The actual linked article is called "The dismal future of 'R'-rated fantasy and sci-fi movies", and Watchmen is barely mentioned at all. The Slashdot title makes it sound like there's a big discussion about Watchmen, but there's virtually nothing.
I don't care if they upgrade a single pixel. The point is they misrepresented the product they produced, and refused to refund my money when I called them out on it.
It seems to me that their catalog is DOS games with DOSBox, older Windows games with some compatability shim libraries (that they didn't write), and ScummVM games. Now, I would absolutely support them with their business if they acted in a reputable way. Making older games available legally would be a great business as long as they clearly spell out what's going on. In my case, I still had my own original Redneck Rampage discs. They provided zero value, less than zero since their version ran worse than mine, then blew me off as a customer since they figured they already hade my money.
So when they make the claim: "Thanks to our handsome programming team, the classics are now Windows Vista and Windows XP compatible.", that's clearly a lie. There's no programming (a point they mentioned in one of my emails to "customer service"), just editing the DOSBox config file.
If you don't already own a copy of a game, then by all means get it on GoG. If you already own a copy and want to be able to play it, you can save the money and just do what they do: get DOSBox, or ScummVM, or whatever open source stuff they use and just do it yourself.
Factor in their lack of customer service with their completely botched relaunch, and it all means a company that I'll keep clear of.
If slashdot hadn't wasted an article to mention it, I'd never have noticed. I dumped using Facebook after the last round of playing whack-a-mole with the ever shifting privacy settings.
Sorry, I can't agree with your statements. After the Redneck Rampage issue, I contacted their customer support, and got zero assistance. They mainly talked about how it was a good way to get a legal licensed copy, ignoring the fact that I already had a legal copy that ran better than the one they supplied, after all the supposed testing and certification. They stopped communicationg and I eventually had to have the charge on my card reversed. Not "honest", "open", "willing to communicate", or "hav[ing] integrity" in my book.
Can you cite another title where you can verify they did any actual coding/porting work?
I stopped using GoG pretty much right away based on their deceptive advertising practices (claiming to port games to modern OSs when all the did was wrap games in DOSBox.) This marketing stunt is just more of the same sort of manipulative deceitful stuff that kept me from being a customer. Whatever their launch plans and service are, I won't ever see it.
I was initially really excited by the service, and hoped it would fill the void from when GameTap dumped the good client and went with the atrocious web-based infrastructure. Unfortunately, GOG had a terible bait-and-switch policy that kept me from using them (after the first bad purchase). While they specifically claimed to be porting games to modern systems, all they did in many cases was bundle the games with DOSBox and call it a day (without mentioning this in the FAQ). At one point the site FAQ read:
"4. All games are Vista and XP compatible. Thanks to our handsome programming team, the classics are now Windows Vista and Windows XP compatible. Now you can use your lightning-fast PC to unleash the full potential of those games you just couldn’t play properly on that busted old 386."
Well, this simply wasn't true. I had my original copy of Redneck Rampage, but was never happy with it under DOSBox. So, I bought the GOG version, expecting to get a real port. I was surprised to see that not only was the GOG product was just a DOSBox wrapper over the original game, it was LESS functional than the version I had with my tweaked settings.
I'm not interested in the "spirit of the TV show". I loved the show because of what it represented, it someplace I wanted to be. The whole weekly episode thing was just an artifact of the medium, and with an MMO, you don't need structure it like a TV series.
Ugh. I've been in various flavors of multi-developer work areas, and they've all been unmitigated disasters. The only thing that works is to have private offices. They don't need to be big or have views, just walls that go to the ceiling and a door to close when you need to work without distractions. It's tough to imagine an environmnet worse than sitting at a big round table with 3 other devlopers. Obviously the person that suggested it has never actually tried to write code.
It's not "one codebase for 5 environments", it's "one codebase for the AIR app, and multiple codebases for AIR itself that had to be ported to 5 different environments." There's nothing even remotely special about that, just empty hype.
Studies have shown (see Peopleware) that music is actaully detrimental to the creative processes necessary for good programming. I found it to be true as well, so I switched to an environmental sound machine (sounds of nature tyoe things) when I need to drown out the surrounding chatter. It made a noticable improvement in the speed and quality of my work. So, in this case, the boss is right!
They cost $60 because that's what people are willing to pay. Supply and demand at work. However, I personally don't care what new games (and other forms of entertainment) cost. I refuse to pay more than $30, and that's only for items I really want to play. I usually won't even consider buying a game for more than $20. It's just not important to me to play a game on the first day it's out, or even the first year it's out. If the price never comes down into my range, I simply won't ever buy it.
Just to let people know...GOG just bundles the original games with ScummVM and calls it a day. Not necessarily a problem since they have ScummVM approval, but if you're expecting some kind of port, you'll be disappointed. They caught me that way with Redneck Rampage. The web site says "Thanks to our handsome programming team, the classics are now Windows Vista and Windows XP compatible.", but they certainly didn't do any programming in that case. They just used DosBOX with a custom config file and that was it. I also got hooked by Sierra when they did the same thing with Kings' Quest and Space Quest collections. If you still own the games, you can just use ScummVM or DosBOX.
With that said, if you are looking for legal copies of these games, or aren't technically inclined, then GOG is a good way to get them.
They stopped being about real Sci Fi a long time ago. This name much better reflects the actual content, and might help stop unsuspecting sci-fi fans from accidentally watching it.
Well, maybe panic a little. Back when I used to shop at Radio Shack, one of there more slimy practices was to add you to their marketing database via your credit/debit card. I had gone in one day to buy batteries, and shortly afterward got a catalog in the mail. When I called and had them remove me from their junk mail list, they explained that they had gotten my info from the debit transaction. The rep even quoted the date and the amount! Back to buying things only with cash at Radio Shack.
Although, even that wasn't always a sure thing. I was actually denied the purchase of some AA batteries with cash because I wouldn't give them my personal info (name, phone number, etc.)
And more recently, I went into a Play n Trade store, browsed around, found a game I wanted, but wasn't allowed to buy it, because I wouldn't sign up for their "free" membership.
I don't think so. I exchanged a few messages with hin in the past, and asked if he had tried any of the AppleII emulators, or had contributed his unique expertise to any of them. He said he thought they were neat, but didn't have the time to spend on looking at them or contributing. Too bad!
I haven't given them any business in many years. Each time I've been tempted to shop there, I keep having terrible experiences that drive me away again.
The most recent example was 6 years ago. I had recently purchased a house and wanted a home theater system. I decided to try Circuit City again, and after browsing around for a while (and fending off the sales droids that were harassing me) I wound up with $1000 worth of merchandise in my cart. The audio sales droid, apparently wishing to get a commission for doing nothing, asked to check me out at his register in the back of the store. Things were going along OK, until he got to the infamous Circuit City extended warranty push. After he started that, I cut into his monologue and told him, in no uncertain terms, that I wasn't interested in the extended warranty. He began to protest, and I reaffirmed that he should stop talking about that and move on. He said fine, but he had to tell me about the warranties that came with my equipment. I told him to go ahead, and he began describing the stock warranty information for the selected equipment. He then segued back into the extended warranty pitch! So, I simply turned around and left the store. I stopped briefly to tell the manager what happened, and that I had just abandoned $1000 sale because his people didn't know when to shut up. So, I walked across the street to another electronics retailer, and got a similar setup for $200 less! That was just the most recent example, I had quite a few others related to service on a VCR, and other problems with sales people.
The biggest surprises for me related to this story were that they hadn't gone out of business before, and that they were the #2 electronics retailer!
I don't know what sort of stories you heard, but I've had nothing but success with the SkipDoctor products. I've rescued at least a dozen CDs (audio and game) that were scratched and unreadable.
So, you think it's acceptable to have to rearrange the queue every time we return a movie? We don't always watch them in the order they're received, and if you've got multiple movies being returned in a short amount of time, the order that Netflix receives, processes and ships replacements isn't predictable. It doesn't matter if it takes 5 seconds...the point is that right now, with the Profiles feature, it takes ZERO seconds and works exactly the way we need it to.
My girlfriend and I have wildly different tastes in movies. So, she has her own queue, and watches her movies at whatever pace she wants, and always has one available and on the way. My queue currently has 50 movies, so if we want to share an account, we need to actively interleave the movies to make sure she gets some that she likes in a timely fashion. It's just going to be a really big hassle to manage a single account, or cost more money to establish a second one for her.
According to their customer support, this was a feature only used by 1% of subscribers, but was a significant drain on resources, increased maintenance difficulties, and slowed down adding new features. I don't particularly buy most of that, but if the 1% thing is true, then I can see how they'd make that choice. If more of that 1% convert to full subscriptions rather than cancel, it'll be a win for them.
Slashdot Mirror
The actual linked article is called "The dismal future of 'R'-rated fantasy and sci-fi movies", and Watchmen is barely mentioned at all. The Slashdot title makes it sound like there's a big discussion about Watchmen, but there's virtually nothing.
I don't care if they upgrade a single pixel. The point is they misrepresented the product they produced, and refused to refund my money when I called them out on it.
It seems to me that their catalog is DOS games with DOSBox, older Windows games with some compatability shim libraries (that they didn't write), and ScummVM games. Now, I would absolutely support them with their business if they acted in a reputable way. Making older games available legally would be a great business as long as they clearly spell out what's going on. In my case, I still had my own original Redneck Rampage discs. They provided zero value, less than zero since their version ran worse than mine, then blew me off as a customer since they figured they already hade my money.
So when they make the claim: "Thanks to our handsome programming team, the classics are now Windows Vista and Windows XP compatible.", that's clearly a lie. There's no programming (a point they mentioned in one of my emails to "customer service"), just editing the DOSBox config file.
If you don't already own a copy of a game, then by all means get it on GoG. If you already own a copy and want to be able to play it, you can save the money and just do what they do: get DOSBox, or ScummVM, or whatever open source stuff they use and just do it yourself.
Factor in their lack of customer service with their completely botched relaunch, and it all means a company that I'll keep clear of.
If slashdot hadn't wasted an article to mention it, I'd never have noticed. I dumped using Facebook after the last round of playing whack-a-mole with the ever shifting privacy settings.
Sorry, I can't agree with your statements. After the Redneck Rampage issue, I contacted their customer support, and got zero assistance. They mainly talked about how it was a good way to get a legal licensed copy, ignoring the fact that I already had a legal copy that ran better than the one they supplied, after all the supposed testing and certification. They stopped communicationg and I eventually had to have the charge on my card reversed. Not "honest", "open", "willing to communicate", or "hav[ing] integrity" in my book.
Can you cite another title where you can verify they did any actual coding/porting work?
I stopped using GoG pretty much right away based on their deceptive advertising practices (claiming to port games to modern OSs when all the did was wrap games in DOSBox.) This marketing stunt is just more of the same sort of manipulative deceitful stuff that kept me from being a customer. Whatever their launch plans and service are, I won't ever see it.
I was initially really excited by the service, and hoped it would fill the void from when GameTap dumped the good client and went with the atrocious web-based infrastructure. Unfortunately, GOG had a terible bait-and-switch policy that kept me from using them (after the first bad purchase). While they specifically claimed to be porting games to modern systems, all they did in many cases was bundle the games with DOSBox and call it a day (without mentioning this in the FAQ). At one point the site FAQ read:
"4. All games are Vista and XP compatible. Thanks to our handsome programming team, the classics are now Windows Vista and Windows XP compatible. Now you can use your lightning-fast PC to unleash the full potential of those games you just couldn’t play properly on that busted old 386."
Well, this simply wasn't true. I had my original copy of Redneck Rampage, but was never happy with it under DOSBox. So, I bought the GOG version, expecting to get a real port. I was surprised to see that not only was the GOG product was just a DOSBox wrapper over the original game, it was LESS functional than the version I had with my tweaked settings.
I'm not interested in the "spirit of the TV show". I loved the show because of what it represented, it someplace I wanted to be. The whole weekly episode thing was just an artifact of the medium, and with an MMO, you don't need structure it like a TV series.
Ugh. I've been in various flavors of multi-developer work areas, and they've all been unmitigated disasters. The only thing that works is to have private offices. They don't need to be big or have views, just walls that go to the ceiling and a door to close when you need to work without distractions. It's tough to imagine an environmnet worse than sitting at a big round table with 3 other devlopers. Obviously the person that suggested it has never actually tried to write code.
The point is that it isn't unique or special, it's just another VM architecture, just like Java, .NET, etc.
It's not "one codebase for 5 environments", it's "one codebase for the AIR app, and multiple codebases for AIR itself that had to be ported to 5 different environments." There's nothing even remotely special about that, just empty hype.
Studies have shown (see Peopleware) that music is actaully detrimental to the creative processes necessary for good programming. I found it to be true as well, so I switched to an environmental sound machine (sounds of nature tyoe things) when I need to drown out the surrounding chatter. It made a noticable improvement in the speed and quality of my work. So, in this case, the boss is right!
They cost $60 because that's what people are willing to pay. Supply and demand at work. However, I personally don't care what new games (and other forms of entertainment) cost. I refuse to pay more than $30, and that's only for items I really want to play. I usually won't even consider buying a game for more than $20. It's just not important to me to play a game on the first day it's out, or even the first year it's out. If the price never comes down into my range, I simply won't ever buy it.
Just to let people know...GOG just bundles the original games with ScummVM and calls it a day. Not necessarily a problem since they have ScummVM approval, but if you're expecting some kind of port, you'll be disappointed. They caught me that way with Redneck Rampage. The web site says "Thanks to our handsome programming team, the classics are now Windows Vista and Windows XP compatible.", but they certainly didn't do any programming in that case. They just used DosBOX with a custom config file and that was it. I also got hooked by Sierra when they did the same thing with Kings' Quest and Space Quest collections. If you still own the games, you can just use ScummVM or DosBOX.
With that said, if you are looking for legal copies of these games, or aren't technically inclined, then GOG is a good way to get them.
No, when they added wrestling, and "Crossing Over with John Edward".
They stopped being about real Sci Fi a long time ago. This name much better reflects the actual content, and might help stop unsuspecting sci-fi fans from accidentally watching it.
Well, maybe panic a little. Back when I used to shop at Radio Shack, one of there more slimy practices was to add you to their marketing database via your credit/debit card. I had gone in one day to buy batteries, and shortly afterward got a catalog in the mail. When I called and had them remove me from their junk mail list, they explained that they had gotten my info from the debit transaction. The rep even quoted the date and the amount! Back to buying things only with cash at Radio Shack.
Although, even that wasn't always a sure thing. I was actually denied the purchase of some AA batteries with cash because I wouldn't give them my personal info (name, phone number, etc.)
And more recently, I went into a Play n Trade store, browsed around, found a game I wanted, but wasn't allowed to buy it, because I wouldn't sign up for their "free" membership.
I don't think so. I exchanged a few messages with hin in the past, and asked if he had tried any of the AppleII emulators, or had contributed his unique expertise to any of them. He said he thought they were neat, but didn't have the time to spend on looking at them or contributing. Too bad!
I haven't given them any business in many years. Each time I've been tempted to shop there, I keep having terrible experiences that drive me away again.
The most recent example was 6 years ago. I had recently purchased a house and wanted a home theater system. I decided to try Circuit City again, and after browsing around for a while (and fending off the sales droids that were harassing me) I wound up with $1000 worth of merchandise in my cart. The audio sales droid, apparently wishing to get a commission for doing nothing, asked to check me out at his register in the back of the store. Things were going along OK, until he got to the infamous Circuit City extended warranty push. After he started that, I cut into his monologue and told him, in no uncertain terms, that I wasn't interested in the extended warranty. He began to protest, and I reaffirmed that he should stop talking about that and move on. He said fine, but he had to tell me about the warranties that came with my equipment. I told him to go ahead, and he began describing the stock warranty information for the selected equipment. He then segued back into the extended warranty pitch! So, I simply turned around and left the store. I stopped briefly to tell the manager what happened, and that I had just abandoned $1000 sale because his people didn't know when to shut up. So, I walked across the street to another electronics retailer, and got a similar setup for $200 less! That was just the most recent example, I had quite a few others related to service on a VCR, and other problems with sales people.
The biggest surprises for me related to this story were that they hadn't gone out of business before, and that they were the #2 electronics retailer!
Why does this even reference Bruce Schneier's blog? There's no added value from there. Why not just reference the original article?
I don't know what sort of stories you heard, but I've had nothing but success with the SkipDoctor products. I've rescued at least a dozen CDs (audio and game) that were scratched and unreadable.
So, you think it's acceptable to have to rearrange the queue every time we return a movie? We don't always watch them in the order they're received, and if you've got multiple movies being returned in a short amount of time, the order that Netflix receives, processes and ships replacements isn't predictable. It doesn't matter if it takes 5 seconds...the point is that right now, with the Profiles feature, it takes ZERO seconds and works exactly the way we need it to.
My girlfriend and I have wildly different tastes in movies. So, she has her own queue, and watches her movies at whatever pace she wants, and always has one available and on the way. My queue currently has 50 movies, so if we want to share an account, we need to actively interleave the movies to make sure she gets some that she likes in a timely fashion. It's just going to be a really big hassle to manage a single account, or cost more money to establish a second one for her.
According to their customer support, this was a feature only used by 1% of subscribers, but was a significant drain on resources, increased maintenance difficulties, and slowed down adding new features. I don't particularly buy most of that, but if the 1% thing is true, then I can see how they'd make that choice. If more of that 1% convert to full subscriptions rather than cancel, it'll be a win for them.
This is only for XBox Live Arcade, not a total sales record against all the platforms the game is available on.
It turns out that you have to have a saved game for it to let you skip the opening video and go right to the game menu.