Uhh, they aren't. It isn't like it is illegal for you to buy the games and let your kids play them. They have those ratings so parents have at least some indication on the content of the game. If you want to drill down deeper to the content, then that is up to you. If you find that it is acceptable for your children, fine.
These people are not trying to impose their moral opinions on you. They exist so that the government doesn't step in and regulate the games. I would much rather the ESRB do the ratings than Dick Cheny or Hillary Clinton. Obviously, they have to make moral judgments based and that is just based on our current culture. You may not like it, but that is reality. And since no one is actually preventing you from doing what you want to, I see no reason for your rant.
So...what's your point? Do what makes you happy and try not too ruin other people's happiness. That's how I live. If you are happy working on your cyrix, then who cares what your mom or friends think? That has nothing to do with materialism anyways.
Carbs are bad. But exercise certainly does help you lose weight. It's sad because I just know a lot of over weight people will use this as an excuse not to exercise when there are so many positive benefits to it.
After all of that, I don't see a problem with that. Why should they care what the game is about? It can be about ponies...but if the ponies do bad things to each other, it should have an appropriate rating. A movie is about 2 hours long. Games can be hundreds of hours long to touch all of the content. It makes sense to see the most extreme parts of the content rather than play it.
Really, come up with a better way to do these things and I will tell you why it wouldn't work.
I'd mod you down just because you could make your point without being insulting about it. I don't agree with you, but I wouldn't mod you down for that. Free markets and government regulated markets both have their flaws and pitfalls and are ripe for abuse.
In most areas (well, all that I know of except in rural areas that have few choices due to location), there is competition. Cable tends to be the fastest, affordable method so we put up with it despite it being evil (and many get their television through it as well). So yes, there are alternatives but you have to make some sacrifices if you leave them (mainly speed).
I don't know if you have been to the U.S. before, but maybe you should come some time. It seems you have bought in to the negative stereotype of Americans that seems to be popular these days. We are people just like you that have different opinions on every topic and just want to live happy lives. If you are judging how people are by web forums and our current President...then you have no clue what Americans actually believe.
I don't agree with everything you say. I think you make a few good points. But you come off as completely nuts the way you write your post. If you want to get your point across to other people than maybe you should calm down and speak rationally. Otherwise, "real life" people are going to think you need the help of a psychiatrist.
Using your qualifications, Nintendo won with the Gamecube as well since it was always profitable. Really, the market can support 3 winners. A loser is going to be someone who is forced out of the market. All 3 look strong enough to last another round after this one. Nintendo is moving consoles. The 360 is moving games. The PS3 has a bit to catch up but has superior hardware. Hopefully at some point I will own all 3 (but not until prices drop).
You don't really make any sense considering your gripe is on MMORPGs other than what SOE is responsible for. I think the fact that millions of people pay an online subscription to WoW just demonstrates how wrong you are. WoW has grinds in them but they are largely irrelevant. If you enjoy questing and the story line, you don't really care about level 70. It's only a grind for people with the mentality that they have to have the best of everything and get to the top as quickly as possible. I guess I think the people at Blizzard now a whole heck of a lot more about designing games that either you or I do. Sounds like MMORPGs aren't for you. So play all the great single player games that are out. Let the millions who do enjoy MMORPGs to their happy little grinds.
(Disclaimer: I have subscribed to FFXI, WoW, Eve and shattered galaxies...but don't play any now. I am addicted to TF2 however)
If it is an 8 page preview, we are talking about an 8 page preview. Not talking about the ads. The ads on the websites are even worse than the ones in the magazines so your gripe is largely made up.
Hand in your Slashdot card and don't let the door hit you on the way out. Come on...we can use Google here and we have been looking at NPD numbers for years.:)
I'm sorry, but what you write and what is reality aren't even close. In a magazine I read, it shows top selling games for the past month. Madden showed up at least 6 times in the top 20 (and they held the #1 and #3 spot) from the different platforms it releases on. Slashdotters might not like EA or Madden, but the rest of the people out there could care less what you think and continue to validate EA's model every year.
...for Team Fortress 2. Man, I keep telling myself to get to bed early and sure enough it is past midnight when I finally log off from sniping people on 2fort.
The Xbox was dead when the 360 was released because MS killed it. They used it as a learning experience to get in to the market and wanted to really focus on this generation. So that really isn't proof of anything. Sony, on the other hand, is making more off of the PS2 than the PS3 so it would be daft for them to stop supporting it.
MMORPGs have been stuck on systems much worse than the 360 (e.g. FFXII)...they may have to tone down the graphics a bit, but that isn't something that is driving the console market anyways.
The lack of a hard drive on the core model is a mistake. No argument there. But it is one they could fix easily.
I don't understand why you need to make some dumb sandbox analogy for this. Eve is a boring game unless you are a hardcore PvPer. It doesn't matter how hard you rant about it being a sandbox and that if you don't enjoy it you must lack imagination....the meat of the game is boring. I applaud them for removing the skill grind and making it something where you are always training (though, they should allow you to queue two skills if they haven't already), but they just replaced it with the grind to make ISK. Missions are repetitive and boring since you have to run the same one over and over, mining is boring, trade is boring, etc.
In game you do and can meet nice people. But the "community" on the Eve forums are a bunch of people who like to insult others and ask for your stuff if you decide to leave (and insult you on the way out for not liking the game...what a sin!). They all bash WoW because their game is vastly less popular and they feel threatened (just like you did with your spoon fed fun comment).
But now that I think about it, the sand box analogy is perfect. Eve is a sandbox...it is just full of potential. Unfortunately, every toy in the sandbox is broken and is more work than it is fun to play with. And certain kids in the sandbox have been treated better by the teachers than the other kids and thus own most of the sandbox.
Don't get me wrong, Eve is not terrible...but after playing it for awhile you can't help but become bitter from its jerk community, its constant scandals, and how you can just feel there is a good game buried somewhere in there but that it has been taken in the wrong direction.
I totally agree with you. I would expect to be safe from this sort of thing on games.slashdot.org. I didn't click and am glad I read the comments first. Editors shouldn't let adult links pass through. At least put up a warning.
Imus was removed because he wasn't bringing in money anymore. It had nothing to do with pressure on his bosses, it had to do with the pressure on the advertisers. They pulled their ads from the show, the show wasn't making money, so they canceled the show. It really has nothing to do with political and everything to do with financial. That being said, Imus will be back in a few months.
Of course, I agree with your initial sentiment that Target would not pull something that was highly profitable.
Which is what he is talking about. They can release updates to the system that offer something new to the consumer. Making it thinner, support color, adding ports. The thing that stays the same is that they all can run the same games on different hardware. This makes a lot of sense for handhelds, but I don't think it is a great idea if applied to consoles unless he is talking about minor things like updating little things such as the hard drive. When you think of new releases of consoles, it generally is a significant difference. They might support backward compatibility or not, but it generally is going to be different to develop for because of completely redesigned hardware. If you release it too early, the software companies won't have enough time to catch up and take full advantage of the system. The longer the lifecycle, the more profitable the hardware becomes. As long as your system isn't considered irrelevant (like the Gamecube and Xbox are...PS2 still is going strong oddly), then I agree that change should happen when you have some new innovation that will be important. So I would hope that means longer life cycles. I think Nintendo proved that with the Wii. But I could be wrong and it may just be that they stayed so cheap while Sony and MS decided to do the typical move to state of the art hardware. People criticize them for this and laud Nintendo...ironically, this has been the model that Nintendo has been doing since it first started.
Uh, no. If you think reading the passage is as bad as electric shock then this isn't even a rational discussion. The only thing that seems to offend me anymore are people that take offense to everything.
I agree with you. They should have known better after Hot Coffee. I defended them in the past..no more. With this and the Simpsons thing, Rockstar is moving to my "don't buy from" list.
Slashdot Mirror
Uhh, they aren't. It isn't like it is illegal for you to buy the games and let your kids play them. They have those ratings so parents have at least some indication on the content of the game. If you want to drill down deeper to the content, then that is up to you. If you find that it is acceptable for your children, fine.
These people are not trying to impose their moral opinions on you. They exist so that the government doesn't step in and regulate the games. I would much rather the ESRB do the ratings than Dick Cheny or Hillary Clinton. Obviously, they have to make moral judgments based and that is just based on our current culture. You may not like it, but that is reality. And since no one is actually preventing you from doing what you want to, I see no reason for your rant.
So...what's your point? Do what makes you happy and try not too ruin other people's happiness. That's how I live. If you are happy working on your cyrix, then who cares what your mom or friends think? That has nothing to do with materialism anyways.
Carbs are bad. But exercise certainly does help you lose weight. It's sad because I just know a lot of over weight people will use this as an excuse not to exercise when there are so many positive benefits to it.
After all of that, I don't see a problem with that. Why should they care what the game is about? It can be about ponies...but if the ponies do bad things to each other, it should have an appropriate rating. A movie is about 2 hours long. Games can be hundreds of hours long to touch all of the content. It makes sense to see the most extreme parts of the content rather than play it.
Really, come up with a better way to do these things and I will tell you why it wouldn't work.
I'd mod you down just because you could make your point without being insulting about it. I don't agree with you, but I wouldn't mod you down for that. Free markets and government regulated markets both have their flaws and pitfalls and are ripe for abuse.
In most areas (well, all that I know of except in rural areas that have few choices due to location), there is competition. Cable tends to be the fastest, affordable method so we put up with it despite it being evil (and many get their television through it as well). So yes, there are alternatives but you have to make some sacrifices if you leave them (mainly speed).
I don't know if you have been to the U.S. before, but maybe you should come some time. It seems you have bought in to the negative stereotype of Americans that seems to be popular these days. We are people just like you that have different opinions on every topic and just want to live happy lives. If you are judging how people are by web forums and our current President...then you have no clue what Americans actually believe.
I don't agree with everything you say. I think you make a few good points. But you come off as completely nuts the way you write your post. If you want to get your point across to other people than maybe you should calm down and speak rationally. Otherwise, "real life" people are going to think you need the help of a psychiatrist.
Using your qualifications, Nintendo won with the Gamecube as well since it was always profitable. Really, the market can support 3 winners. A loser is going to be someone who is forced out of the market. All 3 look strong enough to last another round after this one. Nintendo is moving consoles. The 360 is moving games. The PS3 has a bit to catch up but has superior hardware. Hopefully at some point I will own all 3 (but not until prices drop).
I can retire at 40!
You don't really make any sense considering your gripe is on MMORPGs other than what SOE is responsible for. I think the fact that millions of people pay an online subscription to WoW just demonstrates how wrong you are. WoW has grinds in them but they are largely irrelevant. If you enjoy questing and the story line, you don't really care about level 70. It's only a grind for people with the mentality that they have to have the best of everything and get to the top as quickly as possible. I guess I think the people at Blizzard now a whole heck of a lot more about designing games that either you or I do. Sounds like MMORPGs aren't for you. So play all the great single player games that are out. Let the millions who do enjoy MMORPGs to their happy little grinds.
(Disclaimer: I have subscribed to FFXI, WoW, Eve and shattered galaxies...but don't play any now. I am addicted to TF2 however)
Wow. I know there is a bit of Wii spin on this site...but now the Wii has eternal hard drives? That's pretty impressive.
If it is an 8 page preview, we are talking about an 8 page preview. Not talking about the ads. The ads on the websites are even worse than the ones in the magazines so your gripe is largely made up.
Hand in your Slashdot card and don't let the door hit you on the way out. Come on...we can use Google here and we have been looking at NPD numbers for years. :)
I'm sorry, but what you write and what is reality aren't even close. In a magazine I read, it shows top selling games for the past month. Madden showed up at least 6 times in the top 20 (and they held the #1 and #3 spot) from the different platforms it releases on. Slashdotters might not like EA or Madden, but the rest of the people out there could care less what you think and continue to validate EA's model every year.
...for Team Fortress 2. Man, I keep telling myself to get to bed early and sure enough it is past midnight when I finally log off from sniping people on 2fort.
The Xbox was dead when the 360 was released because MS killed it. They used it as a learning experience to get in to the market and wanted to really focus on this generation. So that really isn't proof of anything. Sony, on the other hand, is making more off of the PS2 than the PS3 so it would be daft for them to stop supporting it.
MMORPGs have been stuck on systems much worse than the 360 (e.g. FFXII)...they may have to tone down the graphics a bit, but that isn't something that is driving the console market anyways.
The lack of a hard drive on the core model is a mistake. No argument there. But it is one they could fix easily.
I don't understand why you need to make some dumb sandbox analogy for this. Eve is a boring game unless you are a hardcore PvPer. It doesn't matter how hard you rant about it being a sandbox and that if you don't enjoy it you must lack imagination....the meat of the game is boring. I applaud them for removing the skill grind and making it something where you are always training (though, they should allow you to queue two skills if they haven't already), but they just replaced it with the grind to make ISK. Missions are repetitive and boring since you have to run the same one over and over, mining is boring, trade is boring, etc.
In game you do and can meet nice people. But the "community" on the Eve forums are a bunch of people who like to insult others and ask for your stuff if you decide to leave (and insult you on the way out for not liking the game...what a sin!). They all bash WoW because their game is vastly less popular and they feel threatened (just like you did with your spoon fed fun comment).
But now that I think about it, the sand box analogy is perfect. Eve is a sandbox...it is just full of potential. Unfortunately, every toy in the sandbox is broken and is more work than it is fun to play with. And certain kids in the sandbox have been treated better by the teachers than the other kids and thus own most of the sandbox.
Don't get me wrong, Eve is not terrible...but after playing it for awhile you can't help but become bitter from its jerk community, its constant scandals, and how you can just feel there is a good game buried somewhere in there but that it has been taken in the wrong direction.
The only thing that it has going for it is that it looks nice.
It's all in the name recognition. Ask Bush. And he doesn't even look nice!
I totally agree with you. I would expect to be safe from this sort of thing on games.slashdot.org. I didn't click and am glad I read the comments first. Editors shouldn't let adult links pass through. At least put up a warning.
Imus was removed because he wasn't bringing in money anymore. It had nothing to do with pressure on his bosses, it had to do with the pressure on the advertisers. They pulled their ads from the show, the show wasn't making money, so they canceled the show. It really has nothing to do with political and everything to do with financial. That being said, Imus will be back in a few months.
Of course, I agree with your initial sentiment that Target would not pull something that was highly profitable.
Which is what he is talking about. They can release updates to the system that offer something new to the consumer. Making it thinner, support color, adding ports. The thing that stays the same is that they all can run the same games on different hardware. This makes a lot of sense for handhelds, but I don't think it is a great idea if applied to consoles unless he is talking about minor things like updating little things such as the hard drive. When you think of new releases of consoles, it generally is a significant difference. They might support backward compatibility or not, but it generally is going to be different to develop for because of completely redesigned hardware. If you release it too early, the software companies won't have enough time to catch up and take full advantage of the system. The longer the lifecycle, the more profitable the hardware becomes. As long as your system isn't considered irrelevant (like the Gamecube and Xbox are...PS2 still is going strong oddly), then I agree that change should happen when you have some new innovation that will be important. So I would hope that means longer life cycles. I think Nintendo proved that with the Wii. But I could be wrong and it may just be that they stayed so cheap while Sony and MS decided to do the typical move to state of the art hardware. People criticize them for this and laud Nintendo...ironically, this has been the model that Nintendo has been doing since it first started.
They could always put it on multiple discs. Some people really object to that, but I don't mind.
Uh, no. If you think reading the passage is as bad as electric shock then this isn't even a rational discussion. The only thing that seems to offend me anymore are people that take offense to everything.
You are clearly not a programmer. With a game that size it is impossible to be bug free.
If you have enough money for a PS3, then you can afford running it all year without trouble ;)
I agree with you. They should have known better after Hot Coffee. I defended them in the past..no more. With this and the Simpsons thing, Rockstar is moving to my "don't buy from" list.