I keep everything organized. The stacks may not be lined up perfectly in a straight edge, but they're in definite stacks in their own trays for specific purposes and every case always finds itself in the appropriate tray for retrieval.
However, I find that a clean environment at home promotes a more energetic mindset for me. I make no pretense that this is applicable to anyone else, I'm just curious if this sounds familiar to anyone else.
When I'm surrounded by a mess I feel lazy and sluggish, I'd rather just let the piles accumulate and take care of them all at once...at some point "later on". When my room is neat and tidy, and I'm holding an object, it's just one object to set away to perpetuate the pleasantly clean atmosphere. So I do it. And it bleeds over into other small mundane tasks. I see small but annoying errands that I/could/ pile up, but I might as well just take care of it right now and perpetuate the clean slate.
An example from this last week: My light burned out and I sat in the dark refuse-filled room for a day or two before replacing the bulb, lit only by the glow of my monitors and laptop. I replaced the bulb, and cleaned everything up. I'm sure you can picture the constrast in atmosphere, you might also be able to see how my mindset is also affected in part by it.
Did you know that support for Hotmail was discarded in Windows Mail? I had a good laugh at that. My various hotmail accounts are what I give out online to receive all the spam from web-registration.
I upgraded to Vista with a similar intent. It was just 10 bucks for shipping to use the Dell upgrade coupon on my laptop and I wanted to take a look at Vista for myself, I'm probably going to have to confront it sooner or later. It's working pretty much just like XP right now, just a different path to get where I'm going. Aside from not being able to use Outlook to get at my spamboxes, it's pretty much the same(and I use Gmail for the mail that's important to me anyway).
I've got 1gb of ram on my vista installation(home premium) too. No performance degradation compared to when it was running windows XP. Aero is on.
There are plenty of other reasons to want Vista. In practice, it's been just like windows XP so far, just some graphical changes and a change to folder navigation. No disadvantages thus far though, so the 10 dollars for shipping was worth it(Dell upgrade coupon).
I think I share your price elasticity. I buy games on Steam on an impulse, it hardly takes more than 2-5 minutes before I decide to pay up.
At $60, so long as it looks like it'll be "decent" I'll pay up.
But more than $60 bucks and I would take a long hard look at what else I could be buying for that price. Opportunity costs.
Thing is, while inflation keeps moving, the practical buying power of the average consumer isn't necessarily moving at the same pace. And that buying power is much more relevant than how much the price would be if it moved with inflation.
To be fair, while 24 often sets up torture in this means, the show is aware of how often it does this and has turned it around.
Remember that olive-skinned CTU agent that got infected by a bioweapon in an air vent? He was tortured earlier but it turned out he didn't do anything wrong but was ordered to secrecy. So they had tortured someone innocent?
I'm not sure what she did, but wasn't Jack's DoD love interest tortured too? I think she turned out innocent as well.
I think they also tortured someone who didn't want to give up who he'd been meeting with. It turned out that he was in the closet and just didn't want to admit he'd been meeting a man for sex(and not covering a terrorist plot)) since his dad was also listening in. So he turned out innocent too IIRC.
For parent and the child post asking for an explanation.
I believe the first paragraph of the parent is clarifying that most of the world does not operate as a free market. I agree, there are only unregulated free markets in the most extreme outlier cases(and I'm having trouble thinking of any useful examples off the top of my head). This is because free market capitalism is not designed to maximize the goals of the people or the government, or someone who has market power. Thus the people, or the government, or those who have market power impose restrictions on the free market system to better suit their needs/desires.
As for the assumption of people being "rational" actors, the reason this assumption is often scoffed at is because of an unclear understanding of what is being entailed.
People make mistakes, they make bad decisions. For example, choosing to play videogames even though they know they're supposed to be in class right now and increasing their "human capital" to increase future earning potential...while playing videogames loses all benefit beyond the point you stop playing.
Why did they make that bad decision? Because it was a good and rational decision to them. The utility of having leisure time/now/, was more valuable to them than having more money in the/future/. The money is so far out in the future that it may as well not exist to them(Consider the "Time Value of Money", it should be wikiable. A dollar today is not the same value as a dollar 20 years from now.)
So they looked at leisure, and looked at future money, and due to improper measurement they weighted the futuremoney so that it was less valuable to them than having leisure right now. So they chose what they valued most.
Bad perceptions and analysis of opportunity costs is why some people fail to recognize that they're making a bad decision.
Advertising is a way of influencing perceptions, sometimes it helps, sometimes it's just a lie. But either way, it changes the expected value of what's being advertised. Lack of information results in bad perceptions and leads to the person failing to choose what's truly optimal for them.
Anyway, the assumption in economics is that people will choose what they believe is best for themselves. That's the idea of "rational" being used. "Irrational" in this concept, would be identifying the worst possible choice, and choosing the worst possible choice.
Note that economics starts with very simple models and a great deal of difficult assumptions because starting off with a dozen variables makes identifying each one very difficult. Instead it starts off with just a few variables and a lot of assumptions, then after getting some variables they turn assumptions into variables to slowly build a more complex model.
The proposed economic ideas should never be taken out of context from their assumptions. Since obviously, accepting those assumptions are vital for the proof to be of any value. The idea of "rational" meaning that the person always makes the best choice is a basic idea. The more complex idea adds misperceptions into the model, and then adds misinformation, and so on, until the idea says that a person makes what/they think/ is the best choice. The more complex idea is more complete and better able to describe reality, while the basic idea is only true when perfect perception and information is assumed. That's why the assumptions are needed when referencing the idea.
Yeah, you may be onto something. It seems that in Asian, academic excellence is the greatest possible achievement for the youth. Anything less than perfection is not good enough(97? Why didn't you get 100?), and perfection indicates that the measurement was too low and the child needs to find harder challenges.
It sounds like a negative environment because it's so foreign, but from a different perspective, the question isn't "Why are they so hard on their kids", it's "Why are those other kids allowed to be mediocre?"
Answering a question in class means everybody stops and stares at you because you chose to step out of line and identify yourself as the one with the answer. This makes you stand out as being different. Asking a question works the same way. The class goal isn't a race to the top, it's just about making it the end.
A good education correlates pretty well with more money, being athletic isn't a good indicator for future earnings.
Which view is better is going to depend on who's asking the question. Is earning potential the end goal? Or happiness? Some blend of the two?
Most just get their 30 minutes of cardio by just running around by themselves. So what if they get it from a video game. The running itself isn't teaching them anything about their body, that's something seperate. DDR's a social activity if you make it that way, same with running.
Exercise is good. Socializing is good. And having them play DDR as a starting point for fitness is good too. Who knows? Maybe after they've shed 10-15lbs on the DDR mat they'll be fit enough to find themselves enjoying a sport rather than feel emasculated and intimidated by everyone else at the gym(One of the more popular reasons I hear from people).
"Either way, you probably shouldn't tell other people how to live their lives.:)"
Do as I say, not as I do?
He's just exercising free speech. Some might even consider telling someone what they believe is best for them to be a moral imperative. If I believe the box has a bomb in it, I'd probably tell the guy not to open the box. He's free to open the box, maybe even prove me wrong by showing that the box is empty. It's just advice after all, whether or not it's welcome.
They reap what they sow. They invested a large amount of time, effort, and money into their body to "body-build" and as a result they're big and strong. Those who invest their free time, effort, and money into intellectual pursuits are going to be better informed, and possibly more intelligent. And there's no reason people can't diversify into both mental and physical disciplines.
Yeah, it seems like many other people shared this view when the news of Google buying Youtube came out.
Youtube was popular but not really making any money.
Google buys them, and Google has money.
Now it's Youtube, but with money to sue them for. Google buying them just upped the risk factor considerably. Google has quite a few brainy folks on their side, I'm sure they saw the lawsuits coming. So I'm wondering, what's the plan they have in store for this contingency, because there's no way they would've gone into this without a plan...right?
My understanding of this comment boils down to: "I don't like their license agreement/material/pricepoint/some mixture of these factors."
That's understandable. The contract is not agreeable to the consumer so they don't accept it or its condition.
But the result of not accepting the contract is that the consumer does not receive the product and the seller does not receive payment.
So the seller gets no money, and that's their incentive to give fair offers. The consumer already has this as a mechanism of coercing the seller. Theft has not been justified.
There's a larger market for the consoles since there are lower barriers to entry technically and at times, fiscally(this barrier can vary heavily. Development has the caveat of being able to expect all clients to be fairly uniform in spec. At least in comparison to PCs.
There will always be the PC enthusiasts who want incredible games to utilize their high-end PCs. But not every game company can craft and compete with these games. And if they fail to succeed/bigtime/ they're going to take a huge loss. This is why there will be fewer PC games, with less gamers on that platform, there's less room for "winners" among developers.
This is even more true for MMOs, where the persistent accounts often entail persistent investitures of time and effort. There isn't much room for multiple MMOs in a gamer's timespan.
No console can duplicate the PC experience. But the two will become more and more similar.
The key features of the two platforms will eventually boil down to:
Consoles have hardware lock-in and a controlled environment. Simpler to develop for, and simpler for the gamer to use.
PCs will have open hardware and a modifiable environment. More difficult to develop for(since diff hardware/software configurations can cause complications, we'll see how far DX10 changes this), and while more complicated, there's more utility.
That's the key difference, one is closed and simple, another is open and powerful. It's an important seperation in the market's tastes, and neither will go away since there will always be those who prefer simplicity or versatility.
That's it, consoles will someday have kbm/mouse, they'll have MMOs, they may even have "mods" in the form of official expansions. But modification and personalization will be more powerful on the PC end inherently due to the freedom given to the owner.
A side note: Most people already have PCs, but not gaming-class. Most already have TVs, but necessarily HD. The cost of enabling gaming for your TV or PC is not that different. Some can afford one, some can afford multiple gaming platforms, but many will probably have PC and TV whether or not they game with it.
Incidentally, I just watched the HD demo of this dog at gametrailers(It's one of the featured vids) and that dog is CUUUUUUTE. While the rest of the game still has plenty of potential to crash and burn, I will love that dog for doing nothing other than hanging around going through it's idle animations.
I think Molyneux is overreaching again. Guy's got good intentions and dreams for gaming, but making them happen has been pretty hit or miss. It's just hard to be as excited about what the guy has to say at this point. His games will all be prioritized as "Just wait and see" until he pulls off a slam-dunk.
Since game development is apparently a cushy overpaid industry in your eyes, why not go make your own games on the cheap. Hire more staff than the last game to produce larger quantities of content in order to get paid the same as the last game. Brilliant.
8-bit mario can be done by pretty much anyone using MS paint.
It's not the same process to make the models and textures for Gears of War. And Gears of war was still just 8 hours long. You could probably walk past almost a day's worth of manpower in about 15 seconds.
The problem is that people keep buying games just because they look prettier, and that prettiness driving the market is extremely expensive. On the other hand, a creative game with innovative gameplay but mediocre or even poor graphics can cost less to develop but can still end up overshadowed.
On the other hand, I was playing R6: Vegas and a sniper was firing down at me from a billboard platform. I popped a round into his head and I zoomed out to reveal...an Axe ad?
I thought, wow, that's cool. I see Axe ads in real life. Amazing that a game featuring counter-terrorism using a contemporary setting is using contemporary ads. It's more realistic than seeing a billboard for "Guillotine" deoderant. Might as well just do it and make some extra dough. I don't mind.
As others have stated, I don't care so long as they do it tastefully.
Heh, I worked a while in HR, got to see everybody's end of the year performance review etc. My company looks at the pay of each employee and measures it as a percentage of the market average, and also have a performance rating. An employee weighed in at.80 of the market and an A rating.
Next to this area of the personnel sheet, it was penciled in, "Give this woman a good raise or we might lose her!" and was underlined. So they gave her a bigger raise that year to try to bring her pay in line to avoid the chance she might leave and have the company try to replace her and wait for that new employee to get up to speed.
Then at least when you're dealing with the mess you can tell yourself you did everything you could to prevent it. If you don't try to do what you can, then some of that responsibility will sit with you.
Many situations are negotiable, more than most people are aware of. Sometimes, simply asking for something, even if you have no leverage or right to do so, they'll give it to you. A company sold some materials directly to our maintenance guys at the plant since it was an emergency and shortcuts had to be made. The invoice arrives at Purchasing after the materials have already been delivered and put to use. The purchasing agent asked for a discount in paying for it. And he still got 1% off:P
1% sounds like nothing, but it's money. He got that money basically for free. We're already using the product and if we don't pay their listed price within 30 days, we have no excuses, so they could easily have just told us no.
But that's it, the worst that can happen is that they say no. If they give a price and you ask for something better, you won't lose the original price you can try to argue for a spot in the middle, or settle for one of their offers at any time.
There are also times where you're expected to negotiate, so they will start off with a number that they know is unfavorable for you so that they have room to back off in negotiations. But some just accept that bad deal.
You don't have to be bitter or mean about it at any time. Just deliver firm confident statements with either a deadpan face or a friendly smile. Ultimatums are reserved for the very end of negotiation.
As mentioned elsewhere, having numbers drawn from other places is potent ammo.
"If they're causing more serious problems and I report them, and 9 other people report them as well, then they'll get their account reviewed and banned. They've lost all of their achievements, they've lost their friends list, and all of their other account details but most importantly they'll have to pay another $50 to sign back up. How much do you think the "riff-raff" would be willing to lose before they just go bother people on some free service where they can create new accounts to their hearts content? "
Even 13yr-old yelling racist epithets and talking about mom-rape...to teammates...will still have 5-star ratings because other 13yr-olds find it funny.
The rating system doesn't lower the amount of assholes out there, it just gives you the ability to push them away one-by-one using about 20 seconds each using a menu system(note that you're also not playing while you're going through this). I could care less about the skill-matching because many games well, suck at judging skill. Though it's a nice feature when it works.
But other than this, I too have no problem with Xbox Live's fee. Primarily because of the friend system. It performs better at unifying friended gamers than the other services that attempt the same. Of course it has the advantage of being directly designed into the platform rather than being a 3rd party add-on like the PC services, but there it is. There are places it could improve(like having saved invite lists rather than picking through each time) but it works well.
50 dollars over a year is trivial, and I appreciate the value. I find myself using it as a phone to talk with my friends when we're playing different games or not playing at all. There are other ways we can do this, it's just convenient.
Slashdot Mirror
I keep everything organized. The stacks may not be lined up perfectly in a straight edge, but they're in definite stacks in their own trays for specific purposes and every case always finds itself in the appropriate tray for retrieval.
/could/ pile up, but I might as well just take care of it right now and perpetuate the clean slate.
However, I find that a clean environment at home promotes a more energetic mindset for me. I make no pretense that this is applicable to anyone else, I'm just curious if this sounds familiar to anyone else.
When I'm surrounded by a mess I feel lazy and sluggish, I'd rather just let the piles accumulate and take care of them all at once...at some point "later on". When my room is neat and tidy, and I'm holding an object, it's just one object to set away to perpetuate the pleasantly clean atmosphere. So I do it. And it bleeds over into other small mundane tasks. I see small but annoying errands that I
An example from this last week: My light burned out and I sat in the dark refuse-filled room for a day or two before replacing the bulb, lit only by the glow of my monitors and laptop. I replaced the bulb, and cleaned everything up. I'm sure you can picture the constrast in atmosphere, you might also be able to see how my mindset is also affected in part by it.
Did you know that support for Hotmail was discarded in Windows Mail? I had a good laugh at that. My various hotmail accounts are what I give out online to receive all the spam from web-registration.
I upgraded to Vista with a similar intent. It was just 10 bucks for shipping to use the Dell upgrade coupon on my laptop and I wanted to take a look at Vista for myself, I'm probably going to have to confront it sooner or later. It's working pretty much just like XP right now, just a different path to get where I'm going. Aside from not being able to use Outlook to get at my spamboxes, it's pretty much the same(and I use Gmail for the mail that's important to me anyway).
Bah, "There are plenty of other reasons to *not* want Vista".
I've got 1gb of ram on my vista installation(home premium) too. No performance degradation compared to when it was running windows XP. Aero is on.
There are plenty of other reasons to want Vista. In practice, it's been just like windows XP so far, just some graphical changes and a change to folder navigation. No disadvantages thus far though, so the 10 dollars for shipping was worth it(Dell upgrade coupon).
I think I share your price elasticity. I buy games on Steam on an impulse, it hardly takes more than 2-5 minutes before I decide to pay up.
At $60, so long as it looks like it'll be "decent" I'll pay up.
But more than $60 bucks and I would take a long hard look at what else I could be buying for that price. Opportunity costs.
Thing is, while inflation keeps moving, the practical buying power of the average consumer isn't necessarily moving at the same pace. And that buying power is much more relevant than how much the price would be if it moved with inflation.
To be fair, while 24 often sets up torture in this means, the show is aware of how often it does this and has turned it around.
Remember that olive-skinned CTU agent that got infected by a bioweapon in an air vent? He was tortured earlier but it turned out he didn't do anything wrong but was ordered to secrecy. So they had tortured someone innocent?
I'm not sure what she did, but wasn't Jack's DoD love interest tortured too? I think she turned out innocent as well.
I think they also tortured someone who didn't want to give up who he'd been meeting with. It turned out that he was in the closet and just didn't want to admit he'd been meeting a man for sex(and not covering a terrorist plot)) since his dad was also listening in. So he turned out innocent too IIRC.
For parent and the child post asking for an explanation.
/now/, was more valuable to them than having more money in the /future/. The money is so far out in the future that it may as well not exist to them(Consider the "Time Value of Money", it should be wikiable. A dollar today is not the same value as a dollar 20 years from now.)
/they think/ is the best choice. The more complex idea is more complete and better able to describe reality, while the basic idea is only true when perfect perception and information is assumed. That's why the assumptions are needed when referencing the idea.
I believe the first paragraph of the parent is clarifying that most of the world does not operate as a free market. I agree, there are only unregulated free markets in the most extreme outlier cases(and I'm having trouble thinking of any useful examples off the top of my head). This is because free market capitalism is not designed to maximize the goals of the people or the government, or someone who has market power. Thus the people, or the government, or those who have market power impose restrictions on the free market system to better suit their needs/desires.
As for the assumption of people being "rational" actors, the reason this assumption is often scoffed at is because of an unclear understanding of what is being entailed.
People make mistakes, they make bad decisions. For example, choosing to play videogames even though they know they're supposed to be in class right now and increasing their "human capital" to increase future earning potential...while playing videogames loses all benefit beyond the point you stop playing.
Why did they make that bad decision? Because it was a good and rational decision to them. The utility of having leisure time
So they looked at leisure, and looked at future money, and due to improper measurement they weighted the futuremoney so that it was less valuable to them than having leisure right now. So they chose what they valued most.
Bad perceptions and analysis of opportunity costs is why some people fail to recognize that they're making a bad decision.
Advertising is a way of influencing perceptions, sometimes it helps, sometimes it's just a lie. But either way, it changes the expected value of what's being advertised. Lack of information results in bad perceptions and leads to the person failing to choose what's truly optimal for them.
Anyway, the assumption in economics is that people will choose what they believe is best for themselves. That's the idea of "rational" being used. "Irrational" in this concept, would be identifying the worst possible choice, and choosing the worst possible choice.
Note that economics starts with very simple models and a great deal of difficult assumptions because starting off with a dozen variables makes identifying each one very difficult. Instead it starts off with just a few variables and a lot of assumptions, then after getting some variables they turn assumptions into variables to slowly build a more complex model.
The proposed economic ideas should never be taken out of context from their assumptions. Since obviously, accepting those assumptions are vital for the proof to be of any value. The idea of "rational" meaning that the person always makes the best choice is a basic idea. The more complex idea adds misperceptions into the model, and then adds misinformation, and so on, until the idea says that a person makes what
I for one welcome our new(?)... fellow men.
If the global economy survives, there will be some pretty awesome post-apocalyptic video games to play off of this. Tired of the WWII rehashes.
Global catastrophe and end of life as know it aside, this could be positive for gaming!
Yeah, you may be onto something. It seems that in Asian, academic excellence is the greatest possible achievement for the youth. Anything less than perfection is not good enough(97? Why didn't you get 100?), and perfection indicates that the measurement was too low and the child needs to find harder challenges.
It sounds like a negative environment because it's so foreign, but from a different perspective, the question isn't "Why are they so hard on their kids", it's "Why are those other kids allowed to be mediocre?"
Answering a question in class means everybody stops and stares at you because you chose to step out of line and identify yourself as the one with the answer. This makes you stand out as being different. Asking a question works the same way. The class goal isn't a race to the top, it's just about making it the end.
A good education correlates pretty well with more money, being athletic isn't a good indicator for future earnings.
Which view is better is going to depend on who's asking the question. Is earning potential the end goal? Or happiness? Some blend of the two?
Because video games are inherently bad?
Most just get their 30 minutes of cardio by just running around by themselves. So what if they get it from a video game. The running itself isn't teaching them anything about their body, that's something seperate. DDR's a social activity if you make it that way, same with running.
Exercise is good. Socializing is good. And having them play DDR as a starting point for fitness is good too. Who knows? Maybe after they've shed 10-15lbs on the DDR mat they'll be fit enough to find themselves enjoying a sport rather than feel emasculated and intimidated by everyone else at the gym(One of the more popular reasons I hear from people).
"Either way, you probably shouldn't tell other people how to live their lives. :)"
Do as I say, not as I do?
He's just exercising free speech. Some might even consider telling someone what they believe is best for them to be a moral imperative. If I believe the box has a bomb in it, I'd probably tell the guy not to open the box. He's free to open the box, maybe even prove me wrong by showing that the box is empty. It's just advice after all, whether or not it's welcome.
They reap what they sow. They invested a large amount of time, effort, and money into their body to "body-build" and as a result they're big and strong. Those who invest their free time, effort, and money into intellectual pursuits are going to be better informed, and possibly more intelligent. And there's no reason people can't diversify into both mental and physical disciplines.
Deagle headshots from across the map.
Yeah, it seems like many other people shared this view when the news of Google buying Youtube came out.
Youtube was popular but not really making any money.
Google buys them, and Google has money.
Now it's Youtube, but with money to sue them for. Google buying them just upped the risk factor considerably. Google has quite a few brainy folks on their side, I'm sure they saw the lawsuits coming. So I'm wondering, what's the plan they have in store for this contingency, because there's no way they would've gone into this without a plan...right?
Please?
My understanding of this comment boils down to: "I don't like their license agreement/material/pricepoint/some mixture of these factors."
That's understandable. The contract is not agreeable to the consumer so they don't accept it or its condition.
But the result of not accepting the contract is that the consumer does not receive the product and the seller does not receive payment.
So the seller gets no money, and that's their incentive to give fair offers. The consumer already has this as a mechanism of coercing the seller. Theft has not been justified.
There will be less PC games than Console games.
/bigtime/ they're going to take a huge loss. This is why there will be fewer PC games, with less gamers on that platform, there's less room for "winners" among developers.
There's a larger market for the consoles since there are lower barriers to entry technically and at times, fiscally(this barrier can vary heavily. Development has the caveat of being able to expect all clients to be fairly uniform in spec. At least in comparison to PCs.
There will always be the PC enthusiasts who want incredible games to utilize their high-end PCs. But not every game company can craft and compete with these games. And if they fail to succeed
This is even more true for MMOs, where the persistent accounts often entail persistent investitures of time and effort. There isn't much room for multiple MMOs in a gamer's timespan.
No console can duplicate the PC experience. But the two will become more and more similar.
The key features of the two platforms will eventually boil down to:
Consoles have hardware lock-in and a controlled environment. Simpler to develop for, and simpler for the gamer to use.
PCs will have open hardware and a modifiable environment. More difficult to develop for(since diff hardware/software configurations can cause complications, we'll see how far DX10 changes this), and while more complicated, there's more utility.
That's the key difference, one is closed and simple, another is open and powerful. It's an important seperation in the market's tastes, and neither will go away since there will always be those who prefer simplicity or versatility.
That's it, consoles will someday have kbm/mouse, they'll have MMOs, they may even have "mods" in the form of official expansions. But modification and personalization will be more powerful on the PC end inherently due to the freedom given to the owner.
A side note: Most people already have PCs, but not gaming-class. Most already have TVs, but necessarily HD. The cost of enabling gaming for your TV or PC is not that different. Some can afford one, some can afford multiple gaming platforms, but many will probably have PC and TV whether or not they game with it.
Incidentally, I just watched the HD demo of this dog at gametrailers(It's one of the featured vids) and that dog is CUUUUUUTE. While the rest of the game still has plenty of potential to crash and burn, I will love that dog for doing nothing other than hanging around going through it's idle animations.
I think Molyneux is overreaching again. Guy's got good intentions and dreams for gaming, but making them happen has been pretty hit or miss. It's just hard to be as excited about what the guy has to say at this point. His games will all be prioritized as "Just wait and see" until he pulls off a slam-dunk.
Mass-effect, can't wait.
Shadow-run, I'll try a demo.
Since game development is apparently a cushy overpaid industry in your eyes, why not go make your own games on the cheap. Hire more staff than the last game to produce larger quantities of content in order to get paid the same as the last game. Brilliant.
8-bit mario can be done by pretty much anyone using MS paint.
It's not the same process to make the models and textures for Gears of War. And Gears of war was still just 8 hours long. You could probably walk past almost a day's worth of manpower in about 15 seconds.
The problem is that people keep buying games just because they look prettier, and that prettiness driving the market is extremely expensive. On the other hand, a creative game with innovative gameplay but mediocre or even poor graphics can cost less to develop but can still end up overshadowed.
Just don't pay for it if you don't want it.
On the other hand, I was playing R6: Vegas and a sniper was firing down at me from a billboard platform. I popped a round into his head and I zoomed out to reveal...an Axe ad?
I thought, wow, that's cool. I see Axe ads in real life. Amazing that a game featuring counter-terrorism using a contemporary setting is using contemporary ads. It's more realistic than seeing a billboard for "Guillotine" deoderant. Might as well just do it and make some extra dough. I don't mind.
As others have stated, I don't care so long as they do it tastefully.
Heh, I worked a while in HR, got to see everybody's end of the year performance review etc. My company looks at the pay of each employee and measures it as a percentage of the market average, and also have a performance rating. An employee weighed in at .80 of the market and an A rating.
Next to this area of the personnel sheet, it was penciled in, "Give this woman a good raise or we might lose her!" and was underlined. So they gave her a bigger raise that year to try to bring her pay in line to avoid the chance she might leave and have the company try to replace her and wait for that new employee to get up to speed.
It's still worth the attempt.
Change what you can, accept what you can't.
Then at least when you're dealing with the mess you can tell yourself you did everything you could to prevent it. If you don't try to do what you can, then some of that responsibility will sit with you.
Many situations are negotiable, more than most people are aware of. Sometimes, simply asking for something, even if you have no leverage or right to do so, they'll give it to you. A company sold some materials directly to our maintenance guys at the plant since it was an emergency and shortcuts had to be made. The invoice arrives at Purchasing after the materials have already been delivered and put to use. The purchasing agent asked for a discount in paying for it. And he still got 1% off:P
1% sounds like nothing, but it's money. He got that money basically for free. We're already using the product and if we don't pay their listed price within 30 days, we have no excuses, so they could easily have just told us no.
But that's it, the worst that can happen is that they say no. If they give a price and you ask for something better, you won't lose the original price you can try to argue for a spot in the middle, or settle for one of their offers at any time.
There are also times where you're expected to negotiate, so they will start off with a number that they know is unfavorable for you so that they have room to back off in negotiations. But some just accept that bad deal.
You don't have to be bitter or mean about it at any time. Just deliver firm confident statements with either a deadpan face or a friendly smile. Ultimatums are reserved for the very end of negotiation.
As mentioned elsewhere, having numbers drawn from other places is potent ammo.
"If they're causing more serious problems and I report them, and 9 other people report them as well, then they'll get their account reviewed and banned. They've lost all of their achievements, they've lost their friends list, and all of their other account details but most importantly they'll have to pay another $50 to sign back up. How much do you think the "riff-raff" would be willing to lose before they just go bother people on some free service where they can create new accounts to their hearts content? "
Even 13yr-old yelling racist epithets and talking about mom-rape...to teammates...will still have 5-star ratings because other 13yr-olds find it funny.
The rating system doesn't lower the amount of assholes out there, it just gives you the ability to push them away one-by-one using about 20 seconds each using a menu system(note that you're also not playing while you're going through this). I could care less about the skill-matching because many games well, suck at judging skill. Though it's a nice feature when it works.
But other than this, I too have no problem with Xbox Live's fee. Primarily because of the friend system. It performs better at unifying friended gamers than the other services that attempt the same. Of course it has the advantage of being directly designed into the platform rather than being a 3rd party add-on like the PC services, but there it is. There are places it could improve(like having saved invite lists rather than picking through each time) but it works well.
50 dollars over a year is trivial, and I appreciate the value. I find myself using it as a phone to talk with my friends when we're playing different games or not playing at all. There are other ways we can do this, it's just convenient.