One possible use is having your car drop you off at the airport, leaving to find the closest available parking spot, then coming back to pick you up when you call it on your cellphone.
There are a lot of cars in the city just aimlessly circling through dense traffic hoping that a parking spot will free up within walking distance of their destination. Now the search for parking space is no longer constrained to the immediate surroundings of the high-traffic area. Hell, the car could even go all the way home if you don't want to leave your car out there while you're on a long trip.
I would like extremely high levels of caution with this. We're talking about huge chunks of metal roaming around at high speeds, dependent on a fallible human's programming and engineering, attempting to account for an incredible volume of edge cases that could have disastrous results.
With that said, I imagine that there is an incredible amount to be learned, and to be gained in this endeavor. Imagine if such technology became ubiquitous. A mile of cars parked in freeway traffic could create a wireless local network, identify non-networked cars, identify the traffic chokepoint and practical car through-put (if there is an actual chokepoint rather than just a stop-and-go wave), then create a simultaneous acceleration plan to say, reach 25mph over the course of 120 seconds. Every car could make a very slow roll forward (slow, because non-networked cars need time to notice they can now move as well) and gradually accelerate forward at the agreed pace. Then they can adjust speeds according to the changing traffic situation to try going faster or slower as needed. If a non-networked car slows more than necessary because of a bad driver, all the cars for a mile back can simultaneously slow down gradually instead of causing a brake wave stopping it altogether. Overall, the flow of traffic could ease tremendously. Traffic caused by asshole drivers cutting in line and stopping the entire lane in place will be dumped, instead intelligent routing could allocate lane space based on efficiency rather than individual selfishness.
It would take a long while to perfect the technology, but it doesn't require outlandish breakthroughs. The most difficult and time-consuming hurdle to overcome here is consumer confidence. It works best when all the consumers buy cars equipped to communicate with each other. It doesn't really work at all until enough of them buy cars equipped to communicate with each other. So it will take a long time to acclimate consumers to trusting drive-assist cars, driver-less cars, and then network driven traffic. Each step requires convincing consumers, getting them to buy it, and funding the next step of progress. It's exciting that Google is taking the slow baby steps needed to make this a possibility within the next 40-50 years.
I have doubts about how my differences might predispose me towards being "a success", particularly in environments where career advancement hinges upon socialization. I'm friendly, but I'm just too different from them to make the same easy connections that they can make with each other.
However, I do know that I love who I am(and so does my wife), and I wouldn't want to give up my differences just so I can be more like the mean.
I was under the impression that he generally obtains permission of the artists he parodies before releasing his work.
Not that I follow him too closely, but I recently noted an article on Google News about miscommunication between Weird Al and Lady Gaga's manager. He'd created a parody of "Born this way" and complained that she had refused to give him permission to release it. Lady Gaga responded that she'd never seen the request and that she'd love to have a Weird Al parody of one of her songs. The implication made was that Lady Gaga's manager had turned Weird Al down without consulting Lady Gaga. I hadn't heard any more than this since Lady Gaga gave him permission and the song was released, so I suppose there was no interest in a follow-up by the media.
The few that do expect privacy will see this, have a momentary sense of outrage, and then forget about it.
They'll continue to use facebook because they're really not all that concerned about their privacy. At most Facebook may make a statement about how they're continually improving security, and then it will be business as usual.
Well, let's think about this for a moment: What is the appeal of Sci-fi for you?
As a layman, I'm more interested in the stories being told rather than technobabble about the setting. My only criteria for their technology is that the rules of their universe remain consistent enough so that they don't draw attention to themselves.
Beyond that, I'm just interested in the human story that is laid out over the framework established by the futuristic setting. I'll freely admit that Star Trek is full of camp, but it also engaged viewers to look at how we treat those that are different from us, what is to be human, how to behave ethically in the face of uncertainty, and many other interesting quandries. While the settings may be fantastic, and may involve a myriad of strange and unfamiliar races and creatures, I find that my favorite science fiction are fundamentally human stories; stories about humans as individuals or our society as a whole. When sci-fi removes the familiar trappings of the world that we know, we can take a closer look at humanity in a new context, and perhaps learning about ourself in the abstract.
I also appreciate the general sense of optimism in the franchise. It's something that has been lost in the cynicism of the times. As technology allows us to get closer to the news and revealing the horrible acts that we commit against each other, we're left with a pretty low opinion of our species as a whole. I like that Star Trek presents a relatively progressive humanity. The Federation has plenty of room for improvement, but even the idea of having resolved so many of our deepseated problems and conflicts gives the franchise a sense of hope. BSG for example, takes the opposite approach of showing our terrible inclinations through the future and into what appear to be humanity's last hours. Perhaps BSG resonated so well with audiences because that is the kind of future we expect.
I wonder if a "Section 31" series is the best route for a new star trek. It would be able to adopt the dark and gritty atmosphere of shows like BSG and 24, and may be better suited for today's audiences and their expectations of how people would really behave in dire circumstances.
Expressing a dissenting opinion is acceptable here if you're not being a combatative jerk at the same time.
For example: Not acceptable: Obama is a liberal puppet intent on destroying America.
Acceptable: I feel Obama's decision to remove tax breaks for oil corporations will weaken the fragile economic recovery as the increase in the effective tax rate is passed down in increased gas prices to businesses and the general population.
Both of them will be disagreed with of course, but only the first one will get modded into oblivion. The difference is that the first is just throwing out perjorative language, which stifles the listener's ability to examine the substance of the post. This implies that the writer has no regard for communication and is not interested in an exchange of ideas. The second one avoids perjoratives, and provides substance so that those who reply will be invited to respond to the substance, rather responding to an insult.
I find both liberal and conservatives making the mistake of attacking the listener instead of trying to persuade the listener. Obviously Slashdot has a liberal bent, so if a conservative poster wants to dissent, they should be taking extra care with their post, not less. I always read at -1, and I have not noticed a single cogent conservative post being modded away. I have seen occasions where they have received negative moderations, but in all such cases, the positive moderation ultimately left those posts at +5.
I would welcome links to some examples of well-thought out conservative posts that were moderated away. Then we can look and see for ourselves if they were negatively moderated for their content, or for the manner in which they are presented.
This subject here is about the effect of increased distance and the ability to do violence far from the consequences, and far from the risk of retribution.
Infantrymen trade fire within shooting range of the opponent. Their perspective is not relevant to the subject at hand, because the effective range of their weapons means they have little separation from the consequences and the risk of retribution.
The difference turns on a very fine point. BF2 had persistent gun unlocks first, but what CoD4 did was create a carrot stream with them.
BF2 was the first retail game to incorporate it (It was already around in earlier FPS games through server-specific mods, like the Warcraft mod for Counterstrike). However it wasn't part of the core gameplay, the game would largely remain the same if they were removed and only stock weapons were provided. BF2's big advancement was an excellent implementation of in-game stat tracking and comparison to your friends. Stats help stroke epeen and keep players playing longer.Unlocks were restricted to add-on purchases which meant that they had to be extraneous. Unlocks were also restricted only to the dedicated audience that played long enough to obtain them (a trivial task for hardcore gamers, but an eternity for the majority of consumers who only play casually for short periods of time).
CoD4 learned the value of epeen stroking through stat-tracking, but the big change in the CoD4 implementation was a primary focus on a carrot stream. They never want the player to be far from getting a new carrot. So rather taking weeks to make progress to the next reward, they could get a new reward within hours. Obviously big rewards can't be given constantly, so they're spaced out with sufficient interim rewards to keep the player from losing incentive in the long gap between the big rewards. The granularity of CoD4's reward system helped turn a decent multiplayer into the dominating force that it is now. Also, player feedback was increased by giving direct feedback on how their performance was feeding into their progress. Also, with the stream of rewards being expanded so dramatically, how do you balance the rewards so that they're meaningful without being overpowered? They applied the rewards with loadout swaps so that the player is growing in versatility rather than relative effectiveness. This allows for players at all levels to remain competitive with each other since the relative effectiveness level remains close. This balance wasn't handled quite as well in sequels due to heartbeat sensors reducing the lifespan of low level players, and ninja pro increasing the lifespan of higher level players, resulting in a much greater survival gap between low and high level players. The success of the loadout limitation shines through once again, because even though they didn't balance the sequels as well as CoD4, the loadout limitation keeps the survival gap from growing any larger than this, and the gap disappears over time as low level players unlock the core perks. These were the important decisions that CoD4 made in bringing persistent leveling to FPS multiplayer gaming.
That addictive carrot stream is now being adopted in many other modern games that feature multiplayer unlocks . They were the ones who not only understood how great it feels for a gamer to unlock a new "power", but also how to tie that feeling into the gameplay structure.
Metrics are backward looking, not forward looking. They examine what worked, and help the developers polish existing mechanics to the hilt. That's exactly what happened with CoD. It's an incredibly polished franchise that's enjoying tremendous success as a result of iterative improvement since CoD4's innovative improvement.(And yes, CoD4 was an innovative and difficult first steps, putting persistent leveling into an asymmetrically balanced FPS was breaking new ground, and required clever design decisions that were not done in other games/genres that used leveling, such as BF2)
But metrics have limitations. They provide no information on ideas that are truly unique because if it really is a unique idea, there is no existing data. They cant have new ideas based on metrics. The most damning problem is that it fosters a risk-averse mindset, when they base all changes on metrics, and are suddenly confronted with the challenge of a new idea, they'll balk at the sudden lack of data because they're so used to having it.
So even though CoD is doing great, and they have metrics that continue to polish it, the metrics don't give them any assistance in keeping it/fresh/.
Sooner or later, the minor improvements won't be enough to hold onto an audience that's grown tired of the core game mechanics, and they'll need to do something groundbreaking again. It's been 3 games after CoD4, they should be worrying now while they're selling well, rather than wait for a future game to bomb and wonder what happened. Worse, what if they decide the future game shows that the franchise is burned out and discard it? They may never realize that it could have been revitalized for years to come if they just take a few risks with it...but the metrics of a failed sale will tell them to just ditch the franchise.
Yes, in time. Like I said, they are currently priming the market with DLC and pay-to-play multiplayer modes. They haven't started charging unlock fees for the entire game on used game sales yet. They've only locked off DLC and multiplayer so far.
The service identified in the summary allows people to blow through those solo-only games at less than $15, and within weeks of the game launch.
I like the short and compact experiences of modern single-player campaigns. Multiplayer offers me much less value because once I play a few matches, I know what to expect, and future matches won't offer any new experiences to warrant my time. For the most part, multiplayer games aren't offering any new experiences even in the first match since they play so similar to earlier games. The general public is intensely predictable, and clan battle is a massive time sink that precludes enjoyment of other games. Multiplayer is in my past and won't ever become a primary selling point for me in the future (with the exception of party-games when I have guests).
The "shared" experience I enjoy is a memorable campaign that I can play on my own time, then discuss and look back upon in gaming forums. The more they condense and polish the singleplayer, the happier I am, because I can get the full enjoyment with a higher turnover rate, and a higher savings rate through Gamefly.
Unfortunately, quality single player campaigns become less profitable as Gamefly and used game sales become more profitable. So I suspect used game unlock fees to be an inevitable part of gaming's future.
Even a top-flight game like Super Mario Bros wasn't developed by a team of hundreds, in 5 countries, fully voiced and mo-capped, and translated into multiple languages.
I meant, the costs involved to produce a 2-d 8-bit platformer just doesn't compare to a hand-drawn 3-d high-res open world game.
If people want blockbuster AAA games, they'll need to pay a premium to get it. If they are really ok with reduced production values, they should be buying games with reduced production values to show publishers that they should be making more of those kinds of games, and perhaps then there will be room in the market for sub-$60.
As it stands, pricing your own game below $60 is telling the world that it's just not as good as the games that ARE priced at $60. Whether or not that's actually the case, the price sends a signal to the consumer. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_(economics) )
In addition, with the median age of gamers being in the mid-20s. There's a greater amount of consumers with more money than time when it comes to video games. Most gamers are no longer kids plugging away at a Nintendo every day after school. Most gamers just slip in an hour or 2 so after work, and many play much less than that. That also means that a lot of gamers never reach the end of long games. Whether or not you want to blame the gamer for that, that's the situation, and the developers take that reality into account when deciding whether they should pad out the game length with repetition and grinding (because they don't have the budget to extend it with unique content), or just polish a shorter game that can be finished by more players.
No, there's some difference. Economic warfare rests in a framework which includes "profit" as just one goal out of many. From this perspective profit is a part of a cycle of goals that feed into one another. Profit and increased resources feed prosperity at home, increased stability, and improved bargaining ability in foreign policy. All of which in turn feed into each other. Obviously capitalistic ambition is a major aspect of economic warfare, just not the only one.
Capitalism is just profit-maximization, and profits directed purely towards additional profit, without secondary goals.
In time, publishers/developers will charge an unlock fee for the entire game. They are currently priming the market with DLC and pay-to-play multiplayer modes.
This will let them take a cut of the used game sales, and though it will reduce initial sale prices (since some gamers offset initial prices with the resale proceeds), the payoff will be worthwhile to them since they were previously receiving nothing from the subsequent sales. Note also that the sales lost from the increased effective price to new buyers won't be clear, but the income from used game unlocks will be in real dollars they can easily recognize. When other developer/publishers see the used game sale income stream being taken in, they will jump on the bandwagon until this becomes an industry standard
Even farther in the future, there is potential for scaling unlock fees to adjust for the demand. Popular used AAA games continue to sell near full retail price for months. Other games fall pretty quickly. Scaling unlock fees will help them match the market more effectively than a fixed unlock fee. This will take time since MS/Sony/Nintendo will need to provide the implementation for it. Steam is already providing a great avenue for developers to scale prices to match demand for their game, so developers will eventually ask MS/Sony/Nintendo to give them similar flexibility. Heck, Sony is already implementing Steam into the Playstation Network in a limited fashion, so it may happen pretty quickly once used game unlocks come around.
(Not really directed at the parent, but all the analogy-fans)
Analogies aren't useful within a forum of people who understand the matter at hand.
Attempts to re-frame the matter into a different context will run into the obstacles of the new context's characteristics. At best, they can only achieve an equivalent understanding of the issue within an alternate context that runs so deeply parallel that there was no point in changing context at all.
The analogy is only useful when explaining a topic for which the audience has absolutely no knowledge/and/ no frame of reference through which to grow an understanding of any new information presented directly. Let's give people enough credit, and admit that they, at least on some level, know what "software" is.
Any attempt to discuss subtleties of an issue will need to discard the analogy, and address the issue directly, in order to have a productive discussion about the issue, and not the shortcomings of an analogy.
The US would not respond to an invasion of Taiwan. The cold reality is that the US has nothing to gain by fighting for Taiwan's independence.
However, China does not want to look like the bad guy taking Taiwan by force. So they let Taiwan be...for now.
And really, there's no need to invade Taiwan. Economic warfare is far more effective. China won both the war in Iraq and Afganistan by buying up resources and snagging reconstruction contracts, and without spending any money or political capital on military force.
Most likely, a large tsunami or earthquake will hit Taiwan one day. China will come in to offer humanitarian aid to what it calls it's province, and then stay, and no one will object since they will need the aid more than they need independence after a disaster. China will deny all other political entities from offering aid, claiming sovereignty.
I've been annoyed that since the announcement of Google's blocking feature, I'd never been given the option, and manually entering site blocks is a clunky way of doing it.
I envision a future where games can only be played on ONE profile.
To use the disc at all on a second profile, you'll have to pay 5-15 bucks.
Given that semantics and distribution technology can change to fit the market conditions, the bottom line comes down to: What is the consumer willing to pay? What is the seller willing to accept?
Really, I appreciate the developer/publisher concern, people are playing the game and they haven't gotten any money from them. The developers/publishers failed to address the used sale market. They will adapt, and we will decide if we like the new offer, and whether it becomes the new status quo.
With an added fee to unlock a used game, the price of that used game will have to go down in response to the slack in the quantity demanded. (This is because the added fee effectively sets the price point higher, reducing quantity sold, and with the unlock fee fixed, the used disc price will have to adjust to reach equilibrium again on the supply/demand curve.) In the end, we might end up with a $20 used game selling for $10 for the disc, and $10 to unlock. Then the game store gets a cut, the developer gets a cut, and I still get the benefit of a discount from retail price. Of course, I don't think we'll see such a neat change happen, most likely the overall price of a used game will rise overall. It just won't rise by the gross added price of the unlock fee, it'll rise by the net added price of the unlock fee minus the decrease in used disc sale price. New game sales may suffer a bit as well since salvage value to the initial buyer will be reduced.
Charge to unlock isn't here yet only because the market needs to be trained to accept it. DLC, and multiplayer unlock fees are how the market perceptions will be changed to accept used game unlock fees.
The game companies don't have the power to mandate these things, they can only offer these changes. The power is really in the hands of the consumers who decide whether to accept or reject these propositions. And people have shown that they are willing to pay these amounts for access to locked content.
I'm curious as to how Gamefly's or game exchange markets will continue when the used game unlock fees become standard. They'll still be offering value in that the user still doesn't have to pay the price of the disc, but I wonder if it will be enough to justify the same monthly fee.
I've used it 3 times and was contacted within 2 days (not automated, it was from a person). Correction made within 1-2 weeks.
1) Misspelling of my street name in google maps resulted in it being impossible to search for 2) Streetview pointing at a "highway" that was actually just forest (the exit was a few hundred feet back) 3) Fixing street name at a new address.
Maybe because we're still pulling out of a recession. Maybe because Netflix charges extra for blu-ray rentals. Maybe they're happy with Netflix streaming.
Most likely it just takes time. But I have a hard time buying that it's just because the consumer is too stupid to recognize that Blu-ray is just sooo awesome, and that they'd all go running out to chase one down if only they knew how awesome it was. Sheesh.
Re:Dramatic effect and scientific precision
on
Is Sugar Toxic?
·
· Score: 1
I suggest seltzer. Several brands even offer flavored seltzer (but still no sugar or even artificial sweetener).
You can taste each bite of your food better after the carbonated water cleanses your palate.
No health concerns, it's just bubbles and water. After your taste for sugar resets, lemon-lime seltzer tastes like Sprite. (But drinking actual Sprite might make you want to hurl from nausea).
"Publisher THQ shared similar concerns when it chose a unified Korean invasion over a Chinese attack on US soil. Execs said China was just âoenot that scaryâ. But it too was worried about Chinaâ(TM)s reception to Homefront.
âoeThe guys in our Chinese office said: Did you know that everybody on the exec team will be banned from coming into China for the rest of your lives?â executive Danny Bilson told Kotaku earlier this year. âoeThey were afraid the ministry of culture was going to wipe us out.â"
Slashdot Mirror
One possible use is having your car drop you off at the airport, leaving to find the closest available parking spot, then coming back to pick you up when you call it on your cellphone.
There are a lot of cars in the city just aimlessly circling through dense traffic hoping that a parking spot will free up within walking distance of their destination. Now the search for parking space is no longer constrained to the immediate surroundings of the high-traffic area. Hell, the car could even go all the way home if you don't want to leave your car out there while you're on a long trip.
I would like extremely high levels of caution with this. We're talking about huge chunks of metal roaming around at high speeds, dependent on a fallible human's programming and engineering, attempting to account for an incredible volume of edge cases that could have disastrous results.
With that said, I imagine that there is an incredible amount to be learned, and to be gained in this endeavor. Imagine if such technology became ubiquitous. A mile of cars parked in freeway traffic could create a wireless local network, identify non-networked cars, identify the traffic chokepoint and practical car through-put (if there is an actual chokepoint rather than just a stop-and-go wave), then create a simultaneous acceleration plan to say, reach 25mph over the course of 120 seconds. Every car could make a very slow roll forward (slow, because non-networked cars need time to notice they can now move as well) and gradually accelerate forward at the agreed pace. Then they can adjust speeds according to the changing traffic situation to try going faster or slower as needed. If a non-networked car slows more than necessary because of a bad driver, all the cars for a mile back can simultaneously slow down gradually instead of causing a brake wave stopping it altogether. Overall, the flow of traffic could ease tremendously. Traffic caused by asshole drivers cutting in line and stopping the entire lane in place will be dumped, instead intelligent routing could allocate lane space based on efficiency rather than individual selfishness.
It would take a long while to perfect the technology, but it doesn't require outlandish breakthroughs. The most difficult and time-consuming hurdle to overcome here is consumer confidence. It works best when all the consumers buy cars equipped to communicate with each other. It doesn't really work at all until enough of them buy cars equipped to communicate with each other. So it will take a long time to acclimate consumers to trusting drive-assist cars, driver-less cars, and then network driven traffic. Each step requires convincing consumers, getting them to buy it, and funding the next step of progress. It's exciting that Google is taking the slow baby steps needed to make this a possibility within the next 40-50 years.
I have doubts about how my differences might predispose me towards being "a success", particularly in environments where career advancement hinges upon socialization. I'm friendly, but I'm just too different from them to make the same easy connections that they can make with each other.
However, I do know that I love who I am(and so does my wife), and I wouldn't want to give up my differences just so I can be more like the mean.
I was under the impression that he generally obtains permission of the artists he parodies before releasing his work.
Not that I follow him too closely, but I recently noted an article on Google News about miscommunication between Weird Al and Lady Gaga's manager. He'd created a parody of "Born this way" and complained that she had refused to give him permission to release it. Lady Gaga responded that she'd never seen the request and that she'd love to have a Weird Al parody of one of her songs. The implication made was that Lady Gaga's manager had turned Weird Al down without consulting Lady Gaga. I hadn't heard any more than this since Lady Gaga gave him permission and the song was released, so I suppose there was no interest in a follow-up by the media.
At these speeds, I'd suprised if anyone could manage to manually hit anything at all, even by sheer luck.
More likely, they don't care.
The few that do expect privacy will see this, have a momentary sense of outrage, and then forget about it.
They'll continue to use facebook because they're really not all that concerned about their privacy. At most Facebook may make a statement about how they're continually improving security, and then it will be business as usual.
Well, let's think about this for a moment: What is the appeal of Sci-fi for you?
As a layman, I'm more interested in the stories being told rather than technobabble about the setting. My only criteria for their technology is that the rules of their universe remain consistent enough so that they don't draw attention to themselves.
Beyond that, I'm just interested in the human story that is laid out over the framework established by the futuristic setting. I'll freely admit that Star Trek is full of camp, but it also engaged viewers to look at how we treat those that are different from us, what is to be human, how to behave ethically in the face of uncertainty, and many other interesting quandries. While the settings may be fantastic, and may involve a myriad of strange and unfamiliar races and creatures, I find that my favorite science fiction are fundamentally human stories; stories about humans as individuals or our society as a whole. When sci-fi removes the familiar trappings of the world that we know, we can take a closer look at humanity in a new context, and perhaps learning about ourself in the abstract.
I also appreciate the general sense of optimism in the franchise. It's something that has been lost in the cynicism of the times. As technology allows us to get closer to the news and revealing the horrible acts that we commit against each other, we're left with a pretty low opinion of our species as a whole. I like that Star Trek presents a relatively progressive humanity. The Federation has plenty of room for improvement, but even the idea of having resolved so many of our deepseated problems and conflicts gives the franchise a sense of hope. BSG for example, takes the opposite approach of showing our terrible inclinations through the future and into what appear to be humanity's last hours. Perhaps BSG resonated so well with audiences because that is the kind of future we expect.
I wonder if a "Section 31" series is the best route for a new star trek. It would be able to adopt the dark and gritty atmosphere of shows like BSG and 24, and may be better suited for today's audiences and their expectations of how people would really behave in dire circumstances.
Expressing a dissenting opinion is acceptable here if you're not being a combatative jerk at the same time.
For example:
Not acceptable: Obama is a liberal puppet intent on destroying America.
Acceptable: I feel Obama's decision to remove tax breaks for oil corporations will weaken the fragile economic recovery as the increase in the effective tax rate is passed down in increased gas prices to businesses and the general population.
Both of them will be disagreed with of course, but only the first one will get modded into oblivion. The difference is that the first is just throwing out perjorative language, which stifles the listener's ability to examine the substance of the post. This implies that the writer has no regard for communication and is not interested in an exchange of ideas. The second one avoids perjoratives, and provides substance so that those who reply will be invited to respond to the substance, rather responding to an insult.
I find both liberal and conservatives making the mistake of attacking the listener instead of trying to persuade the listener. Obviously Slashdot has a liberal bent, so if a conservative poster wants to dissent, they should be taking extra care with their post, not less. I always read at -1, and I have not noticed a single cogent conservative post being modded away. I have seen occasions where they have received negative moderations, but in all such cases, the positive moderation ultimately left those posts at +5.
I would welcome links to some examples of well-thought out conservative posts that were moderated away. Then we can look and see for ourselves if they were negatively moderated for their content, or for the manner in which they are presented.
Nope, you're wrong. This is justice.
Law is a means to an end. It enforces order first, and morality second.
Illegal justice is justice nevertheless.
This subject here is about the effect of increased distance and the ability to do violence far from the consequences, and far from the risk of retribution.
Infantrymen trade fire within shooting range of the opponent. Their perspective is not relevant to the subject at hand, because the effective range of their weapons means they have little separation from the consequences and the risk of retribution.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0
"Collateral Murder" is a video already well-known on Slashdot, and it is relevant to the subject at hand.
The difference turns on a very fine point. BF2 had persistent gun unlocks first, but what CoD4 did was create a carrot stream with them.
BF2 was the first retail game to incorporate it (It was already around in earlier FPS games through server-specific mods, like the Warcraft mod for Counterstrike). However it wasn't part of the core gameplay, the game would largely remain the same if they were removed and only stock weapons were provided. BF2's big advancement was an excellent implementation of in-game stat tracking and comparison to your friends. Stats help stroke epeen and keep players playing longer.Unlocks were restricted to add-on purchases which meant that they had to be extraneous. Unlocks were also restricted only to the dedicated audience that played long enough to obtain them (a trivial task for hardcore gamers, but an eternity for the majority of consumers who only play casually for short periods of time).
CoD4 learned the value of epeen stroking through stat-tracking, but the big change in the CoD4 implementation was a primary focus on a carrot stream. They never want the player to be far from getting a new carrot. So rather taking weeks to make progress to the next reward, they could get a new reward within hours. Obviously big rewards can't be given constantly, so they're spaced out with sufficient interim rewards to keep the player from losing incentive in the long gap between the big rewards. The granularity of CoD4's reward system helped turn a decent multiplayer into the dominating force that it is now. Also, player feedback was increased by giving direct feedback on how their performance was feeding into their progress. Also, with the stream of rewards being expanded so dramatically, how do you balance the rewards so that they're meaningful without being overpowered? They applied the rewards with loadout swaps so that the player is growing in versatility rather than relative effectiveness. This allows for players at all levels to remain competitive with each other since the relative effectiveness level remains close. This balance wasn't handled quite as well in sequels due to heartbeat sensors reducing the lifespan of low level players, and ninja pro increasing the lifespan of higher level players, resulting in a much greater survival gap between low and high level players. The success of the loadout limitation shines through once again, because even though they didn't balance the sequels as well as CoD4, the loadout limitation keeps the survival gap from growing any larger than this, and the gap disappears over time as low level players unlock the core perks. These were the important decisions that CoD4 made in bringing persistent leveling to FPS multiplayer gaming.
That addictive carrot stream is now being adopted in many other modern games that feature multiplayer unlocks . They were the ones who not only understood how great it feels for a gamer to unlock a new "power", but also how to tie that feeling into the gameplay structure.
The problem with the statement is that they are metrics of success rather than potential.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/3006-Metrics
Metrics are backward looking, not forward looking. They examine what worked, and help the developers polish existing mechanics to the hilt. That's exactly what happened with CoD. It's an incredibly polished franchise that's enjoying tremendous success as a result of iterative improvement since CoD4's innovative improvement.(And yes, CoD4 was an innovative and difficult first steps, putting persistent leveling into an asymmetrically balanced FPS was breaking new ground, and required clever design decisions that were not done in other games/genres that used leveling, such as BF2)
But metrics have limitations. They provide no information on ideas that are truly unique because if it really is a unique idea, there is no existing data. They cant have new ideas based on metrics. The most damning problem is that it fosters a risk-averse mindset, when they base all changes on metrics, and are suddenly confronted with the challenge of a new idea, they'll balk at the sudden lack of data because they're so used to having it.
So even though CoD is doing great, and they have metrics that continue to polish it, the metrics don't give them any assistance in keeping it /fresh/.
Sooner or later, the minor improvements won't be enough to hold onto an audience that's grown tired of the core game mechanics, and they'll need to do something groundbreaking again. It's been 3 games after CoD4, they should be worrying now while they're selling well, rather than wait for a future game to bomb and wonder what happened. Worse, what if they decide the future game shows that the franchise is burned out and discard it? They may never realize that it could have been revitalized for years to come if they just take a few risks with it...but the metrics of a failed sale will tell them to just ditch the franchise.
Yes, in time. Like I said, they are currently priming the market with DLC and pay-to-play multiplayer modes. They haven't started charging unlock fees for the entire game on used game sales yet. They've only locked off DLC and multiplayer so far.
The service identified in the summary allows people to blow through those solo-only games at less than $15, and within weeks of the game launch.
I like the short and compact experiences of modern single-player campaigns. Multiplayer offers me much less value because once I play a few matches, I know what to expect, and future matches won't offer any new experiences to warrant my time. For the most part, multiplayer games aren't offering any new experiences even in the first match since they play so similar to earlier games. The general public is intensely predictable, and clan battle is a massive time sink that precludes enjoyment of other games. Multiplayer is in my past and won't ever become a primary selling point for me in the future (with the exception of party-games when I have guests).
The "shared" experience I enjoy is a memorable campaign that I can play on my own time, then discuss and look back upon in gaming forums. The more they condense and polish the singleplayer, the happier I am, because I can get the full enjoyment with a higher turnover rate, and a higher savings rate through Gamefly.
Unfortunately, quality single player campaigns become less profitable as Gamefly and used game sales become more profitable. So I suspect used game unlock fees to be an inevitable part of gaming's future.
Even a top-flight game like Super Mario Bros wasn't developed by a team of hundreds, in 5 countries, fully voiced and mo-capped, and translated into multiple languages.
I meant, the costs involved to produce a 2-d 8-bit platformer just doesn't compare to a hand-drawn 3-d high-res open world game.
If people want blockbuster AAA games, they'll need to pay a premium to get it. If they are really ok with reduced production values, they should be buying games with reduced production values to show publishers that they should be making more of those kinds of games, and perhaps then there will be room in the market for sub-$60.
As it stands, pricing your own game below $60 is telling the world that it's just not as good as the games that ARE priced at $60. Whether or not that's actually the case, the price sends a signal to the consumer. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_(economics) )
In addition, with the median age of gamers being in the mid-20s. There's a greater amount of consumers with more money than time when it comes to video games. Most gamers are no longer kids plugging away at a Nintendo every day after school. Most gamers just slip in an hour or 2 so after work, and many play much less than that. That also means that a lot of gamers never reach the end of long games. Whether or not you want to blame the gamer for that, that's the situation, and the developers take that reality into account when deciding whether they should pad out the game length with repetition and grinding (because they don't have the budget to extend it with unique content), or just polish a shorter game that can be finished by more players.
No, there's some difference. Economic warfare rests in a framework which includes "profit" as just one goal out of many. From this perspective profit is a part of a cycle of goals that feed into one another. Profit and increased resources feed prosperity at home, increased stability, and improved bargaining ability in foreign policy. All of which in turn feed into each other. Obviously capitalistic ambition is a major aspect of economic warfare, just not the only one.
Capitalism is just profit-maximization, and profits directed purely towards additional profit, without secondary goals.
In time, publishers/developers will charge an unlock fee for the entire game. They are currently priming the market with DLC and pay-to-play multiplayer modes.
This will let them take a cut of the used game sales, and though it will reduce initial sale prices (since some gamers offset initial prices with the resale proceeds), the payoff will be worthwhile to them since they were previously receiving nothing from the subsequent sales. Note also that the sales lost from the increased effective price to new buyers won't be clear, but the income from used game unlocks will be in real dollars they can easily recognize. When other developer/publishers see the used game sale income stream being taken in, they will jump on the bandwagon until this becomes an industry standard
Even farther in the future, there is potential for scaling unlock fees to adjust for the demand. Popular used AAA games continue to sell near full retail price for months. Other games fall pretty quickly. Scaling unlock fees will help them match the market more effectively than a fixed unlock fee. This will take time since MS/Sony/Nintendo will need to provide the implementation for it. Steam is already providing a great avenue for developers to scale prices to match demand for their game, so developers will eventually ask MS/Sony/Nintendo to give them similar flexibility. Heck, Sony is already implementing Steam into the Playstation Network in a limited fashion, so it may happen pretty quickly once used game unlocks come around.
(Not really directed at the parent, but all the analogy-fans)
Analogies aren't useful within a forum of people who understand the matter at hand.
Attempts to re-frame the matter into a different context will run into the obstacles of the new context's characteristics. At best, they can only achieve an equivalent understanding of the issue within an alternate context that runs so deeply parallel that there was no point in changing context at all.
The analogy is only useful when explaining a topic for which the audience has absolutely no knowledge /and/ no frame of reference through which to grow an understanding of any new information presented directly. Let's give people enough credit, and admit that they, at least on some level, know what "software" is.
Any attempt to discuss subtleties of an issue will need to discard the analogy, and address the issue directly, in order to have a productive discussion about the issue, and not the shortcomings of an analogy.
The US would not respond to an invasion of Taiwan. The cold reality is that the US has nothing to gain by fighting for Taiwan's independence.
However, China does not want to look like the bad guy taking Taiwan by force. So they let Taiwan be...for now.
And really, there's no need to invade Taiwan. Economic warfare is far more effective. China won both the war in Iraq and Afganistan by buying up resources and snagging reconstruction contracts, and without spending any money or political capital on military force.
Most likely, a large tsunami or earthquake will hit Taiwan one day. China will come in to offer humanitarian aid to what it calls it's province, and then stay, and no one will object since they will need the aid more than they need independence after a disaster. China will deny all other political entities from offering aid, claiming sovereignty.
Interesting site. Given the feedback thus far it sounds like the main page should be showing the latest additions instead.
Any special site update posts or news should go on a separate news page since these aren't the main focus.
This way the new arrivals are shown the site's value right up front.
THANK you for linking me to that.
I've been annoyed that since the announcement of Google's blocking feature, I'd never been given the option, and manually entering site blocks is a clunky way of doing it.
I envision a future where games can only be played on ONE profile.
To use the disc at all on a second profile, you'll have to pay 5-15 bucks.
Given that semantics and distribution technology can change to fit the market conditions, the bottom line comes down to: What is the consumer willing to pay? What is the seller willing to accept?
Really, I appreciate the developer/publisher concern, people are playing the game and they haven't gotten any money from them. The developers/publishers failed to address the used sale market. They will adapt, and we will decide if we like the new offer, and whether it becomes the new status quo.
With an added fee to unlock a used game, the price of that used game will have to go down in response to the slack in the quantity demanded. (This is because the added fee effectively sets the price point higher, reducing quantity sold, and with the unlock fee fixed, the used disc price will have to adjust to reach equilibrium again on the supply/demand curve.) In the end, we might end up with a $20 used game selling for $10 for the disc, and $10 to unlock. Then the game store gets a cut, the developer gets a cut, and I still get the benefit of a discount from retail price. Of course, I don't think we'll see such a neat change happen, most likely the overall price of a used game will rise overall. It just won't rise by the gross added price of the unlock fee, it'll rise by the net added price of the unlock fee minus the decrease in used disc sale price. New game sales may suffer a bit as well since salvage value to the initial buyer will be reduced.
Charge to unlock isn't here yet only because the market needs to be trained to accept it. DLC, and multiplayer unlock fees are how the market perceptions will be changed to accept used game unlock fees.
The game companies don't have the power to mandate these things, they can only offer these changes. The power is really in the hands of the consumers who decide whether to accept or reject these propositions. And people have shown that they are willing to pay these amounts for access to locked content.
I'm curious as to how Gamefly's or game exchange markets will continue when the used game unlock fees become standard. They'll still be offering value in that the user still doesn't have to pay the price of the disc, but I wonder if it will be enough to justify the same monthly fee.
I've used it 3 times and was contacted within 2 days (not automated, it was from a person). Correction made within 1-2 weeks.
1) Misspelling of my street name in google maps resulted in it being impossible to search for
2) Streetview pointing at a "highway" that was actually just forest (the exit was a few hundred feet back)
3) Fixing street name at a new address.
Maybe because we're still pulling out of a recession. Maybe because Netflix charges extra for blu-ray rentals. Maybe they're happy with Netflix streaming.
Most likely it just takes time. But I have a hard time buying that it's just because the consumer is too stupid to recognize that Blu-ray is just sooo awesome, and that they'd all go running out to chase one down if only they knew how awesome it was. Sheesh.
I suggest seltzer. Several brands even offer flavored seltzer (but still no sugar or even artificial sweetener).
You can taste each bite of your food better after the carbonated water cleanses your palate.
No health concerns, it's just bubbles and water. After your taste for sugar resets, lemon-lime seltzer tastes like Sprite. (But drinking actual Sprite might make you want to hurl from nausea).
It was originally China.
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2011/03/red-dawn-remake-pulls-a-homefront-retcons-korean-invasion/
"Publisher THQ shared similar concerns when it chose a unified Korean invasion over a Chinese attack on US soil. Execs said China was just âoenot that scaryâ. But it too was worried about Chinaâ(TM)s reception to Homefront.
âoeThe guys in our Chinese office said: Did you know that everybody on the exec team will be banned from coming into China for the rest of your lives?â executive Danny Bilson told Kotaku earlier this year. âoeThey were afraid the ministry of culture was going to wipe us out.â"