...to make people forget the bad entries in the Tomb Raider series. Why not just let this one go and try to resurrect it when late 90's computer nostalgia kicks in (much like Prince of Persia or Ninja Gaiden is now)?
I've enjoyed some songs in video games before (especially Test Drive 6 and Jet Moto) but I've never had the notion to buy a game because of the music on it. I'm always suspicious that things like this happen because something is wrong with the game. It's kind of like how the crappy cereal always has the good prizes or that Three Stooges beer must suck or else they wouldn't bother paying to put them on the label (and it does indeed suck). Of course, if they don't make a big deal out of signing all of these acts for their game, then I won't be nearly as skeptical.
At any rate, EA and Sega had better watch out because I'll burn down the offices of the one that sells a game with that "Are you ready for some footbaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal" song in it. That's the single biggest reason I stopped watching Monday Night Football. (The others being the vastly increasing number of commercials making the game somewhat unwatchable and the interviews that overlap with actual plays on the field. Some people mention Dennis Miller as the downfall of MNF, but it was already a dead horse by the time he got there.)
...all our stuff will look like NASCAR. First we have a label for the brand name. Then we had the label for the processor (Motorola, Intel, AMD, TI, etc). Then we had to get a label for the OS (MS Windows). Now we have the platform running on the OS. What's next? Maybe a label for the store that sold it to you. Or they could do a label for each company that preinstalls software on the device. They could even sell advertising space on the device.
I for one would like a plain white microwave instead of the Goldstar/Motorola/Windows CE/Lowe's labelled microwave. If I want to know what my microwave is running, I'll look it up.
...to stop looking at Japanese games and US gamers as completely different beasts. If you really insist on pigeonholing, there are merely different types of gamers and statistically more of one type lives in Japan and more of another type lives in the US. A lot of people like GTA style games and (now here's the shocker) some of those people live in Japan! Should a software company miss out on this audience because just because they are based in Japan? Also, should software developers cater to a small audience because some of them happen to live in Japan? Maybe the Japanese are getting tired of the more traditional RPG because developers think, "Oh those Japanese love the RPG." and flood the market with them.
1. Other multiplayer types. I'm a big fan of RTCW, but I really wanted to try something like a deathmatch. Also, I think a capture the flag would rock.
2. Bots. I can't say this enough any time there is a discussion on RTCW. From what I've read, I have many people who agree with me here. The fact that RTCW was released at all with no bots boggles my mind. Especially since the only multiplayer mode available requires a lot of participants for it to be fun (1 on 1 multiplayer RTCW sucks). They could have at least put some of the single player enemies into place on the multiplayer levels to work on behalf of the defensive team. This would have made RTCW a viable small LAN party game.
3. Humor. One of my favorite parts of Wolfenstein-3D was the humor. I liked that BJ smiled really big when he picked up the gatling gun. I also liked the DeathCam and the hidden Pac-Man level. That humor just didn't translate well to RTCW.
"The "Grid" portion of the TeraGrid reflects the idea of harnessing and using distributed computers, data storage systems, networks, and other resources as if they were a single massive system." (from the TeraGrid FAQ)
It looks like TeraGrid is latching onto a catchword in order to boost awareness of their system. What they are describing here is not Grid computing at all. Grid computing was designed to take advantage of all the dead cycles that computers typically have. The idea is that someone might have a large group of computers that do not take full advantage fo their computational cycles (like a large lab for reading e-mails and browsing the Internet). With Grid computing you would take these computers (not some Itanium cluster like TeraGrid is doing) and distribute work accross these nodes that can be performed during otherwise dead cycles. (I have no sources immedeately available but check out Grid computing through the ACM or something and you'll see plenty of info on what Grid computing really is.)
This is what Seti@home does. It takes underutilized machines and runs computations on them. TeraGrid on the other hand, takes large clusters of otherwise unused machines and lays an abstraction over them that makes them look like one large supercomputer. This is nothing more than a distribution strategy. It looks like a nice distribution system that has the potential to scale well, but it's not Grid computing and it's nothing new.
I just figure what I could buy in my big three hobbies (brewing beer, collecting arcade machines, wakeboarding - in no particular order) and if I can buy something major in one of those, I'm not spending the money elsewhere.
For example, if I spend $15 per month on a single MMO game, that's $170 per year that I can't spend on my hobbies. I can buy some pretty nice wakeboard bindings, some arcade boards, or a nice kegging setup for that kind of money. When I think of that, MMOs don't look nearly as appealing to me.
We can demand anything we want from the New York Times. It doesn't mean they have to listen to our demands. The key to demanding things from the NYT is that using the only power you have over them, buying or not buying a copy of their paper (or paying for online content). Now if I am alone in demanding something from the NYT, they are likely to tell me to suck an egg. However, if many people are all demanding the same thing from the NYT, they are likely to give in to our demands in order to not lose ad revenue from poorer sales.
"The PS3 will almost definately be a success, however, because of sheer inertia."
Try telling that to Atari.
"Japan has 2 huge titans gearing up for a *huge* battle for #1"
This already happened (Saturn vs. Playstation) and despite the Japanese choosing Sega as their favorite, Sony is the one who is still in the console market.
Microsoft could use some support from Japan, but it won't be necessary to take over the console market. It would be like winning Ohio in a Presidential election. There's a lot of votes there, but it's no California.
I personally don't care for the X-Box, but it is a serious contender and it will be interesting to see how well MS competes with Sony when Sony doesn't have a head start on their console release.
The 90s are where most of my favortie games came from. The 90s was the pinnacle of platform games (Super Mario World, Super Star Wars, MegaMan X), 2D fighting games (SF2, MK), and my favorite puzzle games (The Lost Vikings, Saturn Bomberman). Also my favorite driving game came out in the 90s but the graphics look like they came out of the 80's (Stunts).
Would I buy a game new that had these graphics? Absolutely, but only if the gameplay was as good as these titles. I'd love to see a Super Episode I and Super Episode II that are in the same vein as Super Star Wars and Empire (never played Super Jedi). Also, I might be a minority here, but I thought the GBA Metroid was far better than Metroid Prime and the GBA version definately had 90s graphics.
My upper management is pretty excited about Novell and Linux, but the Novell Linux offerings I've gotten from them so far are not quite ready for prime-time. The SUSE distro is ok but hasn't really changed since the Novell takeover. Nterprise Services for Linux has a long road ahead in order to be a good stable product. I'll reserve judgement on Novell until they are putting out production Linux services and integrating their acquired software into it. Until then, it is pretty cool that I can log a user in via the Novell client authenticating to a Linux box.
"When I say "Red Hat" what do you think of first?"
I think of the company who renamed the most popular Linux distro on the planet in order to try to get businesses to pay attention to their Enterprise product line, but just ended up confusing the people who make product decisions but know little about Linux.
"When I say "Novell" what do you think of first?"
Honestly, I think of ZenWorks, which is a pretty cool sysadmin tool that currently works with or without NetWare (but I don't think is working on a Linux server yet).
I don't think that Novell is as much of a "failed network company" as you believe. They still make money every year and they're quite popular in most higher ed institutions I've spoken with and worked for. There are quite a few companies who make their entire living providing software to higher ed.
Novell only owned WordPerfect briefly and according to our Novell rep, they kept the old WordPerfect (I forget the name of the original company) office buildings when they turned around and sold WordPerfect to Corel. He claims that they basically got nearly free office space out of the deal. They also got quite a few nearly new computers out fo the deal. Of course, that's a Novell rep talking, so he might just be trying to make the purchase look better in hindsight.
Getting a working TCP/IP connection is typically the first step in properly configuring my systems. ifconfig is also handy when figuring out network configuration errors.
I agree that the physical format will change. I am a frequent video renter and the video stores pushing DVD down my throat bugs me to no end. Why, you might ask? Because Joe Sixpack just can't seem to keep from scratching up the disc. I don't know if he's using the DVD to test how sharp his knife is or he's using it to play fetch with his dog, but about half the DVDs I get from the video store have at least one place on it where the it is scratched bad enough to be notciable when playing.
My video store is (thankfully) very apologetic about such things and always let's me get another copy, which I encourage everyone to do. Damaged DVDs might not be as prevalent as my experience dictates, but being a hard@ss about getting a video that plays properly will let the stores know exactly how often it happens. This kind of thing just didn't happen nearly as often with the tank-of-a-format that is VHS in my experience. I know the movie industry has to love the idea that your video might not last too long because of mishandling, but when a high qualiy digital format comes out with the ruggedness of VHS at a reasonable price, DVDs will be all but forgotten.
I think you're wrong about EA losing market share if they don't put out a yearly title. Most of the people I know who are Madden fans have not played it's now-biggest competitor, the ESPN football series. If football fans play and get used to the ESPN football engine one year due to the lack of a Madden title, it will be hard for Madden to get them to go back to a more Madden-style game engine (just as it is hard to go to the ESPN engine when Madden is all you've played for a year).
I switched to the Dreamcast line of NFL2K, 2K1, etc when I bought my Dreamcast (only because EA wouldn't produce Dreamcast titles). Now I am much more comfortable with ESPN (2K series' successor) than I am with the Madden line of games. It's not like Madden is a terrible game now. I just prefer ESPN's control system control system now.
I don't think that poor management is the problem here like the author indicates. These companies are working at a backbreaking rate so that they can remain competitive. It's not like EA can afford to cut their development time per day and only put out a football game every two years. Software companies drop off the map very quickly if they don't keep putting out new products that are popular.
There might be ways via management and planning to reduce the time it takes to create a piece of software, but that won't lead to shorter work days for the programmers. It will merely lead to more projects being completed in a year with programmers still working 12 hour days. As long as the other guy has workers that are willing to work 12 hour days to achieve goals, you can bet that you will too.
"Personally I think he will just decide to walk once he hits $1000000."
I don't think so. If I were in his place, I would keep going until I lost or they made me leave. There's not too many chances in life to rack up that kind of cash that quickly. He should and probably will take full advantage of it.
...this looks like some sort of Star Wars calibur debacle. THX fans, get your copy today before it disappears along with the unaltered Star Wars movies.
My dad does that whole I'm-guessing-but-I-always-get-it-right thing playing Trivial Pursuit. It gets a little annoying after hearing the tenth "I don't know, is it [insert correct answer here]?"
I don't think this is the same thing. The political influence mentioned in the article is more like a court case where the jury once though one thing but in light of new evidence (which in this case may or may not be factual) they have changed their mind.
The games-leads-to-violence scenario leads us to believe that upon initially watching a violent act we may feel one way but after seeing that act performed many times, we now think it is ok.
So the real difference is more like "Oh, if that's how military operations are performed, I'm not so opposed to them." vs. "It's ok to kill because I see it in that game all the time." Personally, I don't think there's anything wrong with changing your mind about a issue becasue you've researched the issue further, but I do wonder how accurate a viewpoint these people would be getting solely by playing video games.
Slashdot Mirror
...to make people forget the bad entries in the Tomb Raider series. Why not just let this one go and try to resurrect it when late 90's computer nostalgia kicks in (much like Prince of Persia or Ninja Gaiden is now)?
I've enjoyed some songs in video games before (especially Test Drive 6 and Jet Moto) but I've never had the notion to buy a game because of the music on it. I'm always suspicious that things like this happen because something is wrong with the game. It's kind of like how the crappy cereal always has the good prizes or that Three Stooges beer must suck or else they wouldn't bother paying to put them on the label (and it does indeed suck). Of course, if they don't make a big deal out of signing all of these acts for their game, then I won't be nearly as skeptical.
At any rate, EA and Sega had better watch out because I'll burn down the offices of the one that sells a game with that "Are you ready for some footbaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal" song in it. That's the single biggest reason I stopped watching Monday Night Football. (The others being the vastly increasing number of commercials making the game somewhat unwatchable and the interviews that overlap with actual plays on the field. Some people mention Dennis Miller as the downfall of MNF, but it was already a dead horse by the time he got there.)
...all our stuff will look like NASCAR. First we have a label for the brand name. Then we had the label for the processor (Motorola, Intel, AMD, TI, etc). Then we had to get a label for the OS (MS Windows). Now we have the platform running on the OS. What's next? Maybe a label for the store that sold it to you. Or they could do a label for each company that preinstalls software on the device. They could even sell advertising space on the device.
I for one would like a plain white microwave instead of the Goldstar/Motorola/Windows CE/Lowe's labelled microwave. If I want to know what my microwave is running, I'll look it up.
...to stop looking at Japanese games and US gamers as completely different beasts. If you really insist on pigeonholing, there are merely different types of gamers and statistically more of one type lives in Japan and more of another type lives in the US. A lot of people like GTA style games and (now here's the shocker) some of those people live in Japan! Should a software company miss out on this audience because just because they are based in Japan? Also, should software developers cater to a small audience because some of them happen to live in Japan? Maybe the Japanese are getting tired of the more traditional RPG because developers think, "Oh those Japanese love the RPG." and flood the market with them.
...I really think they were lacking three things:
1. Other multiplayer types. I'm a big fan of RTCW, but I really wanted to try something like a deathmatch. Also, I think a capture the flag would rock.
2. Bots. I can't say this enough any time there is a discussion on RTCW. From what I've read, I have many people who agree with me here. The fact that RTCW was released at all with no bots boggles my mind. Especially since the only multiplayer mode available requires a lot of participants for it to be fun (1 on 1 multiplayer RTCW sucks). They could have at least put some of the single player enemies into place on the multiplayer levels to work on behalf of the defensive team. This would have made RTCW a viable small LAN party game.
3. Humor. One of my favorite parts of Wolfenstein-3D was the humor. I liked that BJ smiled really big when he picked up the gatling gun. I also liked the DeathCam and the hidden Pac-Man level. That humor just didn't translate well to RTCW.
...they don't make a Fight Club video game. I don't think I could handle that one guy's breasts being any bigger.
"The "Grid" portion of the TeraGrid reflects the idea of harnessing and using distributed computers, data storage systems, networks, and other resources as if they were a single massive system." (from the TeraGrid FAQ)
It looks like TeraGrid is latching onto a catchword in order to boost awareness of their system. What they are describing here is not Grid computing at all. Grid computing was designed to take advantage of all the dead cycles that computers typically have. The idea is that someone might have a large group of computers that do not take full advantage fo their computational cycles (like a large lab for reading e-mails and browsing the Internet). With Grid computing you would take these computers (not some Itanium cluster like TeraGrid is doing) and distribute work accross these nodes that can be performed during otherwise dead cycles. (I have no sources immedeately available but check out Grid computing through the ACM or something and you'll see plenty of info on what Grid computing really is.)
This is what Seti@home does. It takes underutilized machines and runs computations on them. TeraGrid on the other hand, takes large clusters of otherwise unused machines and lays an abstraction over them that makes them look like one large supercomputer. This is nothing more than a distribution strategy. It looks like a nice distribution system that has the potential to scale well, but it's not Grid computing and it's nothing new.
I just figure what I could buy in my big three hobbies (brewing beer, collecting arcade machines, wakeboarding - in no particular order) and if I can buy something major in one of those, I'm not spending the money elsewhere.
For example, if I spend $15 per month on a single MMO game, that's $170 per year that I can't spend on my hobbies. I can buy some pretty nice wakeboard bindings, some arcade boards, or a nice kegging setup for that kind of money. When I think of that, MMOs don't look nearly as appealing to me.
We can demand anything we want from the New York Times. It doesn't mean they have to listen to our demands. The key to demanding things from the NYT is that using the only power you have over them, buying or not buying a copy of their paper (or paying for online content). Now if I am alone in demanding something from the NYT, they are likely to tell me to suck an egg. However, if many people are all demanding the same thing from the NYT, they are likely to give in to our demands in order to not lose ad revenue from poorer sales.
"The PS3 will almost definately be a success, however, because of sheer inertia."
Try telling that to Atari.
"Japan has 2 huge titans gearing up for a *huge* battle for #1"
This already happened (Saturn vs. Playstation) and despite the Japanese choosing Sega as their favorite, Sony is the one who is still in the console market.
Microsoft could use some support from Japan, but it won't be necessary to take over the console market. It would be like winning Ohio in a Presidential election. There's a lot of votes there, but it's no California.
I personally don't care for the X-Box, but it is a serious contender and it will be interesting to see how well MS competes with Sony when Sony doesn't have a head start on their console release.
The 90s are where most of my favortie games came from. The 90s was the pinnacle of platform games (Super Mario World, Super Star Wars, MegaMan X), 2D fighting games (SF2, MK), and my favorite puzzle games (The Lost Vikings, Saturn Bomberman). Also my favorite driving game came out in the 90s but the graphics look like they came out of the 80's (Stunts).
Would I buy a game new that had these graphics? Absolutely, but only if the gameplay was as good as these titles. I'd love to see a Super Episode I and Super Episode II that are in the same vein as Super Star Wars and Empire (never played Super Jedi). Also, I might be a minority here, but I thought the GBA Metroid was far better than Metroid Prime and the GBA version definately had 90s graphics.
My upper management is pretty excited about Novell and Linux, but the Novell Linux offerings I've gotten from them so far are not quite ready for prime-time. The SUSE distro is ok but hasn't really changed since the Novell takeover. Nterprise Services for Linux has a long road ahead in order to be a good stable product. I'll reserve judgement on Novell until they are putting out production Linux services and integrating their acquired software into it. Until then, it is pretty cool that I can log a user in via the Novell client authenticating to a Linux box.
"When I say "Red Hat" what do you think of first?"
I think of the company who renamed the most popular Linux distro on the planet in order to try to get businesses to pay attention to their Enterprise product line, but just ended up confusing the people who make product decisions but know little about Linux.
"When I say "Novell" what do you think of first?"
Honestly, I think of ZenWorks, which is a pretty cool sysadmin tool that currently works with or without NetWare (but I don't think is working on a Linux server yet).
I don't think that Novell is as much of a "failed network company" as you believe. They still make money every year and they're quite popular in most higher ed institutions I've spoken with and worked for. There are quite a few companies who make their entire living providing software to higher ed.
Novell only owned WordPerfect briefly and according to our Novell rep, they kept the old WordPerfect (I forget the name of the original company) office buildings when they turned around and sold WordPerfect to Corel. He claims that they basically got nearly free office space out of the deal. They also got quite a few nearly new computers out fo the deal. Of course, that's a Novell rep talking, so he might just be trying to make the purchase look better in hindsight.
ifconfig
Getting a working TCP/IP connection is typically the first step in properly configuring my systems. ifconfig is also handy when figuring out network configuration errors.
I agree that the physical format will change. I am a frequent video renter and the video stores pushing DVD down my throat bugs me to no end. Why, you might ask? Because Joe Sixpack just can't seem to keep from scratching up the disc. I don't know if he's using the DVD to test how sharp his knife is or he's using it to play fetch with his dog, but about half the DVDs I get from the video store have at least one place on it where the it is scratched bad enough to be notciable when playing.
My video store is (thankfully) very apologetic about such things and always let's me get another copy, which I encourage everyone to do. Damaged DVDs might not be as prevalent as my experience dictates, but being a hard@ss about getting a video that plays properly will let the stores know exactly how often it happens. This kind of thing just didn't happen nearly as often with the tank-of-a-format that is VHS in my experience. I know the movie industry has to love the idea that your video might not last too long because of mishandling, but when a high qualiy digital format comes out with the ruggedness of VHS at a reasonable price, DVDs will be all but forgotten.
I think you're wrong about EA losing market share if they don't put out a yearly title. Most of the people I know who are Madden fans have not played it's now-biggest competitor, the ESPN football series. If football fans play and get used to the ESPN football engine one year due to the lack of a Madden title, it will be hard for Madden to get them to go back to a more Madden-style game engine (just as it is hard to go to the ESPN engine when Madden is all you've played for a year). I switched to the Dreamcast line of NFL2K, 2K1, etc when I bought my Dreamcast (only because EA wouldn't produce Dreamcast titles). Now I am much more comfortable with ESPN (2K series' successor) than I am with the Madden line of games. It's not like Madden is a terrible game now. I just prefer ESPN's control system control system now.
I don't think that poor management is the problem here like the author indicates. These companies are working at a backbreaking rate so that they can remain competitive. It's not like EA can afford to cut their development time per day and only put out a football game every two years. Software companies drop off the map very quickly if they don't keep putting out new products that are popular.
There might be ways via management and planning to reduce the time it takes to create a piece of software, but that won't lead to shorter work days for the programmers. It will merely lead to more projects being completed in a year with programmers still working 12 hour days. As long as the other guy has workers that are willing to work 12 hour days to achieve goals, you can bet that you will too.
"Would you pass up a $63,766.15 per hour job?"
Only for a $1,000,000 per hour job.
"Personally I think he will just decide to walk once he hits $1000000."
I don't think so. If I were in his place, I would keep going until I lost or they made me leave. There's not too many chances in life to rack up that kind of cash that quickly. He should and probably will take full advantage of it.
...this looks like some sort of Star Wars calibur debacle. THX fans, get your copy today before it disappears along with the unaltered Star Wars movies.
My dad does that whole I'm-guessing-but-I-always-get-it-right thing playing Trivial Pursuit. It gets a little annoying after hearing the tenth "I don't know, is it [insert correct answer here]?"
Yeah, but if he would have went to Millionaire first, they wouldn't know about him.
If Jennings were on Who Wants to be a Millionaire, he could already have more money by now (and it wouldn't take him a month to do it).
I don't think this is the same thing. The political influence mentioned in the article is more like a court case where the jury once though one thing but in light of new evidence (which in this case may or may not be factual) they have changed their mind.
The games-leads-to-violence scenario leads us to believe that upon initially watching a violent act we may feel one way but after seeing that act performed many times, we now think it is ok.
So the real difference is more like "Oh, if that's how military operations are performed, I'm not so opposed to them." vs. "It's ok to kill because I see it in that game all the time." Personally, I don't think there's anything wrong with changing your mind about a issue becasue you've researched the issue further, but I do wonder how accurate a viewpoint these people would be getting solely by playing video games.