Not many companies left I am still willing to gamble on like that. Valve is one of them, and I expect them to retain that as long as they remain privately owned.
There seem to be an awful lot of paid Valve shills on slashdot at the moment. In terms of ideological objections to DRM, Valve are scarcely any better than EA or anyone else.
the masses are unaware and buy anyway. you can't educate sheep.
Or, alternatively, they don't care because it makes absolutely no difference to their lives if a particular entertainment product doesn't fit other people's ideology.
As long as EA get the servers working (which they obviously have or no one would be able to play the game and everyone would be demanding a refund) and keep them up for a couple of years, it is irrelevant to most people that they are only in effect renting the game at EA's convenience.
I'm aware of some countries that require all citizens to file income tax returns using software that runs only on a specific proprietary PC operating system published by the same company that makes the Xbox 360 console.
So, you just go to an internet cafe to file your taxes on line once a year. While irritating and bizarre, it's hardly forcing you to buy Microsoft games.
And yeah, you may have to switch to PC gaming, as long as that doesn't degrade into its own bondage-and-domination freakshow, complete with surprise DRM buttsecks. After that? Maybe learn to write your own games... make your own fun.
That is the quintessentially useless slashdot/geek answer.
It brings a nostalgic tear to my eye remembering early Linux "support" forums:
so because we have shelter and food does that mean we have no right to complain about crappy service that we are paying for.
Not at all but (a) it is still a First World Problem and (b) you have the right to boycott that company in future, that is your remedy under capitalism.
Diablo 3 sold 10 million copies, the idea of a boycott at this point is DELUSIONAL, not to mention STEAM which is pretty damn offensive and yet more and more people bow down before gabe. It sucks watching all these addicts fuck up gaming. There are too many stupid fucks.
If a company has a large group of willing customers, who are you to say they're stupid fucks?
Start your own company and sell/give away DRM-free games if you think it's that fucking horrible.
But 99% of people don't give a toss about DRM or their software being "unencumbered." You have an ideological objection like many people on slashdot (the ease-of-use objection to DRM is largely irrelevant except in cases like EA with Sim City where it makes the game literally unplayable). That's fine, but most gamers are not in that ideological camp.
Otherwise, all the big games companeis would have gone bust long ago. But clearly there are enough people buying their games.
It's going to require a big company or two getting a consumer-initiated "death penalty" before they get the message. A national company is going to have to go tits up after a concerted and publicized boycott, and then you'll see things change.
Any suggestions on who should be first?
One or more of the big oil companies would be good. Some defence contractors. Monsanto. Walmart. Plus all of the fucking investment banks.
I'm afraid the minor annoyances created by games companies don't really figure on the list of bad capitalist things that should be killed off.
I don't think you understand how capitalism works. Civitas might be the best game ever created, it's still not going to sell as much as some piece of crap created and marketed by EA.
If you build a better mousetrap, people WILL NOT beat a path to your door.
I was asked to do it by one of my employers, but refused on ethical grounds. So the idea exists in marketing departments, I'll tell you that much.
I don't see why, if you're prepared to work for a company, you shouldn't be prepared to endorse its products. If their products are evil, then you should resign and go and work somewhere else, if you're that morally offended by them. If they're just more of the same crap as everyone else, who cares?
Everyone knows that Civ 2 was the best version. Why someone can't/won't port it to Android I don't know, you can run it on an extremely low spec computer.
Replaced by weapons of smaller yield. It turns out to be a more effective use of nuclear material to launch a bunch of small warheads rather than one big one.
Does it really matter if your city is destroyed by ten 100kt bombs instead of one 1mt one?
that is absolutely a false statement, the USA does not possess enough warheads to kill every human on the planet, let alone every living thing. a thousand weapons could not even kill 80% of the people in a large country, like Russia or China or India; too many cities, not enough bombs.
you watch too much Hollywood and have an exaggerated notion of what nuclear weapons can do
You say that as though 80% (immediate?) deaths is no big deal. I worry about your lack of perspective.
This was always the argument of the real nutjobs in Washington and Moscow, that as long as you had a few people left, you could say you'd won.
One of the better quotes in this regard is that a nuclear arms race is like 2 generals standing waist deep in gasoline, the first with 3 matches, the second with 5.
Among the many faults in that analogy, a lit match dropped into gasoline will most likely just go out. Its not so easy as Hollywood thinks.
I dare you to test that out by standing waist deep in gasoline and lighting 5 matches.
Can you name anyone besides Russia who might offer a credible threat?
Iran. Well, OK, it's only a potential threat, but if we nuke them before they've built any nuclear weapons, they're not ever going to be a threat are they?
Nuclear warheads are pretty much only good to make other people not want to attack you because they fear getting nuked
Sort of wrong. Think a little deeper next time. If you have a sufficiently advanced "Star Wars" system they become a practical offensive tactic.
You know what the Star Wars films and the "Star Wars" defence system have in common?
Your first clue: they're not fucking real.
>>>Prepares to be downmodded by outraged Star Wars fanboys.
China's nuclear warhead stockpile (~240 warheads) is similar in size to that of the UK and France. The US and Russia, meanwhile, have ~8000 warheads apiece.
On this measure, China is clearly not in the same category.
Yes, but you wouldn't want to start a war with the UK or France given the choice. Just because they can't destroy the whole planet doesn't mean they couldn't inflict serious harm on you.
The only reason that Buenos Aires still exists as a city and not a large hole in the ground is because the US pressured the UK into launching a dangerous sea assault rather than simply nuking Argentina.
Afghanistan had a land border with the USSR and the anti-government forces were funded by the US. Would you seriously have ignored Mexican or Canadian armed anti-US revolutionaries funded by the USSR?
No one won the Cold War, it's just Americans who think they did.
I think you might have just made the most ridiculous statement in the history of slashdot, and Jon Katz used to write here so you're facing pretty stiff competition.
With Russia embracing democracy, more or less, there is less concern about it trying to conquer the world, as seemed to be a prime Soviet ambition.
It only seemed to be a prime Soviet ambition to the insane rightwing warmongers in the Pentagon and White House.
The main involvement of the USSR in world politics was to support democratic communist revolutionary groups in places like South America and South East Asia.
Your grandfather did not tell you about the Soviets defeating the Kwantung army then?
The only justification for the two bombs was that they saved millions of lives that would have been lost if the war had gone on any longer. Any interruption to that narrative is anti-American and pro-communist, and therefore didn't happen.
Spare us the bullshit. NK and Iran are totalitarian pits. The US, for all its faults, is a representative democracy with the strongest free-speech protections on the planet (the one area, IMHO, in which the USA is far, far ahead of every other country on earth).
So? Being better at free speech doesn't give you some magic right to tell the rest of the world what to do.
Slashdot Mirror
Not many companies left I am still willing to gamble on like that. Valve is one of them, and I expect them to retain that as long as they remain privately owned.
There seem to be an awful lot of paid Valve shills on slashdot at the moment. In terms of ideological objections to DRM, Valve are scarcely any better than EA or anyone else.
the masses are unaware and buy anyway. you can't educate sheep.
Or, alternatively, they don't care because it makes absolutely no difference to their lives if a particular entertainment product doesn't fit other people's ideology.
As long as EA get the servers working (which they obviously have or no one would be able to play the game and everyone would be demanding a refund) and keep them up for a couple of years, it is irrelevant to most people that they are only in effect renting the game at EA's convenience.
I'm aware of some countries that require all citizens to file income tax returns using software that runs only on a specific proprietary PC operating system published by the same company that makes the Xbox 360 console.
So, you just go to an internet cafe to file your taxes on line once a year. While irritating and bizarre, it's hardly forcing you to buy Microsoft games.
And yeah, you may have to switch to PC gaming, as long as that doesn't degrade into its own bondage-and-domination freakshow, complete with surprise DRM buttsecks. After that? Maybe learn to write your own games... make your own fun.
That is the quintessentially useless slashdot/geek answer.
It brings a nostalgic tear to my eye remembering early Linux "support" forums:
"I can't get Printer/Scanner X to work".
"Write your own driver noob".
so because we have shelter and food does that mean we have no right to complain about crappy service that we are paying for.
Not at all but (a) it is still a First World Problem and (b) you have the right to boycott that company in future, that is your remedy under capitalism.
"Better off enforcing an EA boycott "
Diablo 3 sold 10 million copies, the idea of a boycott at this point is DELUSIONAL, not to mention STEAM which is pretty damn offensive and yet more and more people bow down before gabe. It sucks watching all these addicts fuck up gaming. There are too many stupid fucks.
If a company has a large group of willing customers, who are you to say they're stupid fucks?
Start your own company and sell/give away DRM-free games if you think it's that fucking horrible.
Otherwise, all the big games companeis would have gone bust long ago. But clearly there are enough people buying their games.
It's going to require a big company or two getting a consumer-initiated "death penalty" before they get the message. A national company is going to have to go tits up after a concerted and publicized boycott, and then you'll see things change.
Any suggestions on who should be first?
One or more of the big oil companies would be good. Some defence contractors. Monsanto. Walmart. Plus all of the fucking investment banks.
I'm afraid the minor annoyances created by games companies don't really figure on the list of bad capitalist things that should be killed off.
If you build a better mousetrap, people WILL NOT beat a path to your door.
I was asked to do it by one of my employers, but refused on ethical grounds. So the idea exists in marketing departments, I'll tell you that much.
I don't see why, if you're prepared to work for a company, you shouldn't be prepared to endorse its products. If their products are evil, then you should resign and go and work somewhere else, if you're that morally offended by them. If they're just more of the same crap as everyone else, who cares?
Everyone knows that Civ 2 was the best version. Why someone can't/won't port it to Android I don't know, you can run it on an extremely low spec computer.
Ahh,, "Atomic Annie", honestly i would love to be the guy that got to test fire that.. even if it meant dying of cancer at an early age.
Twat.
Replaced by weapons of smaller yield. It turns out to be a more effective use of nuclear material to launch a bunch of small warheads rather than one big one.
Does it really matter if your city is destroyed by ten 100kt bombs instead of one 1mt one?
that is absolutely a false statement, the USA does not possess enough warheads to kill every human on the planet, let alone every living thing. a thousand weapons could not even kill 80% of the people in a large country, like Russia or China or India; too many cities, not enough bombs.
you watch too much Hollywood and have an exaggerated notion of what nuclear weapons can do
You say that as though 80% (immediate?) deaths is no big deal. I worry about your lack of perspective.
This was always the argument of the real nutjobs in Washington and Moscow, that as long as you had a few people left, you could say you'd won.
One of the better quotes in this regard is that a nuclear arms race is like 2 generals standing waist deep in gasoline, the first with 3 matches, the second with 5.
Among the many faults in that analogy, a lit match dropped into gasoline will most likely just go out. Its not so easy as Hollywood thinks.
I dare you to test that out by standing waist deep in gasoline and lighting 5 matches.
even at the peak of the Cold War there probably weren't enough nukes on the planet to render the US uninhabitable
I'm sure bits of Alaska would still be lovely. And I don't suppose anyone would have bothered nuking Death Valley. So you're probably right.
Can you name anyone besides Russia who might offer a credible threat?
Iran. Well, OK, it's only a potential threat, but if we nuke them before they've built any nuclear weapons, they're not ever going to be a threat are they?
Nuclear warheads are pretty much only good to make other people not want to attack you because they fear getting nuked Sort of wrong. Think a little deeper next time. If you have a sufficiently advanced "Star Wars" system they become a practical offensive tactic.
You know what the Star Wars films and the "Star Wars" defence system have in common?
Your first clue: they're not fucking real.
>>>Prepares to be downmodded by outraged Star Wars fanboys.
China's nuclear warhead stockpile (~240 warheads) is similar in size to that of the UK and France. The US and Russia, meanwhile, have ~8000 warheads apiece.
On this measure, China is clearly not in the same category.
Yes, but you wouldn't want to start a war with the UK or France given the choice. Just because they can't destroy the whole planet doesn't mean they couldn't inflict serious harm on you.
The only reason that Buenos Aires still exists as a city and not a large hole in the ground is because the US pressured the UK into launching a dangerous sea assault rather than simply nuking Argentina.
No one won the Cold War, it's just Americans who think they did.
China isn't a super power.
I think you might have just made the most ridiculous statement in the history of slashdot, and Jon Katz used to write here so you're facing pretty stiff competition.
With Russia embracing democracy, more or less, there is less concern about it trying to conquer the world, as seemed to be a prime Soviet ambition.
It only seemed to be a prime Soviet ambition to the insane rightwing warmongers in the Pentagon and White House.
The main involvement of the USSR in world politics was to support democratic communist revolutionary groups in places like South America and South East Asia.
Personally I'd rather have the "Thump... Whoosh!" than die shiting out my colon from starvation.
You have some chance of avoiding death by starvation, but none of avoiding an atomic bomb.
Your grandfather did not tell you about the Soviets defeating the Kwantung army then?
The only justification for the two bombs was that they saved millions of lives that would have been lost if the war had gone on any longer. Any interruption to that narrative is anti-American and pro-communist, and therefore didn't happen.
Spare us the bullshit. NK and Iran are totalitarian pits. The US, for all its faults, is a representative democracy with the strongest free-speech protections on the planet (the one area, IMHO, in which the USA is far, far ahead of every other country on earth).
So? Being better at free speech doesn't give you some magic right to tell the rest of the world what to do.