Isn't Facebook planning to sue companies that do this in a civil court? And aren't there laws in place that effectively prohibit this? (the Stored Communications Act and Computer Fraud and Abuse Act come to mind - especially since if you RTFA the Justice dept is already looking into whether these would apply)
I'm all for some Republican-bashing, but we should really consider whether we already have a law in place for this before we add new ones. The legal code is cryptic and mountainous enough as it is without adding unnecessary cruft.
It also may not have been appropriate as an amendment to this particular bill - note that the article states that Republicans would consider separate legislation.
I'm quite sure Nick Denton doesn't like user comments. Gawker doesn't like opinions that they weren't paid to show on their site. And they REALLY hate it when you tell them their site redesign was awful, or that time-sloting Kotaku was a moronic idea. And they have just about the worst commenting system out there.
All bitching about Gawker sites aside, their comment system was truly abysmal. Anyone can comment, but if you don't create an account your comment goes into a deep hole for potential approval by an unknown entity on the 5th of Never. Then if you make an account, your comment will show but it won't show by default unless it's been "featured" by having a starred member promote it at whim or reply to it. And if you're VERY lucky and catch an author on a good day and agree completely with him, you might even get elevated to a star of your own. And then you get some kind of moderation power, assuming you don't get it removed for not kissing Gawker's ass enough. And before you say it, yes I have a star and no it hasn't been removed (at least until an editor reads this, I suppose).
There is no system for obtaining or losing a star that I can tell aside from author/editor whim. There are no obvious rules for promoting comments. There are no guidelines given if you get a star. The community guidelines are open to potentially abusive interpretation that doesn't always reflect the clear intent. The entire thing is a mystery box that panders to Gawker and censors anything they don't like.
The system here at/. is much more orderly, I can eliminate all the chum comments just by browsing at +1 or +2. And moderation is clearly defined and passed around in time to everyone who joins the club. We have freedom to post, clear self-policing, and even reward consistent quality. Plus, you get similar article quality and policing of content (with its own slant, but then that's what communities are all about).
I do think Reddit has probably the most pure and free-form overall model for generating, filtering, and promoting user-generated content, but the quality mileage does vary and there's practically no fact-checking. Something like a "front page" with editor-approved threads might help the mainstream web surfers more easily accept it.
I just wish I didn't find Gizmodo/Kotaku articles as entertaining as I do. They do bring me bite-sized news with entertaining content and more often than not are teh funny. I can't stand Nick Denton though - he's a greedy shithead whoring out the integrity of his editors/writers with every ad-article, bad design, and site-wrapper he shoves down their throats.
Lovely thought, but all these magical screens that come up when you type in URLs cost real money.
Servers cost money. Hardware, software, maintenance, and electricity just off the top of my head to say nothing of the MUCH higher costs to them of commercial bandwidth. And the big sites? Multiply that by about 100x for re-hosting providers. And that's just the physical capability to put a "hello world" on your screen when you type in catlolzmemes.com.
Then there's the people who design professional sites, who think up and write content like the article you may have read that led you to "collaborate" with us. That text box you typed this in? Someone got paid to build that and used it to provide for their family / self / WoW account access. Just because you don't pay the bills personally doesn't mean they don't get paid by someone. And that someone makes their money back off ads. And there's a thousand other costs I haven't mentioned that are associated with a site or publication or blog or any website. Someone pays for them, and 8/10 times they are ultimately paid for with ads.
The "Money making distribution system" is the blood that pumps through the fiber, keeping all this from flaking out. It makes your internet access and content faster, more flexible, and stronger. Communal ownership of the Internet sounds great in your freshman philosophy of technology classes, but there are real costs that have to be shouldered or it all breaks down. And it could be a lot worse. If ISPs used their theoretical power to push and sell targeted advertising, you wouldn't be able to avoid the ads at all - period. You might even have to pay for tiered Internet access (and it's been tried several times before). At least now we have some way to control how these ads come to us without restricting sites too egregiously.
The days of the internet being only "a collaborative medium" are long past. Now it is how we all communicate globally. And one of the most basic reasons to foster communication in any civilizations is trade. Hence, advertising.
If anything should be done to prevent it, we should target the most hideous and blatantly invasive ad and tracking formats that are out there today - then marketers can come up with less offensive and sneakier methods to do the same thing. It WILL happen though, the illusion of the Internet being "free" is just that. Time to grow up a bit and realize that just because YOU didn't pay for it directly, doesn't mean that it's all just free.
1. Please stop engineering LOL parameters. It's like using a Fibbonaci sequence to arrange little bags of flaming poop on a doorstep.
2. Having said that, you might be on to something with LOL notation. However, L(O * 10^8)L will more likely be misinterpreted as some form of bizarre Japanese emoticon involving tentacles and schoolgirl outfits.
Per the article in link 2, Universal was asserting rights over a song by an signed artist called Yelawolf. Yelawolf sampled the music without getting permission and released his own rap over the original song. He happened to be signed by Universal, so their lawyers assumed *(and here's the part where Universal fucked up)* that Yelawolf owned the rights and issued a takedown notice. So Universal was lazy and presumptuous, but it's Yelawolf who was the most to blame for this.
That's called "being an apologist". I.e. admitting someone's behavior is bad but trying to make excuses for it anyway.
Where in this did I make an excuse for anybody? I'm just commenting on the disproportionate assignment of blame to Universal when it's really Rapper A stole Rapper B's song.
The real problem here is that YouTube trusts Universal and their lawyers with the policing of copyrights without giving equal weight to a complainant. And then the foxes guarding the chickens just did what comes naturally. If you're going to proclaim to be a neutral site for hosting videos, you have to really fight to stay neutral and give everyone the same fair shake. Otherwise you're being controlled just as if you were owned by them, they just have a more convoluted method of giving you orders.
There's this piece of law you might have heard of, it's called the DMCA. The DMCA gives extra-judicial copyright policing powers to arbitrary private entities. Youtube is required, by law, to take down anything that they receive a complaint about or they lose their safe-harbor status. Youtube is not allowed to weigh whether the request is justified, or if it even makes sense, they are required to just do it.
There's this piece of law you may not have fully read, its called the DMCA - particularly the Take down and Put back provisions.
The way a take-down-put-back cycle goes is party A files a complaint, youtube takes it down, party B files a counter-complaint, party A must either SUE or it gets put back automatically by youtube in 14 days. Therein lies the weighing and, unless the filing of suit by Universal did indeed follow (which there was no mention of in any of this), the original artists did not get a fair shake and essentially were told by Youtube they did not have a recourse. Youtube should have stepped the fuck out at that point and put it back up automatically unless suit was filed.
Now, there were some pieces heavily glossed over by the articles, like whether or not a suit was filed or whether or not they were eventually allowed to put their music back up. This write-up was meant to provoke outrage, and it succeeded - and it was well deserved outrage IMO. But Youtube was as in the wrong as Universal here and the DMCA's safeguards do not seem to have been followed as intended.
Yes, Universal is evil and greedy and etc, but all the reactionary comments are glossing over a key fact here:
Per the article in link 2, Universal was asserting rights over a song by an signed artist called Yelawolf. Yelawolf sampled the music without getting permission and released his own rap over the original song. He happened to be signed by Universal, so their lawyers assumed *(and here's the part where Universal fucked up)* that Yelawolf owned the rights and issued a takedown notice. So Universal was lazy and presumptuous, but it's Yelawolf who was the most to blame for this.
While this is not entirely Universal's fault, they clearly dropped the ball here by not looking closely enough into it. They just assumed they were right and that the original artists were lying/wrong/hatin' and didn't do their homework. The brunt of the blame is on Yelawolf, but Universal's lawyers got caught napping when they should have treated this more seriously. Hence, incoming PR landmine.
The real problem here is that YouTube trusts Universal and their lawyers with the policing of copyrights without giving equal weight to a complainant. And then the foxes guarding the chickens just did what comes naturally. If you're going to proclaim to be a neutral site for hosting videos, you have to really fight to stay neutral and give everyone the same fair shake. Otherwise you're being controlled just as if you were owned by them, they just have a more convoluted method of giving you orders.
Shame on Yelawolf for being a groove-thief, Shame on YouTube for trusting the Devil, and then any leftover shame can go to Universal for not properly checking up on their signed artists' work.
The unfortunate circumstances of your family's current difficulties combined with your remarkable talent, hard work, and scientific mien means that the spotlight of the Internet and the mass media are going to put all of your hard work and effort in the shadow of your problems.
I apologize for the hundreds of people who will humiliate you in a well-meaning manner by heaping unasked for bags of canned goods or unwanted care packages, for the jealous asshole classmates who will use your family's problems to try and push you down and hurt you, for the thousands on thousands of pitying looks and inquiries about your family in the middle of every single serious presentation you give for the rest of your academic career.
We did that to you. We did it because we wanted a Cinderella story and you happened to be a bright enough diamond in the rough for us to exploit for a headline. I truly wish you could have been honored in a respectful manner that did not single you and your family out for being in difficult financial times. I am so very sorry that we make your beginnings more important than the new world you are trying to build. I'm sorry that we will drag your tragedy into the spotlight, crowding your triumph.
If it is any consolation, you will probably be a finalist if you don't win the whole thing. I wish that we had not made things so difficult for you for the next year or so while we forget about you. Maybe some other come-from-behind story will come along and let you step out of that terrible spotlight.
In the meantime, enjoy the scholarship you will undoubtedly get and remember that the awful glare of the public eye won't last forever - if you can learn to ignore the humiliation and the condescension you may be able to turn this momentum into something productive for your life and career. And at the very least, in a few years we will leave you alone and let you get back to your life and what you choose to make of it.
I disagree. If you are funny or talented enough and you put yourself out there, the marketing will come to you claiming that you need them to get started. Maybe it used to be true that you needed heavy promotion through television, but I don't know if it is anymore. Things are changing, and for the better IMO.
I think the success of this experiement proves that you DON'T necessarily need all that marketing cash. You DON'T need to have every one of your customers exposed to 12 ads to ensure they see a video, not when the Internet is your word-of-mouth. The cost of marketing has been over-inflated by the assumption that box office / DVD success is the only valid success.
If you don't use the big Marketing Machines to promote your movie, maybe you won't make a hojillion dollars at the box office, but you know what? I don't watch that many things at the movies anymore - it's too expensive, inconvenient, and often a poor experience when compared to viewing in a home theater setup. The relative "success" of a movie puts too much emphasis on this overpriced and outdated mode of distribution. There's a reason why big screen-warping action blockbusters make that box office bank - they are the only movies really enhanced by being 3 stories tall and louder. And I'd be willing to bet that the long-run digital/DVD revenue for some of the high-quality but low-marketed movies more than made up for a shoddy box office performance.
With regards to home video, I can't exactly justify $20 or more to buy a movie or video to own that I will only watch once. Times are hard, bills are more important than entertainment, and I'm much more willing to wait than I ever used to be for something to come down to a reasonable price, regardless of the distribution method. I just don't see the point in buying anything I won't watch multiple times. Rental, sure. Digital rental via subscription (netflix, hulu) definitely. Bring the price down to a level that doesn't assume I will watch it 20-30 times over its life and we can talk. And I've digitally rented TONS of movies or DVDs that I never saw a single commercial for just because a peer recommended it. On the Internet.
When you add in his honest appeal to human decency and the attractiveness of paying an extremely talented artist directly instead of a media conglomerate, I was sold. A fair price didn't hurt either.
If those subscribers are incurring bandwidth costs, Comcast ought to be billing them for it. In fact it is, I'm fairly sure Comcast sends every subscriber a bill every month for their connection and turns that connection off if the bill isn't paid. If Comcast wants Level 3 to pay, then what's that bill to the subscribers for?
This is the crux of the argument, right here.
Comcast doesn't want to pass the costs off to customers because they don't want to issue an across the board rate hike or be the first to install metered billing. Rightfully, the extra costs should be the burden of the customer, but if you thought the complaints were loud for this issue, it's a echoing whistle in a mineshaft compared to the cacophony a rate hike or metered billing would cause. Not to mention the reactionary net subscriber loss is MUCH higher for a rate hike than for some bad PR. So they're trying to hot-potato the extra financial load around.
Bottom line, we need to stop thinking of the internet as all-you-can-eat. The ONLY thing keeping metered billing at bay is that nobody wants to step up and be the first to implement it across the board. One day that dam will burst and a major provided will go metered. Every other ISP will follow within 6 months to 1 year, guaranteed.
One thing I can all but guarantee, it won't be cheaper than cable/satellite. The a la carte television service is not a new idea. The same people that fucked it up when it was explored back in the early cable days and who fucked it up for Netflix, Hulu, and every other streaming service will be there for this one. And no, it won't be Comcast or AT&T or any of the people that actually bill you. They WANT to provide people the most flexible service they could, that would draw more customers.
No, this will be reinvented to death by the content providers.
You will see $10 monthly subscriptions for each media producing company's channel packages, tiers of packages for the big ones like Turner or Disney, and my guess is you'll end up with a la carte that costs just as much as your bundled cable TV does if not more. You will likely be able to buy comparable "bundles" at the same cost per month as traditional subscription television. But if you truly want a la carte programming, you'll end up paying as much or more for fewer overall channels.
The carriers (Comcast, ATT, etc) are not going to give you a choice of ignoring the providers' experimental networks and shows, they're locked into paying for them just as you are by contracts printed in the 80's and they already oversell their ad space with the channels they have. They would start a riot with their advertisers over the suddenly very narrow marketing window if they didn't force you to accept some channels you don't want. If they did, new channels would never get off the ground and niche channels would die out from lack of funding.
Well, why do I need a channel anyway, you might ask. Let me just watch the shows I want and stuff the channels.
That is the reason why Netflix and Hulu are getting the push back on providing streaming content that they are. The entire business system is based on a model that presumes upon timeslot-based content to promote and target prime advertising and shows. The technology to provide the media has changed, but the business model behind it never had to. Now it is suddenly bucking hard against what they see as the iTunes to their RIAA, coming to slay the lumbering beast of their outmoded business plan. There are simply too many people who ALL have to be on board for it to work.
I'm not saying it will never work, but I'm saying don't get too excited about this announcement. Microsoft will play ball with content providers, it won't try to leverage them into the 21st century (like Google or Apple). You might see it change down the road for the better as studios and networks start to realize that they cannot dictate how we watch their programming anymore. If they want to join the rest of us in the World of Tomorrow, some big sweeping changes to their business has to take place first. And that will be slow and painful for them, and for us in the meantime.
I think the term "illegal" isn't the right one to use. Which one is more immoral is probably more accurate.
One country is revoking DNS service for a relatively small list of sites when its investigations show these sites violate that nation's (and in some cases international) trade or copyright laws. These sites are shut down without due process or prior notification. There is fear that if unchecked, this power could be extended to remove ideas that are unwelcome to those in control of these mechanisms.
Evil, yes. But our own brand of evil, evil that benefits our own subtly neo-feudal power structure and shores up the foundations of our capitalist economic structure. It does this by directly preventing the operation of some who seek to circumvent established monetary contribution channels for intellectual and real property holders. Whether you agree with the core concept of monetizing intellectual property or not, the rules guarding it are pretty clearly and publicly defined and this action supports enforcement of those ideals. So I would say there is a potential for evil in this if taken to extremes, but by and large it mainly supports the established tenets of the nation.
Another country has been caught using the trust extended to them in the form of DNS root servers to change the information provided by these servers to prevent access with the country's political interests and restrictions on tolerated ideals. The country's agencies have been known to intercept and effectively hijack the Internet connection of an uncertain number of global users whose traffic happened to be entrusted to their equipment due to load balancing. It is not known what the intention was, the extent of the data captured was never fully understood, there was no overt manipulation or presentation of purposely deceptive information, all that is truly known is that China has a policy of strict regulation of ideas of its people and that a great potential for harm exists if the country chose to pursue it.
This is evil, but it is evil defined by ideals that happen to be antithetical to our core belief structure. Looked at (mostly) objectively, this has the ring to me of something that was a toe in the water or groundwork laid towards true purposeful evil, but in and of itself was not deliberately harmful. Everyone can point to how bad it COULD be, but nobody can clearly define how bad it actually was. Policing the exploration of ideas is widely considered to be much more evil than policing the exploitation of others' ideas, however one of the core principles of said nation is enforced unity of ideals and purpose. So I would say there is a large potential for evil in this if taken to extremes, but it mainly supports the established tenets of the nation.
So I would say when looked at this way that both countries are nearly as morally in the wrong, but that our level of perceived "transparency" in the process is greater in that we are told a version of what is going on and then can vent our frustrations by complaining about it. With China there is a long history of secrecy, double dealings, and heavy spin, so there's the same level of abuse potential combined with MUCH greater levels of mistrust due to the lack of transparency. The actions were essentially the same, only the methods were different. Whether that means we're more honorable or just more subtle than China, I'll let you decide.
It sounds like your tastes are just changing to more serious and thoughtful titles. You'd rather play an interactive story instead of a press-the-button-when-the-flashy-thing-blinks-game. Good thing for you is, it's right in the middle of a resurgence.
The relative success of Heavy Rain and Telltale's success with reviving the adventure game formula is bearing some really awesome fruit. Check out LA Noire by Rockstar - I think it'll be right up your alley. http://www.rockstargames.com/lanoire/agegate/ref/?redirect=
Also I hear great things about Red Dead Redemption and Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Both are purported to have great stories to go with gameplay that's not quite so frantic.
There may be all sorts of science-y reasons why we would want to examine an 18-inch rock on mars, that I can get behind.
But naming it? Seriously? If we start naming every rock and boulder and sand dune we run across, we're going to run out of all the cool names. Then later when we land on an area with an 1800 meter meteorite, we'll have to settle for "OR XXVI" or something dull like that. Plus, think of the future - we'll have stupid historical markers and protected rover trails all over the terraformed landscape with the Historic Site of Oileán Ruaidh and the Pebbles of Aljsdfk Splksd and stupid gift t-shirts and little mini-rovers and 18-inch rock keychains for sale in stands run by the mutants who can no longer work in the mines.
I'm just saying, let's save names for the impressive things. Think of the merchandisers!
I can't believe I had to wade through hundreds of arguments over 3.5 vs 4 and pages of twink guides and batman v. superman like discussion to get to what is the REAL heart of this story. Cryptic Studios and their history of shitting all over the franchises handed them.
Cryptic hasn't gotten it right since City of Heroes, and honestly that was only good by comparison to all the other super hero games of the day (read: none). Quickly it turned into an EXTREMELY drab treadmill. Then once that horse was beaten to death with some really lackluster expansions ("We are out of good ideas and talent, so here's a dungeon toolkit!") they moved on to the Dew Chuggin', Snowboardin', Xtreme Sports version of CoH they called Champions Online. Leveraging the power of stolen ideas and artistic style, they managed to simultaneously dumb down and Lens Flare CoH into a true apex balance point of pointless flash and mindless gameplay.
With the Superhero genre beaten down like the first Robin and vital juices all squeezed out to feed the money machine, Cryptic ran out of good ideas. So they bought one. Never mind that every Star Trek game with VERY few exceptions (Elite Force was surprisingly good, for a re-skinned Quake 3 Arena) has been a complete and utter failure. Never mind that they have no idea how to tell a cogent story or have anything but a comic-book (heh) grasp of the genre. Never mind that every other game they made was all sizzle and no steak. This will be different!
It wasn't.
And now they turn their sights on yet another pillar of nerd-dom to hump dollars out of. Fear not, fans of 4th edition, they will not desecrate the game you love because this will not resemble that game except in the most brief and fleeting ways. You'll still have the same DoTs, knockbacks, and DDs you have in every other game they make, they will now just be called Cone of Cold or Acid Arrow and will have 6 differently colored versions. Oh and a tied in series of "books" by Bob Salvatore since he's firmly chained to the Wizards Wheel of Woe and Profit by +4 Contracts of Binding (which honestly will probably be better than the game, he's a pulp fantasy writer but he is entertaining).
In the end it will feel like someone spilled a sticky bucket of D&D on Champions Online and ultimately will go on the woodpile next to Temple of Elemental Evil and Iron & Blood to burn brightly, illuminating our map grids and figurines for a brief moment, a moment brighter than the spark of joy we felt hoping that someone would make a D&D game that was like the ones we fondly remember. (Silver Blades, Beholder, even the later Baldur's and Planescape - NWN was pretty close, but felt cheap somehow)
Dragon Age was the closest to this that I've seen in recent years, but even it felt awkward - like it didn't want to acknowlege its turn-based roots and chose to hide this disfigurement behind a veil of shiny graphics. 4th ed, though, is TIED to a turn based grid, is balanced around it, and I totally see that being the first thing out the window. Strategy is anathema to RPGs for some reason these days, and yes you can blame WoW (yes, there is some strategy to WoW but not until you get 25 ppl together which takes a bigger time investment than my mortgage). Even Dragon Age is moving towards an action RPG genre style. I'm quite sure someone is trying to fit Halo or Gears of War qualities into the equation somewhere, like a set of tits on a chessboard.
Woe be unto the traditionalist RPG turn-based gamer, I'll see you in the nursing home. I'll be the one in the back with the barium suppository debuff counters in the medicine cup figurines and the DM screen made out of old medical charts paper-clipped together. Now roll initiative before I poop myself.
Except technically speaking, Portal was not a mod. It was based off of a proof-of-concept puzzle game called Narbacular Drop.
Other than that, yep.
I can't see it as anything but good for gaming. Gamers know what gamers want and so far the groundswell approach they use has produced some truly great games.
Now the RIAA/ARAA will never run out of artists to sue. They can take every major pop hit of the last 30 years and have them sue each other back and forth in an orgiastic Roman frenzy of subpoenas. Every pop artist will sue every other one, on and on, with the damages spiraling further and further upward until the songs themselves become worth more when not played at all. Problem solved.
But seriously, come on - ALL art is derivative, music as much as anyone. You experience music and you have a gift for music, your experiences with music and the emotions they trigger in you inspire you to create your own music, you create based on what you've heard because it's what you know. Maybe it's a little different than the songs that inspired you, but usually not on a fundamental level.
But perhaps we should take this model and run with it. Maybe if we can just get this applied to the Summer Blockbuster or the Romantic Comedy formula movies, we can finally do away with all the terrible, predictable, and rote plotlines that we've been subjected to for years.
That's the second oldest monkey theme I've ever heard!
My Pro Audio Spectrum 16 sounded great, when I could get it to sound at all. Half the time I had to use SB/Adlib compatibility modes. Had a bitch of a time trying to get it to work on later games, eventually traded up to a SB.
These days I barely even think about sound cards, I suppose because they're now basically just fancier and fancier amplifiers and mixers. I suppose the home sound studio and audiophiles will always want the next new shiny, but there's only so much innovation you can do with audio data before you have to modify the output devices. You have to wonder how Creative stays in business, I can't think of a significant advance in sound hardware in many years that wasn't fully dependent on your speaker setup.
Making bold directive statements like this in press releases and then not following it up seems to be par for the course in Russian politics. Russians seem to respect boldness and the appearance of strength in leaders, he's probably either positioning for a upward move or validating his current job. In the unlikely event this does actually go somewhere, it will be interesting to see what they muster up. Part of me longs to see Tsar Bomba II and a new brief star in the sky, but realistically I expect a solution with as much substance as this press release and equally gilded.
I don't disagree with your stance on EA, but I don't think that EA spending this money on the storefronts in the article is really a big waste.
It's a marketing test bed, basically. Some junior executive somewhere "synergized" the apple store concept and made a couple stores to test out EA Active on their target market, namely moms whose kids have Wiis (I have no doubt these stores were in malls), and to get some feedback on the product. The market for that is gigantic and right now there's only Wii Fit and a handful of others to tap into it.
I don't think a 6 months worth of rent and cheap labor at two locations is more expensive than a large focus study to improve your product or a massive blanket ad campaign that your market won't identify with, each costing millions. Plus their results will be more real and targeted.
And I think 6 months is a good estimate; they won't be around long, I'm sure. Note the decor from the pic in the Kotaku article. Note the lack of permanent fixtures. Stylishly minimalist, yes. Moves out easily, too.
EA has to keep trying things like this. It is a giant lumbering beast, borne of an economic boom and grown under those times of plenty. It consumed its kin and grew more massive still, and now it is a large, unwieldy thing and times are getting slim. It must feed on new cash crops, or limbs begin to wither and fall away. So you'll likely see more gimmick attempts to make a signature brand or one-up breakout successes, any attempt to sustain the creature. I don't think they'll succeed. EA doesn't make games anymore, they just buy people who do.
Gosh, if only there was some way for us to channel our annoyance into something that could undercut the very base of Mr. Thompson's power. If only there was a governing body monitoring the practice of law in Florida that we could contact and ask that they look into his legal harassment of satirists. If only their contact information was this:
If only there were a ton of witnesses to his wanton bullying who were willing to corroborate these claims and perhaps get his license to practice law suspended.
Look at the screenshots from the game on the amazon site. They look like a 14-year old got bored with a very old copy of Poser. If that's the upper limit of the amazing tricks they can do with the Source engine, I predict an epic smash hit on the magnitude of Deer Hunter 6: White-Tail Madness.
DN3d was good, but all that's left of the franchise is a broken promise and a bad joke that won't die. Maybe they'll make some money off people buying it just for the humor value.
To be hosted by Paris Hilton, Jay-Z, and Carrot Top, with categories to include "Tightest Hottie in a Leading Role", "Best FPS that is not Halo 2", and "Game of Show as Chosen by Limp Bizkit". With special guest presenters from the covers of Maxim and a live performance of classic video game themes performed by Justin Timberlake.
If it's anywhere near the fiasco Spike's video game awards show was, just watch TRL for an hour and you'll get the gist of it.
Slashdot Mirror
Isn't Facebook planning to sue companies that do this in a civil court? And aren't there laws in place that effectively prohibit this? (the Stored Communications Act and Computer Fraud and Abuse Act come to mind - especially since if you RTFA the Justice dept is already looking into whether these would apply)
I'm all for some Republican-bashing, but we should really consider whether we already have a law in place for this before we add new ones. The legal code is cryptic and mountainous enough as it is without adding unnecessary cruft.
It also may not have been appropriate as an amendment to this particular bill - note that the article states that Republicans would consider separate legislation.
I'm quite sure Nick Denton doesn't like user comments. Gawker doesn't like opinions that they weren't paid to show on their site. And they REALLY hate it when you tell them their site redesign was awful, or that time-sloting Kotaku was a moronic idea. And they have just about the worst commenting system out there.
All bitching about Gawker sites aside, their comment system was truly abysmal. Anyone can comment, but if you don't create an account your comment goes into a deep hole for potential approval by an unknown entity on the 5th of Never. Then if you make an account, your comment will show but it won't show by default unless it's been "featured" by having a starred member promote it at whim or reply to it. And if you're VERY lucky and catch an author on a good day and agree completely with him, you might even get elevated to a star of your own. And then you get some kind of moderation power, assuming you don't get it removed for not kissing Gawker's ass enough. And before you say it, yes I have a star and no it hasn't been removed (at least until an editor reads this, I suppose).
There is no system for obtaining or losing a star that I can tell aside from author/editor whim. There are no obvious rules for promoting comments. There are no guidelines given if you get a star. The community guidelines are open to potentially abusive interpretation that doesn't always reflect the clear intent. The entire thing is a mystery box that panders to Gawker and censors anything they don't like.
The system here at /. is much more orderly, I can eliminate all the chum comments just by browsing at +1 or +2. And moderation is clearly defined and passed around in time to everyone who joins the club. We have freedom to post, clear self-policing, and even reward consistent quality. Plus, you get similar article quality and policing of content (with its own slant, but then that's what communities are all about).
I do think Reddit has probably the most pure and free-form overall model for generating, filtering, and promoting user-generated content, but the quality mileage does vary and there's practically no fact-checking. Something like a "front page" with editor-approved threads might help the mainstream web surfers more easily accept it.
I just wish I didn't find Gizmodo/Kotaku articles as entertaining as I do. They do bring me bite-sized news with entertaining content and more often than not are teh funny. I can't stand Nick Denton though - he's a greedy shithead whoring out the integrity of his editors/writers with every ad-article, bad design, and site-wrapper he shoves down their throats.
Lovely thought, but all these magical screens that come up when you type in URLs cost real money.
Servers cost money. Hardware, software, maintenance, and electricity just off the top of my head to say nothing of the MUCH higher costs to them of commercial bandwidth. And the big sites? Multiply that by about 100x for re-hosting providers. And that's just the physical capability to put a "hello world" on your screen when you type in catlolzmemes.com.
Then there's the people who design professional sites, who think up and write content like the article you may have read that led you to "collaborate" with us. That text box you typed this in? Someone got paid to build that and used it to provide for their family / self / WoW account access. Just because you don't pay the bills personally doesn't mean they don't get paid by someone. And that someone makes their money back off ads. And there's a thousand other costs I haven't mentioned that are associated with a site or publication or blog or any website. Someone pays for them, and 8/10 times they are ultimately paid for with ads.
The "Money making distribution system" is the blood that pumps through the fiber, keeping all this from flaking out. It makes your internet access and content faster, more flexible, and stronger. Communal ownership of the Internet sounds great in your freshman philosophy of technology classes, but there are real costs that have to be shouldered or it all breaks down. And it could be a lot worse. If ISPs used their theoretical power to push and sell targeted advertising, you wouldn't be able to avoid the ads at all - period. You might even have to pay for tiered Internet access (and it's been tried several times before). At least now we have some way to control how these ads come to us without restricting sites too egregiously.
The days of the internet being only "a collaborative medium" are long past. Now it is how we all communicate globally. And one of the most basic reasons to foster communication in any civilizations is trade. Hence, advertising.
If anything should be done to prevent it, we should target the most hideous and blatantly invasive ad and tracking formats that are out there today - then marketers can come up with less offensive and sneakier methods to do the same thing. It WILL happen though, the illusion of the Internet being "free" is just that. Time to grow up a bit and realize that just because YOU didn't pay for it directly, doesn't mean that it's all just free.
TANSTAAFL.
1. Please stop engineering LOL parameters. It's like using a Fibbonaci sequence to arrange little bags of flaming poop on a doorstep.
2. Having said that, you might be on to something with LOL notation. However, L(O * 10^8)L will more likely be misinterpreted as some form of bizarre Japanese emoticon involving tentacles and schoolgirl outfits.
Per the article in link 2, Universal was asserting rights over a song by an signed artist called Yelawolf. Yelawolf sampled the music without getting permission and released his own rap over the original song. He happened to be signed by Universal, so their lawyers assumed *(and here's the part where Universal fucked up)* that Yelawolf owned the rights and issued a takedown notice. So Universal was lazy and presumptuous, but it's Yelawolf who was the most to blame for this.
That's called "being an apologist". I.e. admitting someone's behavior is bad but trying to make excuses for it anyway.
Where in this did I make an excuse for anybody? I'm just commenting on the disproportionate assignment of blame to Universal when it's really Rapper A stole Rapper B's song.
The real problem here is that YouTube trusts Universal and their lawyers with the policing of copyrights without giving equal weight to a complainant. And then the foxes guarding the chickens just did what comes naturally. If you're going to proclaim to be a neutral site for hosting videos, you have to really fight to stay neutral and give everyone the same fair shake. Otherwise you're being controlled just as if you were owned by them, they just have a more convoluted method of giving you orders.
There's this piece of law you might have heard of, it's called the DMCA. The DMCA gives extra-judicial copyright policing powers to arbitrary private entities. Youtube is required, by law, to take down anything that they receive a complaint about or they lose their safe-harbor status. Youtube is not allowed to weigh whether the request is justified, or if it even makes sense, they are required to just do it.
There's this piece of law you may not have fully read, its called the DMCA - particularly the Take down and Put back provisions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Copyright_Infringement_Liability_Limitation_Act#Take_down_and_Put_Back_provisions
The way a take-down-put-back cycle goes is party A files a complaint, youtube takes it down, party B files a counter-complaint, party A must either SUE or it gets put back automatically by youtube in 14 days. Therein lies the weighing and, unless the filing of suit by Universal did indeed follow (which there was no mention of in any of this), the original artists did not get a fair shake and essentially were told by Youtube they did not have a recourse. Youtube should have stepped the fuck out at that point and put it back up automatically unless suit was filed.
Now, there were some pieces heavily glossed over by the articles, like whether or not a suit was filed or whether or not they were eventually allowed to put their music back up. This write-up was meant to provoke outrage, and it succeeded - and it was well deserved outrage IMO. But Youtube was as in the wrong as Universal here and the DMCA's safeguards do not seem to have been followed as intended.
Yes, Universal is evil and greedy and etc, but all the reactionary comments are glossing over a key fact here:
Per the article in link 2, Universal was asserting rights over a song by an signed artist called Yelawolf. Yelawolf sampled the music without getting permission and released his own rap over the original song. He happened to be signed by Universal, so their lawyers assumed *(and here's the part where Universal fucked up)* that Yelawolf owned the rights and issued a takedown notice. So Universal was lazy and presumptuous, but it's Yelawolf who was the most to blame for this.
While this is not entirely Universal's fault, they clearly dropped the ball here by not looking closely enough into it. They just assumed they were right and that the original artists were lying/wrong/hatin' and didn't do their homework. The brunt of the blame is on Yelawolf, but Universal's lawyers got caught napping when they should have treated this more seriously. Hence, incoming PR landmine.
The real problem here is that YouTube trusts Universal and their lawyers with the policing of copyrights without giving equal weight to a complainant. And then the foxes guarding the chickens just did what comes naturally. If you're going to proclaim to be a neutral site for hosting videos, you have to really fight to stay neutral and give everyone the same fair shake. Otherwise you're being controlled just as if you were owned by them, they just have a more convoluted method of giving you orders.
Shame on Yelawolf for being a groove-thief, Shame on YouTube for trusting the Devil, and then any leftover shame can go to Universal for not properly checking up on their signed artists' work.
I would like to apologize to Samantha.
The unfortunate circumstances of your family's current difficulties combined with your remarkable talent, hard work, and scientific mien means that the spotlight of the Internet and the mass media are going to put all of your hard work and effort in the shadow of your problems.
I apologize for the hundreds of people who will humiliate you in a well-meaning manner by heaping unasked for bags of canned goods or unwanted care packages, for the jealous asshole classmates who will use your family's problems to try and push you down and hurt you, for the thousands on thousands of pitying looks and inquiries about your family in the middle of every single serious presentation you give for the rest of your academic career.
We did that to you. We did it because we wanted a Cinderella story and you happened to be a bright enough diamond in the rough for us to exploit for a headline. I truly wish you could have been honored in a respectful manner that did not single you and your family out for being in difficult financial times. I am so very sorry that we make your beginnings more important than the new world you are trying to build. I'm sorry that we will drag your tragedy into the spotlight, crowding your triumph.
If it is any consolation, you will probably be a finalist if you don't win the whole thing. I wish that we had not made things so difficult for you for the next year or so while we forget about you. Maybe some other come-from-behind story will come along and let you step out of that terrible spotlight.
In the meantime, enjoy the scholarship you will undoubtedly get and remember that the awful glare of the public eye won't last forever - if you can learn to ignore the humiliation and the condescension you may be able to turn this momentum into something productive for your life and career. And at the very least, in a few years we will leave you alone and let you get back to your life and what you choose to make of it.
I disagree. If you are funny or talented enough and you put yourself out there, the marketing will come to you claiming that you need them to get started. Maybe it used to be true that you needed heavy promotion through television, but I don't know if it is anymore. Things are changing, and for the better IMO.
I think the success of this experiement proves that you DON'T necessarily need all that marketing cash. You DON'T need to have every one of your customers exposed to 12 ads to ensure they see a video, not when the Internet is your word-of-mouth. The cost of marketing has been over-inflated by the assumption that box office / DVD success is the only valid success.
If you don't use the big Marketing Machines to promote your movie, maybe you won't make a hojillion dollars at the box office, but you know what? I don't watch that many things at the movies anymore - it's too expensive, inconvenient, and often a poor experience when compared to viewing in a home theater setup. The relative "success" of a movie puts too much emphasis on this overpriced and outdated mode of distribution. There's a reason why big screen-warping action blockbusters make that box office bank - they are the only movies really enhanced by being 3 stories tall and louder. And I'd be willing to bet that the long-run digital/DVD revenue for some of the high-quality but low-marketed movies more than made up for a shoddy box office performance.
With regards to home video, I can't exactly justify $20 or more to buy a movie or video to own that I will only watch once. Times are hard, bills are more important than entertainment, and I'm much more willing to wait than I ever used to be for something to come down to a reasonable price, regardless of the distribution method. I just don't see the point in buying anything I won't watch multiple times. Rental, sure. Digital rental via subscription (netflix, hulu) definitely. Bring the price down to a level that doesn't assume I will watch it 20-30 times over its life and we can talk. And I've digitally rented TONS of movies or DVDs that I never saw a single commercial for just because a peer recommended it. On the Internet.
When you add in his honest appeal to human decency and the attractiveness of paying an extremely talented artist directly instead of a media conglomerate, I was sold. A fair price didn't hurt either.
If those subscribers are incurring bandwidth costs, Comcast ought to be billing them for it. In fact it is, I'm fairly sure Comcast sends every subscriber a bill every month for their connection and turns that connection off if the bill isn't paid. If Comcast wants Level 3 to pay, then what's that bill to the subscribers for?
This is the crux of the argument, right here.
Comcast doesn't want to pass the costs off to customers because they don't want to issue an across the board rate hike or be the first to install metered billing. Rightfully, the extra costs should be the burden of the customer, but if you thought the complaints were loud for this issue, it's a echoing whistle in a mineshaft compared to the cacophony a rate hike or metered billing would cause. Not to mention the reactionary net subscriber loss is MUCH higher for a rate hike than for some bad PR. So they're trying to hot-potato the extra financial load around.
Bottom line, we need to stop thinking of the internet as all-you-can-eat. The ONLY thing keeping metered billing at bay is that nobody wants to step up and be the first to implement it across the board. One day that dam will burst and a major provided will go metered. Every other ISP will follow within 6 months to 1 year, guaranteed.
I, for one, welcome our new "I, for one, welcome our new arsenic-based overlords" comment thread.
One thing I can all but guarantee, it won't be cheaper than cable/satellite. The a la carte television service is not a new idea. The same people that fucked it up when it was explored back in the early cable days and who fucked it up for Netflix, Hulu, and every other streaming service will be there for this one. And no, it won't be Comcast or AT&T or any of the people that actually bill you. They WANT to provide people the most flexible service they could, that would draw more customers.
No, this will be reinvented to death by the content providers.
You will see $10 monthly subscriptions for each media producing company's channel packages, tiers of packages for the big ones like Turner or Disney, and my guess is you'll end up with a la carte that costs just as much as your bundled cable TV does if not more. You will likely be able to buy comparable "bundles" at the same cost per month as traditional subscription television. But if you truly want a la carte programming, you'll end up paying as much or more for fewer overall channels.
The carriers (Comcast, ATT, etc) are not going to give you a choice of ignoring the providers' experimental networks and shows, they're locked into paying for them just as you are by contracts printed in the 80's and they already oversell their ad space with the channels they have. They would start a riot with their advertisers over the suddenly very narrow marketing window if they didn't force you to accept some channels you don't want. If they did, new channels would never get off the ground and niche channels would die out from lack of funding.
Well, why do I need a channel anyway, you might ask. Let me just watch the shows I want and stuff the channels.
That is the reason why Netflix and Hulu are getting the push back on providing streaming content that they are. The entire business system is based on a model that presumes upon timeslot-based content to promote and target prime advertising and shows. The technology to provide the media has changed, but the business model behind it never had to. Now it is suddenly bucking hard against what they see as the iTunes to their RIAA, coming to slay the lumbering beast of their outmoded business plan. There are simply too many people who ALL have to be on board for it to work.
I'm not saying it will never work, but I'm saying don't get too excited about this announcement. Microsoft will play ball with content providers, it won't try to leverage them into the 21st century (like Google or Apple). You might see it change down the road for the better as studios and networks start to realize that they cannot dictate how we watch their programming anymore. If they want to join the rest of us in the World of Tomorrow, some big sweeping changes to their business has to take place first. And that will be slow and painful for them, and for us in the meantime.
Touche.
I think the term "illegal" isn't the right one to use. Which one is more immoral is probably more accurate.
One country is revoking DNS service for a relatively small list of sites when its investigations show these sites violate that nation's (and in some cases international) trade or copyright laws. These sites are shut down without due process or prior notification. There is fear that if unchecked, this power could be extended to remove ideas that are unwelcome to those in control of these mechanisms.
Evil, yes. But our own brand of evil, evil that benefits our own subtly neo-feudal power structure and shores up the foundations of our capitalist economic structure. It does this by directly preventing the operation of some who seek to circumvent established monetary contribution channels for intellectual and real property holders. Whether you agree with the core concept of monetizing intellectual property or not, the rules guarding it are pretty clearly and publicly defined and this action supports enforcement of those ideals. So I would say there is a potential for evil in this if taken to extremes, but by and large it mainly supports the established tenets of the nation.
Another country has been caught using the trust extended to them in the form of DNS root servers to change the information provided by these servers to prevent access with the country's political interests and restrictions on tolerated ideals. The country's agencies have been known to intercept and effectively hijack the Internet connection of an uncertain number of global users whose traffic happened to be entrusted to their equipment due to load balancing. It is not known what the intention was, the extent of the data captured was never fully understood, there was no overt manipulation or presentation of purposely deceptive information, all that is truly known is that China has a policy of strict regulation of ideas of its people and that a great potential for harm exists if the country chose to pursue it.
This is evil, but it is evil defined by ideals that happen to be antithetical to our core belief structure. Looked at (mostly) objectively, this has the ring to me of something that was a toe in the water or groundwork laid towards true purposeful evil, but in and of itself was not deliberately harmful. Everyone can point to how bad it COULD be, but nobody can clearly define how bad it actually was. Policing the exploration of ideas is widely considered to be much more evil than policing the exploitation of others' ideas, however one of the core principles of said nation is enforced unity of ideals and purpose. So I would say there is a large potential for evil in this if taken to extremes, but it mainly supports the established tenets of the nation.
So I would say when looked at this way that both countries are nearly as morally in the wrong, but that our level of perceived "transparency" in the process is greater in that we are told a version of what is going on and then can vent our frustrations by complaining about it. With China there is a long history of secrecy, double dealings, and heavy spin, so there's the same level of abuse potential combined with MUCH greater levels of mistrust due to the lack of transparency. The actions were essentially the same, only the methods were different. Whether that means we're more honorable or just more subtle than China, I'll let you decide.
It sounds like your tastes are just changing to more serious and thoughtful titles. You'd rather play an interactive story instead of a press-the-button-when-the-flashy-thing-blinks-game. Good thing for you is, it's right in the middle of a resurgence.
The relative success of Heavy Rain and Telltale's success with reviving the adventure game formula is bearing some really awesome fruit. Check out LA Noire by Rockstar - I think it'll be right up your alley. http://www.rockstargames.com/lanoire/agegate/ref/?redirect=
Also I hear great things about Red Dead Redemption and Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Both are purported to have great stories to go with gameplay that's not quite so frantic.
There may be all sorts of science-y reasons why we would want to examine an 18-inch rock on mars, that I can get behind.
But naming it? Seriously? If we start naming every rock and boulder and sand dune we run across, we're going to run out of all the cool names. Then later when we land on an area with an 1800 meter meteorite, we'll have to settle for "OR XXVI" or something dull like that. Plus, think of the future - we'll have stupid historical markers and protected rover trails all over the terraformed landscape with the Historic Site of Oileán Ruaidh and the Pebbles of Aljsdfk Splksd and stupid gift t-shirts and little mini-rovers and 18-inch rock keychains for sale in stands run by the mutants who can no longer work in the mines.
I'm just saying, let's save names for the impressive things. Think of the merchandisers!
This.
I can't believe I had to wade through hundreds of arguments over 3.5 vs 4 and pages of twink guides and batman v. superman like discussion to get to what is the REAL heart of this story. Cryptic Studios and their history of shitting all over the franchises handed them.
Cryptic hasn't gotten it right since City of Heroes, and honestly that was only good by comparison to all the other super hero games of the day (read: none). Quickly it turned into an EXTREMELY drab treadmill. Then once that horse was beaten to death with some really lackluster expansions ("We are out of good ideas and talent, so here's a dungeon toolkit!") they moved on to the Dew Chuggin', Snowboardin', Xtreme Sports version of CoH they called Champions Online. Leveraging the power of stolen ideas and artistic style, they managed to simultaneously dumb down and Lens Flare CoH into a true apex balance point of pointless flash and mindless gameplay.
With the Superhero genre beaten down like the first Robin and vital juices all squeezed out to feed the money machine, Cryptic ran out of good ideas. So they bought one. Never mind that every Star Trek game with VERY few exceptions (Elite Force was surprisingly good, for a re-skinned Quake 3 Arena) has been a complete and utter failure. Never mind that they have no idea how to tell a cogent story or have anything but a comic-book (heh) grasp of the genre. Never mind that every other game they made was all sizzle and no steak. This will be different!
It wasn't.
And now they turn their sights on yet another pillar of nerd-dom to hump dollars out of. Fear not, fans of 4th edition, they will not desecrate the game you love because this will not resemble that game except in the most brief and fleeting ways. You'll still have the same DoTs, knockbacks, and DDs you have in every other game they make, they will now just be called Cone of Cold or Acid Arrow and will have 6 differently colored versions. Oh and a tied in series of "books" by Bob Salvatore since he's firmly chained to the Wizards Wheel of Woe and Profit by +4 Contracts of Binding (which honestly will probably be better than the game, he's a pulp fantasy writer but he is entertaining).
In the end it will feel like someone spilled a sticky bucket of D&D on Champions Online and ultimately will go on the woodpile next to Temple of Elemental Evil and Iron & Blood to burn brightly, illuminating our map grids and figurines for a brief moment, a moment brighter than the spark of joy we felt hoping that someone would make a D&D game that was like the ones we fondly remember. (Silver Blades, Beholder, even the later Baldur's and Planescape - NWN was pretty close, but felt cheap somehow)
Dragon Age was the closest to this that I've seen in recent years, but even it felt awkward - like it didn't want to acknowlege its turn-based roots and chose to hide this disfigurement behind a veil of shiny graphics. 4th ed, though, is TIED to a turn based grid, is balanced around it, and I totally see that being the first thing out the window. Strategy is anathema to RPGs for some reason these days, and yes you can blame WoW (yes, there is some strategy to WoW but not until you get 25 ppl together which takes a bigger time investment than my mortgage). Even Dragon Age is moving towards an action RPG genre style. I'm quite sure someone is trying to fit Halo or Gears of War qualities into the equation somewhere, like a set of tits on a chessboard.
Woe be unto the traditionalist RPG turn-based gamer, I'll see you in the nursing home. I'll be the one in the back with the barium suppository debuff counters in the medicine cup figurines and the DM screen made out of old medical charts paper-clipped together. Now roll initiative before I poop myself.
Except technically speaking, Portal was not a mod. It was based off of a proof-of-concept puzzle game called Narbacular Drop.
Other than that, yep.
I can't see it as anything but good for gaming. Gamers know what gamers want and so far the groundswell approach they use has produced some truly great games.
Some real good could come of this. You see, many many mass-produced generic pop songs all use the same 4 chords: G, C, F and A.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I -- This video illustrates the point rather well
Now the RIAA/ARAA will never run out of artists to sue. They can take every major pop hit of the last 30 years and have them sue each other back and forth in an orgiastic Roman frenzy of subpoenas. Every pop artist will sue every other one, on and on, with the damages spiraling further and further upward until the songs themselves become worth more when not played at all. Problem solved.
But seriously, come on - ALL art is derivative, music as much as anyone. You experience music and you have a gift for music, your experiences with music and the emotions they trigger in you inspire you to create your own music, you create based on what you've heard because it's what you know. Maybe it's a little different than the songs that inspired you, but usually not on a fundamental level.
But perhaps we should take this model and run with it. Maybe if we can just get this applied to the Summer Blockbuster or the Romantic Comedy formula movies, we can finally do away with all the terrible, predictable, and rote plotlines that we've been subjected to for years.
That's the second oldest monkey theme I've ever heard!
My Pro Audio Spectrum 16 sounded great, when I could get it to sound at all. Half the time I had to use SB/Adlib compatibility modes. Had a bitch of a time trying to get it to work on later games, eventually traded up to a SB.
These days I barely even think about sound cards, I suppose because they're now basically just fancier and fancier amplifiers and mixers. I suppose the home sound studio and audiophiles will always want the next new shiny, but there's only so much innovation you can do with audio data before you have to modify the output devices. You have to wonder how Creative stays in business, I can't think of a significant advance in sound hardware in many years that wasn't fully dependent on your speaker setup.
Making bold directive statements like this in press releases and then not following it up seems to be par for the course in Russian politics. Russians seem to respect boldness and the appearance of strength in leaders, he's probably either positioning for a upward move or validating his current job. In the unlikely event this does actually go somewhere, it will be interesting to see what they muster up. Part of me longs to see Tsar Bomba II and a new brief star in the sky, but realistically I expect a solution with as much substance as this press release and equally gilded.
I don't disagree with your stance on EA, but I don't think that EA spending this money on the storefronts in the article is really a big waste.
It's a marketing test bed, basically. Some junior executive somewhere "synergized" the apple store concept and made a couple stores to test out EA Active on their target market, namely moms whose kids have Wiis (I have no doubt these stores were in malls), and to get some feedback on the product. The market for that is gigantic and right now there's only Wii Fit and a handful of others to tap into it.
I don't think a 6 months worth of rent and cheap labor at two locations is more expensive than a large focus study to improve your product or a massive blanket ad campaign that your market won't identify with, each costing millions. Plus their results will be more real and targeted.
And I think 6 months is a good estimate; they won't be around long, I'm sure. Note the decor from the pic in the Kotaku article. Note the lack of permanent fixtures. Stylishly minimalist, yes. Moves out easily, too.
EA has to keep trying things like this. It is a giant lumbering beast, borne of an economic boom and grown under those times of plenty. It consumed its kin and grew more massive still, and now it is a large, unwieldy thing and times are getting slim. It must feed on new cash crops, or limbs begin to wither and fall away. So you'll likely see more gimmick attempts to make a signature brand or one-up breakout successes, any attempt to sustain the creature. I don't think they'll succeed. EA doesn't make games anymore, they just buy people who do.
Soon to be met by stiff competition from
Content Oriented Markup Elements: Traditional
and
Server Oriented Funneling Transmission
Streaming Concurrent Rational Units Bidirectionally
Pardon my mislink - Florida Bar
Gosh, if only there was some way for us to channel our annoyance into something that could undercut the very base of Mr. Thompson's power. If only there was a governing body monitoring the practice of law in Florida that we could contact and ask that they look into his legal harassment of satirists. If only their contact information was this:
Florida Bar
Complaints - Phone
- Attorney Consumer Assistance Program
- (850) 561-5600 + 1 + 5673
- ACAPflabar.org
If only there were a ton of witnesses to his wanton bullying who were willing to corroborate these claims and perhaps get his license to practice law suspended.
Well, I can dream can't I? =)
Look at the screenshots from the game on the amazon site. They look like a 14-year old got bored with a very old copy of Poser. If that's the upper limit of the amazing tricks they can do with the Source engine, I predict an epic smash hit on the magnitude of Deer Hunter 6: White-Tail Madness.
DN3d was good, but all that's left of the franchise is a broken promise and a bad joke that won't die. Maybe they'll make some money off people buying it just for the humor value.
To be hosted by Paris Hilton, Jay-Z, and Carrot Top, with categories to include "Tightest Hottie in a Leading Role", "Best FPS that is not Halo 2", and "Game of Show as Chosen by Limp Bizkit". With special guest presenters from the covers of Maxim and a live performance of classic video game themes performed by Justin Timberlake.
If it's anywhere near the fiasco Spike's video game awards show was, just watch TRL for an hour and you'll get the gist of it.
*yawn*
Wynter