My internet connection is pretty steller - 6MB with low latency. My issue with the videos is that they're videos! I did appreciate being informed of new features, but I considered myself pretty thoroughly informed the 4th and 5th times I'd seen the videos. Regardless of the speed of my computer and internet connection I just don't appreciate being bombarded with unskippable videos. I admit that I was extra sensitive about these videos because I'd purchased a non-GameTap subscription to the Sam and Max episodic games, and GameTap got them before subscribers, so I would literally walk away from my computer to avoid the spoilers in the videos.
My biggest problem with finding the list of games I'd downloaded was that it was difficult to locate the first time. After that it wasn't so terrible, but the layout was completely different from all the flying, swirling circles in the rest of the interface. Honestly, I wish the entire GameTap interface was like that recently played list - an ordinary Windows app, not some custom-made horror of a UI.
There is NO excuse for taking so long to authenticate me when I'm playing a game for the 10th time. When I tried the service they hadn't yet started free services so my account should have been the only type available. When you subscribe you have carte blanche access to everything, so why must you authenticate for 10, 20, even 60 seconds every single time? To play a 100KB, 20-year-old arcade ROM??? And of course, while you're waiting you're treated to a video advertisement!
I'm more surprised than anyone that I disliked GameTap because I am just about the biggest video game nut there can be. I love their selection and I really love how many old games there were, and the fact that they can be launched without additional configuration. I was very impressed that most GameTap games worked on my Vista Beta install as well.
In the end the hassles of the menu system were just too much for me. I found few games I wanted to play that I didn't already own, many old games required printed copy protection because they client wouldn't let me alt-tab (the only other option was to play in a window and this couldn't be toggled in-game), and for the life of me I couldn't get Uru multiplayer to work at all. I'm not even interested in their free services because I hate the UI so much. Perhaps I'm in the minority on this but it's something I feel very strongly about.
I don't know whether it's available but a few months ago I tried a $1 one-month GamTap trial.
My experience wasn't very good. There's a pretty decent collection of games (95% are old and lame, 2% are kids games, 3% were somewhat good). I had some bad experiences with older games with copy protection. For instance, you have to print some enormous blue prints (that came in the original box) to answer copy protection questions before you can play. Couldn't they have taken out the copy protection? Game crackers figured out how to do that 15 years ago.
The interface is just awful but it works with a gamepad so that's a plus for some people, I guess. Every time you click a menu you're bombarded with an unrelated video that can't be stopped. This really slows down navigation and you keep seeing the same videos over and over. There aren't enough categories and you have to scroll past each title with a boxshot so finding the specific game you want is slow and annoying.
The worst aspect of all is the delays you have to endure when you want to play a game. It took me forever to find the "My Games" list initially. You pick the desired game from the list which brings up its index card. You click a button to bring up the play menu, and you have to wait and wait and wait for the PLAY button to become clickable while you watch some inane video advertising some GameTap feature you've already paid for. If you accidentally click the wrong button you have to go back and wait all over again for the PLAY button. This was the dealbreaker for me.
So close yet so far. I'd try GameTap again in a year because it's so promising, but the interface is just too annoying.
I'm not entirely sure what your conclusion is here. Are you arguing that if less people traded your brother's music then more people would attend his concerts?
I can only speak from personal experience but I can relay one story where an artist gives her music away for free and it was so good that I bought the same music from her on CD. I had the pleasure of exchanging emails with the artist, she shipped her album to me promptly within a week for a paltry $10,and she signed the album for me!
I agree with you 100% Just because a guy can thunk 2 spoons together doesn't mean he's entitled to room and board. Music is a hobby, not a career. That's why I've always given away all the music I've written for free.
Just a heads up - one time our cable connection got "noisy" as well. This ended up being due to some road construction work that was done right near our house. Rogers had to dig a huge deep hole in our front yard to fix it. It only took about 3 days, they didn't charge us anything, and they replaced the grass. Still it was a real nuisance and eyesore.
There's probably something with the cables on your street or in your house/apartment. I had the same problem when I lived with my parents. Just ask them to come check out the lines. They should be able to fix it for free and give you a refund on as many months as you complain about.
... the file sharing crowd will download it, watch it with a few beers, nod in constant agreement, curse the Man, and then raise a beer in a toast to the coolness of the producers. Perhaps a few will even contribute to the tip jar. But the jar won't fill up...
That's precisely the story of the teams who made the Half Life mods CounterStrike and Portal. They were noticed by Valve Software and hired. Even if they weren't they'd have a heck of a portfolio for their next job interview.
Next time I download an OS via BT, I'll think of you... I'm really sorry, man.
Don't feel that sorry. It's not true. I'm on Rogers and I use Azureus with encryption. I get 300KB/s torrent downloads just fine. They recently bumped up speeds for free from 4Mb to 6Mb so I'm sure the potential Bittorrent speeds are much faster than I get. I'm just at the mercy of whoever's uploading.
I think Steam is about the best case scenario we could hope to expect. Yes they keep track of what you're playing and for how long, but they use this information to benefit game design as well. Check out the fascinating Half Life 2: Episode One statistics for an idea of how Valve makes the most of this technology to observe players' in-game behaviour to assist in designing future products.
Another thing I love about Steam is the generosity of distribution model. You can download any paid-for product as many times as you wish, no matter how huge it is. You can also compact installation data to CD or DVD-sized archives for your own storage if you don't want to wait to download it. You can have your registered copy installed on multiple computers simultaneously and can play on any of them one at a time. If you own 12 Steam games you can install all the games on 12 computers and have 12 people each log in as you and let them each play a different game. All this without wearing out your media or drives (and yes, there is an emergency offline mode that lets you play while your network is down).
The biggest flaw, of course, is that the EULA refers to you as the "Subscriber", not the "Owner". I seriously hope that my money won't go to waste if Steam folds. When 3D Realms' Triton, a similar distribution system, went under, they untethered purchased games so that they became fully owned by the purchasers.
I'm sorry you didn't like the new ribbon. It's certainly not for everyone. Me, I was lost the first time I used it, and the second time I was already teaching others. I think it's one of the best UIs out there - especially considering how featureful Word is. My biggest complaint with Office '07 is that not all the apps use the ribbon! Well, that and the price of the suite. That's why I'm such a big supporter of supplementary and competing free tools. The better the competition gets, the harder MS has to work to keep up. I sincerely hope Google puts their biggest and brightest on the Docs team.
Sorry to see you modded down as a troll. It's undeserved. You're absolutely right that goose != gander. If Google Docs can do a better job of rendering to page I can see that suite becoming dominant in homes. Of course MS Works (an oxymoron if I've ever seen one) will soon become a free, ad-based suite so the battle for free office suites should be hot and heavy!
Are you suggesting that people who have a medical condition they are ashamed of should not go to the movies? Why are your personal belongings anyone else's business?
So while others are downloading movies, I get to pay for it.
This is the real problem in my mind. Theatres punish legitimate ticketholders by bombarding them with ads, previews, and anti-piracy rhetoric. They literally hold the movie hostage for up to 30 minutes to milk their captive audience. Now they're searching people's personal belongings! All this in addition to the price of the ticket. DVD owners (not renters but OWNERS!!) can look forward to unskippable copyright messages, corporate logos, and even advertisements.
The problem is negative reciprocity and the movie industry is crying because they're reaping what they've sown. Why should I pay money for a broken product or sullied experience when it is the movie pirates who simply deliver what the consumer bought? Because of this negative reciprocity the movie industry encourages people to find a less painful means of obtaining the same product.
I used to go to the theatre at least once per month. Now it's once per year. Movie theatres have done everything in their power to repel me and they've succeeded. Last year I let 2 free tickets expire because there are a million things I'd rather do than go to the movies.
The solution to this is POSITIVE reciprocity. Free small popcorn with ticket purchase. No ads, no warnings, no threats, no more than 5 minutes of pre-movie "entertainment" before the feature. Free DVD of the first movie when you see the sequel in the theatre. Halve ticket prices. Outside food welcomed. Give the ticketholder something a pirated copy can't. Welcome me to your theatre and I'll see a movie every week.
What right does some teenage usher have to examine your personal belongings? Even a cop isn't allowed to search you without probable cause. Why should a movie usher have higher authority than the police?
Anti-piracy is BS because pirates are not troubled by it and the legitimately paying moviegoing public suffers twice. First they pay for a ticket, then they sit through commercials, then movie previews, and then anti-piracy messages. Pirated editions simply show the movie and nothing more. If you pay to watch a movie in a theatre you are guaranteed an inferior experience to piracy.
For me, and I am certainly no authority on the subject, for something to be art it must be something man-made that causes me to stop and appreciate it, forces me to evaluate it, and makes me consider a topic from a new perspective. This evaluation is interactive. Art cannot be consumed without initiative from the consumer.
I find video games doubly artistic because the player is challenged to evaluate the universe as himself and simultaneously as his avatar. This becomes even more complex when a game is presented in the first person perspective, as the player must work even harder to validate this duality.
Another interesting aspect to consider is the fact that video games are usually spawned from the ideas of a lead designer and actualised by many teams working under him over many months. This is similar to movies, but whereas movies strive to present the universe from a limited perspective (e.g., cardboard cutouts from the front) games must allow for exploration. The lead designer's vision must be much clearer and "realer" to be brought to fruition; so much so that, in my opinion, media like movies and paintings are flat in comparison.
I'm all over the map here, I know. This is a tricky subject I suppose, but then again it isn't. In the end, who's got the right to tell me what is or isn't art? Isn't that up to me? In truth, video games are so important to me that it's a sort of religion. The concept of a man-made reality is pretty astounding and makes me wonder what's so special about this world if man can create his own.
What all these media have in common is that they are man-made using limited tools and all convey a scene or story or mood or all three. If an end table can be art, why not Katamari Damacy?
Art is something that draws you into its alternate universe to make you look at an issue or scene differently than you might otherwise. It is the man-made representation of the real world filtered through the artist's omniscient. Anything can be art if you permit yourself to perceive it as such.
In my opinion Ebert is A, an old man, and B, afraid. He is afraid of interactivity and doesn't trust the people he writes for - the passive consumers of one-way art - to be capable enough to play along when given the chance. Newsflash, Ebert: art is what YOU make of it, not what the artist makes.
Indeed, it'd be nice if Microsoft granted the school permission to run one internet-enabled virtual Office session per student and teacher. That was students could do their homework in a web browser a-la Google Docs instead of having to foot the bill for software they'll likely never use outside of school.
If anyone is going to use more advanced functions of Word it's high school students. They write reports, give presentations, compose photo collages, make handouts, and other creative work. You can do a lot of that with Wordpad, I guess, but would you want to? Would that prepare students for the realities of the working world?
That being said, I don't know if I agree with advising students to purchase specific software when there are alternatives. Students should be free to use whatever software they wish as long as the end product is suitable to be graded by overworked teachers with no time to learn new applications.
There's a free tool that allows you to open docx and other Office 2007 formats in earlier versions of Office. I'm not sure but I think it downloads automatically via Office/Microsoft Update.
Yes, it's all a big scam and everything you can do in Office can be done by finding three dozen free tools and using them in tandem. Of course those three dozen tools all have different interfaces, save in different formats, need intermediary programs like paint to make them marginally interoperable, and it takes twelve times as long to make something one quarter as attractive.
Either MS is lambasted for being monopolistic or they're taunted for not having enough features. Office 2007 is a great program that brings together a lot of great functionality and ties it together in one uniform, albeit new, interface. Have you used it? It only takes a moment to realize how it is superior OpenOffice, AbiWord, Google Docs, and every other free alternative.
Of course this is only an issue if you must have nicely formatted documents for a CMS or print. Otherwise a free tool is probably fine. But if you need a premium package for serious work there's no other product worth using.
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I like your analogy. This is a case of consumers outsourcing purchases instead of companies outsourcing employees.
You can still use those engine ports with the Steam version. Steam only protects the main executable, not the data WAD files.
My internet connection is pretty steller - 6MB with low latency. My issue with the videos is that they're videos! I did appreciate being informed of new features, but I considered myself pretty thoroughly informed the 4th and 5th times I'd seen the videos. Regardless of the speed of my computer and internet connection I just don't appreciate being bombarded with unskippable videos. I admit that I was extra sensitive about these videos because I'd purchased a non-GameTap subscription to the Sam and Max episodic games, and GameTap got them before subscribers, so I would literally walk away from my computer to avoid the spoilers in the videos.
My biggest problem with finding the list of games I'd downloaded was that it was difficult to locate the first time. After that it wasn't so terrible, but the layout was completely different from all the flying, swirling circles in the rest of the interface. Honestly, I wish the entire GameTap interface was like that recently played list - an ordinary Windows app, not some custom-made horror of a UI.
There is NO excuse for taking so long to authenticate me when I'm playing a game for the 10th time. When I tried the service they hadn't yet started free services so my account should have been the only type available. When you subscribe you have carte blanche access to everything, so why must you authenticate for 10, 20, even 60 seconds every single time? To play a 100KB, 20-year-old arcade ROM??? And of course, while you're waiting you're treated to a video advertisement!
I'm more surprised than anyone that I disliked GameTap because I am just about the biggest video game nut there can be. I love their selection and I really love how many old games there were, and the fact that they can be launched without additional configuration. I was very impressed that most GameTap games worked on my Vista Beta install as well.
In the end the hassles of the menu system were just too much for me. I found few games I wanted to play that I didn't already own, many old games required printed copy protection because they client wouldn't let me alt-tab (the only other option was to play in a window and this couldn't be toggled in-game), and for the life of me I couldn't get Uru multiplayer to work at all. I'm not even interested in their free services because I hate the UI so much. Perhaps I'm in the minority on this but it's something I feel very strongly about.
I don't know whether it's available but a few months ago I tried a $1 one-month GamTap trial.
My experience wasn't very good. There's a pretty decent collection of games (95% are old and lame, 2% are kids games, 3% were somewhat good). I had some bad experiences with older games with copy protection. For instance, you have to print some enormous blue prints (that came in the original box) to answer copy protection questions before you can play. Couldn't they have taken out the copy protection? Game crackers figured out how to do that 15 years ago.
The interface is just awful but it works with a gamepad so that's a plus for some people, I guess. Every time you click a menu you're bombarded with an unrelated video that can't be stopped. This really slows down navigation and you keep seeing the same videos over and over. There aren't enough categories and you have to scroll past each title with a boxshot so finding the specific game you want is slow and annoying.
The worst aspect of all is the delays you have to endure when you want to play a game. It took me forever to find the "My Games" list initially. You pick the desired game from the list which brings up its index card. You click a button to bring up the play menu, and you have to wait and wait and wait for the PLAY button to become clickable while you watch some inane video advertising some GameTap feature you've already paid for. If you accidentally click the wrong button you have to go back and wait all over again for the PLAY button. This was the dealbreaker for me.
So close yet so far. I'd try GameTap again in a year because it's so promising, but the interface is just too annoying.
I'm not entirely sure what your conclusion is here. Are you arguing that if less people traded your brother's music then more people would attend his concerts?
o -sap/
I can only speak from personal experience but I can relay one story where an artist gives her music away for free and it was so good that I bought the same music from her on CD. I had the pleasure of exchanging emails with the artist, she shipped her album to me promptly within a week for a paltry $10,and she signed the album for me!
I talk about this and how I give my own music compositions away for free in my blog, if you're interested. http://blog.demodulated.com/2007/06/20/amber-is-n
I agree with you 100% Just because a guy can thunk 2 spoons together doesn't mean he's entitled to room and board. Music is a hobby, not a career. That's why I've always given away all the music I've written for free.
Just a heads up - one time our cable connection got "noisy" as well. This ended up being due to some road construction work that was done right near our house. Rogers had to dig a huge deep hole in our front yard to fix it. It only took about 3 days, they didn't charge us anything, and they replaced the grass. Still it was a real nuisance and eyesore.
There's probably something with the cables on your street or in your house/apartment. I had the same problem when I lived with my parents. Just ask them to come check out the lines. They should be able to fix it for free and give you a refund on as many months as you complain about.
I think Steam is about the best case scenario we could hope to expect. Yes they keep track of what you're playing and for how long, but they use this information to benefit game design as well. Check out the fascinating Half Life 2: Episode One statistics for an idea of how Valve makes the most of this technology to observe players' in-game behaviour to assist in designing future products.
Another thing I love about Steam is the generosity of distribution model. You can download any paid-for product as many times as you wish, no matter how huge it is. You can also compact installation data to CD or DVD-sized archives for your own storage if you don't want to wait to download it. You can have your registered copy installed on multiple computers simultaneously and can play on any of them one at a time. If you own 12 Steam games you can install all the games on 12 computers and have 12 people each log in as you and let them each play a different game. All this without wearing out your media or drives (and yes, there is an emergency offline mode that lets you play while your network is down).
The biggest flaw, of course, is that the EULA refers to you as the "Subscriber", not the "Owner". I seriously hope that my money won't go to waste if Steam folds. When 3D Realms' Triton, a similar distribution system, went under, they untethered purchased games so that they became fully owned by the purchasers.
I'm sorry you didn't like the new ribbon. It's certainly not for everyone. Me, I was lost the first time I used it, and the second time I was already teaching others. I think it's one of the best UIs out there - especially considering how featureful Word is. My biggest complaint with Office '07 is that not all the apps use the ribbon! Well, that and the price of the suite. That's why I'm such a big supporter of supplementary and competing free tools. The better the competition gets, the harder MS has to work to keep up. I sincerely hope Google puts their biggest and brightest on the Docs team.
Sorry to see you modded down as a troll. It's undeserved. You're absolutely right that goose != gander. If Google Docs can do a better job of rendering to page I can see that suite becoming dominant in homes. Of course MS Works (an oxymoron if I've ever seen one) will soon become a free, ad-based suite so the battle for free office suites should be hot and heavy!
Are you suggesting that people who have a medical condition they are ashamed of should not go to the movies? Why are your personal belongings anyone else's business?
The problem is negative reciprocity and the movie industry is crying because they're reaping what they've sown. Why should I pay money for a broken product or sullied experience when it is the movie pirates who simply deliver what the consumer bought? Because of this negative reciprocity the movie industry encourages people to find a less painful means of obtaining the same product.
I used to go to the theatre at least once per month. Now it's once per year. Movie theatres have done everything in their power to repel me and they've succeeded. Last year I let 2 free tickets expire because there are a million things I'd rather do than go to the movies.
The solution to this is POSITIVE reciprocity. Free small popcorn with ticket purchase. No ads, no warnings, no threats, no more than 5 minutes of pre-movie "entertainment" before the feature. Free DVD of the first movie when you see the sequel in the theatre. Halve ticket prices. Outside food welcomed. Give the ticketholder something a pirated copy can't. Welcome me to your theatre and I'll see a movie every week.
What right does some teenage usher have to examine your personal belongings? Even a cop isn't allowed to search you without probable cause. Why should a movie usher have higher authority than the police?
Anti-piracy is BS because pirates are not troubled by it and the legitimately paying moviegoing public suffers twice. First they pay for a ticket, then they sit through commercials, then movie previews, and then anti-piracy messages. Pirated editions simply show the movie and nothing more. If you pay to watch a movie in a theatre you are guaranteed an inferior experience to piracy.
I'd say playing games is generally more analogous to dancing to music than playing it. Dance is certainly recognized as an art form.
If you're interested I wrote a short, informal essay related to this topic (and granting Katamari the crown jewel). Here's the URL - http://blog.demodulated.com/2006/09/15/we-live-kat amari/
I'd be interested to read your essay too if you've got it online.
Thanks for the thoughtful response!
For me, and I am certainly no authority on the subject, for something to be art it must be something man-made that causes me to stop and appreciate it, forces me to evaluate it, and makes me consider a topic from a new perspective. This evaluation is interactive. Art cannot be consumed without initiative from the consumer.
I find video games doubly artistic because the player is challenged to evaluate the universe as himself and simultaneously as his avatar. This becomes even more complex when a game is presented in the first person perspective, as the player must work even harder to validate this duality.
Another interesting aspect to consider is the fact that video games are usually spawned from the ideas of a lead designer and actualised by many teams working under him over many months. This is similar to movies, but whereas movies strive to present the universe from a limited perspective (e.g., cardboard cutouts from the front) games must allow for exploration. The lead designer's vision must be much clearer and "realer" to be brought to fruition; so much so that, in my opinion, media like movies and paintings are flat in comparison.
I'm all over the map here, I know. This is a tricky subject I suppose, but then again it isn't. In the end, who's got the right to tell me what is or isn't art? Isn't that up to me? In truth, video games are so important to me that it's a sort of religion. The concept of a man-made reality is pretty astounding and makes me wonder what's so special about this world if man can create his own.
What all these media have in common is that they are man-made using limited tools and all convey a scene or story or mood or all three. If an end table can be art, why not Katamari Damacy?
Art is something that draws you into its alternate universe to make you look at an issue or scene differently than you might otherwise. It is the man-made representation of the real world filtered through the artist's omniscient. Anything can be art if you permit yourself to perceive it as such.
In my opinion Ebert is A, an old man, and B, afraid. He is afraid of interactivity and doesn't trust the people he writes for - the passive consumers of one-way art - to be capable enough to play along when given the chance. Newsflash, Ebert: art is what YOU make of it, not what the artist makes.
Indeed, it'd be nice if Microsoft granted the school permission to run one internet-enabled virtual Office session per student and teacher. That was students could do their homework in a web browser a-la Google Docs instead of having to foot the bill for software they'll likely never use outside of school.
If anyone is going to use more advanced functions of Word it's high school students. They write reports, give presentations, compose photo collages, make handouts, and other creative work. You can do a lot of that with Wordpad, I guess, but would you want to? Would that prepare students for the realities of the working world?
That being said, I don't know if I agree with advising students to purchase specific software when there are alternatives. Students should be free to use whatever software they wish as long as the end product is suitable to be graded by overworked teachers with no time to learn new applications.
There's a free tool that allows you to open docx and other Office 2007 formats in earlier versions of Office. I'm not sure but I think it downloads automatically via Office/Microsoft Update.
Yes, it's all a big scam and everything you can do in Office can be done by finding three dozen free tools and using them in tandem. Of course those three dozen tools all have different interfaces, save in different formats, need intermediary programs like paint to make them marginally interoperable, and it takes twelve times as long to make something one quarter as attractive.
Either MS is lambasted for being monopolistic or they're taunted for not having enough features. Office 2007 is a great program that brings together a lot of great functionality and ties it together in one uniform, albeit new, interface. Have you used it? It only takes a moment to realize how it is superior OpenOffice, AbiWord, Google Docs, and every other free alternative.
Of course this is only an issue if you must have nicely formatted documents for a CMS or print. Otherwise a free tool is probably fine. But if you need a premium package for serious work there's no other product worth using.