To be a competitor to Amazon people will have to have heard about it and I reckon most Kindle owners aren't even aware of a world outside of the Amazon store. Lulu and similar are the real competitors and I doubt they're too worried.
AFAIK what he's suggesting is already within the scope of the CC license. But it won't stop P2P/home copying. It won't really stop people selling copies of CDs or films out of their car boots either.
At best it will just encourage a lot of people to sell other people's media under the guise of legitimacy, while kicking back something to the creators. I can't see the MPAA/RIAA agreeing to that.
It's particularly curious as employees have a lot more rights in the UK than they appear to have in the US. He's arguing to make the US workforce more like the UK workforce, and if you don't like it then move to the UK.
FWIW I'm entirely in favour of a corporation telling their employees they can't talk about their employers on social networking websites. Next step would be shutting them up about talking about every other trivial aspect of their life on social networking websites.
Some games require story, RPGs in particular. Most other games I just want to PLAY THE GAME. If I want a story I'll read a book or watch a movie. 99% of in game story-telling is a waste of my time, and so uninspired it's an insult not a reward. Unskippable cut-scenes are a crime which should have been outlawed by the Geneva Convention.
The problem is you're always going to have fundamental differences between, PvP, PvE and RP servers on WAR etc. EVE has 1 server (farm) to worry about so a consensus of players applies to that single server. With MMOs that have a multi-server philosophy you have to cater to fundamentally different mindsets across the different varieties of servers.
The other problem with listening to the players is that it dilutes any strong vision the devs may have originally had.
Brad Wardell knows how to play the PR game. A lot, not all but a lot, of his posts are designed to promote Stardock with a nicely packaged quote.
Nothing wrong with it but he's so inconsistent it's funny. A couple of months ago he was on his usual hobby horse about Steam not being the only service with great weekend deals, because Stardock had a decent offer on at the time. Since then their weekend deals have been non-existent and Steam has had some beauties, like the L4D half off sale or the Orange Box at 66% off. When Steam announced COG (I think), their "non-DRM" DRM solution, Stardock announced GOO which was the same idea. I actually thought that was an April fools joke but apparently not.
This current story is about Demigod hitting no. 3 in the retail sales charts on its first week of release. If it drops off the top ten next week will he post? Of course not. Being at No. 3 means being beaten by a couple of expansion packs for admittedly huge games, but if Demigod from Gas Powered Games was a real splash at launch why wasn't it number one? Pre-orders alone for a successful game should guarantee that.
I saw a lot about wanting to have 20 or 25 years warranty on the panels you buy and that's quite sensible. But aren't we all just better off waiting 5 years, or ten years and paying the same amount of money for 10 times the power production, thereby in the long run generating far more energy from solar and ultimately reducing our carbon footprint by a greater amount despite starting later.
Worrying about a 25 year warranty seems a bit daft when in a few years we can expect a panel a fraction of the size to produce the same wattage or a panel the same size to produce far more power. People who're doing this now, laudable though it is, are dabblers and trail-blazers.
That's such a flamebait of a post. Nowhere in the article/blog post does Jeff BLAME piracy for his games not selling. In fact he quite clearly says he's made a living at it for the past 15 years. He mentions piracy, yes, but it's a tiny part of the overall article.
Eschalon (Book 1!) is a modern take on the pseudo 3d isometric/actually 2d RPG and it looks so much better. And it's on Steam. Not much difference in the price though.
I liked most of Voyager. If Fuller is bringing Trek back maybe he can get Robert Hewitt Wolfe (a DS9 writer) to write some scripts. I really liked what he did with Andromeda in the early days.
http://abandonia.com/en/game/Adventure Though I suppose that technically comes under the heading of grey realms of abandonware. At least it's a well known site.
Actually, I can see a more human-like AI bunnyhoping towards you as you try to kill it, shooting you in the face with a shotgun, and then sending a message saying "pwnd b1tch."
At this point, the humanity and sophistication of AI will have reached truly awesome heights, and gaming will be all the better for it.
Doesn't it already do this in Unreal Tournament 3?
Besides which, when I was at college (in the UK age 16-18 normally) they didn't take register - If you didn't turn up, that was your own problem; the lecturers took it up with you when you finally did turn up for class.
Except when you get hit by a bus the college then gets into trouble for not knowing where you are when you're supposed to be under their care. We're a nanny state, remember.
At work I generally use a Trust Handtrack handheld trackball. If I'm bored I can hold it under my desk and stare intently at the screen. If anyone asks I tell them I'm controlling the cursor with my brain.
See my sig! Forums, story ratings, everything you mentioned.
They also published a print anthology so it's a possible way to go from web published to paper published. http://www.everydayfiction.com/features/the-best-of-every-day-fiction-2008/
Slashdot Mirror
To be a competitor to Amazon people will have to have heard about it and I reckon most Kindle owners aren't even aware of a world outside of the Amazon store.
Lulu and similar are the real competitors and I doubt they're too worried.
A database is worth little unless you implant a small tracking device in all you wish to track, and monitor constantly.
Finally, someone offering a workable solution.
Technically they have 300k user accounts, and probably about half that many players. Multi-accounting is encouraged on Eve.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=721
At best it will just encourage a lot of people to sell other people's media under the guise of legitimacy, while kicking back something to the creators. I can't see the MPAA/RIAA agreeing to that.
FWIW I'm entirely in favour of a corporation telling their employees they can't talk about their employers on social networking websites. Next step would be shutting them up about talking about every other trivial aspect of their life on social networking websites.
Should have offered to buy the project and put it out as Wiiware if it was any good. Closing a project down with no release is such a waste.
Some games require story, RPGs in particular. Most other games I just want to PLAY THE GAME. If I want a story I'll read a book or watch a movie. 99% of in game story-telling is a waste of my time, and so uninspired it's an insult not a reward. Unskippable cut-scenes are a crime which should have been outlawed by the Geneva Convention.
The other problem with listening to the players is that it dilutes any strong vision the devs may have originally had.
Or create 2 internets - one for windows users, and one for people with a clue.
That second internet isn't going to be very big.
Nothing wrong with it but he's so inconsistent it's funny. A couple of months ago he was on his usual hobby horse about Steam not being the only service with great weekend deals, because Stardock had a decent offer on at the time. Since then their weekend deals have been non-existent and Steam has had some beauties, like the L4D half off sale or the Orange Box at 66% off. When Steam announced COG (I think), their "non-DRM" DRM solution, Stardock announced GOO which was the same idea. I actually thought that was an April fools joke but apparently not.
This current story is about Demigod hitting no. 3 in the retail sales charts on its first week of release. If it drops off the top ten next week will he post? Of course not. Being at No. 3 means being beaten by a couple of expansion packs for admittedly huge games, but if Demigod from Gas Powered Games was a real splash at launch why wasn't it number one? Pre-orders alone for a successful game should guarantee that.
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/03/reminder_why_theres_no_tipjar.html
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/04/02/grue-some-zork-remake-live-horrible/#more-9807
Worrying about a 25 year warranty seems a bit daft when in a few years we can expect a panel a fraction of the size to produce the same wattage or a panel the same size to produce far more power. People who're doing this now, laudable though it is, are dabblers and trail-blazers.
That's such a flamebait of a post. Nowhere in the article/blog post does Jeff BLAME piracy for his games not selling. In fact he quite clearly says he's made a living at it for the past 15 years. He mentions piracy, yes, but it's a tiny part of the overall article.
Eschalon (Book 1!) is a modern take on the pseudo 3d isometric/actually 2d RPG and it looks so much better. And it's on Steam. Not much difference in the price though.
The OP has a point though. If the games were on Steam as a $5 sale he'd probably make more in one weekend than he has in the last five years.
However I really liked that AC comment about using Chrome and privoxy instead of Firefox and adblock so I'll probably be trying that later.
I don't know if it's because I'm using Adblock and Noscript but Slashdot loads really slowly on my Firefox and locks it up while it's doing it.
I liked most of Voyager.
If Fuller is bringing Trek back maybe he can get Robert Hewitt Wolfe (a DS9 writer) to write some scripts. I really liked what he did with Andromeda in the early days.
http://abandonia.com/en/game/Adventure
Though I suppose that technically comes under the heading of grey realms of abandonware. At least it's a well known site.
Actually, I can see a more human-like AI bunnyhoping towards you as you try to kill it, shooting you in the face with a shotgun, and then sending a message saying "pwnd b1tch."
At this point, the humanity and sophistication of AI will have reached truly awesome heights, and gaming will be all the better for it.
Doesn't it already do this in Unreal Tournament 3?
Besides which, when I was at college (in the UK age 16-18 normally) they didn't take register - If you didn't turn up, that was your own problem; the lecturers took it up with you when you finally did turn up for class.
Except when you get hit by a bus the college then gets into trouble for not knowing where you are when you're supposed to be under their care. We're a nanny state, remember.
At work I generally use a Trust Handtrack handheld trackball. If I'm bored I can hold it under my desk and stare intently at the screen. If anyone asks I tell them I'm controlling the cursor with my brain.
See my sig! Forums, story ratings, everything you mentioned.
They also published a print anthology so it's a possible way to go from web published to paper published.
http://www.everydayfiction.com/features/the-best-of-every-day-fiction-2008/