Actually, it has nothing to do with being a loss-leader. It's not... because you can use IE on non-Windows platforms, not to mention that on Windows, you've already bought it. IE is value-add, in business parlance, not a loss-leader.
That said, I posted in my blog where Dvorak really gets it wrong. It was never about technology. It was always about Microsoft trying to brand the internet. They didn't exactly succeed, but they did end up with a massive marketshare and a powerful brand in Internet Explorer, and that's why they've gone back to trying to right the good ship IE. They'd be foolish to abandon it.
Something I didn't mention, though... Microsoft's "Live" initiative probably relies on IE being updated to support more recent standards rather than having to hack everything together to work on the old IE6 codebase.
The entire article uses faulty logic, and applying Occam's Razor, there is a much more obvious and likely reason why game movies (and any other film based on an IP) suck...
Because they don't take it seriously, and think that the IP can stand on it's own.
Take a look at Batman. The good movies were the ones where they took the time to craft a plot, work on character development, and generally respect the material. The bad ones were the ones where they assumed that because of the strength of the IP and the established characters, you didn't need to do any of the things that you normally need to do when building a movie script.
Writing a movie script is a process, one which I only scratched the surface of in my screenwriting class. But it was enough to show me that the bad movies are the ones that diverge from the standard process that people use to develop a screenplay. I'd say that has far more to do with it than the lack of interactivity.
I worked in a Circuit City briefly. I waseasily the most knowledgable person there, and worked hard to help increase the knowledge of the rest of my fellow "associates". Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), I didn't last long since I refused to sell warranties in the specific (and condescending) manner they had prescribed. That being to force-feed the brochure to every customer and read it to them, pointing at each line as if they were a third grader or high-functioning mentally retarded person. I was fired for refusing to thrust the brochure at someone who had walked up to a register ready to purchase a printer, and who already declined the warranty within earshot of my manager.
So here's a tip for you. Every person you deal with at a Circuit City store is going to treat you like you're a moron, because it's company policy. (If you don't feel like you're being treated like a moron, it's probably because you ARE one.) That said, they don't want to treat you like a moron, so take pity on them. They're just doing their job, however much they might loathe it.
Also, while Circuit City employees are not commissioned (and haven't been for nearly four years), they do have quotas to meet, some based on warranty sales, and some based on accessories. NEVER go into a Circuit City near the end of the month if you hate high-pressure tactics.
And this is precisely why I tell everyone that as a self-confessed geek... I went into the University of Washington's Business Program. I can teach myself just about any CS skills I might need, but if I want to have a relatively "safe" job, I need the management skills.
Unfortunately, most people end up finding their own limits before they ever find the limits of the car, and that usually ends up taking a toll on otherwise innocent lives (remember, you're taking chances with THEIR lives as well as your own). Roads are dangerous enough.
The price of the CARDS is irrelevant, since that involves a certain degree of retailer markup. 1600 points directly through Xbox Live is $20 even, so that's the only price that matters. Why? If you don't have enough points to buy something you see on Xbox Live, are you going to go to the store, or simply buy the points right there, since Microsoft alread has your credit card info anyway?
I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the most damning evidence against shopping at Wal-Mart, coming right from their own lips.
You might get lower prices at Wal-Mart, but they aren't the same products. They are inferior. They carry the same brand names, but they are made lower quality specifically to get into the Wal-Mart price structure.
It's deceptive at the very least, and is yet another reason why I won't shop there. I'm all for getting a deal, but I'll get it on the product I want, not the cheap knock-off that happens to carry the same brand.
I suspect that for Windows XP, there will be no actual separation. IE6 will still be on the machine and used in Explorer, but IE7 will be the actual browser component.
People, a meter is only 3 feet. Correct me if I'm long, but standard cables start around 1.5-2m in length. No special setup necessary, certainly no need to hide the machine, and any suggestion that a meter would somehow be inconvenient is ludicrous unless you like to wear your computer as a HAT while you use it.
Most of the sites I've written reviews and previews for actually had it as a rule: Previews are to remain positive. Why? Because it's a look at an UNFINISHED product, and it's not fair to be critical at that stage, at least not publicly (we frequently give feedback directly to the development teams). I've seen good games go bad, and I've seen bad games become amazing. Everything deserves a fair shake, so we remain "cautiously optimistic."
A well-written preview should refrain from editorializing at all, simply stating the intent the developers have with the game, and the time frame they intend to do it in. There are ways to sneak that editorial opinion in, however. ("This very early look...", or "The game is very rough at this stage...")
So why is it you gain more weight eating things with Corn Syrup than Sugar? It's because corn syrup is not only extremely hydroscopic, but that it contains a lot of glucose, which everyone should know can wreak havoc on your insulin levels.
Great information on binning, but you leave out one very likely explanation. The chips are tested at their maximum possible speeds, but are clocked lower for the production unit. They probably ARE binning, just locking all chips down to a specific minimum speed.
That said, they don't have the option of selling lesser performing chips at lower speeds, and that'll kill your yields every time.
Kingdom Come wasn't just a great Superman story. It was (IMHO) one of the best superhero stories ever written. The way all the different characters were handled was brilliant. Combine that with Alex Ross' impeccable artwork, and it's a masterpiece.
Absolutely NOT lucrative. Yes, people that work in the game industry do tend to make larger than average salaries, but compared to the amount of time they put in, the dollars/hour figure is more often than not, BELOW average.
People who work in game development do it for the love of it.
While getting my Associate's degree (on my way to a Bachelor's in Business Admin.) I picked up a certificate in Game Design. Not because I want to be a game designer, but because I want to have a grasp of how they think and part of the process, because my ultimate goal is to become a Game Producer.
I don't know what the quality of these programs is like elsewhere, but at the school I got my certificate from, one class was taught by Jennifer Boespflug from Microsoft, and the other was taught by Hardy LeBel (on the Halo and Halo 2 teams).
So what did I learn? I learned a lot about the background of the industry (most of which I already knew as a journalist and fan), and I learned a lot about how much research a good game designer needs to do to make sure that they're really getting to the core of what will make the product resonate with gamers. But more than anything, I learned that I don't want to be a game designer.:)
There's a keyboard, network adapter, wifi, the EyeToy, etc.... Not to mention the System Link ability from Day One. You must not have looked very hard.
I use my Microsoft wireless keyboard and mouse for Final Fantasy Online.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, it has nothing to do with being a loss-leader. It's not ... because you can use IE on non-Windows platforms, not to mention that on Windows, you've already bought it. IE is value-add, in business parlance, not a loss-leader.
... Microsoft's "Live" initiative probably relies on IE being updated to support more recent standards rather than having to hack everything together to work on the old IE6 codebase.
That said, I posted in my blog where Dvorak really gets it wrong. It was never about technology. It was always about Microsoft trying to brand the internet. They didn't exactly succeed, but they did end up with a massive marketshare and a powerful brand in Internet Explorer, and that's why they've gone back to trying to right the good ship IE. They'd be foolish to abandon it.
Something I didn't mention, though
The entire article uses faulty logic, and applying Occam's Razor, there is a much more obvious and likely reason why game movies (and any other film based on an IP) suck ...
Because they don't take it seriously, and think that the IP can stand on it's own.
Take a look at Batman. The good movies were the ones where they took the time to craft a plot, work on character development, and generally respect the material. The bad ones were the ones where they assumed that because of the strength of the IP and the established characters, you didn't need to do any of the things that you normally need to do when building a movie script.
Writing a movie script is a process, one which I only scratched the surface of in my screenwriting class. But it was enough to show me that the bad movies are the ones that diverge from the standard process that people use to develop a screenplay. I'd say that has far more to do with it than the lack of interactivity.
I worked in a Circuit City briefly. I waseasily the most knowledgable person there, and worked hard to help increase the knowledge of the rest of my fellow "associates". Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), I didn't last long since I refused to sell warranties in the specific (and condescending) manner they had prescribed. That being to force-feed the brochure to every customer and read it to them, pointing at each line as if they were a third grader or high-functioning mentally retarded person. I was fired for refusing to thrust the brochure at someone who had walked up to a register ready to purchase a printer, and who already declined the warranty within earshot of my manager.
So here's a tip for you. Every person you deal with at a Circuit City store is going to treat you like you're a moron, because it's company policy. (If you don't feel like you're being treated like a moron, it's probably because you ARE one.) That said, they don't want to treat you like a moron, so take pity on them. They're just doing their job, however much they might loathe it.
Also, while Circuit City employees are not commissioned (and haven't been for nearly four years), they do have quotas to meet, some based on warranty sales, and some based on accessories. NEVER go into a Circuit City near the end of the month if you hate high-pressure tactics.
And this is precisely why I tell everyone that as a self-confessed geek ... I went into the University of Washington's Business Program. I can teach myself just about any CS skills I might need, but if I want to have a relatively "safe" job, I need the management skills.
The author of the Slashdot post can thank his lucky stars that he didn't say "legos". They REALLY hate that!
Marketing is going to be an interesting challenge. "Now your penis won't be the only thing burning ..."
Unfortunately, most people end up finding their own limits before they ever find the limits of the car, and that usually ends up taking a toll on otherwise innocent lives (remember, you're taking chances with THEIR lives as well as your own). Roads are dangerous enough.
That has got to be the worst (and most obviously riddled with broken logic) analogy I have ever seen.
*Insert Obligatory Sanitary Undergarment Joke Here*
I assure you. This IS my UID. :)
The price of the CARDS is irrelevant, since that involves a certain degree of retailer markup. 1600 points directly through Xbox Live is $20 even, so that's the only price that matters. Why? If you don't have enough points to buy something you see on Xbox Live, are you going to go to the store, or simply buy the points right there, since Microsoft alread has your credit card info anyway?
I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the most damning evidence against shopping at Wal-Mart, coming right from their own lips.
You might get lower prices at Wal-Mart, but they aren't the same products. They are inferior. They carry the same brand names, but they are made lower quality specifically to get into the Wal-Mart price structure.
It's deceptive at the very least, and is yet another reason why I won't shop there. I'm all for getting a deal, but I'll get it on the product I want, not the cheap knock-off that happens to carry the same brand.
I suspect that for Windows XP, there will be no actual separation. IE6 will still be on the machine and used in Explorer, but IE7 will be the actual browser component.
People, a meter is only 3 feet. Correct me if I'm long, but standard cables start around 1.5-2m in length. No special setup necessary, certainly no need to hide the machine, and any suggestion that a meter would somehow be inconvenient is ludicrous unless you like to wear your computer as a HAT while you use it.
Exactly. Thanks for saying that.
...", or "The game is very rough at this stage ...")
Most of the sites I've written reviews and previews for actually had it as a rule: Previews are to remain positive. Why? Because it's a look at an UNFINISHED product, and it's not fair to be critical at that stage, at least not publicly (we frequently give feedback directly to the development teams). I've seen good games go bad, and I've seen bad games become amazing. Everything deserves a fair shake, so we remain "cautiously optimistic."
A well-written preview should refrain from editorializing at all, simply stating the intent the developers have with the game, and the time frame they intend to do it in. There are ways to sneak that editorial opinion in, however. ("This very early look
The backwards-compatibility CD you can download directly from Microsoft works the same way. No encryption.
So why is it you gain more weight eating things with Corn Syrup than Sugar? It's because corn syrup is not only extremely hydroscopic, but that it contains a lot of glucose, which everyone should know can wreak havoc on your insulin levels.
Great information on binning, but you leave out one very likely explanation. The chips are tested at their maximum possible speeds, but are clocked lower for the production unit. They probably ARE binning, just locking all chips down to a specific minimum speed.
That said, they don't have the option of selling lesser performing chips at lower speeds, and that'll kill your yields every time.
And might I suggest that any such contact be free of the use of words such as:
... lest the reaction to your contact be less than favorable.
Asshat
Jackhole
Douchebag
The name is actually an homage to the Fremont area of Seattle, known for it's stores ...
Kingdom Come wasn't just a great Superman story. It was (IMHO) one of the best superhero stories ever written. The way all the different characters were handled was brilliant. Combine that with Alex Ross' impeccable artwork, and it's a masterpiece.
Absolutely NOT lucrative. Yes, people that work in the game industry do tend to make larger than average salaries, but compared to the amount of time they put in, the dollars/hour figure is more often than not, BELOW average.
People who work in game development do it for the love of it.
While getting my Associate's degree (on my way to a Bachelor's in Business Admin.) I picked up a certificate in Game Design. Not because I want to be a game designer, but because I want to have a grasp of how they think and part of the process, because my ultimate goal is to become a Game Producer.
:)
I don't know what the quality of these programs is like elsewhere, but at the school I got my certificate from, one class was taught by Jennifer Boespflug from Microsoft, and the other was taught by Hardy LeBel (on the Halo and Halo 2 teams).
So what did I learn? I learned a lot about the background of the industry (most of which I already knew as a journalist and fan), and I learned a lot about how much research a good game designer needs to do to make sure that they're really getting to the core of what will make the product resonate with gamers. But more than anything, I learned that I don't want to be a game designer.
And I actually got a response from Jaffe ...
- plea-to-game-journalist.html
http://superrob.blogspot.com/2005/11/david-jaffes
There's a keyboard, network adapter, wifi, the EyeToy, etc. ... Not to mention the System Link ability from Day One. You must not have looked very hard.
I use my Microsoft wireless keyboard and mouse for Final Fantasy Online.