If Rockstar weren't so successful, do you think they would be so generous?
Not everybody has the ability to dedicate time to projects that aren't profitable. It's great that Rockstar does, but don't spite small-time developers for having to eat, sleep indoors, etc.
I don't believe this is the case. Personally, I think updating the game is merely icing on the cake. I think the good part about this is re-releasing FOR FREE an old game that for all intents and purposes has passed the end of its marketable life. I mean, I would be ecstatic if some of the games I played ages ago were released for free. Too often, games end up permanently shelved or only sold through the most obscure locations and stores. If there were suddenly a whole slew of releases for dos/win3.1, I'd probably dust off some of the old computer parts I still have (including my good old gravis ultasound and gamepad) and build a nice little system for these games.
No one says the small-time developers have to update old games to release them for free, just toss it out in its original form when it's passed the end of its shelf life (or if sequels have already been released). However, whether or not it is profitable is debatable. After all, playing the original version for free can stimulate people to purchase the latest release. (raise your hand if you ever bought the sequel to a game just because of how much you loved the original). So you end up dealing with 2 different categories of people. Those who have supported your company already and are looking for nostalgia (good to keep happy), and those who have never played the games in the series and if impressed, could shell out 50$ for the newest version (but of course if the game is shite, then it should promptly be buried beside all those Atari 2600 ET cartriges).
Taiwan had a GDP per capita (at purchasing power parity) of 22,676 in 2001
But per capita GDP is not the same as per capita income. In 2000, workforce (that is, only those actually working) per capita income in Taiwan, excluding Taipei, was less that $15,000. I know only a small handful of folks (and because my business is education my circle of friends includes government employees, college professors, doctors and other educated elite) who bring home $US22,000 a year. Most years, even I barely clear that, I and make more money than almost anybody else I know.
Just as a point of clarification, I added in the purchasing power parity to try to balance out the figures. For those who don't know what it is (which I didn't until I took a quick peak at some stats info), it takes into account the differences in cost of living, adjusted to the US. In other words, @ppp tries to even up the cost based on buying a years worth of groceries, a home stereo, and misc other things even though the actual numbers will differ (at least as far as I understood it, any economists out there are free to correct me and smack me upside the head with a day old salmon if I'm off the mark). Just clarifying that I wasn't saying that taiwanese make $US22K, the actual figure was around $US12,000, which is probably more in line with your experiences. I simply wanted to try evening up the figures for comparing the price of Microsoft products (per the thread).
Cuz we can afford it. In a lot of other countries around the world where a worker only brings home $1200 a year (and that's rich for some villagers in China), how can they afford a $100-$300USD app suite? Enter the five finger or low cost piracy. Plain and simple economics, not ethics. And since when is M$ an ethical company anyway?
While that's a valid point in general, it really doesn't apply to this situation, since we're talking about Taiwan, not China. Taiwan had a GDP per capita (at purchasing power parity) of 22,676 in 2001 (compared to the US at 35,032 and China at 5,935). So a 100-300$ app suite there is NOT 25% of the typical family budget as in your scenario. So yes, I think the US could still learn from this example.
And what happens if 'to google' is permitted without acknowledging the trademark? restating what someone else stated, then a site could use uGoogle.com meaning you search. So protecting the use of the use of the word IS protecting against confusingly similar products.
The "Navigator" argument is completely irrelevant, as both are based off of the noun form of 'navigate'. Without Lincoln or Netscape, there still would be navigators in the world.
It's not like someone would arbitrarily have picked out 'googling' for searching if the company weren't out there.
In other words, a product could be released called 'Law Navigator", but "LegalGoogle" probably could be contested legally.
If they know where the sites are, why haven't they been shut down?
The sites probably aren't in Pennsylvania. They might be anywhere in the world.
Oh, I think you're on to something here. The goverment start requiring blocking all domains that might have child porn, leaving only iraqi domains unblocked, so all child porn sites end up migrating to the underutilized.iq (is pr0n.raises-your.iq registered yet?)...and in the name of all that is decent and family values, we finally have a reason to invade and bomb iraq! oh wait, nevermind.
Sheesh. Get a grip people. Just because it isn't useful for you doesn't mean it's a total waste for everyone. The fact of the matter is, it DOES accomplish things that a bicycle can't accomplish (and yes, I own a decent Cannondale racing bike). I guess not a lot of people on here have spent a lot of time in Chicago. I don't own a car, but if this became reasonably priced (sub $2000), and upped the mileage per charge to over 15 miles, I might consider buying one.
First off, it would be able to get me to work and back faster then the El train (according to the rated speed, it would be 30 minutes vs. 45-60). I would be able to use bikepaths or possibly the paths along the lake. Yes, I WOULD ride my bicycle to work, however, I don't think the clients would appreciate the fact that our building has no shower facilities. I'd end up stuck buying a health club membership just to use their showers. No go. I'd rather just ride my bike in the evenings.
Next there's this concept of errands. Sorry, once again, a bicycle won't cut it. Yeah, I could (and do) walk the mile+ to the grocery store, or the 2 miles to the Pier 1/Office Depot complex, or the 3 miles to the Target, but when you have 6 bags of groceries, and it's a bit chilly out, I'd say a segway would come in pretty handy.
And unlike a scooter, it would be something I could haul up a flight of stairs and keep in my apartment.
All in all, 1500$ wouldn't be too bad to continue to not need a car (and make car payments and insurance payments), to get to work faster, and to ease running errands.
If the price came down, and the mileage per charge up, I think Chicago IS a city that this could become a mainstream item. There are enough bike paths to separate pedestrians from Segway users, it would cut down on polution, and make life without a car even easier (since for me, groceries and laundry do not qualify as enough reasons to buy a car).
Just because it doesn't offer a convenience for YOU doesn't mean it's only useful for the lazy. There are places in the world where it can be useful and where riding a bicycle is not practical.
Disney is a completely different ball of wax. They have been stuck in the model of artificial scarcity for god knows how long. Basically, since they control the exact distribution of each of their movies, all they have to do is take it out of print for a while, sit back until the next generation needs copies, release them, grab all the profits that their pockets can hold, and shut down shop on that video for several years.
Of course in the modern age, this may come back to bite them. Back with VHS, it wasn't quite as bad, because you can't really dilute the market with copies of copies of copies. Now, once something is released on DVD, it's only a matter of time before a DivX version finds its way out there...ESPECIALLY for harder to find releases. As broadband kicks up and video compression algorithms get more streamlined/refined, it's only a matter of time before the entire DivX Disney library can be had with just a quick click of [insert your favorite p2p client here]. And of course each of these copies can have the same or near the same quality as the original.
That's the sad part. Most of the people I know who like Disney cartoons would happily buy a collection for themselves or for their kids, IF they were all available. But if you can't get your hands on Robin Hood, or Peter Pan, well, it doesn't leave much choice except to either pirate it or wait until your kid is a freshman in college, and Disney decides it's time to line its pockets again.
> Yep. Really show the level of the poster , doesn't > it? Kids are obsessed with how much it costs them > to buy a copy of Windows, people with experience > realise that they're talking about why software > costs millions to develop....
We have to keep in mind that development costs can be figured in different manners. Working for a small development firm making a transition from consulting to software development, we recently did work on a product which development costs are figured at over $1Million USD. Of course our math needs to be based off of the loss in revenues from programmers working on the project as opposed to billable hours they would have received in the field (since all our employees are consultants AND programmers), so based on lost potential revenues, development costs are figured by averaging the going rates of the developers involved (factoring in differences in economy during the 2 year development cycle).
As our company moves further into the transition, and a greater percentage of revunue comes in from sales of the product versus consulting, the figure will come down and be based more on the salaries of the developers as opposed to consulting time lost. This is simply the difference between net costs (time and resources) versus lost revenue. Now, for a company that has a staff of pure developers, i.e. Microsoft, Sun, Oracle, etc. that is separate from the consulting branch, there is typically no loss in consulting time.
It's all a matter of whether factoring costs or costs plus lost revenues.
As a software/web/database developer working for a small company, I've done tons of random projects ranging from under 1k up to where I personally billed 6 figures. One interesting tidbit I've noticed is that in some places, due to 'company policy', for any project over a certain dollar amount (for instance, with a county gov't agency, it was 5,000), they were required to go to bid. Our bids typically are higher then some, but lower then others, but of course, all this was a mere formality. We were getting the contract because we'd done work for them in the past, done service and support for free over a period of years, and they felt comfortable with our work.
By the same token, we'd also had to work with other development teams that were completely inept. However, the upper management of the client was practically 'in bed' with the other consulting company, so they billed out close to 400,000 even though I did a majority of the work, and the other developers were learning as they went along (or asking me to explain how to do things!).
Having seen both sides of the spectrum on this, a person has to always keep in mind that business politics can take precedence at the end of the day, regardless of dollar figures.
Well, Now you know one sysadmin who has made serious use of NT's ACLs. They actually do come in handy if you know how to effectively use them. The u/g/o permissions are sufficient in most instances, but being able to set up 1 person as the "owner", a group with "rwx" perms, everyone with "rx" permissions, and excluding one group from even looking in that directory....in a corporate LAN, that type of thing comes in handy.
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I don't believe this is the case. Personally, I think updating the game is merely icing on the cake. I think the good part about this is re-releasing FOR FREE an old game that for all intents and purposes has passed the end of its marketable life. I mean, I would be ecstatic if some of the games I played ages ago were released for free. Too often, games end up permanently shelved or only sold through the most obscure locations and stores. If there were suddenly a whole slew of releases for dos/win3.1, I'd probably dust off some of the old computer parts I still have (including my good old gravis ultasound and gamepad) and build a nice little system for these games.
No one says the small-time developers have to update old games to release them for free, just toss it out in its original form when it's passed the end of its shelf life (or if sequels have already been released). However, whether or not it is profitable is debatable. After all, playing the original version for free can stimulate people to purchase the latest release. (raise your hand if you ever bought the sequel to a game just because of how much you loved the original). So you end up dealing with 2 different categories of people. Those who have supported your company already and are looking for nostalgia (good to keep happy), and those who have never played the games in the series and if impressed, could shell out 50$ for the newest version (but of course if the game is shite, then it should promptly be buried beside all those Atari 2600 ET cartriges).
Just as a point of clarification, I added in the purchasing power parity to try to balance out the figures. For those who don't know what it is (which I didn't until I took a quick peak at some stats info), it takes into account the differences in cost of living, adjusted to the US. In other words, @ppp tries to even up the cost based on buying a years worth of groceries, a home stereo, and misc other things even though the actual numbers will differ (at least as far as I understood it, any economists out there are free to correct me and smack me upside the head with a day old salmon if I'm off the mark). Just clarifying that I wasn't saying that taiwanese make $US22K, the actual figure was around $US12,000, which is probably more in line with your experiences. I simply wanted to try evening up the figures for comparing the price of Microsoft products (per the thread).
And what happens if 'to google' is permitted without acknowledging the trademark? restating what someone else stated, then a site could use uGoogle.com meaning you search. So protecting the use of the use of the word IS protecting against confusingly similar products.
The "Navigator" argument is completely irrelevant, as both are based off of the noun form of 'navigate'. Without Lincoln or Netscape, there still would be navigators in the world.
It's not like someone would arbitrarily have picked out 'googling' for searching if the company weren't out there.
In other words, a product could be released called 'Law Navigator", but "LegalGoogle" probably could be contested legally.
Oh, I think you're on to something here. The goverment start requiring blocking all domains that might have child porn, leaving only iraqi domains unblocked, so all child porn sites end up migrating to the underutilized .iq (is pr0n.raises-your.iq registered yet?)...and in the name of all that is decent and family values, we finally have a reason to invade and bomb iraq! oh wait, nevermind.
Sheesh. Get a grip people. Just because it isn't useful for you doesn't mean it's a total waste for everyone. The fact of the matter is, it DOES accomplish things that a bicycle can't accomplish (and yes, I own a decent Cannondale racing bike). I guess not a lot of people on here have spent a lot of time in Chicago. I don't own a car, but if this became reasonably priced (sub $2000), and upped the mileage per charge to over 15 miles, I might consider buying one.
First off, it would be able to get me to work and back faster then the El train (according to the rated speed, it would be 30 minutes vs. 45-60). I would be able to use bikepaths or possibly the paths along the lake. Yes, I WOULD ride my bicycle to work, however, I don't think the clients would appreciate the fact that our building has no shower facilities. I'd end up stuck buying a health club membership just to use their showers. No go. I'd rather just ride my bike in the evenings.
Next there's this concept of errands. Sorry, once again, a bicycle won't cut it. Yeah, I could (and do) walk the mile+ to the grocery store, or the 2 miles to the Pier 1/Office Depot complex, or the 3 miles to the Target, but when you have 6 bags of groceries, and it's a bit chilly out, I'd say a segway would come in pretty handy.
And unlike a scooter, it would be something I could haul up a flight of stairs and keep in my apartment.
All in all, 1500$ wouldn't be too bad to continue to not need a car (and make car payments and insurance payments), to get to work faster, and to ease running errands.
If the price came down, and the mileage per charge up, I think Chicago IS a city that this could become a mainstream item. There are enough bike paths to separate pedestrians from Segway users, it would cut down on polution, and make life without a car even easier (since for me, groceries and laundry do not qualify as enough reasons to buy a car).
Just because it doesn't offer a convenience for YOU doesn't mean it's only useful for the lazy. There are places in the world where it can be useful and where riding a bicycle is not practical.
Disney is a completely different ball of wax. They have been stuck in the model of artificial scarcity for god knows how long. Basically, since they control the exact distribution of each of their movies, all they have to do is take it out of print for a while, sit back until the next generation needs copies, release them, grab all the profits that their pockets can hold, and shut down shop on that video for several years.
Of course in the modern age, this may come back to bite them. Back with VHS, it wasn't quite as bad, because you can't really dilute the market with copies of copies of copies. Now, once something is released on DVD, it's only a matter of time before a DivX version finds its way out there...ESPECIALLY for harder to find releases. As broadband kicks up and video compression algorithms get more streamlined/refined, it's only a matter of time before the entire DivX Disney library can be had with just a quick click of [insert your favorite p2p client here]. And of course each of these copies can have the same or near the same quality as the original.
That's the sad part. Most of the people I know who like Disney cartoons would happily buy a collection for themselves or for their kids, IF they were all available. But if you can't get your hands on Robin Hood, or Peter Pan, well, it doesn't leave much choice except to either pirate it or wait until your kid is a freshman in college, and Disney decides it's time to line its pockets again.
shouldn't it be
15) ???
16) Profit
Aaargh! I have to take High School geometry all over again after my math teacher retroactively re-graded for accuracy based on the new value of pi.
Thank a lot!
> Yep. Really show the level of the poster , doesn't
> it? Kids are obsessed with how much it costs them
> to buy a copy of Windows, people with experience
> realise that they're talking about why software
> costs millions to develop....
We have to keep in mind that development costs can be figured in different manners. Working for a small development firm making a transition from consulting to software development, we recently did work on a product which development costs are figured at over $1Million USD. Of course our math needs to be based off of the loss in revenues from programmers working on the project as opposed to billable hours they would have received in the field (since all our employees are consultants AND programmers), so based on lost potential revenues, development costs are figured by averaging the going rates of the developers involved (factoring in differences in economy during the 2 year development cycle).
As our company moves further into the transition, and a greater percentage of revunue comes in from sales of the product versus consulting, the figure will come down and be based more on the salaries of the developers as opposed to consulting time lost. This is simply the difference between net costs (time and resources) versus lost revenue. Now, for a company that has a staff of pure developers, i.e. Microsoft, Sun, Oracle, etc. that is separate from the consulting branch, there is typically no loss in consulting time.
It's all a matter of whether factoring costs or costs plus lost revenues.
That might be the case, but seeing "XBox Sales Skyrocket -- Game sales decline" would be even better IMHO.
As a software/web/database developer working for a small company, I've done tons of random projects ranging from under 1k up to where I personally billed 6 figures. One interesting tidbit I've noticed is that in some places, due to 'company policy', for any project over a certain dollar amount (for instance, with a county gov't agency, it was 5,000), they were required to go to bid. Our bids typically are higher then some, but lower then others, but of course, all this was a mere formality. We were getting the contract because we'd done work for them in the past, done service and support for free over a period of years, and they felt comfortable with our work.
By the same token, we'd also had to work with other development teams that were completely inept. However, the upper management of the client was practically 'in bed' with the other consulting company, so they billed out close to 400,000 even though I did a majority of the work, and the other developers were learning as they went along (or asking me to explain how to do things!).
Having seen both sides of the spectrum on this, a person has to always keep in mind that business politics can take precedence at the end of the day, regardless of dollar figures.
Well, Now you know one sysadmin who has made serious use of NT's ACLs. They actually do come in handy if you know how to effectively use them.
The u/g/o permissions are sufficient in most instances, but being able to set up 1 person as the "owner", a group with "rwx" perms, everyone with "rx" permissions, and excluding one group from even looking in that directory....in a corporate LAN, that type of thing comes in handy.