Not even remotely true. I work for Lockheed Martin, as a software engineer no less, and we have a union that gets us all kinds of good stuff. Unpaid overtime, for example, is strictly forbidden. Admittedly, I'm told Lockheed was already pretty good to their workerbees to begin with (I wouldn't know - I've only been with the company for a few months), but engineers can and do unionize. With the way game developers get creamed, it's bound to happen sooner or later.
I totally second the Bloodbowl motion. I've only played it a few times, but it's an excellent Strategy RPG, simple and engaging. I just wish I could get my friends into it!
I actually tend to ignore indie reviews, for the same reason people tend to ignore ratemyprofessor.com: for the most part, the only people likely to rate the game in a public domain are the ones that are passionate about their opinion in either direction. A quick tally of all the "BEST GAME EVAR OMG!!!" and "TIHS GAME IS TEH SKUC!!" reviews is testament to this.
Mobile phone companies are already doing something similar. The thing is, when you go with a pay-as-you go type of plan, you end up spending much more money per minute. This would probably also be true if MMOG's did it.
Actually, the main reason why it's still working has nothing to do with quality, but the fact that the onboard computer was build with vacuum tubes. If a circuit board blows in space, forget it, it's gone. We lose probes all the time because of that. But if a vacuum tube blows in space, what horrors are the innards going to be replaced by? That's right, more vacuum.
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Not even remotely true. I work for Lockheed Martin, as a software engineer no less, and we have a union that gets us all kinds of good stuff. Unpaid overtime, for example, is strictly forbidden. Admittedly, I'm told Lockheed was already pretty good to their workerbees to begin with (I wouldn't know - I've only been with the company for a few months), but engineers can and do unionize. With the way game developers get creamed, it's bound to happen sooner or later.
I totally second the Bloodbowl motion. I've only played it a few times, but it's an excellent Strategy RPG, simple and engaging. I just wish I could get my friends into it!
I actually tend to ignore indie reviews, for the same reason people tend to ignore ratemyprofessor.com: for the most part, the only people likely to rate the game in a public domain are the ones that are passionate about their opinion in either direction. A quick tally of all the "BEST GAME EVAR OMG!!!" and "TIHS GAME IS TEH SKUC!!" reviews is testament to this.
Mobile phone companies are already doing something similar. The thing is, when you go with a pay-as-you go type of plan, you end up spending much more money per minute. This would probably also be true if MMOG's did it.
Actually, the main reason why it's still working has nothing to do with quality, but the fact that the onboard computer was build with vacuum tubes. If a circuit board blows in space, forget it, it's gone. We lose probes all the time because of that. But if a vacuum tube blows in space, what horrors are the innards going to be replaced by? That's right, more vacuum.