Actually, Rareware is currently affiliated pretty strongly with Nintendo... And while Nintendo isn't producing the "adult" titles themselves... they are promoting those "adult" titles their affiliates are making. Also, they would have the power to block titles like this, if they were so inclined.... so the fact their not blocking them speaks volumes.
It's very similar to the whole Disney/Miramax relationship. Disney certainly wont be bringing out any "risque" movies... but they wont prevent Miramax from doing it.
> N64 and PSX forces the Saturn out of the market. Just the rumors of the PS2 forced the Dreamcast out.
Not exactly true. Sega's failed consoles (which ultimately did them in) failed primarily because of stupid mistakes that Sega made.
Stupid mistakes during the Saturn years (just a few):
No "big mascot" games. Sonic was nowhere to be seen (except in compilation discs, and non-Sonic style games [eg, Sonic R and Sonic 3D Blast]). Sony had Crash, Nintendo had Mario64.. and Sega had Nights (which was a pretty neat game, but wasn't Sonic).
Poor advertising. Sega had the resources, and initially they had the market share (there were over 1 million Saturns sold the first couple of years). But they were overconfident and rarely (if ever) advertised their big hits. (Tho, to be fair, this started back with the Genesis... Anyone ever see a commercial or other advertisement for Gunstar Heroes, one of the best Genesis games ever?)
Library hogging. This was probably the big thing that did them in. The Saturn was a dual-processor monster (at a time when nothing else was). It was very difficult to fully utilize from a developer prospective. Most Saturn games only ever used one of those processors... and looked poor compared to their PSX cousins.
Sega had libraries which allowed for easier use of both processors, but they didn't release these libraries to third-party developers until it was too late (I think they finally released them within a year of the Saturn's demise). As a result, Sega brought out some awesome games for the console... but most third-party games kind of blew.
Okay, so why did the Dreamcast croak? Well... by this time the arcade market (which had been keeping Sega alive for years) was shrinking. Furthermore, Sega was too massive... They needed the big sales. The Dreamcast was selling fairly well (certainly well enough that Sega 10-years ago would have been able to survive on)... It even outsold (console-wise, not game sales) the N64 last year. But they had dug themselves into a pit, and nothing the Dreamcast could have done would have pulled them out.
In some respects, the PS2 may have forced their hand in admitting they just weren't pulling enough profit... but the PS2 was not what killed the Dreamcast or Sega... it was just the hammer that pounded in the last nail in the Sega-of-yesteryear's coffin.;-)
This isn't necessarily true.... Nintendo recently has been producing quite a few "adult" titles. Anyone heard of Conker's BFD?
The thing is that's very interesting is that 7-10 years ago, this was true.... They were blocking "adult" games right and left back in the SNES days.... (anyone remember the whole Mortal Kombat fiasco?). Then, when they realized this wasn't making friends either with the developers or with the gamers, they did an about-face and started embracing "mature" titles.
Now I'll admit that the choice in using cartridges for the N64 has really prevented quite a few great "mature" or "adult" titles from being made on the system (I also have many other reasons to hate carts;-)... but they have had their share of "mature" and "adult" titles.
Actually, no, the 3DO came out in 1993... and survived on its small scale for quite some time before the deal with Panasonic.
It was not a quick and painful death (neither was the Dreamcast's, the console [not the games] was outselling the N64 last year).
The problems with 3DO happenned after the Panasonic deal. Before that, they were still working on such a small scale that they were able to tred water and survive. But add the extra weight of trying to be a "player" in the market that comes with support from Panasonic and the console sank.
Most people actually don't even remember that 3DO was around for a few good years before the Panasonic deal... as I'm sure was why you didn't know this.
There is one thing you do have to realize about Sega's misadventure... Sega had been trying for years to get a hit console.
Back in the very early 1980s they had a box to compete with the Atari 2600... this box failed.
Then, in the mid-80s they had the Sega Master System which was in direct competition to the NES. Most people agree this box was actually more powerful than the NES. However, this box failed.
The Genesis in 1989 was a big success... but subsequent money-pits Sega put a lot of backing behind such as the Sega CD and the 32X (both, actually quite nice enhancements to the Genesis) really hurt them due to their poor sales.
After the Genesis, Sega came out with the Saturn (to compete with the PS1). The Saturn was (again) a decent enough system... but Sega made some real blunders with it. For one, they never brought out a 3D game for their Mascot (and SonicR doesn't count;-). For another, they hardly advertised this system at all. Even more, the system was dual-processor, and very difficult to develop for... but Sega never released their in-house power-tools to third-party developers to help them code for the platform. The Saturn died a horrible death.
By the time the Dreamcast was released, the only thing keeping Sega alive was their arcade games... and their arcade "empire" was starting to collapse (actually, arcade game sales have been decreasing quite a bit in the last few years).. The Dreamcast was nice hardware... and they finally were realizing they needed their "star" characters to make appearances in their console games. But by now, it was too little, too late.
The Dreamcast has been selling, but not enough for a company as massive as Sega to continue to support.
The problem here? Sega is too big. They need the big hits and the cash-cows in order to survive.
What are you missing? Well... small game houses can survive on low game/platform sales... provided they keep their low profile. An excellent example of this was the 3DO. Anyone remember the 3DO? It was a nifty little 32-bit machine that came out shortly after the SegaCD. It retailed for $700 (originally) and sold very poorly (compared to the main consoles at the time). But the system managed to survive because 3DO had a fairly low profile (but Panasonic, which had a 3DO platform as well is another issue entirely;-) 3DO is still around today, and happily making games. (albeit for other systems;-)
So a system like the Indrema, or this TuxBox (lowsy name) can survive, provided it doesn't try to take over the console market. If it just fills its little niche, and doesn't try to aim any higher than that, it will do fine. Indrema took themselves too seriously. If they would have not shot for the moon... and stayed more realistic.... they could have survived....
I wasn't whining in the slightest. I was merely commenting on the fact that KDE/Qt is more stable (it really is), but Gnome has a larger *gee-whiz* factor (to me, it seems "cooler" than KDE).
As a matter of fact, I really think you missed both my and the original poster's points. It's not that we were pining for Windows, it's that we both felt KDE has a certain Window-esque quality about it that can make it feel more cold and impersonal. We felt that Gnome had more originality and uniqueness (and that originality and uniqueness were very good things).
If all you heard was "Whine, Whine, etc., etc." from these posts, then I think perhaps you should go back and re-read them, because you undoubtedly misunderstood.
(And with respect to me "doing" something about the code... well... Qt is not the most open-source project in the world... If you check out Trolltech's Qt Page you'll discover it has proprietary extensions called "Qt Professional/Enterprise" editions which you must license. So, no, I can't really just go in an do something about Qt looking too much like Windows... can I?)
You know, even though I am primarily a KDE user... and have had nothing but trouble with Gnome as a desktop... I really do see your point.
I mean, sure we get a great deal of stability with KDE, and it does allow for a certain degree of customization... but Gnome is without a doubt very unique and different from (almost;) everything else out there.
I use KDE because I am practical, and I really do need the stability it provides (I telecommute, and need that sort of junk;-).... But I am pining for the day when Gnome matures a bit more (sorry, the most recent Gnome release still seems lagging in stability and extensability:/ ) or when QT manages to keep its stability, while gaining the "gee-whiz" appeal of Gnome.
You deserve the plug! Your efforts over the years put all us wannabes to shame!;-)
In the time that it has taken me to get Tux Typing to 0.7, you have started a bunch of projects (one of which, Circus-Linux! even went from creation to a 1.x stable release) as well was continued to support your other titles...
I honestly don't know where you find the time/energy....
I wasn't the one who originally posted this OpenGL trademark stuff... I was just replying to there post (and actually, I was trying to point out that you can use "real" [i.e. sanctionned] OpenGl with SDL as well as others like Mesa3D).
Actually... if you notice... they popped up a "Buy Here" button now that they have been slashdotted..... WHen I looked over this stuff a few days ago (after Kendrick's awesome work was announced on Linux Games) I actually had a really hard time finding out where I could purchase one of these babies;-)
Funny what tons of hits to your site makes you do;-)
This is a very kewl port, BTW..... just wanted everyone interested to know that;-)
Also, Bill failed to mention that he has a rather kick-ass little game for the Agenda called Aliens. The thing is that's so kewl about this is that since it uses Xlib, you should be able to compile this thing on just about any *nix machine and try it out without owning an Agenda. (Granted... it'll be sideways on your screen;-)
Maturity: SDL is a relatively new library, and although it has been used in some large projects (by real companies [loki]), it still has a ways to go. Of course, this is where
SDL is also making its greatest strides.
Relatively new library? No offense, but me thinks thou art a "dumbass";-)
SDL has been in the works for something like four years now. Any computer project that thrives and experiences pretty intense development/contributions/support/success for that long is not "relatively new".;-)
And as far as hardware support... uhm.... SDL supports much more hardware than DirectX. SDL runs on a very ride variety of systems and OSes. It runs on PowerPC, Alphas, Sparc, etc. etc. and so forth. It has an excellent support of joysticks (perhaps not as many as DirectX does on the Intel class hardware, but when you consider the other hardware and OSes, it certainly has more support.)
And besides... DirectX is very very very crufty and kludge filled. It's API changes so often that it makes project maintenance a nightmare. This same API is always underdocumented. As someone with experience with both DirectX and SDL (as well as a dozen other multimedia libs) I can honestly say that SDL has a great deal more potential and promise for future projects than DirectX.
redundant to Transgaming's work in porting the DirectX multimedia API for Wine?
SDL has been in the making for many many years. Transgaming, for all their promises, is a very new project and is still in its infancy.
Over the years, SDL has evolved into a very stable and powerful multimedia library with some very nice functionality (especially when all the add-on libraries are taken into account).
As far as platform support, SDL has it in spades... SDL runs quite nicely on BeOS, Win32, MacOS and pretty much every *nix variant.
I would wager that SDL is the most used Linux multimedia library. The games and applications listed on the SDL site are but a drop in the bucket compared to those that I have found listed on Freshmeat and even projects on SourceForge.
I, myself, have had quite a bit of experience with SDL. My educational typing game, Tux Typing is powered by SDL. I have also begun writing some little example apps in SDL (including a multi-windowed SDL app).
While I agree this was a pretty stupid question to be featured on the "Ask Slashdot" section... from the many inane and less-than-informed comments I can see that quite a few people really don't know what SDL is, what it is being used for, and where it is going.
IMHO, Q3A is not the best example to site for sales of Linux games... Why? Well... in many ways the game was not as "fun" as its major competitor Unreal Tournament..
Now before everyone flames me because of my use of an obviously subjective term, let me just state that Unreal Tournament was voted by a great many gaming magazines and groups as the "game of the year" (take a look at UT's press page). It outperformed Q3A as far as retail sales last year are concerned.
Furthermore, it has been reported that Q3A's sales were low across the board. Granted the Windows versions sold enough to keep id in business.. but it wasn't a real big smash hit.
So maybe, just maybe, the low Q3A Linux sales might have reflected more the general dissatisfaction of the game rather than a lack of Linux game players. And maybe Carmacks comments in the past (rather lashing ones I might add) should not have been directed at the Linux gamers, but at his developers for not "pushing the envelope" more with Q3A.
I know that I personally did not purchase Q3A for Linux until I could for cheap because I did not like the game as much as UT (which I did purchase full-price when it came out). UT had so many more options and so much more depth, it wasn't really a contest in my book.
Granted, the latest UT patches (436 is the most recent) have sucked the performance out of this game on my system... and it is now next to unplayable (what's up with that?!)... but that's a whole 'nother issue!;-)
The problem with modification of the Slash source code would be that this sort of change may leave a bad taste in many open-source developer's mouths (since Slash is open-source, afterall).
But I do agree that a hybrid aproach may work. The vast majority of uses (I suspect) would opt not to pay (since the vast majority of Slashdot readers do not really even participate in these forums!)... so they would not be able to base much of their revenue on subscriptions. But, as an extra bonus... it should work.
I really do like this suggestion, especially on sites such as the OSDN ones where the audience is so specialized.
And I like the idea of being able to give feedback on advertisements. Traditionally, ads are forced down my throat (unless I filter them) without me having any ability to give my input on them. I would love to be able to tell those that make horrible ads that they bug the hell out of me, or tell those that make good ads that I have gained an interest in their products because of it.
Truthfully, I find that I take the ads I see on the OSDN sites more seriously than ads I find on other sites, simply because they deal with things I am interested in or directly concern me.
Turning off annoying ads
This is also where the ad forum site could come in handy. I know that I would be visitting a site like this regularily to turn off those ads I can't stand seeing (what's the deal with the one with the BIG FAT GUYS ASS?)
Choice of ad topics and categories
Not that I particularily like being targetted for advertising.... I'd still love to be able to not have to see ads for products/services I don't want.
I personally would love the ability to advertise some of my open-source projects, rants, etc. on sites such as Slashdot or Freshmeat.
The problem here is that most ads people like myself would upload would suck and probably not be the sort of thing OSDN would want on their sites (well.. not my ads specifically... because mine would be so keen!;-)
In order for something like that to work, there would have to be some sort of reviewing process for the ads.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, Rareware is currently affiliated pretty strongly with Nintendo... And while Nintendo isn't producing the "adult" titles themselves... they are promoting those "adult" titles their affiliates are making. Also, they would have the power to block titles like this, if they were so inclined.... so the fact their not blocking them speaks volumes.
It's very similar to the whole Disney/Miramax relationship. Disney certainly wont be bringing out any "risque" movies... but they wont prevent Miramax from doing it.
There's room if customers allow there to be.
As has been shown, single system markets lend themselves to abuse of the customers by the company with the largest market share.
Furthermore, with market's rich with competition (many consoles, no single winners) you get a great deal of innovation (ick, not that word
> N64 and PSX forces the Saturn out of the market. Just the rumors of the PS2 forced the Dreamcast out.
Not exactly true. Sega's failed consoles (which ultimately did them in) failed primarily because of stupid mistakes that Sega made.
Stupid mistakes during the Saturn years (just a few): Okay, so why did the Dreamcast croak? Well... by this time the arcade market (which had been keeping Sega alive for years) was shrinking. Furthermore, Sega was too massive... They needed the big sales. The Dreamcast was selling fairly well (certainly well enough that Sega 10-years ago would have been able to survive on)... It even outsold (console-wise, not game sales) the N64 last year. But they had dug themselves into a pit, and nothing the Dreamcast could have done would have pulled them out.
In some respects, the PS2 may have forced their hand in admitting they just weren't pulling enough profit... but the PS2 was not what killed the Dreamcast or Sega... it was just the hammer that pounded in the last nail in the Sega-of-yesteryear's coffin.
Click here for more video game console history, rants, and other junk
This isn't necessarily true.... Nintendo recently has been producing quite a few "adult" titles. Anyone heard of Conker's BFD?
;-)... but they have had their share of "mature" and "adult" titles.
The thing is that's very interesting is that 7-10 years ago, this was true.... They were blocking "adult" games right and left back in the SNES days.... (anyone remember the whole Mortal Kombat fiasco?). Then, when they realized this wasn't making friends either with the developers or with the gamers, they did an about-face and started embracing "mature" titles.
Now I'll admit that the choice in using cartridges for the N64 has really prevented quite a few great "mature" or "adult" titles from being made on the system (I also have many other reasons to hate carts
(Note that I am in no way a big Nintendo advocate.... but I do have to be fair...)
Actually, no, the 3DO came out in 1993... and survived on its small scale for quite some time before the deal with Panasonic.
;-)
It was not a quick and painful death (neither was the Dreamcast's, the console [not the games] was outselling the N64 last year).
The problems with 3DO happenned after the Panasonic deal. Before that, they were still working on such a small scale that they were able to tred water and survive. But add the extra weight of trying to be a "player" in the market that comes with support from Panasonic and the console sank.
Most people actually don't even remember that 3DO was around for a few good years before the Panasonic deal... as I'm sure was why you didn't know this.
Check your facts
There is one thing you do have to realize about Sega's misadventure... Sega had been trying for years to get a hit console.
;-). For another, they hardly advertised this system at all. Even more, the system was dual-processor, and very difficult to develop for... but Sega never released their in-house power-tools to third-party developers to help them code for the platform. The Saturn died a horrible death.
;-) 3DO is still around today, and happily making games. (albeit for other systems ;-)
Back in the very early 1980s they had a box to compete with the Atari 2600... this box failed.
Then, in the mid-80s they had the Sega Master System which was in direct competition to the NES. Most people agree this box was actually more powerful than the NES. However, this box failed.
The Genesis in 1989 was a big success... but subsequent money-pits Sega put a lot of backing behind such as the Sega CD and the 32X (both, actually quite nice enhancements to the Genesis) really hurt them due to their poor sales.
After the Genesis, Sega came out with the Saturn (to compete with the PS1). The Saturn was (again) a decent enough system... but Sega made some real blunders with it. For one, they never brought out a 3D game for their Mascot (and SonicR doesn't count
By the time the Dreamcast was released, the only thing keeping Sega alive was their arcade games... and their arcade "empire" was starting to collapse (actually, arcade game sales have been decreasing quite a bit in the last few years).. The Dreamcast was nice hardware... and they finally were realizing they needed their "star" characters to make appearances in their console games. But by now, it was too little, too late.
The Dreamcast has been selling, but not enough for a company as massive as Sega to continue to support.
The problem here? Sega is too big. They need the big hits and the cash-cows in order to survive.
What are you missing? Well... small game houses can survive on low game/platform sales... provided they keep their low profile. An excellent example of this was the 3DO. Anyone remember the 3DO? It was a nifty little 32-bit machine that came out shortly after the SegaCD. It retailed for $700 (originally) and sold very poorly (compared to the main consoles at the time). But the system managed to survive because 3DO had a fairly low profile (but Panasonic, which had a 3DO platform as well is another issue entirely
So a system like the Indrema, or this TuxBox (lowsy name) can survive, provided it doesn't try to take over the console market. If it just fills its little niche, and doesn't try to aim any higher than that, it will do fine. Indrema took themselves too seriously. If they would have not shot for the moon... and stayed more realistic.... they could have survived....
Check out A Brief History of Home Video Games for more info on some of the stuff I've mentioned here.
Not to point out the obvious here.... but this is John C. Dvorak we are talking about here.
In the anals of computer science history, Dvorak will be synonymous with moron... Anyone remember his statements in the mid-80's about Apple?
IMHO Dvorak's the computer world's equivalent to Larry King... only half as intelligent and twice as annoying..
And some of us instead see two companies clamboring to be the best at emulating an obsolete soon to be retired instruction set.
Perhaps we should say should soon be retired. I am yet to hear of either Intel or AMD giving up on it... hell even the PIV still emulates it...
I wasn't whining in the slightest. I was merely commenting on the fact that KDE/Qt is more stable (it really is), but Gnome has a larger *gee-whiz* factor (to me, it seems "cooler" than KDE).
As a matter of fact, I really think you missed both my and the original poster's points. It's not that we were pining for Windows, it's that we both felt KDE has a certain Window-esque quality about it that can make it feel more cold and impersonal. We felt that Gnome had more originality and uniqueness (and that originality and uniqueness were very good things).
If all you heard was "Whine, Whine, etc., etc." from these posts, then I think perhaps you should go back and re-read them, because you undoubtedly misunderstood.
(And with respect to me "doing" something about the code... well... Qt is not the most open-source project in the world... If you check out Trolltech's Qt Page you'll discover it has proprietary extensions called "Qt Professional/Enterprise" editions which you must license. So, no, I can't really just go in an do something about Qt looking too much like Windows... can I?)
You know, even though I am primarily a KDE user... and have had nothing but trouble with Gnome as a desktop... I really do see your point.
;) everything else out there.
;-).... But I am pining for the day when Gnome matures a bit more (sorry, the most recent Gnome release still seems lagging in stability and extensability :/ ) or when QT manages to keep its stability, while gaining the "gee-whiz" appeal of Gnome.
I mean, sure we get a great deal of stability with KDE, and it does allow for a certain degree of customization... but Gnome is without a doubt very unique and different from (almost
I use KDE because I am practical, and I really do need the stability it provides (I telecommute, and need that sort of junk
This darn outage hit just when I rebuilt the OS on my laptop! (I had RH before, and it was too massive, so I went with Peanut Linux 8.4 this time)
Got on over the weekend to get some kick-butt KDE2.1 themes, and found T.O offline! I was very dismayed....
You deserve the plug! Your efforts over the years put all us wannabes to shame! ;-)
In the time that it has taken me to get Tux Typing to 0.7, you have started a bunch of projects (one of which, Circus-Linux! even went from creation to a 1.x stable release) as well was continued to support your other titles...
I honestly don't know where you find the time/energy....
I wasn't the one who originally posted this OpenGL trademark stuff... I was just replying to there post (and actually, I was trying to point out that you can use "real" [i.e. sanctionned] OpenGl with SDL as well as others like Mesa3D).
Actually... if you notice... they popped up a "Buy Here" button now that they have been slashdotted..... WHen I looked over this stuff a few days ago (after Kendrick's awesome work was announced on Linux Games) I actually had a really hard time finding out where I could purchase one of these babies ;-)
;-)
Funny what tons of hits to your site makes you do
This is a very kewl port, BTW..... just wanted everyone interested to know that ;-)
;-)
Also, Bill failed to mention that he has a rather kick-ass little game for the Agenda called Aliens. The thing is that's so kewl about this is that since it uses Xlib, you should be able to compile this thing on just about any *nix machine and try it out without owning an Agenda. (Granted... it'll be sideways on your screen
Tux Racer
How about SDL has hooks for a "cross-platform 3D rendering library that may or may not be OpenGL-- so please don't sue me SGI, you big mean bully" ;-)
Remember, you can actually use real (SGI sanctioned) OpenGL with SDL... but you can also use other OpenGL-like libraries such as Mesa3D.
Maturity: SDL is a relatively new library, and although it has been used in some large projects (by real companies [loki]), it still has a ways to go. Of course, this is where SDL is also making its greatest strides.
;-)
;-)
Relatively new library? No offense, but me thinks thou art a "dumbass"
SDL has been in the works for something like four years now. Any computer project that thrives and experiences pretty intense development/contributions/support/success for that long is not "relatively new".
And as far as hardware support... uhm.... SDL supports much more hardware than DirectX. SDL runs on a very ride variety of systems and OSes. It runs on PowerPC, Alphas, Sparc, etc. etc. and so forth. It has an excellent support of joysticks (perhaps not as many as DirectX does on the Intel class hardware, but when you consider the other hardware and OSes, it certainly has more support.)
And besides... DirectX is very very very crufty and kludge filled. It's API changes so often that it makes project maintenance a nightmare. This same API is always underdocumented. As someone with experience with both DirectX and SDL (as well as a dozen other multimedia libs) I can honestly say that SDL has a great deal more potential and promise for future projects than DirectX.
redundant to Transgaming's work in porting the DirectX multimedia API for Wine?
SDL has been in the making for many many years. Transgaming, for all their promises, is a very new project and is still in its infancy.
Over the years, SDL has evolved into a very stable and powerful multimedia library with some very nice functionality (especially when all the add-on libraries are taken into account).
As far as platform support, SDL has it in spades... SDL runs quite nicely on BeOS, Win32, MacOS and pretty much every *nix variant.
I would wager that SDL is the most used Linux multimedia library. The games and applications listed on the SDL site are but a drop in the bucket compared to those that I have found listed on Freshmeat and even projects on SourceForge.
I, myself, have had quite a bit of experience with SDL. My educational typing game, Tux Typing is powered by SDL. I have also begun writing some little example apps in SDL (including a multi-windowed SDL app).
While I agree this was a pretty stupid question to be featured on the "Ask Slashdot" section... from the many inane and less-than-informed comments I can see that quite a few people really don't know what SDL is, what it is being used for, and where it is going.
So, to anyone interrested, I'd say take a look at the doc pages, code tutorials here, as well as checking out the latest stable release version 1.2.
> What about character sets? I'm sure Unicode won't be able to handle all the alien characters. We'll probably need 32-bit characters.
But you see.... the "uni" in "Unicode" stands for "Universe".... duh!
(Or was that "Unique" as in "Uniquely Alien"?)
IMHO, Q3A is not the best example to site for sales of Linux games... Why? Well... in many ways the game was not as "fun" as its major competitor Unreal Tournament..
;-)
Now before everyone flames me because of my use of an obviously subjective term, let me just state that Unreal Tournament was voted by a great many gaming magazines and groups as the "game of the year" (take a look at UT's press page). It outperformed Q3A as far as retail sales last year are concerned.
Furthermore, it has been reported that Q3A's sales were low across the board. Granted the Windows versions sold enough to keep id in business.. but it wasn't a real big smash hit.
So maybe, just maybe, the low Q3A Linux sales might have reflected more the general dissatisfaction of the game rather than a lack of Linux game players. And maybe Carmacks comments in the past (rather lashing ones I might add) should not have been directed at the Linux gamers, but at his developers for not "pushing the envelope" more with Q3A.
I know that I personally did not purchase Q3A for Linux until I could for cheap because I did not like the game as much as UT (which I did purchase full-price when it came out). UT had so many more options and so much more depth, it wasn't really a contest in my book.
Granted, the latest UT patches (436 is the most recent) have sucked the performance out of this game on my system... and it is now next to unplayable (what's up with that?!)... but that's a whole 'nother issue!
Now this is a good idea. Not much money making involved (I wouldn't imagine) but it would be something pretty kewl nonetheless.
The problem with modification of the Slash source code would be that this sort of change may leave a bad taste in many open-source developer's mouths (since Slash is open-source, afterall).
But I do agree that a hybrid aproach may work. The vast majority of uses (I suspect) would opt not to pay (since the vast majority of Slashdot readers do not really even participate in these forums!)... so they would not be able to base much of their revenue on subscriptions. But, as an extra bonus... it should work.
Comment forums for each ad banner
I really do like this suggestion, especially on sites such as the OSDN ones where the audience is so specialized.
And I like the idea of being able to give feedback on advertisements. Traditionally, ads are forced down my throat (unless I filter them) without me having any ability to give my input on them. I would love to be able to tell those that make horrible ads that they bug the hell out of me, or tell those that make good ads that I have gained an interest in their products because of it.
Truthfully, I find that I take the ads I see on the OSDN sites more seriously than ads I find on other sites, simply because they deal with things I am interested in or directly concern me.
Turning off annoying ads
This is also where the ad forum site could come in handy. I know that I would be visitting a site like this regularily to turn off those ads I can't stand seeing (what's the deal with the one with the BIG FAT GUYS ASS?)
Choice of ad topics and categories Not that I particularily like being targetted for advertising.... I'd still love to be able to not have to see ads for products/services I don't want.
I don't think it is such a bad idea.
;-)
I personally would love the ability to advertise some of my open-source projects, rants, etc. on sites such as Slashdot or Freshmeat.
The problem here is that most ads people like myself would upload would suck and probably not be the sort of thing OSDN would want on their sites (well.. not my ads specifically... because mine would be so keen!
In order for something like that to work, there would have to be some sort of reviewing process for the ads.
How about a community review?