Support's probably your biggest issue. With a small open source project the developers don't have to worry so much about having to offer great support. Not many people will ask how to get this or that working, reporting so many bugs, etc. As the project grows and better support for other platforms is wanted from the users, people with more of an expertise on those platforms can be of service. The open source world can sometimes use that "if you don't like it, fix it yourself" mentality in this case.
Because a for-profit game has to worry about more important things like pleasing the majority of their users who just so happen to run Windows, it generally helps to keep the supported platforms narrowed to a more managable size. Why mess with the other ones when almost all of your users would probably come from Windows anyways, right? They can't take it slow like an open source project can. There's a lot of money at stake here; something that an open source project isn't forced to deal with.
Also consider that it doesn't take that much to port code between the various *nix based systems because they're so similar. Don't be mislead, either; the announcement only mentioned OS X and not its predecessors.
Come on, they are getting close to thirty. Old people are more forgetful, slower, and rather unpleasant to be around.It won't be long until their poopers start giving out on them. You can't have a clean, functional workplace with a bunch of people soiling their adult diapers. And they eat a lot of curry, too.
Does anybody know what the Indian equivalent of a Wal-Mart is? They could get some work as a door greeter there. Doesn't take much out of a person to say hi and all.
Well, for one, I do buy the games that fall within genres quite often. My point being is that I'm not too compelled to make a purchase from an indie when their game is too similar to what's already available from the big companies.
As far as the indie games you said were innovative, I don't see that to be much of the case. Let's take Starscape first. The fact that you were able to say it's sort of like a shoot 'em up crossed with Command & Conquer is proof that they're using borrowed ideas. Gish seems like it's a pure 2D side scroller to me (and the character kind of looks like that Meatwad thing from Aqua Teen Hunger Force). Also, you were able to draw a comparison between Hamsterball and Marble Madness, and sure you can't buy it in a shop, but does that make it truly different? Plus, as a previous poster said, it does draw a lot from Super Monkey Ball as well.
The "innovations" being made in the independent game development scene are too superficial. Essentially, the games that you've shown me can be bought elsewhere. For the most part, it's been done before. Sure, there's some differences in looks and stories floating about, but there has been no fundamental changes in gameplay. That's where you bring up the point of rejection. I just don't see why you would stay an indie if you were afraid of rejection. It seems to me that the credibility that an independent developer would earn from creating an innovative title, rejected or not, would be worth much more than the short-term easy money in the long run. Also, If you plan on making things similar to everything else in terms of gameplay (and often times in story) you might as well just get a job with an established game developer since there's not much point in grinding things out to make a clone (in terms of gameplay at the very least). As an indie, you have much more freedom to really make something different at the lower levels of gameplay. By not using that freedom, they're not going to separate themselves from the rest of the pack; thus not being able to compete.
On a side note, you mentioned Rez and Viewtiful Joe being bad financially. I can at least take your word for it when it comes to Rez, although I'll end up making sure for myself on Viewtiful Joe (as it does have a sequel coming out). I did think Rez was fairly innovative and it did minimize on the borrowed ideas. I think some rejection still would've occured, but it definitely could've gotten a better campaign behind it. For the most part, it snuck in to the market without much noise. With Viewtiful Joe, I really thought it was overrated. For the most part side scroller with the time controlling features we've seen in games like Blinx the TimeSweeper. Graphically it was impressive, but the characters just didn't cut it for me; I definitely didn't care about the main character at all. I think that some of those superficial things were its biggest problem and would be the main contributing factor if it was indeed a financial failure(other than internal factors). But, as far as it being an innovator; I'd have to say that it wasn't. But, I do give credit for both Sega and Capcom for at least releasing them.
Well, it seems that the indie development scene can produce games that rival budget titles from the big boys, and that's a step in the right direction, but I just can't say that I'm all to impressed.
I was hoping to see more out of the independents. They have that unique position of being able to really do something that nobody has ever done before and they haven't stepped up yet. All of the games in the article were explainable with a statement like "Well, it plays like Popular Game A, with a little bit of Popular Game B and C in it." That's not what I wanted to see. Where's the games that can pretty much be defined on their own? Where's the games that take the independent developer into the big leagues?
The independents look like they can do what others do pretty well now; the fact that they've come that far is encouraging. But still, I have no compelling reason to buy their titles over a cheap title from a tried and true developer or publisher. Wait, shouldn't I support them because they're indie? Nah, I'll support the companies that make something that interests me regardless of size. If an independent can give me something that hasn't been done before and is fun at the same time, they'll be sure to see my dollars.
I don't think SpamCop is going to be winning this one, because OptInRealBig has all of those email addresses at their disposal. Just a few mass mailings is all it takes to get public opinion on their side.
Hey now, that's an unfair analogy. At least Tony Soprano and Vito Corleone had an honor code of sorts. Ya know, "If I do this for you you will repay me in the future" sort of thing.
It's generally understood that the favor is in the form of a Bonzi Buddy.
The question is though, why would a company who makes spyware (who's very nature is to be secretive and hard to remove) want to follow Google's principles?
Does Tony Soprano worry about ethics before he lays a whack?
He might not be able to use the Rod Smart name (assuming he's covered by collective bargaining), but it's my understanding that he holds the He Hate Me trademark.
But other than small time marketing deals, and the fact that the XFL is defunct. That won't matter.
But, hey, f he ends up in the CFL or AFL he might be able to do something with it!
Well, I can't blame EA for trying to get this deal, since anybody in their position would do the same thing. However, I'd be extremely pissed off with the Players' Association for going through. In fact, I'm pissed off at the fact that they're even in talks of an exclusivity deal for multiple reasons.
The first, and biggest reason for me, is consumer choice. That's pretty obvious; with this deal nobody really gets to keep Madden on its toes. With this deal, they'd get to take a bit of a breather and not have to improve their product nearly as much. No competition, no worries.
The second reason is that an exclusive deal might knock out a player to license themselves out to another game. If this does turn out to be a part of the deal, then you'd really have to wonder how much the NFLPA is really representing the players. Remember, they also really kissed up to Congress during the steroid hearings as well; telling them that they were fully supportive of mandatory testing, including testing being made mandatory by law. Even though I wouldn't mind mandatory testing from the league and not by law, I'm hard pressed to find how the NFLPA could really be representing their players when something like being pro-steroid testing is far from being general consensus amongst the players; considering the privacy concerms (smaller factor) and the number of players on the juice (larger factor). Anyways, I also wonder how much of this deal is going to the union bosses and better players. This could very well be a case where the smaller players end up getting stiffed from within the union that's supposedly representing them.
Another thing to point out is that not everybody is necessarily represented through collective bargaining. Generally this isn't much of a problem considering that NFL players don't reach the level of stardom as, say, an NBA player. However, you still could see a situation similar to ones that have happened with Shaquille O'Neal and Michael Jordan; where their likenesses weren't allowed to be in certain games. If there was such an exclusivity deal, you might see a few stars pull out of the collective bargaining agreement to have their own game.
Don't be assanine, he's allowed to give his advice and that's all he is doing. Licences aren't rejected just on Stallman's say so but because, more often than not, any problems that Stallman points out are potentially serious; whether for the developer or the end user.
Potentially serious? They could be if the courts were on the GPL's side. But, that hasn't been proven yet, so all of the "problems" that he points out are mere empty threats and arguments with no legal proof. Without that, I'd say that the potential for a licensing problem is pretty low, considering that the license has been around for quite a while. It's pretty spooky that the largest parts of the open source "movement" are riding atop an unproven license, isn't it?
As in this post by Illuminata, a well known tactic is used -- misrepresent RMS as some pseudo-diety by presenting his actions as having more significance than they actually do; then, point out how ridiculous this is, thereby causing readers new to the concept of Free software to dismiss his advice all together.
I'm not the one misrepresenting RMS as some pseudo-diety; you can blame that one on the zealots. If you've spent enough time on Slashdot (too bad this was a coward post, otherwise I wouldn't have to guess), you'd know what I'm speaking of. Half of the time it's amazing that they are even able to type out a response because their arms are wildly flailing in the air. Well, one could at least imagine that with the anger put behind those posts. For the most part, it's only a matter of time until somebody gets jumped on over saying anything remotely bad about RMS. And, what exactly makes this "tactic" well known? It wouldn't be some sort of attempt to invalidate the bad things said about RMS, would it? Nah, couldn't be.
No, I'm not trying to say that his actions have any true significance at all; I'm saying that they really shouldn't have significance. And how would my criticism of one person somehow hurt the concept of free software? I'm of the opinion that his advice should be dismissed for the most part; is that so wrong? Also, it's not my fault that RMS has collected a fanbase which believes that a possible incompatability is automatically a problem. However, I'd have a problem believing that RMS doesn't perpetuate that line of thinking based on his ideas and opinions.
But, all of that might not matter. The GPL still hasn't been proved enforcable.
Read some of Stallman's rants about the Plan9 license(s). Vita Nuova's license has the same problems.
How did you get the time to read his rants about the Plan 9 license? I'm still working on his rants from 2002.
But seriously, what necessarily makes a license that might not be Stallman compliant a problem? Can't it just be different? As far as I can tell, he's not some sort of supreme licensing authority. Also, he doesn't have the power to actually enforce his ideas on what's GPL compatible or incompatible; that would be something for a court to decide pending that they also find the GPL to actually be a valid license.
Hopefully they're only using G4techTV as a temporary name to help guide people through the merger, because that one's just not meant to last. ZDTV was able to handle switching over to TechTV, so I don't think that there will be much of a problem switching over this kludge of a name in the future.
As far as the new lineup goes, it's better, but still a little weak. Some of what TechTV is bringing over might as well be tossed over to a channel in the Discovery family (Future Fighting Machines, Invent this), and some of the G4 shows might as well be scratched (Arena, Players).I hope that they're trying to find some worthwile original programming to strengthen the lineup, otherwise I don't see this merger making the channel any stronger than G4 and TechTV were on their own. Who knows, maybe if they try hard enough they can make the basic programming packages.
I was strolling up and down Conspiracy St. today and it turns out that everybody was buzzing about how Nintendo has some deep ties in Capitol Hill and never let a grudge die.
If you wanted to know who really runs shit in D.C., you're bound to hear one recurring answer... "It's a me, Mario!"
Being a jock as well as a geek, maybe I can shed some light as to why some people buy sports games every year.
To a geek, it would appear as if it was the same junk with just some minor tweaks. But, to a sports gamer, they are anything but.
With all of the roster moves made during the season and in the off-season, a player wants to have their game's roster be as current as possible. A current roster keeps that sense of realism for a player. That's the largest reason why one would pick up the latest title of a sports game every year. Remember, a game also has to keep current with new teams, stadiums, stadium names, stadium modifications, team moves, rule changes, etc.
Don't forget, there's also new features added each year that might not seem like much to a geek. Madden 2004 just recently created a mode for one to simulate owning a team, detailed down to setting food prices to generate revenue. ESPN NFL Football lets you have your own "crib" for you to purchase things for, including a jukebox so that you can play your own music and an air hockey table. You can't forget things such as new training modes, gameplay modes, and other things of that nature.
Improvements are another big justification for a yearly upgrade. Things such as bettering how the defense back handles a wide receiver in football or how a suicide squeeze is handled in baseball all help add to the realism of the video game. That's what most sports gamers want; being able to come as close as they can to having a realistic sports experience.
You need an appreciation of sports to be able to understand why people justify a yearly video game purchase. Without that appreciation, it certainly may seem as if those games are indeed crap. However, there are a whole slew of people who appreciate sports, and that's why you'll continue to see sports video games over and over.
...Just not as many from 989, because they realized that they weren't too good at making them.
Excuse me, I meant to say World Series Baseball 2K1.
What's so bad about it? There's very little hitting control. You can't move the batter around in the batter's box, control the swing type, vary the strength of the swing, or even check your swing. But, most importantly, there is no fielding control whatsoever. It's purely a hitting and pitching game, and the hitting aspect of it is off. It was definitely the low point of the World Series license.
It's poor quality related. The sports titles produced by 989 Sports always came up inferior, not just in the graphics department, but in all of the other departments as well. That includes gameplay, where it always fell short every year in every sport.
When you create a bad game, word spreads very fast and nobody bites at it. When you create a bad game in a series year after year, people don't trust the series anymore. And when you do that with multiple series, people lose trust in the developer. Had 989 been able to create quality sports titles, or at least learn from their mistakes like Sega did with World Series 2K, 989 wouldn't be in the situation that they're in now. But, 989 didn't even try. EA and Sega just gave them competition. They did not force them to create mediocre games.
Or perhaps it's a total bitch thing. Martha probably would've been let off the hook, but she probably barked at them about how to properly conduct the investigation, how to cordially approach someone with charges, what not to wear at a hearing, proper speaking skills at a press conference, etc etc etc.
More than likely, Bill just volunteered the money and told them not to spend it all in one place. He probably tossed over a large.net care package and some servers to their IT department as well.
If they were to really throw their weight behind Project Looking Glass and grab some partners, they could become a competitor in the desktop arena. It's pretty damn cool. Rather than just implement ideas that come from Looking Glass into the Java Desktop System, I'd let Looking Glass become its own beast.
The server market doesn't look too well, and Java can only do so much for them. Unless they can come up with something spectacular out of the blue, I think this that Project Looking Glass is Sun's best option.
I, illuminata, had nothing to do with the Illuminati: New World Order card game mentioned in this Slashdot article. My name simply means glowing in Italian.
I also had nothing to do with getting that card game mentioned in the article, composition of the article, or anything to do with the article making the main page.
Also, I do not have any control whatsoever involving the operations of the MPAA or any other trade group, the public school system, or Washington D.C.
Games don't translate well because most stories in games are second rate to the ones told in movies thus far. They haven't really needed to be up to par because gamers accept the stories being this way. Often times it's because too much of a story would make things very linear; a good game lets you make decisions as to how you advance.
Because of that, new scenarios, characters, etc are required to try and fill in the gaps. The result is a poorly produced movie that is unable to please the game's fan base because it's too far of a stretch from what they've seen in the game. Granted, it doesn't help sticking a license with bad directors, producers, and writers but I do worry that even in the best hands gamers wouldn't be pleased.
I've never really seen much of a clash between video games and religion. For the most part, the industry seems to battle more with racial groups, anti-gun groups, and parental groups. Most of the people that back these kind of groups in public are lawyers and politicians, take that for what you will.
In this article, Matt Sakey fails to show how religion is against video game violence in the first place! When it comes down to actually showing hard examples as to how religion is against violence in videogames, he doesn't really have anything. This doesn't prevent him from pointing out the hypocrisy of religion, though. Take for example the quote aforementioned in the Slashdot article: "The history of opposition to games is a long one, and religion is often used to justify that opposition, though naysayers tend to ignore the fact that religion itself is a major source of violent acts". Matt never does say exactly when religion was used to justify opposition in video games.
I'm not arguing against Matt Sakey's article because I'm religious. In fact, I'm an atheist. But, I think that Matt just had a bone to pick with relgion as opposed to a strong debate pointing out religion's opposition to video game violence, an opposition that he never did show to exist.
Rusty's a great guy - he's got some good links on his own page, but please take the time to do what you can - if you are a Australian, take the time to *physically* write your MP. Floods of post are what will create action.
Or, you could keep this site strictly a news site and not a political action site, Hemos.
Seriously, if I wanted indymedia.org, I'd go there.
Slashdot Mirror
Support's probably your biggest issue. With a small open source project the developers don't have to worry so much about having to offer great support. Not many people will ask how to get this or that working, reporting so many bugs, etc. As the project grows and better support for other platforms is wanted from the users, people with more of an expertise on those platforms can be of service. The open source world can sometimes use that "if you don't like it, fix it yourself" mentality in this case.
Because a for-profit game has to worry about more important things like pleasing the majority of their users who just so happen to run Windows, it generally helps to keep the supported platforms narrowed to a more managable size. Why mess with the other ones when almost all of your users would probably come from Windows anyways, right? They can't take it slow like an open source project can. There's a lot of money at stake here; something that an open source project isn't forced to deal with.
Also consider that it doesn't take that much to port code between the various *nix based systems because they're so similar. Don't be mislead, either; the announcement only mentioned OS X and not its predecessors.
Come on, they are getting close to thirty. Old people are more forgetful, slower, and rather unpleasant to be around.It won't be long until their poopers start giving out on them. You can't have a clean, functional workplace with a bunch of people soiling their adult diapers. And they eat a lot of curry, too.
Does anybody know what the Indian equivalent of a Wal-Mart is? They could get some work as a door greeter there. Doesn't take much out of a person to say hi and all.
Fihst, we have a moo-vee made by a mon weeth a hwhale. Zen, we have a hwhale who makes a moo-vee.
Eez amazing how zings come full cir-kel. Hoh hoh hoh hoh hoh.
Well, for one, I do buy the games that fall within genres quite often. My point being is that I'm not too compelled to make a purchase from an indie when their game is too similar to what's already available from the big companies.
As far as the indie games you said were innovative, I don't see that to be much of the case. Let's take Starscape first. The fact that you were able to say it's sort of like a shoot 'em up crossed with Command & Conquer is proof that they're using borrowed ideas. Gish seems like it's a pure 2D side scroller to me (and the character kind of looks like that Meatwad thing from Aqua Teen Hunger Force). Also, you were able to draw a comparison between Hamsterball and Marble Madness, and sure you can't buy it in a shop, but does that make it truly different? Plus, as a previous poster said, it does draw a lot from Super Monkey Ball as well.
The "innovations" being made in the independent game development scene are too superficial. Essentially, the games that you've shown me can be bought elsewhere. For the most part, it's been done before. Sure, there's some differences in looks and stories floating about, but there has been no fundamental changes in gameplay. That's where you bring up the point of rejection. I just don't see why you would stay an indie if you were afraid of rejection. It seems to me that the credibility that an independent developer would earn from creating an innovative title, rejected or not, would be worth much more than the short-term easy money in the long run. Also, If you plan on making things similar to everything else in terms of gameplay (and often times in story) you might as well just get a job with an established game developer since there's not much point in grinding things out to make a clone (in terms of gameplay at the very least). As an indie, you have much more freedom to really make something different at the lower levels of gameplay. By not using that freedom, they're not going to separate themselves from the rest of the pack; thus not being able to compete.
On a side note, you mentioned Rez and Viewtiful Joe being bad financially. I can at least take your word for it when it comes to Rez, although I'll end up making sure for myself on Viewtiful Joe (as it does have a sequel coming out). I did think Rez was fairly innovative and it did minimize on the borrowed ideas. I think some rejection still would've occured, but it definitely could've gotten a better campaign behind it. For the most part, it snuck in to the market without much noise. With Viewtiful Joe, I really thought it was overrated. For the most part side scroller with the time controlling features we've seen in games like Blinx the TimeSweeper. Graphically it was impressive, but the characters just didn't cut it for me; I definitely didn't care about the main character at all. I think that some of those superficial things were its biggest problem and would be the main contributing factor if it was indeed a financial failure(other than internal factors). But, as far as it being an innovator; I'd have to say that it wasn't. But, I do give credit for both Sega and Capcom for at least releasing them.
Well, it seems that the indie development scene can produce games that rival budget titles from the big boys, and that's a step in the right direction, but I just can't say that I'm all to impressed.
I was hoping to see more out of the independents. They have that unique position of being able to really do something that nobody has ever done before and they haven't stepped up yet. All of the games in the article were explainable with a statement like "Well, it plays like Popular Game A, with a little bit of Popular Game B and C in it." That's not what I wanted to see. Where's the games that can pretty much be defined on their own? Where's the games that take the independent developer into the big leagues?
The independents look like they can do what others do pretty well now; the fact that they've come that far is encouraging. But still, I have no compelling reason to buy their titles over a cheap title from a tried and true developer or publisher. Wait, shouldn't I support them because they're indie? Nah, I'll support the companies that make something that interests me regardless of size. If an independent can give me something that hasn't been done before and is fun at the same time, they'll be sure to see my dollars.
I don't think SpamCop is going to be winning this one, because OptInRealBig has all of those email addresses at their disposal. Just a few mass mailings is all it takes to get public opinion on their side.
Hey now, that's an unfair analogy. At least Tony Soprano and Vito Corleone had an honor code of sorts. Ya know, "If I do this for you you will repay me in the future" sort of thing.
It's generally understood that the favor is in the form of a Bonzi Buddy.
The question is though, why would a company who makes spyware (who's very nature is to be secretive and hard to remove) want to follow Google's principles?
Does Tony Soprano worry about ethics before he lays a whack?
Well... only if your name is Big Pussy.
He might not be able to use the Rod Smart name (assuming he's covered by collective bargaining), but it's my understanding that he holds the He Hate Me trademark.
But other than small time marketing deals, and the fact that the XFL is defunct. That won't matter.
But, hey, f he ends up in the CFL or AFL he might be able to do something with it!
Well, I can't blame EA for trying to get this deal, since anybody in their position would do the same thing. However, I'd be extremely pissed off with the Players' Association for going through. In fact, I'm pissed off at the fact that they're even in talks of an exclusivity deal for multiple reasons.
The first, and biggest reason for me, is consumer choice. That's pretty obvious; with this deal nobody really gets to keep Madden on its toes. With this deal, they'd get to take a bit of a breather and not have to improve their product nearly as much. No competition, no worries.
The second reason is that an exclusive deal might knock out a player to license themselves out to another game. If this does turn out to be a part of the deal, then you'd really have to wonder how much the NFLPA is really representing the players. Remember, they also really kissed up to Congress during the steroid hearings as well; telling them that they were fully supportive of mandatory testing, including testing being made mandatory by law. Even though I wouldn't mind mandatory testing from the league and not by law, I'm hard pressed to find how the NFLPA could really be representing their players when something like being pro-steroid testing is far from being general consensus amongst the players; considering the privacy concerms (smaller factor) and the number of players on the juice (larger factor). Anyways, I also wonder how much of this deal is going to the union bosses and better players. This could very well be a case where the smaller players end up getting stiffed from within the union that's supposedly representing them.
Another thing to point out is that not everybody is necessarily represented through collective bargaining. Generally this isn't much of a problem considering that NFL players don't reach the level of stardom as, say, an NBA player. However, you still could see a situation similar to ones that have happened with Shaquille O'Neal and Michael Jordan; where their likenesses weren't allowed to be in certain games. If there was such an exclusivity deal, you might see a few stars pull out of the collective bargaining agreement to have their own game.
Don't be assanine, he's allowed to give his advice and that's all he is doing. Licences aren't rejected just on Stallman's say so but because, more often than not, any problems that Stallman points out are potentially serious; whether for the developer or the end user.
Potentially serious? They could be if the courts were on the GPL's side. But, that hasn't been proven yet, so all of the "problems" that he points out are mere empty threats and arguments with no legal proof. Without that, I'd say that the potential for a licensing problem is pretty low, considering that the license has been around for quite a while. It's pretty spooky that the largest parts of the open source "movement" are riding atop an unproven license, isn't it?
As in this post by Illuminata, a well known tactic is used -- misrepresent RMS as some pseudo-diety by presenting his actions as having more significance than they actually do; then, point out how ridiculous this is, thereby causing readers new to the concept of Free software to dismiss his advice all together.
I'm not the one misrepresenting RMS as some pseudo-diety; you can blame that one on the zealots. If you've spent enough time on Slashdot (too bad this was a coward post, otherwise I wouldn't have to guess), you'd know what I'm speaking of. Half of the time it's amazing that they are even able to type out a response because their arms are wildly flailing in the air. Well, one could at least imagine that with the anger put behind those posts. For the most part, it's only a matter of time until somebody gets jumped on over saying anything remotely bad about RMS. And, what exactly makes this "tactic" well known? It wouldn't be some sort of attempt to invalidate the bad things said about RMS, would it? Nah, couldn't be.
No, I'm not trying to say that his actions have any true significance at all; I'm saying that they really shouldn't have significance. And how would my criticism of one person somehow hurt the concept of free software? I'm of the opinion that his advice should be dismissed for the most part; is that so wrong? Also, it's not my fault that RMS has collected a fanbase which believes that a possible incompatability is automatically a problem. However, I'd have a problem believing that RMS doesn't perpetuate that line of thinking based on his ideas and opinions.
But, all of that might not matter. The GPL still hasn't been proved enforcable.
Read some of Stallman's rants about the Plan9 license(s). Vita Nuova's license has the same problems.
How did you get the time to read his rants about the Plan 9 license? I'm still working on his rants from 2002.
But seriously, what necessarily makes a license that might not be Stallman compliant a problem? Can't it just be different? As far as I can tell, he's not some sort of supreme licensing authority. Also, he doesn't have the power to actually enforce his ideas on what's GPL compatible or incompatible; that would be something for a court to decide pending that they also find the GPL to actually be a valid license.
Hopefully they're only using G4techTV as a temporary name to help guide people through the merger, because that one's just not meant to last. ZDTV was able to handle switching over to TechTV, so I don't think that there will be much of a problem switching over this kludge of a name in the future.
As far as the new lineup goes, it's better, but still a little weak. Some of what TechTV is bringing over might as well be tossed over to a channel in the Discovery family (Future Fighting Machines, Invent this), and some of the G4 shows might as well be scratched (Arena, Players).I hope that they're trying to find some worthwile original programming to strengthen the lineup, otherwise I don't see this merger making the channel any stronger than G4 and TechTV were on their own. Who knows, maybe if they try hard enough they can make the basic programming packages.
I was strolling up and down Conspiracy St. today and it turns out that everybody was buzzing about how Nintendo has some deep ties in Capitol Hill and never let a grudge die.
If you wanted to know who really runs shit in D.C., you're bound to hear one recurring answer... "It's a me, Mario!"
From QuikOrder.com's main page, listed under Restaurant Benefits.
Works directly with select POS systems
These guys really seem to know their stuff. Some of the comps that I see at a lot of chain restaurants look like they're old 386s for fuck's sake!
It's good to know that a company like QuikOrder can maximize the benefit of a (very) old investment.
Being a jock as well as a geek, maybe I can shed some light as to why some people buy sports games every year.
To a geek, it would appear as if it was the same junk with just some minor tweaks. But, to a sports gamer, they are anything but.
With all of the roster moves made during the season and in the off-season, a player wants to have their game's roster be as current as possible. A current roster keeps that sense of realism for a player. That's the largest reason why one would pick up the latest title of a sports game every year. Remember, a game also has to keep current with new teams, stadiums, stadium names, stadium modifications, team moves, rule changes, etc.
Don't forget, there's also new features added each year that might not seem like much to a geek. Madden 2004 just recently created a mode for one to simulate owning a team, detailed down to setting food prices to generate revenue. ESPN NFL Football lets you have your own "crib" for you to purchase things for, including a jukebox so that you can play your own music and an air hockey table. You can't forget things such as new training modes, gameplay modes, and other things of that nature.
Improvements are another big justification for a yearly upgrade. Things such as bettering how the defense back handles a wide receiver in football or how a suicide squeeze is handled in baseball all help add to the realism of the video game. That's what most sports gamers want; being able to come as close as they can to having a realistic sports experience.
You need an appreciation of sports to be able to understand why people justify a yearly video game purchase. Without that appreciation, it certainly may seem as if those games are indeed crap. However, there are a whole slew of people who appreciate sports, and that's why you'll continue to see sports video games over and over.
...Just not as many from 989, because they realized that they weren't too good at making them.
Excuse me, I meant to say World Series Baseball 2K1.
What's so bad about it? There's very little hitting control. You can't move the batter around in the batter's box, control the swing type, vary the strength of the swing, or even check your swing. But, most importantly, there is no fielding control whatsoever. It's purely a hitting and pitching game, and the hitting aspect of it is off. It was definitely the low point of the World Series license.
It's poor quality related. The sports titles produced by 989 Sports always came up inferior, not just in the graphics department, but in all of the other departments as well. That includes gameplay, where it always fell short every year in every sport.
When you create a bad game, word spreads very fast and nobody bites at it. When you create a bad game in a series year after year, people don't trust the series anymore. And when you do that with multiple series, people lose trust in the developer. Had 989 been able to create quality sports titles, or at least learn from their mistakes like Sega did with World Series 2K, 989 wouldn't be in the situation that they're in now. But, 989 didn't even try. EA and Sega just gave them competition. They did not force them to create mediocre games.
Maybe my wife is right...
.net care package and some servers to their IT department as well.
it's a woman thing.
Or perhaps it's a total bitch thing. Martha probably would've been let off the hook, but she probably barked at them about how to properly conduct the investigation, how to cordially approach someone with charges, what not to wear at a hearing, proper speaking skills at a press conference, etc etc etc.
More than likely, Bill just volunteered the money and told them not to spend it all in one place. He probably tossed over a large
If they were to really throw their weight behind Project Looking Glass and grab some partners, they could become a competitor in the desktop arena. It's pretty damn cool. Rather than just implement ideas that come from Looking Glass into the Java Desktop System, I'd let Looking Glass become its own beast.
The server market doesn't look too well, and Java can only do so much for them. Unless they can come up with something spectacular out of the blue, I think this that Project Looking Glass is Sun's best option.
I, illuminata, had nothing to do with the Illuminati: New World Order card game mentioned in this Slashdot article. My name simply means glowing in Italian.
I also had nothing to do with getting that card game mentioned in the article, composition of the article, or anything to do with the article making the main page.
Also, I do not have any control whatsoever involving the operations of the MPAA or any other trade group, the public school system, or Washington D.C.
Thank you.
Games don't translate well because most stories in games are second rate to the ones told in movies thus far. They haven't really needed to be up to par because gamers accept the stories being this way. Often times it's because too much of a story would make things very linear; a good game lets you make decisions as to how you advance.
Because of that, new scenarios, characters, etc are required to try and fill in the gaps. The result is a poorly produced movie that is unable to please the game's fan base because it's too far of a stretch from what they've seen in the game. Granted, it doesn't help sticking a license with bad directors, producers, and writers but I do worry that even in the best hands gamers wouldn't be pleased.
We need somebody else to do the same exact thing in the same exact cities, but only have your trail surround his.
Then, you'll go down in history as the person who won the largest simulation of Tron light cycles ever!
I've never really seen much of a clash between video games and religion. For the most part, the industry seems to battle more with racial groups, anti-gun groups, and parental groups. Most of the people that back these kind of groups in public are lawyers and politicians, take that for what you will.
In this article, Matt Sakey fails to show how religion is against video game violence in the first place! When it comes down to actually showing hard examples as to how religion is against violence in videogames, he doesn't really have anything. This doesn't prevent him from pointing out the hypocrisy of religion, though. Take for example the quote aforementioned in the Slashdot article: "The history of opposition to games is a long one, and religion is often used to justify that opposition, though naysayers tend to ignore the fact that religion itself is a major source of violent acts". Matt never does say exactly when religion was used to justify opposition in video games.
I'm not arguing against Matt Sakey's article because I'm religious. In fact, I'm an atheist. But, I think that Matt just had a bone to pick with relgion as opposed to a strong debate pointing out religion's opposition to video game violence, an opposition that he never did show to exist.
Rusty's a great guy - he's got some good links on his own page, but please take the time to do what you can - if you are a Australian, take the time to *physically* write your MP. Floods of post are what will create action.
Or, you could keep this site strictly a news site and not a political action site, Hemos.
Seriously, if I wanted indymedia.org, I'd go there.