In terms of price growth, game prices have gone up ~20% (50$ to 60$)
CD prices are growing at a similar, if not higher, pace (10-12$ to 18-20$).
Also, compare the typical CD collection to a game collection. The CD collection will be 4-5x larger due to greater demand for a vast music collection so that you don't tire of the same 20 CDs, whereas 20 games is a significant collection and can be diverse enough to keep you interested -- atleast until the latest and greatest is released.
Games are only recently starting to take advantage of remakes/updates -- Star Ocean on PSP, FF on DS/PSx/PSP...
As opposed to the music industry's re-release of every album ever recorded on every format -- because people absolutely want this stuff on their new hardware, and will pay repeatedly for it.
Hell, I know one guy that has bought 5 different copies of the Eagle's Hotel California single.
Album, cassette, CDs, Sony Super CD, AAC file
I took pride in starting up a pretty massive "family" raiding guild in EQ (Semper Simul), but never thought about it as anything but large for the server it was on (Lanys)
The guild lived on for years after I left, great group of people, but still...I never heard of Syndicate, and after having been in other competitive guilds, I would never consider one worth writing a book about..
Minium for life! -- Of course, no one here will likely know who that is either, being a smaller elite guild in the early WoW days on a single server... but maybe I could write a book and make some cash, who knows.
Stop passing FireFox out.
Don't get me wrong, I love Firefox, but when it hits a large enough audience - then bad mean people will care enough to look for its vulnerabilities and take advantage of them too, and I'll have to find a new browser to visit nasty sites with.
Besides, I make good money thanks to IE and the crap it installs thank you.
There have been quite a few studies done (atleast back home in Texas) that show that it is more difficult for a minor to purchase/rent an M-rated game than it is for same minor to get into a R-movie or buy an explicit CD.
Now, why is this an issue again?
The problem only occurs in that parents pay less attention to video game ratings than to movie ratings and other ratings and go buy their kids the game they want. The fact that games don't get near the advertisement time on TV that movies and music get helps this. Parents that don't play games themselves wouldn't see the ads for GTA or other games with great big "M" stamps on the corners, so wouldn't have any idea about a game aside from what the kid tells them.
Of all the people condemning D&D because it was causing "good kids" to worship satan, how many had actually ever LOOKED at or played with a D&D group? Probably nil, if any.
I agree, stifling change for job security is stupid.
So, why are we enacting trade barriers to protect our high price of sugar? Why are we enacting barriers to keep cheaper labor out in the form of visas? Everyone would be better off in the long run with free trade and open borders - but the majority of the people in the US want to keep their job.
The only reason why those cars are even made in the US in the first place still (even with robots) is because of laws that require cars sold in the US to be assembled here.
The Mercedes plant in Alabama is a perfect example. That state has the lowest per capita income in the US so it's PERFECT for a labor farm. You can have people lining up there for a 5.15$ hour a job, but the only reason that job is even here is because it's not lawful for it to be in Africa or China.
If you want to sign a Kyoto treaty that will chase every company away that has to spend xxx thousand dollars on upgrading their equipment, then you won't have those jobs, and you won't have as many jobs in the new 'clean it up' industry, becasue there will be nothing to clean up.
Stifling change for job security is stupid, I agree, but that doesn't mean that people aren't going to do it because the majority of them don't want to change. Things like this are the whole reason why America is still so protectionist in many ways and why everyone thinks free trade is an evil way for evil corporations to make more evil money.
In certain cases regulation will increase profits for groups (one particular example is the quota of Japanese cars allowed into America in the 1980s) so that there is a guaranteed oligopoly in a particular area. Only X many firms can enter this field, so they will produce at less than competitive prices because of cooperation and other oligopoly practices. This breaks down when they can beat each other out, but regulation requires that they all 'cooperate' at a set price. If that price is above a price that they can profit, everyone leaves the market. If that price is below the level where they lose money, it's pure economic profit.
You let the FCC regulate software to the point where you have to have a 'FCC License' to touch any code and that makes Open Source Software not so cheap anymore because you have to have a licensed programmer to make it. Entering the 'programming market' isn't just sitting at a computer and typing code anymore - now it consists of getting to the office and filling out a test and qualifying for a license. That will most likely decrease the production of much Open Source Software since there is typically little compensation for producing it (as compared with copyrighted/retailed software). This will decrease the amount produced, giving the retail giants (Microsoft, Sun...) more room to make money on their retail successes, and less reason to support Open Source (as Sun and IBM have been) because now they are lawfully protected as an oligopoly instead of fighting to keep their oligopoly.
You can almost bet that Microsoft/Sun and the rest would like this to happen because even if it raises their cost by 10,000$ per programmer, it increases their profits by giving a big kick-in-the-ass to Open Source at the same time.
---Mind you, all this is assuming something beyond simple hardware requirements---
For a simple economic example think about Pepsi vs Coke. If both stopped advertising then they would both have about 50% of the market and they would be making more money. But if one advertises and the other doesn't, the advertiser makes incredible amounts of money over the other one - like 75% market share. But if both advertise, then they both still get app. 50% of the market - but they have to pay huge advertising costs for the likes of Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera - effectively losing money that they could've had if they agreed not to advertise. But why be a nice guy when you can try to be greedy? so hence, the dominant Nash equilibrium strategy here is to advertise. But if advertising is outlawed....Coke and Pepsi are happy as pigs in shit. -- Apply to Microsoft and other software giants when they don't have to compete with Open Source to the same extent. Microsoft already has name-recognition thanks to Windows for every computer-illiterate person in America (all, what, 200 million?). Now, if they go to a store and see 'Open Office' and 'MS Office' next to each other on the shelf - first of all, MS Office will have more shelf space and will probably have a nice looking box and everyting - Joe Blow is gonna pick up MS Office because he's heard of it and it looks nice while Open Office looks 'questionable' because there are only 3 on the shelf, its in a bland white box, and its cheap ("hmm, am I sure that will work right?")
That was meant more of a reference toward Bush than any attack on religion.
Religion should not lead government, but should be its own entity, but Bush has decidedly stated that he follows God's commands and it helps him make decisions.
Well, all fine and good...but when God's commands start dragging us into wars and such, more rational thoughts should be employed.
Religion should be put on the backburner in government because it brings out more emotions, rather than rationally choosing candidates.
Plus, if you started using religion to attack/back Roe v. Wade, there are alot of Christians who would scream that's in violation of the Ten Commandments (or whatever) because its murder of a child. Others would scream that rationally it wasn't alive - it would be a huge mess.
Not that I'm a Kerry supporter, but I think Bush has brought a little too much religion back into office.
A never-ending religious camp where everyone preaches the word of God and evolution is a 'heretical' theory and the sky gradually turns black from smog.
or a neverending job of putting out every little fire in every forest until someone is sleeping on the job and the whole continent catches fire and everyone screams at that one little guy for not putting out his fire when if all the little fires had not been put out before, there would still be some forest.
I consider myself a conservative; however, I do feel that the environment is an important factor, but not because of all the different scientific studies on it, it can be 'approached' with a simple differential equation to see what happens when a small change occurs.
I don't know much about the environment...but give this a chance.
Everyone blows off a.5 degree change in temperature, but the earth has reached a nice cyclical area over the past few thousand years with slight cooling and slight warming trends (mini Ice age + warm middle age). But this fairly consistent cyclical trend could easily be thrown off by a small change in any factor.
As seen by other posts, the CO2 in the atmosphere either follows or precedes a warming/cooling trend. Suppose you knock that CO2 off by a few thousand metres-cubed? That could throw our 'stable' system into an explosive growth toward an extreme...and extremes are bad.
And considering that the weather is millions of times more complicated than that...I'd rather not tempt fate and turn the US into a ________ (choose one: desert, glacier, pond).
...but then, there's no way in hell you'll ever make me support a non-privatized social security agenda, or universal healthcare. Hell, I even believe the US should drop out of the United Nations and pull all US resources from the rest of the world and put them to work here. We earned the resources, we should spend it, especially if we're just going to be attacked for getting into other peoples business.
How's that for conservative?
Don't go mocking Privitization because you think that corporations are bad. A corporation isn't *evil*, the ignorant stockholders that simply demand the highest profits NOW are the problem.
Don't blame the corporation for being bad when shareholders don't do a damn thing about them.
Blame uncontrolled CEOs and ignorant shareholders. A real, decent CEO with decent shareholders would maximize profit over the long run (10 years+) instead of doing it over the next 2. CEOs like Eisner and Lay are the problem, but many others are not (i.e. Southwest Airlines) where profits are stable, not skyhigh, and the workers are treated well (I know a pilot for SW, that's reason for example).
Teach some shareholder responsibility (required economics anyone?) and both corporations and general citizens would be in much better shape (not to mention a stabler economy). It's sad that a majority of shareholders don't realize that they can tell their CEO what to do because they are, in reality, the big man's boss/supervisor/hirer/firer.
Well, once upon a time, long long ago, America had a slight 'balance' to this system known as the Senate. The Senate was appointed by the random smart people pointed at by the many dumb people and so you had the balance between the Representatives (directly chosen by the semi-idiots of America) and the Senators (indirectly chosen/appointed by those chosen by the semi-idiots)
Then 'democracy' fevor overrode sense, and so now the Senate is a popular vote election. Good idea, if everyone votes informedly, but now our government is entirely chosen at random by people who just vote for what the other people around them are voting for *(in MANY, not all, cases)
I say, screw full democracy (look at what it did for Greece back in their golden age) and go back to half and half. That way, atleast, the appointed Senators and the elected Representatives have to duke it out so that you have something inbetween what the 'general' public thinks they should have, and what the more educated people think they should have. This might also help certain things such as healthcare reform, social security reform, government 'regulation' reform and such pass since we'll have some more impartiality in the government instead of a bunch of senators trying to get re-elected every year, a la Kerry and wonderful plans such as the Boston "Big Dig" and that 14 billion dollar price tag.
I could go for smaller pork barrel projects! And those pork barrel projects are aimed at....WHOA! The constituents? REALLY? So that in the middle of the "Friends" re-runs, Senator X can go "Remember how I built that really cool thingy for you? Vote for me!"
Alright, sorry for the rambling, but having worked in CS and being involved economics (as consumer, small business, and student) and listening to both side's arguments, you'd think that neither Bush nor Kerry had the slightest idea of what their econ teachers taught them in school.
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In terms of price growth, game prices have gone up ~20% (50$ to 60$) CD prices are growing at a similar, if not higher, pace (10-12$ to 18-20$). Also, compare the typical CD collection to a game collection. The CD collection will be 4-5x larger due to greater demand for a vast music collection so that you don't tire of the same 20 CDs, whereas 20 games is a significant collection and can be diverse enough to keep you interested -- atleast until the latest and greatest is released. Games are only recently starting to take advantage of remakes/updates -- Star Ocean on PSP, FF on DS/PSx/PSP... As opposed to the music industry's re-release of every album ever recorded on every format -- because people absolutely want this stuff on their new hardware, and will pay repeatedly for it. Hell, I know one guy that has bought 5 different copies of the Eagle's Hotel California single. Album, cassette, CDs, Sony Super CD, AAC file
I took pride in starting up a pretty massive "family" raiding guild in EQ (Semper Simul), but never thought about it as anything but large for the server it was on (Lanys) The guild lived on for years after I left, great group of people, but still...I never heard of Syndicate, and after having been in other competitive guilds, I would never consider one worth writing a book about.. Minium for life! -- Of course, no one here will likely know who that is either, being a smaller elite guild in the early WoW days on a single server... but maybe I could write a book and make some cash, who knows.
Stop passing FireFox out. Don't get me wrong, I love Firefox, but when it hits a large enough audience - then bad mean people will care enough to look for its vulnerabilities and take advantage of them too, and I'll have to find a new browser to visit nasty sites with. Besides, I make good money thanks to IE and the crap it installs thank you.
Now, why is this an issue again?
The problem only occurs in that parents pay less attention to video game ratings than to movie ratings and other ratings and go buy their kids the game they want. The fact that games don't get near the advertisement time on TV that movies and music get helps this. Parents that don't play games themselves wouldn't see the ads for GTA or other games with great big "M" stamps on the corners, so wouldn't have any idea about a game aside from what the kid tells them.
Of all the people condemning D&D because it was causing "good kids" to worship satan, how many had actually ever LOOKED at or played with a D&D group? Probably nil, if any.
I agree, stifling change for job security is stupid. So, why are we enacting trade barriers to protect our high price of sugar? Why are we enacting barriers to keep cheaper labor out in the form of visas? Everyone would be better off in the long run with free trade and open borders - but the majority of the people in the US want to keep their job. The only reason why those cars are even made in the US in the first place still (even with robots) is because of laws that require cars sold in the US to be assembled here. The Mercedes plant in Alabama is a perfect example. That state has the lowest per capita income in the US so it's PERFECT for a labor farm. You can have people lining up there for a 5.15$ hour a job, but the only reason that job is even here is because it's not lawful for it to be in Africa or China. If you want to sign a Kyoto treaty that will chase every company away that has to spend xxx thousand dollars on upgrading their equipment, then you won't have those jobs, and you won't have as many jobs in the new 'clean it up' industry, becasue there will be nothing to clean up. Stifling change for job security is stupid, I agree, but that doesn't mean that people aren't going to do it because the majority of them don't want to change. Things like this are the whole reason why America is still so protectionist in many ways and why everyone thinks free trade is an evil way for evil corporations to make more evil money.
You let the FCC regulate software to the point where you have to have a 'FCC License' to touch any code and that makes Open Source Software not so cheap anymore because you have to have a licensed programmer to make it. Entering the 'programming market' isn't just sitting at a computer and typing code anymore - now it consists of getting to the office and filling out a test and qualifying for a license. That will most likely decrease the production of much Open Source Software since there is typically little compensation for producing it (as compared with copyrighted/retailed software). This will decrease the amount produced, giving the retail giants (Microsoft, Sun...) more room to make money on their retail successes, and less reason to support Open Source (as Sun and IBM have been) because now they are lawfully protected as an oligopoly instead of fighting to keep their oligopoly.
You can almost bet that Microsoft/Sun and the rest would like this to happen because even if it raises their cost by 10,000$ per programmer, it increases their profits by giving a big kick-in-the-ass to Open Source at the same time.
---Mind you, all this is assuming something beyond simple hardware requirements---
For a simple economic example think about Pepsi vs Coke. If both stopped advertising then they would both have about 50% of the market and they would be making more money. But if one advertises and the other doesn't, the advertiser makes incredible amounts of money over the other one - like 75% market share. But if both advertise, then they both still get app. 50% of the market - but they have to pay huge advertising costs for the likes of Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera - effectively losing money that they could've had if they agreed not to advertise. But why be a nice guy when you can try to be greedy? so hence, the dominant Nash equilibrium strategy here is to advertise. But if advertising is outlawed....Coke and Pepsi are happy as pigs in shit. -- Apply to Microsoft and other software giants when they don't have to compete with Open Source to the same extent. Microsoft already has name-recognition thanks to Windows for every computer-illiterate person in America (all, what, 200 million?). Now, if they go to a store and see 'Open Office' and 'MS Office' next to each other on the shelf - first of all, MS Office will have more shelf space and will probably have a nice looking box and everyting - Joe Blow is gonna pick up MS Office because he's heard of it and it looks nice while Open Office looks 'questionable' because there are only 3 on the shelf, its in a bland white box, and its cheap ("hmm, am I sure that will work right?")
Regulation rarely helps the consumer.
Religion should not lead government, but should be its own entity, but Bush has decidedly stated that he follows God's commands and it helps him make decisions.
Well, all fine and good...but when God's commands start dragging us into wars and such, more rational thoughts should be employed.
Religion should be put on the backburner in government because it brings out more emotions, rather than rationally choosing candidates.
Plus, if you started using religion to attack/back Roe v. Wade, there are alot of Christians who would scream that's in violation of the Ten Commandments (or whatever) because its murder of a child. Others would scream that rationally it wasn't alive - it would be a huge mess.
Not that I'm a Kerry supporter, but I think Bush has brought a little too much religion back into office.
"We the people demand that you, the government, listen to our demands and not simply placate us."
And the second article..
"No candidate for any office of this government may accept help of any type, including monetary support, within 1 year of election day."
And finally, the almighty 3rd article.
"And YES, religion is separate from government, and NO, there are no exceptions."
A never-ending religious camp where everyone preaches the word of God and evolution is a 'heretical' theory and the sky gradually turns black from smog.
or a neverending job of putting out every little fire in every forest until someone is sleeping on the job and the whole continent catches fire and everyone screams at that one little guy for not putting out his fire when if all the little fires had not been put out before, there would still be some forest.
I consider myself a conservative; however, I do feel that the environment is an important factor, but not because of all the different scientific studies on it, it can be 'approached' with a simple differential equation to see what happens when a small change occurs.
I don't know much about the environment...but give this a chance. Everyone blows off a .5 degree change in temperature, but the earth has reached a nice cyclical area over the past few thousand years with slight cooling and slight warming trends (mini Ice age + warm middle age). But this fairly consistent cyclical trend could easily be thrown off by a small change in any factor.
...but then, there's no way in hell you'll ever make me support a non-privatized social security agenda, or universal healthcare. Hell, I even believe the US should drop out of the United Nations and pull all US resources from the rest of the world and put them to work here. We earned the resources, we should spend it, especially if we're just going to be attacked for getting into other peoples business.
How's that for conservative?
As seen by other posts, the CO2 in the atmosphere either follows or precedes a warming/cooling trend. Suppose you knock that CO2 off by a few thousand metres-cubed? That could throw our 'stable' system into an explosive growth toward an extreme...and extremes are bad.
And considering that the weather is millions of times more complicated than that...I'd rather not tempt fate and turn the US into a ________ (choose one: desert, glacier, pond).
Don't go mocking Privitization because you think that corporations are bad. A corporation isn't *evil*, the ignorant stockholders that simply demand the highest profits NOW are the problem.
Don't blame the corporation for being bad when shareholders don't do a damn thing about them.
Blame uncontrolled CEOs and ignorant shareholders.
A real, decent CEO with decent shareholders would maximize profit over the long run (10 years+) instead of doing it over the next 2. CEOs like Eisner and Lay are the problem, but many others are not (i.e. Southwest Airlines) where profits are stable, not skyhigh, and the workers are treated well (I know a pilot for SW, that's reason for example).
Teach some shareholder responsibility (required economics anyone?) and both corporations and general citizens would be in much better shape (not to mention a stabler economy). It's sad that a majority of shareholders don't realize that they can tell their CEO what to do because they are, in reality, the big man's boss/supervisor/hirer/firer.
Well, once upon a time, long long ago, America had a slight 'balance' to this system known as the Senate. The Senate was appointed by the random smart people pointed at by the many dumb people and so you had the balance between the Representatives (directly chosen by the semi-idiots of America) and the Senators (indirectly chosen/appointed by those chosen by the semi-idiots)
Then 'democracy' fevor overrode sense, and so now the Senate is a popular vote election.
Good idea, if everyone votes informedly, but now our government is entirely chosen at random by people who just vote for what the other people around them are voting for *(in MANY, not all, cases)
I say, screw full democracy (look at what it did for Greece back in their golden age) and go back to half and half. That way, atleast, the appointed Senators and the elected Representatives have to duke it out so that you have something inbetween what the 'general' public thinks they should have, and what the more educated people think they should have. This might also help certain things such as healthcare reform, social security reform, government 'regulation' reform and such pass since we'll have some more impartiality in the government instead of a bunch of senators trying to get re-elected every year, a la Kerry and wonderful plans such as the Boston "Big Dig" and that 14 billion dollar price tag.
I could go for smaller pork barrel projects! And those pork barrel projects are aimed at....WHOA! The constituents? REALLY? So that in the middle of the "Friends" re-runs, Senator X can go "Remember how I built that really cool thingy for you? Vote for me!"
Alright, sorry for the rambling, but having worked in CS and being involved economics (as consumer, small business, and student) and listening to both side's arguments, you'd think that neither Bush nor Kerry had the slightest idea of what their econ teachers taught them in school.