Still interested in URLs - I buy old games, and would like to read the reviews. I can always go back to the old pages via the Internet Wayback Machine.
I'm going to have to disagree with some earlier posters who said that there's no news here.
My first reaction was the same as theirs: Of course reviews don't correlate to game sales. Why would they, when most people don't even look at reviews?
But the news story here is not in the results of the survey, but in the *fact* of the survey.
Someone cared enough to pay a company to do this research. Who would have a financial interest in the correlation between review scores and game sales? Who would have an interest in the correlation between *anything* and game sales? It's certainly not the player, because he doesn't care whether the game sells well or not. He only cares if it's fun. No, it's the publisher who cares.
And the publisher only cares about a correlation if it's a high one, and there's some way he can use that information to drive up game sales. If reviews did correlate to game sales, that would still be useless information to the publisher, as game reviews are an independent, objective evaluation of a game's enjoyability.
Unless they aren't.
And there's your story.
What the survey is saying to its target audience is that they're better off spending their money on more direct forms of marketing than on buying reviews.
Would it be safe to conclude that since this is a thread about a single-player mod, that the mods you listed are also all single-player? I don't want to spend half an hour hunting these down and possibly downloading them only to find that they're multiplayer maps.
GPEDIT.MSC is not available on up-to-date Windows XP Home installations - my home computer which is at SP2 and fully patched has no GPEDIT.MSC, while my work computer which is at SP1 does have it.
That doesn't work. You can set preferences for different types of content, but none of the types are software-CD-plus-CD-tracks. The "Mixed Content" type just means you have more than one of audio/video/pictures on the disk.
No matter how you set your preferences on that tab, CDs with a data track that has an autorun.inf file will continue to autoplay.
There's a freeware B5 game available at http://ifh.firstones.com/ called "I've Found Her: Danger and Opportunity". It's a prequel to a full game, and has a good couple of hours of playability in it.
It's not a mod, as far as I know. In any case, you don't need to install any other game in order to play it.
It's a linear mission-based fighter game (Starfury), similar in structure to X-Wing, Wing Commander or Starlancer.
All this is not enough to ensure the PS3's failure. To make it complete, Sony needs to:
- Reduce or eliminate backwards compatibility, like the Silver Slimline PS2 but more so - Implement nodelocking of game- and video-disks, using the technology they've recently secured a US patent on - Make game development as difficult as possible and as different from conventional architectures as possible to reduce the number of game companies willing to crossdevelop for or port to the new system
I'm just waiting for Paul Anderson and Uwe Boll to team up as co-directors.
CounterStrike: Teh Suxxor
Seriously...if you're going to screw up a movie adaptation of a game, why not do it with some style? Get Roger Corman on it, at least then the result would be horrendously cheesy and fun to watch.
While their games appear to be of good quality and they had some nifty screensavers, the WildTangent package is also a spyware/adware enabler. I had it at one time, and eventually (regretfully) removed it because of the spyware/adware aspects.
If this is one of the vendors that Microsoft is allowing into their XBox Live Arcade program, then I will have to think twice before signing up for it.
Bad enough to have that sort of thing on a PC where with sufficient care it can be removed. I fear that once it's on the XBox360's HD it'll be collecting all sorts of data on my buying and playing habits, and I'll never be able to get it off.
Because on one fine day in 1980 Dorothy Kildall was too busy getting ready to go on vacation to talk to the IBM representatives who showed up on her doorstep wanting to license CP/M for the new IBM PC.
Now that I do, I'm using that. Fortunately I don't need what it appears to lack (reasonably complete documentation and integration beyond the file level with OpenOffice or MS Office apps).
It would have been nice if it supported header rows locked for scrolling like the other two (Calc, Excel), but it doesn't. That, I can live with.
It may seem like a nit, but I believe one of the factors slowing acceptance of OpenOffice in many departments and small businesses is that Calc doesn't have a stable sort (i.e. a sort that preserves the order of rows that are unaffected by the sort) while Excel does.
Many shops use spreadsheets as a kind of quick-and-dirty database, and they rely on the ability to sort on 4 or more columns. Calc can only support sorting on 3.
Unfortunately, 2.0 won't fix this as the bug was marked as a "do later".
It explicitly states that it's the Activision site that's asking for CC#s, and that some of the game-specific sites - in particular, the two that you mentioned - aren't currently asking for them. The Activision Value site doesn't even have an age gate.
Slashdot Mirror
Still interested in URLs - I buy old games, and would like to read the reviews. I can always go back to the old pages via the Internet Wayback Machine.
Link to your review site please?
I'm going to have to disagree with some earlier posters who said that there's no news here.
My first reaction was the same as theirs: Of course reviews don't correlate to game sales. Why would they, when most people don't even look at reviews?
But the news story here is not in the results of the survey, but in the *fact* of the survey.
Someone cared enough to pay a company to do this research. Who would have a financial interest in the correlation between review scores and game sales? Who would have an interest in the correlation between *anything* and game sales? It's certainly not the player, because he doesn't care whether the game sells well or not. He only cares if it's fun. No, it's the publisher who cares.
And the publisher only cares about a correlation if it's a high one, and there's some way he can use that information to drive up game sales. If reviews did correlate to game sales, that would still be useless information to the publisher, as game reviews are an independent, objective evaluation of a game's enjoyability.
Unless they aren't.
And there's your story.
What the survey is saying to its target audience is that they're better off spending their money on more direct forms of marketing than on buying reviews.
Would it be safe to conclude that since this is a thread about a single-player mod, that the mods you listed are also all single-player? I don't want to spend half an hour hunting these down and possibly downloading them only to find that they're multiplayer maps.
Tempest. Pong. Breakout.
All used an analog dial without stops, also known as a "paddle".
So what's next? Smoking, drinking and deep fat are good for you? The Orgasmatron? Genetically engineered vegetables and chickens as big as houses?
Any reply to a troll which addresses the content of his assertions constitutes taking him seriously enough to feed him.
In that regard, my post fed the troll a little. My apologies. It should have just been:
"Troll."
Explanations feed the troll.
This is such a blatant misrepresentation that it can't be anything other than a troll.
Don't feed the trolls.
That group got a viola with each XBox? Wow! I wonder if Microsoft will pay for the music lessons...
GPEDIT.MSC is not available on up-to-date Windows XP Home installations - my home computer which is at SP2 and fully patched has no GPEDIT.MSC, while my work computer which is at SP1 does have it.
That doesn't work. You can set preferences for different types of content, but none of the types are software-CD-plus-CD-tracks. The "Mixed Content" type just means you have more than one of audio/video/pictures on the disk.
No matter how you set your preferences on that tab, CDs with a data track that has an autorun.inf file will continue to autoplay.
Or they get a better mouse-to-controller converter.
Additional info for those that download the game:
Downloading the base package is not enough - neither campaigns nor missions are included. Those are downloadable separately from the same site.
It took some digging, and Google was not as helpful as I would have liked, but I found the new home page here:
http://www.hard-light.net/hosted/babylon/
I'm downloading the current version now. It includes the Freespace 2 engine, so you don't have to buy Freespace 2 in order to install and play.
There's a freeware B5 game available at http://ifh.firstones.com/ called "I've Found Her: Danger and Opportunity". It's a prequel to a full game, and has a good couple of hours of playability in it.
It's not a mod, as far as I know. In any case, you don't need to install any other game in order to play it.
It's a linear mission-based fighter game (Starfury), similar in structure to X-Wing, Wing Commander or Starlancer.
I enjoyed it.
All this is not enough to ensure the PS3's failure. To make it complete, Sony needs to:
- Reduce or eliminate backwards compatibility, like the Silver Slimline PS2 but more so
- Implement nodelocking of game- and video-disks, using the technology they've recently secured a US patent on
- Make game development as difficult as possible and as different from conventional architectures as possible to reduce the number of game companies willing to crossdevelop for or port to the new system
Only then can they guarantee the PS3 will flop.
I'm just waiting for Paul Anderson and Uwe Boll to team up as co-directors.
CounterStrike: Teh Suxxor
Seriously...if you're going to screw up a movie adaptation of a game, why not do it with some style? Get Roger Corman on it, at least then the result would be horrendously cheesy and fun to watch.
No, he's not. I think he's stupider.
Yes, it's a word. I looked it up.
While their games appear to be of good quality and they had some nifty screensavers, the WildTangent package is also a spyware/adware enabler. I had it at one time, and eventually (regretfully) removed it because of the spyware/adware aspects.
If this is one of the vendors that Microsoft is allowing into their XBox Live Arcade program, then I will have to think twice before signing up for it.
Bad enough to have that sort of thing on a PC where with sufficient care it can be removed. I fear that once it's on the XBox360's HD it'll be collecting all sorts of data on my buying and playing habits, and I'll never be able to get it off.
Various Namco Museum collections for various platforms include Ms. Pacman along with other 80s arcade classics.
The ones I know it's in are Namco Museum 50th Anniversary for Xbox, and Namco Museum Battle Collection for PSP.
These and the Midway and Atari collections are heaven for the casual retro action gamer.
The short answer?
Because on one fine day in 1980 Dorothy Kildall was too busy getting ready to go on vacation to talk to the IBM representatives who showed up on her doorstep wanting to license CP/M for the new IBM PC.
Because I didn't know Gnumeric existed.
Now that I do, I'm using that. Fortunately I don't need what it appears to lack (reasonably complete documentation and integration beyond the file level with OpenOffice or MS Office apps).
It would have been nice if it supported header rows locked for scrolling like the other two (Calc, Excel), but it doesn't. That, I can live with.
It may seem like a nit, but I believe one of the factors slowing acceptance of OpenOffice in many departments and small businesses is that Calc doesn't have a stable sort (i.e. a sort that preserves the order of rows that are unaffected by the sort) while Excel does.
Many shops use spreadsheets as a kind of quick-and-dirty database, and they rely on the ability to sort on 4 or more columns. Calc can only support sorting on 3.
Unfortunately, 2.0 won't fix this as the bug was marked as a "do later".
RTFA.
It explicitly states that it's the Activision site that's asking for CC#s, and that some of the game-specific sites - in particular, the two that you mentioned - aren't currently asking for them. The Activision Value site doesn't even have an age gate.