Nope, the license agreement is the thing that delimits your right to use the software itself, the terms of use/service are the conditions under which the company will provide a service to you. The distinction is important as some countries do not recognize EULAs as contracts but all accept the terms of service as one and the legal foundation is different. The terms of service say exactly what service the company provides and under which conditions. If they say you may not trade items for real-world value and you do that they are no longer obliged to provide the service to you.
When you are selling your time you are providing a service that is tied to the game. If you were hired for ten hours of farming but the server goes down before you can complete your contract and for some reason you can no longer fulfill it what can you do?
Wait, are they serious? That think will be about as popular as the Virtual Boy, are they really insane enough to require it? Okay, it's Kojima but still.
It's not the license agreement, it's the terms of service and they don't want you to make money by using their service as that'd start attributing values to the various parts of the service and could open them to lawsuits (e.g. farmer sues Blizzard after "Dagger of Superior Flu Resistance" gets nerfed and loses its market value).
The advantage of a union over a competing company is that the union doesn't have to pay the sallaries for all its members so it can reach many more people. Though I think the mere feeling of being not as helpless as before will do a lot already because I believe the workers aren't nearly as replaceable as they think. Additionally, the union would most likely contain all of the senior talent in a company.
Having the number of experienced workers fall too low WILL impact productivity. EA doesn't abuse its lead workers nearly as much as the grunts (or at least the leads have figured out how to avoid most of the abusive practices). The leads are less inclined to act against EA than a grunt but a union could get them to join an organized protest along with the grunts. Even if you could just restock on grunts overnight (and ignoring the adaption period they'd need to get accustomed to your existing material, tools and pipeline), without the leads they wouldn't work as effectively as the old group and less efficiency == less cash.
I used the term "masters" because I get the feeling that some people really put themselves into the position of the slave. Fair competition is one thing, people too afraid of outsourcing to report infringements upon their rights is a whole different thing. That's witnesses being essentially blackmailed. And it works only because many people already have that "I'm replaceable" mentality set in their heads. Most people in the games industry aren't nearly as expendable as they believe but the belief is stronger than any chain. I don't see what competition would do there. Death marches aren't a competitive advantage or disadvantage but few have the money to bring a game to completion these days. To compete in the retail market you are looking at multimillion dollar budgets, not just four people in a basement.
Besides, people forming their own companies because of the treatment in the big sweatshops happens all the time, it's just that fresh meat arrives much faster than the industry can eat it. Because of the high barrier of entry you don't see many of those upstarts live longer than a year, mostly because they have no reputation or franchise associated with them and no publisher is willing to touch them. Self funding is possible but too hard to do if you're going for an "AAA" title. Sure, you don't have to go for "AAA" but that means you can't compete with EA et al, either.
Looking through the comments there seems to be this constant notion that unionizing or other attempts to gain worker's rights will lead to outsourcing. So what? Are we all supposed to lay low and obey our masters because we're at their whim and could be replaced at any time? Is that the world you people want to live in? The people at EA and other dev houses are being abused beyond what the law permits and you guys are only afraid of outsourcing? They aren't even getting what the law grants them and they aren't complaining because of the fear of being replaced.
The point of a union in that sector would be to make sure EA and others can't prey upon the bright-eyed inexperienced newcomers that don't know that you don't have to take every shit management throws at you. Telling them individually not to blindly obey their superiors is impossible but a union could reach enough ears to shorten the supply enough that the company no longer thinks "Man, that guy insists on his rights. Let's fire him and get some obedient cattle fresh out of school.".
And I'm not buying the whole outsourcing FUD, either. If outsourcing was really that easy and profitable, everybody would do it. That's obviously not the case. Outsourcing seems to be mere FUD like that whole "War on Terrorism" thing to keep people in line so they won't go and complain to the authorities when they're being treated unfairly. If the workers weren't constantly thinking they're easily replaceable, would they put up with that incompetent scheduling that leads to those idiotic and futile "death marches"?
Yes, I feel like I'm just reiterating the article but the whole attitude of "give them everything, just don't make them outsource you!" is getting on my nerves.
If outsourcing was as good as the FUD claims there'd be very few jobs outside the retail and transportation sectors in most industrial nations. But there seem to be a lot of jobs available in the USA.
How about applying that to product packaging? Movies could have the trailer on the back, games a few seconds of gameplay footage. Instead of a TV playing those ad videos for some stuff it could be printed right on the back.
How can you tell it's lucid? When I dream, I usually feel that I'm in control, sometimes even realizing I'm dreaming and manipulating the dream (e.g. rewinding if I don't like the way a scene played out) but in dreams you can believe literally everything. Dreams have total suspension of disbelief so even the most insane scenarios will seem plausible. Contradictions won't be apparent until you (or at least I) wake up. I often see recurring objects and even attribute them correctly to the dream but the dream still seems real even after that. Even if they are as blurry as your memories you will believe they are clear. Because of that I don't think I was really in control and merely believed it. So, are there any special signs that separate a lucid dream from a normal one?
By the way, I think most people do ejaculate when they dream of sex.
Multiplayer is nice but it's not the be-all-end-all of gaming. Many games simply don't lend themselves to multiplayer so online is a wasted effort on those. Games like Super Mario Bros, Final Fantasy or even GTA are better left singleplayer. There is no way to enjoy an immersive world if you have those stupid kiddies screaming profanities or a game design meant to keep you playing for months on content that would barely last ten hours without all the grind. Sure, online is nice for multiplayer games but the vast majority of the games I play are singleplayer. Does a horror adventure become more frightening when played with random people? Does a Jump & Run play better if the enemies are intelligent?
The rod uses complete motion sensing, not just pointing. The sensors are accurate, you could try the GBA games "Yoshi's Topsy-Turvy" or "Wario Ware Twisted" (I'd recommend the latter, Topsy Turvy sucks) to test them. Or you could try this, which is a mouse designed by the company Nintendo licensed the technology from.
Obviously the rod will allow you to swing a sword around or maybe play a more accurate Pool/Snooker or Baseball sim. Probably a lot of things we can't even think of right now. At first people assumed the DS wouldn't bring anything new because "the mouse can do everything the touchscreen does and PDAs had it already, anyway". Noone thought of games like Trauma Center. Sure, the PC could probably do everything but since it's a minor market, introducing concepts into the console market that were available on the PC will yield new games.
Simple and straight forward ways means that it is installed by default, right?
Not when it's about competitors, then it means "with an obscure program and a confusing interface that requires three different settings active to access".
Slashdot Mirror
What about Gish, Pontifex, Uplink, etc? Just some of the games I've seen in stores.
Are you joking about the Independent Games Festival or are you really not aware that it already exists?
Nope, the license agreement is the thing that delimits your right to use the software itself, the terms of use/service are the conditions under which the company will provide a service to you. The distinction is important as some countries do not recognize EULAs as contracts but all accept the terms of service as one and the legal foundation is different. The terms of service say exactly what service the company provides and under which conditions. If they say you may not trade items for real-world value and you do that they are no longer obliged to provide the service to you.
When you are selling your time you are providing a service that is tied to the game. If you were hired for ten hours of farming but the server goes down before you can complete your contract and for some reason you can no longer fulfill it what can you do?
They have another adapter that takes the digital signal sent to the LCD but that requires hardware modifications.
Wait, are they serious? That think will be about as popular as the Virtual Boy, are they really insane enough to require it? Okay, it's Kojima but still.
It's not the license agreement, it's the terms of service and they don't want you to make money by using their service as that'd start attributing values to the various parts of the service and could open them to lawsuits (e.g. farmer sues Blizzard after "Dagger of Superior Flu Resistance" gets nerfed and loses its market value).
The advantage of a union over a competing company is that the union doesn't have to pay the sallaries for all its members so it can reach many more people. Though I think the mere feeling of being not as helpless as before will do a lot already because I believe the workers aren't nearly as replaceable as they think. Additionally, the union would most likely contain all of the senior talent in a company.
Having the number of experienced workers fall too low WILL impact productivity. EA doesn't abuse its lead workers nearly as much as the grunts (or at least the leads have figured out how to avoid most of the abusive practices). The leads are less inclined to act against EA than a grunt but a union could get them to join an organized protest along with the grunts. Even if you could just restock on grunts overnight (and ignoring the adaption period they'd need to get accustomed to your existing material, tools and pipeline), without the leads they wouldn't work as effectively as the old group and less efficiency == less cash.
I used the term "masters" because I get the feeling that some people really put themselves into the position of the slave. Fair competition is one thing, people too afraid of outsourcing to report infringements upon their rights is a whole different thing. That's witnesses being essentially blackmailed. And it works only because many people already have that "I'm replaceable" mentality set in their heads. Most people in the games industry aren't nearly as expendable as they believe but the belief is stronger than any chain. I don't see what competition would do there. Death marches aren't a competitive advantage or disadvantage but few have the money to bring a game to completion these days. To compete in the retail market you are looking at multimillion dollar budgets, not just four people in a basement.
Besides, people forming their own companies because of the treatment in the big sweatshops happens all the time, it's just that fresh meat arrives much faster than the industry can eat it. Because of the high barrier of entry you don't see many of those upstarts live longer than a year, mostly because they have no reputation or franchise associated with them and no publisher is willing to touch them. Self funding is possible but too hard to do if you're going for an "AAA" title. Sure, you don't have to go for "AAA" but that means you can't compete with EA et al, either.
Looking through the comments there seems to be this constant notion that unionizing or other attempts to gain worker's rights will lead to outsourcing. So what? Are we all supposed to lay low and obey our masters because we're at their whim and could be replaced at any time? Is that the world you people want to live in? The people at EA and other dev houses are being abused beyond what the law permits and you guys are only afraid of outsourcing? They aren't even getting what the law grants them and they aren't complaining because of the fear of being replaced.
The point of a union in that sector would be to make sure EA and others can't prey upon the bright-eyed inexperienced newcomers that don't know that you don't have to take every shit management throws at you. Telling them individually not to blindly obey their superiors is impossible but a union could reach enough ears to shorten the supply enough that the company no longer thinks "Man, that guy insists on his rights. Let's fire him and get some obedient cattle fresh out of school.".
And I'm not buying the whole outsourcing FUD, either. If outsourcing was really that easy and profitable, everybody would do it. That's obviously not the case. Outsourcing seems to be mere FUD like that whole "War on Terrorism" thing to keep people in line so they won't go and complain to the authorities when they're being treated unfairly. If the workers weren't constantly thinking they're easily replaceable, would they put up with that incompetent scheduling that leads to those idiotic and futile "death marches"?
Yes, I feel like I'm just reiterating the article but the whole attitude of "give them everything, just don't make them outsource you!" is getting on my nerves.
If outsourcing was as good as the FUD claims there'd be very few jobs outside the retail and transportation sectors in most industrial nations. But there seem to be a lot of jobs available in the USA.
What resolution or refresh rate would a keyboard need?
How about applying that to product packaging? Movies could have the trailer on the back, games a few seconds of gameplay footage. Instead of a TV playing those ad videos for some stuff it could be printed right on the back.
What if you don't have your screen with you and want to read something?
Why is it so much weaker than magnetism?
Because otherwise we'd be wondering "Why is it so much stronger than magnetism". Obviously we'd look rather different, too.
Are you serious or is that supposed to be representative of the group your username alludes to?
Japanese laws forbid showing genitals even in porn. I don't know what genius thought that up.
How can you tell it's lucid? When I dream, I usually feel that I'm in control, sometimes even realizing I'm dreaming and manipulating the dream (e.g. rewinding if I don't like the way a scene played out) but in dreams you can believe literally everything. Dreams have total suspension of disbelief so even the most insane scenarios will seem plausible. Contradictions won't be apparent until you (or at least I) wake up. I often see recurring objects and even attribute them correctly to the dream but the dream still seems real even after that. Even if they are as blurry as your memories you will believe they are clear. Because of that I don't think I was really in control and merely believed it. So, are there any special signs that separate a lucid dream from a normal one?
By the way, I think most people do ejaculate when they dream of sex.
Pah, he probably doesn't even know that you can pipe stdout in DOS.
Archimedes was a mathematical mastermind, I don't think he'd have trouble with building a nearly perfect parabolic mirror.
Multiplayer is nice but it's not the be-all-end-all of gaming. Many games simply don't lend themselves to multiplayer so online is a wasted effort on those. Games like Super Mario Bros, Final Fantasy or even GTA are better left singleplayer. There is no way to enjoy an immersive world if you have those stupid kiddies screaming profanities or a game design meant to keep you playing for months on content that would barely last ten hours without all the grind. Sure, online is nice for multiplayer games but the vast majority of the games I play are singleplayer. Does a horror adventure become more frightening when played with random people? Does a Jump & Run play better if the enemies are intelligent?
Nethack.
The rod uses complete motion sensing, not just pointing. The sensors are accurate, you could try the GBA games "Yoshi's Topsy-Turvy" or "Wario Ware Twisted" (I'd recommend the latter, Topsy Turvy sucks) to test them. Or you could try this, which is a mouse designed by the company Nintendo licensed the technology from.
Obviously the rod will allow you to swing a sword around or maybe play a more accurate Pool/Snooker or Baseball sim. Probably a lot of things we can't even think of right now. At first people assumed the DS wouldn't bring anything new because "the mouse can do everything the touchscreen does and PDAs had it already, anyway". Noone thought of games like Trauma Center. Sure, the PC could probably do everything but since it's a minor market, introducing concepts into the console market that were available on the PC will yield new games.
A: If you have enough to try that you have enough to buy the world's largest suitcase.
Simple and straight forward ways means that it is installed by default, right?
Not when it's about competitors, then it means "with an obscure program and a confusing interface that requires three different settings active to access".
Aren't AOL and Time Warner still fused? They are listed as taking 750M$.