He's talking so much about how music is about creative expression and games should be less about competition and more about cooperation, I wonder what he thinks about Wii Music? That game removes all competition, removes even the idea of winning or losing, it's practically a computer assisted instrument where the computer takes care of all the mechanical things like playing the right notes and finding harmonies and the player adds his personal touch, changing the style of the music and such without worrying about which keys to hit on the instrument or which notes would cause a dissonance. There's no obstacles to overcome, no computer to judge you by rigid standards.
I think it's also that they have a very strong primary "voice" to the songs while most songs that aren't chiptunes have less difference between the main voice and the rest. I think this is where I should use terms like polyphony and homophony but I'm not sure how to apply them here.
No, really, no. Memory latency is a major bottleneck in modern computers. Of course you won't notice it if you never do CPU-intensive things but you could probably downgrade your PC a fair bit before noticing a difference there. Once you increase the load the memory latency can be horrible. Again you won't notice directly, we're talking about nanoseconds here IIRC, you'll just notice your PC will perform CPU-heavy operations more slowly than a PC with faster memory.
You are operating the CPU with a voltage it's not designed for. Whether the RAM can take it is one thing but that doesn't mean the CPU won't fry from it.
I'm not really sure, it looks to me like WoW has expanded into markets outside the basement dwellers that MMOs served before. WAR seems to me like it's aimed at the geeks and such so it'll be loved by the people who frequent Slashdot but most of the WoW userbase simply won't care.
Throw it away, no studio takes suggestions like that and not just because of legal issues (fear of being sued for doing anything similar to the idea even if they've thought it up independently, for example).
The first sale doctrine limits the scope of copyright, it does not mandate that physical means to sell the software must be provided, just that they can't sue YOU for selling something (only under copyright, the DMCA can still apply if you had to break any DRM to give the copy away) so if you e.g. sold your system with all the stuff on it they can't stop you. As for false advertising, did they ever claim you can resell the rights? In fact it seems like the total opposite to me, they're outright saying it's designed to not be resellable.
He can sell the right but he cannot get the physical data to you without giving you his console. The first sale doctrine applies to legal hurdles and contracts, not physical problems.
What exactly would you sue them for? "Not going out of their way to allow physically transferring data from one console to another"? "Including a voucher that works exactly as advertised"?
Well, you have the same rights as the original owner too. He used the voucher to install the bonus stuff on his console and had the right to use it provided he owns the console, you have the right to use that bonus stuff if you own the console it's on, too. The original owner did not have the right to install it on your system either (after he installed it on his own) so it's no surprise you don't.
First Sale only means a copy can be resold, it does not mean you can ignore the copyright on something because you bought something related. In this case you get a 20$ (or whatever) gift card for downloadable songs with the game if bought new, nothing requires that a gift you got with the original is intact when you resell it. You got the gift card, you had the option of reselling it, you used it up instead, the person you sell the remains to isn't automatically entitled to a new gift card. You can give him 20$ instead of the card if you negotiate it like that but nothing requires you to make a deal like that and even less forces the original issuer of the gift card to hand you a new one. If you want to resell the bonus don't consume it!
How so? They included a consumable (a bonus code) and the user used it up. If the user was concerned with resale value he could have left the consumable untouched.
You can buy a used game without these extras and it will work, you cannot buy a used car without wheels and drive it. The car requires significant extra investment to get operational, the game doesn't.
with gaming, it's almost an inelastic demand. if you want a particular game, there's only one publisher. you can't substitute a competing product for it.
Nonsense. Of course you can substitute one game for another. It's not a 1:1 substitute but nothing ever is. The thought that it has to be this one specific game is merely induced by marketing, there are many other games you'd probably enjoy too and you can buy those. E.g. I didn't buy Spore but got de Blob instead, a completely different game but serving the same purpose: Entertainment.
2 is bullshit, the games are not priced according to the cost to make them but the price they're expected to fetch. It won't ever cost you more because if they think they can get away with a higher price they'd increase the price, new songs or not so the new songs don't matter at all. Also keep in mind that higher price does not equal higher profit, there's an optimum price where any increases end up decreasing profits because noone will buy the product and something like software has a fixed optimum price as the per-unit production costs are near zero.
Already applies to PC games with internet activation (e.g. HL2 gets tied to your Steam account and costs money to untie), won't apply to console games because that means you need an internet connection to play the game and the manufacturer won't be happy with that idea.
Computer? This is about console games. If your console breaks you probably have bigger worries than one-time codes (besides, all three consoles* use some form of account which the bonus would be tied to so if you get a new one and transfer the account you get your first time bonuses back too, unless it's coded very badly).
*=The Wii uses the hardware as identification AFAIK (local accounts?) but the list of what you bought for it can be copied to another Wii if yours is dead and sent in to Nintendo
Slashdot Mirror
Pffft. I won't be impressed until they can implement a Nondeterministic Turing Machine.
He's talking so much about how music is about creative expression and games should be less about competition and more about cooperation, I wonder what he thinks about Wii Music? That game removes all competition, removes even the idea of winning or losing, it's practically a computer assisted instrument where the computer takes care of all the mechanical things like playing the right notes and finding harmonies and the player adds his personal touch, changing the style of the music and such without worrying about which keys to hit on the instrument or which notes would cause a dissonance. There's no obstacles to overcome, no computer to judge you by rigid standards.
I think it's also that they have a very strong primary "voice" to the songs while most songs that aren't chiptunes have less difference between the main voice and the rest. I think this is where I should use terms like polyphony and homophony but I'm not sure how to apply them here.
No, really, no. Memory latency is a major bottleneck in modern computers. Of course you won't notice it if you never do CPU-intensive things but you could probably downgrade your PC a fair bit before noticing a difference there. Once you increase the load the memory latency can be horrible. Again you won't notice directly, we're talking about nanoseconds here IIRC, you'll just notice your PC will perform CPU-heavy operations more slowly than a PC with faster memory.
I would assume the standard for these modules defines the voltage they should take and the OC RAM simply fails to conform to that spec.
You are operating the CPU with a voltage it's not designed for. Whether the RAM can take it is one thing but that doesn't mean the CPU won't fry from it.
I'm not really sure, it looks to me like WoW has expanded into markets outside the basement dwellers that MMOs served before. WAR seems to me like it's aimed at the geeks and such so it'll be loved by the people who frequent Slashdot but most of the WoW userbase simply won't care.
Throw it away, no studio takes suggestions like that and not just because of legal issues (fear of being sued for doing anything similar to the idea even if they've thought it up independently, for example).
Pfft, real government does not even require informed politicians so why would real democracy need informed voters?
Yeah, Cthulhu definitely came out ahead in the debate with President Allosaur.
Did you miss the sarcasm?
The first sale doctrine limits the scope of copyright, it does not mandate that physical means to sell the software must be provided, just that they can't sue YOU for selling something (only under copyright, the DMCA can still apply if you had to break any DRM to give the copy away) so if you e.g. sold your system with all the stuff on it they can't stop you. As for false advertising, did they ever claim you can resell the rights? In fact it seems like the total opposite to me, they're outright saying it's designed to not be resellable.
He can sell the right but he cannot get the physical data to you without giving you his console. The first sale doctrine applies to legal hurdles and contracts, not physical problems.
What exactly would you sue them for? "Not going out of their way to allow physically transferring data from one console to another"? "Including a voucher that works exactly as advertised"?
Yes, we call it Serious Sam. It even got 1.5 sequels before DNF got released.
Well, you have the same rights as the original owner too. He used the voucher to install the bonus stuff on his console and had the right to use it provided he owns the console, you have the right to use that bonus stuff if you own the console it's on, too. The original owner did not have the right to install it on your system either (after he installed it on his own) so it's no surprise you don't.
First Sale only means a copy can be resold, it does not mean you can ignore the copyright on something because you bought something related. In this case you get a 20$ (or whatever) gift card for downloadable songs with the game if bought new, nothing requires that a gift you got with the original is intact when you resell it. You got the gift card, you had the option of reselling it, you used it up instead, the person you sell the remains to isn't automatically entitled to a new gift card. You can give him 20$ instead of the card if you negotiate it like that but nothing requires you to make a deal like that and even less forces the original issuer of the gift card to hand you a new one. If you want to resell the bonus don't consume it!
Space Invaders: Get Even (Wii). The base game costs 5$, includes one level and every two levels you want to add cost 5$.
How so? They included a consumable (a bonus code) and the user used it up. If the user was concerned with resale value he could have left the consumable untouched.
You can buy a used game without these extras and it will work, you cannot buy a used car without wheels and drive it. The car requires significant extra investment to get operational, the game doesn't.
with gaming, it's almost an inelastic demand. if you want a particular game, there's only one publisher. you can't substitute a competing product for it.
Nonsense. Of course you can substitute one game for another. It's not a 1:1 substitute but nothing ever is. The thought that it has to be this one specific game is merely induced by marketing, there are many other games you'd probably enjoy too and you can buy those. E.g. I didn't buy Spore but got de Blob instead, a completely different game but serving the same purpose: Entertainment.
2 is bullshit, the games are not priced according to the cost to make them but the price they're expected to fetch. It won't ever cost you more because if they think they can get away with a higher price they'd increase the price, new songs or not so the new songs don't matter at all. Also keep in mind that higher price does not equal higher profit, there's an optimum price where any increases end up decreasing profits because noone will buy the product and something like software has a fixed optimum price as the per-unit production costs are near zero.
Already applies to PC games with internet activation (e.g. HL2 gets tied to your Steam account and costs money to untie), won't apply to console games because that means you need an internet connection to play the game and the manufacturer won't be happy with that idea.
If Valve wanted, they could very easily make a "unbound from account and re-gift this game" feature.
Costs a tenner IIRC, read the EULA (at least HL2 retail had that in its EULA, might differ for download-only games).
Computer? This is about console games. If your console breaks you probably have bigger worries than one-time codes (besides, all three consoles* use some form of account which the bonus would be tied to so if you get a new one and transfer the account you get your first time bonuses back too, unless it's coded very badly).
*=The Wii uses the hardware as identification AFAIK (local accounts?) but the list of what you bought for it can be copied to another Wii if yours is dead and sent in to Nintendo
That fascism list reads like it was worded specifically to make the reader think "USA".