The idea of companies is to make more money, not less. The revenue they would lose over renting the games out (they don't just get free money, they have to give the publisher of those games that they rent money too...same with the movies) would far surpass that subscription fee.
The reality is that it is probably too expensive to run PSN for free and they are going to be like the 360 very soon.
Don't ever go in to marketing if you think this is a masterstroke. "Hey, guys! Our new drug doesn't give you oily discharge like our competitor, but we think we might add that in the future."
No. That would be incredibly stupid reason to be so unbelievably stupid.
If you want to show off that your service is free and your competitors isn't, you just state it. Or you release some new gimmicky app that is free on the network that catches some headlines. You do it in a positive way.
Doing it this way, you make all the people who were potentially going to buy your console take pause. They will want to see if you start charging or not and hold off on purchasing.
The only reason you say this is that charging is going to be a reality. You do it this way to ease it in to the consumer's minds instead of just dropping it one morning to everyone's angry surprise.
Not that I think the guy knows everything, but if you think the Wii doesn't have many games that cater to the casual crowd, you are on crack. Everyone bought them for the casual games that their grand parents could play.
As far as what you are talking about, that really isn't the challenge of the game. Achievements create artificial challenge. The first Mario didn't have achievements yet it was quite challenging. Does this Mario make you start all the way from the beginning if you die too many times? No? Achievements are just e-peen things for OCD people who have to do everything. ANY game can have an achievement that makes it challenging...that doesn't make it a challenging game. Do you understand the difference?
Yes, different game difficulties help to cater to different players...duh. But if you think for a second that games on the Wii are more difficult than games on the 8-bit Nintendo...well, turn in your nerd card and don't let the door hit you on the way out.
Well, if they are having fun telling you what you are doing wrong, by your logic, who are you to tell them not to do it. Shouldn't you just be worried about yourself?;)
Or it isn't a bug and people have the coincidence of having a bad battery around the time they upgraded to 7. But they are too technically inept to understand that even when they switch to a different OS and they have the same problem, then it probably really is the battery.
All anecdotal. I got a laptop, Li-ion battery died within 3 months. How many people upgraded to 7 and then had this issue? A few hundred. Probably actually is a bad battery. Nothing to see here unless there are more statistics.
Your whole post is full of strawmans to justify your crappy behavior. I have less time than you, yet have had no problem getting my games up and running on the PC without issue.
No demos? You are so full of crap. Lots and lots of games have demos/trials/etc. And if they don't you can go on youtube and watch people play the game. You have more reviewers than ever before reviewing games (just have to find one that has your tastes). Just wait awhile and see which ones become really popular and get those. I haven't been disappointed doing that.
It is good that you buy at least some of the games you pirate. But quite frankly, you are putting yourself at risk of trojans every time you do that. When it comes to piracy, Slashdot acts like an 80 year old grandma opening every attachment on their system. You all should be put on Macs.
*sigh* So dumb. If Steam goes under, and they don't do what they said they would, do you really think no one would be able to crack Steam at that point? Give me a break. Your fears are misguided because of your ideology.
Same old arguments over and over again and no one gets any smarter here. There are plenty of DRM methods out there that are acceptable. It's only the really nasty crippling DRM that destroys the experience for the customer.
Be honest with yourselves. DRM is going to exist. Companies should make sure the DRM does not harm the experience for their legitimate customers. Steam does this by adding a bunch of functionality to any game when ordered through their service.
Also, you focus on the things you want to hear instead of what is actually being said. The facts are that it is impossible to monitor how much DRM impacts sales or loss of sales. Slashdot wants to justify its piracy so they say that it only hurts sales. But Slashdot is more technical that the average person and has no problem finding and getting cracks to work. There are plenty of people out there who wouldn't know where to start and know how to run a crack if it was handed to them. These people are the ones who would just buy the game and avoid the hassle. Also, people who are actually not stupid enough to believe that cracked version of games come without trojans buy their games as well.
Oooh, you buy games legal...how kind of you. If a company treats you like crap, don't buy their games ever again. No need to break laws to play something made by people who treat you like crap. It is fairly simple.
Oh, so dramatic. I have been PC gaming for years and never had any of the issues you described (or any at all really). You make it seem like legitimately buying games is going to bring down your computer. It some tiny minority of cases, things can go wrong. For the majority of people, it won't.
I'll give you credit for one thing. At least you buy the game. If you want to get the cracked version because of the DRM boogie man, than I think you should have every right to do so. So I commend you for actually supporting the developers.
But on the other side, you ignore something that should be obvious. All the hackers/crackers out there are not your friend. They laugh their asses off as you install the cracked game and they take control of your box. I don't know why Slashdot mods posts up that encourage people to trust installing software from unknown people...but they always do. While you are at it, why don't you open every single attachment you get from strangers.
Except for the fact that whoever pirated probably stuck a rootkit in it and now owns your box.
Why is this issue always ignored in this debate? I think people who open up e-mail attachments are stupid. I also think people who pirate games are stupid for the same reason (and others).
You guys all seem irrational to me. I don't have any problems playing the games that I purchase. I think people just like get on here and post how evil game companies are so they can all feel good about ripping the developers off.
Don't like their actions? Don't play the game. Pirating it just makes it worse for everyone since it is just going to make game companies more likely to come up with new forms of DRM.
This argument always seems so stupid to me. I scratch or lose my disc and then that game is gone. With Steam, I just redownload it if I am on a new computer or at a friend's house.
But really, they have already said they would unlock all the games if they went belly up. But let us take worst case scenario. They go belly up and are damned evil liars and do nothing. What are we going to do? Oh, just wait for someone in the community to write a patch for it and then it will be fine. So what is the problem exactly?
Get over your dumb PC vs. console debate. This has nothing to do with it. When you are on a console, you are locked down and that's fine with you. But on the PC, you expect there to be dedicated servers to build a community and remove annoying people and hacks. You expect the ability for others or yourself to create mods. You don't have those expectations on a console. IW is taking away something that has always been good on the PC. And they have been successful while doing it so that more companies may follow their lead and destroy the main reasons (other than kb + m) that makes PC gaming more compelling.
Not true. There still will be games that are target for the PC first. If Blizzard and the Civ series start porting from consoles, then we truly will be doomed.
Just because you are retarded with a PC doesn't mean we should all suffer from the locking down of games. This isn't a PC vs. console debate. This is the destruction of what has always been good about games on the PC. I have consoles too. I like to sit down and play a game as well. But I also play games on the PC where I want dedicated servers and the ability for the community to make mods. So stop being so defensive of your platform of choice, this isn't about that so grow up. This is about losing something that was good for the consumer.
Because pretty much any system these days has an automated password recovery system that will reset your password and send you a new fake on to your e-mail. There was no actual employee involved. If by chance you actually were dealing with an actual human, it was a simple tech support person who would only have the ability to do that rather actually having a master password. The master password would be held closely and only held by the top people. Not lowly tech support.
I enjoy my iPod touch for gaming. The only drawback is it has very very poor battery life. Other than that, I have found a lot of fun games to play on it. Catan and GeoDefense are good for hours and hours of fun alone.
Slashdot Mirror
The idea of companies is to make more money, not less. The revenue they would lose over renting the games out (they don't just get free money, they have to give the publisher of those games that they rent money too...same with the movies) would far surpass that subscription fee.
The reality is that it is probably too expensive to run PSN for free and they are going to be like the 360 very soon.
Don't ever go in to marketing if you think this is a masterstroke. "Hey, guys! Our new drug doesn't give you oily discharge like our competitor, but we think we might add that in the future."
No. That would be incredibly stupid reason to be so unbelievably stupid.
If you want to show off that your service is free and your competitors isn't, you just state it. Or you release some new gimmicky app that is free on the network that catches some headlines. You do it in a positive way.
Doing it this way, you make all the people who were potentially going to buy your console take pause. They will want to see if you start charging or not and hold off on purchasing.
The only reason you say this is that charging is going to be a reality. You do it this way to ease it in to the consumer's minds instead of just dropping it one morning to everyone's angry surprise.
Not that I think the guy knows everything, but if you think the Wii doesn't have many games that cater to the casual crowd, you are on crack. Everyone bought them for the casual games that their grand parents could play.
As far as what you are talking about, that really isn't the challenge of the game. Achievements create artificial challenge. The first Mario didn't have achievements yet it was quite challenging. Does this Mario make you start all the way from the beginning if you die too many times? No? Achievements are just e-peen things for OCD people who have to do everything. ANY game can have an achievement that makes it challenging...that doesn't make it a challenging game. Do you understand the difference?
Yes, different game difficulties help to cater to different players...duh. But if you think for a second that games on the Wii are more difficult than games on the 8-bit Nintendo...well, turn in your nerd card and don't let the door hit you on the way out.
Well, if they are having fun telling you what you are doing wrong, by your logic, who are you to tell them not to do it. Shouldn't you just be worried about yourself? ;)
Or it isn't a bug and people have the coincidence of having a bad battery around the time they upgraded to 7. But they are too technically inept to understand that even when they switch to a different OS and they have the same problem, then it probably really is the battery.
All anecdotal. I got a laptop, Li-ion battery died within 3 months. How many people upgraded to 7 and then had this issue? A few hundred. Probably actually is a bad battery. Nothing to see here unless there are more statistics.
And they promised to unlock everything if they go under. And if they don't, someone will patch it. Was that so hard?
Your whole post is full of strawmans to justify your crappy behavior. I have less time than you, yet have had no problem getting my games up and running on the PC without issue.
No demos? You are so full of crap. Lots and lots of games have demos/trials/etc. And if they don't you can go on youtube and watch people play the game. You have more reviewers than ever before reviewing games (just have to find one that has your tastes). Just wait awhile and see which ones become really popular and get those. I haven't been disappointed doing that.
It is good that you buy at least some of the games you pirate. But quite frankly, you are putting yourself at risk of trojans every time you do that. When it comes to piracy, Slashdot acts like an 80 year old grandma opening every attachment on their system. You all should be put on Macs.
*sigh* So dumb. If Steam goes under, and they don't do what they said they would, do you really think no one would be able to crack Steam at that point? Give me a break. Your fears are misguided because of your ideology.
Same old arguments over and over again and no one gets any smarter here. There are plenty of DRM methods out there that are acceptable. It's only the really nasty crippling DRM that destroys the experience for the customer.
Be honest with yourselves. DRM is going to exist. Companies should make sure the DRM does not harm the experience for their legitimate customers. Steam does this by adding a bunch of functionality to any game when ordered through their service.
Also, you focus on the things you want to hear instead of what is actually being said. The facts are that it is impossible to monitor how much DRM impacts sales or loss of sales. Slashdot wants to justify its piracy so they say that it only hurts sales. But Slashdot is more technical that the average person and has no problem finding and getting cracks to work. There are plenty of people out there who wouldn't know where to start and know how to run a crack if it was handed to them. These people are the ones who would just buy the game and avoid the hassle. Also, people who are actually not stupid enough to believe that cracked version of games come without trojans buy their games as well.
Oooh, you buy games legal...how kind of you. If a company treats you like crap, don't buy their games ever again. No need to break laws to play something made by people who treat you like crap. It is fairly simple.
So, maybe just bring 1 CD of the game you want to play? Or just use daemon tools. Not as big of a deal as you make it out to be.
Oh, so dramatic. I have been PC gaming for years and never had any of the issues you described (or any at all really). You make it seem like legitimately buying games is going to bring down your computer. It some tiny minority of cases, things can go wrong. For the majority of people, it won't.
I'll give you credit for one thing. At least you buy the game. If you want to get the cracked version because of the DRM boogie man, than I think you should have every right to do so. So I commend you for actually supporting the developers.
But on the other side, you ignore something that should be obvious. All the hackers/crackers out there are not your friend. They laugh their asses off as you install the cracked game and they take control of your box. I don't know why Slashdot mods posts up that encourage people to trust installing software from unknown people...but they always do. While you are at it, why don't you open every single attachment you get from strangers.
To each their own, but I would recommend giving the first one a chance. It is actually quite well done.
Except for the fact that whoever pirated probably stuck a rootkit in it and now owns your box.
Why is this issue always ignored in this debate? I think people who open up e-mail attachments are stupid. I also think people who pirate games are stupid for the same reason (and others).
You guys all seem irrational to me. I don't have any problems playing the games that I purchase. I think people just like get on here and post how evil game companies are so they can all feel good about ripping the developers off.
Don't like their actions? Don't play the game. Pirating it just makes it worse for everyone since it is just going to make game companies more likely to come up with new forms of DRM.
This argument always seems so stupid to me. I scratch or lose my disc and then that game is gone. With Steam, I just redownload it if I am on a new computer or at a friend's house.
But really, they have already said they would unlock all the games if they went belly up. But let us take worst case scenario. They go belly up and are damned evil liars and do nothing. What are we going to do? Oh, just wait for someone in the community to write a patch for it and then it will be fine. So what is the problem exactly?
Sure, if you ignore the fact that humans are living longer now than in any other point in history.
You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
Get over your dumb PC vs. console debate. This has nothing to do with it. When you are on a console, you are locked down and that's fine with you. But on the PC, you expect there to be dedicated servers to build a community and remove annoying people and hacks. You expect the ability for others or yourself to create mods. You don't have those expectations on a console. IW is taking away something that has always been good on the PC. And they have been successful while doing it so that more companies may follow their lead and destroy the main reasons (other than kb + m) that makes PC gaming more compelling.
Not true. There still will be games that are target for the PC first. If Blizzard and the Civ series start porting from consoles, then we truly will be doomed.
Just because you are retarded with a PC doesn't mean we should all suffer from the locking down of games. This isn't a PC vs. console debate. This is the destruction of what has always been good about games on the PC. I have consoles too. I like to sit down and play a game as well. But I also play games on the PC where I want dedicated servers and the ability for the community to make mods. So stop being so defensive of your platform of choice, this isn't about that so grow up. This is about losing something that was good for the consumer.
Because pretty much any system these days has an automated password recovery system that will reset your password and send you a new fake on to your e-mail. There was no actual employee involved. If by chance you actually were dealing with an actual human, it was a simple tech support person who would only have the ability to do that rather actually having a master password. The master password would be held closely and only held by the top people. Not lowly tech support.
The password wasn't "Chuck Norris" either. It was symbols and such that it looked like it. So it really is sensational garbage.
I enjoy my iPod touch for gaming. The only drawback is it has very very poor battery life. Other than that, I have found a lot of fun games to play on it. Catan and GeoDefense are good for hours and hours of fun alone.