I chose your post to respond to since you seem to be missing the point the most. What if I do not have an internet connection available? Then it is a bit more of a hoop. So what they're basically saying is that you have to pay for our game, then pay for an internet connection to even play single player.
And I'm not whining, I'm standing up for what I believe is a disgusting business move on Valve's part and I'm putting my money where my mouth is. There's no whining there.
To the person who posted a response above you about what the big deal is...well, honestly? I have an internet connection, I could easily activate HL2 if I were to purchase a copy, but what I'm doing is taking a stand against the principle of the matter, because I don't want to see it used again in the future, and I don't want it to become required for everything. It is absolutely ridiculous.
As a college student who just moved out of the dorms and now has to worry about an electric bill, can anybody give me a ballpark figure on what something like that would cost to keep running?
Also, I'll bet it wouldn't be too hard to hook this up to a computer or to pick up sound waves and pulls or shift color to music.
Um, I don't know what pop tarts you've been eating, but there are microwave directions on the packets. And they always freak me out a bit because it says to microwave it for only about 3-5 seconds.
Being there must've been similar to being a time traveler being sent back to WWII and meeting Hitler (yeah yeah, Godwin can cram it), knowing full well that if you just took him out now, you'd save a lot of trouble later on.
No seriously, why didn't you trash their data and free us all?
You know, this summary brought up an interesting question. When it comes to preserving data (not just digital data), such as that of our memories etc. inside our heads, what are the effects of long term cryogenic storage?
I've often fantasized about how cool it would be to deep freeze myself when I'm old, and wake up in the world of tomorrow (for better or worse). But I'd be worried about how my memories would survive the deep freeze.
Sorry if this seems a bit offtopic, but when you think about it, it IS related.
I, like many other slashdotters, am EXTREMELY upset by requiring product activation to even play single player.
So I had initially been planning on just not buying the game. But then I was wondering if there was a way to send a stronger message, so I was wondering about buying it and returning it to the store.
However, I'm aware there are some issues with stores not accepting returned software. So could someone please give some information on what stores accept returned software, what the policy is, etc?
Just because it has some features that aren't as evil as other forms of copy protection does not make this good because it has one flaw that cancels out all the benefits of the others.
And to illustrate my point...what will I do as a customer who buys HL2 when I don't have an internet connection?
Last I checked, single player meant you didn't need the internet. Screw Valve, screw HL2. They lost yet another customer.
You've done a fine job of trying to justify the Stream registration, but no matter how you put it, it sucks. And apparently you feel that is acceptable just because its the norm.
I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO authenticate for single player. Putting the CD in the drive is one thing, but having to have an internet connection is another. Doesn't matter if it only needs to connect once. That is bullshit.
And the shifty bastards in their marketing department make it so you have to sign up and create an account before you can do that.
I suggest people put their money where their mouth is and don't buy HL2.
*note to mods I have mod points to spare, so I'd rather have your discussion than your points.
I think one of the most insightful quotes in the whole read (which was absolutely fascinating by the way because of how neutral it tried to be) was this:
The video game business is very time
sensitive; many titles are timed to ship in time for Christmas sales, sports titles are tied to
the season opening of sports, and movie titles must release in time frames corresponding
to the movies. Making an outstanding game, but delivering it late, is not as profitable as
making an acceptable quality game on time. EAers talk about "maximum on-time
quality."
I think that about sums up the business of making video games. Remember guys, they'd love a great game, but in the end, they don't really care as long as they get it out on time. Another interesting quote was:
"EA veterans say that the major reason games ship late is due to a lack of focus
in the design vision: "games are usually late because the development team doesn't know
what it is building."
While I'm all for encouraging small game developers and publishers to grow because more competition is good, I think this illustrates that there is a point when you become too large as a company to effectively produce games.
I dunno, sometimes I honestly think we'd have a better shot at winning this war if we let some 15 year old top of the ladder Starcraft Tourney winner command them all.
Of course we'd probably suffer some big losses because he kept trying to do a marine rush...
That's all you'd do? Why not generate them some ad revenue as well. Every time you print with a non-Lexmark cartridge, the printer prints a small ad on the bottom of your document with a coupon for $1 off a Lexmark ink cartridge.
I don't have to mention that it would have a negative effect on the business because that is assumed. You seem to be attempting to make a distinction between quality of work and personality as traits that make up a good employee.
Guess what, welcome to the real world where people who have both traits succeed and the ones who don't have both get replaced by someone who does. Nothing irritates me more than people who think that they are a good employee if they just shutup and do their work. Guess what, I want an employee who is personable, because I have to work with them and so does everybody else.
Stop thinking about your job as a solitary role where you are isolated from everybody else. You are all connected, and need to start thinking like a team.
This is an open letter to the submitter Paul from the company that sells the product plugged in this slashvertisement.
Dear Paul,
I was once again annoyed to see my beloved Slashdot plugged by yet another slashvertisement. Here's a lesson in PR from someone in the industry: It would have been more effective and less annoying if you had just given us the kitchen science and then linked to your site instead of using the summary to plug your product.
Because of the way you wrote it, you are now getting negative feedback on your slashvertisement from many posters including myself, which will hopefully influence other potential customers to look elsewhere. Just a lesson for the future.
Wow, very brave statement making a lot of assumptions.
First off, XP came with my computer, I did not need to activate it. Just because I have internet access and use it to post to Slashdot does NOT mean I will have internet access on the computer I would have played HL2 on.
I am insulted by your flamebait claim that I am a cheapass and don't want to pay for it when I would love to buy HL2 as I think its a game worthy of paying for. However, I am not going to be buying it on principle because I want to put my money where my mouth is in regards to this issue.
The fact that you are making a gross generalization that people who don't like product activation are all pirates shows that your post was nothing more than a troll.
You know, for some reason I'm not surprised that such an ignorant post got modded up as +5 insightful instead of -1 flamebait.
First, to address your concerns about managers with large mortgage payments, golf outings, and office sex on fine Italian leather, well...it really is hard to mask your jealousy. If you're jealous, say so. But it seems to me that all these statements are drawn from stereotypes, and very few actual experiences.
Let me explain something to you about management that will address your ridiculous comment about how we don't need managers.
Large numbers of employees don't organize themselves, and when they do, there tends to be leaders that rise the top and direct everybody. Guess what these people are called? MANAGERS! They come in all different shapes and forms, and while I don't disagree there are some truly horrendous examples (especially at EA), management is absolutely crucial for business. People need to handle HR, finance, shareholders, customers, distributors, marketing, etc. And while I'm sure you think marketers are "t3h evil" and that a CEO just spends his days galavanting around the country in his lear jet, you obviously have no real understanding of business otherwise you would recognize how necessary it is to have marketers to make your product that you slave over sell, or how necessary it is to have a charismatic public face to address the media, shareholders, and customers when the shit hits the fan.
But aside from your obvious jealousy (although based on false notions of what management actually does), and your complete lack of knowledge of what makes a business work, what irks me the most about your post is that you think you are a better person than the people above you. Ever wonder why there's such a disconnect between management and programmers? I'll give you a hint, its not just because some managers don't give respect to programmers. It works both ways you know. You reap what you sow.
Mods, this is not flamebait, this post is addressing a common misconception around here about management and what they do. I'm sure every manager on here read the parent and just wanted to fire him. I know if I had someone working for me with that attitude (assuming I'm adulterous, irresponsible, and don't do work) well, they'd be gone the second I found out about it.
Get off your bloody high horse and realize that a good portion of management works just as hard as you do. They just do it in different ways. Pissed off that they golf too much? Bet you didn't know that they were doing all that golfing just to win over a venture capitalist to get more funding for your project, or that they don't even like golf.
Remember folks, the grass is always greener, and you always remember the bad as opposed to the good, and in this case EA is definitely guilty as charged, but for the love of god, this stereotype of management has got to go. I mean, you don't like it when they stereotype programmers right? Two wrongs don't make a right.
I am absolutely furious over this. As has been mentioned in earlier posts, this is most likely just Marvel trying to upset the market before they launch their game.
CoH has taken measures to prevent copyrighted characters from being made, and actively root them out.
Does anybody have Marvel's PR department contact info so we here at Slashdot can let them know exactly how we feel about frivalous IP lawsuits?
I've actually been doing my senior project on this, although it has been using a college cooking show as an example instead of this show.
The main barrier to advertisers is that they don't have the security of the time constraints of traditional tv. What I mean by that is that they can offer special deals with a limited duration because they can decide it will only air during certain dates. Now while TiVO and VCRs have interfered with that a bit, it is nowhere near as serious an issue as it would be for internet downloaded shows.
The other issue is that they would have to make sure the ads were not long enough to piss people off enough to form groups to edit the ads out and rerelease the show ad free.
So traditional 30 second spots WILL NOT WORK unless they are incredibly entertaining, or worked into the show itself (product placement, or simply having the cast discuss the product, which would be fitting for this kind of show).
Other than that, the only thing stopping them from doing this is most likely the costs of doing it independantly, and the barrier of getting advertisers to be willing to risk money on advertising in this new medium.
Remember, mainstream media realizes that piracy happens, but they don't realize how eager people are to have all their content delivered online, so they're still nervous about doing it.
"I think Valve's STEAM distribution system is going to revolutionize the industry much like iTunes is doing for music."
Thats just what I want, a system that centralizes all the mods so I have to go through Valve to get my gameplay fix, and that won't even let me play singleplayer without a friggin internet connection. I will NOT be purchasing HL2 SOLELY because of the fact that they require product activation for singleplayer.
Valve got greedy, and since people will end up buying HL2 anyway, they will only get more greedy.
Enjoy it all you want, and I hope you are looking forward to having to pay for your mods via Steam, if your comparison to iTunes holds any salt.
Slashdot Mirror
And I'm not whining, I'm standing up for what I believe is a disgusting business move on Valve's part and I'm putting my money where my mouth is. There's no whining there.
To the person who posted a response above you about what the big deal is...well, honestly? I have an internet connection, I could easily activate HL2 if I were to purchase a copy, but what I'm doing is taking a stand against the principle of the matter, because I don't want to see it used again in the future, and I don't want it to become required for everything. It is absolutely ridiculous.
Also, I'll bet it wouldn't be too hard to hook this up to a computer or to pick up sound waves and pulls or shift color to music.
No seriously, why didn't you trash their data and free us all?
I think they mispelled "Phish concert".
I've often fantasized about how cool it would be to deep freeze myself when I'm old, and wake up in the world of tomorrow (for better or worse). But I'd be worried about how my memories would survive the deep freeze.
Sorry if this seems a bit offtopic, but when you think about it, it IS related.
However the full review is a good 14 pages of ad cluttered pages. I see they're taking the Tom's Hardware approach to generating ad dollars.
So I had initially been planning on just not buying the game. But then I was wondering if there was a way to send a stronger message, so I was wondering about buying it and returning it to the store.
However, I'm aware there are some issues with stores not accepting returned software. So could someone please give some information on what stores accept returned software, what the policy is, etc?
And to illustrate my point...what will I do as a customer who buys HL2 when I don't have an internet connection?
Last I checked, single player meant you didn't need the internet. Screw Valve, screw HL2. They lost yet another customer.
I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO authenticate for single player. Putting the CD in the drive is one thing, but having to have an internet connection is another. Doesn't matter if it only needs to connect once. That is bullshit.
And the shifty bastards in their marketing department make it so you have to sign up and create an account before you can do that.
I suggest people put their money where their mouth is and don't buy HL2.
I have mod points to spare, so I'd rather have your discussion than your points.
I think one of the most insightful quotes in the whole read (which was absolutely fascinating by the way because of how neutral it tried to be) was this:
The video game business is very time sensitive; many titles are timed to ship in time for Christmas sales, sports titles are tied to the season opening of sports, and movie titles must release in time frames corresponding to the movies. Making an outstanding game, but delivering it late, is not as profitable as making an acceptable quality game on time. EAers talk about "maximum on-time quality."
I think that about sums up the business of making video games. Remember guys, they'd love a great game, but in the end, they don't really care as long as they get it out on time. Another interesting quote was:
"EA veterans say that the major reason games ship late is due to a lack of focus in the design vision: "games are usually late because the development team doesn't know what it is building."
While I'm all for encouraging small game developers and publishers to grow because more competition is good, I think this illustrates that there is a point when you become too large as a company to effectively produce games.
Of course, since they want to keep it protected, they'll need to use internally created pr0n sites.
"Cadet Winters, nice rack, report to the base photographer at 0800! Thats an order!"
Of course we'd probably suffer some big losses because he kept trying to do a marine rush...
Now THAT would be sleazy.
Guess what, welcome to the real world where people who have both traits succeed and the ones who don't have both get replaced by someone who does. Nothing irritates me more than people who think that they are a good employee if they just shutup and do their work. Guess what, I want an employee who is personable, because I have to work with them and so does everybody else.
Stop thinking about your job as a solitary role where you are isolated from everybody else. You are all connected, and need to start thinking like a team.
I shall reply no more to you troll.
Dear Paul,
I was once again annoyed to see my beloved Slashdot plugged by yet another slashvertisement. Here's a lesson in PR from someone in the industry: It would have been more effective and less annoying if you had just given us the kitchen science and then linked to your site instead of using the summary to plug your product.
Because of the way you wrote it, you are now getting negative feedback on your slashvertisement from many posters including myself, which will hopefully influence other potential customers to look elsewhere. Just a lesson for the future.
First off, XP came with my computer, I did not need to activate it. Just because I have internet access and use it to post to Slashdot does NOT mean I will have internet access on the computer I would have played HL2 on.
I am insulted by your flamebait claim that I am a cheapass and don't want to pay for it when I would love to buy HL2 as I think its a game worthy of paying for. However, I am not going to be buying it on principle because I want to put my money where my mouth is in regards to this issue.
The fact that you are making a gross generalization that people who don't like product activation are all pirates shows that your post was nothing more than a troll.
First, to address your concerns about managers with large mortgage payments, golf outings, and office sex on fine Italian leather, well...it really is hard to mask your jealousy. If you're jealous, say so. But it seems to me that all these statements are drawn from stereotypes, and very few actual experiences.
Let me explain something to you about management that will address your ridiculous comment about how we don't need managers.
Large numbers of employees don't organize themselves, and when they do, there tends to be leaders that rise the top and direct everybody. Guess what these people are called? MANAGERS! They come in all different shapes and forms, and while I don't disagree there are some truly horrendous examples (especially at EA), management is absolutely crucial for business. People need to handle HR, finance, shareholders, customers, distributors, marketing, etc. And while I'm sure you think marketers are "t3h evil" and that a CEO just spends his days galavanting around the country in his lear jet, you obviously have no real understanding of business otherwise you would recognize how necessary it is to have marketers to make your product that you slave over sell, or how necessary it is to have a charismatic public face to address the media, shareholders, and customers when the shit hits the fan.
But aside from your obvious jealousy (although based on false notions of what management actually does), and your complete lack of knowledge of what makes a business work, what irks me the most about your post is that you think you are a better person than the people above you. Ever wonder why there's such a disconnect between management and programmers? I'll give you a hint, its not just because some managers don't give respect to programmers. It works both ways you know. You reap what you sow.
Mods, this is not flamebait, this post is addressing a common misconception around here about management and what they do. I'm sure every manager on here read the parent and just wanted to fire him. I know if I had someone working for me with that attitude (assuming I'm adulterous, irresponsible, and don't do work) well, they'd be gone the second I found out about it.
Get off your bloody high horse and realize that a good portion of management works just as hard as you do. They just do it in different ways. Pissed off that they golf too much? Bet you didn't know that they were doing all that golfing just to win over a venture capitalist to get more funding for your project, or that they don't even like golf.
Remember folks, the grass is always greener, and you always remember the bad as opposed to the good, and in this case EA is definitely guilty as charged, but for the love of god, this stereotype of management has got to go. I mean, you don't like it when they stereotype programmers right? Two wrongs don't make a right.
CoH has taken measures to prevent copyrighted characters from being made, and actively root them out.
Does anybody have Marvel's PR department contact info so we here at Slashdot can let them know exactly how we feel about frivalous IP lawsuits?
The main barrier to advertisers is that they don't have the security of the time constraints of traditional tv. What I mean by that is that they can offer special deals with a limited duration because they can decide it will only air during certain dates. Now while TiVO and VCRs have interfered with that a bit, it is nowhere near as serious an issue as it would be for internet downloaded shows.
The other issue is that they would have to make sure the ads were not long enough to piss people off enough to form groups to edit the ads out and rerelease the show ad free.
So traditional 30 second spots WILL NOT WORK unless they are incredibly entertaining, or worked into the show itself (product placement, or simply having the cast discuss the product, which would be fitting for this kind of show).
Other than that, the only thing stopping them from doing this is most likely the costs of doing it independantly, and the barrier of getting advertisers to be willing to risk money on advertising in this new medium.
Remember, mainstream media realizes that piracy happens, but they don't realize how eager people are to have all their content delivered online, so they're still nervous about doing it.
Thats just what I want, a system that centralizes all the mods so I have to go through Valve to get my gameplay fix, and that won't even let me play singleplayer without a friggin internet connection. I will NOT be purchasing HL2 SOLELY because of the fact that they require product activation for singleplayer.
Valve got greedy, and since people will end up buying HL2 anyway, they will only get more greedy.
Enjoy it all you want, and I hope you are looking forward to having to pay for your mods via Steam, if your comparison to iTunes holds any salt.