker (read: woman with fishnet stockings) to take her to a policeman's ball isn't criminal - it's a taxi service. I was thinking this would be a criminal Shenmue type game, but it's just not there. The palatte of colors used in the game is muted, the storyline isn't that engaging, in short - I don't get the appeal of this game. I'm sure some of you will LOVE it, but if I'm going to spend several hours driving around, I'd just as soon drive in a game with realistic handling. Skip it.
Xbox
-----
Halo: I'm not the biggest fan of first person shooters. Personally, the last time I spent a lot of time on one was when 007's Goldeneye came out for the N64. But Halo pretty much rocks. It's the best looking FPS I've seen, and it has a high nervous quotient to it in the beginning because you just get dropped into the action - so you have to learn everything on the fly. I've only spent an hour with this game, but it deserves some more time.
Oh, and Penny Arcade has a great comic about it.
NASCAR Thunder 2002: I know what you're thinking... it's NASCAR. And you're right. But it's also one fun racing game. They've crammed 43 cars onto one track, built in a nice drafting system and they put you on the NASCAR tracks and let you go to it. It's pretty fun to start a race in the middle of the pack and to be passing cars the entire race. If you like to race, this is a great game.
Project Gotham Racing: Do you remember Metropolis Street Racer on the Dreamcast? No? Shame on you. Yes? Well, this is like MSR 2. It's really good. It looks good, the sound is awesome and there are enough tracks and cars to keep you busy for the next 3 months. It has a kudos system to reward good driving, and the game demands expertice to beat it. It's a really fun title.
Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2x: I'm a Tony Hawk freak. Ever since THPS1 on the Dreamcast, I've logged more hours on THPS games than any other game I can remember playing with the exception of some Final Fantasy games - or maybe some game for the NES back in the day when I didn't have anything better to do. I own a bunch of them, THPS 1 and 2 on the Dreamcast, THPS3 on the PS2, THPS2x on the Xbox and THPS3 on the Gamecube. So I feel TOTALLY qualified to say what's right and wrong with this game. And this game has an issue - it's the controller. The Xbox controller is about the size of New Hampshire. It's friggin' huge. I just haven't gotten used to the controls on this game yet. Otherwise, this is THPS 2 on the DC with marginally better graphics, a few new areas on existing levels to explore, a new menu system, supposedly THPS 1 is in the game somewhere - so you can now manual throughout that game (they added the manual after THPS 1) and there are six new levels. It's fun, but if you have THPS 1 and 2 for the Playstation or Dreamcast already... you can pretty much pass this title up.
Dead or Alive 3: This game is basically Dead or Alive 2 with better graphics. I've never been a huge fan of this series because I personally like to beat the crap outta people without having to be graceful about it. And best I can tell, DoA3 asks for grace. You have to know just when to block, just when to counter and just when to attack. There's no run-away command to back up quickly, so everything is pretty much hand to hand short distance combat all the time. It's fun for about 10 minutes, but then I just want to play Soul Calibur for the Dreamcast - if I'm going to play a fighter.
Gamecube
--------
Luigi's Mansion: Okay, I thought this was a dumb as hell idea for a game. Give Luigi a vacuum cleaner and a flashlight and let him run thru some mansion stunning ghosts so he can suck them up in his vacuum cleaner. But I have to admit, this game is fun. It brings back some of that original Mario feel to a 3D game. It's silly, and ultimately, pretty stupid, but give it up for the game and the system. I woke up this morning wanting to play it some more. And now that I've finished it - I have to admit - it's one of the best looking games I've ever seen. Seeing Bowser rendered in all his 3D splendor alone was worth the purchase.
Rogue Squadron II: This is supposed to be the game that got everybody's juices flowing when they saw it. And it comes pretty damn close to the hype that preceeded it. The original Rogue Squadron came out for the N64, and that game was bad ass. This game is just as cool. It looks at times just as good or better than the Star Wars movies. This isn't like Star Wars Starfighter on the PS2 where you can do barrel rolls while flying your craft. Starfighter feels a bit more like a sim game, where you really have to have skills to blow stuff up. This game is all about recreating the fun of the dogfights from the movies. The explosions are amazing. And when you fire a missle down a shaft, you see the light from the missle light up the shaft as it flys down it... majorly cool. This game is way fun. And the sound is amazing. Add to that, this is the first game I know of that has a making of documentary built in, and you've got a title that you pretty much need to own if you have a GameCube.
Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3: Like I said above, I rock these games. Off the bat, I like this game better than the PS2 version. Mostly because I could pick up the game without looking at the manual and I could trick all day long, so the controls are really good. There are a few issues with the game being too forgiving with landings or how you do tricks - but I almost prefer it to the PS2 version where everything has to be perfect. I guess maybe I'm just somewhat of a sloppy skater. But the game is super fun. If you're a THPS fan and have a Gamecube... consider this a must buy.
Wave Race: I wasn't so sure about this game. I've never really liked any other wave race type games (the one for the N64 comes to mind) bascially because I was bad at it. The waves frustrated me, and there was nothing compelling enough about the title to make me put serious time into it. But this game changes all of that. The water is hands down the best, most amazing beautiful water in any game you've ever seen period stop end of discussion. It's that good. It looks great in all conditions. But when it's raining outside, it especially looks cool. The water will splash up on the camera and leave water marks. The graphics are gorgeous. Once I got the hang of the controls (not hard to master), this game totally rocked. This was the big surprise game for me. With tons of tracks, and tons of characters to choose from - I can already tell that this game will get some good play for weeks to come.
Lastly, if you're on a budget, but you want to be happy-happy on Dec. 25th, go buy a Dreamcast and a bunch of used games. Systems run $80, and your typical used game goes for around $20. Try Soul Calibur, Crazy Taxi, NFL 2K2, Samba de Amigo, Shenmue, Sonic I & II, Virtua Tennis, Skies of Arcadia, THPS 1 & 2, Metropolis Street Racing, Ferrari 355 Challenge, and, Test Drive LeMans among the many other great games for this underappreciated system.
Well, that's the wrap-up. Happy gaming.
What's the point of this? To put more people in jail? To increase the coffers of local governments? It seems to me that alerting the police is unnecessary... why not just tie the receptor to the starter and prevent drunk drivers from being able to start their car? That way no one goes to jail and no one gets hurt. Geez, the job of technology like this should be to safeguard society, not lock it up.
Pinky, do you know what I'm thinking...
"...and that the Sony Playstation has done something to this industry that Nintendo is trying to prevent from happening - and that (Playstation) is preventing developers from making new and original games and stopping them from making new ideas - instead they just release game after game after game which don't have any different gameplay in them..."
While I'll agree with you that most games can be stereotyped by gameplay these days, don't forget Sega is easily the most innovative game company around. Look at games like Jet Grind Radio with the innovative cell shading technology and cartoon look that the new Zelda look borrows ideas from. Look at games like Samba De Amigo, Seaman, Shenmue, and Crazy Taxi. Jet Grind Radio, Shenmue and Samba De Amigo were hailed almost universally by video game reviewers, but both Samba and JGR never sold as well as the positive reviews indicated they should have. Does this mean that they were bad games either from a design point of view or an execution stand point? No. More likely it means that for the most part, gamers like their games somewhat predicable.
I appreciate the innovative approach that Nintendo is taking with Zelda, but remember that as far as innovation is concerned, Sega is firmly in the drivers seat.
Regardless of whether or not Excite@Home has the authority to monitor their networks for copyrighted materials, it seems obvious to me that they're only going to monitor their network for selected copyrighted materials.
My guess is that Excite@Home is going to patrol for copyrighted works by major record labels and movie studios, leaving your average copyright holder in the cold. Because essentially everything has a copyright attached to it, they're going to have to make a judgement call as to which works they're going to patrol for. If you want to find out what those works are, I'd follow the money trail.
Even better, TLC (or was it the Discovery Channel?) was running a show about Atlantis several weeks ago and came up with idea that Atlantis is actually close to Malta.
Without going too deep into details, Plato said that Atlantis existed 9000 before his time, but a simple calandar mistranslation could have actually placed that time at 900 years before Plato. Additionally, Plato supposedly wrote that Atlantis was the size of Asia and Libya combined, but again, the word combination could also be translated to mean 'between', which Malta is. Plato also said that it was beyond the Pillars of Hercules, which are traditionally to the west of Athens, which led many to speculate that Atlantis was somewhere in the Atlantic ocean, but there was another Pillars of Hercules to the east of Athens, and much closer to where Plato was born and spent his childhood. The area around Malta would be beyond these Pillars of Hercules.
The kicker is that the in the legend of Atlantis, there was supposedly advanced warning of Atlantis' impending distruction. Near Malta they have been excavating a site for a quarter of a century (I don't remember the name of the site off-hand), and in that time they've found homes that had two pipes for running water, one hot and one cold. They've found paintings on walls that depict in great detail animals that previously were not known to live in the area. They've excavated blocks of the city, but in all this time, they haven't found any money or bodies. The site was preserved because of a large volcano that blew a nice chunk out of the island.
The show came to the conclusion, that this was the fabled Atlantis. And I have to admit, the show put together a pretty good argument.
The suck article was an interesting read, but if failed at bringing up an important point. I remember hearing the president of the Fraunhofer Institute several years ago talk about how more user-restrictive types of digital music formats would replace mp3 if they were easier to use than mp3. The same idea holds true with CDs and DVDs. Most people can't remember the days before serial numbers or calling an 800 number to activate software... it's part of doing business in the computer age. However, it will be difficult to convince these same people to do the same thing with their CDs or DVDs. Copyright protection can't complicate the listening/watching process. If it does, the wonders of capitalism will take over, and give new companies an inroad to the music/movie market.
From salon.com
"Others have written to us wondering whether today's Premium is simply a nose-in-the-tent kind of deal, preparing the way for an entirely subscribers-only site in the future. (An erroneous media report misquoting our founder, David Talbot, outlining such a plan helped fan such suspicions.) That's not our plan."
The rest of the article can be found here: http://www.salon.com/letters/editor/2001/05/02/pre mium_progress/index.html
Has there ever been a point in history where kids weren't bullying each other? It's part of growing up. Biology teaches us that at our most basic, we are competing against everyone else for resources. In school, these resources tend toward the social kind rather than food or shelter for survival. Bullying, posturing, and picking on people is an easy way to put yourself above someone else on the social totem pole if for no other reason than it attracts attention. To do so is an immature way to achieve social significance, but then again, we're talking about kids, and kids are supposed to be immature (it's a part of that whole growing up thing).
Anti-bullying programs are an interesting idea - but I'm almost sure the idea came from some 60 hour work week parent who can't half remember the name of his own child.
The point of intervention remains, as it always has, in the home. Placing the blame on TV, video games, or movies is just an attempt to eliminate the need to raise your children.Kids kill themselves or others for one reason - they feel like they've lost control. If there's no olive branch to grab onto, then extreme measures all of the sudden don't seem so extreme. The people responsible for protecting and teaching children about the world - both the good and bad parts of it - are their parents. I wonder about Tempest Smith's parents and if the first clue they had about her problems was when they saw her cold body hanging from her bed. I'm sure that the late nights at work and the new episodes of Survivor were worth it...
Maybe Eminem said it best: "Get aware, wake up, get a sense of humor/Quit tryin to censor music, this is for your kid's amusement/But don't blame me when lil' Eric jumps off of the terrace, you shoulda been watchin him - apparently you ain't parents."
Sorry about that.
There's no way that the Napster deal didn't have something to do with that. Dornemann is the number three guy and Zelnick is number four. Both oversee BMG Entertainment. In fact, Dornemann is the Chairman of BMG Entertainment and Zelnick is President and Chief Executive Officer of BMG Entertainment.
As one record producer I know put it: "It's like God and baby God just resigned."
I gotta think that the Napster deal and the resignations are somehow related. My guess is that Zelnick and Dornemann didn't move on Napster early enough and probably believed that the future of digital music didn't involve Napster. Middlehoff, meanwhile, knew that to get rid of Napster would be the worst thing that could happen to the labels. (Peer to peer networking without a central server sure does make it more difficult to serve subpoenas.) So I think he made the deal and then removed those who had held up the deal in the past.