Microsoft sets the prices at an arbitrary level that it feels will result in the biggest profits. They understand perfectly well that if they were to say, increase the price by 50% then a lot less people would buy it, regardless if they downloaded it or not. However, if they were to drop it by 50% then though they may have more paying customers they would net less money. So no, piracy has little to nothing to do with the price of Windows. This is all the magic of the supply and demand curve.
Next, I will grant that some of the people that pirate windows would have bought it had piracy been impossible, but consider this: what about the people that pirated the new windows, liked it, and told their normal friends to get it. Normal friends that know about as much about torrents as Joe Average knows about quantum mechanics. Taking away piracy would result in a net loss of advertisement, and from that, profit.
In all, I would say that for Microsoft, windows piracy has a neutral direct economic effect, and a positive overall economic effect by allowing them to claim greater market penetration, and therefore charge more for the associated services like driver signing. They can also bump up the prices of developer tools, since using said tools on a well established system is worth more than using those tools on a system barely anyone uses.
Finally, I am not entirely sure what point you are trying to make with AC2. Ubisoft wasted what must have been a good chunk of resources to develop a DRM that was supposed to stop piracy in its tracks, and it was cracked within a day. This sounds to me like a horrible business decision more than anything else. Did the pirates walk into the Ubisoft HQ, and force them to implement that DRM system? Certainly not. Would they have gotten more money had they skipped the DRM system? Possibly. Did Ubisoft actually consider the benefits of having this new DRM system of theirs? Most certainly not. Let bad decisions rest at the feet of those who made them.
You stand to lose much more by using multiple chips instead of multiple cores. As we get faster and faster clocks, the distance a signal can travel in a clock cycle gets smaller and smaller. Even with modern technology trying to access something off chip is likely to cost you hundreds of cycles. As such, you want to minimize the amount of off chip communication that needs to happen.
I think you hit the nail with the different module types, though I would implement it a bit differently. First, the motherboard system is likely to become a thing of the past in the next few years. There was already an article on here recently showing off a pluggable module system, which allows for standalone computational modules, which can then connect to other similar modules in a grid system. When you need more power, you could just go to the store, get a new module, and swap out or plug it into your existing system. The actual modules would be similar to what you described, though a bit more organized. For example: it would make no sense to have pure GPU modules since they would still need a CPU to manage them, but nothing would stop you from having a module with 1 generic CPU and 127 vector GPUs tailored for the rendering customers, or a 128 generic CPU for the servers, or even a 32 generic/48 vector/48 fp unit for the standard market.
Best of all, these same modules could be used for IO, extension cards and whatever else have you.
Your post is based on several assumptions that make no sense to me as a student of human nature, and an engineer.
1. 1080p is current technology. Even if we assume we will not have hologram visual output within the near future, there will still be some new technology that the powers that be will sell to the masses. It may be an incremental improvement, but it will still be enough to drive the markets. 1a. As long as it's new and shiny, there will always be someone to buy it. 2. Consoles use GPUs and CPUs the same as PCs do. There is a longer update cycle in place, but whenever each cycle ticks they adopt all the new technology that has been developed during the lifetime of a console. As such, it makes sense for the console makers to encourage such development. 3. Intel would have to shut down all of their operations to let nVidia claim the workstation market. Like it or not, Intel still makes pretty hefty CPUs, owns the workstation market, and has more disposable cash, and a bigger engineering staff than any other chip maker. The embedded market has even more competition for its crown, so I will not go there. The supercomputer market, while good for satisfying the nerd bragging rights quota, is not know for being an amazing source of profit. 4. The AMD vs Intel battle for the mid-range market is actually something I can see coming to pass. I would not be too surprised if this market gets a third player as the line between computation devices becomes blurred. 5. ARM is not the only company in the world that can make a low power chips. Worst case, ARM has a few years of dominance before the other guys catch up. Also, as the article pointed out, integrated CPU/GPU has several obvious advantages over discrete CPU + discrete GPU.
In all, while I am not ready to make my own predictions, yours could use a bit more analysis and tweaking.
Sure, yours is a valid desire, but the execution of this desire is where it breaks down. Consider the following: How much time and money was spent to generate this system? How much time will be spent breaking it? How much money would it REALLY get you? What will the server maintenance cost? How big will the PR shit-storm be when Joe Average cannot play this game because his internet connection went bust for a few hours, and he decided to complain to his friend, Nelson Reporter?
In my opinion, you can see that perhaps a few of the younger kids will have to convince their parents to get the game. The parents that agree will indeed be extra income, but I doubt they would be a particularly big market segment. Many more mature PC gamers would either have bought it anyway, regardless of the protection system, or would have pirated the game just to try it, but would never buy it, netting you next to zero extra profit. Other mature PC gamers will avoid it out of disdain for the DRM system, resulting in a net loss that may even surpass the gain from the young teen crowd. Finally, the hardcore pirates will just find another game to play. There is not exactly a shortage these days. Maybe they'll just get a modded 360, and play it there. Finally, the mid-level pirates will just wait until the game is in the bargain bin, barely covering the cost of production, and getting you little if any profit. This is not even taking into account the free advertisement you are sacrificing in terms of players that would play a pirated game, then hype it up for their less tech savvy friends.
In my model is even remotely correct, you are likely to get maybe several tens of thousands extra customers. For a game that has already seen millions in sales this sounds to be like an utter waste of resources. Resources that could have been better spent on more QA/Optimization/Content. Best of all, when the system gets cracked eventually, you will just be left with an egg on your face with little to show for it.
Finally, for the actual protection scheme in the article, the workaround seems trivial. You must send your save game data to a remote server somewhere to be stored, the access it from there once you wish to load. First, you will need to defeat the encryption schema in the existing system, which should not be too hard, since you simply need to get the raw data pre-encryption. There will likely be a few packet types to perform further checking, which you will need to reverse engineer; an unfortunate, but harsh truth, and likely the most time consuming step of the process. Next, create a local server that will intercept requests to the remote server, including saving, and then allow it to read back the saves. If you want to get extra fancy, you could build that right into the program, and replace the calls to network functions with calls to these new functions.
This would doubtlessly be more work than a traditional crack, but since it is still a software solution, I would not expect much longer than an extra month or two.
Sorry, a bit more to add, but based on the questions you ask your candidates, you are simply not looking for a real software engineer. Instead, you are trying to get an electrical engineer (or computer engineer with an electrical focus) for a position that most likely involves writing very task specific code. Being a software engineer, I would not even bother replying to a job request like that, since it is obvious that my expertise would not be necessary for the tasks you have in mind. The same could be said for many other serious software designers. If a software system is really what you are after, you may be surprised by the results you get by changing your interview style a bit. If it is not, your current style probably gets you exactly the type of engineers you need for your project.
I whole-heartedly disagree with your definition of an engineer, and what knowledge is required to be called one. You seem to view engineers as someone very well versed in material sciences. For instance, you state that using "black boxes" to design a system precludes you from being an engineer, because these boxes operate as you command. However, just because you can assume more of these boxes than you could in the physical realm does not mean there are no rules to consider, nor does it imply that those rules are any simpler than those you see in physics. They are just different.
I am not too surprised though, as I am surrounded by numerous traditional engineers that insist on calling me a "mere" programmer because I am satisfied by learning the key elements of their fields, which I will then use in my own designs. These same people have such a poor understanding of what it really means to *design* software, that I am forced to cringe every time I must go through their work.
And yes, I did finish a fully accredited engineering school, and have an engineering degree. Also, while I could answer many of the questions (though some only after popping open a book or two), I do not view such knowledge as definitive of the profession. Instead, I think of engineering as a state of mind, and a set of beliefs and values that encourages you to learn, though not necessarily master many fields in order to ensure your designs are the best they can be. Whether you designs are in the area of materials, circuits, or programs, there is always more to consider than what you see. I feel that suggesting that something stops being an engineer just because he works with things you cannot touch or feel is insulting to the very name of the profession you claim to practice.
Your post includes a false analogy. A guy at Quiznos does not design a sandwich, instead he follows a strict guideline regarding how much of each ingredient to use, how long to keep the sandwich in the oven, how much it costs, and how to interact with the customers.
I mostly agree with the rest of the post. To take it a bit further, the difference, as I see it, is that true engineers design and implement complete systems. Specifically, overarching constructs that are expected to interact with other systems in the real world to accomplish certain tasks. Programmers by contrast are more concerned with accomplishing a specific task, with little interest in the overall system design. So an engineer would be the person planning out how to make something accomplish a specific task, while a programmer will then take the spec, maybe make a few comments, and get it working.
Engineering education is simply much more broad, and teaches you to consider much more of the system that you will be interacting with, from other programs/modules, to the computer, the users, the businesses, and even physical machines. That said, someone that completed a programming curriculum may still do the work required of an engineer. While on paper his title may not be as cool looking, it is a mindset more than anything else.
This article is not about the US, so as much as the US supports this so called "free-market capitalism", some of the actions described in the article are against the law in Australia. So I will have to respectfully disagree, and say this is indeed a very big deal.
The assumption that is it accepted in the US, and thus must be accepted anywhere is certainly not sound. I imagine this will not end too well for this company.
True, but that does not mean it will be cracked within a month, or even a year. There will doubtlessly need to be a significant reverse engineering effort necessary before work on a custom server could even begin. I would not be too surprised if Blizzard added some extra security into the game to verify the authenticity of the server (Public/Private key ping for instance), which would make life difficult for crackers yet again.
Obviously nothing they can do is truly immune to circumvention, but for each new measure you can add a bit of time that it will take to get around it. That said, who knows how extensive their security scheme is, and how many holes it has. It is entirely possible that you will see custom servers a week in, but I find that quite unlikely. Conversely, it is also possible that by the time custom servers come out, we'll all be playing StarCraft III.
I can respect that. So few people have the willpower to carry out on their intentions when it inconveniences them. There will always be other games, or you could always put a statute of limitation on your boycott. After all, it's so much more fulfilling to get a game for $20 when everyone else paid $50.
If the actual game works in a P2P mesh, then you would only really need a small pipe to allow the 8 or 10 (whatever the max number of players is) people to log into their accounts. As long as you have wireless on the premises, and at least one computer able to connect to it you can just share the connection among everyone that needs to log in.
Yes, there may be situations where you really are left with no connection, but Blizzard probably feels those are sufficiently rare to be ignored.
I still disagree; Blizzard has repeatedly made statements which effectively convey their feeling that the only people who want LAN play are pirates.
Neither I nor any of my friends (the aforementioned group of LAN players) have pirated Starcraft; many of us, including myself, have purchased multiple copies of Starcraft.
For Blizzard to claim that the only people who want LAN play are pirates betrays a complete lack of market research on the subject, and their disdain for the very group of gamers which made their first game so popular.
Perhaps I'm wrong - perhaps LAN play really wasn't very important to Starcraft 1's success (though I think you'll find that the majority of Starcraft fans will agree that LAN was integral to SC1's success). But for them to call me a pirate for wanting LAN play - a feature that, for me, has logged by far the most hours of use in the first Starcraft - is insulting at best! Why should I buy their product when they insult potential customers like that?
There is another possibility here that you may not be considering. It is easy to release a blanket statement, especially for a press release. However, it would not serve their interests to say, "While a lot of people used LAN play to get around copy protection, especially in the latter part of the games life, there is a segment of the market that used it for perfectly reasonable LAN parties." I figured that this sort of detail would be inherent. I don't think Blizzard wanted to call you or your friends pirates. It just would not serve their interests to release a detailed analysis on gaming trends.
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"Few"? If only one tenth of these people decide not to buy the game based on the lack of LAN play, that's at least half a million in revenue (assuming Blizzard earns $25 for every $50 sale, the number goes much higher if they get more, like with digital sales) - and that's certainly not the only list of angry Starcraft fans out there. Let's say it takes two programmers one year to implement - an estimate I think is extremely conservative, given that very little of the work would be outside of the game creation/game joining mechanics that happen before the game ever starts. If we assume salaries of $100k/yr per programmer, Blizzard's net gain is at least $300k.
The cost to implement is fixed. The only variable is the number of people who pass on the game because it doesn't support their favorite (perhaps only desired) game mode. Given the number of people who really want LAN play, it really makes sense to implement LAN play even on the chance that it'll earn them $300k.
This really gets pretty deep into personal and engineering analysis. How many of those signatures are real individuals. Of those how many are willing to pass up the game because of lack of LAN play. Would any reconsider once enough of their friends start playing? How many have concerns rooted in the (rather common) belief that you will need to maintain a connection to battle.net throughout the entire game? How many people would use LAN play for piracy? Is this number bigger than the number that would skip over the game because it is lacking LAN play? On the engineering side, how many attack vectors would be introduced into a game with the addition of a LAN play component, especially if it was hacked in by a low level engineer. Is their core engine infrastructure compatible with the type of code you would need for LAN play, or is it tied into battle.net (Not an unreasonable assumption given how much they've been hyping it)? Would implementing this push the release date of the program? Would there be significantly more QA to verify this feature? And those are just off the top of my head. I'm sure a Blizzard employee could come up with a list ten times as long.
Eventually, of course it will be cracked. You cannot design a system that is perfectly secure, unless this system is going to languish in a locked room for eternity. The question that matters is how long will it take for this system to be cracked. I imagine they made it as hard as possible, so for the short term they should be secure.
Before you go any further please read your statement, and consider how utterly unlikely this sort of situation is. You would need to be a special level of hardcore to want to have an ad-hoc SC2 LAN party while camping. I know many gamers, and I cannot think of a single person that would think this was a good idea for a whole myriad of reasons.
For rural areas, any sort of internet connection should be sufficient. They may not have your 50mbps connection, but I'm sure they could at least pull a dialup connection long enough to authenticate.
We must know different people. Few of my friends would suggest dealing with an Internet outage by playing a LAN deathmatch in StarCraft II. Generally the first point of action would be to call the ISP, and figure out what the hell happened to the internets. Afterwards, if my friends happened to be present when the outage occurred we would be more likely go somewhere, or spend some time talking, or any number of alternate activities that do not necessarily require a network connection. Worst case, one (or all) of us could probably full out a phone that supports tethering if we were really that desperate for gaming action.
I certainly have not done the research about the size of this segment; it is a question that does not really affect me in the slightest. However, to say that Blizzard has not is bordering on insulting. They have put in a ridiculous amount of resources into this game, and any sort of business wants to make sure such an investment will net at least some return. Of course they would spend at least a bit of time looking into this matter, especially since it keeps cropping up on popular tech sites such as this one. My statement stems from a logical understanding of how businesses operate.
In other words, I said small percentage because it is clear that Blizzard views it sufficiently small not to heed their calls for LAN play. What I, or you for that matter, believe about the size of this market segment is irrelevant. Consider, your sample size is a group of friends playing in a church gymnasium, something measured in individuals, not millions. By comparison, the only people I know that used LAN play were those that used it to get around the latency hacks inherent in the original StarCraft battle.net implementation.
However, regardless of any other considerations, StarCraft II will be extremely popular because it is a Blizzard game. Of the few that really consider LAN play an issue many will get the game anyway, because their friends will have it. You would have to try a lot harder than above to convince me the remainder would net Blizzard more income than opening up LAN play, and inviting people to play without paying for the game.
1. No, this has been answered plenty of times. Blizzard obviously has no interest in catering to the small percentage of the population that wants to play multiplayer with no internet connection.
2. I would imagine that the answer is yes, though that is just my speculation. This game has been in development for a while, with what is sure to be quite an impressive team. Further, even the relatively resource light WoW supports multi-core execution. Blizzard would have to try quite hard to fail this criteria.
This is not possible due to a very complex political situation in the area. In fact, there are already pipes over land, they are just not... shall we say, easily accessible.
Which fortunately is not a lot of people. It is very much in Google's best interests to keep the emails of paying customers (and the free ones as well, judging by the/. response) as private as possible. While the Google TOS does allow for some access, if you read it carefully it becomes clear that the clause is just there to cover their asses in cases an admin must do some work on the email servers, or if the data is subpoenaed, which is in compliance with US laws.
Or the people charging for mods will be trying to sell work they invested a very significant amount of time into. Something that would not be easy to reproduce for free. Steam has shown that this model works pretty well, so SC2 is not likely to be fundamentally different.
Ahh, I was not aware of that. I figured they had the whole province as tightly as they have the GTA. Though to be fair, having a monopoly on at least half of the provincial population is not too shabby either.
They are most certainly a monopoly, just not a cell phone monopoly. At least in Ontario they are the only cable provider. Of course they also offer discounts all of the services they provide if you get bundles, so while they may not be a monopoly in all markets, just the fact that they are in one is already a big problem.
Are you honestly arguing that a poster's choice of "an" vs "some" disqualifies his entire argument? Getting into semantics much? The point still stands that he tried a very small number of CPUs, and by virtue of that small number, his opinion is not likely to be worth much.
Perhaps if the original poster said he ran a cluster of a thousand AMD CPUs, or even just tried several different generations of AMD CPUs your point would have merit. However, a person is not a fanboi for pointing out obvious inconsistencies, regardless if he mis-remembered a not particularly significant number.
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Microsoft sets the prices at an arbitrary level that it feels will result in the biggest profits. They understand perfectly well that if they were to say, increase the price by 50% then a lot less people would buy it, regardless if they downloaded it or not. However, if they were to drop it by 50% then though they may have more paying customers they would net less money. So no, piracy has little to nothing to do with the price of Windows. This is all the magic of the supply and demand curve.
Next, I will grant that some of the people that pirate windows would have bought it had piracy been impossible, but consider this: what about the people that pirated the new windows, liked it, and told their normal friends to get it. Normal friends that know about as much about torrents as Joe Average knows about quantum mechanics. Taking away piracy would result in a net loss of advertisement, and from that, profit.
In all, I would say that for Microsoft, windows piracy has a neutral direct economic effect, and a positive overall economic effect by allowing them to claim greater market penetration, and therefore charge more for the associated services like driver signing. They can also bump up the prices of developer tools, since using said tools on a well established system is worth more than using those tools on a system barely anyone uses.
Finally, I am not entirely sure what point you are trying to make with AC2. Ubisoft wasted what must have been a good chunk of resources to develop a DRM that was supposed to stop piracy in its tracks, and it was cracked within a day. This sounds to me like a horrible business decision more than anything else. Did the pirates walk into the Ubisoft HQ, and force them to implement that DRM system? Certainly not. Would they have gotten more money had they skipped the DRM system? Possibly. Did Ubisoft actually consider the benefits of having this new DRM system of theirs? Most certainly not. Let bad decisions rest at the feet of those who made them.
Pretty sure that god fellow trolls on 4chan for kicks. Could you really blame him for trolling an entire NATION?
You stand to lose much more by using multiple chips instead of multiple cores. As we get faster and faster clocks, the distance a signal can travel in a clock cycle gets smaller and smaller. Even with modern technology trying to access something off chip is likely to cost you hundreds of cycles. As such, you want to minimize the amount of off chip communication that needs to happen.
I think you hit the nail with the different module types, though I would implement it a bit differently. First, the motherboard system is likely to become a thing of the past in the next few years. There was already an article on here recently showing off a pluggable module system, which allows for standalone computational modules, which can then connect to other similar modules in a grid system. When you need more power, you could just go to the store, get a new module, and swap out or plug it into your existing system. The actual modules would be similar to what you described, though a bit more organized. For example: it would make no sense to have pure GPU modules since they would still need a CPU to manage them, but nothing would stop you from having a module with 1 generic CPU and 127 vector GPUs tailored for the rendering customers, or a 128 generic CPU for the servers, or even a 32 generic/48 vector/48 fp unit for the standard market.
Best of all, these same modules could be used for IO, extension cards and whatever else have you.
Your post is based on several assumptions that make no sense to me as a student of human nature, and an engineer.
1. 1080p is current technology. Even if we assume we will not have hologram visual output within the near future, there will still be some new technology that the powers that be will sell to the masses. It may be an incremental improvement, but it will still be enough to drive the markets.
1a. As long as it's new and shiny, there will always be someone to buy it.
2. Consoles use GPUs and CPUs the same as PCs do. There is a longer update cycle in place, but whenever each cycle ticks they adopt all the new technology that has been developed during the lifetime of a console. As such, it makes sense for the console makers to encourage such development.
3. Intel would have to shut down all of their operations to let nVidia claim the workstation market. Like it or not, Intel still makes pretty hefty CPUs, owns the workstation market, and has more disposable cash, and a bigger engineering staff than any other chip maker. The embedded market has even more competition for its crown, so I will not go there. The supercomputer market, while good for satisfying the nerd bragging rights quota, is not know for being an amazing source of profit.
4. The AMD vs Intel battle for the mid-range market is actually something I can see coming to pass. I would not be too surprised if this market gets a third player as the line between computation devices becomes blurred.
5. ARM is not the only company in the world that can make a low power chips. Worst case, ARM has a few years of dominance before the other guys catch up. Also, as the article pointed out, integrated CPU/GPU has several obvious advantages over discrete CPU + discrete GPU.
In all, while I am not ready to make my own predictions, yours could use a bit more analysis and tweaking.
Sure, yours is a valid desire, but the execution of this desire is where it breaks down. Consider the following: How much time and money was spent to generate this system? How much time will be spent breaking it? How much money would it REALLY get you? What will the server maintenance cost? How big will the PR shit-storm be when Joe Average cannot play this game because his internet connection went bust for a few hours, and he decided to complain to his friend, Nelson Reporter?
In my opinion, you can see that perhaps a few of the younger kids will have to convince their parents to get the game. The parents that agree will indeed be extra income, but I doubt they would be a particularly big market segment. Many more mature PC gamers would either have bought it anyway, regardless of the protection system, or would have pirated the game just to try it, but would never buy it, netting you next to zero extra profit. Other mature PC gamers will avoid it out of disdain for the DRM system, resulting in a net loss that may even surpass the gain from the young teen crowd. Finally, the hardcore pirates will just find another game to play. There is not exactly a shortage these days. Maybe they'll just get a modded 360, and play it there. Finally, the mid-level pirates will just wait until the game is in the bargain bin, barely covering the cost of production, and getting you little if any profit. This is not even taking into account the free advertisement you are sacrificing in terms of players that would play a pirated game, then hype it up for their less tech savvy friends.
In my model is even remotely correct, you are likely to get maybe several tens of thousands extra customers. For a game that has already seen millions in sales this sounds to be like an utter waste of resources. Resources that could have been better spent on more QA/Optimization/Content. Best of all, when the system gets cracked eventually, you will just be left with an egg on your face with little to show for it.
Finally, for the actual protection scheme in the article, the workaround seems trivial. You must send your save game data to a remote server somewhere to be stored, the access it from there once you wish to load. First, you will need to defeat the encryption schema in the existing system, which should not be too hard, since you simply need to get the raw data pre-encryption. There will likely be a few packet types to perform further checking, which you will need to reverse engineer; an unfortunate, but harsh truth, and likely the most time consuming step of the process. Next, create a local server that will intercept requests to the remote server, including saving, and then allow it to read back the saves. If you want to get extra fancy, you could build that right into the program, and replace the calls to network functions with calls to these new functions.
This would doubtlessly be more work than a traditional crack, but since it is still a software solution, I would not expect much longer than an extra month or two.
Sorry, a bit more to add, but based on the questions you ask your candidates, you are simply not looking for a real software engineer. Instead, you are trying to get an electrical engineer (or computer engineer with an electrical focus) for a position that most likely involves writing very task specific code. Being a software engineer, I would not even bother replying to a job request like that, since it is obvious that my expertise would not be necessary for the tasks you have in mind. The same could be said for many other serious software designers. If a software system is really what you are after, you may be surprised by the results you get by changing your interview style a bit. If it is not, your current style probably gets you exactly the type of engineers you need for your project.
I whole-heartedly disagree with your definition of an engineer, and what knowledge is required to be called one. You seem to view engineers as someone very well versed in material sciences. For instance, you state that using "black boxes" to design a system precludes you from being an engineer, because these boxes operate as you command. However, just because you can assume more of these boxes than you could in the physical realm does not mean there are no rules to consider, nor does it imply that those rules are any simpler than those you see in physics. They are just different.
I am not too surprised though, as I am surrounded by numerous traditional engineers that insist on calling me a "mere" programmer because I am satisfied by learning the key elements of their fields, which I will then use in my own designs. These same people have such a poor understanding of what it really means to *design* software, that I am forced to cringe every time I must go through their work.
And yes, I did finish a fully accredited engineering school, and have an engineering degree. Also, while I could answer many of the questions (though some only after popping open a book or two), I do not view such knowledge as definitive of the profession. Instead, I think of engineering as a state of mind, and a set of beliefs and values that encourages you to learn, though not necessarily master many fields in order to ensure your designs are the best they can be. Whether you designs are in the area of materials, circuits, or programs, there is always more to consider than what you see. I feel that suggesting that something stops being an engineer just because he works with things you cannot touch or feel is insulting to the very name of the profession you claim to practice.
Your post includes a false analogy. A guy at Quiznos does not design a sandwich, instead he follows a strict guideline regarding how much of each ingredient to use, how long to keep the sandwich in the oven, how much it costs, and how to interact with the customers.
I mostly agree with the rest of the post. To take it a bit further, the difference, as I see it, is that true engineers design and implement complete systems. Specifically, overarching constructs that are expected to interact with other systems in the real world to accomplish certain tasks. Programmers by contrast are more concerned with accomplishing a specific task, with little interest in the overall system design. So an engineer would be the person planning out how to make something accomplish a specific task, while a programmer will then take the spec, maybe make a few comments, and get it working.
Engineering education is simply much more broad, and teaches you to consider much more of the system that you will be interacting with, from other programs/modules, to the computer, the users, the businesses, and even physical machines. That said, someone that completed a programming curriculum may still do the work required of an engineer. While on paper his title may not be as cool looking, it is a mindset more than anything else.
This article is not about the US, so as much as the US supports this so called "free-market capitalism", some of the actions described in the article are against the law in Australia. So I will have to respectfully disagree, and say this is indeed a very big deal.
The assumption that is it accepted in the US, and thus must be accepted anywhere is certainly not sound. I imagine this will not end too well for this company.
True, but that does not mean it will be cracked within a month, or even a year. There will doubtlessly need to be a significant reverse engineering effort necessary before work on a custom server could even begin. I would not be too surprised if Blizzard added some extra security into the game to verify the authenticity of the server (Public/Private key ping for instance), which would make life difficult for crackers yet again.
Obviously nothing they can do is truly immune to circumvention, but for each new measure you can add a bit of time that it will take to get around it. That said, who knows how extensive their security scheme is, and how many holes it has. It is entirely possible that you will see custom servers a week in, but I find that quite unlikely. Conversely, it is also possible that by the time custom servers come out, we'll all be playing StarCraft III.
I can respect that. So few people have the willpower to carry out on their intentions when it inconveniences them. There will always be other games, or you could always put a statute of limitation on your boycott. After all, it's so much more fulfilling to get a game for $20 when everyone else paid $50.
If the actual game works in a P2P mesh, then you would only really need a small pipe to allow the 8 or 10 (whatever the max number of players is) people to log into their accounts. As long as you have wireless on the premises, and at least one computer able to connect to it you can just share the connection among everyone that needs to log in.
Yes, there may be situations where you really are left with no connection, but Blizzard probably feels those are sufficiently rare to be ignored.
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I still disagree; Blizzard has repeatedly made statements which effectively convey their feeling that the only people who want LAN play are pirates.
Neither I nor any of my friends (the aforementioned group of LAN players) have pirated Starcraft; many of us, including myself, have purchased multiple copies of Starcraft.
For Blizzard to claim that the only people who want LAN play are pirates betrays a complete lack of market research on the subject, and their disdain for the very group of gamers which made their first game so popular.
Perhaps I'm wrong - perhaps LAN play really wasn't very important to Starcraft 1's success (though I think you'll find that the majority of Starcraft fans will agree that LAN was integral to SC1's success). But for them to call me a pirate for wanting LAN play - a feature that, for me, has logged by far the most hours of use in the first Starcraft - is insulting at best! Why should I buy their product when they insult potential customers like that?
There is another possibility here that you may not be considering. It is easy to release a blanket statement, especially for a press release. However, it would not serve their interests to say, "While a lot of people used LAN play to get around copy protection, especially in the latter part of the games life, there is a segment of the market that used it for perfectly reasonable LAN parties." I figured that this sort of detail would be inherent. I don't think Blizzard wanted to call you or your friends pirates. It just would not serve their interests to release a detailed analysis on gaming trends.
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"Few"? If only one tenth of these people decide not to buy the game based on the lack of LAN play, that's at least half a million in revenue (assuming Blizzard earns $25 for every $50 sale, the number goes much higher if they get more, like with digital sales) - and that's certainly not the only list of angry Starcraft fans out there. Let's say it takes two programmers one year to implement - an estimate I think is extremely conservative, given that very little of the work would be outside of the game creation/game joining mechanics that happen before the game ever starts. If we assume salaries of $100k/yr per programmer, Blizzard's net gain is at least $300k.
The cost to implement is fixed. The only variable is the number of people who pass on the game because it doesn't support their favorite (perhaps only desired) game mode. Given the number of people who really want LAN play, it really makes sense to implement LAN play even on the chance that it'll earn them $300k.
This really gets pretty deep into personal and engineering analysis. How many of those signatures are real individuals. Of those how many are willing to pass up the game because of lack of LAN play. Would any reconsider once enough of their friends start playing? How many have concerns rooted in the (rather common) belief that you will need to maintain a connection to battle.net throughout the entire game? How many people would use LAN play for piracy? Is this number bigger than the number that would skip over the game because it is lacking LAN play? On the engineering side, how many attack vectors would be introduced into a game with the addition of a LAN play component, especially if it was hacked in by a low level engineer. Is their core engine infrastructure compatible with the type of code you would need for LAN play, or is it tied into battle.net (Not an unreasonable assumption given how much they've been hyping it)? Would implementing this push the release date of the program? Would there be significantly more QA to verify this feature? And those are just off the top of my head. I'm sure a Blizzard employee could come up with a list ten times as long.
But let's say you're righ
Eventually, of course it will be cracked. You cannot design a system that is perfectly secure, unless this system is going to languish in a locked room for eternity. The question that matters is how long will it take for this system to be cracked. I imagine they made it as hard as possible, so for the short term they should be secure.
Before you go any further please read your statement, and consider how utterly unlikely this sort of situation is. You would need to be a special level of hardcore to want to have an ad-hoc SC2 LAN party while camping. I know many gamers, and I cannot think of a single person that would think this was a good idea for a whole myriad of reasons.
For rural areas, any sort of internet connection should be sufficient. They may not have your 50mbps connection, but I'm sure they could at least pull a dialup connection long enough to authenticate.
We must know different people. Few of my friends would suggest dealing with an Internet outage by playing a LAN deathmatch in StarCraft II. Generally the first point of action would be to call the ISP, and figure out what the hell happened to the internets. Afterwards, if my friends happened to be present when the outage occurred we would be more likely go somewhere, or spend some time talking, or any number of alternate activities that do not necessarily require a network connection. Worst case, one (or all) of us could probably full out a phone that supports tethering if we were really that desperate for gaming action.
I certainly have not done the research about the size of this segment; it is a question that does not really affect me in the slightest. However, to say that Blizzard has not is bordering on insulting. They have put in a ridiculous amount of resources into this game, and any sort of business wants to make sure such an investment will net at least some return. Of course they would spend at least a bit of time looking into this matter, especially since it keeps cropping up on popular tech sites such as this one. My statement stems from a logical understanding of how businesses operate.
In other words, I said small percentage because it is clear that Blizzard views it sufficiently small not to heed their calls for LAN play. What I, or you for that matter, believe about the size of this market segment is irrelevant. Consider, your sample size is a group of friends playing in a church gymnasium, something measured in individuals, not millions. By comparison, the only people I know that used LAN play were those that used it to get around the latency hacks inherent in the original StarCraft battle.net implementation.
However, regardless of any other considerations, StarCraft II will be extremely popular because it is a Blizzard game. Of the few that really consider LAN play an issue many will get the game anyway, because their friends will have it. You would have to try a lot harder than above to convince me the remainder would net Blizzard more income than opening up LAN play, and inviting people to play without paying for the game.
If a teenage boy lives in a house without internet in this day and age he probably has bigger issue than playing StarCraft II
1. No, this has been answered plenty of times. Blizzard obviously has no interest in catering to the small percentage of the population that wants to play multiplayer with no internet connection.
2. I would imagine that the answer is yes, though that is just my speculation. This game has been in development for a while, with what is sure to be quite an impressive team. Further, even the relatively resource light WoW supports multi-core execution. Blizzard would have to try quite hard to fail this criteria.
This is not possible due to a very complex political situation in the area. In fact, there are already pipes over land, they are just not... shall we say, easily accessible.
Which fortunately is not a lot of people. It is very much in Google's best interests to keep the emails of paying customers (and the free ones as well, judging by the /. response) as private as possible. While the Google TOS does allow for some access, if you read it carefully it becomes clear that the clause is just there to cover their asses in cases an admin must do some work on the email servers, or if the data is subpoenaed, which is in compliance with US laws.
Or the people charging for mods will be trying to sell work they invested a very significant amount of time into. Something that would not be easy to reproduce for free. Steam has shown that this model works pretty well, so SC2 is not likely to be fundamentally different.
Ahh, I was not aware of that. I figured they had the whole province as tightly as they have the GTA. Though to be fair, having a monopoly on at least half of the provincial population is not too shabby either.
They are most certainly a monopoly, just not a cell phone monopoly. At least in Ontario they are the only cable provider. Of course they also offer discounts all of the services they provide if you get bundles, so while they may not be a monopoly in all markets, just the fact that they are in one is already a big problem.
Are you honestly arguing that a poster's choice of "an" vs "some" disqualifies his entire argument? Getting into semantics much? The point still stands that he tried a very small number of CPUs, and by virtue of that small number, his opinion is not likely to be worth much.
Perhaps if the original poster said he ran a cluster of a thousand AMD CPUs, or even just tried several different generations of AMD CPUs your point would have merit. However, a person is not a fanboi for pointing out obvious inconsistencies, regardless if he mis-remembered a not particularly significant number.