Hide it behind a short (as short as possible) cinema like Metroid Prime does when you ride an elevator.
Like Ratchet and Clank, when you're going in between planets. You get to see your ship fly around in space. Even in DBZ Budokai 2, you get to twirl your analog sticks around to make the little loading icon move. As long as you're DOING SOMETHING during the loading screen, it makes it a lot less painful.
I realize that cartridges are better for loading times, but take a look at the N64, the most recent console cartridge system. It had a much smaller storage capacity than any of the other CD-based consoles that came out around the same time.
Cartridges also cost a LOT more to make than a CD or DVD, which would create a problem for game prices. Either they'd have to raise the price of the console to defray the cost of keeping the cartridges at about the same price as a current CD/DVD/GCNdisc (whatever the hell that thing runs on), or they'd have to raise the average price of a game by $10-$20 to make the same amount of money. The average cart, IIRC, costs about $10 to make, while a CD/DVD costs a few cents.
I realize that cartridges have faster load times, but from an economic standpoint, it's not likely that any game company is going to revert to them any time soon.
But isn't the last letter of that acronym "Agreement"? I'm not trying to be a jerk here, but this seems to be a grey area. Unwittingly or not, you DID click on a button to agree to it, and it was your fault you didn't read the entire thing. That's one way to interpret it.
Another way to interpret it is that because they do such a poor job of letting you see the EULA before you install the program, that they ARE at fault. It could be taken either way, depending on the judge, really.
Exactly. Square Enix is a Japanese game company first, an American company second (as evidenced by the large number of games that haven't made it to American shores). They will only make a decision that will work in Japan, and given that XBox sells 500 units a week according to that chart, they don't have much incentive to develop for them.
Because to a lot of people, those little "would you like to install Gator" boxes LOOK LIKE a feature of the browser. Being all official-looking, it sounds like a better deal.
Remember, unlike most spyware, Gator presents a front of allowing you to store passwords. Some people find this useful. Useful spyware may seem like an oxymoron, but Gator actually sucks some people in because of this.
But you have to wonder, knowing that their advertisers are going to be on their financial statement, how many of them are going to pull their advertising once they go public. Who knows how many bigname companies would avoid a huge scandal by simply removing their name from the list beforehand?
Who says they're going to stop installing shit on our computers once they have an IPO? All this'll do is give them more capital to research more annoying ways to embed this crap on our computers while settling claims with pissed off people filing lawsuits at them across the nation. This will HELP THEM. WE DO NOT WANT TO HELP THE ENEMY.
I honestly don't see mobile technology being accepted as fast in America as it was in Japan. Americans seem to view their cell phones as a portable home phone, and not much else. In Europe, you see a rise in SMS/Text messaging that AT+T seems to be trying to emulate by pimping Ryan Seacrest on American Idol.
In Japan, people were more accepting of downloading things to their phone, but I think a lot of people are wary of the current payment scheme for much of these things, which is a large minute-by-minute charge for the download. It goes against a lot of what Americans seem to enjoy paying for (i.e. a set price for each one instead of an unknown amount of time).
If mobile entertainment catches on in America, I see it as catching on on a much smaller scale... of course, brands like Square Enix, EA, and Sega getting into the mobile field might help draw people into it, but they need something better than the N-Gage to let people know that cell phones are ready for video games.
(Apologies if I ranted a bit, been a while since my last/. post)
Now that companies like this are going through full-blown corporate mergers, is it just a matter of time before selling property like this to gamers becomes a viable business model?
Or will we have to wait for a "The Sims" of MMORPGs that appeals to a very broad audience for something like this to happen?
Or will this not happen at all...?
I honestly believe that it will be a viable format for business sometime in the near future, but the companies that have gotten a foothold already will be making a killing later.
Some games are interesting to gamers because they appeal to fans of the genre. Games like The Sims, however, appeal to everyone because they intend to do that. They are also FUN to play, and they have an easy interface that make it easy to pick up and go within 5 or 10 minutes. These are the 3 elements that, in my opinion, are essential for a "gateway game".
Between Baten Kaitos and this game, the world is looking up for creative uses for CCG video games. Proof that you DON'T have to "port" a physical CCG to a computer.
Slashdot Mirror
Creators of flash games do this all the time, why can't retail games do it? Stick a game of PONG in there, even.
Hide it behind a short (as short as possible) cinema like Metroid Prime does when you ride an elevator.
Like Ratchet and Clank, when you're going in between planets. You get to see your ship fly around in space. Even in DBZ Budokai 2, you get to twirl your analog sticks around to make the little loading icon move. As long as you're DOING SOMETHING during the loading screen, it makes it a lot less painful.
I realize that cartridges are better for loading times, but take a look at the N64, the most recent console cartridge system. It had a much smaller storage capacity than any of the other CD-based consoles that came out around the same time.
Cartridges also cost a LOT more to make than a CD or DVD, which would create a problem for game prices. Either they'd have to raise the price of the console to defray the cost of keeping the cartridges at about the same price as a current CD/DVD/GCNdisc (whatever the hell that thing runs on), or they'd have to raise the average price of a game by $10-$20 to make the same amount of money. The average cart, IIRC, costs about $10 to make, while a CD/DVD costs a few cents.
I realize that cartridges have faster load times, but from an economic standpoint, it's not likely that any game company is going to revert to them any time soon.
Until stockbrokers with half a brain decide that looking up more than one month of a company's history is a good idea.
Honestly, when I first saw the name Claria, I thought "...isn't that the name of some penis-enlargement pill I got in my inbox the other day"?
But isn't the last letter of that acronym "Agreement"? I'm not trying to be a jerk here, but this seems to be a grey area. Unwittingly or not, you DID click on a button to agree to it, and it was your fault you didn't read the entire thing. That's one way to interpret it.
Another way to interpret it is that because they do such a poor job of letting you see the EULA before you install the program, that they ARE at fault. It could be taken either way, depending on the judge, really.
Exactly. Square Enix is a Japanese game company first, an American company second (as evidenced by the large number of games that haven't made it to American shores). They will only make a decision that will work in Japan, and given that XBox sells 500 units a week according to that chart, they don't have much incentive to develop for them.
OK then... task manager's good for that too. Or Alt+F4. The ones that the X button installs shit on aren't real windows...
Because to a lot of people, those little "would you like to install Gator" boxes LOOK LIKE a feature of the browser. Being all official-looking, it sounds like a better deal.
Remember, unlike most spyware, Gator presents a front of allowing you to store passwords. Some people find this useful. Useful spyware may seem like an oxymoron, but Gator actually sucks some people in because of this.
(Insert "Resistance Is Futile" joke here)
But you have to wonder, knowing that their advertisers are going to be on their financial statement, how many of them are going to pull their advertising once they go public. Who knows how many bigname companies would avoid a huge scandal by simply removing their name from the list beforehand?
Overkill much? :P
Who says they're going to stop installing shit on our computers once they have an IPO? All this'll do is give them more capital to research more annoying ways to embed this crap on our computers while settling claims with pissed off people filing lawsuits at them across the nation. This will HELP THEM. WE DO NOT WANT TO HELP THE ENEMY.
I prefer something a bit more powerful.
No, but those magical three letters will make lots of stock brokers swoon.
That's what the handy-dandy X button is for.
I honestly don't see mobile technology being accepted as fast in America as it was in Japan. Americans seem to view their cell phones as a portable home phone, and not much else. In Europe, you see a rise in SMS/Text messaging that AT+T seems to be trying to emulate by pimping Ryan Seacrest on American Idol.
/. post)
In Japan, people were more accepting of downloading things to their phone, but I think a lot of people are wary of the current payment scheme for much of these things, which is a large minute-by-minute charge for the download. It goes against a lot of what Americans seem to enjoy paying for (i.e. a set price for each one instead of an unknown amount of time).
If mobile entertainment catches on in America, I see it as catching on on a much smaller scale... of course, brands like Square Enix, EA, and Sega getting into the mobile field might help draw people into it, but they need something better than the N-Gage to let people know that cell phones are ready for video games.
(Apologies if I ranted a bit, been a while since my last
A robot from the 50's! We're finally catching up to what everyone then said we'd be doing! Where's my flying car?
Now that companies like this are going through full-blown corporate mergers, is it just a matter of time before selling property like this to gamers becomes a viable business model?
Or will we have to wait for a "The Sims" of MMORPGs that appeals to a very broad audience for something like this to happen?
Or will this not happen at all...?
I honestly believe that it will be a viable format for business sometime in the near future, but the companies that have gotten a foothold already will be making a killing later.
Some games are interesting to gamers because they appeal to fans of the genre. Games like The Sims, however, appeal to everyone because they intend to do that. They are also FUN to play, and they have an easy interface that make it easy to pick up and go within 5 or 10 minutes. These are the 3 elements that, in my opinion, are essential for a "gateway game".
But there are other things that move really fast that you might want to take pictures of, such as sneezes.
Tycho bitches about the lack of coverage towards the bottom of this newspost.
So, they should have released Half-Life 2 on the X Box because the code wouldn't have leaked?
Between Baten Kaitos and this game, the world is looking up for creative uses for CCG video games. Proof that you DON'T have to "port" a physical CCG to a computer.