I want to make prediction here, and I hope I'm wrong. I predict that not only will there be no post-Dreamcast SEGA consoles, but that in the future SEGA will be much like Atari, a trendy brand name used by a more successful video game company. Basically, I haven't liked where they are heading, and predictions that they would be in great shape as a third party for soul-destroying behemoth Sony (and not-very-nice-but-still-better-than-Sony Microsoft) haven't materialized. In fact, SEGA's exit from the console industry has simply made the console industry a grayer, more depressing place with no gains for the average gamer.
Well, back to searching for a mint-condition copy of Splatterhouse 3 for SEGA Genesis, a game I stupidly sold during the golden age of gaming, not realizing that the good times wouldn't last forever.
Mail Order Monsters was out for the Atari 800, I preferred Archon II: Adept, though... fewer monsters to choose from but I liked the strategic element.
My Dad like to play "Seven Cities of Gold," but it was always a slaughter when he played....
The guy who won the contest was the guy who was most likely to attract a woman on his own. Therefore, he was least likely to need any help in getting dates. So, provided the prize was valuable to him, he's the person in the contest most likely to toss the girl over the side.
This doesn't prove anything about "games being more valued than female attention," and besides maybe the whole thing was a Sony publicity stunt for their aging game platform...
Well, I applaud your stance. I'll quote Archibald "Harry" Tuttle (from Brazil), "We're all in this together." (Although most of the responses here on Slashdot remind me of Jack Lint, unfortunately.)
But this doesn't just deal with religious people. Years ago, when I was working at Software, Etc. (sigh.... those were the days) I had a teacher come in looking at Super Nintendos. She was full of bitterness and resentment because she felt that she was being pushed into buying one of because of the peer pressure her son was recieving. I could tell that she considered them to be a decadent hobby, and that she was one of these people who felt everything her child did needed to be "educational" and defined in a very narrow way. I did not encourage her to buy a SNES, I could see that leading to trouble (I think she walked out with Mario is Missing for PC).
However, I didn't get the impression this was based on religion.
There are people out there opposed to games, and they'll be opposed to them even when the only games available are "Pink Pony Princesses in Powder Puff World."
I mean it is effective in its intention to suppress the kind of speech it is aimed at. It can destroy commercial speech, and strangle ideas in the crib.
When people say that Prohibition doesn't work, they are talking about alcohol, not entertainment. Anyone can make alcohol. I could buy some apple cider, and after some experimentation make it turn into alcohol. There are monkeys who get drunk off of berries that ferment by themselves in the wild.
Comic book censorship in the 50's, on the other hand worked perfectly. The industry was more than decimated.
Since this is happening on the state level, it might not have as much of an effect, but you can bet that there will be a lot fewer M-Rated games produced and sold, which is really the point of the exercise. It's designed to impose censorship on the industry, and it will be at least partially successful if it passes.
Meanwhile, while this sideshow is going on, next year the government will probably be conscripting 18 year old kids, putting guns in their hands, and sending them off to Iraqi cities with exotic names (like my favorite, Samarra) to kill even younger teenagers who've got whatever guns they could get their hands on.
But then, the same irony was present during the anti-comic book crusade, when many comic book readers were off in Korea fighting the war there.
I hardly believe that valve was thinking about civil and economic liberty when they started creating Half-Life 2.
Hmm, normally, I'd agree. But Half-Life has a very strong libertarian of the black helicopter, tin-foil hat variety type of story. (Incidentally, that is the libertarian point of view I'm normally accused of subscribing to. Truthfully, that pretty much is, except that I would add, "getting there, not there yet.") They didn't have to do the story that way, but they did.
I think that it is a mistake to think that is the nature of games that makes gamers libertarian. Since games are under attack as being sinister, mind warping influences in our society, gamers see the ugly side of the authoritarian nature of the Establishment. This tends to make them Anti-Establishment to a degree, whic translates as libertarian in this case, "What, give those bozos more power? They think Doom caused Columbine, I wouldn't want to give them power over my local boy scout troop, let alone the Federal Government."
You'll find something similar happen in any group that the Establishment attempts to marginalize. I would say that gaming only leads to mild libertarian influences, because gaming is a fairly mainstream hobby. Sometimes, they'll be an uptick though, look at California. "So, let me get this straight, Resevoir Dogs gets to stay out in the main rack with the rest of the DVDs, but Vice City goes behind the black curtain with Debbie Does Dallas. We've got morons in our legislature, I tell you."
If one party would just be anti-video game scapegoating, you'd see this turn into Republican or Democratic bias, but it probably wouldn't be deciding factor except for a small minority.
"Seven? Yeah, I guess I could see it. Seven. Seven periods of school, seven beatings a day. Roughly seven stitches a beating, and eventually seven years to life. Yeah, you're doing that child quite a service."
I mod chipped my Playstation for one reason and one reason only, to play games that Sony decided would never see the light of day (Samurai Spirits, Rockman, Last Blade) in the United States but were available in Japan. This is the same reason I modded my Dreamcast (Vampire Chronicles, Shenmue II). Sony is still pulling this crap, which is why SNK is making games for the XBox.
I could care less what happens to the console manufacturers as long as they are region coding their games, but I didn't mod my systems so I could play pirate games. When Sony started fixing their games so they wouldn't play in my modded Playstation, I got rid of all my American games (gave them to some kid with an unmodded PSOne). I know I could've re-mod chipped it so it would work, but frankly I was buying too many games for it (both American and Foreign) and supporting Sony by spending a lot on games. Sony won, they very loudly shouted that they didn't want my business and they never got it back, and never will. The only reason why I didn't get rid of my Japanese games and modded Playstation is because they are exotic and only of interest to a few people. It sits in a cardboard box on a shelf in my room, never to be used by me again, probably.
Now that I've built my own up-to-date PC I'm probably going to mainly be buying games for it, a relatively open platform.
I agree with you about Sony, I think they are worse than either Microsoft or Nintendo as far as how they treat their consumers (yes, I know it should be customers, tell that to Sony). In fact, if Bill Gates' nightmare ever does come true and Sony comes to dominate computers and computer related technology, well, let's just say that "the living will envy the dead."
Sega Genesis, 16 Bit. Two kids are reading a "Global Gladiators" comic and say, "Wouldn't it be fun to be a global gladiator?" Ronald McDonald uses his evil clown powers to put the two kids into the comic book where they are faced with a hellish world filled with slimy creatures. Oh, and the must collect M (for McDonalds) symbols. Ronald shows up at the end of each level to wave you on to the next level.
Clearly the Republican establishment had this plan in place (by the way, I'm not intending to let the Democratic establishment off the hook here, but it is a Republican ball game at the moment) to start cracking down on the media when the opportunity presented itself. Sort of like the Schleiffen Plan in Germany, the war plan was ready for years, all they needed was the excuse to implement it.
Some outrage was going to occur on TV, it was inevitable, but the Superbowl thing was apparently perfect.
The big question is, why was it orchestrated? What purpose does it serve, other than to help Big Government Republicans pet agency, the FCC, appear relevant? Is there a bigger agenda at work?
That's a maturity thing. While there are a few things I might miss if I had made a lot of progress in a game and wasn't near a save point, if it's anything important, like going out to eat, or to a movie, or to bed (with my SO), I'll just sigh and click the off button.
In fact, there are times when I'm playing one of those single player epics with save points where I tell myself directly, "This is a reconnaisance mission, you won't be able to save your progress, just try to find out as much about the area before it is time to go out."
Part of the reason I do this, is because I realize that this is the difference in the perception of gaming as "creepy/dangerous obsession" and "harmless timewaster."
I remember when I was younger, but still pretty old, and very into Final Fantasy III and my Mom wanted to use the TV I was using to watch Godfather III and I hadn't gotten to a save point yet. Oh, how she would complain about the "rotten little people" when I tried to explain to her, "Just a little longer then I can save."
Or is it just my recent change from right wing news to left wing news has made me more aware of it. From my perspective it seems like an "anti-radioctive probe movement" has suddenly sprung up, along with a somewhat sensible "anti-militarization of space movement" which unfortunately seems to be intertwined with it.
Look, let's say there are tasty fish on Europa. If we never send probes there, how will we be able to send them back to Earth to be filleted and served in a nice basil sauce in Thai restaurants, answer me that?
For what it's worth, I don't think it is unethical, but I think it may be bad strategy. If a person got caught doing it, it would reflect badly on any organized resistance to trusted computing.
Unethical, though? Think about the future we'll all have to deal with if this comes to pass. I don't want to live there, do you? These corporations don't have the right to do this to humanity, or even to make the attempt. Therefore, they lost their right to make a living, to own property, or to continue to exist as organizations when they started doing this.
They aren't taking away our rights with just bad hardware and software, that wouldn't be a threat. They are taking a two pronged approach, making the bad hardware and software and changing the structure of laws and legal rights to make the alternative illegal. (If it was just the former, I wouldn't care.)
The sad thing is, where this is really being lost is on the legislative front. Everyone brings up DIVX, but these companies all learned from DIVX. DVD is hardly purchaser-rights friendly, but it has won.
What we really need is some way to attack this problem that is as effective as the GPL was for software, but part of the problem is that the GPL was based on previously existing copyright law, not custom crafted laws created by the adversaries themselves.
I wonder what Sony would do if Microsoft wanted to put out this BIOS that would only run Microsoft operating systems. Would they put such a BIOS in their computer? Come out with VAIO Linux? (Or maybe more realistically, a proprietary VAIO-OS based on BSD?)
I think Microsoft and Sony are locked in a struggle right now (hence the XBOX, Microsoft's shot accross Sony's bow), so I can't see Sony going along with this.
My cousin owns a small software company and I interned for her one summer. I think the advantage for working for family is trust. At one point, they were waiting to get a contract renewed and didn't have the money to pay me. They told me I could continue working, and they'd pay me when they could, or I could go home (I live in another state) early. I chose to stay and work, and I recieved a check a few months later when I was back home and back in school, it worked out for both of us.
Now, if the.com I interned for the next summer had offered me the same choice, I would have gone home early. In fact they sort of did offer the same choice a couple of years later (to me and all the other employees) after I had started with them full time, when the day of reckoning had arrived and they said, "How would you feel about working for stock?" I said no thanks, and eventually found another job.
I was sorry to leave that job, but I had no reason to trust them and every reason (based on some shady practices) to distrust them.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, back to searching for a mint-condition copy of Splatterhouse 3 for SEGA Genesis, a game I stupidly sold during the golden age of gaming, not realizing that the good times wouldn't last forever.
SEGA!
My Dad like to play "Seven Cities of Gold," but it was always a slaughter when he played....
I'm sure you can pick it up in toy stores there...
I think that South Korea can support a gaming platform all by itself...
This doesn't prove anything about "games being more valued than female attention," and besides maybe the whole thing was a Sony publicity stunt for their aging game platform...
Well, I applaud your stance. I'll quote Archibald "Harry" Tuttle (from Brazil), "We're all in this together." (Although most of the responses here on Slashdot remind me of Jack Lint, unfortunately.)
However, I didn't get the impression this was based on religion.
There are people out there opposed to games, and they'll be opposed to them even when the only games available are "Pink Pony Princesses in Powder Puff World."
I'm wondering why this hasn't been fixed in the main story yet, I mean it has been up for quite a while.
Seriously, some happy news amidst the general gloom these days...
This is the same problem a person would have with Howard Philips Lovecraft. (An author who would be sitting on a licensing goldmine if he were alive.)
When people say that Prohibition doesn't work, they are talking about alcohol, not entertainment. Anyone can make alcohol. I could buy some apple cider, and after some experimentation make it turn into alcohol. There are monkeys who get drunk off of berries that ferment by themselves in the wild.
Comic book censorship in the 50's, on the other hand worked perfectly. The industry was more than decimated.
Since this is happening on the state level, it might not have as much of an effect, but you can bet that there will be a lot fewer M-Rated games produced and sold, which is really the point of the exercise. It's designed to impose censorship on the industry, and it will be at least partially successful if it passes.
Meanwhile, while this sideshow is going on, next year the government will probably be conscripting 18 year old kids, putting guns in their hands, and sending them off to Iraqi cities with exotic names (like my favorite, Samarra) to kill even younger teenagers who've got whatever guns they could get their hands on.
But then, the same irony was present during the anti-comic book crusade, when many comic book readers were off in Korea fighting the war there.
I think that it is a mistake to think that is the nature of games that makes gamers libertarian. Since games are under attack as being sinister, mind warping influences in our society, gamers see the ugly side of the authoritarian nature of the Establishment. This tends to make them Anti-Establishment to a degree, whic translates as libertarian in this case, "What, give those bozos more power? They think Doom caused Columbine, I wouldn't want to give them power over my local boy scout troop, let alone the Federal Government."
You'll find something similar happen in any group that the Establishment attempts to marginalize. I would say that gaming only leads to mild libertarian influences, because gaming is a fairly mainstream hobby. Sometimes, they'll be an uptick though, look at California. "So, let me get this straight, Resevoir Dogs gets to stay out in the main rack with the rest of the DVDs, but Vice City goes behind the black curtain with Debbie Does Dallas. We've got morons in our legislature, I tell you."
If one party would just be anti-video game scapegoating, you'd see this turn into Republican or Democratic bias, but it probably wouldn't be deciding factor except for a small minority.
Well, you could always play Gods and Generals, review here.
I could care less what happens to the console manufacturers as long as they are region coding their games, but I didn't mod my systems so I could play pirate games. When Sony started fixing their games so they wouldn't play in my modded Playstation, I got rid of all my American games (gave them to some kid with an unmodded PSOne). I know I could've re-mod chipped it so it would work, but frankly I was buying too many games for it (both American and Foreign) and supporting Sony by spending a lot on games. Sony won, they very loudly shouted that they didn't want my business and they never got it back, and never will. The only reason why I didn't get rid of my Japanese games and modded Playstation is because they are exotic and only of interest to a few people. It sits in a cardboard box on a shelf in my room, never to be used by me again, probably.
Now that I've built my own up-to-date PC I'm probably going to mainly be buying games for it, a relatively open platform.
I agree with you about Sony, I think they are worse than either Microsoft or Nintendo as far as how they treat their consumers (yes, I know it should be customers, tell that to Sony). In fact, if Bill Gates' nightmare ever does come true and Sony comes to dominate computers and computer related technology, well, let's just say that "the living will envy the dead."
Sega Genesis, 16 Bit. Two kids are reading a "Global Gladiators" comic and say, "Wouldn't it be fun to be a global gladiator?" Ronald McDonald uses his evil clown powers to put the two kids into the comic book where they are faced with a hellish world filled with slimy creatures. Oh, and the must collect M (for McDonalds) symbols. Ronald shows up at the end of each level to wave you on to the next level.
Some outrage was going to occur on TV, it was inevitable, but the Superbowl thing was apparently perfect.
The big question is, why was it orchestrated? What purpose does it serve, other than to help Big Government Republicans pet agency, the FCC, appear relevant? Is there a bigger agenda at work?
In fact, there are times when I'm playing one of those single player epics with save points where I tell myself directly, "This is a reconnaisance mission, you won't be able to save your progress, just try to find out as much about the area before it is time to go out."
Part of the reason I do this, is because I realize that this is the difference in the perception of gaming as "creepy/dangerous obsession" and "harmless timewaster."
I remember when I was younger, but still pretty old, and very into Final Fantasy III and my Mom wanted to use the TV I was using to watch Godfather III and I hadn't gotten to a save point yet. Oh, how she would complain about the "rotten little people" when I tried to explain to her, "Just a little longer then I can save."
Dreamcast PC This Fall
Or is it just my recent change from right wing news to left wing news has made me more aware of it. From my perspective it seems like an "anti-radioctive probe movement" has suddenly sprung up, along with a somewhat sensible "anti-militarization of space movement" which unfortunately seems to be intertwined with it.
Look, let's say there are tasty fish on Europa. If we never send probes there, how will we be able to send them back to Earth to be filleted and served in a nice basil sauce in Thai restaurants, answer me that?
Unethical, though? Think about the future we'll all have to deal with if this comes to pass. I don't want to live there, do you? These corporations don't have the right to do this to humanity, or even to make the attempt. Therefore, they lost their right to make a living, to own property, or to continue to exist as organizations when they started doing this.
They aren't taking away our rights with just bad hardware and software, that wouldn't be a threat. They are taking a two pronged approach, making the bad hardware and software and changing the structure of laws and legal rights to make the alternative illegal. (If it was just the former, I wouldn't care.)
The sad thing is, where this is really being lost is on the legislative front. Everyone brings up DIVX, but these companies all learned from DIVX. DVD is hardly purchaser-rights friendly, but it has won.
What we really need is some way to attack this problem that is as effective as the GPL was for software, but part of the problem is that the GPL was based on previously existing copyright law, not custom crafted laws created by the adversaries themselves.
`Trusted Computing' Frequently Asked Questions
Scary stuff...
I think Microsoft and Sony are locked in a struggle right now (hence the XBOX, Microsoft's shot accross Sony's bow), so I can't see Sony going along with this.
Now, if the .com I interned for the next summer had offered me the same choice, I would have gone home early. In fact they sort of did offer the same choice a couple of years later (to me and all the other employees) after I had started with them full time, when the day of reckoning had arrived and they said, "How would you feel about working for stock?" I said no thanks, and eventually found another job.
I was sorry to leave that job, but I had no reason to trust them and every reason (based on some shady practices) to distrust them.