It also completly ignores those people that cannot download the images due to a lack of adequate bandwidth.
No, actually, it doesn't. I mentioned direct sales by Sony and/or Lucas. I'm also pretty certain that most (not all) users of these games have broadband of some sort.
A few months (year+ ?) ago one of the PC Game magazines had a breakdown of costs. The 'development costs' were only about 25% of a game's cost. The remainder went to wholesaler markup, dealer markup, and, the bulk, to advertising. Why does SWG need advertising? (Actually, marketing, which includes advertising) All of the online and print mags are falling all over themselves to cover this game.
I have a hard time believing that those increased costs will be offset by any reduction in cost due to internet based distribution.
As you've forced me to think about the topic a bit more (thanks:) I think that direct sales will lower the price. Cut out the middleman. No, it won't work for those Activision budget titles, but for something with the Star Wars moniker?
There are plenty of people willing to pay the full retail box price and still pay the monthly fee for these games. If nothing else, why should these companies change the model if they don't feel they are losing a significant number of customers. The fact that a few people bitch about the price of the boxed copy and don't buy the game is probably not the biggest concern of the bean counters when it comes to the bottom line as that group of people is clearly in the minority.
All of this is your conjecture, which is why I have no problem battling it with my mere conjecture. Have either of us seen the projections on lowering/eliminating the cost of the game? Have we seen the surveys asking how likely you would be to purchase this game if it cost $0/$15/$90? Nope. Even if there were large, but small as a percentage, improvements from the models, you wouldn't see a change. Why? These are corporations. Corporations aren't risk takers. Which is sad, since they are in the best position to survive a failed gamble.
If you don't think that these companies are willing to change thier distribution methods go take a look at the box sizes of older games and then compare them to the newer smaller boxes you see on all the store shelves. It may have taken a long time for that to happen, but it is progressing rapidly at this point.
Which points to the fact that we are stuck in a paradigm where the creators don't view end users as customers, but the retailers and wholesalers. End users didn't ask for these changes; retailers and wholesalers did. Not that there's anything wrong with making changes for these people, but it shows that game publishers are looking to please the wrong folks. However, you do hit on a point that markets change. And sooner or later, the market for MMO's will be one where you get the razor for free, and only pay for the blades.
Like others said, you purchased a physical item. The store you bought it in presumably did not indicate that it was anything other than a CD/DVD. They have an implied warrant of merchantibility. What this means is that they are claiming this is a CD, fit for use and sale. However, it isn't. It is crippled, and probably doesn't pay heed to the red book standard. Therefore, they have defrauded you. Now, it's probably not really their fault, as the distributor defrauded them. That's fine. But it doesn't change the fact that they sold the good. So, you sue them for cost of CD plus court filing fee. You give back broken goods. They pay you money. Then, they can sue their distributor.
If they didn't tell you that this was not a CD/DVD in the normal sense, they are full of shit. It probably won't get to this. Sooner or later, most managers will cave. You probably won't get your money back, but you'll get store credit. If this isn't acceptable to you, sue. Even better, if you used a credit card, block the charge.
As far as I'm concerned, the industry is already shipping pre-destructed material. Shoddy plotlines. Crappy acting, B-stories with A-budgets. "Adaptations" of classics. Bah.
No kidding. There are very few new things coming out. I could spend the rest of my life looking for old music, movies, and books, and still not see, read, or listen to everything I want. Perhaps the best benefit of, say, Casablanca, is that the director isn't alive today to go back and fuck it up... err, release the 'official, final, way-I-really-wanted it' version.
The worst thing about the kids DVDs is that they don't go right into playing the movie. I have to sit through a Disney splash, an FBI splash, a Buena Vista splash, some ads, then get dumped to the menu. Fuck that. If I'm trying to distract the kid, I want to drop it in, and go right to the movie.
Some small brand stuff has this. I think there's a 'Bob the Builder' DVD that goes right into the show. Something called 'Baby Beethoven' has a 'repeat all' right on the menu, so I don't have to diddle with the settings. Just click and be done.
I'll gladly deal with the Disney cases if they'd drop some of the other BS.
I've asked this before (and still hold the opinion) and some fanboy always runs along and says 'it's to pay for development and distribution costs' to which I say 'bullshit'.
There is no reason to pay for distribution. With a game like this, Sony and/or Lucas could EASILY distribute the game online or directly. If the game has any hope of success, they'll have to be making enough money to reimburse the development costs.
If they insist on charging for the box, they should provide at least a number of months free equal to price of box. IOW, if the game is 49.99 and the monthly cost is $15, you should get 3 free months. Or do it like that 'free HBO for three months' that your cable company advertises. Sure, you get three free months, but it's months 3, 6, and 9.
If there are ANY issues in the beginning (which several are claiming) they will get the early adopters to stick around with these sorts of 'features' in the box sets. You go from "I'm not going to waste another dime on this POS" to "Well, I'll stick it out until my free time is up. If it's not cleaned up by then..." This gives them at least a few months to get their shit in order.
Alan Cox (who is a citizen of England, also not under US export restrictions)
Wales, actually. Not that this changes any of your points.
That would explain why he's such a dirty, smelly, hairy bastard. (Spoken by a hairy bastard whose ancestors were kicked out of Wales about 150 years ago and sent to penal colonies in the US)
Re:Saw this one coming when..
on
42-Volt Autos
·
· Score: 1
Don't know about the Jetta, but my car sounds like it has the mother of all solenoids to pop the trunk remotely.
Funny you mention bikes. I ride a K1200LT. First spring after first winter of ownership, I had a dead battery, due to the clock (and maybe radio presets). Well, I didn't know what a lovely little design the starter solenoid (relay) had. Seems if there isn't enough juice, the solenoid fails with the contacts touching, not apart. And this leads to the contacts welding themselves shut. Which leads to replacing the part. Thank goodness this happened in the warranty period. The money I saved on the repair went to a battery tender, which is ALWAYS plugged in.
OTOH, I used to have a '78 Jeep CJ-5. It started and ran, first time, every time, even if left to sit for 3-4 months (like when away at college). Weird.
I wouldn't trust SCO's commit dates/times. They are all internal with no external review or archiving. The same cannot be said of the linux kernel. Too many eyes have seen it and have copies of the paper trail.
Hopefully it won't come to raising this point, but if it does, I hope the veracity of SCO's logs is questioned.
But like I said, the benefit of the film camera is the ability to buy film nearly anywhere. Any solution he picks is going to be expensive. But you don't drop out of the world/life for 1 year+ without having some money set aside.
In any event, it's a possibility worth considering.
bookwarez. Tons of titles available. Can read on a PDA (even an old, used, feature free one), laptop, print to hardcopy, etc.
Even better, you can send them to text-to-speech and braille displays for the blind. This is what I do for my wife (deaf/blind) if I can't find a title in the libraries. Now, just to be fair, I'll buy a copy of the book. I just figure my dl'ing a warez version is excercising fair use rights (fair use meaning I could buy the book, scan it, OCR it, and then let her read it, but why not take advantage of the work of someone else?)
Re:110VAC outlets available today
on
42-Volt Autos
·
· Score: 1
Ditto. Hydraulic brakes are about as far removed as I want the system to be from a direct linkage. Hell, if the vehicle is light enough (he says while imagining all the three ton SUVs out there today) why bother with even the hydraulics?
Electronic throttle is okay. Electronic steering and brakes are bad. Yes, these 'features' exist on space shuttles, cruise ships, etc. But those things are built, used, and maintained differently from average autos.
Re:Saw this one coming when..
on
42-Volt Autos
·
· Score: 1
Dear God, your wife must be lazy, lost, and deaf to need all that shit.
Why would the battery drain if the car isn't driven every day? Only the clock and a few other odds and ends should be attached to it while it's not on. And the starter shouldn't draw much more juice than a billion other vehicles on the road.
I'm amazed that in reinventing the wheel, like so many OSS projects do, that someone hasn't done exactly this. Use wxWindows, and make it truly cross platform.
Pick up a couple of MicroDrives. These are the ~1GB hard drives that fit in some CF slots. Drop one in the mail every few weeks to you or someone, and be done with it.
There's also the possiblity of using a film camera. Film should be available everywhere, and it's much safer to mail back home. Digital isn't always the answer (OTOH, I just bought my first digital camera today:)
What is the deal with fanbuses? All of this automatic this and that. I see two options that are much, much cooler. First is to have a parallel port interface with some C program running in the background to adjust fan speed. Nice geek appeal. Much simpler, and at least as effective as twisting the knob when you 'think it's getting warming' is a damned thermistor. Attach the temp sensitive parts to things you want to keep cool. Run in series with the fan. Is it so freaking hard?
Otherwise, a nifty mod. I would have painted the covers to the removable media drives. But nice.
Looked at this a little bit in econ class. The purpose of minimum wage is actually a middle class entitlement program. More than anything, the money goes to middle class high school and college kids. The pictures of the poor families are just for press purposes.
Slashdot Mirror
It also completly ignores those people that cannot download the images due to a lack of adequate bandwidth.
No, actually, it doesn't. I mentioned direct sales by Sony and/or Lucas. I'm also pretty certain that most (not all) users of these games have broadband of some sort.
A few months (year+ ?) ago one of the PC Game magazines had a breakdown of costs. The 'development costs' were only about 25% of a game's cost. The remainder went to wholesaler markup, dealer markup, and, the bulk, to advertising. Why does SWG need advertising? (Actually, marketing, which includes advertising) All of the online and print mags are falling all over themselves to cover this game.
I have a hard time believing that those increased costs will be offset by any reduction in cost due to internet based distribution.
As you've forced me to think about the topic a bit more (thanks:) I think that direct sales will lower the price. Cut out the middleman. No, it won't work for those Activision budget titles, but for something with the Star Wars moniker?
There are plenty of people willing to pay the full retail box price and still pay the monthly fee for these games. If nothing else, why should these companies change the model if they don't feel they are losing a significant number of customers. The fact that a few people bitch about the price of the boxed copy and don't buy the game is probably not the biggest concern of the bean counters when it comes to the bottom line as that group of people is clearly in the minority.
All of this is your conjecture, which is why I have no problem battling it with my mere conjecture. Have either of us seen the projections on lowering/eliminating the cost of the game? Have we seen the surveys asking how likely you would be to purchase this game if it cost $0/$15/$90? Nope. Even if there were large, but small as a percentage, improvements from the models, you wouldn't see a change. Why? These are corporations. Corporations aren't risk takers. Which is sad, since they are in the best position to survive a failed gamble.
If you don't think that these companies are willing to change thier distribution methods go take a look at the box sizes of older games and then compare them to the newer smaller boxes you see on all the store shelves. It may have taken a long time for that to happen, but it is progressing rapidly at this point.
Which points to the fact that we are stuck in a paradigm where the creators don't view end users as customers, but the retailers and wholesalers. End users didn't ask for these changes; retailers and wholesalers did. Not that there's anything wrong with making changes for these people, but it shows that game publishers are looking to please the wrong folks. However, you do hit on a point that markets change. And sooner or later, the market for MMO's will be one where you get the razor for free, and only pay for the blades.
Three words: small claims court.
Like others said, you purchased a physical item. The store you bought it in presumably did not indicate that it was anything other than a CD/DVD. They have an implied warrant of merchantibility. What this means is that they are claiming this is a CD, fit for use and sale. However, it isn't. It is crippled, and probably doesn't pay heed to the red book standard. Therefore, they have defrauded you. Now, it's probably not really their fault, as the distributor defrauded them. That's fine. But it doesn't change the fact that they sold the good. So, you sue them for cost of CD plus court filing fee. You give back broken goods. They pay you money. Then, they can sue their distributor.
If they didn't tell you that this was not a CD/DVD in the normal sense, they are full of shit. It probably won't get to this. Sooner or later, most managers will cave. You probably won't get your money back, but you'll get store credit. If this isn't acceptable to you, sue. Even better, if you used a credit card, block the charge.
As far as I'm concerned, the industry is already shipping pre-destructed material. Shoddy plotlines. Crappy acting, B-stories with A-budgets. "Adaptations" of classics. Bah.
No kidding. There are very few new things coming out. I could spend the rest of my life looking for old music, movies, and books, and still not see, read, or listen to everything I want. Perhaps the best benefit of, say, Casablanca, is that the director isn't alive today to go back and fuck it up... err, release the 'official, final, way-I-really-wanted it' version.
The worst thing about the kids DVDs is that they don't go right into playing the movie. I have to sit through a Disney splash, an FBI splash, a Buena Vista splash, some ads, then get dumped to the menu. Fuck that. If I'm trying to distract the kid, I want to drop it in, and go right to the movie.
Some small brand stuff has this. I think there's a 'Bob the Builder' DVD that goes right into the show. Something called 'Baby Beethoven' has a 'repeat all' right on the menu, so I don't have to diddle with the settings. Just click and be done.
I'll gladly deal with the Disney cases if they'd drop some of the other BS.
I've asked this before (and still hold the opinion) and some fanboy always runs along and says 'it's to pay for development and distribution costs' to which I say 'bullshit'.
There is no reason to pay for distribution. With a game like this, Sony and/or Lucas could EASILY distribute the game online or directly. If the game has any hope of success, they'll have to be making enough money to reimburse the development costs.
If they insist on charging for the box, they should provide at least a number of months free equal to price of box. IOW, if the game is 49.99 and the monthly cost is $15, you should get 3 free months. Or do it like that 'free HBO for three months' that your cable company advertises. Sure, you get three free months, but it's months 3, 6, and 9.
If there are ANY issues in the beginning (which several are claiming) they will get the early adopters to stick around with these sorts of 'features' in the box sets. You go from "I'm not going to waste another dime on this POS" to "Well, I'll stick it out until my free time is up. If it's not cleaned up by then..." This gives them at least a few months to get their shit in order.
Alan Cox (who is a citizen of England, also not under US export restrictions)
Wales, actually. Not that this changes any of your points.
That would explain why he's such a dirty, smelly, hairy bastard. (Spoken by a hairy bastard whose ancestors were kicked out of Wales about 150 years ago and sent to penal colonies in the US)
Don't know about the Jetta, but my car sounds like it has the mother of all solenoids to pop the trunk remotely.
Funny you mention bikes. I ride a K1200LT. First spring after first winter of ownership, I had a dead battery, due to the clock (and maybe radio presets). Well, I didn't know what a lovely little design the starter solenoid (relay) had. Seems if there isn't enough juice, the solenoid fails with the contacts touching, not apart. And this leads to the contacts welding themselves shut. Which leads to replacing the part. Thank goodness this happened in the warranty period. The money I saved on the repair went to a battery tender, which is ALWAYS plugged in.
OTOH, I used to have a '78 Jeep CJ-5. It started and ran, first time, every time, even if left to sit for 3-4 months (like when away at college). Weird.
Naked Winslet on Imax? How did I miss this?
I saw it twice in the theatres. Guess I'm a sucker for jet skis, trimarans, and psychotic pirates.
I wouldn't trust SCO's commit dates/times. They are all internal with no external review or archiving. The same cannot be said of the linux kernel. Too many eyes have seen it and have copies of the paper trail.
Hopefully it won't come to raising this point, but if it does, I hope the veracity of SCO's logs is questioned.
But like I said, the benefit of the film camera is the ability to buy film nearly anywhere. Any solution he picks is going to be expensive. But you don't drop out of the world/life for 1 year+ without having some money set aside.
In any event, it's a possibility worth considering.
Better still, be one of the Jewish sects (?) that believe that Christ was the messiah: get Saturday AND Sunday off.
Job contracts are atypical. Most are verbal agreements, with policies outlined by the company and whatever government oversees the employer.
'Right to work' is the term for it.
Ditto what the AC said. Meant to say 'Volvo cars'.
bookwarez. Tons of titles available. Can read on a PDA (even an old, used, feature free one), laptop, print to hardcopy, etc.
Even better, you can send them to text-to-speech and braille displays for the blind. This is what I do for my wife (deaf/blind) if I can't find a title in the libraries. Now, just to be fair, I'll buy a copy of the book. I just figure my dl'ing a warez version is excercising fair use rights (fair use meaning I could buy the book, scan it, OCR it, and then let her read it, but why not take advantage of the work of someone else?)
Ditto. Hydraulic brakes are about as far removed as I want the system to be from a direct linkage. Hell, if the vehicle is light enough (he says while imagining all the three ton SUVs out there today) why bother with even the hydraulics?
Electronic throttle is okay. Electronic steering and brakes are bad. Yes, these 'features' exist on space shuttles, cruise ships, etc. But those things are built, used, and maintained differently from average autos.
Dear God, your wife must be lazy, lost, and deaf to need all that shit.
Why would the battery drain if the car isn't driven every day? Only the clock and a few other odds and ends should be attached to it while it's not on. And the starter shouldn't draw much more juice than a billion other vehicles on the road.
I'm amazed that in reinventing the wheel, like so many OSS projects do, that someone hasn't done exactly this. Use wxWindows, and make it truly cross platform.
Anyway, uhhh... me too.
Pick up a couple of MicroDrives. These are the ~1GB hard drives that fit in some CF slots. Drop one in the mail every few weeks to you or someone, and be done with it.
There's also the possiblity of using a film camera. Film should be available everywhere, and it's much safer to mail back home. Digital isn't always the answer (OTOH, I just bought my first digital camera today:)
Tell that to Volvo, Ikea, and Ericsson.
Not sure about the latter two companies, but the first is owned by Ford Motors. Just want to keep that in mind should the topic come up again.
(And that's neither here nor there WRT your argument, unless the other two companies are US owned as well.)
"nickel and dime effort"? I think you just described OSDN's market cap.
Of course, having a non-programmer "review" code for copyingis about as interesting as having a non-doctor review your last operation for infection.
non-doctor, like a lawyer? That kind of 'review' is how most malpractice cases start...
If it makes it to trial, the decision is made by 12 folks who couldn't dodge jury duty. Do you want those same 12 people reviewing code?
thx for the info.
Forgot about the PAL conversion. Didn't know they did language translations.
What is the deal with fanbuses? All of this automatic this and that. I see two options that are much, much cooler. First is to have a parallel port interface with some C program running in the background to adjust fan speed. Nice geek appeal. Much simpler, and at least as effective as twisting the knob when you 'think it's getting warming' is a damned thermistor. Attach the temp sensitive parts to things you want to keep cool. Run in series with the fan. Is it so freaking hard?
Otherwise, a nifty mod. I would have painted the covers to the removable media drives. But nice.
Looked at this a little bit in econ class. The purpose of minimum wage is actually a middle class entitlement program. More than anything, the money goes to middle class high school and college kids. The pictures of the poor families are just for press purposes.