My guess is that he tried to stretch one, maybe two, movies into three to just be symmetrical (or make more money?). There's a lot in the first two that are just filler and lame "foreshadowing." With Episode III he's finally getting to the story he's had floating around in his head all this time.
I can't find the study, but some independent group did some research for the industry a year or two back and found that a large majority of gamers never finished the games they bought.
I'm not much of a roleplaying game guy, but the last major one I played was Fallout 2. While I loved it, frankly I just do not have the time or patience to play through something like that again. 20 hours is just about right (although I think you're being a bit generous). But I clearly recall that much of that Fallout time was spent travelling, going over the same areas, and in combat. Jade Empire speeds up all of those things; it's much more streamlined than most RPGs, and I think that's a good thing.
I want to finish a game. And if I were designing a game, I'd want people to finish it. A movie in a theater costs you ~$5 an hour. Jade Empire, at your 20 hours, cost you only $2.50 an hour. Sounds like a bargain to me, especially considering that you can replay it later differently.
In a press statement from the Martian Picture Association of Alterion, Director Zerfig Mowbelfub stated that, "NASA needs to learn that it cannot indiscriminately share Martian movies on the internet as it pleases. Many Martians have worked very hard to create these whirlwinds, and recording them and then sharing them on the Internet is a violation of Galactic Copyright Law." The press release also stated that from now on Martians will search every NASA Lander for recording technology and confiscate it upon entry to the Mars atmosphere. NASA was unavailable for comment, but as of press time the movies were still widely available on the Internet with no official response from NASA.
Initial Fallout Comes with Any Media Product
on
MMOG Market Mutterings
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
If I were a statistician and cool I might have some kind of real data to suggest that every new product endures some kind of fallout after the initial enthusiasm. But since I am neither a statistician or cool, I'll just suggest it without the data in an uncool way:
New TV shows always seem to have a drop-off in ratings, a cliff in the number of watchers. If the show is decent and watchable, then it'll climb from there at a steady rate. I have no doubt that Blizzard in their infinite wisdom foresaw this, and is probably bidding good riddance under their breath. If WoW is worth its weight in gold (get it, gold?), then it'll begin to slowly accumlate more users through word of mouth while at the same time perfecting the game for upper-level players.
Vantage from an EB-er
on
10 Gateway Games
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I saw an interesting side of this when working at EB.
As far as EB sales, I can't deny that the Sims and Animal Crossing did very well with women. But many of the the women that actually walked into our store (and it was admittedly rare for one to walk in save Christmas and Valentine's Day) tended to like - surprise - fighting games. Not sure why they liked fighting games, but it definitely goes at odds with the traditional viewpoint that games that sell to women are non-violent and don't advertise big bouncy breasts.
Among PC owners, adventures games did very well. I remember having several female customers that we would see every few months who would come in and lament the decline of the genre, poke around the shelves, pick up a few of those subpar European adventure games, put them down and then sadly leave. Longest Journey would whet their appetite once, but it raised the bar for them and there was little more to offer.
Then there were the few women who were excited about games only because their man's enthusiasm was so infectious. Those were the most fun, because it was always weird to have one of those few come in and excitedly put preorder money down on Def Jam Vendetta or something like that.
It was surprising to me how many males came in wanting, so desperately, to find a game that their girlfriend would play. I wonder about this; why we work so hard to get the women who (kind of) love us to love our games. I've lost count of the number of times I've called my wife into the living room to try to get her to play. Maybe it's a form of validation?
I can't believe how well this is working for Microsoft. They (or whomever they chose as their PR company for Xbox2) are genius. Nintendo's strategy has always been to say absolutely nothing about anything, and then just show it. Sony has been a little more forthcoming, but it's in a more matter-of-fact PR release.
But Microsoft has been using ourcolony to v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y release information, literrally droplets of information. Instead of getting one big bang where they unveil the console on May whatever, they're getting 20 big bangs, one almost every day up to that date, where all the game news sites are reporting (no exaggeration), "We think we might have seen the Xbox360 power button!"
Need proof? Go look at the number of headlines in games.slashdot that discuss the Xbox. And isn't it interesting how many of these end in a question mark? Really and truly, we don't know a damn confirmed thing about the new xbox, and yet Microsoft is getting at least one Xbox "major" news item circulated on the gaming sites every day.
I'm not complaining. I'm as excited about the Xbox2 as anyone else. But I think what's more newsworthy is that Nintendo is still stuck in the Nintendo Power days of releasing information, Sony somewhere in the middle, and Microsoft is really using the 86400second internet news cycle to their advantage.
"Don't panic!"
"Crammed full of witty erudition!"
"A . . . comedic romp!"
"Sam Rockwell does a great turn as Zaphod Beeblebrox!"
". ..immensely funny!"
"Outstanding production design and some fantastic visual effects!"
"Charming!"
ROXOR739A writes, "My cousin and I played a 3 round session of Rock, Paper, Scissors this morning. He represented two versions of the Xbox360, and I represented one version. He won 2 out of 3. I think this mostly confirms two versions of hardware, and it's nice to have this confirmation. When asked to elaborate Microsoft gave their standard reply, 'We do not comment on rumors or arbitrary games of Rock, Paper, and Scissors.'"
(Read More... |28 of 29 comments | games.slashdot.org)
One man can make a (bad) difference
on
GameStop buys EB
·
· Score: 4, Informative
For all the people that complain about EB, when I worked at EB (3+ years as an assistant manager), there were good, solid, friendly people who visited our store more than once a week. They loved us, and we loved them. These people had been customers since opening day. Our relationships with these people reminded me very much of how it must have been like to run a smalltown hardware store at the turn of the century; we did them good by working deals in their favor when we could, and they always came to us when they bought games. Basically, the way business should work.
That all changed when they brought Steve Morgan on board, maybe a year after I'd been working there. Up to that point, EB had been essentially a family business. The board had hired people from inside the company to run itself. But Morgan was from a department store. I knew someone who was inside the company enough to have talked to Morgan, and Morgan was quoted as saying that he'd never played a game in his life and never would. He didn't have children, and never wanted them.
Joe Firestone, on the other hand, was CEO when Morgan was brought on. This guy exemplified leadership. He'd write inspirational, funny columns in our mailbox newsletter every week. Think of a fireside chat for video game employees. He knew what it was like to be one of us, and his emphasis was always the customer.
The first thing Morgan did was set quotas on the stores for selling Game Doctors. It went downhill from there. When I left, they were changing the return policy to a Best Buy variant (you breath on it and you cannot refund it). He revamped the training that focused less on customer relationships and more on the bottom line.
Firestone retired soon after they brought Morgan onboard. Jeff Griffiths replaced him, but it was clear even to the 5 hour a week part time employee that he was a puppet for Morgan. I haven't been in EB for two years now, but I have no doubt that Morgan had something to do with this buyout. Only people from outside the company, who had no vested interest in the company itself, no history, would have sold out EB.
It's sad, actually. Many of the things people complain about when they're talking about EB stem from Morgan's policies. Sure, EB has always had arrogant assholes behind the counter or "unfair" trade-in values, but the underlying philosophy is now (obviously) completely different. The customers were first. Likewise, under Firestone, employees were treated fairly well and with respect. That started to change when Morgan came in.
Morale of the story? Watch out for outsiders coming in, because they don't give a damn about anything except their own stock values - especially not the customer.
I can't help but think that this decision hurts the people it really shouldn't hurt: the customers (who no have no choice or direct competition), and the hard working EB employees who will no doubt have to fend for their own jobs against longtime Gamestop employees. You think the clueless employees are bad now? Wait until EB/Gamestop starts to resemble the only competition they have left: Best Buy and Walmart. My guess is that the internal employee relations will reflect the same practices as Best Buy and Walmart too.
Get out, video game store employees, while you can.
So... you watch shows because everybody else (or at least those who decide ratings) watch the show?
Well, don't we all to some degree? I watch it because it's good, but it's a good show that's getting great ratings and has a wave of critical support that supercedes even Farscape or Firefly, and especially Enterprise. As far as not seeing Battlestar, there are other ways of getting it both legally and questionably (the first episode is available on scifi.com).
Proof of the effectiveness of viral marketing
on
Xbox360 Name Confirmed
·
· Score: 3, Informative
So amidst no doubt a flurry of comments that will assume that Apple owns the copyright on white round design, I'm going to suggest that Microsoft is innovating at least in the way they are slowly unvieling the xbox whatever. Some of the the most successful game-based viral marketing campaigns have been Microsoft's (cloudmakers, I love bees), and they are doing it yet again with ourcolony. My prediction is that between now and May 12, Slashdot will have no less than a dozen news posts that hang on every new development revealed by ourcolony.net. Other game sites will probably have even more than that.
Brilliant.
Apple could learn a thing or two, as opposed to suing people for slowly releasing information.
The sad thing is that I think these games will get underrepresented because of the new hardware and their respective next-gen games. This is a shame, because as recent releases clearly show developers are finally getting a handle on the systems, moving beyond pretty graphics, and really putting out some great stuff.
This is actually the best time to own an Xbox, PS2, or Gamecube. They're cheap - they'll probably drop again this fall to compete - and the software is now top-notch.
They must be in the same vein as the people cheering Michael Jackson outside the courthouse.
Enterprise wasn't horrible. But Babylon 5, Farscape, and Firefly have raised the bar. Battlestar Galactica is in the process of blowing the bar away. They need to clean house at Paramount Star Trek headquarters, give it a rest, and bring in completely new people.
How can these people be trying to save Enterprise when shows like Battlestar Galactica are clearly doing so well? Isn't that like trying desperately to get back together with an Anna Nicole Smith when a Scarlett Johansonn is calling on the other line for a date?
I actually can't wait until the nextgen hits. It's clear that console devs have wrapped their brains around this gen, and with one hit after another (Gods of War, Psychonauts, Jade Empire, Doom 3, Splinter Cell, etc etc) I'm clean out of cash.
I need a new console generation if only to stop spending money, so I can get a breather and watch the devs stumble around with the technology for 3 or 4 years. It's just now that they're figuring out that it's not Havoc physics or glowy effects that make a game.
"We wanted to talk directly to the consumer first."
There must be a typo. Moore's quote, in light of Sony's recent attempt to upstage Microsoft at E3 by showcasing the PS3 3 hours earlier, should read:
"We wanted to talk directly to the consumer, first."
Well, neither really. It stinks, and it's not "right," but that's just the way it is right? You said it yourself; kill a poor man and you get nothing, kill a rich man - interfere with the flow of money - and you get much much more. That's how it works.
Hence this man's 9 year prison sentence. It has nothing to do with its relation to rightness as the parent poster had said it should; instead, it's about the money.
When you murder someone, you're not interferring with business. But sending 10mil spams a day clogs up corporate IT infrastructure therefore costing money. The judicial system - all judicial systems - are based more on business cost than morality, and with good reason: morality is ambigious and dynamic, dollar values less so.
Very True. Steam is cheaper right? There's less piracy because of it, no packaging, no need to pay for retail shelf space - so why is Half Life 2 more expensive than other PC games?
So I went to show my friend how cool Half Life 2 was. I haven't played in maybe 2 months, and it worked fine when I did play (after waiting for them to fix the jerky framerate for Nvidia users).
He's all excited, I can't help but tell him realistic the characters look and how fun the physics are. Then I see the green dialog box, and Steam starts downloadinig patch after patch automatically. No way around it best I can tell. Other games, I download the patch when I want to. The only thing that should auotmatically download patches is an OS, and that's only because there are people not computer-literate enough to check for patches. I can turn off auto-patching even in Microsoft XP - but not Steam? Excuse my leet, but wtf?
He has yet to see HL2. We got bored after waiting 3 or 4 minutes and we instead met our geeky needs and watched an episode of the new Battlestar Galactica, which I received quickly, when I wanted to do, using this "new delivery system" called bittorrent.
Instead of waiting six years for shelf space, I just have to wait six years for it to download to my PC through Steam and then patch itself to a playable status. Sweet!
. ..citizens of a municipality from forming their own fire department...and making only one company the legal provider of "fire protection services".
It's interesting you mention that, because when cities began to grow to the point where they needed more than a volunteer fire department in the United States, fire services was commercial. It quickly became clear that competition was not a good thing when you had multiple firehouses racing to the same fire and fighting for resources to fight the same fire.
Slashdot Mirror
My guess is that he tried to stretch one, maybe two, movies into three to just be symmetrical (or make more money?). There's a lot in the first two that are just filler and lame "foreshadowing." With Episode III he's finally getting to the story he's had floating around in his head all this time.
"Hey you stupid kids, get off my lawn!"
I can't find the study, but some independent group did some research for the industry a year or two back and found that a large majority of gamers never finished the games they bought.
I'm not much of a roleplaying game guy, but the last major one I played was Fallout 2. While I loved it, frankly I just do not have the time or patience to play through something like that again. 20 hours is just about right (although I think you're being a bit generous). But I clearly recall that much of that Fallout time was spent travelling, going over the same areas, and in combat. Jade Empire speeds up all of those things; it's much more streamlined than most RPGs, and I think that's a good thing.
I want to finish a game. And if I were designing a game, I'd want people to finish it. A movie in a theater costs you ~$5 an hour. Jade Empire, at your 20 hours, cost you only $2.50 an hour. Sounds like a bargain to me, especially considering that you can replay it later differently.
Wow. When I saw the slashdot post, "Jobs Claims Microsoft is Shamelessly Copying" I thought it was just troll fodder. But I guess it's true. Microsoft really is copying Apple!
In a press statement from the Martian Picture Association of Alterion, Director Zerfig Mowbelfub stated that, "NASA needs to learn that it cannot indiscriminately share Martian movies on the internet as it pleases. Many Martians have worked very hard to create these whirlwinds, and recording them and then sharing them on the Internet is a violation of Galactic Copyright Law." The press release also stated that from now on Martians will search every NASA Lander for recording technology and confiscate it upon entry to the Mars atmosphere. NASA was unavailable for comment, but as of press time the movies were still widely available on the Internet with no official response from NASA.
If I were a statistician and cool I might have some kind of real data to suggest that every new product endures some kind of fallout after the initial enthusiasm. But since I am neither a statistician or cool, I'll just suggest it without the data in an uncool way:
New TV shows always seem to have a drop-off in ratings, a cliff in the number of watchers. If the show is decent and watchable, then it'll climb from there at a steady rate. I have no doubt that Blizzard in their infinite wisdom foresaw this, and is probably bidding good riddance under their breath. If WoW is worth its weight in gold (get it, gold?), then it'll begin to slowly accumlate more users through word of mouth while at the same time perfecting the game for upper-level players.
I saw an interesting side of this when working at EB.
As far as EB sales, I can't deny that the Sims and Animal Crossing did very well with women. But many of the the women that actually walked into our store (and it was admittedly rare for one to walk in save Christmas and Valentine's Day) tended to like - surprise - fighting games. Not sure why they liked fighting games, but it definitely goes at odds with the traditional viewpoint that games that sell to women are non-violent and don't advertise big bouncy breasts.
Among PC owners, adventures games did very well. I remember having several female customers that we would see every few months who would come in and lament the decline of the genre, poke around the shelves, pick up a few of those subpar European adventure games, put them down and then sadly leave. Longest Journey would whet their appetite once, but it raised the bar for them and there was little more to offer.
Then there were the few women who were excited about games only because their man's enthusiasm was so infectious. Those were the most fun, because it was always weird to have one of those few come in and excitedly put preorder money down on Def Jam Vendetta or something like that.
It was surprising to me how many males came in wanting, so desperately, to find a game that their girlfriend would play. I wonder about this; why we work so hard to get the women who (kind of) love us to love our games. I've lost count of the number of times I've called my wife into the living room to try to get her to play. Maybe it's a form of validation?
Because they never copy anything.
released.
I can't believe how well this is working for Microsoft. They (or whomever they chose as their PR company for Xbox2) are genius. Nintendo's strategy has always been to say absolutely nothing about anything, and then just show it. Sony has been a little more forthcoming, but it's in a more matter-of-fact PR release.
But Microsoft has been using ourcolony to v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y release information, literrally droplets of information. Instead of getting one big bang where they unveil the console on May whatever, they're getting 20 big bangs, one almost every day up to that date, where all the game news sites are reporting (no exaggeration), "We think we might have seen the Xbox360 power button!"
Need proof? Go look at the number of headlines in games.slashdot that discuss the Xbox. And isn't it interesting how many of these end in a question mark? Really and truly, we don't know a damn confirmed thing about the new xbox, and yet Microsoft is getting at least one Xbox "major" news item circulated on the gaming sites every day.
I'm not complaining. I'm as excited about the Xbox2 as anyone else. But I think what's more newsworthy is that Nintendo is still stuck in the Nintendo Power days of releasing information, Sony somewhere in the middle, and Microsoft is really using the 86400second internet news cycle to their advantage.
Milk away Microsoft, milk away.
"Don't panic!" .immensely funny!"
"Crammed full of witty erudition!"
"A . . . comedic romp!"
"Sam Rockwell does a great turn as Zaphod Beeblebrox!"
". .
"Outstanding production design and some fantastic visual effects!"
"Charming!"
"Two Versions of Xbox360 More Confirmed"
ROXOR739A writes, "My cousin and I played a 3 round session of Rock, Paper, Scissors this morning. He represented two versions of the Xbox360, and I represented one version. He won 2 out of 3. I think this mostly confirms two versions of hardware, and it's nice to have this confirmation. When asked to elaborate Microsoft gave their standard reply, 'We do not comment on rumors or arbitrary games of Rock, Paper, and Scissors.'"
(Read More... |28 of 29 comments | games.slashdot.org)
For all the people that complain about EB, when I worked at EB (3+ years as an assistant manager), there were good, solid, friendly people who visited our store more than once a week. They loved us, and we loved them. These people had been customers since opening day. Our relationships with these people reminded me very much of how it must have been like to run a smalltown hardware store at the turn of the century; we did them good by working deals in their favor when we could, and they always came to us when they bought games. Basically, the way business should work.
That all changed when they brought Steve Morgan on board, maybe a year after I'd been working there. Up to that point, EB had been essentially a family business. The board had hired people from inside the company to run itself. But Morgan was from a department store. I knew someone who was inside the company enough to have talked to Morgan, and Morgan was quoted as saying that he'd never played a game in his life and never would. He didn't have children, and never wanted them.
Joe Firestone, on the other hand, was CEO when Morgan was brought on. This guy exemplified leadership. He'd write inspirational, funny columns in our mailbox newsletter every week. Think of a fireside chat for video game employees. He knew what it was like to be one of us, and his emphasis was always the customer.
The first thing Morgan did was set quotas on the stores for selling Game Doctors. It went downhill from there. When I left, they were changing the return policy to a Best Buy variant (you breath on it and you cannot refund it). He revamped the training that focused less on customer relationships and more on the bottom line.
Firestone retired soon after they brought Morgan onboard. Jeff Griffiths replaced him, but it was clear even to the 5 hour a week part time employee that he was a puppet for Morgan. I haven't been in EB for two years now, but I have no doubt that Morgan had something to do with this buyout. Only people from outside the company, who had no vested interest in the company itself, no history, would have sold out EB.
It's sad, actually. Many of the things people complain about when they're talking about EB stem from Morgan's policies. Sure, EB has always had arrogant assholes behind the counter or "unfair" trade-in values, but the underlying philosophy is now (obviously) completely different. The customers were first. Likewise, under Firestone, employees were treated fairly well and with respect. That started to change when Morgan came in.
Morale of the story? Watch out for outsiders coming in, because they don't give a damn about anything except their own stock values - especially not the customer.
I can't help but think that this decision hurts the people it really shouldn't hurt: the customers (who no have no choice or direct competition), and the hard working EB employees who will no doubt have to fend for their own jobs against longtime Gamestop employees. You think the clueless employees are bad now? Wait until EB/Gamestop starts to resemble the only competition they have left: Best Buy and Walmart. My guess is that the internal employee relations will reflect the same practices as Best Buy and Walmart too.
Get out, video game store employees, while you can.
So... you watch shows because everybody else (or at least those who decide ratings) watch the show?
Well, don't we all to some degree? I watch it because it's good, but it's a good show that's getting great ratings and has a wave of critical support that supercedes even Farscape or Firefly, and especially Enterprise. As far as not seeing Battlestar, there are other ways of getting it both legally and questionably (the first episode is available on scifi.com).
So amidst no doubt a flurry of comments that will assume that Apple owns the copyright on white round design, I'm going to suggest that Microsoft is innovating at least in the way they are slowly unvieling the xbox whatever. Some of the the most successful game-based viral marketing campaigns have been Microsoft's (cloudmakers, I love bees), and they are doing it yet again with ourcolony. My prediction is that between now and May 12, Slashdot will have no less than a dozen news posts that hang on every new development revealed by ourcolony.net. Other game sites will probably have even more than that.
Brilliant.
Apple could learn a thing or two, as opposed to suing people for slowly releasing information.
The sad thing is that I think these games will get underrepresented because of the new hardware and their respective next-gen games. This is a shame, because as recent releases clearly show developers are finally getting a handle on the systems, moving beyond pretty graphics, and really putting out some great stuff.
This is actually the best time to own an Xbox, PS2, or Gamecube. They're cheap - they'll probably drop again this fall to compete - and the software is now top-notch.
They must be in the same vein as the people cheering Michael Jackson outside the courthouse.
Enterprise wasn't horrible. But Babylon 5, Farscape, and Firefly have raised the bar. Battlestar Galactica is in the process of blowing the bar away. They need to clean house at Paramount Star Trek headquarters, give it a rest, and bring in completely new people.
How can these people be trying to save Enterprise when shows like Battlestar Galactica are clearly doing so well? Isn't that like trying desperately to get back together with an Anna Nicole Smith when a Scarlett Johansonn is calling on the other line for a date?
Give. It. Up.
VH1 should do a Where Are They Now of spyware characters, including your friend and mine, the Bonzai Buddy.
I actually can't wait until the nextgen hits. It's clear that console devs have wrapped their brains around this gen, and with one hit after another (Gods of War, Psychonauts, Jade Empire, Doom 3, Splinter Cell, etc etc) I'm clean out of cash.
I need a new console generation if only to stop spending money, so I can get a breather and watch the devs stumble around with the technology for 3 or 4 years. It's just now that they're figuring out that it's not Havoc physics or glowy effects that make a game.
"We wanted to talk directly to the consumer first."
There must be a typo. Moore's quote, in light of Sony's recent attempt to upstage Microsoft at E3 by showcasing the PS3 3 hours earlier, should read: "We wanted to talk directly to the consumer, first."
Well, neither really. It stinks, and it's not "right," but that's just the way it is right? You said it yourself; kill a poor man and you get nothing, kill a rich man - interfere with the flow of money - and you get much much more. That's how it works.
Hence this man's 9 year prison sentence. It has nothing to do with its relation to rightness as the parent poster had said it should; instead, it's about the money.
When you murder someone, you're not interferring with business. But sending 10mil spams a day clogs up corporate IT infrastructure therefore costing money. The judicial system - all judicial systems - are based more on business cost than morality, and with good reason: morality is ambigious and dynamic, dollar values less so.
Very True. Steam is cheaper right? There's less piracy because of it, no packaging, no need to pay for retail shelf space - so why is Half Life 2 more expensive than other PC games?
So I went to show my friend how cool Half Life 2 was. I haven't played in maybe 2 months, and it worked fine when I did play (after waiting for them to fix the jerky framerate for Nvidia users).
He's all excited, I can't help but tell him realistic the characters look and how fun the physics are. Then I see the green dialog box, and Steam starts downloadinig patch after patch automatically. No way around it best I can tell. Other games, I download the patch when I want to. The only thing that should auotmatically download patches is an OS, and that's only because there are people not computer-literate enough to check for patches. I can turn off auto-patching even in Microsoft XP - but not Steam? Excuse my leet, but wtf?
He has yet to see HL2. We got bored after waiting 3 or 4 minutes and we instead met our geeky needs and watched an episode of the new Battlestar Galactica, which I received quickly, when I wanted to do, using this "new delivery system" called bittorrent.
My constructive crticism? Work, dammit.
Instead of waiting six years for shelf space, I just have to wait six years for it to download to my PC through Steam and then patch itself to a playable status. Sweet!
. . .citizens of a municipality from forming their own fire department...and making only one company the legal provider of "fire protection services".
It's interesting you mention that, because when cities began to grow to the point where they needed more than a volunteer fire department in the United States, fire services was commercial. It quickly became clear that competition was not a good thing when you had multiple firehouses racing to the same fire and fighting for resources to fight the same fire.