In order to make the game fun... it simply has to sacrifice some amount of realism for fun factor.
I'm not sure wargamers would agree.
When you do that with a war game based on a real war, with real people, you run the risk of dishonoring their memories and sacrifices, and I think that this game has a dangerous potential to do that.
As opposed to imaginary wars like World War 2 and Vietnam?
However the code is only half the work, you'll also need your data and if the only copy of that is stored on a system you lose access to... Well, game over. I don't think the AGPL requires handing out the data.
Well, games are absurdly expensive in the western countries already* and you can be pretty damn sure they'll import given the option to get legal games for less than 10 USD if they were offered price-adjusted in other markets. I think you are in a different region code for DVDs so they can't be shipped to the US and Europe easily but videogames are currently coded as America, Japan and PAL so your market would be in the same region as at least one of the richer markets which would not hesitate importing from you.
*=If someone's going to pull another stupid hours/$ comparison I'll point at books.
A general problem with pointing at third party software not selling on the Wii is that not all software is equal. When a third party loses against Nintendo it's often not a battle of Nintendo's brightest vs that third party's brightest, it tends to be a battle between Nintendo's brightest vs the third party's outsourced port team that can barely spell OpenGL. While I won't dispute that Nintendo's brightest are extremely bright and it can get very hard to beat them they're definitely not going to be outdone by some third rate effort that got funded by the leftovers in the annual budget. That's in part because publishers don't understand the Wii market, many go in with the wrong assumptions about the userbase and obviously fall flat as it turns out the customer their game was intended for does not exist.
What should also be pointed at is the tie-in ratio (software sold per console on average) which was 6 for both the Wii and PS3 the last time I've seen a story about it (beginning of 2009 IIRC), either the PS3's audience has the same buy-one-game mentality or the Wii's does not and instead simply doesn't buy games it doesn't like.
Potentially a huge market but there is a problem, they are by definition, unending games. You don't finish them. So you don't need to buy the sequel, or a clone, or even a different take of it. If you bought the Wii to keep fit, then that is the only purchase you will make for a LONG time. That is NOT the way the other markets work.
Works fine for board games. Hell, even videogames didn't always end, in the early arcade age it was normal for a game to go on indefinitely until you either ran out of lives or the game glitched out and yet games kept being developed after that. There's always new ways to give the player new experiences. I don't think this whole "play through once, then trade in and buy the sequel" approach was really in place before the invention of FMVs, games had a length of ~30 minutes in one run but you'd play them over and over to get better at them until you could beat Contra on one life or something.
Will developers be able to keep the PS3 alive for as long as the PS2?
That is not a matter of ability but willingness. The PS2 receives games because it was by far the biggest selling console of its generation and there are still many people with PS2s hooked up who will buy PS2 games so devs release PS2 games to sell to those masses. I don't think the PS3 will end up in the same position, no matter how much Sony promises a 10 year lifespan (which I also think was only caused by the #1 position on the PS1 and PS2) they won't be able to convince developers to care about the PS3 over the next gen systems unless it finishes as a clear first and that is extremely unlikely from what we've seen so far.
The X-box aged fast, how fast is the 360 going to age?
The XBox didn't really age faster than the other systems but it got abandoned quickly because it was pretty far back in sales and they hoped to get an advantage by moving first this time (and I think it did work out for them to some degree).
Is the market going to want its sequel when the PS3 and the Wii will be cheaper and perhaps even just as good?
Yeah, that's the real question but it can only be answered if we know what the next XBox will do different from this one. If it's going to be another graphics update they won't stand a chance as graphics are pushed as far as the customer cares (and further). I'm not saying technology won't improve but I'm saying people don't care. Sony could easily run into the same problem though, if they make the PS4 another attempt at pushing graphics further they'll suffer just as much. If either console offers a significant improvement (in the eyes of the customer) then it could very well succeed more. For the record I don't expect the 360 to get a sequel long before the PS3 does though the Wii might end up lasting longer since its primary values can be improved without replacing the console itself.
However AFAIK the DMCA absolves providers of services that allow user uploads of legal trouble as long as they obey the whole DMCA claim/counterclaim procedure.
Do you honestly believe any significant number of artists had more say than the rest of the public on this matter? They don't have more political influence than any random plumber or burger flipper.
And how do you propose handling other media like software then? Want to end up with 200 different people (many probably on another job after a few years, maybe even working for your competition) owning small stakes in the product you paid them to make?
Disrespect to the dead is punishable in some countries and I'm pretty sure celebrating someone's death with toilet paper would count as such. Even with copyright they could theoretically print a photo of the person they hate on the paper.
Political ideologies you don't agree with using lapsed works is a risk that's so minimal it should not be considered worthy of legislation (might even deserve to be PROTECTED by the law).
I keep my stance that copyright should be turned into a usage dependent system, after a certain period (I'd say 10 years) after the initial publication (or creation in the case of unpublished works) the work will lapse if it or a sufficiently close derivative hasn't been available legally at a realistic price (should be set as a multiple of the initial publication's price or the standard market value for the medium for unpublished works) to the public at large (no "you must pass our approval process", then you only get the basic term and a lapse immediately after) for two consecutive years. In order to sue someone for copyright infringement the rightsholder would have to prove that the work has been available to the public within that timeframe (should be pretty easy to document). Obviously pretending it's available to the public (e.g. listing it in an online store as available) when it's not (e.g. no copies were kept, the originals are in some dumpster and anyone who orders it gets a "we're sorry, it's out of stock message) would be fraud and should be punished as a crime.
The goal of this would be to make sure that unused works lapse quickly and the public can preserve them before the existing copies might have vanished. If the rightsholder wants to retain the rights then they should use the rights to make the works available to the public, after all copyright doesn't promote the growth of the public domain pool if all copies are long lost and forgotten by the time a work hits PD. A work that manages to retain commercial relevance for a looooong time would still get a reasonably long protection so the few who actually pull that off get to make a lot of money from it but the stuff that becomes irrelevant fast doesn't simply vanish because noone bothered to preserve it.
Tell that to the farmers who need subsidies shoved up their arse till the cows come home. After all I haven't seen a human survive without food (breatharian nonsense does not count).
Pensions keep paying no matter how many people keep using your works, royalities can hit near-zero quickly once people stop caring (provided they ever cared).
Besides, it's death + X years, after your death YOU aren't going to receive royalties anyway no matter who owns the rights.
Vaccines are usually given before the infection because they work by preparing the immune system for the pathogen, in many cases a vaccine becomes pointless once the subject is infected because then the immune system will train itself on the live pathogen and giving it training dummies won't do anything anymore.
Slashdot Mirror
People do play survival horror games though and not just the ones that are like Resident Evil 4.
The Oregon Trail didn't delete itself when you lost but people still considered it valid edutainment.
In order to make the game fun... it simply has to sacrifice some amount of realism for fun factor.
I'm not sure wargamers would agree.
When you do that with a war game based on a real war, with real people, you run the risk of dishonoring their memories and sacrifices, and I think that this game has a dangerous potential to do that.
As opposed to imaginary wars like World War 2 and Vietnam?
However the code is only half the work, you'll also need your data and if the only copy of that is stored on a system you lose access to... Well, game over. I don't think the AGPL requires handing out the data.
Don't worry, the list is located in Alpha Centauri and requires showing up in person to be added.
Maybe the country shouldn't levy absurdly high taxes on goods that are already too expensive for the populace then.
Well, games are absurdly expensive in the western countries already* and you can be pretty damn sure they'll import given the option to get legal games for less than 10 USD if they were offered price-adjusted in other markets. I think you are in a different region code for DVDs so they can't be shipped to the US and Europe easily but videogames are currently coded as America, Japan and PAL so your market would be in the same region as at least one of the richer markets which would not hesitate importing from you.
*=If someone's going to pull another stupid hours/$ comparison I'll point at books.
A general problem with pointing at third party software not selling on the Wii is that not all software is equal. When a third party loses against Nintendo it's often not a battle of Nintendo's brightest vs that third party's brightest, it tends to be a battle between Nintendo's brightest vs the third party's outsourced port team that can barely spell OpenGL. While I won't dispute that Nintendo's brightest are extremely bright and it can get very hard to beat them they're definitely not going to be outdone by some third rate effort that got funded by the leftovers in the annual budget. That's in part because publishers don't understand the Wii market, many go in with the wrong assumptions about the userbase and obviously fall flat as it turns out the customer their game was intended for does not exist.
What should also be pointed at is the tie-in ratio (software sold per console on average) which was 6 for both the Wii and PS3 the last time I've seen a story about it (beginning of 2009 IIRC), either the PS3's audience has the same buy-one-game mentality or the Wii's does not and instead simply doesn't buy games it doesn't like.
Potentially a huge market but there is a problem, they are by definition, unending games. You don't finish them. So you don't need to buy the sequel, or a clone, or even a different take of it. If you bought the Wii to keep fit, then that is the only purchase you will make for a LONG time. That is NOT the way the other markets work.
Works fine for board games. Hell, even videogames didn't always end, in the early arcade age it was normal for a game to go on indefinitely until you either ran out of lives or the game glitched out and yet games kept being developed after that. There's always new ways to give the player new experiences. I don't think this whole "play through once, then trade in and buy the sequel" approach was really in place before the invention of FMVs, games had a length of ~30 minutes in one run but you'd play them over and over to get better at them until you could beat Contra on one life or something.
Will developers be able to keep the PS3 alive for as long as the PS2?
That is not a matter of ability but willingness. The PS2 receives games because it was by far the biggest selling console of its generation and there are still many people with PS2s hooked up who will buy PS2 games so devs release PS2 games to sell to those masses. I don't think the PS3 will end up in the same position, no matter how much Sony promises a 10 year lifespan (which I also think was only caused by the #1 position on the PS1 and PS2) they won't be able to convince developers to care about the PS3 over the next gen systems unless it finishes as a clear first and that is extremely unlikely from what we've seen so far.
The X-box aged fast, how fast is the 360 going to age?
The XBox didn't really age faster than the other systems but it got abandoned quickly because it was pretty far back in sales and they hoped to get an advantage by moving first this time (and I think it did work out for them to some degree).
Is the market going to want its sequel when the PS3 and the Wii will be cheaper and perhaps even just as good?
Yeah, that's the real question but it can only be answered if we know what the next XBox will do different from this one. If it's going to be another graphics update they won't stand a chance as graphics are pushed as far as the customer cares (and further). I'm not saying technology won't improve but I'm saying people don't care. Sony could easily run into the same problem though, if they make the PS4 another attempt at pushing graphics further they'll suffer just as much. If either console offers a significant improvement (in the eyes of the customer) then it could very well succeed more. For the record I don't expect the 360 to get a sequel long before the PS3 does though the Wii might end up lasting longer since its primary values can be improved without replacing the console itself.
However AFAIK the DMCA absolves providers of services that allow user uploads of legal trouble as long as they obey the whole DMCA claim/counterclaim procedure.
Do you honestly believe any significant number of artists had more say than the rest of the public on this matter? They don't have more political influence than any random plumber or burger flipper.
Then again the performers could have thought about that BEFORE signing the contract.
Besides, most creators are salaried and get their money from that, the copyright goes to the company that paid their salaries.
And how do you propose handling other media like software then? Want to end up with 200 different people (many probably on another job after a few years, maybe even working for your competition) owning small stakes in the product you paid them to make?
Disrespect to the dead is punishable in some countries and I'm pretty sure celebrating someone's death with toilet paper would count as such. Even with copyright they could theoretically print a photo of the person they hate on the paper.
Political ideologies you don't agree with using lapsed works is a risk that's so minimal it should not be considered worthy of legislation (might even deserve to be PROTECTED by the law).
I keep my stance that copyright should be turned into a usage dependent system, after a certain period (I'd say 10 years) after the initial publication (or creation in the case of unpublished works) the work will lapse if it or a sufficiently close derivative hasn't been available legally at a realistic price (should be set as a multiple of the initial publication's price or the standard market value for the medium for unpublished works) to the public at large (no "you must pass our approval process", then you only get the basic term and a lapse immediately after) for two consecutive years. In order to sue someone for copyright infringement the rightsholder would have to prove that the work has been available to the public within that timeframe (should be pretty easy to document). Obviously pretending it's available to the public (e.g. listing it in an online store as available) when it's not (e.g. no copies were kept, the originals are in some dumpster and anyone who orders it gets a "we're sorry, it's out of stock message) would be fraud and should be punished as a crime.
The goal of this would be to make sure that unused works lapse quickly and the public can preserve them before the existing copies might have vanished. If the rightsholder wants to retain the rights then they should use the rights to make the works available to the public, after all copyright doesn't promote the growth of the public domain pool if all copies are long lost and forgotten by the time a work hits PD. A work that manages to retain commercial relevance for a looooong time would still get a reasonably long protection so the few who actually pull that off get to make a lot of money from it but the stuff that becomes irrelevant fast doesn't simply vanish because noone bothered to preserve it.
Tell that to the farmers who need subsidies shoved up their arse till the cows come home. After all I haven't seen a human survive without food (breatharian nonsense does not count).
Kutaragi the hyperbolist was later fired for that mistake.
I prefer the experession "first against the wall when the Revolution came".
Pensions keep paying no matter how many people keep using your works, royalities can hit near-zero quickly once people stop caring (provided they ever cared).
Besides, it's death + X years, after your death YOU aren't going to receive royalties anyway no matter who owns the rights.
What, you like Vin Diesel?
No, they got bought out by the German postal service.
Vaccines are usually given before the infection because they work by preparing the immune system for the pathogen, in many cases a vaccine becomes pointless once the subject is infected because then the immune system will train itself on the live pathogen and giving it training dummies won't do anything anymore.
Well, games pander to a very niche market currently while DVDs sell to the wide masses.
Stolen games run on unmodded consoles.
The only way Godwin's Law applies to Soviets on Slashdot is that somebody will always pull out the tired "in Soviet Russia" meme.
They didn't even say that, Microsoft did. It's like the AO rating, if you hit that the console manufacturer forbids you from releasing your game.
East Germany was run by the Soviets, not the Nazis.