Companies seem to focus on creating shareholder value. Shareholders don't buy stocks because they believe in the company's mission. We contribute our money for the sole purpose of getting more money in return. The source or nature of the value created by any company is not at issue. So a shareholder really has no interest in what exactly the company does, as long as they make money doing it. This is my theory of what's going on at Interplay.
A publicly held company should be able to rely on the faith of its shareholders (expressed when they bought the stock) and take risks with the money. If shareholders believe in the ability of those people, then they'll accept whatever outcome (including the loss of their own money) because "we're all in this together."
I can't imagine any company inspiring that kind of faith in people nowadays, let alone Interplay.
The type of game created by Black Isle had the quality where they would draw you in and make you want to keep playing indefinitely. This is a great thing for a game, because many are just behavior mods designed to keep you at your computers.
These days though, people want games that you can play for a short time and stop. Maybe pick it up again later, but not one that engrosses you to the point where you don't notice the sun coming up. I would say the money is definitely in the former type of game. People's schedules don't accommodate time sinks the way they used to. That could be a little false nostalgia.
Occasionally you'll find great titles that function for both the marathon and the casual player (e.g. Tetris or KOTOR, or certain massive online games) but it doesn't happen that much, at least in my experience.
So in addition to Interplay's troubles as a company, BIS' demise is a sign of the times.
The TCP system generates a hash based on the hardware and software configuration of each computer, right? I wonder how extensive its inspection of the hardware is, and whether it could be used to deny access to material or software rental in the future. For example, could a media player decide that your system was not up to the task of rendering a media file as the content provider intended and deny you the file? Or maybe Steam would say "your hardware configuration appears to be inadequate to provide you with a satisfying gameplay experience." I could be way off.
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory had the advantage of Roald Dahl writing the screenplay. This is not to say that PJ and Co. can't adapt The Hobbit.
Besides, in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I didn't notice Oompa-Loompas as a major impact on the book. In the movie, though? noooOOOOOOOO!
When I heard the phrase "the clone wars" the first time it meant very little to me. I don't know if I even stopped to imagine anything. Then I read Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy and thought "The Clone Wars" would involve some plot to replace key figures with clones and manipulate events that way. I thought in the movies that we would see Obi-Wan fighting a clone of himself, or Obi-Wan bursting into a room to confront a clone of himself. Something like that. The way it's been done now, it doesn't really matter that the army was cloned.
Microsoft recently slashed its prices in Thailand, offering a Windows/Office package for just $40 after the government there announced plans for promoting open source.
Even if they slashed prices to this level in Vietnam, that would still be almost 10% of the per capita income. I don't think they could really count potential sales even at that price. Well I mean they could. What interests me is whether they're taking a loss at that price. Sounds like dumping to me... It's not even a loss leader.
Gameplay video is better on TV than what you get from an internet connection. I like it best when they show scenes of high and low points from a game. Most promotional movies you can download only show good parts.
There was one game review I saw where it randomly crashed to the desktop, and more than once. You'd never get a movie of that over your connection.
They'll cover those costs by passing them on to you. If your "buying" the jig weren't masquerading as buying the jig, there might be some kind of deal to be worked out. As regards insurance. As it is now, they write the deal. "I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further."
This trend has been going on for at least the last 10 years. Probably longer, but I've only been teaching for 7 and it's not the kind of thing I learned about in teacher school. What do you think the proliferation of standardized tests means? Who wants these tests? Teachers don't like them, and it's not because we're opposed to "accountability." School systems don't like high-stakes testing because it leads inevitably to overcrowding.
The answer is that business interests want:
uniform ways to compare students to each other
curricula that relieve some of their training costs
I woke up to this fact when someone from the State education department addressed a faculty meeting here at school. She was going on and on about the "business stakeholders" in public education. The "business stakeholders" said that they wanted such and such "math" on the state tests, so voila.
This is also why No Child Left Behind is an unfunded mandate. Funding it would defeat its puropse.
These are all my own theories based on my 7 years of teaching. Take them with that in mind...
I've been playing this a little and it has the same stuttery feel that Max Payne 1 has. I actually just got Max Payne 1 after reading about the excellent Kung Fu mod. My graphics card is pretty new though, so it should be able to run either game easily. Anyway, it seems like the major feature of this sequel is the higher system requirements. The gameplay is only slightly different, maybe the presentation is a little slicker. I don't really see new features in the graphics engine (more complex shadows, self-shadows, improved transparency, something) but I do see higher poly models. It looks like Remedy thought "don't change the game, just make it so they'll want a new graphics card to play it."
Here in Maryland my sister was suspended from school for repeatedly refusing to go along with the pledge to the flag. This was in a middle school in about 1991. Remember what the US was doing in 1991? The laws as they are allow schools a lot of interpretation. In my school now (where I teach) there's "an expectation" by the principal that students will recite the pledge to the flag every day. This isn't conveyed to students as much as it is to us. An "expectation" may not seem like such a big deal. Believe me, however, when I say that if you don't live up to certain expectations, school systems have ways of making your life harder.
What we need, then, is a law prohibiting schools from coercing students into reciting or penalizing them for not doing so.
Under the license, if you distribute GPL software in a product, you must also distribute the software's source code. And not just the GPL code, but also the code for any "derivative works" you've created--even if publishing that code means anyone can now make a knockoff of your product.
Not great news if you're Cisco, which paid $500 million for Linksys.
Lyons blames the GPL for this? It seems like Cisco is more to blame if they didn't realize that there was GPL code in some of the product lines they were acquiring. The author must be thinking "$500 million? They can't be at fault if they paid that much money."
The real news here is Tom Hall, the man behind Anachronox among other things. I only know him from Anachronox but I'm sure many of you can school me. It's too bad that game got shafted by Eidos. Maybe with Hall in a position to direct game development we'll see some greatness come from Midway. Anachronox was actually funny. How many games can claim that? Many try, but really I can only think of Anachronox and Giants: Citizen Kabuto in the recent past.
They didn't say anywhere in the article how the distribution to these countries was going to happen. If it's what I think, then there will be places where the movie will be in someone's hands but not on screens yet. This seems like an invitation to piracy, seeing as how so many leaks come from inside the movie food chain.
If it's some kind of digital transmission, that has even more potential for piracy.
I have this feeling that I'm missing something here please correct me if I'm wrong.
I'd have to watch the movie again to properly address your post. That can never happen. But if his attitude was really "screw it" then I think he'd stay in the Matrix, convince Trinity to stay with him, and stop making trouble. He wouldn't go back out and continue the struggle. I guess Smith wouldn't allow him to just hang out in the Matrix though. So that's something. Also, I don't remember if the conditions when he saved Trinity were such that he could just stay. Would the Matrix undergo some kind of crisis if he stayed in and got a job?
The non-action parts of Reloaded are like the slow parts of most other Hollywood action movies: dull. Except they added a little self-importance and pomp.
I remember reading that they had to construct a stretch of concrete bridge at an unused military facility and then demolish it later. Did GM really put up the funds for all that? I guess I wouldn't be surprised if they did.
The Matrix had its moments, but Reloaded was absolutely a typical hollywood movie. Consider the car chase. Of course it was obscenely expensive to make, but it was still standard movie action. I was expecting strength of mind to have some bearing on fighting ability (the Matrix supposedly can be bent to one's will) but Morpheus is still doing things like getting knocked down and finding weapons lying around. Also consider the choice at the end: "Save the girl or save the world." And consider Neo's response: "there's got to be a third choice." This is all very much what Hollywood has been handing us.
Back when I wrote for a tiny gaming reviews site I used to write impartial initial reviews. This was before the editor got a hold of them.
Like in television, the product of a gaming magazine (on or offline) is its audience, which is sold to advertisers. The advertisers are the customers, not the readers. The exception is in subscription-based web sites that do not take ads. Print magazines can't really afford to do that what with their high overhead, but some websites can.
I'm pretty sure Valve has announced that STEAM will certainly be used with Half Life 2. I even read a speculation (?) somewhere that STEAM would be one way to purchase HL2. I'm at work here so I can't visit any game-related sites to check this.
The article mentions that skilled readers won't have a hard time parsing reordered words like this. I think that's a very important part of the story. You really need to know all the words in the sentence to be able to read like this.
Also, (and off-topic) it seems like most misspelling doesn't just include the right letters in the wrong sequence. Usually people will also include several incorrect letters. This makes the words have the wrong length, which I don't remember seeing the article address. I'm a teacher so I've seen a great deal of misspelling, but I don't presume to know about All Spelling Errors.
Slashdot Mirror
Companies seem to focus on creating shareholder value. Shareholders don't buy stocks because they believe in the company's mission. We contribute our money for the sole purpose of getting more money in return. The source or nature of the value created by any company is not at issue. So a shareholder really has no interest in what exactly the company does, as long as they make money doing it. This is my theory of what's going on at Interplay.
A publicly held company should be able to rely on the faith of its shareholders (expressed when they bought the stock) and take risks with the money. If shareholders believe in the ability of those people, then they'll accept whatever outcome (including the loss of their own money) because "we're all in this together."
I can't imagine any company inspiring that kind of faith in people nowadays, let alone Interplay.
Ravi
What about Icewind Dale and II? Had something changed at BIS by the time those came out?
Ravi
The type of game created by Black Isle had the quality where they would draw you in and make you want to keep playing indefinitely. This is a great thing for a game, because many are just behavior mods designed to keep you at your computers.
These days though, people want games that you can play for a short time and stop. Maybe pick it up again later, but not one that engrosses you to the point where you don't notice the sun coming up. I would say the money is definitely in the former type of game. People's schedules don't accommodate time sinks the way they used to. That could be a little false nostalgia.
Occasionally you'll find great titles that function for both the marathon and the casual player (e.g. Tetris or KOTOR, or certain massive online games) but it doesn't happen that much, at least in my experience.
So in addition to Interplay's troubles as a company, BIS' demise is a sign of the times.
Ravi
The TCP system generates a hash based on the hardware and software configuration of each computer, right? I wonder how extensive its inspection of the hardware is, and whether it could be used to deny access to material or software rental in the future. For example, could a media player decide that your system was not up to the task of rendering a media file as the content provider intended and deny you the file? Or maybe Steam would say "your hardware configuration appears to be inadequate to provide you with a satisfying gameplay experience." I could be way off.
RaviWilly Wonka and the Chocolate Factory had the advantage of Roald Dahl writing the screenplay. This is not to say that PJ and Co. can't adapt The Hobbit.
Besides, in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I didn't notice Oompa-Loompas as a major impact on the book. In the movie, though? noooOOOOOOOO!
Ravi
When I heard the phrase "the clone wars" the first time it meant very little to me. I don't know if I even stopped to imagine anything. Then I read Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy and thought "The Clone Wars" would involve some plot to replace key figures with clones and manipulate events that way. I thought in the movies that we would see Obi-Wan fighting a clone of himself, or Obi-Wan bursting into a room to confront a clone of himself. Something like that. The way it's been done now, it doesn't really matter that the army was cloned.
Ravi
I think the reviewer was saying that the drive spins fast, not that it spins for a long time.
My favorite part was where the author felt "hemmed in" by the iPod. You don't get that hemmed in feeling using Microsoft standards!
Ravi
Ravi
Gameplay video is better on TV than what you get from an internet connection. I like it best when they show scenes of high and low points from a game. Most promotional movies you can download only show good parts.
There was one game review I saw where it randomly crashed to the desktop, and more than once. You'd never get a movie of that over your connection.
Ravi
They'll cover those costs by passing them on to you. If your "buying" the jig weren't masquerading as buying the jig, there might be some kind of deal to be worked out. As regards insurance. As it is now, they write the deal. "I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further."
Ravi
This trend has been going on for at least the last 10 years. Probably longer, but I've only been teaching for 7 and it's not the kind of thing I learned about in teacher school. What do you think the proliferation of standardized tests means? Who wants these tests? Teachers don't like them, and it's not because we're opposed to "accountability." School systems don't like high-stakes testing because it leads inevitably to overcrowding.
The answer is that business interests want:
- uniform ways to compare students to each other
- curricula that relieve some of their training costs
I woke up to this fact when someone from the State education department addressed a faculty meeting here at school. She was going on and on about the "business stakeholders" in public education. The "business stakeholders" said that they wanted such and such "math" on the state tests, so voila.This is also why No Child Left Behind is an unfunded mandate. Funding it would defeat its puropse.
These are all my own theories based on my 7 years of teaching. Take them with that in mind...
Ravi
I've been playing this a little and it has the same stuttery feel that Max Payne 1 has. I actually just got Max Payne 1 after reading about the excellent Kung Fu mod. My graphics card is pretty new though, so it should be able to run either game easily. Anyway, it seems like the major feature of this sequel is the higher system requirements. The gameplay is only slightly different, maybe the presentation is a little slicker. I don't really see new features in the graphics engine (more complex shadows, self-shadows, improved transparency, something) but I do see higher poly models. It looks like Remedy thought "don't change the game, just make it so they'll want a new graphics card to play it."
Ravi
Here in Maryland my sister was suspended from school for repeatedly refusing to go along with the pledge to the flag. This was in a middle school in about 1991. Remember what the US was doing in 1991? The laws as they are allow schools a lot of interpretation. In my school now (where I teach) there's "an expectation" by the principal that students will recite the pledge to the flag every day. This isn't conveyed to students as much as it is to us. An "expectation" may not seem like such a big deal. Believe me, however, when I say that if you don't live up to certain expectations, school systems have ways of making your life harder.
What we need, then, is a law prohibiting schools from coercing students into reciting or penalizing them for not doing so.
Ravi
Under the license, if you distribute GPL software in a product, you must also distribute the software's source code. And not just the GPL code, but also the code for any "derivative works" you've created--even if publishing that code means anyone can now make a knockoff of your product.
Not great news if you're Cisco, which paid $500 million for Linksys.
Lyons blames the GPL for this? It seems like Cisco is more to blame if they didn't realize that there was GPL code in some of the product lines they were acquiring. The author must be thinking "$500 million? They can't be at fault if they paid that much money."
???
Ravi
The real news here is Tom Hall, the man behind Anachronox among other things. I only know him from Anachronox but I'm sure many of you can school me. It's too bad that game got shafted by Eidos. Maybe with Hall in a position to direct game development we'll see some greatness come from Midway. Anachronox was actually funny. How many games can claim that? Many try, but really I can only think of Anachronox and Giants: Citizen Kabuto in the recent past.
Ravi
They didn't say anywhere in the article how the distribution to these countries was going to happen. If it's what I think, then there will be places where the movie will be in someone's hands but not on screens yet. This seems like an invitation to piracy, seeing as how so many leaks come from inside the movie food chain.
If it's some kind of digital transmission, that has even more potential for piracy.
I have this feeling that I'm missing something here please correct me if I'm wrong.
Ravi
Here and I thought the Bush campaign was in the pocket of the punch card ballot machine lobby.
Ravi
I'd have to watch the movie again to properly address your post. That can never happen. But if his attitude was really "screw it" then I think he'd stay in the Matrix, convince Trinity to stay with him, and stop making trouble. He wouldn't go back out and continue the struggle. I guess Smith wouldn't allow him to just hang out in the Matrix though. So that's something. Also, I don't remember if the conditions when he saved Trinity were such that he could just stay. Would the Matrix undergo some kind of crisis if he stayed in and got a job?
The non-action parts of Reloaded are like the slow parts of most other Hollywood action movies: dull. Except they added a little self-importance and pomp.
Ravi
I remember reading that they had to construct a stretch of concrete bridge at an unused military facility and then demolish it later. Did GM really put up the funds for all that? I guess I wouldn't be surprised if they did.
Ravi
The Matrix had its moments, but Reloaded was absolutely a typical hollywood movie. Consider the car chase. Of course it was obscenely expensive to make, but it was still standard movie action. I was expecting strength of mind to have some bearing on fighting ability (the Matrix supposedly can be bent to one's will) but Morpheus is still doing things like getting knocked down and finding weapons lying around. Also consider the choice at the end: "Save the girl or save the world." And consider Neo's response: "there's got to be a third choice." This is all very much what Hollywood has been handing us.
Do you mean the Bitboys Oy?
Ravi
Back when I wrote for a tiny gaming reviews site I used to write impartial initial reviews. This was before the editor got a hold of them.
Like in television, the product of a gaming magazine (on or offline) is its audience, which is sold to advertisers. The advertisers are the customers, not the readers. The exception is in subscription-based web sites that do not take ads. Print magazines can't really afford to do that what with their high overhead, but some websites can.
Ravi
I'm pretty sure Valve has announced that STEAM will certainly be used with Half Life 2. I even read a speculation (?) somewhere that STEAM would be one way to purchase HL2. I'm at work here so I can't visit any game-related sites to check this.
Ravi
The article mentions that skilled readers won't have a hard time parsing reordered words like this. I think that's a very important part of the story. You really need to know all the words in the sentence to be able to read like this.
Also, (and off-topic) it seems like most misspelling doesn't just include the right letters in the wrong sequence. Usually people will also include several incorrect letters. This makes the words have the wrong length, which I don't remember seeing the article address. I'm a teacher so I've seen a great deal of misspelling, but I don't presume to know about All Spelling Errors.
Ravi
Somehow that makes me think of drive-through EULAs: "By driving through this sign, you accept blah blah blah."
Ravi