It might have been a wiser strategy to invest that $50 and then buy 3D Realms with the resulting interest. You'd probably get your hands on a copy of the game sooner.
It's been around for a long time. There's a whole Internet subculture dedicated to remixing video game tracks (as well as at least one commercial effort), and a few composers (Nobuo Uematsu [Everything Final Fantasy that has a number other than XI after it] and Yasunori Mitsuda [Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, Xenogears], namely) have achieved almost cult-like status. It's also customary in Japan to release soundtracks for video games on CD, as is done with movies in America and Europe.
Does anyone else find the fact that this editorial was posted on GameSpy to be the least bit ironic? While their historical articles have some merit, I am frequently left speechless by the inanity of their editorial content. I mean, how can you take seriously someone who finds it even worthwhile to argue whether game developers should take to heart every remark that their customers make?
Of course you don't want to listen to all feedback. People want different, conflicting things. Often, gamers don't even know what they want. Look at The Wind Waker: it was blasted up and down prior to release, and has since gone on to be one of the most successful games of 2003. If someone has consistently insightful commentary on improving games, chances are they already work for a game development studio. Everything else is just marketing masturbation, and while it might increase sales, adding elements to satisfy consumers probably won't do much for the quality of the product.
Anyone who makes a living running a business that is wholly dependent on Google results is--come on, let's all say it together--a moron. Google is under absolutely no obligation to pander to these people (many of whom are technically inept to the point where they think that hiring a search engine "optimizer" to cheat search algorithms is a perfectly legitimate thing to do), particularly because:
Paid advertising is available at (what I understand to be) a very reasonable cost.
Pollution of search results has the potential to be extremely detrimental to Google's user count and, consequently, business.
All that aside, these people are assholes. Every (questionably trustworthy) product offer that shows up in search results is one less piece of legitimate information on the page. Hell, no one would would tolerate people screaming at you to buy penis enlargement systems in the biology section of his local library. Nor would anyone frequent a library in which two thirds of the books are cheaply-made catalogs. How is it any different?
Contrary to what the tone of the article suggests, these people aren't victims. They're a serious threat to the livelihood of one of the most amazing and useful tools of the information age, and reducing their search engine rankings with extreme prejudice, if not banning them outright, is simply the best course of action.
You forgot the most difficult obstacle in developing PC games: the wide variety of hardware on which your game needs to run. It's gotten better, mainly thanks to a unified API owned by a certain software behemoth, but it's still a mess. When developing for a console, there's one hardware configuration. I'm sure it cuts QA budgets by half, if not more.
They can't tell people not to use the terms. But they can refuse to do business with anyone who continues to use them. I agree that it's retarded, and most of the L.A. County staffers involved would probably agree. But in the litigious society that we live in, you simply can't afford to run the risk of an enormous lawsuit. Especially in today's economy. It's not like local governments have tons of cash to throw around...
Hey, if you're going to pick a Japanese band that dresses like RuPaul to make fun of, at least pick one that isn't good. Like Malice Mizer (or just Gackt) or Dir en Grey or pretty much any J-Rock band other than the two you just mentioned. L'Arc and Glay both have great sounds.
I feel like a complete nerd just for posting this. And I'm on Slashdot, for chrissake!
There are PS2's that will actually start carving ruts in blue discs. It's quite a sight to behold. And just try explaining it to the store that you bought the game at!
Using the system vertically makes a big difference, from what I hear. The main cause of failure is simply a dirty lens. When you run your PS2 vertically, you don't get the pesky influence of gravity pushing dirt onto the most sensitive part of the unit.
Ummm, no. First off, a rate is a measure of one thing with respect to another. Sony's failure rate would be the same if they sold 200 PS2's.
Personally, I've seen this problem in about a half-dozen consoles. I've owned two of them myself, and both have succumbed to this problem. I wouldn't be surprised if physical shock had something to do with it, but that's not a viable excuse. You can drop a GameCube down the stairs and jump on it, and it'll still work properly. The same goes for the original PlayStation. The PS2's main problem is that the laser lens is inaccessible without taking the damn thing apart. In a top-loading machine like the PSX or Cube, you can wipe the lens off in about ten seconds. With a PS2, it's a matter of finding a microscopic phillips-head screwdriver and voiding your warranty.
A-Rod was just an example. I agree that his salary is killing Texas, just as Manny Ramirez is severly limiting the flexiblity of my beloved Boston Red Sox. Billy Beane, on the other hand, is worth a bloody fortune.:)
The next few months are going to be very interesting for Major League Baseball. There are lots of big-name free agents out there, and the last two world champions were relatively low-budget teams who basically came from nowhere and had no big stars.
I'd argue that there are indeed some people that are worth staggering amounts of money. Consider the state that Apple was in before the Steve Jobs takeover to the state that they're in now. If it's true, as is commonly believed, that he's responsible for this dramatic change, then isn't he worth the difference? The same applies to other business luminaries like Lou Gerstner and Bill Gates (sorry). (To offset that last comment, Linus Torvalds would probably be of similar value if he had any interest in doing so.)
The same applies to musicians and athletes. If Alex Rodriguez generates $20 million in ticket sales every year (by simply just being there or by improving the performance of the Texas Rangers as whole, which generally leads to higher attendance rates, better television deals, and an increase in merchandise revenues), he's worth $20 million. Think of all of the jobs that a touring musician with a major record label creates and supports. While a vast, vast majority of people are worth about what they're making (or less), there are a select few that do bring in enormous sums of money, and should be compensated accordingly.
All of these new-age "addictions" (and pretty much everything non-chemical) are nothing more than reflections upon modern society. Everyone's a victim nowadays, and no one will claim responsibility for his own actions.
People today are fat, lazy and completely bereft of self-control. If you skip work frequently to sit at your computer to play Everquest and end up getting fired, you're not the victim of an addiction. You're a moron. If you can't get homework done because you're always playing Nintendo, turn the damn thing off. If you're fat, you don't need to go to detox; you need to stop eating cheeseburgers.
And how about these omnipresent spoiled children? If your kid is playing too much PlayStation, take it away. Many parents I know seem to think that they're doing their progeny a favor by catering to their every whim. So far, all we're seeing for it are more overweight and generally useless fools. So many problems in America these days could be solved with a good, swift kick in the ass.
So, yeah, I'm pretty fed up with this ephemeral, excessive culture of ours. Mods, eat your hearts out.
I don't think it's necessarily the logic or interaction as much as it is the complexity of the content.
Any decent programmer can write you a set of code that provides consistent behavior for any given number of levels. (Scripting is another matter entirely, but scripting is a relatively trivial task compared to developing a full game engine.)
Content, on the other hands, is a serious problem. Making things that look good in 3D is an order of magnitude more difficult than making presentable 2D objects. When dealing with sprites, a single perspective drawing would often suffice in places where a full 3D model--accurate and aesthetically pleasing from every conceivable angle--is now needed. The amount of detail needed in environments increases in a similar manner.
Look at the Mario series of games. The development team for the canonical side-scroller Super Mario Bros. (1985, I believe) was four people in size. While I don't have the numbers for the development team behind Super Mario Sunshine, I guarantee you that hundreds of man-years were required to produce the game.
Incidentally, I'm not convinced that these newer, more immersive and labor-intensive games are any more fun to play than their simple precedessors. Quirky and original gameplay mechanics are quickly going the way of the sabre-toothed tiger. So many modern games look identical to so many other modern games. I'll leave it at that before it degenerates into a full-blown rant.
The main draws of older games for people that enjoy them are familiarity and nostalgia. There's none of that for young kids. How many Slashdot readers born after the '50s regularly watch Mr. Ed or I Love Lucy? While there are exceptions for amazing works in every medium, old technology generally doesn't appeal to younger people, particularly when the technology is dated or limited. (For instance, black-and-white movies tend not to appeal to people who weren't raised on them.)
Personally, I'm a member of the SNES and PSX generation. I'll play classic games like Final Fantasy or the original Mario games, but by and large, I don't play a lot of NES games. People I know who first got into gaming with the current generation of consoles are less apt to play even last generation's games. It's all about nostalgia.
Agreed. The visors in Metroid Prime, among other things, were his ideas, however. Nintendo at one point stopped in at Retro Studios to review the game and they were reportedly unimpressed with the results. Miyamoto went over to make things right, and the game was released to rave reviews.
Nothing important since Super Mario Bros., indeed.
How about every Mario title since that? What about the groundbreaking Super Mario 64? The ingenious Super Mario Bros. 3? The amazing Super Mario World?
Still not convinced? How about Zelda? Ocarina of Time? The Wind Waker?
How about the signature elements (such as the switchable visors) in Metroid Prime? Donkey Kong? F-Zero? Pikmin?
There are very few people in any industry that are greatly respected by everyone. Miyamoto is one of those few. He is God of everything that has a joystick. When he talks, everybody listens. Get your head out of your ass and go play BMX XXX or something.
Ummm, no. Dungeons and Dragons was originally produced by TSR, which was bought by WotC a mere five or so years ago. Wizards of the Coast was a miniscule company until the advent of Magic ten years ago. The game defined them, and is most likely still their greatest revenue source.
Slashdot Mirror
It might have been a wiser strategy to invest that $50 and then buy 3D Realms with the resulting interest. You'd probably get your hands on a copy of the game sooner.
I'm not sure. When does Skynet become self-aware again?
Try here.
It's been around for a long time. There's a whole Internet subculture dedicated to remixing video game tracks (as well as at least one commercial effort), and a few composers (Nobuo Uematsu [Everything Final Fantasy that has a number other than XI after it] and Yasunori Mitsuda [Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, Xenogears], namely) have achieved almost cult-like status. It's also customary in Japan to release soundtracks for video games on CD, as is done with movies in America and Europe.
Does anyone else find the fact that this editorial was posted on GameSpy to be the least bit ironic? While their historical articles have some merit, I am frequently left speechless by the inanity of their editorial content. I mean, how can you take seriously someone who finds it even worthwhile to argue whether game developers should take to heart every remark that their customers make?
Of course you don't want to listen to all feedback. People want different, conflicting things. Often, gamers don't even know what they want. Look at The Wind Waker: it was blasted up and down prior to release, and has since gone on to be one of the most successful games of 2003. If someone has consistently insightful commentary on improving games, chances are they already work for a game development studio. Everything else is just marketing masturbation, and while it might increase sales, adding elements to satisfy consumers probably won't do much for the quality of the product.
Anyone who makes a living running a business that is wholly dependent on Google results is--come on, let's all say it together--a moron. Google is under absolutely no obligation to pander to these people (many of whom are technically inept to the point where they think that hiring a search engine "optimizer" to cheat search algorithms is a perfectly legitimate thing to do), particularly because:
All that aside, these people are assholes. Every (questionably trustworthy) product offer that shows up in search results is one less piece of legitimate information on the page. Hell, no one would would tolerate people screaming at you to buy penis enlargement systems in the biology section of his local library. Nor would anyone frequent a library in which two thirds of the books are cheaply-made catalogs. How is it any different?
Contrary to what the tone of the article suggests, these people aren't victims. They're a serious threat to the livelihood of one of the most amazing and useful tools of the information age, and reducing their search engine rankings with extreme prejudice, if not banning them outright, is simply the best course of action.
At least until it becomes legal to shoot them.
You forgot the most difficult obstacle in developing PC games: the wide variety of hardware on which your game needs to run. It's gotten better, mainly thanks to a unified API owned by a certain software behemoth, but it's still a mess. When developing for a console, there's one hardware configuration. I'm sure it cuts QA budgets by half, if not more.
Wow, the turnaround time on these South Park references is getting scary. That episode just aired for the first time last Wednesday.
They can't tell people not to use the terms. But they can refuse to do business with anyone who continues to use them. I agree that it's retarded, and most of the L.A. County staffers involved would probably agree. But in the litigious society that we live in, you simply can't afford to run the risk of an enormous lawsuit. Especially in today's economy. It's not like local governments have tons of cash to throw around...
And to "recharge" them will cost you another $3.50. Every time.
Hey, if you're going to pick a Japanese band that dresses like RuPaul to make fun of, at least pick one that isn't good. Like Malice Mizer (or just Gackt) or Dir en Grey or pretty much any J-Rock band other than the two you just mentioned. L'Arc and Glay both have great sounds.
I feel like a complete nerd just for posting this. And I'm on Slashdot, for chrissake!
There are PS2's that will actually start carving ruts in blue discs. It's quite a sight to behold. And just try explaining it to the store that you bought the game at!
Using the system vertically makes a big difference, from what I hear. The main cause of failure is simply a dirty lens. When you run your PS2 vertically, you don't get the pesky influence of gravity pushing dirt onto the most sensitive part of the unit.
Ummm, no. First off, a rate is a measure of one thing with respect to another. Sony's failure rate would be the same if they sold 200 PS2's.
Personally, I've seen this problem in about a half-dozen consoles. I've owned two of them myself, and both have succumbed to this problem. I wouldn't be surprised if physical shock had something to do with it, but that's not a viable excuse. You can drop a GameCube down the stairs and jump on it, and it'll still work properly. The same goes for the original PlayStation. The PS2's main problem is that the laser lens is inaccessible without taking the damn thing apart. In a top-loading machine like the PSX or Cube, you can wipe the lens off in about ten seconds. With a PS2, it's a matter of finding a microscopic phillips-head screwdriver and voiding your warranty.
Wow. A Slashdot sports discussion.
A-Rod was just an example. I agree that his salary is killing Texas, just as Manny Ramirez is severly limiting the flexiblity of my beloved Boston Red Sox. Billy Beane, on the other hand, is worth a bloody fortune. :)
The next few months are going to be very interesting for Major League Baseball. There are lots of big-name free agents out there, and the last two world champions were relatively low-budget teams who basically came from nowhere and had no big stars.
I'd argue that there are indeed some people that are worth staggering amounts of money. Consider the state that Apple was in before the Steve Jobs takeover to the state that they're in now. If it's true, as is commonly believed, that he's responsible for this dramatic change, then isn't he worth the difference? The same applies to other business luminaries like Lou Gerstner and Bill Gates (sorry). (To offset that last comment, Linus Torvalds would probably be of similar value if he had any interest in doing so.)
The same applies to musicians and athletes. If Alex Rodriguez generates $20 million in ticket sales every year (by simply just being there or by improving the performance of the Texas Rangers as whole, which generally leads to higher attendance rates, better television deals, and an increase in merchandise revenues), he's worth $20 million. Think of all of the jobs that a touring musician with a major record label creates and supports. While a vast, vast majority of people are worth about what they're making (or less), there are a select few that do bring in enormous sums of money, and should be compensated accordingly.
OK, I have karma to burn, so here goes:
All of these new-age "addictions" (and pretty much everything non-chemical) are nothing more than reflections upon modern society. Everyone's a victim nowadays, and no one will claim responsibility for his own actions.
People today are fat, lazy and completely bereft of self-control. If you skip work frequently to sit at your computer to play Everquest and end up getting fired, you're not the victim of an addiction. You're a moron. If you can't get homework done because you're always playing Nintendo, turn the damn thing off. If you're fat, you don't need to go to detox; you need to stop eating cheeseburgers.
And how about these omnipresent spoiled children? If your kid is playing too much PlayStation, take it away. Many parents I know seem to think that they're doing their progeny a favor by catering to their every whim. So far, all we're seeing for it are more overweight and generally useless fools. So many problems in America these days could be solved with a good, swift kick in the ass.
So, yeah, I'm pretty fed up with this ephemeral, excessive culture of ours. Mods, eat your hearts out.
There are third-party battery replacements available, and they're under $100.
I don't think it's necessarily the logic or interaction as much as it is the complexity of the content.
Any decent programmer can write you a set of code that provides consistent behavior for any given number of levels. (Scripting is another matter entirely, but scripting is a relatively trivial task compared to developing a full game engine.)
Content, on the other hands, is a serious problem. Making things that look good in 3D is an order of magnitude more difficult than making presentable 2D objects. When dealing with sprites, a single perspective drawing would often suffice in places where a full 3D model--accurate and aesthetically pleasing from every conceivable angle--is now needed. The amount of detail needed in environments increases in a similar manner.
Look at the Mario series of games. The development team for the canonical side-scroller Super Mario Bros. (1985, I believe) was four people in size. While I don't have the numbers for the development team behind Super Mario Sunshine, I guarantee you that hundreds of man-years were required to produce the game.
Incidentally, I'm not convinced that these newer, more immersive and labor-intensive games are any more fun to play than their simple precedessors. Quirky and original gameplay mechanics are quickly going the way of the sabre-toothed tiger. So many modern games look identical to so many other modern games. I'll leave it at that before it degenerates into a full-blown rant.
Sure. Just find me a chiseler who can read Photoshop files and reproduce their contents in stone at 300 dpi, and we'll talk.
The main draws of older games for people that enjoy them are familiarity and nostalgia. There's none of that for young kids. How many Slashdot readers born after the '50s regularly watch Mr. Ed or I Love Lucy? While there are exceptions for amazing works in every medium, old technology generally doesn't appeal to younger people, particularly when the technology is dated or limited. (For instance, black-and-white movies tend not to appeal to people who weren't raised on them.)
Personally, I'm a member of the SNES and PSX generation. I'll play classic games like Final Fantasy or the original Mario games, but by and large, I don't play a lot of NES games. People I know who first got into gaming with the current generation of consoles are less apt to play even last generation's games. It's all about nostalgia.
And I'm pretty sure incontinence would hinder your game-playing experience.
Not really, but if you sit in one place for a long time, you might be in danger of electrocution.
Agreed. The visors in Metroid Prime, among other things, were his ideas, however. Nintendo at one point stopped in at Retro Studios to review the game and they were reportedly unimpressed with the results. Miyamoto went over to make things right, and the game was released to rave reviews.
Nothing important since Super Mario Bros., indeed.
How about every Mario title since that? What about the groundbreaking Super Mario 64? The ingenious Super Mario Bros. 3? The amazing Super Mario World?
Still not convinced? How about Zelda? Ocarina of Time? The Wind Waker?
How about the signature elements (such as the switchable visors) in Metroid Prime? Donkey Kong? F-Zero? Pikmin?
There are very few people in any industry that are greatly respected by everyone. Miyamoto is one of those few. He is God of everything that has a joystick. When he talks, everybody listens. Get your head out of your ass and go play BMX XXX or something.
Ummm, no. Dungeons and Dragons was originally produced by TSR, which was bought by WotC a mere five or so years ago. Wizards of the Coast was a miniscule company until the advent of Magic ten years ago. The game defined them, and is most likely still their greatest revenue source.