Agreed, there is no inherent value just because someone put effort into it. However, if the people producing a good are not getting the value they expect for their effort, they stop producing and do something else. Going back to the air analogy: Lets say Air requires a significant amount of effort to produce. People dedicate a significant portion of their time making air, expecting a certain amount of return for their efforts. If you say "There's lots of air, I'm just going to breath and they can fuck off" then those producers are going to do something else. Meaning less air is getting produced, until the resource is scarce enough that you ARE willing to pay so you don't asphyxiate.
If some media isn't worth the money to buy, don't buy. That is your perogative as a consumer, and is how we make our choices. But don't go get it by other means either. If you do, it simply means you WANT the media, but are too cheap/amoral to pay for it. You send mixed signals, and make things harder on everyone else.
The air analogy falls flat when you realize you don't need other people to spend significant amounts of time and effort to make the air in the first place.
Entertainment doesn't just exist. Lots of people dedicate lots of time to make it. The fact that the end product is easily reproducible is irrelevant. A lot of people worked very hard to make it in the first place. That has value, and to ignore that fact is ignorant.
This is not insightful. Any law/statute/whatever needs to have the following question asked of it: "What could the most corrupt person do with this?" If the answer to that question is not acceptable, then the law/statute/whatever is not acceptable.
Even if you trust the guys in power now, those tools will pass on to those that come after, and you have no idea who that will be, or what they will do with it.
Would you allow the police to search your house without a warrant? How about if they did it weekly? I mean, what if you're a child pornographer or terrorist. I think I want them going into your house whenever they want to look for incriminating evidence. If you have nothing to hide, then it shouldn't be a problem, right?
When I joined the military I took an oath to protect my country from enemies, foreign and DOMESTIC. What makes anyone think the same doesn't apply to the Commander in Chief? I don't care if you're a citizen or not, if you're a terrorist or in communication with terrorists then you're an enemy of my country.
The constitution does not guarantee you protection if you're associated with enemies of my country. It frightens me that so many people are so damned determined to help and support terrorism. The problem is who determines someone is an 'enemy of the country' and what accountability is there for that decision? If your CO points to a house in the middle of a suburb and tells you everyone inside is a terrorist, will you kick in the door and kill them without question? What if your CO is wrong? Who is accountable? You? Him? Whatever intelligence agent that decided the Smith family was a terrorist cell? Or does it simply get tucked away in Confidential memos?
Don't look at how it is intended to be used, look at the potential for it to be abused. Any law, legislation change, amendment, etc. needs to be approached with the question "What could the most corrupt person out there do with X?" This needs to be the case, because even if the current guys using it are all good people, they will be replaced. And you just don't know who will be wielding that power in the future.
If it can be exploited, assume it will and don't give anyone the opportunity to. That is the only sane and responsible course of action.
"There's a reason we separate military and the police: oÂne fights the enemy of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people."
I suspect people like you, who prefer the slouched couch approach are casual players who basically suck at any competitive gaming event. Which is fine... I'm not bashing you for it. But the fact remains that a console is neither the environment for competitive gaming nor does it have the input methods for it. But you are bashing him for it, by assuming he 'sucks' because he plays on the couch. You're ranting that FPS's cannot be played on a console, despite the fact that hundreds of thousands of people do so daily and have no problem with it. It also seems that a great number of people have no problem with competitive console gaming. I'm sorry if you don't like that fact, but getting all elitist about it isn't going to change anything.
Besides, the couch slouching demographic is a metric fuckton bigger than the competitive PC gamer demographic. Hell, I did a quick check of the NPD 2007 sales numbers (pulled from Gamasutra) and CoD4 for 360 sold over 3 million units, while CoD4 for PC sold under 400k. Something tells me you're in the minority buddy.
12 Scandinavian commandos bombed a factory guarded by 500 SS soldiers in the middle of German occupied Norway TWICE with no casualties. They went to ground in the countryside after the first attack. There had been an earlier British attempt of which there were no survivors. You know, I have this wierd mental image of German SS officers hearing the sound of a thousand voices chanting "Spam Spam Spam Spam..." before being slaughtered by Vikings.
If you read about the situation, you will find that the parents did actively monitor her usage. (In fact, she had recently come off an internet ban) The girl managed to evade her parents attempts at monitoring.
Before you play the "Lrn 2 parent lol" card, it helps to actually know what you're talking about.
You cannot legislate morality. ever. period. Don't give me the killing is immoral and there laws against that. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are in the Constitution. Freedom from mean people is not. I'm curious as to what you think laws are, if not community enforced morality.
Also, could it be argued that freedom from mean people falls under 'the persuit of happiness'?
Rat asses were actually considered quite a delicacy in J.S Bach's time Which is precisely why noone gave them. They were too valuable to be handing them out willy-nilly.
So where is the Shakespeare or Bach of gaming? I'd argue that something like Dreamfall: The Longest Journey approaches that type of art. Not an ancient classical work, but it had the depth of characters and storyline of a good movie or book. Morrowind had the same type of thing. And of course, many of the Final Fantasy games. Even WoW will go down in history as a classic game. My question is: why does a game need to have characters and storyline to be considered art? Many pieces of music that are considered art have neither. (Just about everything Beethoven wrote for example) Plot and character development are not required to make a game, and they are not required to make a game great.
The fact that games can have poor gameplay, or shoddy interfaces, but still be considered amazing because of plot and voice acting tells me that a lot of people just don't get it on a fundamental level. Games are not movies. Games are not books. Stop evaluating them in comparison to things they are not, and start evaluating them for what they are.
Noone gave a rats ass about J. S. Bach's work when he was alive. Well, there goes your credibility in this discussion. He was well renowned as a performer, but his compositions were not considered anything special until well after his death. (Early 19th Century)
To be quite honest, we have no clue what people will care about in a couple hundred years. Noone gave a rats ass about J. S. Bach's work when he was alive.
Personally, I only use one profile that automatically signs into XBL, so the only time this would affect would be when my internet is out. Granted, that's not how it works for every user, but I would guess that this is how it works for most of them. It could use some fixing, but in the meantime it's usable. But it's not usable. (Not as it originally was)
Say you have Rock Band, and you buy a bunch of DLC tracks. If you get 3 friends over, you can play those tracks in a band. Cool.
Then your Xbox dies and you get it replaced. If I'm reading this stuff correctly, then when you try to do the above, it won't work. Because now, only the purchasing profile (yours) has the rights to use the DLC. No more DLC for your band unless your three friends have bought the tracks on their own live accounts. This goes for anything that is multiplayer, including Live Arcade games. You'll only be able to play trial versions if you have friends over.
It has actually extended to my habits regarding physical mail. If things look like junk, I just throw them out. Caused me a bit of trouble when my student loans changed hands, and the mailings from the new company had "Lower your interest rates!" plastered all over the envelope.
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Wagner was a bastard too. Which is why I find it funny so many people play his music at their weddings.
Agreed, there is no inherent value just because someone put effort into it. However, if the people producing a good are not getting the value they expect for their effort, they stop producing and do something else. Going back to the air analogy: Lets say Air requires a significant amount of effort to produce. People dedicate a significant portion of their time making air, expecting a certain amount of return for their efforts. If you say "There's lots of air, I'm just going to breath and they can fuck off" then those producers are going to do something else. Meaning less air is getting produced, until the resource is scarce enough that you ARE willing to pay so you don't asphyxiate.
If some media isn't worth the money to buy, don't buy. That is your perogative as a consumer, and is how we make our choices. But don't go get it by other means either. If you do, it simply means you WANT the media, but are too cheap/amoral to pay for it. You send mixed signals, and make things harder on everyone else.
If it's not worth the money, DON'T CONSUME.
The air analogy falls flat when you realize you don't need other people to spend significant amounts of time and effort to make the air in the first place.
Entertainment doesn't just exist. Lots of people dedicate lots of time to make it. The fact that the end product is easily reproducible is irrelevant. A lot of people worked very hard to make it in the first place. That has value, and to ignore that fact is ignorant.
This is not insightful. Any law/statute/whatever needs to have the following question asked of it: "What could the most corrupt person do with this?" If the answer to that question is not acceptable, then the law/statute/whatever is not acceptable.
Even if you trust the guys in power now, those tools will pass on to those that come after, and you have no idea who that will be, or what they will do with it.
Would you allow the police to search your house without a warrant? How about if they did it weekly? I mean, what if you're a child pornographer or terrorist. I think I want them going into your house whenever they want to look for incriminating evidence. If you have nothing to hide, then it shouldn't be a problem, right?
Don't look at how it is intended to be used, look at the potential for it to be abused. Any law, legislation change, amendment, etc. needs to be approached with the question "What could the most corrupt person out there do with X?" This needs to be the case, because even if the current guys using it are all good people, they will be replaced. And you just don't know who will be wielding that power in the future.
If it can be exploited, assume it will and don't give anyone the opportunity to. That is the only sane and responsible course of action.
"There's a reason we separate military and the police: oÂne fights the enemy of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people."
If there was ever a live action Futurama movie, that pirate hunter guy would be a perfect Zap Brannigan.
Not that I've seen it or anything...
I love the horrifically bad puns, personally. "Hold on to your loot" /gigglesnort
440Hz is A.
They are two completely unrelated skillsets. About the only thing you can carry from one to the other is basic rhythmic skills.
Besides, the couch slouching demographic is a metric fuckton bigger than the competitive PC gamer demographic. Hell, I did a quick check of the NPD 2007 sales numbers (pulled from Gamasutra) and CoD4 for 360 sold over 3 million units, while CoD4 for PC sold under 400k. Something tells me you're in the minority buddy.
You know, I have this wierd mental image of German SS officers hearing the sound of a thousand voices chanting "Spam Spam Spam Spam..." before being slaughtered by Vikings.
Lovely Spam! Wonderful Spam!
If you read about the situation, you will find that the parents did actively monitor her usage. (In fact, she had recently come off an internet ban) The girl managed to evade her parents attempts at monitoring.
Before you play the "Lrn 2 parent lol" card, it helps to actually know what you're talking about.
Also, could it be argued that freedom from mean people falls under 'the persuit of happiness'?
Grif: What about HDDVD?
Sarge: Bad marketing. Not enough repeated letters in the name to be catchy. So it's being replaced with HHDDVVDD BVD.
My question is: why does a game need to have characters and storyline to be considered art? Many pieces of music that are considered art have neither. (Just about everything Beethoven wrote for example) Plot and character development are not required to make a game, and they are not required to make a game great.
The fact that games can have poor gameplay, or shoddy interfaces, but still be considered amazing because of plot and voice acting tells me that a lot of people just don't get it on a fundamental level. Games are not movies. Games are not books. Stop evaluating them in comparison to things they are not, and start evaluating them for what they are.
You might want to educate yourself
To be quite honest, we have no clue what people will care about in a couple hundred years. Noone gave a rats ass about J. S. Bach's work when he was alive.
Say you have Rock Band, and you buy a bunch of DLC tracks. If you get 3 friends over, you can play those tracks in a band. Cool.
Then your Xbox dies and you get it replaced. If I'm reading this stuff correctly, then when you try to do the above, it won't work. Because now, only the purchasing profile (yours) has the rights to use the DLC. No more DLC for your band unless your three friends have bought the tracks on their own live accounts. This goes for anything that is multiplayer, including Live Arcade games. You'll only be able to play trial versions if you have friends over.
Obviously, this is not acceptable.
It has actually extended to my habits regarding physical mail. If things look like junk, I just throw them out. Caused me a bit of trouble when my student loans changed hands, and the mailings from the new company had "Lower your interest rates!" plastered all over the envelope.