If you sold a NEW game today with similar quality graphics which featured a plucky carpenter jumping on the backs of crocodiles and picking tomatoes to increase in size, you would probably be extraordinarily lucky to sell 1,000 units. And people would think you were freaking off your rocker for selling them at $20 each. The pure essence of New Super Mario Brothers, reduced to a generic game, cannot command the prices Nintendo is getting for it. The difference is the brand equity built up in Mario. People will buy Mario for a variety of reasons (for me, every time I see Mario I'm magically transported to that sense of wonder I had as a kid the first time I found a warp whistle in SMB3), relatively few of which are "gameplay" (witness the variety of genres he works in). Mario has become a word which is worth money (nod to Neal Stephenson for this realization), just like you can take two totally identical shirts, put Tommy Hilfiger on one of them, and charge 5x the price for it.
Firefox has 10% of the browser market -- closing in on IE! Linux has 2% of the desktop market -- largest gaining OS every year for the last 5! Microsoft sells nearly double 3rd place competitor -- practical parity! Microsoft has 2% of the iPod market -- barely worth mentioning except to snicker!
The cause for all is the same: the Microsoft discount factor. See, what happens is you take Microsoft's units sold/installed, and then multiply by a constant. Use whatever constant you need to achieve the result that the upstarts are plucky and, if Microsoft is the upstart, that it is getting squashed by the industry's de-facto monopoly.
Thus far, I have only smashed my wiimote into things in my forward firing arc. The wall I have behind my sofa has come through totally unscathed. Doom4 will fix THAT little oversight.
"Quick, an imp has popped up behind you! Flick the wiimote over your shoulder and smite it!" "Its dark... and an imp has popped up behind you!" "You're all alone in the center of an open field in broad daylight... and an imp has popped up behind you!" Those wacky imps and their crazy ninja sneak-up-behind-you skills, its almost like they were teleported in by lazy level designers who have forgotten every way to legitimately frighten people.
No way in heck a real live Paypal employee was making any inferences AT ALL about the account until something had made one of the computers flag it for fraud. Dozens of employees (tasked to fraud/verifications), millions of accounts, hundreds of millions of transactions per year. You do the math. Paypal depends on the overwhelming majority (99.9 and keep going) of those being totally automated.
You can get a CD delivered anywhere in the world from quantities of 1 for $4.50, counting shipping and production costs. There are businesses which specialize in this sort of thing and they're much, much better at it than your grunt at the garage band or small shareware developer. I use cd-fulfillment.com for my shareware business (which doesn't generate even a handful of requests for a CD in the average month), and they just invoice me for about $4.50 x number of CDs sent at the end of the month. I do the data entry (address & etc) by hand but if I were a decent volume operation (like, say, an indie band with a local fan base who ordered a couple of CDs every day) I'd just tie it directly into the paypal order processing. Marginal work required after paying a programmer to set the system up: zero. It just runs like a self-replenishing CD vending machine. You go back to what you do well: playing music or making/marketing shareware, and let the CD guys deal with the boring print&ship end of the business and Paypal deal with the credit cards, where you cannot possibly add any value to what they do.
Now, if you have $50k lying around to front, you can probably do better on a cost-per-CD basis. Really, though, since your gross margin on IP is pretty much always going to be sick I'd suggest spending the $50k on getting more sales rather than eeking out a few more dimes per sale.
I think it implements a Y combinator. Then again, it could just print out "Just another perl hacker". But I'm guessing on the Y combinator. Lets break it down so its readable:
sub Y (&) {
my $le=shift;
return &{
sub { ## SUB_A
&{
sub { ## SUB_B
my $f=shift;
&$f($f)
}
} ##Close SUB_A's block
(sub { ## SUB_C
my $f=shift;
&$le(sub { ##SUB_D
&{
&$f($f)
}
(@_)
}## END SUB_D
)} ##END SUB_C
); ##End the block enclosing SUB_C
} ## END SUB_A
} ## Close the return line } ##Close sub Y
Y can have any number of parameters you want (this is sort of a "welcome to Perl, n00b, hope you enjoy your stay" bit of pain). The first line of the program assigns le to the first parameter and pops that one off the list. That & used in the next line passes the rest of the list to the function he's about to declare. So we're going to be returning the output of that function evaluated on the remaining argument list. Clear so far?
OK, moving on to SUB_A. We again use the & to pass the list of arguments through to... another block. This one actually makes sense if you look at it -- take the first argument from the list, evaluate it as a function on itself. We're assuming that is going to return a function. Why? Because that opening parent means we have arguments, such as they are, coming to the function.
OK, unwrapping the arguments. There is only one argument -- a block of code encompassing SUB_C. (Wasted 15 minutes figuring that out. Thats what I get for doing this in Notepad instead of an IDE that would auto-indent for me. Friends don't let friends read Perl code.)
By now, bits and pieces of this are starting to look almost easy, if no closer to actual readable computer code. We reuse the function we popped from the list of arguments earlier, and we use the same trick to get a second function off of the argument list. We then apply that function to itself, assume the result is a function, and then run that function on the rest of the argument list. Then we pop that up the call stack and we're, blissfully, done.
So, now that we understand WTF this code is doing, how do we know its the Y combinator? Well, we've essentially got a bunch of arguments (f, x, whatever). We ended up doing LAMBDA(f,(LAMBDA(x,f (x x)),(LAMBDA(x,f (x x)))) . Which, since I took a compiler class once and have the nightmares to prove it, is the Y combinator.
Now you want to know the REALLY warped thing about this? I program Perl for a living (under protest!), I knew the answer going in (Googled the code), and I have an expensive theoretical CS education which includes all of the concepts trotted out here... and the Perl syntax STILL made me bloody swim through WTF was going on.
I. Hate. Perl.
And the reason I hate Perl, more than the fact that the language makes it *possible* to have monstrosities like that one-liner, is that the community which surrounds the language actively encourages them.
It failed the "relational" part of the test. But it failed very quickly.
Yep. On the plus side, the Perl hacker who put it together only wasted the time it took to write one line. Granted, the line was 103,954 characters long. He considered breaking it up into two lines to improve readability but ultimately rejected the notion -- anyone not capable of reading the program clearly had no business messing with it anyhow.
(Quick question aside from the snark: since Perl has associative arrays can't it emulate a relational database? It was my understanding that after you've got associative arrays you can get to any other conceivable data structure... assuming you're willing to take the performance hit.)
... namely Chinese customers saying "WTF, Dell, I just checked your invoice. It seems you charged me for software. That must be some sort of mistake. Software doesn't cost money in China."
Seriously, though, I think this is as much about giving Dell plausible deniability as it is anything else. Hardware makers have vastly different incentives than IP companies: Napster gave Dell a shot in the arm because the whole MP3 rip/burn craze sold a ton of boxes with extra ram, processor, and CD-RW drives. Apple, similarly, certainly isn't selling 8 GB iPods so that they can hold $10,000+ worth of music from iTunes. ("Rip. Mix. Burn." was their old marketing tagline during the heady early days of Napster. I'm sure that they gave absolutely no thought to the fact that their core demographic was engaged in widespread music piracy at the time.)
Dell, as a responsible corporation which has offices in a country with enforceable IP laws, can't sell a million computers with pirated Windows on them. Somebody at MS would notice the license counts didn't quite add up. They also don't want to lose a million sales to Chinese manufacturers who have no compunctions about that. So they release Dell boxen with Red Flag Linux on them. And after its out their doors, well, what happens after that is none of their lookabout.
I think it is equally a waste of your money to buy this castle or $70 million worth of property in Second Life. However, if you were looking less for lucre and more for a sadomasochistic vampire to have all manner of unholy relations with you, then I'd heartily recommend Second Life. And if the translyvanian atmosphere isn't quite complete without a werewolf, well, they've got all manner of furry creatures ready to meet you.
I recently bought a new computer monitor, and it is iTunes compatible!!!1
No, seriously, we get it -- its an output device. It can output whatever the heck you want to the TV, be it iTunes or World of Warcraft or your Open Office spreadsheet (which probably makes for better television than half of the lineup). If it couldn't output whatever the heck you wanted, THAT would be news to the Slashdot "Egads DRM is choking us to death!" faction. And they'd be mostly right to be upset about that.
If you don't produce a steady stream of non-achievements people might start saying things like "Hey, what did that 3.26 billion dollars (http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/faq/mission.cfm) we just gave you for the Cassini project actually accomplish?" This way, you can say "Hey, the Cassini project CONFIRMED the existence of LIQUID which is almost like WATER which is a prerequisite for LIFE which would be the BIGGEST DISCOVERY EVER."
You can donate gold right now. Unfortunately, its probably IP and then you can only deduct your cost basis, basically how much you paid for the gold. If that cost basis was "sweat equity", then tough cookies, no deduction for you. n.b. I am not a tax adviser, I am just a programmer who has to tell other programmers "Just because you gave someone a program you made which sells for $100 does not mean you get $100 to offset your income with -- you can only deduct the cost of the CD."
Unfortunately, I would bet on the watches outlasting the wives. If a watchmaker found out that 40% of his watches failed, most of them within 10 years, he'd have a psychotic break and start bashing people in the heads with quartz crystal formations to steal their superpowers. If a preacher finds out that 40% of his marriages fail in ten years, you know, he really isn't doing that poorly...
I've purchased, lets see, a PS2, three varieties of gameboy, and a Wii in Japan. I've never once been offered the extended warranty. Frequently they'll have me unbox the console immediately so they can put their store's stamp on the regular, 1 year, warranty card... as a matter of fact, the only time that didn't happen was at the Wii launch.
I'm generally against capital punishment but being Ben Affleck should be a capital offense. Preferably involving death by torture, such as being forced to watch Gigli. On second thought, Pearl Harbor. I'm not totally devoid of mercy.
If you have put it in an autoclave, I don't have any issues about you inserting it into me afterwards. Do I want direct blood-to-blood contact with any member of the population? No. Do I think that fear is rational? Yes. Do I worry about surgery because oh-my-God-who-knows-where-that-scalpel-has-been? No. I *know* where it has been: the autoclave. It has no magical memory of being in the HIV-infected crack-fiend two weeks before.
The Legend of Zelda: National Population; Total= 298.44 (US), 127.76 (Japan).
With the simplifying assumption that population is a proxy for console sales (its not quite, because younger demographics buy more and that favors the US, too), you'd expect the US to routinely post 2.33 times the sales of Japan for equally popular goods. That adjustment factor makes that list a crapshoot -- over half of the games on it were, relatively speaking, more popular in Japan.
Of course cowss won't appreciate that, but they're whiners. Where did you think the expression "Don't have a cow, man" came from? It certainly isn't advice for how to make a satisfying dinner.
... we'd let the kids practice with real rifles. Post-Columbine world blah blah blah most schools got rid of their shooting clubs, but sport shooting is a common hobby in many of the non-urban areas of America, and under parental supervision you could easily pick up your Boy Scouts marksmanship merit badge much earlier than the age of majority. In some states rifles/shotguns could be owned legitimately by an eight-year old. This is in much the same manner that an eight-year old could own a kitchen knife, which is about as dangerous, statistically speaking (handguns are typically more regulated than long guns). Things are, obviously, a bit more complicated if you're trying to buy an AK-47 as a convicted felon. (Actually, they're not -- you go get one illegally, from someone who stole one or bought it illegally themselves.)
The Zelda series is pretty long, but it includes a couple of things which are GENERALLY true across the games (much like Mario generally jumps on heads to defeat enemies and includes lots of action in the vertical dimension).
* Your avatar is Link, a spunky young man who has no lines and is destined to save the kingdom of Hyrule and its Princess Zelda. Typically, he doesn't know this at the start of the game. You will never have control of anyone but Link. For 3D Zeldas, you typically have a third-person camera behind Link view, but when aiming certain items (see below) it turns into first person. The game is real-time except during cutscenes (generally in-engine as opposed to rendered) and conversation.
* The game involves an overworld map, which you traverse in real time, and dungeons. Often, their is a gimmick with the world being split into two, and the necessity to use certain places or items to traverse between the two linked worlds.
* Link is equipped with a sword, which cuts stuff (his primary way for killing things) and has a special attack, a shield (which is used to block a rather small subset of attacks), and a series of items. The items are typically useful in both combat and in puzzle solving or exploration. For example, you can use a slingshot to kill a spider. You can also use the slingshot to knock a particular item in Link's village off of a tree.
* There are dungeons. Every dungeon includes a new item for you, which you typically get about halfway through the dungeon, and a boss mob who will require innovative use of that item (possibly coupled with items you have already mastered) to defeat. Dungeons include a mix (what % depends on the dungeon) of puzzle solving skills (both creative use of your items and also fairly simple logic puzzles, such as "OK, I can push a block in one direction but only once. There are 15 blocks ahead of me in a maze. I need to cross the room. What order and in which direction do I push the blocks such that I can navigate this maze successfully?" Typically the puzzles do not include time or pressing resource constraints and the game is more-or-less forgiving when it comes to allowing you to avoid combat... except with bosses. Items range from the mundane (bow and arrow) to things which invoke interesting magical abilities (many games in the series provide you with a pair of rods, one which can produce fireballs and one which can freeze things).
* Inventory is accessible from another screen. You get one spot per item, and you either have the item or you don't -- inventory space is never a resource and managing it is not a challenge the game offers. For consumables used by an item, there is a simple count kept internal to the item (arrows for your bow, etc), with a maximum carrying capacity which, depending on the game and item, may be upgradeable. There is an inventory subsystem in that Link generally can earn Bottles as items (generally up to four), which can hold a variety of interesting things against need later. For example, you might decide if you have one Bottle to fill it with a potion that, when consumed, will restore you to full health. Of course, that means you can't also fill it with a fairy (which will restore less health, but be invoked automatically if you should pass away).
* Link has a life meter, abstracted as a certain number of hearts. He invariably starts with 3. You take a certain number of hearts or fractional (quarters or halves) hearts from environmental damage (walking in fire generally hurts unless you are prepared to do it) or getting hit by monsters. You can refill your hearts by a variety of mechanisms, the most common being by picking up hearts dropped by defeated enemies. You gain an extra heart by finding either a full heart container (one is handily dropped by every major boss) or collecting heart container pieces (generally 4, 5 in TP) which you earn through exploration (quite common), minigames (rather rare) or side quests (uncommon relative to the length of the game).
Slashdot Mirror
If you sold a NEW game today with similar quality graphics which featured a plucky carpenter jumping on the backs of crocodiles and picking tomatoes to increase in size, you would probably be extraordinarily lucky to sell 1,000 units. And people would think you were freaking off your rocker for selling them at $20 each. The pure essence of New Super Mario Brothers, reduced to a generic game, cannot command the prices Nintendo is getting for it. The difference is the brand equity built up in Mario. People will buy Mario for a variety of reasons (for me, every time I see Mario I'm magically transported to that sense of wonder I had as a kid the first time I found a warp whistle in SMB3), relatively few of which are "gameplay" (witness the variety of genres he works in). Mario has become a word which is worth money (nod to Neal Stephenson for this realization), just like you can take two totally identical shirts, put Tommy Hilfiger on one of them, and charge 5x the price for it.
Firefox has 10% of the browser market -- closing in on IE!
Linux has 2% of the desktop market -- largest gaining OS every year for the last 5!
Microsoft sells nearly double 3rd place competitor -- practical parity!
Microsoft has 2% of the iPod market -- barely worth mentioning except to snicker!
The cause for all is the same: the Microsoft discount factor. See, what happens is you take Microsoft's units sold/installed, and then multiply by a constant. Use whatever constant you need to achieve the result that the upstarts are plucky and, if Microsoft is the upstart, that it is getting squashed by the industry's de-facto monopoly.
Thus far, I have only smashed my wiimote into things in my forward firing arc. The wall I have behind my sofa has come through totally unscathed. Doom4 will fix THAT little oversight.
"Quick, an imp has popped up behind you! Flick the wiimote over your shoulder and smite it!" "Its dark... and an imp has popped up behind you!" "You're all alone in the center of an open field in broad daylight... and an imp has popped up behind you!" Those wacky imps and their crazy ninja sneak-up-behind-you skills, its almost like they were teleported in by lazy level designers who have forgotten every way to legitimately frighten people.
For reference, http://imdb.com/gallery/granitz/3463/CarrieFish_Gr ani_5733926_400.jpg.html?path=pgallery&path_key=Fi sher,%20Carrie&seq=2
Look as good at fifty-something you will not.
No way in heck a real live Paypal employee was making any inferences AT ALL about the account until something had made one of the computers flag it for fraud. Dozens of employees (tasked to fraud/verifications), millions of accounts, hundreds of millions of transactions per year. You do the math. Paypal depends on the overwhelming majority (99.9 and keep going) of those being totally automated.
You can get a CD delivered anywhere in the world from quantities of 1 for $4.50, counting shipping and production costs. There are businesses which specialize in this sort of thing and they're much, much better at it than your grunt at the garage band or small shareware developer. I use cd-fulfillment.com for my shareware business (which doesn't generate even a handful of requests for a CD in the average month), and they just invoice me for about $4.50 x number of CDs sent at the end of the month. I do the data entry (address & etc) by hand but if I were a decent volume operation (like, say, an indie band with a local fan base who ordered a couple of CDs every day) I'd just tie it directly into the paypal order processing. Marginal work required after paying a programmer to set the system up: zero. It just runs like a self-replenishing CD vending machine. You go back to what you do well: playing music or making/marketing shareware, and let the CD guys deal with the boring print&ship end of the business and Paypal deal with the credit cards, where you cannot possibly add any value to what they do.
Now, if you have $50k lying around to front, you can probably do better on a cost-per-CD basis. Really, though, since your gross margin on IP is pretty much always going to be sick I'd suggest spending the $50k on getting more sales rather than eeking out a few more dimes per sale.
I think it implements a Y combinator. Then again, it could just print out "Just another perl hacker". But I'm guessing on the Y combinator. Lets break it down so its readable:
... another block. This one actually makes sense if you look at it -- take the first argument from the list, evaluate it as a function on itself. We're assuming that is going to return a function. Why? Because that opening parent means we have arguments, such as they are, coming to the function.
sub Y (&) {
my $le=shift;
return &{
sub { ## SUB_A
&{
sub { ## SUB_B
my $f=shift;
&$f($f)
}
} ##Close SUB_A's block
(sub { ## SUB_C
my $f=shift;
&$le(sub { ##SUB_D
&{
&$f($f)
}
(@_)
}## END SUB_D
)} ##END SUB_C
); ##End the block enclosing SUB_C
} ## END SUB_A
} ## Close the return line
} ##Close sub Y
Y can have any number of parameters you want (this is sort of a "welcome to Perl, n00b, hope you enjoy your stay" bit of pain). The first line of the program assigns le to the first parameter and pops that one off the list. That & used in the next line passes the rest of the list to the function he's about to declare. So we're going to be returning the output of that function evaluated on the remaining argument list. Clear so far?
OK, moving on to SUB_A. We again use the & to pass the list of arguments through to
OK, unwrapping the arguments. There is only one argument -- a block of code encompassing SUB_C. (Wasted 15 minutes figuring that out. Thats what I get for doing this in Notepad instead of an IDE that would auto-indent for me. Friends don't let friends read Perl code.)
By now, bits and pieces of this are starting to look almost easy, if no closer to actual readable computer code. We reuse the function we popped from the list of arguments earlier, and we use the same trick to get a second function off of the argument list. We then apply that function to itself, assume the result is a function, and then run that function on the rest of the argument list. Then we pop that up the call stack and we're, blissfully, done.
So, now that we understand WTF this code is doing, how do we know its the Y combinator? Well, we've essentially got a bunch of arguments (f, x, whatever). We ended up doing LAMBDA(f,(LAMBDA(x,f (x x)),(LAMBDA(x,f (x x)))) . Which, since I took a compiler class once and have the nightmares to prove it, is the Y combinator.
Now you want to know the REALLY warped thing about this? I program Perl for a living (under protest!), I knew the answer going in (Googled the code), and I have an expensive theoretical CS education which includes all of the concepts trotted out here... and the Perl syntax STILL made me bloody swim through WTF was going on.
I. Hate. Perl.
And the reason I hate Perl, more than the fact that the language makes it *possible* to have monstrosities like that one-liner, is that the community which surrounds the language actively encourages them.
Yep. On the plus side, the Perl hacker who put it together only wasted the time it took to write one line. Granted, the line was 103,954 characters long. He considered breaking it up into two lines to improve readability but ultimately rejected the notion -- anyone not capable of reading the program clearly had no business messing with it anyhow. (Quick question aside from the snark: since Perl has associative arrays can't it emulate a relational database? It was my understanding that after you've got associative arrays you can get to any other conceivable data structure... assuming you're willing to take the performance hit.)
... namely Chinese customers saying "WTF, Dell, I just checked your invoice. It seems you charged me for software. That must be some sort of mistake. Software doesn't cost money in China."
Seriously, though, I think this is as much about giving Dell plausible deniability as it is anything else. Hardware makers have vastly different incentives than IP companies: Napster gave Dell a shot in the arm because the whole MP3 rip/burn craze sold a ton of boxes with extra ram, processor, and CD-RW drives. Apple, similarly, certainly isn't selling 8 GB iPods so that they can hold $10,000+ worth of music from iTunes. ("Rip. Mix. Burn." was their old marketing tagline during the heady early days of Napster. I'm sure that they gave absolutely no thought to the fact that their core demographic was engaged in widespread music piracy at the time.)
Dell, as a responsible corporation which has offices in a country with enforceable IP laws, can't sell a million computers with pirated Windows on them. Somebody at MS would notice the license counts didn't quite add up. They also don't want to lose a million sales to Chinese manufacturers who have no compunctions about that. So they release Dell boxen with Red Flag Linux on them. And after its out their doors, well, what happens after that is none of their lookabout.
I think it is equally a waste of your money to buy this castle or $70 million worth of property in Second Life. However, if you were looking less for lucre and more for a sadomasochistic vampire to have all manner of unholy relations with you, then I'd heartily recommend Second Life. And if the translyvanian atmosphere isn't quite complete without a werewolf, well, they've got all manner of furry creatures ready to meet you.
I recently bought a new computer monitor, and it is iTunes compatible!!!1
No, seriously, we get it -- its an output device. It can output whatever the heck you want to the TV, be it iTunes or World of Warcraft or your Open Office spreadsheet (which probably makes for better television than half of the lineup). If it couldn't output whatever the heck you wanted, THAT would be news to the Slashdot "Egads DRM is choking us to death!" faction. And they'd be mostly right to be upset about that.
One thee pus said thee bran disambiguates butter.
If you don't produce a steady stream of non-achievements people might start saying things like "Hey, what did that 3.26 billion dollars (http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/faq/mission.cfm) we just gave you for the Cassini project actually accomplish?" This way, you can say "Hey, the Cassini project CONFIRMED the existence of LIQUID which is almost like WATER which is a prerequisite for LIFE which would be the BIGGEST DISCOVERY EVER."
One of the rocks out there might be wet. Possibly. Well, that was 3.26 billion dollars well spent. (http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/faq/mission.cfm)
You can donate gold right now. Unfortunately, its probably IP and then you can only deduct your cost basis, basically how much you paid for the gold. If that cost basis was "sweat equity", then tough cookies, no deduction for you. n.b. I am not a tax adviser, I am just a programmer who has to tell other programmers "Just because you gave someone a program you made which sells for $100 does not mean you get $100 to offset your income with -- you can only deduct the cost of the CD."
Unfortunately, I would bet on the watches outlasting the wives. If a watchmaker found out that 40% of his watches failed, most of them within 10 years, he'd have a psychotic break and start bashing people in the heads with quartz crystal formations to steal their superpowers. If a preacher finds out that 40% of his marriages fail in ten years, you know, he really isn't doing that poorly...
I've purchased, lets see, a PS2, three varieties of gameboy, and a Wii in Japan. I've never once been offered the extended warranty. Frequently they'll have me unbox the console immediately so they can put their store's stamp on the regular, 1 year, warranty card... as a matter of fact, the only time that didn't happen was at the Wii launch.
I'm generally against capital punishment but being Ben Affleck should be a capital offense. Preferably involving death by torture, such as being forced to watch Gigli. On second thought, Pearl Harbor. I'm not totally devoid of mercy.
If you have put it in an autoclave, I don't have any issues about you inserting it into me afterwards. Do I want direct blood-to-blood contact with any member of the population? No. Do I think that fear is rational? Yes. Do I worry about surgery because oh-my-God-who-knows-where-that-scalpel-has-been? No. I *know* where it has been: the autoclave. It has no magical memory of being in the HIV-infected crack-fiend two weeks before.
You forgot one:
The Legend of Zelda: National Population; Total= 298.44 (US), 127.76 (Japan).
With the simplifying assumption that population is a proxy for console sales (its not quite, because younger demographics buy more and that favors the US, too), you'd expect the US to routinely post 2.33 times the sales of Japan for equally popular goods. That adjustment factor makes that list a crapshoot -- over half of the games on it were, relatively speaking, more popular in Japan.
try {
shark = new Shark();
laser = new Laser();
laser.setType( TypeFactory.createType( "Fricken" ) );
shark.mount( laser );
} catch(InterruptedBySecretAgentException austin) {
son.shoot(austin);
} finally {
this.cackleMadly();
}
Of course cowss won't appreciate that, but they're whiners. Where did you think the expression "Don't have a cow, man" came from? It certainly isn't advice for how to make a satisfying dinner.
... then we would be talking about the nation of Japan in the past tense. I rest my case.
... we'd let the kids practice with real rifles. Post-Columbine world blah blah blah most schools got rid of their shooting clubs, but sport shooting is a common hobby in many of the non-urban areas of America, and under parental supervision you could easily pick up your Boy Scouts marksmanship merit badge much earlier than the age of majority. In some states rifles/shotguns could be owned legitimately by an eight-year old. This is in much the same manner that an eight-year old could own a kitchen knife, which is about as dangerous, statistically speaking (handguns are typically more regulated than long guns). Things are, obviously, a bit more complicated if you're trying to buy an AK-47 as a convicted felon. (Actually, they're not -- you go get one illegally, from someone who stole one or bought it illegally themselves.)
The Zelda series is pretty long, but it includes a couple of things which are GENERALLY true across the games (much like Mario generally jumps on heads to defeat enemies and includes lots of action in the vertical dimension).
* Your avatar is Link, a spunky young man who has no lines and is destined to save the kingdom of Hyrule and its Princess Zelda. Typically, he doesn't know this at the start of the game. You will never have control of anyone but Link. For 3D Zeldas, you typically have a third-person camera behind Link view, but when aiming certain items (see below) it turns into first person. The game is real-time except during cutscenes (generally in-engine as opposed to rendered) and conversation.
* The game involves an overworld map, which you traverse in real time, and dungeons. Often, their is a gimmick with the world being split into two, and the necessity to use certain places or items to traverse between the two linked worlds.
* Link is equipped with a sword, which cuts stuff (his primary way for killing things) and has a special attack, a shield (which is used to block a rather small subset of attacks), and a series of items. The items are typically useful in both combat and in puzzle solving or exploration. For example, you can use a slingshot to kill a spider. You can also use the slingshot to knock a particular item in Link's village off of a tree.
* There are dungeons. Every dungeon includes a new item for you, which you typically get about halfway through the dungeon, and a boss mob who will require innovative use of that item (possibly coupled with items you have already mastered) to defeat. Dungeons include a mix (what % depends on the dungeon) of puzzle solving skills (both creative use of your items and also fairly simple logic puzzles, such as "OK, I can push a block in one direction but only once. There are 15 blocks ahead of me in a maze. I need to cross the room. What order and in which direction do I push the blocks such that I can navigate this maze successfully?" Typically the puzzles do not include time or pressing resource constraints and the game is more-or-less forgiving when it comes to allowing you to avoid combat... except with bosses. Items range from the mundane (bow and arrow) to things which invoke interesting magical abilities (many games in the series provide you with a pair of rods, one which can produce fireballs and one which can freeze things).
* Inventory is accessible from another screen. You get one spot per item, and you either have the item or you don't -- inventory space is never a resource and managing it is not a challenge the game offers. For consumables used by an item, there is a simple count kept internal to the item (arrows for your bow, etc), with a maximum carrying capacity which, depending on the game and item, may be upgradeable. There is an inventory subsystem in that Link generally can earn Bottles as items (generally up to four), which can hold a variety of interesting things against need later. For example, you might decide if you have one Bottle to fill it with a potion that, when consumed, will restore you to full health. Of course, that means you can't also fill it with a fairy (which will restore less health, but be invoked automatically if you should pass away).
* Link has a life meter, abstracted as a certain number of hearts. He invariably starts with 3. You take a certain number of hearts or fractional (quarters or halves) hearts from environmental damage (walking in fire generally hurts unless you are prepared to do it) or getting hit by monsters. You can refill your hearts by a variety of mechanisms, the most common being by picking up hearts dropped by defeated enemies. You gain an extra heart by finding either a full heart container (one is handily dropped by every major boss) or collecting heart container pieces (generally 4, 5 in TP) which you earn through exploration (quite common), minigames (rather rare) or side quests (uncommon relative to the length of the game).