Right off the bat, my first response is "feature bloat." Might not be the most accurate response, but I'm a knee-jerk reactionary anyway, so gut feelings are uber.
Anyway, take a word processor, for example. Not much going on there, when it gets right down to it. Besides the actual processing code, there's the thesaurus, grammer and spell checker--and an absolute avalance of features. It got this way because it's new features that get people to upgrade (and the occasional semi-FUD about how even a word processor might have potentially fatal security exploits that can only be fixed by--surprise--paying full price for the next version). So, in short, feature bloat means cramming new code on top of old, which creates a lot of problems.
Second: Feature evolution. First-gen hardware has its share of failures and serious glitches. From the GeForceFX 5800 Ultra Wind Tunnel of Doom on down to early hard drive cables. As a new feature is introduced, problems will crop up as the product is distributed into computers containing a wide and wild variety of parts. Conflicts are bound to emerge, because no PC product can approach the streamlined QA you'll find with, say, a console game or an SGI box.
Third: Feature creation. Creating software isn't just a matter of honing previous code. Every time you add new code, you create potential problems and conflicts.
"Now they're forming a conspiracy of elected officials to cripple the cutting edge in an effort protect their outdated cronies."
The walls are closing in!
Actually, I doubt they will get much anywhere trying to basically legislate Linux/OSS out of existence. The great thing about Linux et al is decentralization. Of course, it might be relatively easy to target the big names like Red Hat, Mandrake and SuSE. But, like filesharing, once the Holy-Crap-It's-Free cat is out of the bag, the populace and its genius coders will find ways to perpetuate the product against all odds.
IMHO, the gov't will eventually embrace OSS, because, despite all stereotypes to the contrary, they like to save money when they can, and individual congressman probably would like to finally get the purveyors of proprietary OSs off their backs once and for all. One less constituent to appease. Also, I'm sure they realize they have the potential to look stupid a dozen times a day once they start wading into technical territory, and would rather stick to more generic lawmaking about things like crime, education, and healthcare. Topics with much broader appeal and re-election potential.
Oh, I agree they are very underwhelming at the moment. However, compare GLQuake to what consoles had to offer then, and then compare DOA Extreme Volleyball to what's available on the PC now. The gap is only resolution, flexibility and input variance. It used to a world of aural and visual quality. Remember that the Xbox also has 5.1 digital surround sound. Consoles will eventually get their keyboard and mice combos as well. And HDTV capabilities combined with cheaper and cheaper television tech will narrow the resolution gap to a fine line only the hardcore will appreciate. A Sony VEGA, an Xbox and a set of color-matched Klipsch speakers, all within the comfort of your family room, is appealing and inexpensive.
I suspect the next generation will also apply antialiasing, anisotropic filtering, trilinear filtering, and many other geegaws that have been available to PC gamers for the past few years. And while you won't be able to play in 1600x1200, you will be able to play in 420 progressive scan, side by side with your friends on the couch, in uber sound, on a relatively huge screen. At a fraction of the cost.
At the same time, however, computers become cheaper and cheaper as well. The $500 Dell rig is fairly decent and can be brought into the realm of good gaming for another $300 (video card and more RAM, primarily). But that's still $300 that can go a long way in console land, especially after those rumored price drops come into play.
Don't get me wrong, I want both platforms to succeed. Consoles are forcing PC makers to innovate faster and cheaper. PC makers are forcing consoles to innovate faster and cheaper as well. I think we need both for healthy creativity and income for both sides. Because some games coming out this year (Doom 3, Half-Life 2, hopefully Deus Ex 2) simply cannot be replicated onto a console. You can only create a dull echo. Not to mention the fact that you really need a mouse and keyboard for FPSs and RTSs, in my opinion.
I suspect photo- and audiorealism will bring a level of immersion that will make for a very thin line between reality and gaming. Movies, television and the Internet will fall by the wayside in terms of entertainment appeal. Fiber optics will probably allow for almost instant transfer of relatively huge chunks of data. Compact discs will become as quaint as vinyl as everything gravitates towards solid state storage and 'Net based game streaming a la Valve's Steam project.
I suspect gaming will also be eventually offloaded onto consoles, assuming the tech gap continues to close and prices remain rock-bottom cheap.
Moving onto MMOGs proper, you will probably see the market dominated by three or four "games," akin to the dawn of television with NBC, ABC and CBS. Mergers galore, as only huge corporations would be able to deliver complex, stable and immersive games within remotely reasonable time frames. I suspect new terminology will arise to describe MMOGs, although I won't venture into any guesses that will likely look hokey even five years from now. Language and dialect move too rapidly for that anyway. "Neophyte" becomes "nub," "yay" becomes "w00t," etc.
Monthly fees will become steep as MMOGs become a habit occupying hours every day as television and Web surfing do now. The breadth and depth of available game elements will be as complex and configurable as a cable channel lineup.
Fair enough, I'll bet that's a great system, but the problem is convincing management that Google is a consistently 99.9% reliable solution. Also, if you get a solution from Google that doesn't work, you can't necessary hold the source of that info responsible for damages, loss of income, etc. The company has to eat it. And probably the first thing they'd do to cut losses would be to kick you to the curb and get a yes-man admin, unfortunately.
Lastly, a lot of these management types are generally 'Net-illiterate and view everything outside of AOL as a cesspool of viruses, hackers and obscene pornography. Not the source of anything remotely resembling troubleshooting. I suspect this perception will remain a problem until the tech dinosaurs have all retired.
So you have to sell them a high-quality call center staffed with dedicated pros. Or as a previous poster said, ask management if they want to guide the company according to their business plan or according to the plan of their OS provider.
It's a well-established fact that OXM gets juicy exclusives on all new Xbox content. They also have a circ of over 400,000 issues a month, by far the most for the Xbox and rivaling the circ of some of the largest console mags in the world.
At the most, no one else should at this point have more than a one paragraph blurb based on some message board rumors. I know that scans of OXM's coverage for the June issue were leaked because I stumbled upon the scans myself while looking for information on Half-Life 2.
But the space shooters you describe all suffer, in the long run, from extremely narrow design limitations. Adventure games can, in theory, be endlessly compelling because of the ability to craft a deep story and immersively detailed game world.
This is why the latest installments of the Unreal series have been underwhelming, IMHO. Unreal Tournament was such a complete rendering of the mutliplayer FPS experience that its followup was practically an expansion pack with a graphics and physics engine update. The amount of actual new *content* was lacking. A whole army of maps makes little difference when there are only a handful of truly effective designs and mutators.
My pet theory is that things will eventually swing back towards the SP experience--somewhat--once people grow tired of the lack of content inherent to the MP experience, both persistent and otherwise. As it stands, most MMOs are glorified chat rooms or, in the case of Planetside, glorified fragfests. Or, in the case of EVE, glorified mining simulators (for now, at least).
I believe that's why Microsoft is attempting to graft SP onto MP with Mythic. But people will still eventually run out of SP content and moving onto something else once the particular novelties of a given MMO become stale.
Maybe I'm just biased, but I think adventure gaming has remained strong by actually being integrated into other subgenres, such as survival horror and many RPGs. Then there's the action adventure style like what Interplay is doing with Brotherhood of Steel. That said, I don't think there's much room in the long run for any more strict adventure games as we knew them, because genres evolve and combine as their limitations are reached.
PC gaming has slowed down as a whole, thanks in part to increased attention to consoles and the recession. I don't blame developers for choosing consoles over PCs because the former has so much fewer issues with customer support. Everyone has the same hardware and software setup, which eliminates so many problems during and after development.
I'm actually a hardcore PC gamer, but let's be realistic. The sales numbers are far, far in favor of those $200 gaming machines (and soon to be even cheaper, according to those rumors). Not nearly so many people can afford $1000 for a decent gaming rig these days-- and that doesn't include monitor(s), speakers, and games. Meanwhile, you can pick up an Xbox, Halo, a nice TV *and* a home stereo system for the same price as a PC box. Plus the Xbox doubles as an HDTV-capable rig with digital surround and progressive scan DVD capability. That is a very tempting bargain.
I just wish the Xbox (and all other consoles) would come with a keyboard and mouse, because the controllers truly don't work for first-person twitch gaming, IMO.
Respectfully, I don't think the RIAA looks upon the mass of file sharers as a community. No one I know who shares considers themselves part of a community. Besides, that kind of approach would make the RIAA look soft. They don't want to reform anyone, I don't think. They just want them to stop and will send lawyers if their demands aren't met. The infringers are seen as nothing more complex than an army of shameless theives.
I think running the Microsoft Word paperclip applet should be considered an extreme sport, at least.
I think, on a serious note, that more and more people are going to start using apps that allow them to view data constructs in visual terms, like the network map thingamajig I saw for instant messaging the other day. It allows you to see circles, cliques, newbies, etc., and how they're distributed through the IM world. New ways of looking at data for those visual types.
Respectfully, verbal or casual references won't matter. All that matters is how the company and its affiliates refer to the software. Because it can be referred to as Phoenix doesn't mean it's illegal to use the term. That's ludicrous. You can't hold a company responsible because the user isn't respecting IP during a discussion. The best you can claim is dilution of trademark, but I believe that only applies when you're using the trademark generically, like saying "Xerox" as a veb for "photocopy."
Congratulations, Mr. Kanellos, for bringing to our attention what websites like thesmokinggun.com have been making clear for years. By the way, may I suggest a photo which does not suggest you are pinching a loaf?
If you call it Mozilla Firebird, there's should be no dispute...which is why AOL legal approved it, I'll betcha. If you call it just "Firebird" then of course, that would be stupid. But they didn't. They named it Mozilla Firebird. Is this really that complex? If Konami came out with a game called Apache, should they be sued by the people who make the Web server software?
But there's my point, respectfully: How do you know, if you've never actually wandered over to a random burger stand?
As far as "unlikely to get you sick," I prefer a guy who's been cooking burgers and owning his shop for years and has to answer to his customers, rather than a zit-faced punk who'll hock a loogie on my pattie because his girlfriend broke up with him earlier that day, and can walk across the street to another fast food restaraunt and pick up another job.
Anyone who's ever flipped burgers for a fast food restaraunt for more than a month will surely have a sanitation anecdote that will make your stomach do a half-gainer, man. It's just not worth it. The closest I get these days is In N' Out, and that's because I can see the whole kitchen and the place is glowing with cleanliness.
"The quality of McD's product is fairly constant, and although not superlative, has low associated risk."
Specious reasoning, IMHO. McD's product is constant, as in ubiquitous, but not consistently sufficient, as I assume you were trying to get across. Instead, it is consistently and ubiquitously advertised. It has a mountain of mindshare to the mom and pop's molehill. There is no risk in going to the mom and pop place, only unfamiliarity and absence of bargain-basement prices. These days, I no longer want to put a sandwich in my mouth that I only paid a dollar for. That is risky.
So it's not rational, it's a symptom of behavioral conditioning and an avalanche of ad placement.
"Their argument was that if you have a good product you can create your own name."
In an ideal world, IMHO. Good product does not equal success. Good product with Shotgun Method advertising usually leads to success--assuming you aren't ripping off someone else's IP. Yahoo does well despite its name because no search engine-based Web property has an intuitive name, that I know of. Google? Hotbot? Inktomi? Alta Vista? They aren't competing for vocabulary mindshare.
PC Magazine circulates about 6 million issues a year. PC World, arguably an equally good magazine, barely hovers over 1 million. Why? I think it goes back to vocabulary mindshare. One name speaks more directly to a need than the other.
I'm sure there are exceptions, but don't forget to take advertising into account. What the hell does "Microsoft" or "Apple" mean? Nothing, by themselves, but one advertises voraciously (and secures its territory with FUD) while the other goes for pop culture value and an indefinable sheen of style and quality.
Lindows is just riding on MS's coattails, and frankly, I have no sympathy for the latter, and I don't think I'm alone.
Perhaps it should say something that this company has to ape Windows so much in order to gain any foothold. If they had wormed their way into Walmart thanks to their similar name, I think they'd already be dead and buried. Heard anything about Lycoris lately? Perhaps someone in the/. crowd has an update, but Joe Sixpack only knows about Lindows when it comes to cheap, mainstream alternatives to Windows.
Slashdot Mirror
Right off the bat, my first response is "feature bloat." Might not be the most accurate response, but I'm a knee-jerk reactionary anyway, so gut feelings are uber. Anyway, take a word processor, for example. Not much going on there, when it gets right down to it. Besides the actual processing code, there's the thesaurus, grammer and spell checker--and an absolute avalance of features. It got this way because it's new features that get people to upgrade (and the occasional semi-FUD about how even a word processor might have potentially fatal security exploits that can only be fixed by--surprise--paying full price for the next version). So, in short, feature bloat means cramming new code on top of old, which creates a lot of problems. Second: Feature evolution. First-gen hardware has its share of failures and serious glitches. From the GeForceFX 5800 Ultra Wind Tunnel of Doom on down to early hard drive cables. As a new feature is introduced, problems will crop up as the product is distributed into computers containing a wide and wild variety of parts. Conflicts are bound to emerge, because no PC product can approach the streamlined QA you'll find with, say, a console game or an SGI box. Third: Feature creation. Creating software isn't just a matter of honing previous code. Every time you add new code, you create potential problems and conflicts.
The walls are closing in!
Actually, I doubt they will get much anywhere trying to basically legislate Linux/OSS out of existence. The great thing about Linux et al is decentralization. Of course, it might be relatively easy to target the big names like Red Hat, Mandrake and SuSE. But, like filesharing, once the Holy-Crap-It's-Free cat is out of the bag, the populace and its genius coders will find ways to perpetuate the product against all odds.
IMHO, the gov't will eventually embrace OSS, because, despite all stereotypes to the contrary, they like to save money when they can, and individual congressman probably would like to finally get the purveyors of proprietary OSs off their backs once and for all. One less constituent to appease. Also, I'm sure they realize they have the potential to look stupid a dozen times a day once they start wading into technical territory, and would rather stick to more generic lawmaking about things like crime, education, and healthcare. Topics with much broader appeal and re-election potential.
Oh, I agree they are very underwhelming at the moment. However, compare GLQuake to what consoles had to offer then, and then compare DOA Extreme Volleyball to what's available on the PC now. The gap is only resolution, flexibility and input variance. It used to a world of aural and visual quality. Remember that the Xbox also has 5.1 digital surround sound. Consoles will eventually get their keyboard and mice combos as well. And HDTV capabilities combined with cheaper and cheaper television tech will narrow the resolution gap to a fine line only the hardcore will appreciate. A Sony VEGA, an Xbox and a set of color-matched Klipsch speakers, all within the comfort of your family room, is appealing and inexpensive.
I suspect the next generation will also apply antialiasing, anisotropic filtering, trilinear filtering, and many other geegaws that have been available to PC gamers for the past few years. And while you won't be able to play in 1600x1200, you will be able to play in 420 progressive scan, side by side with your friends on the couch, in uber sound, on a relatively huge screen. At a fraction of the cost.
At the same time, however, computers become cheaper and cheaper as well. The $500 Dell rig is fairly decent and can be brought into the realm of good gaming for another $300 (video card and more RAM, primarily). But that's still $300 that can go a long way in console land, especially after those rumored price drops come into play.
Don't get me wrong, I want both platforms to succeed. Consoles are forcing PC makers to innovate faster and cheaper. PC makers are forcing consoles to innovate faster and cheaper as well. I think we need both for healthy creativity and income for both sides. Because some games coming out this year (Doom 3, Half-Life 2, hopefully Deus Ex 2) simply cannot be replicated onto a console. You can only create a dull echo. Not to mention the fact that you really need a mouse and keyboard for FPSs and RTSs, in my opinion.
I suspect photo- and audiorealism will bring a level of immersion that will make for a very thin line between reality and gaming. Movies, television and the Internet will fall by the wayside in terms of entertainment appeal. Fiber optics will probably allow for almost instant transfer of relatively huge chunks of data. Compact discs will become as quaint as vinyl as everything gravitates towards solid state storage and 'Net based game streaming a la Valve's Steam project.
I suspect gaming will also be eventually offloaded onto consoles, assuming the tech gap continues to close and prices remain rock-bottom cheap.
Moving onto MMOGs proper, you will probably see the market dominated by three or four "games," akin to the dawn of television with NBC, ABC and CBS. Mergers galore, as only huge corporations would be able to deliver complex, stable and immersive games within remotely reasonable time frames. I suspect new terminology will arise to describe MMOGs, although I won't venture into any guesses that will likely look hokey even five years from now. Language and dialect move too rapidly for that anyway. "Neophyte" becomes "nub," "yay" becomes "w00t," etc.
Monthly fees will become steep as MMOGs become a habit occupying hours every day as television and Web surfing do now. The breadth and depth of available game elements will be as complex and configurable as a cable channel lineup.
All pure speculation, though.
Fair enough, I'll bet that's a great system, but the problem is convincing management that Google is a consistently 99.9% reliable solution. Also, if you get a solution from Google that doesn't work, you can't necessary hold the source of that info responsible for damages, loss of income, etc. The company has to eat it. And probably the first thing they'd do to cut losses would be to kick you to the curb and get a yes-man admin, unfortunately.
Lastly, a lot of these management types are generally 'Net-illiterate and view everything outside of AOL as a cesspool of viruses, hackers and obscene pornography. Not the source of anything remotely resembling troubleshooting. I suspect this perception will remain a problem until the tech dinosaurs have all retired.
So you have to sell them a high-quality call center staffed with dedicated pros. Or as a previous poster said, ask management if they want to guide the company according to their business plan or according to the plan of their OS provider.
It's a well-established fact that OXM gets juicy exclusives on all new Xbox content. They also have a circ of over 400,000 issues a month, by far the most for the Xbox and rivaling the circ of some of the largest console mags in the world.
At the most, no one else should at this point have more than a one paragraph blurb based on some message board rumors. I know that scans of OXM's coverage for the June issue were leaked because I stumbled upon the scans myself while looking for information on Half-Life 2.
Disagree instead of modding down.
But the space shooters you describe all suffer, in the long run, from extremely narrow design limitations. Adventure games can, in theory, be endlessly compelling because of the ability to craft a deep story and immersively detailed game world.
This is why the latest installments of the Unreal series have been underwhelming, IMHO. Unreal Tournament was such a complete rendering of the mutliplayer FPS experience that its followup was practically an expansion pack with a graphics and physics engine update. The amount of actual new *content* was lacking. A whole army of maps makes little difference when there are only a handful of truly effective designs and mutators.
My pet theory is that things will eventually swing back towards the SP experience--somewhat--once people grow tired of the lack of content inherent to the MP experience, both persistent and otherwise. As it stands, most MMOs are glorified chat rooms or, in the case of Planetside, glorified fragfests. Or, in the case of EVE, glorified mining simulators (for now, at least).
I believe that's why Microsoft is attempting to graft SP onto MP with Mythic. But people will still eventually run out of SP content and moving onto something else once the particular novelties of a given MMO become stale.
Maybe I'm just biased, but I think adventure gaming has remained strong by actually being integrated into other subgenres, such as survival horror and many RPGs. Then there's the action adventure style like what Interplay is doing with Brotherhood of Steel. That said, I don't think there's much room in the long run for any more strict adventure games as we knew them, because genres evolve and combine as their limitations are reached.
...When one source is FileShack (subcription) and the other is FilePlanet (Communist File Queue of DOOM).
Ah, thanks for pointing that out. Like I said, I'm a PC gamer and not a console guy :D.
PC gaming has slowed down as a whole, thanks in part to increased attention to consoles and the recession. I don't blame developers for choosing consoles over PCs because the former has so much fewer issues with customer support. Everyone has the same hardware and software setup, which eliminates so many problems during and after development.
I'm actually a hardcore PC gamer, but let's be realistic. The sales numbers are far, far in favor of those $200 gaming machines (and soon to be even cheaper, according to those rumors). Not nearly so many people can afford $1000 for a decent gaming rig these days-- and that doesn't include monitor(s), speakers, and games. Meanwhile, you can pick up an Xbox, Halo, a nice TV *and* a home stereo system for the same price as a PC box. Plus the Xbox doubles as an HDTV-capable rig with digital surround and progressive scan DVD capability. That is a very tempting bargain.
I just wish the Xbox (and all other consoles) would come with a keyboard and mouse, because the controllers truly don't work for first-person twitch gaming, IMO.
metacritic.com/games/
Good coverage of all platforms and, IMO, a cleaner interface.
Respectfully, I don't think the RIAA looks upon the mass of file sharers as a community. No one I know who shares considers themselves part of a community. Besides, that kind of approach would make the RIAA look soft. They don't want to reform anyone, I don't think. They just want them to stop and will send lawyers if their demands aren't met. The infringers are seen as nothing more complex than an army of shameless theives.
"Western Digital--nutritious and delicious!"
...Because they've probably all filed various chapters of bankruptcy over the last year.
I think those are simply examples of hackneyed writing than some brilliant, subtle plan of Lucas's.
I think running the Microsoft Word paperclip applet should be considered an extreme sport, at least. I think, on a serious note, that more and more people are going to start using apps that allow them to view data constructs in visual terms, like the network map thingamajig I saw for instant messaging the other day. It allows you to see circles, cliques, newbies, etc., and how they're distributed through the IM world. New ways of looking at data for those visual types.
Respectfully, verbal or casual references won't matter. All that matters is how the company and its affiliates refer to the software. Because it can be referred to as Phoenix doesn't mean it's illegal to use the term. That's ludicrous. You can't hold a company responsible because the user isn't respecting IP during a discussion. The best you can claim is dilution of trademark, but I believe that only applies when you're using the trademark generically, like saying "Xerox" as a veb for "photocopy."
Congratulations, Mr. Kanellos, for bringing to our attention what websites like thesmokinggun.com have been making clear for years. By the way, may I suggest a photo which does not suggest you are pinching a loaf?
If you call it Mozilla Firebird, there's should be no dispute...which is why AOL legal approved it, I'll betcha. If you call it just "Firebird" then of course, that would be stupid. But they didn't. They named it Mozilla Firebird. Is this really that complex? If Konami came out with a game called Apache, should they be sued by the people who make the Web server software?
...Cancer researchers found fault with Marlboro brand cigarettes. More details soon.
Houston, we have a problem.
Anyone who's ever flipped burgers for a fast food restaraunt for more than a month will surely have a sanitation anecdote that will make your stomach do a half-gainer, man. It's just not worth it. The closest I get these days is In N' Out, and that's because I can see the whole kitchen and the place is glowing with cleanliness.
Specious reasoning, IMHO. McD's product is constant, as in ubiquitous, but not consistently sufficient, as I assume you were trying to get across. Instead, it is consistently and ubiquitously advertised. It has a mountain of mindshare to the mom and pop's molehill. There is no risk in going to the mom and pop place, only unfamiliarity and absence of bargain-basement prices. These days, I no longer want to put a sandwich in my mouth that I only paid a dollar for. That is risky.
So it's not rational, it's a symptom of behavioral conditioning and an avalanche of ad placement.
One columnist from theregister.com claimed, "You can tell we're for real because of all teh typos."
In an ideal world, IMHO. Good product does not equal success. Good product with Shotgun Method advertising usually leads to success--assuming you aren't ripping off someone else's IP. Yahoo does well despite its name because no search engine-based Web property has an intuitive name, that I know of. Google? Hotbot? Inktomi? Alta Vista? They aren't competing for vocabulary mindshare.
PC Magazine circulates about 6 million issues a year. PC World, arguably an equally good magazine, barely hovers over 1 million. Why? I think it goes back to vocabulary mindshare. One name speaks more directly to a need than the other.
I'm sure there are exceptions, but don't forget to take advertising into account. What the hell does "Microsoft" or "Apple" mean? Nothing, by themselves, but one advertises voraciously (and secures its territory with FUD) while the other goes for pop culture value and an indefinable sheen of style and quality.
Lindows is just riding on MS's coattails, and frankly, I have no sympathy for the latter, and I don't think I'm alone.
Perhaps it should say something that this company has to ape Windows so much in order to gain any foothold. If they had wormed their way into Walmart thanks to their similar name, I think they'd already be dead and buried. Heard anything about Lycoris lately? Perhaps someone in the /. crowd has an update, but Joe Sixpack only knows about Lindows when it comes to cheap, mainstream alternatives to Windows.