1. A TV with HDMI and Scart input, and a computer with VGA and DVI output. 2. I don't feel like trailing cables across my entire house, and how would the remote control work? 3. Reliable OSes have a tendency not to work with your hardware and software. 4. An average one. 5. I don't have one in the living room.
What's stopping you having a computer in the living room hooked up to the TV
I can think of a few reasons: 1. There's no connector in common between my computer and the TV. 2. My computer is upstairs in a back room, the TV is in the living room. 3. I don't want my TV viewing to be interrupted by error messages, screensavers, energy-saving features turning the video card off, programs crashing etc. 4. I don't want to miss out on watching a live show because the Internet connection is down. 5. What if someone wants to use the computer whilst someone else watches TV? 6. Problems with remote controls etc.
I agree that for this to be mainstream, it needs to be packaged in something more userfriendly, but I bet it'll basically be a computer with an Internet connection.
It won't be done by general desktop PCs at all. You'll get a box from your cable/dsl provider which sits under your TV and gets the content from your Internet connection, without you having to mess around with PCs at all.
I'd imagine that developers capable of making console-standard games all by themselves would have a job that'd make that six figures in a very short space of time. Or you could release on a console that doesn't require your own office, then use the profits to hire your office to make Nintendo games.
Every salary you pay to a programmer to work out the strange CPU is one less salary available to pay a writer. Unless you think games have unlimited budgets...
Ward says they've considered branching out to consoles, but ended up deciding that the game doesn't really lend itself to console play.
Yeah console gamers generally like to play games more involved than watching your spaceship mine an asteroid for six hours.
The advantage of EVE Online is that it doesn't really have any graphics so you could play it on anything, even a normal phone. Just select your spaceship to mine an asteroid or travel across the galaxy, put the phone back in your pocket and come back the next day.
Most electricity is produced and consumed as AC. Converting the whole electrical grid to DC just for the sake of solar panels would be incredibly wasteful.
The Japanese are buying a list of features: screen size, TV, radio, motion sensors, pedometer, email, circle of protection etc etc. A lot of tech-heads in the West like that approach and also make their decision based on the number of ticked boxes on the back of the display container.
The rest of us just want a phone that makes phone calls without having to click through 50 damn menus. And that looks kind of nice. That's the iPhone.
The iPhone lacks basic functionality such as mms that even bargain-bucket phones have, as well as a poor interface that doesn't even have a keypad for text messaging, but sells based on box-ticking of gimmicky features like multi-touch, the app store, and all that shit you see on the misleading adverts that no-one actually uses.
Personally I'd rather have a phone where I wasn't prevented from using basic features because it conflicted with Steve Jobs' ego.
Have you considered that they're not aiming at the WoW carebear demographic? None of this of course excuses the game from being shit, but there's already a WoW with it's non-looting and few to no death penalties, there's no need to make another one.
Interesting. If you had actually bothered to read to the end of the paragraph, you'd see I did address that issue: they conquered almost all that territory in counter-attacks, after being the ones attacked.
Interesting how they were attacked by British tribes, despite them not having any significant ability to launch a cross-channel invasion against the Roman Empire.
I'm not sure there can be such a thing as breaking immersion in a game where half your screen is icons, and the other half is floating text and exclamation marks, where the whole game is basically a theme park on rails, guiding you from one place to the next without any pretence at being a living, breathing world.
The lore? Basic, bog-standard fantasy clichés mixed in with popular culture. I'm not sure you miss out on that by having an arrow on the map telling you where to go to kill 10 murlocs or whatever to complete the latest identikit quest.
Let's look at two examples: 1. I walk slowly over half of a boring zone to find some quest object. I spend five minutes running round and round in circles to find the cave/mob whatever that looks exactly like the other ten thousand caves in the game, all whilst dodging aggressive mobs that force you to fight but don't give any xp.
2. Quest helper allows me to walk slowly over half of a boring zone direct to the quest destination, I return and complete the quest in half the time.
In the second example, what lore or immersion have I missed out on exactly? Exploring the cookie-cutter forest zone that looks exactly like all the other forest zones in the game with a slight palette change? Holding 'w' with occasional direction changes to keep on track?
It's not like most quests involve any problem solving or riddles, 99% are fedex quests or kill X number of Y, returning Z number of drops that only load on 10% of Y. The whole point of them is to slow the game down. The zones aren't exactly interesting to explore either. Once you've seen an acre or so of a forest zone, you've seen basically every forest zone in the game. There's little interaction with the scenery, and every five yards you get an aggro mob that's pretty much the same as all the thousands of others, with a different model and texture.
Those five minute walks across the zone add up, and every month of walking up and down puts another $15 in Blizzard's pocket. If quest helper can reduce the amount of walking, then it improves the game without actually losing any enjoyment.
The EU already has effective VAT harmonisation, it has to be between 15-25%. However the Channel Islands are not part of the EU so it doesn't apply to them.
Not to mention education. Why should rich people have their money stolen to pay for the education of the kids of stupid poor people? A caste system like India or Brazil would be far more economically efficient.
The USA is behind other developed nations here at 0.006% infant mortality. Most developed nations are 0.004% and Iceland leads with 0.002%. Note that Germany is taxed lower than the USA and still beats the USA by 0.002%
Your entire post is based on lies. That 'gapminder' site has its numbers all wrong, it massively underestimates tax levels. Maybe it's only counting national taxes. You're better off with the OECD numbers that count taxation at all levels of government.
When millions of people are buying games for $60, what makes you think they'd make more money selling at $20? They'd have to treble their sales just to break even.
Slashdot Mirror
1. A TV with HDMI and Scart input, and a computer with VGA and DVI output.
2. I don't feel like trailing cables across my entire house, and how would the remote control work?
3. Reliable OSes have a tendency not to work with your hardware and software.
4. An average one.
5. I don't have one in the living room.
I can think of a few reasons:
1. There's no connector in common between my computer and the TV.
2. My computer is upstairs in a back room, the TV is in the living room.
3. I don't want my TV viewing to be interrupted by error messages, screensavers, energy-saving features turning the video card off, programs crashing etc.
4. I don't want to miss out on watching a live show because the Internet connection is down.
5. What if someone wants to use the computer whilst someone else watches TV?
6. Problems with remote controls etc.
It won't be done by general desktop PCs at all. You'll get a box from your cable/dsl provider which sits under your TV and gets the content from your Internet connection, without you having to mess around with PCs at all.
If you are a good enough developer to make professional quality games, you'd be earning a lot more than that.
I'd imagine that developers capable of making console-standard games all by themselves would have a job that'd make that six figures in a very short space of time. Or you could release on a console that doesn't require your own office, then use the profits to hire your office to make Nintendo games.
The Dreamcast wasn't superior in the 'playing DVDs' department.
Every salary you pay to a programmer to work out the strange CPU is one less salary available to pay a writer. Unless you think games have unlimited budgets...
Yeah console gamers generally like to play games more involved than watching your spaceship mine an asteroid for six hours.
The advantage of EVE Online is that it doesn't really have any graphics so you could play it on anything, even a normal phone. Just select your spaceship to mine an asteroid or travel across the galaxy, put the phone back in your pocket and come back the next day.
Most electricity is produced and consumed as AC. Converting the whole electrical grid to DC just for the sake of solar panels would be incredibly wasteful.
To me is just looks like a Sixaxis painted white.
The iPhone lacks basic functionality such as mms that even bargain-bucket phones have, as well as a poor interface that doesn't even have a keypad for text messaging, but sells based on box-ticking of gimmicky features like multi-touch, the app store, and all that shit you see on the misleading adverts that no-one actually uses.
Personally I'd rather have a phone where I wasn't prevented from using basic features because it conflicted with Steve Jobs' ego.
Every singly functioning democracy in the world has taxes, yet for some reason people still go to work. Funny that...
And considering that there's no such thing as a free market, how do you know you'd like it?
Have you considered that they're not aiming at the WoW carebear demographic? None of this of course excuses the game from being shit, but there's already a WoW with it's non-looting and few to no death penalties, there's no need to make another one.
Interesting how they were attacked by British tribes, despite them not having any significant ability to launch a cross-channel invasion against the Roman Empire.
Yes, everyone going bankrupt and the banks all going bust would be incredible for the economy.
Seriously though, how do people still think like this?
I'm not sure there can be such a thing as breaking immersion in a game where half your screen is icons, and the other half is floating text and exclamation marks, where the whole game is basically a theme park on rails, guiding you from one place to the next without any pretence at being a living, breathing world.
The lore? Basic, bog-standard fantasy clichés mixed in with popular culture. I'm not sure you miss out on that by having an arrow on the map telling you where to go to kill 10 murlocs or whatever to complete the latest identikit quest.
Let's look at two examples:
1. I walk slowly over half of a boring zone to find some quest object. I spend five minutes running round and round in circles to find the cave/mob whatever that looks exactly like the other ten thousand caves in the game, all whilst dodging aggressive mobs that force you to fight but don't give any xp.
2. Quest helper allows me to walk slowly over half of a boring zone direct to the quest destination, I return and complete the quest in half the time.
In the second example, what lore or immersion have I missed out on exactly? Exploring the cookie-cutter forest zone that looks exactly like all the other forest zones in the game with a slight palette change? Holding 'w' with occasional direction changes to keep on track?
It's not like most quests involve any problem solving or riddles, 99% are fedex quests or kill X number of Y, returning Z number of drops that only load on 10% of Y. The whole point of them is to slow the game down. The zones aren't exactly interesting to explore either. Once you've seen an acre or so of a forest zone, you've seen basically every forest zone in the game. There's little interaction with the scenery, and every five yards you get an aggro mob that's pretty much the same as all the thousands of others, with a different model and texture.
Those five minute walks across the zone add up, and every month of walking up and down puts another $15 in Blizzard's pocket. If quest helper can reduce the amount of walking, then it improves the game without actually losing any enjoyment.
The free market? Awesome, I'm investing all my money in sub-prime loans!
I'm pretty sure that the Wisconsin consumers who download things use roads, police utilities etc.
The EU already has effective VAT harmonisation, it has to be between 15-25%. However the Channel Islands are not part of the EU so it doesn't apply to them.
Not to mention education. Why should rich people have their money stolen to pay for the education of the kids of stupid poor people? A caste system like India or Brazil would be far more economically efficient.
Of course, when a government taxes money it's just put into a safe at the bottom of the sea, rather than spent.
Maybe New Jersey could create jobs by going round breaking everyone's windows...
Which then comes from the shareholders, i.e. people. Whichever way you look at it, people are taxed at the end of the day.
BZZZZT.
Tax rates:
Germany: 36.2%
USA: 28.3%
Iceland: 41.4%
Your entire post is based on lies. That 'gapminder' site has its numbers all wrong, it massively underestimates tax levels. Maybe it's only counting national taxes. You're better off with the OECD numbers that count taxation at all levels of government.
And I'd be willing to bet that they couldn't. How much are you willing to bet?
When millions of people are buying games for $60, what makes you think they'd make more money selling at $20? They'd have to treble their sales just to break even.