No, but throughout the majority of the world (even China is adopting it), supply and demand does. If the demand for ebay's services increases, why shouldn't they be able to match demand with an increase in price?
Why, then, should ebay be able to require that people see their advertisements?
eBay has been very close to violating certain unspoken social contracts, mostly around their listing cuts and near-monopoly status. And if they start treating their users badly but in a legal way, why shouldn't their users treat them in kind?
Two of the four (or so) producers at my company started in QA. Two of the four designers did. QA have routinely made the transition to Art and Programming, though they were trained in those fields. And some of them are Career QA at this point, with an intent of staying put indefinitely. I started as QA, and now I'm design. They don't teach you everything you need to know to make games if you're coming from most comp sci or art programs. QA is a great way to pick up those missing pieces for a year before moving on. It is probably the one discipline that unites all of the others in a hands-on way.
You can never underestimate the value of a solid in-house QA department. Never rely on publisher QA, never treat your QA team like pariahs. If you can integrate them into your team, they can be a wonderful resource for finding and solving things which would bite you in the tail at the last minute. They can interact with you to find a solution as quickly and painlessly as possible, without all of those wonderful Bug DB miscommunications. A good QA team makes life much easier, not harder. I'd rather have one solid in-house tester than three remote publisher testers.
It's also difficult to learn how to use later bits of technology if you haven't learned how to use earlier ones. I suspect the GPS issues are one of the most insidious problems.
For example, computers are supposed to be perfect calculating machines. Frequently, they tell you to do something or other, and they won't do anything until you obey. To be suspicious of your GPS, you have to know that computer systems are inherently flawed. Nobody ever trys to sell you one on this, you just have to know it by years of using computers. And to know they're flawed, you have to know what computers are doing under the hood enough to stop blaming yourself every time they break. You also have to be familiar enough with map refresh rates and data collection errors to know that the maps get out of date quickly.
When I buy a comforter, I put it on my bed and assume it will keep me comfortable. I may be vaguely aware of whether it used to be a duck or not, but that's about it. My girlfriend, a costume designer, could probably tell you the thread count, shell and insulating material, expected operating temperature range, cleaning frequency, country of origin, the centry the decorative pattern was popular, the risk of biological contamination, and a whole host of other interesting things that I simply don't care about. I just want to be warm. Most people who interact with technology don't have more than a cursory interest in finding out how it works. They don't want to know the api layers of abstraction for network communications between a host and a shared resource, they just want to print. Drivers just want something that they can plug in next to their dashboard and be told how to drive from point A to point B.
Personally, I think a lot of this would work itself out if computers had a big fat "back" button on the keyboard that worked consistently. Do something wrong in your doc? Hit back a few times. Accidentally broke Windows? Just back up to the last time you did something. If you don't understand something, you'll be afraid of breaking it. If you're afraid of breaking it, you can't comfortably explore it. And if you can't explore something, you can't get the knowledge you need to feel comfortable with it.
Why not encrypt the HDD at the level of the drive electronics? That way a user would have to physically remove the platter to read any useful data. That process would cost more than most data one could recover from an average user's tivo.
On the other hand, yes, this does appear to be a simple patent on tying a hard drive to an electronics unit. Viable attack vectors are already obvious.
Other advantages of PC games (I've got karma to burn, so why not jump in?)
1. A greater sense of agency. Because of a lack of save file size limitations and oodles of ram, players can make tons of changes to the world in PC games.
1. Quality assurance. PC companies are getting better about this, but I've never played a PC game I couldn't crash.
Other advantages of console games:
1. Brain-dead simple... which is usually what I am by friday after work. No installation, no patches, no driver conflicts. It all just works with never an issue. I can't tell you how many PC users who have come to me trying to figure out how to shut down their consoles without damaging Windows.
2. Local Multiplayer. Want a 4 player game of Gears of War? Plug in 4 controllers.
3. Twitch games. Ikaruga would not work on a pc.
4. TV screens are just bigger.
cons:
1. Where did that Xbox 360 warranty card go again?
I'm sure they cry themselves to sleep every night on pillows of money.
Seriously, though, it must be incredibly validating to them that after years of helping to keep alive the Mac gaming scene, they helped launch the Xbox and the 360 as viable gaming platforms. They've now got a huge fan base and a huge potential audience for every game they put out. What more could a developer want?
BTW, while known as a mac developer, all of Bungie's games after the first Marathon were released on multiple platforms.
360 software can only communicate with PC's through MS's Live servers. Networking can only happen through MS's API's, though layers can be built upon those. If you're on the 360, you can only offer multiplayer through Live Gold. So anyone consoler who can go online for multiplayer battles on the 360, can also do so vs PC players.
All games for all consoles must be thoroughly approved by the console creator along many aspects, including crashworthiness, wording of error boxes, networking behaviors, etc. This has been true on the NES, Genesis, PS1, Wii, and all other systems inbetween. To be approved for the 360, you have to follow MS's guidelines.
Long story short, you'll need a live gold account on Vista. Then you can pound the consolers all you like.
Microsoft doesn't host live games. Microsoft serves as the lobby and matchmaking server for live games, similar to how gamespy works. And from what I've seen, they do some rudimentary but pretty effective cheat detection.
One big bit of all of this is who pays for the cost of maintaining game servers. Under the old model and Sony's model, the game developer pays for all RnD, development, deployment, and upkeep. Under Microsoft's model, the brunt of the costs are born by the player. Microsoft provides the developers libraries to interface with their game-agnostic voip, messaging, and game invitation systems. Rich Presence is as simple as sending an update command. Supporting voice chat can be done solidly in a day or two, rather than weeks of custom coding. Fast matchmaking is all handled by their servers, and leaderboards are as simple as making some API calls. Don't get me started on how much better it is to have a unified friends list.
The Original Xbox was a nightmare of unsupported requirements, which added weeks to any development schedule. This time around, however, they're actually doing things right enough that it seems to be cutting development time rather than adding to it.
Sony's stance has been, by and large, "The developer can do it." So if you want voice chat, you go to a middleware solution. If you want downloadable content, they'll implement that at some point. Really, they just haven't supported development in the substantial way they've needed to to be considered comparable. That's why you're seeing games like Oblivion showing up on the PS3 without downloadable content or other goodies.
And really, that's the distinction. Games being developed for Live, even Live Vista, get a greatly simplified development path and fire-and-forget hosting (until the next blizzard takes out washington). So you're far more likely to see all games, not just big hits, take advantage of the features.
So it's a tradeoff. I think a lot of game developers are a little peeved at Sony for promising the world, then making us develop it. Similarly, with the exception of Horse Armor pretty much everything on Xbox Live is something people have felt like games should be able to do for a long time now, but nobody has had the monopoly to do so. Paying 5 bucks a month? It's a lot, and I wonder how many developers will opt to go that route. To me, it's worth it, but I'm not what you'd call casual.
I can understand how people who are used to free online play would be annoyed by this, but the experience of a unified online gaming service is worth it. Too bad they didn't throw in some online play for the PC.
Sony also backs the player as a quality company--the chances of a system failure are low because Sony makes quality equipment. They are selling a brand, not just a device. That is worth a certain amount of money
Have you owned a piece of sony electronics in the past few years? Their laptop division pumps out the most failure-prone junk, their media division tried that whole rootkit thing, the consumer electronics division went way downhill from those bullet-proof yellow walkmen, etc, etc. I've personally owned three dead PS1's and two dead PS2's, and wouldn't be suprised if the PS3 followed a similar death curve. Not to sound too pessimistic, but I'd point a cheap clip-on fan at the intake ports of the unit. Sony has gone down a long way from the mid-80's.
Sony is selling below production costs--what more could people want?
In the same way that sony chooses to enter a losing bargain in order to sell consumers more games down the road, gamers too choose to enter a losing bargain in order to buy games down the road. A Playstation 3, in and of itself, is not worth 600 dollars to the end consumer. The consumer is buying it for the games they may get later.
And this is not idol talk. You personally have invested in the success of this system. If sales don't pick up soon, less games will be developed for the platform. If fewer games are developed for the platform, then the "value" of what you recieved for your 600 dollars goes down. If enough new titles eschews the platform entirely, then your investment will fall below the threshold of what is worthwile to you.
And ultimately, games are what it's all about. The 360 has a few must-have titles already out, such as Dead Rising, Gears of War, Viva Pinata, etc. The PS3 is still in it's "Well, there is Geometry Wars" phase. The 360 has downloadable content, patching, a consistent messaging and invite system across all titles, achievements across all titles, and overall has a much better, more unified online feel. The PS3 is relatively new, and still needs a lot of work to make the online experience anywhere near that which was promised. Of course, both of these are being outsold by the Wii currently, with almost no online experience and a fun-but-accessible controller.
This is not a piece of business hardware. This is an entertainment device. And ultimately, the question of "is this entertaining or not" rests with the software, specs be damned. Microsoft and Nintendo have their ducks in a row on this one. Sony, who usually has been great about 3rd party support in the past, seems like they've got a lot of catching up to do.
"The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is clear: To build and maintain those robots."
As a game designer, I can understand your reactions. However, you have to realize that anyone going onto a counterstrike map these days is dead, simply because the players all know the maps and strategies far too well. I've worked for months on online games... and two weeks after launch I could no longer enjoy an online game, simply because the level of competition required too much rote memorization. And quite frankly, that's getting a bit boring.
A somewhat randomized map is emphasizing a different and arguably more impressive skill set. If you know you can stand at a particular point and sniper to this other choke point, you've successfully memorized the map. Now, if every time you play you have to assess the situation, determine choke points and strength areas as you go, you've suddenly emphasized dynamic tactical thinking over static thinking. Not only is this more "realistic," this is ultimately more interesting to watch, and hopefully play. Sure, this will make the outcome of any single given match less deterministic, but better players will definitely come out on top overall... and arguably the overall level of play will go up as a result.
In creating a game, especially an online one, you must balance initial player enjoyment against hardcore gamer enjoyment. If you soley focus on hardcore gamer enjoyment, nobody will like your game enough to get through those first few dozen rough hours. However, any advantage you give to an initial player will get through to the advanced player as well, keeping their overall statistical advantage.
Especially when you're expecting mixed matches, you have to setup conditions such that the new player thinks they have some chance of winning. Requiring perfect aim with a shaky mouse over a crappy internet connection is just going to turn off players. Walking around and getting head shot every few seconds is just going to turn off players. Striking that balance between getting players and keeping players is key to making it all work.
Think of it like poker. Poker is a high-skill game, where everybody has a chance to win a hand, but only skilled players will win the match. A de-emphasis on straight memorization and a re-emphasis on dynamic exploration while on the battlefield is also helpful.
There is a reason why Gears of War is the best selling FPS at the moment.
A bit Offtopic, but while Ocean's eleven was based on the original Las Vegas classic, Ocean's Twelve was originally constrewed as a John Woo vehicle. Which more or less explains why it didn't make sense: it was pretty thrown together from disparate elements.
It appears that ocean's thirteen is venturing back towards a casino heist movie... kind of a rehash of the original rehash. Which is not to say that the people will get any less pretentiously good looking, but rather they'll be in the proper setting for it.
Note that work can't be copyrighted, only the expressive portion of a work. The famous example is a phone book: the font, page layout, and illustrations are protected under copyright, but the actual data is not.
I'd have to see the fake ID, but usually the goal with a fake ID is to have as little uniquely expressive quality as possible.
Yes and No. The American Heritage dictionary defines a Hoax as "an act intended to deceive or trick." The courts appeared to rule that the people who put up the mooninites had no intention of decieving. So, really, this bill wouldn't cover anything mooninite related. One could stretch the definition of Hoax to include governmental overreaction, but we don't appear to be there quite yet. And of course, there will need to be huge debates over the line between an art installation and a hoax.
It does appear to give an awful lot of power with a very flimsy protection, but it is a protection at least.
Why encrypt? US courts ruled in the Adobe case that Rot13 was a form of copy protection. Just do a diff between the "protected" text and the DMCA, and you're all set.
Lawyers are servants, not masters? Have you met many servants? Most of them run the household. Masters decide that the bedroom should be clean and the sheets replaced every now and then. Servants are the ones that decide the bed needs to be made every five seconds. The master says "unless it's really important, hold my calls." Servants are the ones that decide the master's sister's house burning down isn't sufficiently important, and that it should be left to burn.
Lawyers may say that they're only following the letter of the law, but the fact of the matter is they have a lot of leeway in what cases they bring in front of other people. Suing a dry cleaner for 67 million dollars for losing a pair of pants may be within the letter of the law, but it is a fair example of lawyers run amock. Jack Thompson is fully within his legal rights to make the outlandish and unsupported claims that he has been, but that doesn't mean he should be doing so.
Linden Labs has sent out "Permit and Proceed" letters. Other companies have official policies of blind eyes. So there are legal options at hand. Why is it that some legal departments get this and spend most of their time defending their client's actual interests, and others just go crazy sending nastygrams to the 4-million-and-climbing pages that list the HD-DVD key?
If you're a libertarian, you can't be for government reform. If you're a green-peace activist, you can't drive to rallys. If you're a vegetarian, you can't eat yogurt.
Now to be fair, the article has points that aren't drowned in sensationalism. Like, for example, how non-copyrighted works could be taken away and used by corporations. Which, in a copyright-free environment, would be perfectly OK.
The opening "joke" is key to understanding the logic. Either you'd sleep with someone for money OR you wouldn't, price is irrelevant to whether you're a whore or not. Similarly, either you'd never use copyright for anything OR you would, context be damned. So Open Source advocates who see OS as the only way to make something work under the current system are tarred with the same impractical black-and-white brush as a woman who would sleep with someone for enough money to guarantee a college education and financial security for her children.
Utter lack of taste or tact aside, this is just one philosopher shouting that a different philosopher should change their symbols, with no grounding in utility or practicality.
Name one industry where the price of entry is so high that a company can have a true monopoly.
Cable also falls under this banner, for both similar reasons and legal ones. You can add in water service, sewage service, and powerlines as well.
On the other hand, you could argue for miniopoly pricing schemes that are in full force. For example, if your car has a specifically encrypted or otherwise obfiscated computer that keeps anyone not related to the dealer from working on it, they have a monopoly on fixing that particular type of car. Same thing with printer ink prices for many years: through clever market segmentation, it's possible to create scenarios where a smaller subset of all consumers has no choice but to pay your higher prices, even if not all of the consumers in a larger set are using the same item or service.
I don't know if this has been properly set to words before, but the form of capitalism that this country promotes appears to be one of self-actualization... which is to say, that everyone has a chance at becoming top dog if they get up off their ass and work really hard. The truth of that statement is highly debatable, but you'll notice that the core mantra is that success and failure comes through individual effort and ability.
Genetic, racial, or sexual discrimination goes very much against that mantra. The individual has no control over whether or not they're predisposed to gout, was born without a penis, or has pasty white skin. There is no incentive to work harder there. There is no "right" and "wrong," no form of punishment for bad behavior, what have you. It may not matter to the system if someone had a hand in their eventual fate or not, but for encouraging maximum output it matters quite a lot.
The form of capitalism we've chosen to idolize isn't about the most efficient markets, but about creating incentives for individual effort. Genetic and racial discrimination does not create said incentives, and therefore does not fit within the system.
The flip side of all of this is that if your fate is in your hands, you have only yourself to blame for any shortcomings in it. And, as such, there is nothing particular to rebel against.
A slightly offtopic question: I've frequently found it would be useful to have multiple mice running under a single windows session, primarily for clicking through tedious dialog boxes that lack hotkey shortcuts. Does anyone know of a good way to setup XP or Vista with one user and two mouse pointers? Differentiating between the clicks wouldn't be necessary.
It's similar to this question, but without separate messages for separate mice clicks.
"there is no way to line their pockets by regulating the internet,"
This is not true, unforutnately. However, they need to realize that one cannot regularte the source of information on the internet, only the end users in your jurisdiction. Want to tax your citizens who are people buying used cars over the internet? Ok add a tax as they bring the car in for registration. Want to tax the sender of an MP3 of a local band in Batswana? Not going to happen.
This particular piece of legislation was doomed to fail, as Utah legislators did't realize that most spam comes from groups in Russia with lists of millions of e-mail addresses all around the world. They have no way of knowing if maryjane420@aol.com is in Utah or not, and even if they did they wouldn't care.
1/2 cent? You can find e-mail lists with 1 billion addresses on them or more. You're asking someone outside of your jurisdiction to pay you 5 million dollars to go to the trouble of vetting their addresses of your citizens? You'd be luck to convince them to agree if you did that for free (which it really should be). Quite frankly, this makes no sense. You're strongly disincentivizing a behavior which has a negative effect on someone's business and no positive one. Personally, I feel like the legislators, not the state, should be forced to pay for the legal fees in the particular case due to simple gross negligence on their part.
I'm a huge fan of the 360, so take this as you will. But that thing does fail more often than it should. In addition to what you've listed, you can add power supply failure as a major problem.
I went through 3 PS2's and 2 PS1's in their lifespans, and I got in pretty late on the PS1. I wouldn't be suprised at all if the first batch of 360's didn't last more than two or three years average for even casual gamers. Hardcore gamers: expect to replace a few.
I don't even want to know what PS3 fail rates are going to be.
And who, exactly, would carry the serious, mainstream IP focused debate? The networks? Rupert Murdoc's newspapers?
No, the best thing is if the networks decided to spin this for good PR, and talked about how they're putting the presidential debates into the public domain and that anyone can copy and distribute them. Then you get people asking things like "what's the public domain?" "So what else should we be free to distribute?" and "which one is my video editing application?"
Sure, that means you'll get 100 videos of Kucinich doing the Hampster Dance, but such is the price of freedom.
Slashdot Mirror
No, but throughout the majority of the world (even China is adopting it), supply and demand does. If the demand for ebay's services increases, why shouldn't they be able to match demand with an increase in price?
Why, then, should ebay be able to require that people see their advertisements?
eBay has been very close to violating certain unspoken social contracts, mostly around their listing cuts and near-monopoly status. And if they start treating their users badly but in a legal way, why shouldn't their users treat them in kind?
Two of the four (or so) producers at my company started in QA. Two of the four designers did. QA have routinely made the transition to Art and Programming, though they were trained in those fields. And some of them are Career QA at this point, with an intent of staying put indefinitely. I started as QA, and now I'm design. They don't teach you everything you need to know to make games if you're coming from most comp sci or art programs. QA is a great way to pick up those missing pieces for a year before moving on. It is probably the one discipline that unites all of the others in a hands-on way.
You can never underestimate the value of a solid in-house QA department. Never rely on publisher QA, never treat your QA team like pariahs. If you can integrate them into your team, they can be a wonderful resource for finding and solving things which would bite you in the tail at the last minute. They can interact with you to find a solution as quickly and painlessly as possible, without all of those wonderful Bug DB miscommunications. A good QA team makes life much easier, not harder. I'd rather have one solid in-house tester than three remote publisher testers.
It's also difficult to learn how to use later bits of technology if you haven't learned how to use earlier ones. I suspect the GPS issues are one of the most insidious problems.
For example, computers are supposed to be perfect calculating machines. Frequently, they tell you to do something or other, and they won't do anything until you obey. To be suspicious of your GPS, you have to know that computer systems are inherently flawed. Nobody ever trys to sell you one on this, you just have to know it by years of using computers. And to know they're flawed, you have to know what computers are doing under the hood enough to stop blaming yourself every time they break. You also have to be familiar enough with map refresh rates and data collection errors to know that the maps get out of date quickly.
When I buy a comforter, I put it on my bed and assume it will keep me comfortable. I may be vaguely aware of whether it used to be a duck or not, but that's about it. My girlfriend, a costume designer, could probably tell you the thread count, shell and insulating material, expected operating temperature range, cleaning frequency, country of origin, the centry the decorative pattern was popular, the risk of biological contamination, and a whole host of other interesting things that I simply don't care about. I just want to be warm. Most people who interact with technology don't have more than a cursory interest in finding out how it works. They don't want to know the api layers of abstraction for network communications between a host and a shared resource, they just want to print. Drivers just want something that they can plug in next to their dashboard and be told how to drive from point A to point B.
Personally, I think a lot of this would work itself out if computers had a big fat "back" button on the keyboard that worked consistently. Do something wrong in your doc? Hit back a few times. Accidentally broke Windows? Just back up to the last time you did something. If you don't understand something, you'll be afraid of breaking it. If you're afraid of breaking it, you can't comfortably explore it. And if you can't explore something, you can't get the knowledge you need to feel comfortable with it.
Why not encrypt the HDD at the level of the drive electronics? That way a user would have to physically remove the platter to read any useful data. That process would cost more than most data one could recover from an average user's tivo.
On the other hand, yes, this does appear to be a simple patent on tying a hard drive to an electronics unit. Viable attack vectors are already obvious.
Other advantages of PC games (I've got karma to burn, so why not jump in?)
1. A greater sense of agency. Because of a lack of save file size limitations and oodles of ram, players can make tons of changes to the world in PC games.
2. Greater variety of PC games. As anyone can make pc games, you get titles from pirate themed MMOs to massive to galaxy spanning adventures to the Switzerland-sponsored Catch the Sperm
3. PC screens just look better
Cons:
1. Quality assurance. PC companies are getting better about this, but I've never played a PC game I couldn't crash.
Other advantages of console games:
1. Brain-dead simple... which is usually what I am by friday after work. No installation, no patches, no driver conflicts. It all just works with never an issue. I can't tell you how many PC users who have come to me trying to figure out how to shut down their consoles without damaging Windows.
2. Local Multiplayer. Want a 4 player game of Gears of War? Plug in 4 controllers.
3. Twitch games. Ikaruga would not work on a pc.
4. TV screens are just bigger.
cons:
1. Where did that Xbox 360 warranty card go again?
I'm sure they cry themselves to sleep every night on pillows of money.
Seriously, though, it must be incredibly validating to them that after years of helping to keep alive the Mac gaming scene, they helped launch the Xbox and the 360 as viable gaming platforms. They've now got a huge fan base and a huge potential audience for every game they put out. What more could a developer want?
BTW, while known as a mac developer, all of Bungie's games after the first Marathon were released on multiple platforms.
360 software can only communicate with PC's through MS's Live servers. Networking can only happen through MS's API's, though layers can be built upon those. If you're on the 360, you can only offer multiplayer through Live Gold. So anyone consoler who can go online for multiplayer battles on the 360, can also do so vs PC players.
All games for all consoles must be thoroughly approved by the console creator along many aspects, including crashworthiness, wording of error boxes, networking behaviors, etc. This has been true on the NES, Genesis, PS1, Wii, and all other systems inbetween. To be approved for the 360, you have to follow MS's guidelines.
Long story short, you'll need a live gold account on Vista. Then you can pound the consolers all you like.
Microsoft doesn't host live games. Microsoft serves as the lobby and matchmaking server for live games, similar to how gamespy works. And from what I've seen, they do some rudimentary but pretty effective cheat detection.
One big bit of all of this is who pays for the cost of maintaining game servers. Under the old model and Sony's model, the game developer pays for all RnD, development, deployment, and upkeep. Under Microsoft's model, the brunt of the costs are born by the player. Microsoft provides the developers libraries to interface with their game-agnostic voip, messaging, and game invitation systems. Rich Presence is as simple as sending an update command. Supporting voice chat can be done solidly in a day or two, rather than weeks of custom coding. Fast matchmaking is all handled by their servers, and leaderboards are as simple as making some API calls. Don't get me started on how much better it is to have a unified friends list.
The Original Xbox was a nightmare of unsupported requirements, which added weeks to any development schedule. This time around, however, they're actually doing things right enough that it seems to be cutting development time rather than adding to it.
Sony's stance has been, by and large, "The developer can do it." So if you want voice chat, you go to a middleware solution. If you want downloadable content, they'll implement that at some point. Really, they just haven't supported development in the substantial way they've needed to to be considered comparable. That's why you're seeing games like Oblivion showing up on the PS3 without downloadable content or other goodies.
And really, that's the distinction. Games being developed for Live, even Live Vista, get a greatly simplified development path and fire-and-forget hosting (until the next blizzard takes out washington). So you're far more likely to see all games, not just big hits, take advantage of the features.
So it's a tradeoff. I think a lot of game developers are a little peeved at Sony for promising the world, then making us develop it. Similarly, with the exception of Horse Armor pretty much everything on Xbox Live is something people have felt like games should be able to do for a long time now, but nobody has had the monopoly to do so. Paying 5 bucks a month? It's a lot, and I wonder how many developers will opt to go that route. To me, it's worth it, but I'm not what you'd call casual.
I can understand how people who are used to free online play would be annoyed by this, but the experience of a unified online gaming service is worth it. Too bad they didn't throw in some online play for the PC.
Sony also backs the player as a quality company--the chances of a system failure are low because Sony makes quality equipment. They are selling a brand, not just a device. That is worth a certain amount of money
Have you owned a piece of sony electronics in the past few years? Their laptop division pumps out the most failure-prone junk, their media division tried that whole rootkit thing, the consumer electronics division went way downhill from those bullet-proof yellow walkmen, etc, etc. I've personally owned three dead PS1's and two dead PS2's, and wouldn't be suprised if the PS3 followed a similar death curve. Not to sound too pessimistic, but I'd point a cheap clip-on fan at the intake ports of the unit. Sony has gone down a long way from the mid-80's.
Sony is selling below production costs--what more could people want?
In the same way that sony chooses to enter a losing bargain in order to sell consumers more games down the road, gamers too choose to enter a losing bargain in order to buy games down the road. A Playstation 3, in and of itself, is not worth 600 dollars to the end consumer. The consumer is buying it for the games they may get later.
And this is not idol talk. You personally have invested in the success of this system. If sales don't pick up soon, less games will be developed for the platform. If fewer games are developed for the platform, then the "value" of what you recieved for your 600 dollars goes down. If enough new titles eschews the platform entirely, then your investment will fall below the threshold of what is worthwile to you.
And ultimately, games are what it's all about. The 360 has a few must-have titles already out, such as Dead Rising, Gears of War, Viva Pinata, etc. The PS3 is still in it's "Well, there is Geometry Wars" phase. The 360 has downloadable content, patching, a consistent messaging and invite system across all titles, achievements across all titles, and overall has a much better, more unified online feel. The PS3 is relatively new, and still needs a lot of work to make the online experience anywhere near that which was promised. Of course, both of these are being outsold by the Wii currently, with almost no online experience and a fun-but-accessible controller.
This is not a piece of business hardware. This is an entertainment device. And ultimately, the question of "is this entertaining or not" rests with the software, specs be damned. Microsoft and Nintendo have their ducks in a row on this one. Sony, who usually has been great about 3rd party support in the past, seems like they've got a lot of catching up to do.
I can't believe nobody's posted this yet.
"The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is clear: To build and maintain those robots."
As a game designer, I can understand your reactions. However, you have to realize that anyone going onto a counterstrike map these days is dead, simply because the players all know the maps and strategies far too well. I've worked for months on online games... and two weeks after launch I could no longer enjoy an online game, simply because the level of competition required too much rote memorization. And quite frankly, that's getting a bit boring.
A somewhat randomized map is emphasizing a different and arguably more impressive skill set. If you know you can stand at a particular point and sniper to this other choke point, you've successfully memorized the map. Now, if every time you play you have to assess the situation, determine choke points and strength areas as you go, you've suddenly emphasized dynamic tactical thinking over static thinking. Not only is this more "realistic," this is ultimately more interesting to watch, and hopefully play. Sure, this will make the outcome of any single given match less deterministic, but better players will definitely come out on top overall... and arguably the overall level of play will go up as a result.
In creating a game, especially an online one, you must balance initial player enjoyment against hardcore gamer enjoyment. If you soley focus on hardcore gamer enjoyment, nobody will like your game enough to get through those first few dozen rough hours. However, any advantage you give to an initial player will get through to the advanced player as well, keeping their overall statistical advantage.
Especially when you're expecting mixed matches, you have to setup conditions such that the new player thinks they have some chance of winning. Requiring perfect aim with a shaky mouse over a crappy internet connection is just going to turn off players. Walking around and getting head shot every few seconds is just going to turn off players. Striking that balance between getting players and keeping players is key to making it all work.
Think of it like poker. Poker is a high-skill game, where everybody has a chance to win a hand, but only skilled players will win the match. A de-emphasis on straight memorization and a re-emphasis on dynamic exploration while on the battlefield is also helpful.
There is a reason why Gears of War is the best selling FPS at the moment.
A bit Offtopic, but while Ocean's eleven was based on the original Las Vegas classic, Ocean's Twelve was originally constrewed as a John Woo vehicle. Which more or less explains why it didn't make sense: it was pretty thrown together from disparate elements.
It appears that ocean's thirteen is venturing back towards a casino heist movie... kind of a rehash of the original rehash. Which is not to say that the people will get any less pretentiously good looking, but rather they'll be in the proper setting for it.
Note that work can't be copyrighted, only the expressive portion of a work. The famous example is a phone book: the font, page layout, and illustrations are protected under copyright, but the actual data is not.
I'd have to see the fake ID, but usually the goal with a fake ID is to have as little uniquely expressive quality as possible.
Yes and No. The American Heritage dictionary defines a Hoax as "an act intended to deceive or trick." The courts appeared to rule that the people who put up the mooninites had no intention of decieving. So, really, this bill wouldn't cover anything mooninite related. One could stretch the definition of Hoax to include governmental overreaction, but we don't appear to be there quite yet. And of course, there will need to be huge debates over the line between an art installation and a hoax.
It does appear to give an awful lot of power with a very flimsy protection, but it is a protection at least.
Why encrypt? US courts ruled in the Adobe case that Rot13 was a form of copy protection. Just do a diff between the "protected" text and the DMCA, and you're all set.
Lawyers are servants, not masters? Have you met many servants? Most of them run the household. Masters decide that the bedroom should be clean and the sheets replaced every now and then. Servants are the ones that decide the bed needs to be made every five seconds. The master says "unless it's really important, hold my calls." Servants are the ones that decide the master's sister's house burning down isn't sufficiently important, and that it should be left to burn.
Lawyers may say that they're only following the letter of the law, but the fact of the matter is they have a lot of leeway in what cases they bring in front of other people. Suing a dry cleaner for 67 million dollars for losing a pair of pants may be within the letter of the law, but it is a fair example of lawyers run amock. Jack Thompson is fully within his legal rights to make the outlandish and unsupported claims that he has been, but that doesn't mean he should be doing so.
Linden Labs has sent out "Permit and Proceed" letters. Other companies have official policies of blind eyes. So there are legal options at hand. Why is it that some legal departments get this and spend most of their time defending their client's actual interests, and others just go crazy sending nastygrams to the 4-million-and-climbing pages that list the HD-DVD key?
If you're a libertarian, you can't be for government reform.
If you're a green-peace activist, you can't drive to rallys.
If you're a vegetarian, you can't eat yogurt.
Now to be fair, the article has points that aren't drowned in sensationalism. Like, for example, how non-copyrighted works could be taken away and used by corporations. Which, in a copyright-free environment, would be perfectly OK.
The opening "joke" is key to understanding the logic. Either you'd sleep with someone for money OR you wouldn't, price is irrelevant to whether you're a whore or not. Similarly, either you'd never use copyright for anything OR you would, context be damned. So Open Source advocates who see OS as the only way to make something work under the current system are tarred with the same impractical black-and-white brush as a woman who would sleep with someone for enough money to guarantee a college education and financial security for her children.
Utter lack of taste or tact aside, this is just one philosopher shouting that a different philosopher should change their symbols, with no grounding in utility or practicality.
Name one industry where the price of entry is so high that a company can have a true monopoly.
Cable also falls under this banner, for both similar reasons and legal ones. You can add in water service, sewage service, and powerlines as well.
On the other hand, you could argue for miniopoly pricing schemes that are in full force. For example, if your car has a specifically encrypted or otherwise obfiscated computer that keeps anyone not related to the dealer from working on it, they have a monopoly on fixing that particular type of car. Same thing with printer ink prices for many years: through clever market segmentation, it's possible to create scenarios where a smaller subset of all consumers has no choice but to pay your higher prices, even if not all of the consumers in a larger set are using the same item or service.
And if a co-worker overheard you say that, it still wouldn't be grounds for dismissal. A few pointed questions, maybe, but not a dismissal.
I don't know if this has been properly set to words before, but the form of capitalism that this country promotes appears to be one of self-actualization... which is to say, that everyone has a chance at becoming top dog if they get up off their ass and work really hard. The truth of that statement is highly debatable, but you'll notice that the core mantra is that success and failure comes through individual effort and ability.
Genetic, racial, or sexual discrimination goes very much against that mantra. The individual has no control over whether or not they're predisposed to gout, was born without a penis, or has pasty white skin. There is no incentive to work harder there. There is no "right" and "wrong," no form of punishment for bad behavior, what have you. It may not matter to the system if someone had a hand in their eventual fate or not, but for encouraging maximum output it matters quite a lot.
The form of capitalism we've chosen to idolize isn't about the most efficient markets, but about creating incentives for individual effort. Genetic and racial discrimination does not create said incentives, and therefore does not fit within the system.
The flip side of all of this is that if your fate is in your hands, you have only yourself to blame for any shortcomings in it. And, as such, there is nothing particular to rebel against.
A slightly offtopic question: I've frequently found it would be useful to have multiple mice running under a single windows session, primarily for clicking through tedious dialog boxes that lack hotkey shortcuts. Does anyone know of a good way to setup XP or Vista with one user and two mouse pointers? Differentiating between the clicks wouldn't be necessary.
It's similar to this question, but without separate messages for separate mice clicks.
"there is no way to line their pockets by regulating the internet,"
This is not true, unforutnately. However, they need to realize that one cannot regularte the source of information on the internet, only the end users in your jurisdiction. Want to tax your citizens who are people buying used cars over the internet? Ok add a tax as they bring the car in for registration. Want to tax the sender of an MP3 of a local band in Batswana? Not going to happen.
This particular piece of legislation was doomed to fail, as Utah legislators did't realize that most spam comes from groups in Russia with lists of millions of e-mail addresses all around the world. They have no way of knowing if maryjane420@aol.com is in Utah or not, and even if they did they wouldn't care.
1/2 cent? You can find e-mail lists with 1 billion addresses on them or more. You're asking someone outside of your jurisdiction to pay you 5 million dollars to go to the trouble of vetting their addresses of your citizens? You'd be luck to convince them to agree if you did that for free (which it really should be). Quite frankly, this makes no sense. You're strongly disincentivizing a behavior which has a negative effect on someone's business and no positive one. Personally, I feel like the legislators, not the state, should be forced to pay for the legal fees in the particular case due to simple gross negligence on their part.
I'm a huge fan of the 360, so take this as you will. But that thing does fail more often than it should. In addition to what you've listed, you can add power supply failure as a major problem.
I went through 3 PS2's and 2 PS1's in their lifespans, and I got in pretty late on the PS1. I wouldn't be suprised at all if the first batch of 360's didn't last more than two or three years average for even casual gamers. Hardcore gamers: expect to replace a few.
I don't even want to know what PS3 fail rates are going to be.
And who, exactly, would carry the serious, mainstream IP focused debate? The networks? Rupert Murdoc's newspapers?
No, the best thing is if the networks decided to spin this for good PR, and talked about how they're putting the presidential debates into the public domain and that anyone can copy and distribute them. Then you get people asking things like "what's the public domain?" "So what else should we be free to distribute?" and "which one is my video editing application?"
Sure, that means you'll get 100 videos of Kucinich doing the Hampster Dance, but such is the price of freedom.
What does that have to do with standing behind the request for creative commons?
Good people do bad things. Bad people do good things. That doesn't change the action itself, or whether or not we should get behind it.