Wow... a tailgate party. How (yawn) exciting. Almost as fun as camping outside Best Buy for two days for a small chance to get a XBox360. I'm glad... that this... (yawn) made the games sectionnnn... ZZZZzzzzzz
At least, that's what I read just a few stories down. Best launch lineup ever or the one of the worst years for games. Time to curl up into a little ball and wait it out until 2006.
It would be hysterically funny for the first 10 minutes as the characters rip into each other, but for the next 100 minutes the audience would get lost and confused as they attempt to introduce a "plot" that involves body jumping, ghosts, robots and dimension jumps. ***1/2 for the first 10 minutes, * for the rest of the movie.
4 billion watts and that's it? Sheesh. I should put these people in touch with my wife. You should see the power she brings when she HAARPs on me after an all-night gaming session. Those transmitters pale in comparison. Just get a few female spouses hooked together and you could power the planet.
Funny you should mention WIP. There's more to that than you realize.;-) Sorry, can't say more right now.
Re:Blizz should've taken a page from id's book
on
Blizzcon Writeup
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Technically, id Software does *NOT* host Quakecon. It's all fan driven, created and run. id Software shows up and that's about the extent of their participation.
I didn't get past the line in the article that read "X-Play can talk cogently about gaming" before bursting out laughing. I tried to persevere and read on, but the tears in my eyes from gaffawing made it impossible.
It's getting out of the industry that is the trick. My title sold 10 million copies, but there's little chance of me ever going back into the trenches unless the industry goes through some major changes first. (ie Workplace Living Standards)
...that I'll have to wear shades? Also, does the book mention that in the utopian future that repeat stories will be eliminated? What about Beowulf clusters of those brainy head computers?
Obviously bad puns and cliches are going to be around in the future.
Someone pissed in your cereal this morning. I think you're discounting the importantance of Cyan a bit too much.
> But they're not, say, Nintendo.
No, but good lord, they sold more copies than anyone else at the time and really was a major contributor to the quick adoption of the CD-ROM format... something that Nintendo lagged behind on for nearly 10 years and the failure of which caused Sony to enter the marketplace. Then again you're comparing a publisher to a single developer. Nintendo has greater influence to be sure, but Cyan did at one time carry major street credential in developer circles.
> What did they influence?
You're kidding right? Tell me that low ID of yours isn't saying this. Cyan did inspire a whole horde of copycats and invigorated the adventure genre. You're correct that they didn't put in some new mindbending technology or that prerendered graphics hadn't been done before. They raised the bar to a whole new level with the adventure genre, causing Sierra and Infocom to bring their A game. Are you going to say next that Blizzard isn't influencial because they didn't invent the RTS genre and stuck to a 8-bit palette until Warcraft 3?
> You realize video games have been around since like the 50s? That today's "senior" gamehouses have been around since the 80s?
Check your dates and the video game developer graveyard sometime. While Wally's Eletronic Tennis in the '50s was technically the first, it wasn't commericially available. (Have a conversation with Ralph Baer or Bill Kunkel sometime about video game history. I know I have.)
What you see today as "senior" gamehouses are the lucky few that managed to swallow up the dying ones. Go visit the graves of Infocom, Sierra On-Line, Westwood, Dynamix, Origin, Sir-tech, the undead lich that is Interplay. The EA and Activisions you speak of survive only by sucking the lifeblood of individual development houses.
In retrospect, perhaps Myst isn't the end all be all game that some might make it out to be. (I liked it, didn't love it, but liked it.) But I wouldn't shamlessly discount the influence they had on the industry. Every game developer I've worked with, talked to or emailed (and that number is in the hundreds) has admired Cyan and studied their games and company to find their "secret".
Disagree if you will, but your assertion that they will be a "tiny footnote" is greatly, greatly mistaken and completely wrong.
I think the problem is that PC gamers are too quick to latch on to one particular company to the detriment of others. To be honest, Half Life 2 wasn't all that great. It was good, but it had plenty of design flaws and the "pod design" strategy left segments of the game feeling stitched together.
Quite seriously, Valve doesn't have all that much to show in their years of existence. Do they really deserve a week's worth of coverage?
> At the time, Doom demonstrated the power of the internet as a distribution system
Far from it. Doom was distributed primarily as Shareware disks in magazines or passed around from friend to friend. Only a small percentage of people obtained Doom from small world the Internet was at the time.
If anything Doom only showed that the *shareware* distribution system established by Apogee and iD Software was a viable means of distributing software.
Sean is the biggest prick in the game community that I've ever personally met. His ego is so inflated. Thinks he's god's gift to gamers. It's a good thing that most developers don't give him the time of day anymore.
Some very interesting things going on in the PSP hacking world.
It would seem that someone has gotten the DATA.PSP files from the various update EBOOT.PBP files decrypted.
This is the next step in unlocking the secrets of the PSP's firmware. How to flash/re-flash, and modifying firmware files to suit individual hacker's needs, etc...
You're not the only one to get frustrated by the Lego Star Wars pod race level. Two player racing is akin to synchronized swimming. It's not easy for an adult and a small child to pull off, let alone two kids.
You have your economics a bit mixed up here. You're confusing two separate product lines: consoles and game manufacturing. The two have extremely different cost structures.
The literal manufacturing cost of a game has very little to do with the final price of a title. Using your $.10 a disc model (which isn't that far off actually) it doesn't take into account the content of the disc. When you're spending $10 million to produce a game, you've got to recover your investment somehow. Outside of the royalty fee that publishers pay per title, the price of a game has very little to do with the console manufacturer.
The strategy that they are using is take a loss early by getting their console into the hands as many consumers as possible. Over the next five years, you recoup your initial losses through royalty fees, accessories (where the real money is at) and add-on services. It also helps when manufacturing costs go down over time to build your consoles.
One last note: You're a bit incorrect in assuming that companies made losses switching from cartridges to discs. The physical cost of a cartridges is expensive compared to a disc. However, it can be argued that the biggest cost from Nintendo not moving to a disc based system for the N64 gave direct rise to the Playstation since it was originally designed to be used by Nintendo.
The press reporting this and taking the "glass half-empty" is similar to a conversation I had during a Disaster Recovery audit and almost every planning meeting about it.
Auditor: So what do you do with your computer data? Me: We back up everything to tape. Auditor: But what happens if the tape is bad? Me: No problem, we have a sophisticated backup system where we use multiple tapes. Auditor: But what if there was a fire? Me: We have a halon suppression system in the server room, plus the tapes are stored off-site. Auditor: What if a tornado takes out the off-site storage facility? Me: Uh... we've got a backup hot co-lo with SBC a few miles away. Auditor: Yeah, but what if a EMP takes out the city? Me: The hell? But the chances of that happening are... Auditor: But it could happen right? Me: Well, sure it's possible but... Auditor: (Checks FAIL on his report)
For space travel you can't make everything 100% certain. There's managed risk, which is really what's going down here. NASA is going to launch, but that isn't going to stop the media from focusing on those three areas that didn't have PASS checked off on the sheet. Expect every talking head to hone in on this during launch day.
FiringSquad has just posted my Ultimate Gaming Desktop system building guide in which we take a no-budget but don't-waste-money approach.
Tap the brakes here. No budget, but not wasting money? Hey, if you want the mythical Ultimate Gaming System, then you're going to be wasting money because you can. Hence, the usage of the word "Ultimate".
That's like saying that a Mercedes-Benz doesn't need those window wipers on the headlights. Sure it doesn't, but having it makes it "Ultimate". Ultimate Home Theater designs have those stupid 6 gauge gold-plated Monster cables that are totally overkill, but having them makes it "Ultimate".
Sorry, this article is far from Ultimate. Come back when your no-budget is truly no-budget. Write me an article that really has the Ultimate Gaming Rig.
Slashdot Mirror
Wow... a tailgate party. How (yawn) exciting. Almost as fun as camping outside Best Buy for two days for a small chance to get a XBox360. I'm glad... that this... (yawn) made the games sectionnnn... ZZZZzzzzzz
At least, that's what I read just a few stories down. Best launch lineup ever or the one of the worst years for games. Time to curl up into a little ball and wait it out until 2006.
It would be hysterically funny for the first 10 minutes as the characters rip into each other, but for the next 100 minutes the audience would get lost and confused as they attempt to introduce a "plot" that involves body jumping, ghosts, robots and dimension jumps. ***1/2 for the first 10 minutes, * for the rest of the movie.
4 billion watts and that's it? Sheesh. I should put these people in touch with my wife. You should see the power she brings when she HAARPs on me after an all-night gaming session. Those transmitters pale in comparison. Just get a few female spouses hooked together and you could power the planet.
Funny you should mention WIP. There's more to that than you realize. ;-) Sorry, can't say more right now.
Technically, id Software does *NOT* host Quakecon. It's all fan driven, created and run. id Software shows up and that's about the extent of their participation.
I didn't get past the line in the article that read "X-Play can talk cogently about gaming" before bursting out laughing. I tried to persevere and read on, but the tears in my eyes from gaffawing made it impossible.
It's getting out of the industry that is the trick. My title sold 10 million copies, but there's little chance of me ever going back into the trenches unless the industry goes through some major changes first. (ie Workplace Living Standards)
...that I'll have to wear shades? Also, does the book mention that in the utopian future that repeat stories will be eliminated? What about Beowulf clusters of those brainy head computers?
Obviously bad puns and cliches are going to be around in the future.
As long as the official definition contains the phrase "It's bigger than a breadbox", then I'm happy.
Not to be Captain Obvious, but then why not just post it on the front page to begin with?
Someone pissed in your cereal this morning. I think you're discounting the importantance of Cyan a bit too much.
> But they're not, say, Nintendo.
No, but good lord, they sold more copies than anyone else at the time and really was a major contributor to the quick adoption of the CD-ROM format... something that Nintendo lagged behind on for nearly 10 years and the failure of which caused Sony to enter the marketplace. Then again you're comparing a publisher to a single developer. Nintendo has greater influence to be sure, but Cyan did at one time carry major street credential in developer circles.
> What did they influence?
You're kidding right? Tell me that low ID of yours isn't saying this. Cyan did inspire a whole horde of copycats and invigorated the adventure genre. You're correct that they didn't put in some new mindbending technology or that prerendered graphics hadn't been done before. They raised the bar to a whole new level with the adventure genre, causing Sierra and Infocom to bring their A game. Are you going to say next that Blizzard isn't influencial because they didn't invent the RTS genre and stuck to a 8-bit palette until Warcraft 3?
> You realize video games have been around since like the 50s? That today's "senior" gamehouses have been around since the 80s?
Check your dates and the video game developer graveyard sometime. While Wally's Eletronic Tennis in the '50s was technically the first, it wasn't commericially available. (Have a conversation with Ralph Baer or Bill Kunkel sometime about video game history. I know I have.)
What you see today as "senior" gamehouses are the lucky few that managed to swallow up the dying ones. Go visit the graves of Infocom, Sierra On-Line, Westwood, Dynamix, Origin, Sir-tech, the undead lich that is Interplay. The EA and Activisions you speak of survive only by sucking the lifeblood of individual development houses.
In retrospect, perhaps Myst isn't the end all be all game that some might make it out to be. (I liked it, didn't love it, but liked it.) But I wouldn't shamlessly discount the influence they had on the industry. Every game developer I've worked with, talked to or emailed (and that number is in the hundreds) has admired Cyan and studied their games and company to find their "secret".
Disagree if you will, but your assertion that they will be a "tiny footnote" is greatly, greatly mistaken and completely wrong.
I think the problem is that PC gamers are too quick to latch on to one particular company to the detriment of others. To be honest, Half Life 2 wasn't all that great. It was good, but it had plenty of design flaws and the "pod design" strategy left segments of the game feeling stitched together.
Quite seriously, Valve doesn't have all that much to show in their years of existence. Do they really deserve a week's worth of coverage?
> At the time, Doom demonstrated the power of the internet as a distribution system
Far from it. Doom was distributed primarily as Shareware disks in magazines or passed around from friend to friend. Only a small percentage of people obtained Doom from small world the Internet was at the time.
If anything Doom only showed that the *shareware* distribution system established by Apogee and iD Software was a viable means of distributing software.
Sean is the biggest prick in the game community that I've ever personally met. His ego is so inflated. Thinks he's god's gift to gamers. It's a good thing that most developers don't give him the time of day anymore.
Some very interesting things going on in the PSP hacking world.
It would seem that someone has gotten the DATA.PSP files from the various update EBOOT.PBP files decrypted.
This is the next step in unlocking the secrets of the PSP's firmware. How to flash/re-flash, and modifying firmware files to suit individual hacker's needs, etc...
A small sample:Makes for some very interesting times ahead I'm thinking.
I'll take you up on that bet. Hackers have just decrypted the EBOOT.PBP today. Just a matter of time now it appears.
Is it wrong to want to change "Hilf" to MILF? Suddenly the article then becomes something that I want to read more about.
You're not the only one to get frustrated by the Lego Star Wars pod race level. Two player racing is akin to synchronized swimming. It's not easy for an adult and a small child to pull off, let alone two kids.
Leaving children behind? Well, duh... Adults seem to have far more money to spend than children. Just follow the money and there's your market.
It is possible (with proper military and government credentials) to purchase a EMP generator. I know someone who has done so for research.
I thought the most important definition of free was free as in beer.
You have your economics a bit mixed up here. You're confusing two separate product lines: consoles and game manufacturing. The two have extremely different cost structures.
The literal manufacturing cost of a game has very little to do with the final price of a title. Using your $.10 a disc model (which isn't that far off actually) it doesn't take into account the content of the disc. When you're spending $10 million to produce a game, you've got to recover your investment somehow. Outside of the royalty fee that publishers pay per title, the price of a game has very little to do with the console manufacturer.
The strategy that they are using is take a loss early by getting their console into the hands as many consumers as possible. Over the next five years, you recoup your initial losses through royalty fees, accessories (where the real money is at) and add-on services. It also helps when manufacturing costs go down over time to build your consoles.
One last note: You're a bit incorrect in assuming that companies made losses switching from cartridges to discs. The physical cost of a cartridges is expensive compared to a disc. However, it can be argued that the biggest cost from Nintendo not moving to a disc based system for the N64 gave direct rise to the Playstation since it was originally designed to be used by Nintendo.
The press reporting this and taking the "glass half-empty" is similar to a conversation I had during a Disaster Recovery audit and almost every planning meeting about it.
Auditor: So what do you do with your computer data?
Me: We back up everything to tape.
Auditor: But what happens if the tape is bad?
Me: No problem, we have a sophisticated backup system where we use multiple tapes.
Auditor: But what if there was a fire?
Me: We have a halon suppression system in the server room, plus the tapes are stored off-site.
Auditor: What if a tornado takes out the off-site storage facility?
Me: Uh... we've got a backup hot co-lo with SBC a few miles away.
Auditor: Yeah, but what if a EMP takes out the city?
Me: The hell? But the chances of that happening are...
Auditor: But it could happen right?
Me: Well, sure it's possible but...
Auditor: (Checks FAIL on his report)
For space travel you can't make everything 100% certain. There's managed risk, which is really what's going down here. NASA is going to launch, but that isn't going to stop the media from focusing on those three areas that didn't have PASS checked off on the sheet. Expect every talking head to hone in on this during launch day.
FiringSquad has just posted my Ultimate Gaming Desktop system building guide in which we take a no-budget but don't-waste-money approach.
Tap the brakes here. No budget, but not wasting money? Hey, if you want the mythical Ultimate Gaming System, then you're going to be wasting money because you can. Hence, the usage of the word "Ultimate".
That's like saying that a Mercedes-Benz doesn't need those window wipers on the headlights. Sure it doesn't, but having it makes it "Ultimate". Ultimate Home Theater designs have those stupid 6 gauge gold-plated Monster cables that are totally overkill, but having them makes it "Ultimate".
Sorry, this article is far from Ultimate. Come back when your no-budget is truly no-budget. Write me an article that really has the Ultimate Gaming Rig.