With multiplayer software (as opposed to music or video) its easy to tell how many copies are in the wild. Just see how many people are playing online with each version. Any server browsing software can do this.
I'd imagine its easy to notice if the number of people playing online is much greater than the number of copies sold. This isn't rocket science people.
As a counter-post, my XBOX Live service was due to be up at the end of Feb. I received my email warning last week. That's pretty early. I have a feeling the story poster might be fibbing and we have a whole thread who bought into it. Again. It contained instructions for how to cancel, how to renew, how to change my billing, all of it. Right there. Why did I get this email? Thats a complex question...
#1 We don't get spam at here at work. We just don't. #2 The only commercial emails I get are ones that I want and specifically sign up to receive. #3 Because of #1 and #2 when I want notices like this I send them my real email address that is open all day.
This is called being a smart consumer. I know businesses want my money. I decide if I want to enter into a transaction with them. I make sure I fully understand what I sign up for before I go in. So far Live has been sweet so I renewed. (Im #3 in Rampage and #7 in Paperboy on Live right now too, didnt want to lose that either).
Basically, I'm having trouble feeling the pity here. Did you not even read the message when you signed up that you would be automatically renewed if you didn't cancel? What about the part that let you choose the future billing method? Those were two seperate chances to get it into your head what was about to happen.
You know what? F it, here is the text of the email they send...
Immediate action required! Please read this entire notice carefully.
Dear Customer,
Your subscription to XBOX Live is scheduled to be automatically renewed to Xbox Live Service (12 mths, US) on Monday, March 01, 2004. Here is a description of the service:
We're glad that you've chosen to challenge your friends in the ultimate high-speed gaming arena, with access to downloads, tournaments, and exclusive features like your unique Gamertag and Friends List across every game. Your Starter Kit pre-paid yearly subscription to Xbox Live(TM) covers 12 months of Xbox Live(TM) service. Unless you cancel your subscription before the end of the 12 months, your subscription will automatically renew to a yearly subscription, and you will be billed $49.99 per year plus applicable taxes until you cancel it. If you need to cancel your subscription for any reason, please see www.xbox.com/live/accounts.
Please take this opportunity to confirm that your account and payment information is up to date. To view and update your account and payment information or to contact Microsoft Customer Support, go to https://billing.microsoft.com. If you are an XboxTM Live subscriber please go to the Xbox Dashboard, select Xbox Live, Account Management, and update your billing information.
If you wish to cancel this renewal, you must do so before the renewal date shown above. To cancel, go to https://billing.microsoft.com, click Get help with billing, and then click Cancellation Information.
Thank you for using Microsoft Online Services!
Microsoft Customer Support
Ouch, that sure is confusing. How is anyone to know what to do? Note the 49.99 per year rate is the billing plan I have set on the XBOX. If I wasn't sure how much longer I wanted the service I could have set it per month also. Those evil bastards. As for the 45 days, if they charged me on 3/1 as they say, it would show up on my March bill which would arrive about 4/5. So thats a little over 30 days but not quite 45. Nothing to see here folks, lets close this story and move along.
Congrats! You have made the most absurd remark the Left has made all day. Never before has anyone ever tried to blame the fundamental insecurity of the internet on the current administration. Once again, congratulations on your achievement AC, we at the RPPA (Rediculous Post Prize Association) would like to invite you and whoever modded this post up to log in next time so we can properly attribute your remarks.
Thats all you had to say, negro. DirectX hides the hardware from the developer and with the XBOX being realtively overpowered for the current console generation its unlikely many low level optimizations were necessary for any of the current games (Doom III will be interesting though). I'd take any comments from nvidia on the future of the next Microsoft console as so many grains of salt on top of alot of sour grapes.
Is backwards compatibility a sure thing? I don't think so at this point, but I wouldn't take anything nvidia has to say as any more than bitter FUD.
You seem to agree with the notion that it is conceivable that an individual child is too young to handle the visual and thus the parent should have the choice and that this incident precluded that choice. Why split hairs over which children those are when the granparent post did not specify such? It is likely that an event watched by millions included at least one such child.
Masterfully done torpor. I wouldn't keep replying if you didn't keep getting modded up. You are a worthy foe indeed. As the AC points out, your provided name is not in the Moby Games database, but to be fair, I don't provide one so I won't hold it against you. Assuming you are telling the whole truth, how does having people play longer earn them more money? You didn't refute my point about them getting paid the same no matter what, you merely steered to the right a little so you wouldn't have to address it.
No, they get paid the same if the user plays 1 minute or 600 hours per month. They would prefer the former to the latter.
That was a solid gold rant. The only problem is that the "online-game-company fat pink executive" would actually prefer that the player pay his monthly fee and never ever log into the game. These games have monthly fees, not access fees. What does that mean for your rant? Basically that your fundamental premise was wrong. The companies want you to buy the game and then play as little as possible to not use their server resources.
Now as to why insight comes from "the 'experts', the chosen few, or the holy order of ordained monks", well its because they wouldn't pop into the games section to troll with such blatant ignorance. Good game.
Damn torpor, thats another quality troll. You even got +1 on it. Congrats.
If you hate games so much and game companies in general, why are you reading and posting in the games section? Leave this to those of us who actually like these subjects.
Your villification of the "video-game industry" is so arbitrary that I am actually in awe of your modification. "Wasting peoples time" is entirely in the eye of the beholder. Are you arguing that the concept of play is a waste? The concept of playing structured games? Or the concept of video games in particular?
I have a question for the story poster. The whole scenario seems sketchy to me to begin with. The odds of this exact mailbox meeting this exact series of events is very unlikely. Did you get the hosting contract based on the relative's connection to the company? If you did, welcome to conflict of interest! You have entered a convoluted world of nepotism and insider backroom deals. Anything you write down can and will be used against you since its only a matter of time until you do something illegal.
Well, thats really worst case scenario. But expect extra scrutiny if this actually does go sour and it looks like you guys are scratching each others back.
The moral of the story? Conflict of interest rules protect both the employer and employee.
As the wise Justin Timberlake once sang, "Cry me a river." They totally and 100% gave the game away. No charge. Gratis. If you are unhappy with the product please cease playing the game immediately, uninstall the application, and return it to you point of purchase for a full refund.
Ungrateful bitch.
P.S. Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory includes punkbuster so if cheating ever becomes a problem, use the methods outlined on Evenbalance.com to report your findings and complain to them. OR since the mod source is out, write your own anti-cheat. Or you know what, keep whining on random internet message boards, I'm sure that might help too and will definitely encourage other companies to give games away.
Yeah, cause if your political discourse doesn't fit on a t-shirt the left can't comprehend the concepts. You keep settin' me up; I'll keep knockin' 'em outta the park.
Yes, far inferior to an attorney general who actively seeks out and kills American citizens, but that could never happen. Could it?
Oh wait, it did. And we know how that re-election bid went.
As soon as a candidate better than W comes forward I will consider them, but the clowns the Dems are producing this year don't leave much choice. But then, Im in California so I'll probably do what I do every election (since the state only elects Democrats or actors) and vote for the third party candidate most likely to attract 5% of the vote.
From the description of the Patent: Further, currently there is a severe shortage of computer programmers. Even employers that are willing to pay high salaries frequently are unable to find enough skilled programmers to meet requirements for a particular programming job.
This does not make sense. There are not enough skilled programmers to be found out there, so we are going to design and implement by accepting random code from people who must not be "computer programmers" seeing as there is such a shortage? More power to ya Blue. I'd like to patent hiring all the skilled programmers and actually paying them a "wage" or "salary". Could that be considered an invention, or is that too obvious and trivial?
So, basically, you are saying I should give in to this terrorist moderation? I should tip-toe around people, even when I am right in fact and not expressing opinion, because someone's feelings might get hurt?
Clearly you were not the moderator; I understand how the system works. I see I am on your foes list, however. Is this so you can tag people you don't agree with so that you, like the terrorist moderator of the grandparent, can follow me around and silence facts as you see necessary?
Why would you learn how to use something that you can't actually use? Would that not be a waste of time?
Uh-oh, slow your roll g-money. I answered the question accurately and in full. Notice I got modded "troll", which on slashdot translates roughly to "rational and absolutely correct." The question proposed was not "why", but "how". Notice the first is a question for philosphy, hence subject to endless debate, and the second for science. The answer to "how" is still look and learn. You can discover your own "why" if you choose, but thats up to the individual. Based on the rest of your post, I'd say you have already decided not to play and take your toys and go home.
How can you learn from competition if every potential improvement is already patented?"
Literally? Look at it and learn. You will have to wait 20 years to use it, but it doesn't stop you from learning, just immediately benefitting from the lesson.
There is another lesson to learn as well. Maybe you should innovate before your competition and earn a patent. Of course this is more difficult and expensive so I could see why some people don't like patents. Don't be afraid though, get out there and think and maybe one day you too might invent something!
So just to clarify, and since you made the rediculous assertion that anyone is an MS fanboy, you see no difference between the Nestle issue and this current donation? Despite the fact that one could literally mean life or death and the other is what kernal runs on a computer?
What isnt surprising is that an obviously left-leaning poster wouldn't educate itself to know that W is not currently accepting donations via this site.
Now, if your "Surprise, Surprise" was intended as a knock on the quality or popularity of the candidate based on funds raised (which it clearly was),this website seems to indicate W pretty much owns their peepees. Is that what you intended?
Yeah, cause changing the biology of mother and baby is quite analogous to giving someone the chance to start->programs->games->minesweeper. Of course, I'd blame the local government if everyone has computers to run windows XP but they don't have safe water, as you assert. I suppose you believe that's Bill Gates' personal fault too. Won't someone think of the children!!!???!!!11
their failure is not their fault, its how the game market is designed
Ah, the cry of the loser. It's not my fault! Getting a game onto shelves is not an immense task. Creating a AAA game is an immense task. Surviving to make the sequel is an immense task. But you can do the first and fail the second by choosing the wrong publisher. What happened in this case is nothing but evidence to choose a strong publisher...one that will be there to fund the patches, expansions and your sophomore effort.
Slashdot Mirror
With multiplayer software (as opposed to music or video) its easy to tell how many copies are in the wild. Just see how many people are playing online with each version. Any server browsing software can do this.
I'd imagine its easy to notice if the number of people playing online is much greater than the number of copies sold. This isn't rocket science people.
As a counter-post, my XBOX Live service was due to be up at the end of Feb. I received my email warning last week. That's pretty early. I have a feeling the story poster might be fibbing and we have a whole thread who bought into it. Again. It contained instructions for how to cancel, how to renew, how to change my billing, all of it. Right there. Why did I get this email? Thats a complex question...
#1 We don't get spam at here at work. We just don't.
#2 The only commercial emails I get are ones that I want and specifically sign up to receive.
#3 Because of #1 and #2 when I want notices like this I send them my real email address that is open all day.
This is called being a smart consumer. I know businesses want my money. I decide if I want to enter into a transaction with them. I make sure I fully understand what I sign up for before I go in. So far Live has been sweet so I renewed. (Im #3 in Rampage and #7 in Paperboy on Live right now too, didnt want to lose that either).
Basically, I'm having trouble feeling the pity here. Did you not even read the message when you signed up that you would be automatically renewed if you didn't cancel? What about the part that let you choose the future billing method? Those were two seperate chances to get it into your head what was about to happen.
You know what? F it, here is the text of the email they send...
Immediate action required! Please read this entire notice carefully.
Dear Customer,
Your subscription to XBOX Live is scheduled to be automatically renewed to Xbox Live Service (12 mths, US) on Monday, March 01, 2004. Here is a description of the service:
We're glad that you've chosen to challenge your friends in the ultimate high-speed gaming arena, with access to downloads, tournaments, and exclusive features like your unique Gamertag and Friends List across every game. Your Starter Kit pre-paid yearly subscription to Xbox Live(TM) covers 12 months of Xbox Live(TM) service. Unless you cancel your subscription before the end of the 12 months, your subscription will automatically renew to a yearly subscription, and you will be billed $49.99 per year plus applicable taxes until you cancel it. If you need to cancel your subscription for any reason, please see www.xbox.com/live/accounts.
Please take this opportunity to confirm that your account and payment information is up to date. To view and update your account and payment information or to contact Microsoft Customer Support, go to https://billing.microsoft.com. If you are an XboxTM Live subscriber please go to the Xbox Dashboard, select Xbox Live, Account Management, and update your billing information.
If you wish to cancel this renewal, you must do so before the renewal date shown above. To cancel, go to https://billing.microsoft.com, click Get help with billing, and then click Cancellation Information.
Thank you for using Microsoft Online Services!
Microsoft Customer Support
Ouch, that sure is confusing. How is anyone to know what to do? Note the 49.99 per year rate is the billing plan I have set on the XBOX. If I wasn't sure how much longer I wanted the service I could have set it per month also. Those evil bastards. As for the 45 days, if they charged me on 3/1 as they say, it would show up on my March bill which would arrive about 4/5. So thats a little over 30 days but not quite 45. Nothing to see here folks, lets close this story and move along.
Congrats! You have made the most absurd remark the Left has made all day. Never before has anyone ever tried to blame the fundamental insecurity of the internet on the current administration. Once again, congratulations on your achievement AC, we at the RPPA (Rediculous Post Prize Association) would like to invite you and whoever modded this post up to log in next time so we can properly attribute your remarks.
Thats all you had to say, negro. DirectX hides the hardware from the developer and with the XBOX being realtively overpowered for the current console generation its unlikely many low level optimizations were necessary for any of the current games (Doom III will be interesting though). I'd take any comments from nvidia on the future of the next Microsoft console as so many grains of salt on top of alot of sour grapes.
Is backwards compatibility a sure thing? I don't think so at this point, but I wouldn't take anything nvidia has to say as any more than bitter FUD.
From the people will argue anything department...
You seem to agree with the notion that it is conceivable that an individual child is too young to handle the visual and thus the parent should have the choice and that this incident precluded that choice. Why split hairs over which children those are when the granparent post did not specify such? It is likely that an event watched by millions included at least one such child.
Masterfully done torpor. I wouldn't keep replying if you didn't keep getting modded up. You are a worthy foe indeed. As the AC points out, your provided name is not in the Moby Games database, but to be fair, I don't provide one so I won't hold it against you. Assuming you are telling the whole truth, how does having people play longer earn them more money? You didn't refute my point about them getting paid the same no matter what, you merely steered to the right a little so you wouldn't have to address it.
No, they get paid the same if the user plays 1 minute or 600 hours per month. They would prefer the former to the latter.
And the Wikipedia article couldn't possibly be biased on that issue? I read their faq, its possible they are wrong.
That was a solid gold rant. The only problem is that the "online-game-company fat pink executive" would actually prefer that the player pay his monthly fee and never ever log into the game. These games have monthly fees, not access fees. What does that mean for your rant? Basically that your fundamental premise was wrong. The companies want you to buy the game and then play as little as possible to not use their server resources.
Now as to why insight comes from "the 'experts', the chosen few, or the holy order of ordained monks", well its because they wouldn't pop into the games section to troll with such blatant ignorance. Good game.
Damn torpor, thats another quality troll. You even got +1 on it. Congrats.
If you hate games so much and game companies in general, why are you reading and posting in the games section? Leave this to those of us who actually like these subjects.
Your villification of the "video-game industry" is so arbitrary that I am actually in awe of your modification. "Wasting peoples time" is entirely in the eye of the beholder. Are you arguing that the concept of play is a waste? The concept of playing structured games? Or the concept of video games in particular?
Perhaps you and your friends should not smoke so much of the marijuana cigarettes.
I have a question for the story poster. The whole scenario seems sketchy to me to begin with. The odds of this exact mailbox meeting this exact series of events is very unlikely. Did you get the hosting contract based on the relative's connection to the company? If you did, welcome to conflict of interest! You have entered a convoluted world of nepotism and insider backroom deals. Anything you write down can and will be used against you since its only a matter of time until you do something illegal.
Well, thats really worst case scenario. But expect extra scrutiny if this actually does go sour and it looks like you guys are scratching each others back.
The moral of the story? Conflict of interest rules protect both the employer and employee.
Buy two! You don't even need to leave your house.
Actually, it is potentially a very big deal. EA did not support the Dreamcast and look how that went...
As the wise Justin Timberlake once sang, "Cry me a river." They totally and 100% gave the game away. No charge. Gratis. If you are unhappy with the product please cease playing the game immediately, uninstall the application, and return it to you point of purchase for a full refund.
Ungrateful bitch.
P.S. Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory includes punkbuster so if cheating ever becomes a problem, use the methods outlined on Evenbalance.com to report your findings and complain to them. OR since the mod source is out, write your own anti-cheat. Or you know what, keep whining on random internet message boards, I'm sure that might help too and will definitely encourage other companies to give games away.
Yeah, cause if your political discourse doesn't fit on a t-shirt the left can't comprehend the concepts. You keep settin' me up; I'll keep knockin' 'em outta the park.
Yes, far inferior to an attorney general who actively seeks out and kills American citizens, but that could never happen. Could it?
Oh wait, it did. And we know how that re-election bid went.
As soon as a candidate better than W comes forward I will consider them, but the clowns the Dems are producing this year don't leave much choice. But then, Im in California so I'll probably do what I do every election (since the state only elects Democrats or actors) and vote for the third party candidate most likely to attract 5% of the vote.
From the description of the Patent:
Further, currently there is a severe shortage of computer programmers. Even employers that are willing to pay high salaries frequently are unable to find enough skilled programmers to meet requirements for a particular programming job.
This does not make sense. There are not enough skilled programmers to be found out there, so we are going to design and implement by accepting random code from people who must not be "computer programmers" seeing as there is such a shortage? More power to ya Blue. I'd like to patent hiring all the skilled programmers and actually paying them a "wage" or "salary". Could that be considered an invention, or is that too obvious and trivial?
No red vs blue spoilers without appropriate warning please.
So, basically, you are saying I should give in to this terrorist moderation? I should tip-toe around people, even when I am right in fact and not expressing opinion, because someone's feelings might get hurt?
Clearly you were not the moderator; I understand how the system works. I see I am on your foes list, however. Is this so you can tag people you don't agree with so that you, like the terrorist moderator of the grandparent, can follow me around and silence facts as you see necessary?
Why would you learn how to use something that you can't actually use? Would that not be a waste of time?
Uh-oh, slow your roll g-money. I answered the question accurately and in full. Notice I got modded "troll", which on slashdot translates roughly to "rational and absolutely correct." The question proposed was not "why", but "how". Notice the first is a question for philosphy, hence subject to endless debate, and the second for science. The answer to "how" is still look and learn. You can discover your own "why" if you choose, but thats up to the individual. Based on the rest of your post, I'd say you have already decided not to play and take your toys and go home.
How can you learn from competition if every potential improvement is already patented?"
Literally? Look at it and learn. You will have to wait 20 years to use it, but it doesn't stop you from learning, just immediately benefitting from the lesson.
There is another lesson to learn as well. Maybe you should innovate before your competition and earn a patent. Of course this is more difficult and expensive so I could see why some people don't like patents. Don't be afraid though, get out there and think and maybe one day you too might invent something!
So just to clarify, and since you made the rediculous assertion that anyone is an MS fanboy, you see no difference between the Nestle issue and this current donation? Despite the fact that one could literally mean life or death and the other is what kernal runs on a computer?
What isnt surprising is that an obviously left-leaning poster wouldn't educate itself to know that W is not currently accepting donations via this site.
Now, if your "Surprise, Surprise" was intended as a knock on the quality or popularity of the candidate based on funds raised (which it clearly was),this website seems to indicate W pretty much owns their peepees. Is that what you intended?
Yeah, cause changing the biology of mother and baby is quite analogous to giving someone the chance to start->programs->games->minesweeper. Of course, I'd blame the local government if everyone has computers to run windows XP but they don't have safe water, as you assert. I suppose you believe that's Bill Gates' personal fault too. Won't someone think of the children!!!???!!!11
their failure is not their fault, its how the game market is designed
Ah, the cry of the loser. It's not my fault! Getting a game onto shelves is not an immense task. Creating a AAA game is an immense task. Surviving to make the sequel is an immense task. But you can do the first and fail the second by choosing the wrong publisher. What happened in this case is nothing but evidence to choose a strong publisher...one that will be there to fund the patches, expansions and your sophomore effort.