Well, in reality this might not be a bad idea for a small studio to get some high-profile placement for their work.
For instance NOAA is using the Sculptie Earth model created by TFPSoft in Second Life as a basis for some of their Earth presentations but all they could afford to provide in return was a logo drop... While it's certainly nice to get paid, sometimes getting some visibility for you company has it's own value.
Now in this case I would like to hope that the "NASA will consider negotiating brand placement, limited exclusivity and other opportunities" notice is there simply to help constrain the discussion up front and not something that will be used to screw a developer out of any recognition for their work. As I'm sure unfettered we'd see "The Sprint in Space MMO, with PVP combat around Uranus... beotch!" game.
It's documented that the missionaries actively destroyed Mayan literature as being pagan works of the devil. The small scraps left hint at materials that might have touched on everything from law to stellar cartography.
I've been a subscriber to SL for over two years and in my explorations of the more enlightened side of the world I have come to the conclusion that the ratio of normal to weird is pretty much comparable. I believe that the only reason the weird gets so much more attention is because of the inherent anonymity presented to users which allows them to feel more comfortable to seek out and explore the weird places. If people spent their time looking for museums instead of sex clubs, they could spend days, if not weeks exploring the tremendous amount of art (both RL by proxy, and SL original) present in world, with new and changing content appearing all the time.
In more simple terms. I posit the question... If you could ensure your total anonymity, would you be more likely to take a stroll through a swingers club to see what was actually going on in the building? Would you be more inclined to take part in or casually stand by and observe any of a large array of "socially unacceptable" practices and behaviors because you felt that you could do so with no social repercussions?
In my opinion, this is what I see happening and this is more than likely the cause of the perception of there being a higher ratio of weird.
I actually have a full and productive real life that I am quite satisfied with. My personal interest in virtual worlds is in the new ways to represent information systems and data processing. It is frustrating to see so much serious, productive work being done in these environments and none of it getting recognition. While major press outlets run article after article on furry sex or Gor RPers which appear to be minorities in the grand scheme of things. It's like saying everyone in Minnesota has sex with goats because you heard from a friend about a 10 minute story the friend saw on the TV news in Florida which was actually a sensationalized retelling of a single line from a police blotter.
I mean seriously. It would be like you traveled to New York, got off the plain, asked every person you could find "where is there a sex shop?" until you got an answer... traveled to said shop. Went in and screamed "Oh my god this city has a sex in it! Grab your pitch-forks!!!" Yeah dumb-ass, that was like 1 out of 100,000 stores, did you bother looking for anything else? Did you bother asking about any other kind of places? Did you even look at the hundreds if not thousands of other stores, and business, etc... in the city? Did you bother talking to anyone other than that 60 year old lady with a mustache working behind sex shop counter who made you feel uncomfortable because she told you to buy something or leave? No? You didn't? Then STFU.
The things you describe are the NYT/Wired sensationalized and uninformed perspective of SL. The only reason to experience those things is if you're looking to have those experiences. If you're involved in the Sci/Tech and Business communities developing in SL, it's an entirely different community where none of that type of activity is really tolerated.
Thanks for adding your clueless bleatings to the herd.
Our 360 died also a few months back. I'm totally pissed about the "gotta be logged in" to play my games crap. I absolutely, unequivocally do not like the idea that I MUST have my 360 actively connected to the Internet at all times that I want to play my purchased games.
My 360 is connected to our network via a hardline in our entertainment center. If I want to move the system to another room to play (eg, bedroom, etc...), I need to drag a network wire across my house and hope nobody trips over it... Or, elect not to play any of the games that I play on the system (my kids mostly play the games off physical media).
While we're on that subject, who else here thinks the Arcade collection is a scam? So you buy this disc of games instead of downloading them and guess what? The achievements and points earned from them only apply IF the CD is in the system. Otherwise you loose the achievements until you put the disc back in. Get a great score on one of those games and you're ranking is only applicable while the CD is in the drive. Talk about damaged by design.
I've really about had it with this whole DRM method, and I'm hoping that someone comes up with a solid off-line crack method for both the 360 and Wii so when the systems go into retirement, I can still play the games I've bought.
In November 2000, Iraq began selling its oil in Euros. Iraq's oil for food account at the UN was also in Euros and Iraq later converted its $10 billion reserve fund at the UN to Euros......and then the U.S. invaded and one of the first things it did it switched the country back to selling oil in Dollars. Hmmm...
Geometry Wars on the Wii features an option for you to let DS users download the DS version of the game for them to play. It is lacking the co-op mode though which is featured in the off the shelf version of the DS title (this is also needed to unlock a bonus level on the Wii version). The best thing is that it made me and my kids aware of the quality of the DS title, so now it's on the list of games to pick up.
Can't forget one of the most important Blade Runner inspired games to have been forgotten by and large by the masses. If you haven't played it, it's a toss up between the Japanese PCEngine and US/EU SegaCD releases as to which is best. So depending on your language skills, pick your poison.
Sure, but context is important. In 10 years you're going to have alot of kids and young adults out there who haven't what a phonebooth is, or why they would want to use one, let alone why would someone voluntarily trap themselves in a glass box like that when they could just use their cell, or borrow one from any random passers-by.
No dramatic suspense... just "what is that guy doing" moments.
But in Second Life you are now socializing and possibly conducting business for your employer. Many companies are utilizing Second Life as a virtual meeting space to conduct international meetings.
"While our industry has had its fair share of accusations of impropriety, nothing so far has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt."
That's total bullshit. Myself and others have spoke out about this before. Personally, when we were publishing our magazine, we specifically refused to take advertising from game companies except on a few occasions just to avoid this issue (in our mind we were trying to adopt more of a Consumer Reports approach). With only four exceptions in 5 years, we only took ads from retailers in our print magazine, and only ever ran two ads on the website. It made it REALLY hard to make ends meet though and was one of the factors that ended the magazine (in 96' we were running over a million hits a day in web traffic to our primary site alone and that wasn't cheap).
Even with doing that we had pressure on us to write favorable reviews or risk getting our preview status yanked. In fact one of the hardware manufactures recalled our Dev hardware that we were using to preview betas because of an unfavorable preview.
There is an expectation in the industry that if magazines want access to previews, and news leads that they better play ball or they will get cut out of the picture.
You know something else came up that I forgot to add into that, apparently word has it that Nintendo is looking to add HD to the Wii within two years, which could also be what is getting referenced here.
Look, I think this is a statement that is being made to frame expectations on a DS sequal, and handle potential attacks on the Wii as well.
As you can see here I have been tracking the release cycles of all of the Nintendo platforms, and Nintendo has some pretty strong behavioral trends built up over the last 30 years.
Historically, a new console is release every 5 years and a new hand-held ever 10 years, with experimental platforms and incremental upgrades in-between (Virtual Boy, DS).
If the DS becomes the new "handheld" line as many expected but Nintendo has denied then it's in for a 10 year life cycle. Note that they still have not identified the DS as an upgrade/replacement for the GBA line which still commands some sales (GB Micro, etc...), so they're going to be careful not to cannibalize any remaining sales in that market.
Also, it's only a matter of time before Microsoft or Sony takes a direct attack on the Wii as literally being beefed up GameCube hardware in as a marketing attack since it has taken off so well. Unfortunately for them the Wii is strong with every other demographic of consumer, and if this does happen, I don't see it getting them far outside the gaming press.
You've got to step back and take a look at the big picture of what is said and the greater context of other statements and general behavior.
Granted Nintendo is slowly making changes structurally since Iwata took over as would be expected, but this is also a company that has been in business for over a hundred years, so they're internal culture and business strategies are clearly working for them to some degree.
Also, I think the Wii has yet to hit it's stride yet in development exploitation of it's features. Given that it's really lost a year of ground here, it could be that Nintendo is actively assessing the idea of letting the hardware dev cycle slip by a year or two with the Wii. Additionally, they're probably also trying to assess how to expand DS sales at the critical 6 year mark when normally they would be issuing a mid-level system improvement that doesn't effect platform compatibility (eg, GameBoy Color).
Let's see... E3 was Manufacturers, Distributors, Retailers, Press, Fan-press (when they could lie convincingly enough to get past teh registration nazis), and.... developers.
The new E3 was Manufacturers, Distributors, Retailers, maybe press.
Let's see E For All was Manufacturers, maybe press, and fanboys.
And they failed why? Because the cut out the drunken developers who all went to GDC. Partay!!! W00t!@... who I might add went to PAX as well . Hmmm.
Here is how I called in 2002 and I'm sticking with my statement!
You can read the whole post there, but in short I closed with: "While I hate to see a core group from Nintendo go over to the hands of the soulless boys and girls of Microsoft... deep down I almost hope that Rare actually continues it's pitiful slide into the hole of mediocrity and takes MS with them... but that would be hoping for to much I guess."
This is ridiculous. I only actively keep three systems running in my entertainment center. Backwards compatibility has allowed us to keep more games in circulation to play at any given time without having to drag out a console and wire it up for a session.
Also on the idea of having to pull out the Wii out of it's base to play GameCube games. Haven't you heard of WaveBird controllers? Problem solved.
I've been waiting for the cost of the PS3 to drop and now damn it I'm faced with the decision of do I buy a used hardware emu unit? Buy the top end software emu unit? Or what? Damn it that system is so huge, there is no way I'm going to have a PS2, PS3, 360 and a Wii all crammed together on one shelf now?
Here I've been trying to figure out how I was finally going to buy a PS3 and a PSP to surprise my kids for Christmas and this news is really dropping my incentive to by a PS3 at all. Besides the kids got their Halo 3 so they could care less anyhow, and from what they've seen of "Home" they prefer building in Second Life on the teen grid.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, in reality this might not be a bad idea for a small studio to get some high-profile placement for their work.
For instance NOAA is using the Sculptie Earth model created by TFPSoft in Second Life as a basis for some of their Earth presentations but all they could afford to provide in return was a logo drop... While it's certainly nice to get paid, sometimes getting some visibility for you company has it's own value.
Now in this case I would like to hope that the "NASA will consider negotiating brand placement, limited exclusivity and other opportunities" notice is there simply to help constrain the discussion up front and not something that will be used to screw a developer out of any recognition for their work. As I'm sure unfettered we'd see "The Sprint in Space MMO, with PVP combat around Uranus... beotch!" game.
On second thought... Doh!
It's documented that the missionaries actively destroyed Mayan literature as being pagan works of the devil. The small scraps left hint at materials that might have touched on everything from law to stellar cartography.
I think I'll stand by my N.Y. analogy.
I've been a subscriber to SL for over two years and in my explorations of the more enlightened side of the world I have come to the conclusion that the ratio of normal to weird is pretty much comparable. I believe that the only reason the weird gets so much more attention is because of the inherent anonymity presented to users which allows them to feel more comfortable to seek out and explore the weird places. If people spent their time looking for museums instead of sex clubs, they could spend days, if not weeks exploring the tremendous amount of art (both RL by proxy, and SL original) present in world, with new and changing content appearing all the time.
In more simple terms. I posit the question... If you could ensure your total anonymity, would you be more likely to take a stroll through a swingers club to see what was actually going on in the building? Would you be more inclined to take part in or casually stand by and observe any of a large array of "socially unacceptable" practices and behaviors because you felt that you could do so with no social repercussions?
In my opinion, this is what I see happening and this is more than likely the cause of the perception of there being a higher ratio of weird.
I actually have a full and productive real life that I am quite satisfied with. My personal interest in virtual worlds is in the new ways to represent information systems and data processing. It is frustrating to see so much serious, productive work being done in these environments and none of it getting recognition. While major press outlets run article after article on furry sex or Gor RPers which appear to be minorities in the grand scheme of things. It's like saying everyone in Minnesota has sex with goats because you heard from a friend about a 10 minute story the friend saw on the TV news in Florida which was actually a sensationalized retelling of a single line from a police blotter.
I mean seriously. It would be like you traveled to New York, got off the plain, asked every person you could find "where is there a sex shop?" until you got an answer... traveled to said shop. Went in and screamed "Oh my god this city has a sex in it! Grab your pitch-forks!!!" Yeah dumb-ass, that was like 1 out of 100,000 stores, did you bother looking for anything else? Did you bother asking about any other kind of places? Did you even look at the hundreds if not thousands of other stores, and business, etc... in the city? Did you bother talking to anyone other than that 60 year old lady with a mustache working behind sex shop counter who made you feel uncomfortable because she told you to buy something or leave? No? You didn't? Then STFU.
The things you describe are the NYT/Wired sensationalized and uninformed perspective of SL. The only reason to experience those things is if you're looking to have those experiences. If you're involved in the Sci/Tech and Business communities developing in SL, it's an entirely different community where none of that type of activity is really tolerated.
Thanks for adding your clueless bleatings to the herd.
That's an impressive post.
Our 360 died also a few months back. I'm totally pissed about the "gotta be logged in" to play my games crap. I absolutely, unequivocally do not like the idea that I MUST have my 360 actively connected to the Internet at all times that I want to play my purchased games.
My 360 is connected to our network via a hardline in our entertainment center. If I want to move the system to another room to play (eg, bedroom, etc...), I need to drag a network wire across my house and hope nobody trips over it... Or, elect not to play any of the games that I play on the system (my kids mostly play the games off physical media).
While we're on that subject, who else here thinks the Arcade collection is a scam? So you buy this disc of games instead of downloading them and guess what? The achievements and points earned from them only apply IF the CD is in the system. Otherwise you loose the achievements until you put the disc back in. Get a great score on one of those games and you're ranking is only applicable while the CD is in the drive. Talk about damaged by design.
I've really about had it with this whole DRM method, and I'm hoping that someone comes up with a solid off-line crack method for both the 360 and Wii so when the systems go into retirement, I can still play the games I've bought.
In November 2000, Iraq began selling its oil in Euros. Iraq's oil for food account at the UN was also in Euros and Iraq later converted its $10 billion reserve fund at the UN to Euros... ...and then the U.S. invaded and one of the first things it did it switched the country back to selling oil in Dollars. Hmmm...
Geometry Wars on the Wii features an option for you to let DS users download the DS version of the game for them to play. It is lacking the co-op mode though which is featured in the off the shelf version of the DS title (this is also needed to unlock a bonus level on the Wii version). The best thing is that it made me and my kids aware of the quality of the DS title, so now it's on the list of games to pick up.
Can't forget one of the most important Blade Runner inspired games to have been forgotten by and large by the masses. If you haven't played it, it's a toss up between the Japanese PCEngine and US/EU SegaCD releases as to which is best. So depending on your language skills, pick your poison.
Sure, but context is important. In 10 years you're going to have alot of kids and young adults out there who haven't what a phonebooth is, or why they would want to use one, let alone why would someone voluntarily trap themselves in a glass box like that when they could just use their cell, or borrow one from any random passers-by.
No dramatic suspense... just "what is that guy doing" moments.
Sigh... yet another classic movie cliche goes the way of the DoDo.
But in Second Life you are now socializing and possibly conducting business for your employer. Many companies are utilizing Second Life as a virtual meeting space to conduct international meetings.
Previews, story leads and published timely reviews are the life blood of the gaming press. In this regard they are no different.
Besides a respected reviewer writing a brutal preview can diffuse the buzz on an upcoming title at the most and create concern at the least.
"While our industry has had its fair share of accusations of impropriety, nothing so far has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt."
That's total bullshit. Myself and others have spoke out about this before. Personally, when we were publishing our magazine, we specifically refused to take advertising from game companies except on a few occasions just to avoid this issue (in our mind we were trying to adopt more of a Consumer Reports approach). With only four exceptions in 5 years, we only took ads from retailers in our print magazine, and only ever ran two ads on the website. It made it REALLY hard to make ends meet though and was one of the factors that ended the magazine (in 96' we were running over a million hits a day in web traffic to our primary site alone and that wasn't cheap).
Even with doing that we had pressure on us to write favorable reviews or risk getting our preview status yanked. In fact one of the hardware manufactures recalled our Dev hardware that we were using to preview betas because of an unfavorable preview.
There is an expectation in the industry that if magazines want access to previews, and news leads that they better play ball or they will get cut out of the picture.
You know something else came up that I forgot to add into that, apparently word has it that Nintendo is looking to add HD to the Wii within two years, which could also be what is getting referenced here.
Look, I think this is a statement that is being made to frame expectations on a DS sequal, and handle potential attacks on the Wii as well.
As you can see here I have been tracking the release cycles of all of the Nintendo platforms, and Nintendo has some pretty strong behavioral trends built up over the last 30 years.
Historically, a new console is release every 5 years and a new hand-held ever 10 years, with experimental platforms and incremental upgrades in-between (Virtual Boy, DS).
If the DS becomes the new "handheld" line as many expected but Nintendo has denied then it's in for a 10 year life cycle. Note that they still have not identified the DS as an upgrade/replacement for the GBA line which still commands some sales (GB Micro, etc...), so they're going to be careful not to cannibalize any remaining sales in that market.
Also, it's only a matter of time before Microsoft or Sony takes a direct attack on the Wii as literally being beefed up GameCube hardware in as a marketing attack since it has taken off so well. Unfortunately for them the Wii is strong with every other demographic of consumer, and if this does happen, I don't see it getting them far outside the gaming press.
You've got to step back and take a look at the big picture of what is said and the greater context of other statements and general behavior.
Granted Nintendo is slowly making changes structurally since Iwata took over as would be expected, but this is also a company that has been in business for over a hundred years, so they're internal culture and business strategies are clearly working for them to some degree.
Also, I think the Wii has yet to hit it's stride yet in development exploitation of it's features. Given that it's really lost a year of ground here, it could be that Nintendo is actively assessing the idea of letting the hardware dev cycle slip by a year or two with the Wii. Additionally, they're probably also trying to assess how to expand DS sales at the critical 6 year mark when normally they would be issuing a mid-level system improvement that doesn't effect platform compatibility (eg, GameBoy Color).
Oh well, I'm just rambling, it's all good.
Why the hell hasn't someone unwrapped the format used on the NES, TG-16, Genesis ROMs and figured out how to encode your own ROMs to run on the Wii?
Let's see... E3 was Manufacturers, Distributors, Retailers, Press, Fan-press (when they could lie convincingly enough to get past teh registration nazis), and .... developers.
... who I might add went to PAX as well . Hmmm.
The new E3 was Manufacturers, Distributors, Retailers, maybe press.
Let's see E For All was Manufacturers, maybe press, and fanboys.
And they failed why? Because the cut out the drunken developers who all went to GDC. Partay!!! W00t!@
Oh crap. Now you guys have done it. Not only did you name Him, it's been compounded by being named in a quote. Gagghgghahgh
I misspelled "Author" also =D
USENET FAQ
Posted: 00:00:00 UTC on January 1, 1970
Version 0.0.1
Authro: Kibble
Group: Alt.First.Post
The first rule of Usenet is you don't talk about Usenet
Here is how I called in 2002 and I'm sticking with my statement!
You can read the whole post there, but in short I closed with: "While I hate to see a core group from Nintendo go over to the hands of the soulless boys and girls of Microsoft... deep down I almost hope that Rare actually continues it's pitiful slide into the hole of mediocrity and takes MS with them... but that would be hoping for to much I guess."
Or you can read one of my many posts on the subject on this very site.
Maybe that's actually playing out as predicted? Who can tell. The facts of the matter are that Microsoft got screwed in the purchase.
Bryan
WTF, this thread clearly shows who does and doesn't have a life, or a job, or a family or a clue.
Video games are entertainment for me. I am not entertainment for arrogant developers.
This is ridiculous. I only actively keep three systems running in my entertainment center. Backwards compatibility has allowed us to keep more games in circulation to play at any given time without having to drag out a console and wire it up for a session.
Also on the idea of having to pull out the Wii out of it's base to play GameCube games. Haven't you heard of WaveBird controllers? Problem solved.
I've been waiting for the cost of the PS3 to drop and now damn it I'm faced with the decision of do I buy a used hardware emu unit? Buy the top end software emu unit? Or what? Damn it that system is so huge, there is no way I'm going to have a PS2, PS3, 360 and a Wii all crammed together on one shelf now?
Here I've been trying to figure out how I was finally going to buy a PS3 and a PSP to surprise my kids for Christmas and this news is really dropping my incentive to by a PS3 at all. Besides the kids got their Halo 3 so they could care less anyhow, and from what they've seen of "Home" they prefer building in Second Life on the teen grid.
Eh?