I loved the Yars' Revenge box art, in fact I loved most of Atari and Imagic's box art for their 2600 games. Cosmic Ark comes to mind, as do the various oil paintings done for Super Breakout, Superman, Outlaw, etc. I wonder if those paintings are in a gallery somewhere? The Activision box art was much more representative of the actual games but the Atari art really stoked the imagination. I guess it had to.
The article was idiotic and easily explained by the fact that this guy sells old games for money. Hey if that was my livelihood I'd probably say you should play $1000 for Yars Revenge.
An old video game doesn't spoil like a piece of fruit but it becomes obsolete by better and better games. The entire article is based on a meaningless analogy. Just because a video game doesn't go rotten like fruit doesn't mean that therefore the price should always stay the same.
Video game prices, like all prices, depend on the law of supply and demand. The greatest demand exists right before launch time. A finite number of people are willing to pay full price for any game. The biggest games are hugely hyped and we know a lot about them through press releases and leaks during their years or decades (DNF) of development.
When launch occurs, those who can't wait for the price to go down buy the game almost immediately. However, they are not going to buy the game more than once. Now, keep in mind that this initial sale will usually cover the entire cost of developing and marketing the game, along with hopefully some profit. At this point, the only fixed unit cost for a developer is the cost of the CD or DVD and the case and manual etc. So any copies sold after this point will have a higher per unit margin. The developer then has a choice, should he continue to stick a $50 price tag on a game, sell zero copies of it, and make absolutely nothing? Or, should he sharply drop the price and make a big profit on each unit? Obviously the developer is going to drop the price.
Consider now the market for fruit. Some people will only buy fresh fruit and wouldn't even consider the "manager's special" past-due fruit discount. The manager charges a higher price for his best fruit because people will pay it. Other people are always looking for a bargain and don't care if the fruit has a few bruises. The manager makes money from both these people. He probably pays for his entire bushel of apples after the first few have been sold to the fresh fruit lovers. The next few apples provide him his profit margin. Any remaining apples, he has a choice. He can throw them away and get nothing or he can see if someone will take them off his hands for a fraction of the original cost. In this rough sense, video games and fruit have more in common as economic commodities than the Manifesto allows.
I myself only purchase fresh fruits and vegetables. I buy games I really like for the full $50 cost. And I always take a peek at the bargain bin to see if there is anything worth picking up for a low cost. And, anything under $5 I buy on a whim nearly every time. The best bargain I ever got was Tony Hawk 3 for the PS2 for $2.99, I played that more than some $50 games. Of course plenty of people paid full price for that but I wouldn't have. So they made a few cents off me they wouldn't have. I think the Manifesto author is way off base and is engaging in wishful thinking if he believes people should or would pay full price for older games. As for GameTap, it's the same issue. The game companies see a way to make a little money from a product that isn't currently bringing in revenue. Of course they will pursue that revenue stream. Will it kill the game industry? Of course not, there will always be a certain demand to have the very best games right away at full retail price. The front runners subsidize low priced games for everyone. It's always been this way, I bought MY copy of Yars' Revenge for 99 cents at a Zayre's closeout sale. Would I have paid the full $50 for it in 1982? Of COURSE not. But better to sell it for 99 cents than for nothing. What the Manifesto author's dream will lead to is more landfills full of crushed video ganes, it's in no way beneficial to the video game industry.
If the Internet was illegal -- as in drugs -- you would see CERN scientists blowing dudes for the bandwidth. This is less a critique on Internet addiction than it is on making drugs illegal.
Anything on the Internet is Available Anywhere Anytime Always.
This is the first rule of using the Internet. Facebook is on the Internet. Therefore, anything on Facebook is Available Anywhere Anytime Always. Period.
I sympathize with users who haven't thought through this implication and are now shocked or offended by it. It does seem a little creepy and excessive. However, the nature of the Internet is complete and total public access. It offers a tremendous number of advantages as well as a number of disadvantages. Facebook users can filter their content and hope the filtering policy doesn't change, or they can leave Facebook. Or, they can self-censor the information they post to Facebook. But the only way to make sure that people never find information you don't want on the Internet is to never put it on the Internet in the first place.
There are hundreds of Usenet posts I wrote in the 1990's which I certainly would disavow today, and yet they will be on the Internet forever and there is nothing I can do about it. Today when I put information on the Internet -- including this very Slashdot post -- I am cognizant of the fact that I am using a public forum. I use a tone and writing style as if I am whispering into the ear of every human on the planet simultaneously.
Of course, there is also the possibility that a friend or acquaintance or even an enemy will put something on the Internet that you wished to keep hidden. It's a risk of our modern age. The Internet is fantastic, I consider it the greatest technological advancement in human history. But it is a double-edged sword. Facebook users are fortunate in a sense, now they know exactly how powerful and dangerous posting information on the Internet really is.
When "IT" was first announced, I thought Kamen had come up with a new form of fuel that would replace petroleum and really "change the world". So the scooter was kind of a let-down in comparison. Even so, I would love to have one and I imagine most people would. I just wouldn't want to pay for it!
Hi! I wanted to say that I can't believe 2500 renowned astronomers would
come up with that ill-considered, 12 planet proposal. It's horrible! The
methodology of planetary designation you have chosen and the results it
will entail are pretty awful. I have a proposal for you to vote on. It's
very simple:
"There are nine planets in the Solar System: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars,
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto".
How simple is that! Sometimes -- as in the weight of the standard kilogram
-- a definition is more of a tautology than an expression of some
empirical standard. In the case of the nine planets I think that is how
you have to go. Call the other bodies planetoids or to be more elegant
call them heavenly bodies. Don't trash science with a huge number of
asteroids, moons, and Kuiper Belt objects just so you have some
meaningless "standard" to fall back on. The planets are the planets and
that is good enough for everyone. Even the world's best astronomers!
Please submit my proposal for review. Thank you, I do appreciate all your
hard work to discover everything there is to know about our world and the
massive stretch of space that surrounds it.
You're way off here. First, Nintendo has had some fantastic sports games in the past (Tecmo Bowl, RBI Baseball, Bases Loaded, Lee Trevino's Fighting Golf, NES Open, Super Spike V'Ball, etc) and there is no reason it won't have great games now. Fear of alienating their fan base? Where do you get evidence that THAT will happen? I say the more games of all types the better for everyone. Especially me.
Bill Gates inherited a massive fortune from his father. Granted, he leveraged that into the largest fortune in the world. It just goes to show, the best way to get rich is to... be rich.
It's hard to tell what exactly you will do in the game but if it has any of the immersive appeal of GTA it will be a smash hit. ANd the target of a ban by ignorant lawmakers everywhere!
There weren't too many games but they were all pretty fun. I did get motion sickness playing it though. What I'd like to know is, where can you get replacement parts? I lost the eyeshade holder (not the eyeshade itself but the plastic part that connects it to the Virtual Boy) and haven't been able to play mine much since. And I haven't found a source for replacements and as time goes on it becomes less and less likely that I will. I keep an eye out at tag sales etc but if anyone knows a place to get this please let me know.
And also, the max length of the subject line is too short. Anyway, this is really a meaningless article and a waste of time. You can find significance in any numerical combination on the calendar if you try hard enough. There was no reason to put this article on the front page, and to put it in the "Funny" category is an insult to the concept of humor.
GIMP is fine for casual image manipulation
on
Beginning GIMP
·
· Score: 1
Like almost everything else in the world, sometimes one is better; sometimes the other. When it comes to video games, the ends justify the means. Whatever works is what is best!
Rather than read an article about an article why not just go directly here? It's a very informative interview, I really look forward to Super Mario Galaxy and how the Wii controller will work in that type of game.
Web Based Email Is Inconvenient
on
Gmail vs Pine
·
· Score: 1
I am a PINE user. In fact I am really dedicated to using PINE. When I switched ISPs I made sure I could get shell access via SSH and email access using PINE. I also have GMail and Yahoo! accounts plus Outlook for my work email but none of these come anywhere close to the convenience of PINE. The big advantage over web email is that, to for example bring up the next email in a folder, I just press "n". It comes up almost instantly. To look at the next email in GMail, you have to wait for a full page load! It takes SO much lomger that if you get a lot of emails you spend a huge percentage of your time just waiting for the browser. This minor yet extremely annoying inconvenience is the #1 reason I use PINE instead of any web-based email.
It does seem that moderators are methodically modding down the "Uranus" jokes, but frankly, when a brand new research project comes up with brand new evidence about rings aroudn Uranus, you almost have to expect the inevitable Uranus Joke.
Slashdot Mirror
Fozzy.
I loved the Yars' Revenge box art, in fact I loved most of Atari and Imagic's box art for their 2600 games. Cosmic Ark comes to mind, as do the various oil paintings done for Super Breakout, Superman, Outlaw, etc. I wonder if those paintings are in a gallery somewhere? The Activision box art was much more representative of the actual games but the Atari art really stoked the imagination. I guess it had to.
The article was idiotic and easily explained by the fact that this guy sells old games for money. Hey if that was my livelihood I'd probably say you should play $1000 for Yars Revenge.
An old video game doesn't spoil like a piece of fruit but it becomes obsolete by better and better games. The entire article is based on a meaningless analogy. Just because a video game doesn't go rotten like fruit doesn't mean that therefore the price should always stay the same.
Video game prices, like all prices, depend on the law of supply and demand. The greatest demand exists right before launch time. A finite number of people are willing to pay full price for any game. The biggest games are hugely hyped and we know a lot about them through press releases and leaks during their years or decades (DNF) of development.
When launch occurs, those who can't wait for the price to go down buy the game almost immediately. However, they are not going to buy the game more than once. Now, keep in mind that this initial sale will usually cover the entire cost of developing and marketing the game, along with hopefully some profit. At this point, the only fixed unit cost for a developer is the cost of the CD or DVD and the case and manual etc. So any copies sold after this point will have a higher per unit margin. The developer then has a choice, should he continue to stick a $50 price tag on a game, sell zero copies of it, and make absolutely nothing? Or, should he sharply drop the price and make a big profit on each unit? Obviously the developer is going to drop the price.
Consider now the market for fruit. Some people will only buy fresh fruit and wouldn't even consider the "manager's special" past-due fruit discount. The manager charges a higher price for his best fruit because people will pay it. Other people are always looking for a bargain and don't care if the fruit has a few bruises. The manager makes money from both these people. He probably pays for his entire bushel of apples after the first few have been sold to the fresh fruit lovers. The next few apples provide him his profit margin. Any remaining apples, he has a choice. He can throw them away and get nothing or he can see if someone will take them off his hands for a fraction of the original cost. In this rough sense, video games and fruit have more in common as economic commodities than the Manifesto allows.
I myself only purchase fresh fruits and vegetables. I buy games I really like for the full $50 cost. And I always take a peek at the bargain bin to see if there is anything worth picking up for a low cost. And, anything under $5 I buy on a whim nearly every time. The best bargain I ever got was Tony Hawk 3 for the PS2 for $2.99, I played that more than some $50 games. Of course plenty of people paid full price for that but I wouldn't have. So they made a few cents off me they wouldn't have. I think the Manifesto author is way off base and is engaging in wishful thinking if he believes people should or would pay full price for older games. As for GameTap, it's the same issue. The game companies see a way to make a little money from a product that isn't currently bringing in revenue. Of course they will pursue that revenue stream. Will it kill the game industry? Of course not, there will always be a certain demand to have the very best games right away at full retail price. The front runners subsidize low priced games for everyone. It's always been this way, I bought MY copy of Yars' Revenge for 99 cents at a Zayre's closeout sale. Would I have paid the full $50 for it in 1982? Of COURSE not. But better to sell it for 99 cents than for nothing. What the Manifesto author's dream will lead to is more landfills full of crushed video ganes, it's in no way beneficial to the video game industry.
Waah, waah, waaah, waaaaahhhhh..... Oh, wait a minute. Wii, wii, wii, WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If the Internet was illegal -- as in drugs -- you would see CERN scientists blowing dudes for the bandwidth. This is less a critique on Internet addiction than it is on making drugs illegal.
Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.
That hipster idiot can get one at JC Penney's. Some of their models have a CD and tape player built into a retro cabinet, it's pretty cool.
Anything on the Internet is Available Anywhere Anytime Always.
This is the first rule of using the Internet. Facebook is on the Internet. Therefore, anything on Facebook is Available Anywhere Anytime Always. Period.
I sympathize with users who haven't thought through this implication and are now shocked or offended by it. It does seem a little creepy and excessive. However, the nature of the Internet is complete and total public access. It offers a tremendous number of advantages as well as a number of disadvantages. Facebook users can filter their content and hope the filtering policy doesn't change, or they can leave Facebook. Or, they can self-censor the information they post to Facebook. But the only way to make sure that people never find information you don't want on the Internet is to never put it on the Internet in the first place.
There are hundreds of Usenet posts I wrote in the 1990's which I certainly would disavow today, and yet they will be on the Internet forever and there is nothing I can do about it. Today when I put information on the Internet -- including this very Slashdot post -- I am cognizant of the fact that I am using a public forum. I use a tone and writing style as if I am whispering into the ear of every human on the planet simultaneously.
Of course, there is also the possibility that a friend or acquaintance or even an enemy will put something on the Internet that you wished to keep hidden. It's a risk of our modern age. The Internet is fantastic, I consider it the greatest technological advancement in human history. But it is a double-edged sword. Facebook users are fortunate in a sense, now they know exactly how powerful and dangerous posting information on the Internet really is.
When "IT" was first announced, I thought Kamen had come up with a new form of fuel that would replace petroleum and really "change the world". So the scooter was kind of a let-down in comparison. Even so, I would love to have one and I imagine most people would. I just wouldn't want to pay for it!
How can he know the PS3 will not fail? Is... is he going to give me $600?
What, your first response wasn't dorky enough, you had to tack on this extremely unfunny addendum?
Hi! I wanted to say that I can't believe 2500 renowned astronomers would come up with that ill-considered, 12 planet proposal. It's horrible! The methodology of planetary designation you have chosen and the results it will entail are pretty awful. I have a proposal for you to vote on. It's very simple:
"There are nine planets in the Solar System: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto".
How simple is that! Sometimes -- as in the weight of the standard kilogram -- a definition is more of a tautology than an expression of some empirical standard. In the case of the nine planets I think that is how you have to go. Call the other bodies planetoids or to be more elegant call them heavenly bodies. Don't trash science with a huge number of asteroids, moons, and Kuiper Belt objects just so you have some meaningless "standard" to fall back on. The planets are the planets and that is good enough for everyone. Even the world's best astronomers! Please submit my proposal for review. Thank you, I do appreciate all your hard work to discover everything there is to know about our world and the massive stretch of space that surrounds it.
Sincerely,
Kevin M. Hebert
You're way off here. First, Nintendo has had some fantastic sports games in the past (Tecmo Bowl, RBI Baseball, Bases Loaded, Lee Trevino's Fighting Golf, NES Open, Super Spike V'Ball, etc) and there is no reason it won't have great games now. Fear of alienating their fan base? Where do you get evidence that THAT will happen? I say the more games of all types the better for everyone. Especially me.
Bill Gates inherited a massive fortune from his father. Granted, he leveraged that into the largest fortune in the world. It just goes to show, the best way to get rich is to... be rich.
It's hard to tell what exactly you will do in the game but if it has any of the immersive appeal of GTA it will be a smash hit. ANd the target of a ban by ignorant lawmakers everywhere!
There weren't too many games but they were all pretty fun. I did get motion sickness playing it though. What I'd like to know is, where can you get replacement parts? I lost the eyeshade holder (not the eyeshade itself but the plastic part that connects it to the Virtual Boy) and haven't been able to play mine much since. And I haven't found a source for replacements and as time goes on it becomes less and less likely that I will. I keep an eye out at tag sales etc but if anyone knows a place to get this please let me know.
And also, the max length of the subject line is too short. Anyway, this is really a meaningless article and a waste of time. You can find significance in any numerical combination on the calendar if you try hard enough. There was no reason to put this article on the front page, and to put it in the "Funny" category is an insult to the concept of humor.
I use it to make stupid images like this: Waitor
For cut and paste and basic photo manipulation, GIMP is fine. I prefer Photoshop but with GIMP, the price is right.
Like almost everything else in the world, sometimes one is better; sometimes the other. When it comes to video games, the ends justify the means. Whatever works is what is best!
I think it's the worst. Seriously. Half the page filled with ridiculously unfunny jokes.
Rather than read an article about an article why not just go directly here? It's a very informative interview, I really look forward to Super Mario Galaxy and how the Wii controller will work in that type of game.
I am a PINE user. In fact I am really dedicated to using PINE. When I switched ISPs I made sure I could get shell access via SSH and email access using PINE. I also have GMail and Yahoo! accounts plus Outlook for my work email but none of these come anywhere close to the convenience of PINE. The big advantage over web email is that, to for example bring up the next email in a folder, I just press "n". It comes up almost instantly. To look at the next email in GMail, you have to wait for a full page load! It takes SO much lomger that if you get a lot of emails you spend a huge percentage of your time just waiting for the browser. This minor yet extremely annoying inconvenience is the #1 reason I use PINE instead of any web-based email.
When it comes out.
I don't think the time should be wasted on this show, when it could be better spent elsewhere.
And you're referring to time better spent... watching television?!?!
It does seem that moderators are methodically modding down the "Uranus" jokes, but frankly, when a brand new research project comes up with brand new evidence about rings aroudn Uranus, you almost have to expect the inevitable Uranus Joke.