"Of course id had no problem. (1) They had a tendency to leave Linux games in a perpetual beta mode to avoid support."
If that's all the Linux game market can support, great. ID being able do it still implies that a company as large as Blizzard can do it too.
No, that is a pretty sleezy thing to do IMHO. Blizzard takes support far more seriously than most companies. Hell, they just released a patch to the original Starcraft and that game is nearly ten years old.
"Id has also publicly stated that they do Linux games merely because they think it is a cool thing to do, not because it makes business sense. This thread is about business sense not what is cool."
Reference?
Hard copy, Game Developer Magazine some years back.
Erm, this is a 3d game. So the main difference between Windows and Mac/Linux world is DirectX vs. OpenGL.
Putting out an OpenGL version of the game for mac means that porting to Linux from the mac version should be much more trivial than from Windows to Linux.
Your use of the word "trivial" just sucks the credibility out of your post. You should really avoid such statement.
There is far more to a game than the 3D API. Consider various 3rd party libraries for sound, physics, etc that may or may not have reliable support. Also, Mac and Linux sharing OpenGL is hardly anything new, it was true before the shift to Intel CPUs. Finally, some PC games are OpenGL based. Intel Macs don't really change the equation.
Bullshit. Neither ID Software nor Epic seem to have any problem with this.
Of course id had no problem. (1) They had a tendency to leave Linux games in a perpetual beta mode to avoid support. (2) They don't do support, they leave it to the publisher like EA or Activision who has little interest in Linux. (3) Id has also publicly stated that they do Linux games merely because they think it is a cool thing to do, not because it makes business sense. This thread is about business sense not what is cool.
As for support personnel, you need to have maybe one guy check the "Linux Support" forum on your web site every few days to make sure nothing major has come up that the users haven't already figured out - the phone support people don't even need to know there *is* a Linux port.
You have gone past optimistic into the rediculous, unless you are arguing that there will be few Linux support calls or emails because there will be few Linux customers.;-)
If there were an escrow that linux gamers could shell out the estimated game cost, preproduction, into, only payable to Blizzard upon delivery of a fully operational Linux version of SC2, I'd gladly put $50-$60 in. If enough money were generated, it'd be proof that Linux is a viable market for games.
No, it would not be. Linux gamers who would buy a Win32 version and dual boot or emulate do not count, only Linux gamers who choose to go without the game unless there is a native Linux port count. To be viable you need *new* sales, not merely move sales from the Win32 column to the Linux column. See http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=235329&cid=191 91075.
Tech support. They don't want 9,000,000 Linux newbies calling their support lines in unison with every distro under the sun demanding tech support, so rather than setting up an "unsupported" model or a secondary less involved system like Atari does they just say "Not gonna do it" all together.
The "unsupported" model is half-assed, and reflects poorly on a company's reputation. So why should they do it? Again, it is not their job to advocate Linux.
I think, for simple and sound business reasons, it will be quite a while before anyone major takes a risk on Linux gaming again.
During that "golden era" of Linux gaming, even id publicly stated they support Linux because they think it is a cool thing to do, not because it made business sense at the time.
However, it is not a video game developer's role to advocate operating systems. That's the job of the community of that operating system, the community has to break the cycle. The Linux gamers do not "have to" play Win32 games. These gamers are the "problem", not the developers. You can not fault a developer for not wanting to lose money, note losing money includes spending it where it gets bigger rather than smaller positive returns.
So you're telling me Mac OSX games have to use Carbon and Cocoa to work? Surprises the hell out of me considering how many Linux applications port/compile on Mac OSX without Carbon or Cocoa in mind in the least.
The need to use Carbon or Cocoa to access some platform specific functionality that makes AAA titles, well AAA, rather than least common denominator lesser titles. Your overstate the usefulness of cross platform APIs like SDL with respect to AAA titles, see: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=235329&cid=191 91759.
Developing for Linux first and then going to Mac OS X, and adding the additional functionality/features that Carbon or Cocoa offer, is a valid strategy. However you ignore the fact that Linux specific development, quality assurance and support need to be paid for by the subsegment of Linux gamers that never dual boot or emulate, see: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=235329&cid=191 91007.
Who's wrong here, a consumer thinking companies should use code that's cross platform compatible (SDL makes it easy)...
In this unique situation the consumer who thinks he knows how "easy" it is to develop a AAA title for three platforms using SDL is wrong. You do realize that the person who wrote SDL, Sam Lantinga, is also part of the team at Blizzard the developed World of Warcraft, and Warcraft III before that? Perhaps it is more complicated than you believe? Perhaps AAA titles can't necessarily go with a least common denominator approach and need to use platform specific APIs.
... the game developer not only supporting a monopoly but doing what they can to ensure the monopoly continues?
Blizzard has been supporting Mac for over a decade. They did not use DirectX components like DirectPlay that have a vendor lock, rather they developed their own networking, Battle.net. You "supporting a monopoly" argument is complete nonsense. Additionally, it is irrelevant. It is not the game developer's role to advocate operating system platforms, they follow customers to whatever platforms customers lead them too. Your gripe is with fellow Linux gamers who buy the Win32 versions of games, not with developers who are spending their development and support monies wisely.
It'd be nice to see blizzard get their act together and release for linux as well, instead of depending on WINE or chite like Cedega for us to play their games. I'm not holding my breath on this one though, they've been failing us for years.
No, Linux gamers have been failing themselves for years. The choice to dual boot or emulate undermines the Linux gaming market, more here: http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=235329&c id=19191075. It is not the role of game developers to develop the Linux gaming market, they just follow the customers to whatever platform the customers choose and Linux gamers are largely choosing Win32. It is the role of Linux gamers to promote their preferred platform and to abstain from Win32 versions. Of course, there are also gamers who don't really give a rat's ass about operating systems and that is just fine. I have no gripe with "gamers" who dual boot or emulate, it is only those who identify themselves as "Linux gamers" that I would chastise and say put your time/money where your advocacy is.
The Linux gaming market is not really viable yet, at least for large developers. I wish this were not true, but it is. Recent events like the Apple Intel migration have not really changed the situation. I'll address some good questions that came from a troll thread.
Supporting Mac OSX on X86 and not supporting Linux is nothing short of Laziness now.
You are mistaken. The migration from PowerPC to Intel has not made a Linux port one bit easier. It has made the Mac market more important as a greater percentage of Macs are now viable gaming systems, especially on the laptop side.
Mac games are not *nix based, they still use proprietary APIs like Carbon and Cocoa to some degree. Also a company like Blizzard that has been supporting Macs for over a decade surely has some internal libraries that are pretty Windows and Mac specific as well. The source code to Mac based games is not really any more compatible with Linux than it was before Apple's Intel migration. All that has happened is that assembly language / SSE from the Windows side does not have to be rewritten in PowerPC / Altivec.
I have to think the game marketshare of Linux is running neck and neck with Apple systems. Blizzard is showing that it is worth it to port to MacOS, so why don't they also feel the same about Linux?
The Linux game market is *not* all those willing to buy a native Linux port of a game, it is *only* those who refuse to buy a Win32 version and dual boot or emulate. If a company does a native Linux port it needs *new* sales to justify it. Cannibalizing existing sales, having a person buy a Linux version instead of a Win32 version, does not bring in any new money. It loses money, they got the same sale but they spent more money getting it. The majority of Linux gamers dual boot or emulate, until that changes the Linux gaming market will not be viable - Linux gamers are already paying customers via the Win32 version.
Historically the Mac side was a very different story. Dual boot was not an option until recent times, and emulation was not practical for games - the CPU, not just the APIs, needed to be emulated. So Mac gamers had to have a native port. This made the Mac gaming market viable. If anything has changed, it is not Linux becoming more viable, it is Mac becoming less viable. If Mac gamers begin to dual boot or emulate, so that they more gaming options, then they will create an environment where developers will find it more profitable to reach Mac gamers via the Win32 version as well. One version (Win32) to rule them all (Win32, Linux, and Mac).
A secondary but non-trivial problem with targeting Linux, support. Targeting Linux is not like Mac where you have one platform, or two if you still want to target PowerPC. There are many Linux distribution, your code and/or installer may need to be aware of some of their subtleties, your support personnel surely will need to be aware. These support people may even need to be more technically inclined than Mac support people, on second thought that's a given isn't it? Your quality assurance testing matrix just ballooned from Win2K, WinXP, WinVista, MacOS X Intel, MacOS X PowerPC to the former plus Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, SUSE. Doesn't seem to bad at first glance, but keep in mind the much smaller return that the latter four provide. All this support and qa effort *must* be paid for by the Linux gamer subsegment that refuses to buy the Win32 version and dual boot or emulate.
Supporting Mac OSX on X86 and not supporting Linux is nothing short of Laziness now.
You are mistaken. The migration from PowerPC to Intel has not made a Linux port one bit easier. It has made the Mac market more important as a greater percentage of Macs are now viable gaming systems, especially on the laptop side.
Mac games are not *nix based, they still use proprietary APIs like Carbon and Cocoa to some degree. Also a company like Blizzard that has been supporting Macs for over a decade surely has some internal libraries that are pretty Windows and Mac specific as well. The source code to Mac based games is not really any more compatible with Linux than it was before Apple's Intel migration. All that has happened is that assembly language / SSE from the Windows side does not have to be rewritten in PowerPC / Altivec.
More importantly, the economics of the Linux game market has not changed. Linux gamers primarily dual boot or emulate, until recently Mac users could not do so and a native port was required. If anything has changed, it is not that Linux is becoming more viable, it is that Mac is becoming less viable. I explain this in another post: http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=235329&c id=19191007.
I have to think the game marketshare of Linux is running neck and neck with Apple systems. Blizzard is showing that it is worth it to port to MacOS, so why don't they also feel the same about Linux?
The Linux game market is *not* all those willing to buy a native Linux port of a game, it is *only* those who refuse to buy a Win32 version and dual boot or emulate. If a company does a native Linux port it needs *new* sales to justify it. Cannibalizing existing sales, having a person buy a Linux version instead of a Win32 version, does not bring in any new money. It loses money, they got the same sale but they spent more money getting it. The majority of Linux gamers dual boot or emulate, until that changes the Linux gaming market will not be viable - Linux gamers are already paying customers via the Win32 version.
Historically the Mac side was a very different story. Dual boot was not an option until recent times, and emulation was not practical for games - the CPU, not just the APIs, needed to be emulated. So Mac gamers had to have a native port. This made the Mac gaming market viable. If anything has changed, it is not Linux becoming more viable, it is Mac becoming less viable. If Mac gamers begin to dual boot or emulate, so that they more gaming options, then they will create an environment where developers will find it more profitable to reach Mac gamers via the Win32 version as well. One version (Win32) to rule them all (Win32, Linux, and Mac).
A secondary but non-trivial problem with targeting Linux, support. Targeting Linux is not like Mac where you have one platform, or two if you still want to target PowerPC. There are many Linux distribution, your code and/or installer may need to be aware of some of their subtleties, your support personnel surely will need to be aware. These support people may even need to be more technically inclined than Mac support people, on second thought that's a given isn't it? Your quality assurance testing matrix just ballooned from Win2K, WinXP, WinVista, MacOS X Intel, MacOS X PowerPC to the former plus Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, SUSE. Doesn't seem to bad at first glance, but keep in mind the much smaller return that the latter four provide. All this support and qa effort *must* be paid for by the Linux gamer subsegment that refuses to buy the Win32 version and dual boot or emulate.
Actually I think that works against you, they would be more confident that search results are really you. If you have a common name then they would have little confidence.
... companies have evolved to the point that they treat all employees and potential employees like slaves and feel justified to not even interview you because you were 4 days late paying your electric bill last month.
They are treating you as an unknown risk, which you are, not a slave.
Management position applications at the last corperation I was at were ordered by credit score not by experience or education
For some management positions that makes sense. If you are financially unreliable in your own life why would you be any different with company finances? I'm not necessarily talking about people who work with money either. Consider a manager who schedules truck drivers and their deliveries. Say you need to schedule a delivery of goods to WalMart, they will provide a time window to deliver in (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossdocking) and if you miss that window you are responsive for the cost of goods, it is contractually considered lost sales and WalMart deducts that cost from what they owe you for goods previously delivered. So reliability may be more important than a Harvard MBA. I'm not saying you don't have a point, just that things are not as black-and-white as you seem to portray.
I understand that employers feel they need to protect themselves but they shouldn't be so paranoid as to limit their employee pool to only the financially stable, mentally stable and law abiding. They'll never get someone who thinks outside of the box then.
I've known many people who can think "outside the box" and don't need to live in chaos to do so. Keep in mind that some people were able to become financially stable because they could "think outside the box" and were reliable enough to follow through on that idea.
One of them seemed to understand when I explained that I felt the measure was a severe violation of my personal privacy and decided to wave the need for the finger printing.
Sometimes I wonder if a company will mention fingerprinting, but never actually carry it out, just to get people with certain backgrounds or tendencies to be difficult to work with to exit the interview process. In the latter case they just want to see if and how a person protests. Are they excessively paranoid, do they have an overly-simple black-and-white perspective, are they easily agitated, etc.
And what happens to them after the 'check' is over? They doubtless sit on file somewhere.
At least different fingerprint cards are used for screening and arrests, so there is context as to why your prints are in the system. Also, there is the potential to expire the screening prints (pre-job), as opposed to sensitive employee prints (you accepted the job). Promote legislation to do so if you care.
And let's also add to this, they are doing a SCREENING. They are probably looking up her fingerprints against known criminals. I am sure they are doing this to make sure she hasn't done masterful job of identity theft. You can change IDs, not fingerprints.
You are assuming that the programmers, admins, etc working with the fingerprint database have been screened.:-)
You could always, out of the kindness of your heart and fraternal love, pay her to sit at home and play Wii.
I would suggest that the GP have her play World of Warcraft; that way the GP can sell her items and gold. That is if the GP trusts her not to sell things herself behind the GP's back.:-)
Bungie kept the bungie.net Myth server running for years. The first game launched in late 1997, and finally closed in November 2001
Blizzard too via the Battle.net online service; beginning with Diablo in 1996, and then adding Starcraft, Diablo II, and Warcraft III. They even took the old DOS version of Warcraft II and ported it to Windows and Battle.net. These games and Battle.net are still supported today.
I'm already in a role that spans both sides, and I'm quite certain that I want to fight to stay as much on the technical side as possible.
If that involves management responsibility I think I can understand. Scheduling, budgeting, HR tasks, etc; yeah I don't see those as interesting things and I would rather be involved in the design and implementation of software. FWIW, an MBA program does not really train you for management, it is training you to be an executive, to be a higher level decision maker. That's a bit more interesting. I might be colored by the fact that I am tailoring all my electives towards strategy and marketing.
I used to think that way too. When I was nearing completion of my BS in CS my lab partner and I were chatting. I was trying to decide on a job or an MS, he was going to work for about 5 years and then get an MBA. I looked at him as if he were on crack. I got a job and then got an MS too.
Many many years later I started working on an MBA. I'm actually thoroughly enjoying it. I'm learning about the other half of the successful company puzzle. Frankly, as a geek I was about as clueless of the business side as suits are clueless about the tech side. To be honest, I feel that I have a more accurate perspective on things now that I can see both sides.
You completely missed my argument. Copyright on a work starts from the day *that work* is first published. So if I release a Beta of AwesomeSoft in 2007 and release the Final (with bug fixes) in 2009, with five year copyright AwesomeSoft Final wouldn't become public domain until 2014. Sure, the beta would become public domain two years earlier, but who would go to the trouble of reverse engineering the beta and fixing the bugs themselves if the full version will be legally free in 2 years?
A competitor who doesn't want to wait two years. Also a binary comparison of beta and 1.0 can indicate pretty concisely where the bug fixes are, and it is not clear that those bug fixes would qualify as copyrighted material. The only real copyrighted material may be in new features, and a beta and a 1.0 will probably be pretty similar in terms of features.
This topic is far more complicated than you are allowing for.
Slashdot Mirror
"Of course id had no problem. (1) They had a tendency to leave Linux games in a perpetual beta mode to avoid support."
If that's all the Linux game market can support, great. ID being able do it still implies that a company as large as Blizzard can do it too.
No, that is a pretty sleezy thing to do IMHO. Blizzard takes support far more seriously than most companies. Hell, they just released a patch to the original Starcraft and that game is nearly ten years old.
"Id has also publicly stated that they do Linux games merely because they think it is a cool thing to do, not because it makes business sense. This thread is about business sense not what is cool."
Reference?
Hard copy, Game Developer Magazine some years back.
Erm, this is a 3d game. So the main difference between Windows and Mac/Linux world is DirectX vs. OpenGL. Putting out an OpenGL version of the game for mac means that porting to Linux from the mac version should be much more trivial than from Windows to Linux.
Your use of the word "trivial" just sucks the credibility out of your post. You should really avoid such statement.
There is far more to a game than the 3D API. Consider various 3rd party libraries for sound, physics, etc that may or may not have reliable support. Also, Mac and Linux sharing OpenGL is hardly anything new, it was true before the shift to Intel CPUs. Finally, some PC games are OpenGL based. Intel Macs don't really change the equation.
Bullshit. Neither ID Software nor Epic seem to have any problem with this.
;-)
Of course id had no problem. (1) They had a tendency to leave Linux games in a perpetual beta mode to avoid support. (2) They don't do support, they leave it to the publisher like EA or Activision who has little interest in Linux. (3) Id has also publicly stated that they do Linux games merely because they think it is a cool thing to do, not because it makes business sense. This thread is about business sense not what is cool.
As for support personnel, you need to have maybe one guy check the "Linux Support" forum on your web site every few days to make sure nothing major has come up that the users haven't already figured out - the phone support people don't even need to know there *is* a Linux port.
You have gone past optimistic into the rediculous, unless you are arguing that there will be few Linux support calls or emails because there will be few Linux customers.
If there were an escrow that linux gamers could shell out the estimated game cost, preproduction, into, only payable to Blizzard upon delivery of a fully operational Linux version of SC2, I'd gladly put $50-$60 in. If enough money were generated, it'd be proof that Linux is a viable market for games.
1 91075.
No, it would not be. Linux gamers who would buy a Win32 version and dual boot or emulate do not count, only Linux gamers who choose to go without the game unless there is a native Linux port count. To be viable you need *new* sales, not merely move sales from the Win32 column to the Linux column. See http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=235329&cid=19
Tech support. They don't want 9,000,000 Linux newbies calling their support lines in unison with every distro under the sun demanding tech support, so rather than setting up an "unsupported" model or a secondary less involved system like Atari does they just say "Not gonna do it" all together.
The "unsupported" model is half-assed, and reflects poorly on a company's reputation. So why should they do it? Again, it is not their job to advocate Linux.
I think, for simple and sound business reasons, it will be quite a while before anyone major takes a risk on Linux gaming again.
During that "golden era" of Linux gaming, even id publicly stated they support Linux because they think it is a cool thing to do, not because it made business sense at the time.
It's the chicken and the egg thing.
ABSOLUTELY!
However, it is not a video game developer's role to advocate operating systems. That's the job of the community of that operating system, the community has to break the cycle. The Linux gamers do not "have to" play Win32 games. These gamers are the "problem", not the developers. You can not fault a developer for not wanting to lose money, note losing money includes spending it where it gets bigger rather than smaller positive returns.
So you're telling me Mac OSX games have to use Carbon and Cocoa to work? Surprises the hell out of me considering how many Linux applications port/compile on Mac OSX without Carbon or Cocoa in mind in the least.
1 91759.
1 91007.
The need to use Carbon or Cocoa to access some platform specific functionality that makes AAA titles, well AAA, rather than least common denominator lesser titles. Your overstate the usefulness of cross platform APIs like SDL with respect to AAA titles, see: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=235329&cid=19
Developing for Linux first and then going to Mac OS X, and adding the additional functionality/features that Carbon or Cocoa offer, is a valid strategy. However you ignore the fact that Linux specific development, quality assurance and support need to be paid for by the subsegment of Linux gamers that never dual boot or emulate, see: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=235329&cid=19
Who's wrong here, a consumer thinking companies should use code that's cross platform compatible (SDL makes it easy) ...
a yer e loperId,1199
... the game developer not only supporting a monopoly but doing what they can to ensure the monopoly continues?
In this unique situation the consumer who thinks he knows how "easy" it is to develop a AAA title for three platforms using SDL is wrong. You do realize that the person who wrote SDL, Sam Lantinga, is also part of the team at Blizzard the developed World of Warcraft, and Warcraft III before that? Perhaps it is more complicated than you believe? Perhaps AAA titles can't necessarily go with a least common denominator approach and need to use platform specific APIs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_DirectMedia_L
http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/dev
Blizzard has been supporting Mac for over a decade. They did not use DirectX components like DirectPlay that have a vendor lock, rather they developed their own networking, Battle.net. You "supporting a monopoly" argument is complete nonsense. Additionally, it is irrelevant. It is not the game developer's role to advocate operating system platforms, they follow customers to whatever platforms customers lead them too. Your gripe is with fellow Linux gamers who buy the Win32 versions of games, not with developers who are spending their development and support monies wisely.
It'd be nice to see blizzard get their act together and release for linux as well, instead of depending on WINE or chite like Cedega for us to play their games. I'm not holding my breath on this one though, they've been failing us for years.
c id=19191075. It is not the role of game developers to develop the Linux gaming market, they just follow the customers to whatever platform the customers choose and Linux gamers are largely choosing Win32. It is the role of Linux gamers to promote their preferred platform and to abstain from Win32 versions. Of course, there are also gamers who don't really give a rat's ass about operating systems and that is just fine. I have no gripe with "gamers" who dual boot or emulate, it is only those who identify themselves as "Linux gamers" that I would chastise and say put your time/money where your advocacy is.
No, Linux gamers have been failing themselves for years. The choice to dual boot or emulate undermines the Linux gaming market, more here: http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=235329&
The Linux gaming market is not really viable yet, at least for large developers. I wish this were not true, but it is. Recent events like the Apple Intel migration have not really changed the situation. I'll address some good questions that came from a troll thread.
Supporting Mac OSX on X86 and not supporting Linux is nothing short of Laziness now.
You are mistaken. The migration from PowerPC to Intel has not made a Linux port one bit easier. It has made the Mac market more important as a greater percentage of Macs are now viable gaming systems, especially on the laptop side.
Mac games are not *nix based, they still use proprietary APIs like Carbon and Cocoa to some degree. Also a company like Blizzard that has been supporting Macs for over a decade surely has some internal libraries that are pretty Windows and Mac specific as well. The source code to Mac based games is not really any more compatible with Linux than it was before Apple's Intel migration. All that has happened is that assembly language / SSE from the Windows side does not have to be rewritten in PowerPC / Altivec.
I have to think the game marketshare of Linux is running neck and neck with Apple systems. Blizzard is showing that it is worth it to port to MacOS, so why don't they also feel the same about Linux?
The Linux game market is *not* all those willing to buy a native Linux port of a game, it is *only* those who refuse to buy a Win32 version and dual boot or emulate. If a company does a native Linux port it needs *new* sales to justify it. Cannibalizing existing sales, having a person buy a Linux version instead of a Win32 version, does not bring in any new money. It loses money, they got the same sale but they spent more money getting it. The majority of Linux gamers dual boot or emulate, until that changes the Linux gaming market will not be viable - Linux gamers are already paying customers via the Win32 version.
Historically the Mac side was a very different story. Dual boot was not an option until recent times, and emulation was not practical for games - the CPU, not just the APIs, needed to be emulated. So Mac gamers had to have a native port. This made the Mac gaming market viable. If anything has changed, it is not Linux becoming more viable, it is Mac becoming less viable. If Mac gamers begin to dual boot or emulate, so that they more gaming options, then they will create an environment where developers will find it more profitable to reach Mac gamers via the Win32 version as well. One version (Win32) to rule them all (Win32, Linux, and Mac).
A secondary but non-trivial problem with targeting Linux, support. Targeting Linux is not like Mac where you have one platform, or two if you still want to target PowerPC. There are many Linux distribution, your code and/or installer may need to be aware of some of their subtleties, your support personnel surely will need to be aware. These support people may even need to be more technically inclined than Mac support people, on second thought that's a given isn't it? Your quality assurance testing matrix just ballooned from Win2K, WinXP, WinVista, MacOS X Intel, MacOS X PowerPC to the former plus Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, SUSE. Doesn't seem to bad at first glance, but keep in mind the much smaller return that the latter four provide. All this support and qa effort *must* be paid for by the Linux gamer subsegment that refuses to buy the Win32 version and dual boot or emulate.
Supporting Mac OSX on X86 and not supporting Linux is nothing short of Laziness now.
c id=19191007.
You are mistaken. The migration from PowerPC to Intel has not made a Linux port one bit easier. It has made the Mac market more important as a greater percentage of Macs are now viable gaming systems, especially on the laptop side.
Mac games are not *nix based, they still use proprietary APIs like Carbon and Cocoa to some degree. Also a company like Blizzard that has been supporting Macs for over a decade surely has some internal libraries that are pretty Windows and Mac specific as well. The source code to Mac based games is not really any more compatible with Linux than it was before Apple's Intel migration. All that has happened is that assembly language / SSE from the Windows side does not have to be rewritten in PowerPC / Altivec.
More importantly, the economics of the Linux game market has not changed. Linux gamers primarily dual boot or emulate, until recently Mac users could not do so and a native port was required. If anything has changed, it is not that Linux is becoming more viable, it is that Mac is becoming less viable. I explain this in another post: http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=235329&
I have to think the game marketshare of Linux is running neck and neck with Apple systems. Blizzard is showing that it is worth it to port to MacOS, so why don't they also feel the same about Linux?
The Linux game market is *not* all those willing to buy a native Linux port of a game, it is *only* those who refuse to buy a Win32 version and dual boot or emulate. If a company does a native Linux port it needs *new* sales to justify it. Cannibalizing existing sales, having a person buy a Linux version instead of a Win32 version, does not bring in any new money. It loses money, they got the same sale but they spent more money getting it. The majority of Linux gamers dual boot or emulate, until that changes the Linux gaming market will not be viable - Linux gamers are already paying customers via the Win32 version.
Historically the Mac side was a very different story. Dual boot was not an option until recent times, and emulation was not practical for games - the CPU, not just the APIs, needed to be emulated. So Mac gamers had to have a native port. This made the Mac gaming market viable. If anything has changed, it is not Linux becoming more viable, it is Mac becoming less viable. If Mac gamers begin to dual boot or emulate, so that they more gaming options, then they will create an environment where developers will find it more profitable to reach Mac gamers via the Win32 version as well. One version (Win32) to rule them all (Win32, Linux, and Mac).
A secondary but non-trivial problem with targeting Linux, support. Targeting Linux is not like Mac where you have one platform, or two if you still want to target PowerPC. There are many Linux distribution, your code and/or installer may need to be aware of some of their subtleties, your support personnel surely will need to be aware. These support people may even need to be more technically inclined than Mac support people, on second thought that's a given isn't it? Your quality assurance testing matrix just ballooned from Win2K, WinXP, WinVista, MacOS X Intel, MacOS X PowerPC to the former plus Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, SUSE. Doesn't seem to bad at first glance, but keep in mind the much smaller return that the latter four provide. All this support and qa effort *must* be paid for by the Linux gamer subsegment that refuses to buy the Win32 version and dual boot or emulate.
I'm real glad I have a rare enough name.
Actually I think that works against you, they would be more confident that search results are really you. If you have a common name then they would have little confidence.
... companies have evolved to the point that they treat all employees and potential employees like slaves and feel justified to not even interview you because you were 4 days late paying your electric bill last month.
They are treating you as an unknown risk, which you are, not a slave.
Management position applications at the last corperation I was at were ordered by credit score not by experience or education
For some management positions that makes sense. If you are financially unreliable in your own life why would you be any different with company finances? I'm not necessarily talking about people who work with money either. Consider a manager who schedules truck drivers and their deliveries. Say you need to schedule a delivery of goods to WalMart, they will provide a time window to deliver in (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossdocking) and if you miss that window you are responsive for the cost of goods, it is contractually considered lost sales and WalMart deducts that cost from what they owe you for goods previously delivered. So reliability may be more important than a Harvard MBA. I'm not saying you don't have a point, just that things are not as black-and-white as you seem to portray.
I understand that employers feel they need to protect themselves but they shouldn't be so paranoid as to limit their employee pool to only the financially stable, mentally stable and law abiding. They'll never get someone who thinks outside of the box then.
I've known many people who can think "outside the box" and don't need to live in chaos to do so. Keep in mind that some people were able to become financially stable because they could "think outside the box" and were reliable enough to follow through on that idea.
One of them seemed to understand when I explained that I felt the measure was a severe violation of my personal privacy and decided to wave the need for the finger printing.
Sometimes I wonder if a company will mention fingerprinting, but never actually carry it out, just to get people with certain backgrounds or tendencies to be difficult to work with to exit the interview process. In the latter case they just want to see if and how a person protests. Are they excessively paranoid, do they have an overly-simple black-and-white perspective, are they easily agitated, etc.
And what happens to them after the 'check' is over? They doubtless sit on file somewhere.
At least different fingerprint cards are used for screening and arrests, so there is context as to why your prints are in the system. Also, there is the potential to expire the screening prints (pre-job), as opposed to sensitive employee prints (you accepted the job). Promote legislation to do so if you care.
Driving a company car does not make the company liable for what the employee does in the car, that is why you buy insurance yah douche.
Not true, the company also carries insurance because they are liable. In short, the driver AND the owner of the vehicle are both at risk.
And let's also add to this, they are doing a SCREENING. They are probably looking up her fingerprints against known criminals. I am sure they are doing this to make sure she hasn't done masterful job of identity theft. You can change IDs, not fingerprints.
:-)
You are assuming that the programmers, admins, etc working with the fingerprint database have been screened.
You could always, out of the kindness of your heart and fraternal love, pay her to sit at home and play Wii.
:-)
I would suggest that the GP have her play World of Warcraft; that way the GP can sell her items and gold. That is if the GP trusts her not to sell things herself behind the GP's back.
Bungie kept the bungie.net Myth server running for years. The first game launched in late 1997, and finally closed in November 2001
Blizzard too via the Battle.net online service; beginning with Diablo in 1996, and then adding Starcraft, Diablo II, and Warcraft III. They even took the old DOS version of Warcraft II and ported it to Windows and Battle.net. These games and Battle.net are still supported today.
I'm already in a role that spans both sides, and I'm quite certain that I want to fight to stay as much on the technical side as possible.
If that involves management responsibility I think I can understand. Scheduling, budgeting, HR tasks, etc; yeah I don't see those as interesting things and I would rather be involved in the design and implementation of software. FWIW, an MBA program does not really train you for management, it is training you to be an executive, to be a higher level decision maker. That's a bit more interesting. I might be colored by the fact that I am tailoring all my electives towards strategy and marketing.
Which is exactly why I'm not getting an MBA.
I used to think that way too. When I was nearing completion of my BS in CS my lab partner and I were chatting. I was trying to decide on a job or an MS, he was going to work for about 5 years and then get an MBA. I looked at him as if he were on crack. I got a job and then got an MS too.
Many many years later I started working on an MBA. I'm actually thoroughly enjoying it. I'm learning about the other half of the successful company puzzle. Frankly, as a geek I was about as clueless of the business side as suits are clueless about the tech side. To be honest, I feel that I have a more accurate perspective on things now that I can see both sides.
You completely missed my argument. Copyright on a work starts from the day *that work* is first published. So if I release a Beta of AwesomeSoft in 2007 and release the Final (with bug fixes) in 2009, with five year copyright AwesomeSoft Final wouldn't become public domain until 2014. Sure, the beta would become public domain two years earlier, but who would go to the trouble of reverse engineering the beta and fixing the bugs themselves if the full version will be legally free in 2 years?
A competitor who doesn't want to wait two years. Also a binary comparison of beta and 1.0 can indicate pretty concisely where the bug fixes are, and it is not clear that those bug fixes would qualify as copyrighted material. The only real copyrighted material may be in new features, and a beta and a 1.0 will probably be pretty similar in terms of features.
This topic is far more complicated than you are allowing for.