I don't think we're already rid of him. And even if he's gone, there're still thousands more, eager to replace him. Each of them equally clueless.
Thankfully, if Thompson is gone, the fact that he tried but failed with his insane tactics sets a sort of precedent for the next time some bozo finds a soapbox and tries to convince the world that he has a point.
When I say precedent, I don't mean legal precedent (there hasn't been any sort of judicial ruling declaring that Thomson is totally fscking loco... yet), but more of a "social" precedent. Imagine ten years from now, when some nutjob goes around saying that Virtual Reality Theft Auto: Spring Break Cancun! for the Microsony OmicronBox 2520 is turning 'innocent' adolescents into ruthless 'killers' and sexually-aware 'perverts', we can just pat him on the back and say, "You're a regular Jack Thompson, aren't you, pal?" and destroy all his credibility with one fell stroke.
Don't get me wrong, though: I only support destroying the careers of irrational, fear-mongering screwballs. If someone comes up with an intelligent argument (with evidence indicating causation) that video games have significant detrimental effects on a person's physical or mental health, I would be willing to listen to that person.
But may your God save the next person who says, "I don't play or understand video games, but I fear them and don't like them, which means they are evil and destroying society!" (Hint: knowing nothing about a subject does not qualify you to make 'expert' judgements on that subject. In fact, there are certain schools of thought which believe that ignorance about something means you should just shut up about it already, sheesh!)
Besides which, Jack Thompson is such a disturbed crackpot that surely he must not be getting any clients these days!*
*I wish this were necessarily true.:( Unfortunately there seems to be quite a market these days for raving lunatics with a "omfg save teh childz0rz" message, so I can only say this: if Jack Thompson *is* getting clients, the fact is sick and wrong.
P.S. Jack Thompson reminds me of Dr. Hobo from VGCats. I guess there's once difference, though. Dr. Hobo is an insane, violent, paranoid man who thinks he's a doctor; Jack Thompson, on the other hand, thinks he's a lawyer.
The crusades were politically motivated, instigated by a corrupt church, not based on anything taught in the Bible.... Psychopaths are psychopaths and can gain motivation from nearly anywhere, so that doesn't support your point either.
I very much agree!
There is absolutely no proof that anyone ever killed someone because "The Bible told me to" or "God told me to" or "Dear Abby told me to." The Bible is just an easy scapegoat to shift the blame away from underlying social problems.
Video games, on the other hand, are a very real and immediate danger and must all be thrown in a pile and burned before they corrupt our nation's young people!!
Signed, - Samuel T. F. Uppington, Interdicting Demagogues and Insane Overlords for a Totalitarian State
I apologize for wasting your time and my own with my last reply. It should have been obvious to me from reading your first post that you were not interested in rational debate or the pursuit of truth, but only in dragging other people down to your level. In the future, on the small chance that I should choose to reply to one of your posts, I will try to speak a language you are more comfortable with, namely childish insults and accusatory non sequiturs.
You weren't kidding, your example is extreme. Downright ludicrous, in fact.
If 1 million people played a game for 10 to 20 hours before reselling it, even ignoring the time it takes to find the next customer, it would take 10 to 20 million hours (or 1140 to 2280 years) for all of them to play it.
If our game is on a standard compact disc, the original disc will long since have degraded (even if all 1 million customers were very careful, and got no scratches, and didn't accidently break it).
Even if we assume, for the sake of argument, that the CD is periodically copied to a new CD, so that it remains readable, it is highly unlikely that we will be using CDs even 10 years from now, let alone 1000.
Even if the original console and a television set to play it on, and an electric generator and circuit to power the console and television were all preserved and sold along with the CD (and I hope you won't try to claim that consoles, televisions, generators, and wires do not deprecate), do you think anyone in the year 3505 A.D. would give a rat's ass about a game from 2005? I don't even care about games from 1995!
I find your example to be preposterous, and will propose one slightly more consistent with reality:
A game developer spends 160,000 man-hours to make a game. They sell rights to the game to a publisher for, say, $7 million (this comes out to an average of $43.75 per man-hour for the game developer; the president of the company will of course be paid more than an intern will, because this is a capitalist economy). The publisher makes 250,000 units, at $5 per unit (including disc, box and manual). These units are sold to retail outlets across the U.S. for $40 per unit (a profit of $8.75 million for the sale, and a net profit of $1.75 million for the publisher). The retail outlets sell each unit for $50 per unit, a profit of $2.5 million for the retailer.
80% of the units, or 200,000 units, end up stuffed in the closet or thrown out after the first owner gets done with it. A few months later, the remaining 50,000 units have been sold to a used games retailer at $10 per unit (a loss of $30 for the first customer, or a cost of $2-3 per hour of fun he had). The used games retailer sells it again for $25 (the manuals are all ratty and the disc has some small scratches on it by now), making $15 per unit in the process.
A few months later, 10,000 units have been sold back to the used games retailer at $5 a pop, and sold to a third customer for $20 (the used games retailer has now made $30 per game over a period of 4-6 months). A few months later, 2,000 units are sold back for $3 a piece; 1,500 of them sit on the shelf for 4 months before being thrown out, because the sequel has come out and no one wants to buy them anymore.
(By the way, the sequel makes another $50 per man-hour for the game developer, a net profit of $3 million for the publisher, etc. etc. before the third game in the series comes out 2 years later, repeat ad nauseum.)
I'm sure my figures are a little bit off from the reality, but certainly more accurate than your example.
Your example of lemonade is absolutly useless and does not apply.
Well, you seem to be the expert on absolutely useless examples, so I'll have to take your word for it. For some reason, I thought that a can of lemonade powder (which costs $2 and lasts 3 days of normal use before it is empty, or $0.67 per day of use), could be compared to an automobile (which costs perhaps $15,000 and lasts 10 years of normal use, or $4 per day of use). For some reason, the idea got into my head that selling a used car was similar to selling a half-empty can of lemonade powder.
Thanks for setting me straight.
As for the obvious anti-communist stance I would like to see if you can find me an example of a non-Stalinistic Communism that has be attempted let alone one that failed. I can show you at least a few examples of successful socialized societies.
I hope you are being sarcastic. If not (or for the benefit of those who thought you were being sincere) . . .
Why should autoworkers (or the auto company) be paid for doing no work?
They worked to build the new car. They are paid for their work on the new car. The new car is sold so the company can pay the workers for building the new car.
With a used car, the used car salesman paid to buy the used car from the first customer. He paid for the land on which he stores the used car until a second customer can be found. He (if he is an honest used car salesman, and not a crook) worked to inspect the car and make sure it is in acceptable condition, or paid somebody else to perform that work. If there is a second customer, the salesman is paid to compensate for his work and investment.
Exactly what work did the autoworkers (or the auto company) perform in the process of buying, storing, inspecting, and selling a used car? They have already been paid for their work building the car when it was new.
Do you think the lemonade-powder company should make a percentage of every sale from every child's street-side lemonade stand? Of course not — the lemonade-powder company has already been paid for the work they did in providing the lemonade powder. They have no right to dictate, or make a profit from, any further work done by other individuals or companies.
What you are proposing, when you suggest that autoworkers be compensated for performing no work, is Communism. And, if you haven't heard the news, Communism will never be viable, because it rewards the lazy and punishes the productive.
If any of you are confused, and think that it is moral to give money to people who have not done any work to earn that money, I suggest you read some of the works of Ayn Rand. Atlas Shrugged, in particular, shows what would happen if we lived by your creed. And I'll give you a hint: it isn't pretty.
I think that it became most clear to me that filmmakers "understood" video games during the scene introducing Mike Teevee in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. If I caught it right, Mike was playing a modern 3D first-person shooter that looked like Doom 3; and he was playing this on something that looked like an Atari 2600.
For a minute, I thought you were talking about the 1971 Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, and I was a bit confused. IIRC, in that one, Mike Teevee was playing a "modern" shooter, too: he'd watch TV Westerns all day and shoot at the villains with his toy guns when they came on-screen (to little effect, of course).
The game has changed since the '70s, but the Hollywood portrayal has stayed the same: an obsessed, semi-neurotic kid with a short attention span and no social skills. He would even eat meals in front of the TV! What a degenerate! . . .
The system as shipped in the box... will have one button.... That's more than enough for any game I can think of.
<shot style="cheap">Especially ports of Mac games. *snicker*</shot>
Actually, it looks like it also has an "a" (not to be confused with "A") and "b" buttons down on the bottom. They'd be hard to reach using one hand, but you could turn the lil' bugger sideways and voila! instant NES controller.
(Cue Legend of Zelda "Found a new item" song — Doo do dee doooo!)
Linux, in its current state, is absolutely _not_ the place for gaming. Mainly this is because of hardware support - it's not there yet.
It would seem a bit of a Catch-22, wouldn't it?
If we had better hardware support, we'd get better game support, because there would be a bigger market for high-end Linux games.
If we had better game support, we'd get better hardware support, because there would be a bigger market for Linux drivers.
Fortunately, there are other ways to get better game support. We're already seeing some: cross-platform libraries like OpenGL and SDL, support from a few big-name developers (UT2k3&4, NWN), and support from a handful of indie developers (Gish, Darwinia, etc.).
With a few "revolutionaries" to break into the Linux game market and prove that it exists, plus easy cross-platform tools, it's inevitable that we'll see increasing game support, and with it increasing hardware support.
There are also other ways to get hardware support: companies switching to Linux internally will need better hardware support, and will have the cash motive to make it happen. Even if the drivers aren't made open-source at first, the hardware companies will know that there is a demand for Linux drivers for their hardware.
With a few "revolutionaries" to stretch the Linux hardware market into the corporate sector, plus the momentum already behind general-use Linux adoption, it's inevitable that we'll see increasing hardware support, and with it increasing game support.
It's a two-front battle, and Linux is making headway on both.
Actually, to play Gamecube games on the Revolution, you just plug in a Gamecube controller—the Revolution comes with 4 Gamecube peripheral sockets, as well as 2 memory card slots, so you'd use the same Gamecube controllers and memory cards you do now.
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I'll agree with the grandparent that the Z button and D-pad are probably history (the Z button being a relic from N64 days, and the D-pad being from NES days). A trackball-like device would be nice, but prone to getting gunked up. On the plus side, you'd hear more of this during Smash Bros. parties: "Hey guys, I gotta pause and clean my balls. They're all greasy and covered in gunk from everybody playing with them without washing their hands."
I can only pray that Nintendo will lean more towards the Gamecube controller's design than their more recent attempts—the DS feels like it was created for design ideals and straight, geometric forms, rather than to fit in your hand(s) and be used. I think the folding design of the DS and GBA SP was a mistake in that they limit controller options: no joysticks of course (they stick up too much), and even the flat buttons have to be put in recessed areas so the top can fold over flatly.
(And what were they thinking with the four buttons on the right side of the DS? Probably something like, "Since the DS has a touchscreen, no one will use the buttons anyway, so who gives a flying fsck what they look and feel like?")
What's even more crazy is that he discovered all this while doing the research for his book. So I guess he decided to write the book first and then find out if Desktop Linux could actually work later. Curious.
Or maybe he said to himself, "I wonder if Linux is ready for the desktop yet. If it is, I could write a book about it!" and then did some research to test his hypothesis, and wrote a book based on his results?
I think they have a name for this sort of process... it rhymes with the Shmientific Shmethod.
I can understand your confusion, though. It's not used very often these days, especially in schools in a certain midwestern state.
1) The "cool kids" may be developing for Sony, but the brilliant, innovative, fun kids are developing for Nintendo.
And by "brilliant, innovative, fun kids," I mean Nintendo. Hmmmm...
2) Yellow or green? Ewww. Try gold! Or black with an illuminated Triforce on the side! Yeah! And mini ninja monkey wizards from Japan right in the box! I'd buy it.
3) Release it against the Revolution? Anyone with EITHER a Gamecube OR a Revolution would buy the new Zelda, so it wouldn't really be going against anything. They'd get the early-adopters market with their Revolutions, as well as the "I'll just wait and see how this pans out" market with their old and busted Gamecubes.
4) I doubt that they would have to remake all, or even much, of the artwork. It already looks hella nice, and besides, Nintendo isn't playing the poly-pushing game any more. Maybe you won't see stuff like a hundred sweat droplets with specular highlights and reflections and ray-traced shadows go flying everywhere when a player gets tackled in Madden Rehash 2006, but... do you really want to see that anyway? The sweat droplets OR Madden 2006, I mean.
And since we have no idea what the Revolution's controller will look/feel like, it's impossible to say how difficult the transition would be -- the fact that Nintendo's making both the console and Zelda means that (if they were indeed going to port) they'd have a head start on figuring it out.
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And you forgot scenario #5:
5) They could just release it 2nd quarter next year with the normal fanfare, and everybody will still buy it because it's the new Zelda game. After the Revolution comes out, more people will buy the game because it plays on that console too. Then they can put it on Player's Choice by Christmas and everybody who hadn't bought it already would do so. Cha-ching, baby. Cha-frickin'-ching.
Try this one: hold down B to brighten the palette. The blacks stay black, but the road lines, sky, and steering wheel highlights get brighter (and easier to see).
If you hold it down for a while, it'll get to a stark black and white—very artsy:)
How can you assert that the government is established to DEFEND our rights when the rights themselves are, simply and exclusively, our DEFENSE against the government itself?
You are mistakenly thinking of "the government" as one entity, protecting the population from itself.
Rather, it's one government (the "good guys") trying to protect the population from a more oppressive government (the "bad guys") which may arise in the future. In other words, our Founding Fathers said, "Hey guys, if someone comes and tries to impose a monarchy on you, you have our permission to kick their ass."
To help you understand this concept, I direct you to this bash.org quote (potentially offensive language use).
Pretty much says it all...you really couldn't be more wrong. That's a relief...
Phew, close one. Good thing your point-of-view has been confirmed as the correct one by a couple short snippets from Wikipedia, or you might have had to start questioning your assumptions.
Logically falicies aside, wow!...just...wow!
Yes, wow! Without logical fallacies, your own argument crumbles to pieces. An impressive act of auto-fallacio, i.e. the use of logical fallacies for self-gratification.
The market cannot support 3 consoles, plain and simple. Most people will have one of the three.... almost nobody will have all three.... the costs of developing for all three are prohibitive
Good news, then: Microsoft is stuck in the hardware arms race, and Sony doesn't care about games anymore anyway. So that just leaves one brand to buy if you like to have fun.
Nintendo will probably be the next casualty (it happened to Atari when Sega challenged Nintendo, and it happened to Sega when MS challenged Sony and Nintendo.)
Last I checked, Sega was alive and kicking, producing software for Nintendo's consoles. And Atari was in its last throes long before Sega challenged Nintendo.
They've pretty much bowed out of the hardware arms race with the Nintendo Revolution, a low-powered hardware design compared to the PS3 and XB360.
True. Irrelevant, but technically true. I'd say Nintendo is trying to fork off a new market: games that are actually fun. What a concept!
I will say this for the hardware race: bump-maps and specular highlights really bring out the beautiful, moist, glistening texture of the steaming piles of dog poop they're putting out these days.
Too bad they don't have the developer support anymore to make it work.
I'd say most developers (or maybe it's the publishers, who control the developers) have an acute case of head-up-bum-itis about what a game should be. So if they want to make crap, let them make it for the other consoles. Here's an idea: they could make games that aren't fun, for the PS3, which isn't a game console!
Besides, Nintendo's first party games, as a rule, just play better, and probably sell better, than most third party games. I think they could carry the Revolution on the backs of Mario, Zelda, etc.—not to mention the new Wi-fi enabled Smash Bros, which is simply a must-have—long enough for skeptical third-party developers to get their acts together and realize that fun sells.
If you're in a true zero-g environment, how do you drop anything, let alone a cat?
Jeez, I already apologized a thousand times and paid the veterinarian's bill! I even brought a can of tuna for Mr. Whiskers while he was in his full-body cast.
Why do you have to keep bringing that embarrassing incident up?!:'(
A PC can do whatever you make it do, not just what Sony and Microsoft thinks you should do with it.
Dear PC user,
Thank you for writing. We at Microsoft are aware of this issue, and you will be relieved to know that we have partnered with several major computing companies to ensure that in the future, your PC will not do what you want it to do.
Humans are still humans. The species hasn't seen any evolution in 20 years. There's barely time for a new generation in there, so no time for natural selection or anything. And being a l33t gamer wasn't a natural selection factor to start with.
So basically what was difficult to a new player back then, will still be difficult to a new player today.
Right, if we were talking about not having enough fingers on each hand to use the controller. But evolution isn't the only (or even major) factor at play here. Much more important is the fact that human beings learn from/about their environment.
What I mean is this: back in the 80s, video games were a new phenomenon. If you showed one to somebody who had never played one before (and these people were much more common then), they would have a hard time understanding what's going on, especially if the person was older than, say, 30 at the time.
Nowadays, though, the "social consciousness" is much more aware of video games. Most people in first-world countries have probably seen a video game before. Even if they haven't, they might have used a computer before, typing up a TPS report cover sheet or buying something off Ebay. Some of the skills involved in using a computer for boring stuff translate easily to using a computer (or console) for playing a game.
A big part of the challenge for new players is learning to use the controller. If you have to look down every time to see which button is A and which is B, you'll have a hard time jumping over that Bullet Bill coming straight at you. (OMG look out!)
I guess my point is this: the new players today aren't as "new" as the new players 20 years ago. Knowing that video games exist, seeing somebody else play one... it all gets stored up in the ol' gray matter, and once you actually play a game, having seen it before makes it easier to understand what's going on.
I won't say it's a huge advantage, but it helps. And it's no excuse for making all games harder and harder to get into.
Now, if you went back in time, kidnapped a newborn infant, brought it Back to the Future, and had it play Quake Deathmatch against a newborn infant today... well, it's anyone's guess who would win. Probably the one who spawns closer to the Quad Damage.
Lets look at some scenarios in which a programmer deals with code which may have problems with it:
Perfect: all code fits perfectly the moment it comes out of your head, you Mozart of the programming world, you.
Excellent: detecting, reporting, and fixing problems in code yourself.
Good: documenting in a visible manner the fact that the code needs investigated and/or fixed.
Average: putting little comments in the code to document that it may need improvement.
Bad: not being competent enough to realize that there might be a problem with the code.
Worst: knowing code has problems, but purposely not documenting it, so other people think your code doesn't have any problems.
I'll point out that the only scenarios which result in code with no signs of programmer doubt are either unreasonable to expect (1), or just plain contemptible (5, 6).
That said, if you're a high-level officer in a large public company, and something goes wrong with your IT infrastructure, and your shareholders ask you whether you knew that the code had problems... well, you might be able to secure a healthy stipend if you can say, "Well nobody told me that there might be problems!" as they kick your sorry ass out the door.
I'll unfortunately have to agree with you on lack of challenge or entertainment -- you won't find a lot even if you do manage to play through it.
Spoiler: the whole game involves lifting stuff up and throwing it at your enemies. At least HL2 had some shooting and driving to break it up.
Physics-based gameplay is one thing, but if that's what they were going for, I don't know what they did a very good job. The boulders bounced like they were made of styrofoam, and all the levels have invisible barriers to stop you from going anywhere except where you're supposed to.
Plus, the AI on the 'orc' creatures (one of two types of enemies you will face) was such that they literally spent 5-10 seconds standing in one place and growling at me -- long enough for me to levitate and throw a couple boulders at them, which was enough to kill them every time. The AI on the other creature (some sort of fairy) caused them to stand still and not attack unless I moved side-to-side.
The challenge is practically non-existent. The only time I died was when I hurled a half-dozen boulders at my own head in a fit of boredom. (It worked.)
And I can't give any points for the main character. The only thing she had for "character development" was Lara Croft-style über-breasts and a corset -- and even with that, you can't make the camera swivel around to view her from the front to properly "enjoy" it. Hmmm... large breasts... skimpy, cliche goth outfit... I'll submit this as evidence that this game was created by horny college geeks! They know* what women should be like: huge breasts, no clothes, no personality, no back-talk! Just sit back and hold still, baby; no need to get yourself excited.
(* By "know" I meant to say "don't have any idea")
Fake styrofoam rocks... giant mushrooms... buxom chick with no personality... Maybe the game isn't actually about being a sorceress with telekinetic powers, but about being on the set of a crappy B movie?
Now to save my post from a Flamebait rating, I'll offer this piece of insight: it's not too bad for 5 months of work by a half-dozen college kids still learning the tricks of the trade. I'd suggest, though, that next time you think to yourself, "I have 5 months to make a game with some of my friends; what type of game should it be?"... the answer is not, "a 3D, story-driven action-adventure game with zero replay value." You just won't be able to produce enough content in 5 months to make it worthwhile.
Rallies that are big enough to significantly bias voting outcomes are probably going to be hard to keep secret.
Right now, they don't have to keep it secret. Witness $RELIGIOUS_DENOMINATION saying, "If you vote for $CANDIDATE, you are a bad $RELIGION_MEMBER" or something like that. Sure, it's not the same as requiring people show a receipt, but it's still a desperate attempt to influence the vote. If they had more power, they would have no qualms in using it.
And it wouldn't be "Everybody bring your tickets to National $RELIGIOUS_DENOMINATION-fest '04 or suffer!" anyway. It probably wouldn't receive any media attention. It would happen in homes, in churches, or at the office. I can just picture some stereotypical Jewish mother sending her grown son on a guilt trip for not voting one way or another. Hey, wasn't that an episode of Seinfeld?
The public seem to get worked up over less important issues and totally unaware or apathetic over the important ones.
Too true. I suspect it's a combination of three factors: (1) not everybody agrees on what's important or not important, (2) not everyone thinks it's worth their time to keep up on events, and (3) the important problems are often the hardest to solve, so people go for the things (they think) they know how to fix.
It's the same reason "fad" diets are popular: why bother spending time and effort thinking about your personal habits (and maybe even coming to the conclusion that you could be wrong!) when you could just take a pill and all your troubles will melt away faster than a triple-scoop ice cream cone (with sprinkles) on a mid-August afternoon.
(P.S. The answer is: one works reliably and the other is a scam. But people would rather believe in the quick fix)
In Illinois (where I live), getting a State ID, a card separate from your driver's license, costs $20 (although it was $4 as recently as 2 years ago!). To get one, you have to bring in your birth certificate, social security info, and maybe even proof of current address (e.g. a utility bill or piece of postage addressed to you at a specific address).
While $20 isn't much for most people (considering it's not a frequent expense), it could easily be too much for a homeless person to afford.
In addition to the $20, they'd have to pay the fees to order a copy of their birth certificate, unless they still had it for some reason. Not to mention the trouble of getting proof of of current address when you have no home (I don't know if a homeless shelter would qualify).
Heck, you could probably buy a week's worth of groceries for yourself with that kind of money, plus there's the time spent filling out forms, etc.
Do you think the average homeless person would trade a week's worth of food for the right to vote? Considering the increasing sentiment that individual votes don't matter, and the likelihood that a homeless person has bigger problems to worry about, I'd say no.
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I don't think we're already rid of him. And even if he's gone, there're still thousands more, eager to replace him. Each of them equally clueless.
... yet), but more of a "social" precedent. Imagine ten years from now, when some nutjob goes around saying that Virtual Reality Theft Auto: Spring Break Cancun! for the Microsony OmicronBox 2520 is turning 'innocent' adolescents into ruthless 'killers' and sexually-aware 'perverts', we can just pat him on the back and say, "You're a regular Jack Thompson, aren't you, pal?" and destroy all his credibility with one fell stroke.
Thankfully, if Thompson is gone, the fact that he tried but failed with his insane tactics sets a sort of precedent for the next time some bozo finds a soapbox and tries to convince the world that he has a point.
When I say precedent, I don't mean legal precedent (there hasn't been any sort of judicial ruling declaring that Thomson is totally fscking loco
Don't get me wrong, though: I only support destroying the careers of irrational, fear-mongering screwballs. If someone comes up with an intelligent argument (with evidence indicating causation) that video games have significant detrimental effects on a person's physical or mental health, I would be willing to listen to that person.
But may your God save the next person who says, "I don't play or understand video games, but I fear them and don't like them, which means they are evil and destroying society!" (Hint: knowing nothing about a subject does not qualify you to make 'expert' judgements on that subject. In fact, there are certain schools of thought which believe that ignorance about something means you should just shut up about it already, sheesh!)
Besides which, Jack Thompson is such a disturbed crackpot that surely he must not be getting any clients these days!*
:( Unfortunately there seems to be quite a market these days for raving lunatics with a "omfg save teh childz0rz" message, so I can only say this: if Jack Thompson *is* getting clients, the fact is sick and wrong.
*I wish this were necessarily true.
P.S. Jack Thompson reminds me of Dr. Hobo from VGCats. I guess there's once difference, though. Dr. Hobo is an insane, violent, paranoid man who thinks he's a doctor; Jack Thompson, on the other hand, thinks he's a lawyer.
The crusades were politically motivated, instigated by a corrupt church, not based on anything taught in the Bible.... Psychopaths are psychopaths and can gain motivation from nearly anywhere, so that doesn't support your point either.
I very much agree!
There is absolutely no proof that anyone ever killed someone because "The Bible told me to" or "God told me to" or "Dear Abby told me to." The Bible is just an easy scapegoat to shift the blame away from underlying social problems.
Video games, on the other hand, are a very real and immediate danger and must all be thrown in a pile and burned before they corrupt our nation's young people!!
Signed,
- Samuel T. F. Uppington,
Interdicting Demagogues and Insane Overlords for a Totalitarian State
I apologize for wasting your time and my own with my last reply. It should have been obvious to me from reading your first post that you were not interested in rational debate or the pursuit of truth, but only in dragging other people down to your level. In the future, on the small chance that I should choose to reply to one of your posts, I will try to speak a language you are more comfortable with, namely childish insults and accusatory non sequiturs.
Good day to you, sir.
You weren't kidding, your example is extreme. Downright ludicrous, in fact.
If 1 million people played a game for 10 to 20 hours before reselling it, even ignoring the time it takes to find the next customer, it would take 10 to 20 million hours (or 1140 to 2280 years) for all of them to play it.
If our game is on a standard compact disc, the original disc will long since have degraded (even if all 1 million customers were very careful, and got no scratches, and didn't accidently break it).
Even if we assume, for the sake of argument, that the CD is periodically copied to a new CD, so that it remains readable, it is highly unlikely that we will be using CDs even 10 years from now, let alone 1000.
Even if the original console and a television set to play it on, and an electric generator and circuit to power the console and television were all preserved and sold along with the CD (and I hope you won't try to claim that consoles, televisions, generators, and wires do not deprecate), do you think anyone in the year 3505 A.D. would give a rat's ass about a game from 2005? I don't even care about games from 1995!
I find your example to be preposterous, and will propose one slightly more consistent with reality:
A game developer spends 160,000 man-hours to make a game. They sell rights to the game to a publisher for, say, $7 million (this comes out to an average of $43.75 per man-hour for the game developer; the president of the company will of course be paid more than an intern will, because this is a capitalist economy). The publisher makes 250,000 units, at $5 per unit (including disc, box and manual). These units are sold to retail outlets across the U.S. for $40 per unit (a profit of $8.75 million for the sale, and a net profit of $1.75 million for the publisher). The retail outlets sell each unit for $50 per unit, a profit of $2.5 million for the retailer.
80% of the units, or 200,000 units, end up stuffed in the closet or thrown out after the first owner gets done with it. A few months later, the remaining 50,000 units have been sold to a used games retailer at $10 per unit (a loss of $30 for the first customer, or a cost of $2-3 per hour of fun he had). The used games retailer sells it again for $25 (the manuals are all ratty and the disc has some small scratches on it by now), making $15 per unit in the process.
A few months later, 10,000 units have been sold back to the used games retailer at $5 a pop, and sold to a third customer for $20 (the used games retailer has now made $30 per game over a period of 4-6 months). A few months later, 2,000 units are sold back for $3 a piece; 1,500 of them sit on the shelf for 4 months before being thrown out, because the sequel has come out and no one wants to buy them anymore.
(By the way, the sequel makes another $50 per man-hour for the game developer, a net profit of $3 million for the publisher, etc. etc. before the third game in the series comes out 2 years later, repeat ad nauseum.)
I'm sure my figures are a little bit off from the reality, but certainly more accurate than your example.
Your example of lemonade is absolutly useless and does not apply.
Well, you seem to be the expert on absolutely useless examples, so I'll have to take your word for it. For some reason, I thought that a can of lemonade powder (which costs $2 and lasts 3 days of normal use before it is empty, or $0.67 per day of use), could be compared to an automobile (which costs perhaps $15,000 and lasts 10 years of normal use, or $4 per day of use). For some reason, the idea got into my head that selling a used car was similar to selling a half-empty can of lemonade powder.
Thanks for setting me straight.
As for the obvious anti-communist stance I would like to see if you can find me an example of a non-Stalinistic Communism that has be attempted let alone one that failed. I can show you at least a few examples of successful socialized societies.
Are you
I hope you are being sarcastic. If not (or for the benefit of those who thought you were being sincere) . . .
Why should autoworkers (or the auto company) be paid for doing no work?
They worked to build the new car. They are paid for their work on the new car. The new car is sold so the company can pay the workers for building the new car.
With a used car, the used car salesman paid to buy the used car from the first customer. He paid for the land on which he stores the used car until a second customer can be found. He (if he is an honest used car salesman, and not a crook) worked to inspect the car and make sure it is in acceptable condition, or paid somebody else to perform that work. If there is a second customer, the salesman is paid to compensate for his work and investment.
Exactly what work did the autoworkers (or the auto company) perform in the process of buying, storing, inspecting, and selling a used car? They have already been paid for their work building the car when it was new.
Do you think the lemonade-powder company should make a percentage of every sale from every child's street-side lemonade stand? Of course not — the lemonade-powder company has already been paid for the work they did in providing the lemonade powder. They have no right to dictate, or make a profit from, any further work done by other individuals or companies.
What you are proposing, when you suggest that autoworkers be compensated for performing no work, is Communism. And, if you haven't heard the news, Communism will never be viable, because it rewards the lazy and punishes the productive.
If any of you are confused, and think that it is moral to give money to people who have not done any work to earn that money, I suggest you read some of the works of Ayn Rand. Atlas Shrugged , in particular, shows what would happen if we lived by your creed. And I'll give you a hint: it isn't pretty.
I think that it became most clear to me that filmmakers "understood" video games during the scene introducing Mike Teevee in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. If I caught it right, Mike was playing a modern 3D first-person shooter that looked like Doom 3; and he was playing this on something that looked like an Atari 2600.
For a minute, I thought you were talking about the 1971 Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, and I was a bit confused. IIRC, in that one, Mike Teevee was playing a "modern" shooter, too: he'd watch TV Westerns all day and shoot at the villains with his toy guns when they came on-screen (to little effect, of course).
The game has changed since the '70s, but the Hollywood portrayal has stayed the same: an obsessed, semi-neurotic kid with a short attention span and no social skills. He would even eat meals in front of the TV! What a degenerate! . . .
The system as shipped in the box ... will have one button .... That's more than enough for any game I can think of.
<shot style="cheap">Especially ports of Mac games. *snicker*</shot>
Actually, it looks like it also has an "a" (not to be confused with "A") and "b" buttons down on the bottom. They'd be hard to reach using one hand, but you could turn the lil' bugger sideways and voila! instant NES controller.
(Cue Legend of Zelda "Found a new item" song — Doo do dee doooo!)
Linux, in its current state, is absolutely _not_ the place for gaming. Mainly this is because of hardware support - it's not there yet.
It would seem a bit of a Catch-22, wouldn't it?
If we had better hardware support, we'd get better game support, because there would be a bigger market for high-end Linux games.
If we had better game support, we'd get better hardware support, because there would be a bigger market for Linux drivers.
Fortunately, there are other ways to get better game support. We're already seeing some: cross-platform libraries like OpenGL and SDL, support from a few big-name developers (UT2k3&4, NWN), and support from a handful of indie developers (Gish, Darwinia, etc.).
With a few "revolutionaries" to break into the Linux game market and prove that it exists, plus easy cross-platform tools, it's inevitable that we'll see increasing game support, and with it increasing hardware support.
There are also other ways to get hardware support: companies switching to Linux internally will need better hardware support, and will have the cash motive to make it happen. Even if the drivers aren't made open-source at first, the hardware companies will know that there is a demand for Linux drivers for their hardware.
With a few "revolutionaries" to stretch the Linux hardware market into the corporate sector, plus the momentum already behind general-use Linux adoption, it's inevitable that we'll see increasing hardware support, and with it increasing game support.
It's a two-front battle, and Linux is making headway on both.
Actually, to play Gamecube games on the Revolution, you just plug in a Gamecube controller—the Revolution comes with 4 Gamecube peripheral sockets, as well as 2 memory card slots, so you'd use the same Gamecube controllers and memory cards you do now.
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I'll agree with the grandparent that the Z button and D-pad are probably history (the Z button being a relic from N64 days, and the D-pad being from NES days). A trackball-like device would be nice, but prone to getting gunked up. On the plus side, you'd hear more of this during Smash Bros. parties: "Hey guys, I gotta pause and clean my balls. They're all greasy and covered in gunk from everybody playing with them without washing their hands."
I can only pray that Nintendo will lean more towards the Gamecube controller's design than their more recent attempts—the DS feels like it was created for design ideals and straight, geometric forms, rather than to fit in your hand(s) and be used. I think the folding design of the DS and GBA SP was a mistake in that they limit controller options: no joysticks of course (they stick up too much), and even the flat buttons have to be put in recessed areas so the top can fold over flatly.
(And what were they thinking with the four buttons on the right side of the DS? Probably something like, "Since the DS has a touchscreen, no one will use the buttons anyway, so who gives a flying fsck what they look and feel like?")
What's even more crazy is that he discovered all this while doing the research for his book. So I guess he decided to write the book first and then find out if Desktop Linux could actually work later. Curious.
Or maybe he said to himself, "I wonder if Linux is ready for the desktop yet. If it is, I could write a book about it!" and then did some research to test his hypothesis, and wrote a book based on his results?
I think they have a name for this sort of process... it rhymes with the Shmientific Shmethod.
I can understand your confusion, though. It's not used very often these days, especially in schools in a certain midwestern state.
1) The "cool kids" may be developing for Sony, but the brilliant, innovative, fun kids are developing for Nintendo.
And by "brilliant, innovative, fun kids," I mean Nintendo. Hmmmm...
2) Yellow or green? Ewww. Try gold! Or black with an illuminated Triforce on the side! Yeah! And mini ninja monkey wizards from Japan right in the box! I'd buy it.
3) Release it against the Revolution? Anyone with EITHER a Gamecube OR a Revolution would buy the new Zelda, so it wouldn't really be going against anything. They'd get the early-adopters market with their Revolutions, as well as the "I'll just wait and see how this pans out" market with their old and busted Gamecubes.
4) I doubt that they would have to remake all, or even much, of the artwork. It already looks hella nice, and besides, Nintendo isn't playing the poly-pushing game any more. Maybe you won't see stuff like a hundred sweat droplets with specular highlights and reflections and ray-traced shadows go flying everywhere when a player gets tackled in Madden Rehash 2006, but... do you really want to see that anyway? The sweat droplets OR Madden 2006, I mean.
And since we have no idea what the Revolution's controller will look/feel like, it's impossible to say how difficult the transition would be -- the fact that Nintendo's making both the console and Zelda means that (if they were indeed going to port) they'd have a head start on figuring it out.
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And you forgot scenario #5:
5) They could just release it 2nd quarter next year with the normal fanfare, and everybody will still buy it because it's the new Zelda game. After the Revolution comes out, more people will buy the game because it plays on that console too. Then they can put it on Player's Choice by Christmas and everybody who hadn't bought it already would do so. Cha-ching, baby. Cha-frickin'-ching.
Try this one: hold down B to brighten the palette. The blacks stay black, but the road lines, sky, and steering wheel highlights get brighter (and easier to see).
:)
If you hold it down for a while, it'll get to a stark black and white—very artsy
How can you assert that the government is established to DEFEND our rights when the rights themselves are, simply and exclusively, our DEFENSE against the government itself?
...just...wow!
You are mistakenly thinking of "the government" as one entity, protecting the population from itself.
Rather, it's one government (the "good guys") trying to protect the population from a more oppressive government (the "bad guys") which may arise in the future. In other words, our Founding Fathers said, "Hey guys, if someone comes and tries to impose a monarchy on you, you have our permission to kick their ass."
To help you understand this concept, I direct you to this bash.org quote (potentially offensive language use).
Pretty much says it all...you really couldn't be more wrong. That's a relief...
Phew, close one. Good thing your point-of-view has been confirmed as the correct one by a couple short snippets from Wikipedia, or you might have had to start questioning your assumptions.
Logically falicies aside, wow!
Yes, wow! Without logical fallacies, your own argument crumbles to pieces. An impressive act of auto-fallacio, i.e. the use of logical fallacies for self-gratification.
The market cannot support 3 consoles, plain and simple. Most people will have one of the three.... almost nobody will have all three.... the costs of developing for all three are prohibitive
Good news, then: Microsoft is stuck in the hardware arms race, and Sony doesn't care about games anymore anyway. So that just leaves one brand to buy if you like to have fun.
Nintendo will probably be the next casualty (it happened to Atari when Sega challenged Nintendo, and it happened to Sega when MS challenged Sony and Nintendo.)
Last I checked, Sega was alive and kicking, producing software for Nintendo's consoles. And Atari was in its last throes long before Sega challenged Nintendo.
They've pretty much bowed out of the hardware arms race with the Nintendo Revolution, a low-powered hardware design compared to the PS3 and XB360.
True. Irrelevant, but technically true. I'd say Nintendo is trying to fork off a new market: games that are actually fun. What a concept!
I will say this for the hardware race: bump-maps and specular highlights really bring out the beautiful, moist, glistening texture of the steaming piles of dog poop they're putting out these days.
Too bad they don't have the developer support anymore to make it work.
I'd say most developers (or maybe it's the publishers, who control the developers) have an acute case of head-up-bum-itis about what a game should be. So if they want to make crap, let them make it for the other consoles. Here's an idea: they could make games that aren't fun, for the PS3, which isn't a game console!
Besides, Nintendo's first party games, as a rule, just play better, and probably sell better, than most third party games. I think they could carry the Revolution on the backs of Mario, Zelda, etc.—not to mention the new Wi-fi enabled Smash Bros, which is simply a must-have—long enough for skeptical third-party developers to get their acts together and realize that fun sells.
If you're in a true zero-g environment, how do you drop anything, let alone a cat?
:'(
Jeez, I already apologized a thousand times and paid the veterinarian's bill! I even brought a can of tuna for Mr. Whiskers while he was in his full-body cast.
Why do you have to keep bringing that embarrassing incident up?!
A PC can do whatever you make it do, not just what Sony and Microsoft thinks you should do with it.
Dear PC user,
Thank you for writing. We at Microsoft are aware of this issue, and you will be relieved to know that we have partnered with several major computing companies to ensure that in the future, your PC will not do what you want it to do.
Thank you for your concern.
Signed,
Microsoft Palladium team
Shhhh! Stop debunking their FUD! You're ruining it for everyone!
I thought the headline said "Are Older Gamers More Satisfying?", and I was thinking the same thing as you.
Err.. except the part about having more experience.
Humans are still humans. The species hasn't seen any evolution in 20 years. There's barely time for a new generation in there, so no time for natural selection or anything. And being a l33t gamer wasn't a natural selection factor to start with.
So basically what was difficult to a new player back then, will still be difficult to a new player today.
Right, if we were talking about not having enough fingers on each hand to use the controller. But evolution isn't the only (or even major) factor at play here. Much more important is the fact that human beings learn from/about their environment.
What I mean is this: back in the 80s, video games were a new phenomenon. If you showed one to somebody who had never played one before (and these people were much more common then), they would have a hard time understanding what's going on, especially if the person was older than, say, 30 at the time.
Nowadays, though, the "social consciousness" is much more aware of video games. Most people in first-world countries have probably seen a video game before. Even if they haven't, they might have used a computer before, typing up a TPS report cover sheet or buying something off Ebay. Some of the skills involved in using a computer for boring stuff translate easily to using a computer (or console) for playing a game.
A big part of the challenge for new players is learning to use the controller. If you have to look down every time to see which button is A and which is B, you'll have a hard time jumping over that Bullet Bill coming straight at you. (OMG look out!)
I guess my point is this: the new players today aren't as "new" as the new players 20 years ago. Knowing that video games exist, seeing somebody else play one... it all gets stored up in the ol' gray matter, and once you actually play a game, having seen it before makes it easier to understand what's going on.
I won't say it's a huge advantage, but it helps. And it's no excuse for making all games harder and harder to get into.
Now, if you went back in time, kidnapped a newborn infant, brought it Back to the Future, and had it play Quake Deathmatch against a newborn infant today... well, it's anyone's guess who would win. Probably the one who spawns closer to the Quad Damage.
I'll point out that the only scenarios which result in code with no signs of programmer doubt are either unreasonable to expect (1), or just plain contemptible (5, 6).
That said, if you're a high-level officer in a large public company, and something goes wrong with your IT infrastructure, and your shareholders ask you whether you knew that the code had problems... well, you might be able to secure a healthy stipend if you can say, "Well nobody told me that there might be problems!" as they kick your sorry ass out the door.
I'll unfortunately have to agree with you on lack of challenge or entertainment -- you won't find a lot even if you do manage to play through it.
Spoiler: the whole game involves lifting stuff up and throwing it at your enemies. At least HL2 had some shooting and driving to break it up.
Physics-based gameplay is one thing, but if that's what they were going for, I don't know what they did a very good job. The boulders bounced like they were made of styrofoam, and all the levels have invisible barriers to stop you from going anywhere except where you're supposed to.
Plus, the AI on the 'orc' creatures (one of two types of enemies you will face) was such that they literally spent 5-10 seconds standing in one place and growling at me -- long enough for me to levitate and throw a couple boulders at them, which was enough to kill them every time. The AI on the other creature (some sort of fairy) caused them to stand still and not attack unless I moved side-to-side.
The challenge is practically non-existent. The only time I died was when I hurled a half-dozen boulders at my own head in a fit of boredom. (It worked.)
And I can't give any points for the main character. The only thing she had for "character development" was Lara Croft-style über-breasts and a corset -- and even with that, you can't make the camera swivel around to view her from the front to properly "enjoy" it. Hmmm... large breasts... skimpy, cliche goth outfit... I'll submit this as evidence that this game was created by horny college geeks! They know* what women should be like: huge breasts, no clothes, no personality, no back-talk! Just sit back and hold still, baby; no need to get yourself excited.
(* By "know" I meant to say "don't have any idea")
Fake styrofoam rocks... giant mushrooms... buxom chick with no personality... Maybe the game isn't actually about being a sorceress with telekinetic powers, but about being on the set of a crappy B movie?
Now to save my post from a Flamebait rating, I'll offer this piece of insight: it's not too bad for 5 months of work by a half-dozen college kids still learning the tricks of the trade. I'd suggest, though, that next time you think to yourself, "I have 5 months to make a game with some of my friends; what type of game should it be?"... the answer is not, "a 3D, story-driven action-adventure game with zero replay value." You just won't be able to produce enough content in 5 months to make it worthwhile.
Rallies that are big enough to significantly bias voting outcomes are probably going to be hard to keep secret.
Right now, they don't have to keep it secret. Witness $RELIGIOUS_DENOMINATION saying, "If you vote for $CANDIDATE, you are a bad $RELIGION_MEMBER" or something like that. Sure, it's not the same as requiring people show a receipt, but it's still a desperate attempt to influence the vote. If they had more power, they would have no qualms in using it.
And it wouldn't be "Everybody bring your tickets to National $RELIGIOUS_DENOMINATION-fest '04 or suffer!" anyway. It probably wouldn't receive any media attention. It would happen in homes, in churches, or at the office. I can just picture some stereotypical Jewish mother sending her grown son on a guilt trip for not voting one way or another. Hey, wasn't that an episode of Seinfeld?
The public seem to get worked up over less important issues and totally unaware or apathetic over the important ones.
Too true. I suspect it's a combination of three factors: (1) not everybody agrees on what's important or not important, (2) not everyone thinks it's worth their time to keep up on events, and (3) the important problems are often the hardest to solve, so people go for the things (they think) they know how to fix.
It's the same reason "fad" diets are popular: why bother spending time and effort thinking about your personal habits (and maybe even coming to the conclusion that you could be wrong!) when you could just take a pill and all your troubles will melt away faster than a triple-scoop ice cream cone (with sprinkles) on a mid-August afternoon.
(P.S. The answer is: one works reliably and the other is a scam. But people would rather believe in the quick fix)
In Illinois (where I live), getting a State ID, a card separate from your driver's license, costs $20 (although it was $4 as recently as 2 years ago!). To get one, you have to bring in your birth certificate, social security info, and maybe even proof of current address (e.g. a utility bill or piece of postage addressed to you at a specific address).
While $20 isn't much for most people (considering it's not a frequent expense), it could easily be too much for a homeless person to afford.
In addition to the $20, they'd have to pay the fees to order a copy of their birth certificate, unless they still had it for some reason. Not to mention the trouble of getting proof of of current address when you have no home (I don't know if a homeless shelter would qualify).
Heck, you could probably buy a week's worth of groceries for yourself with that kind of money, plus there's the time spent filling out forms, etc.
Do you think the average homeless person would trade a week's worth of food for the right to vote? Considering the increasing sentiment that individual votes don't matter, and the likelihood that a homeless person has bigger problems to worry about, I'd say no.
Pros: