Except that you're comparing two companies that are structured in completely different ways
Do you really think that matters? I realize that Sony is a conglomerate of rather disparate companies - but so far it looks as though all have of them have been misbehaving. Furthermore, that's kind of the breaks of sharing a brand identity. You sink or swim together.
Even though electronics has nothing to do with, say DRM, when either screws in an extremely public fashion up it's bad for the other. And when all the divisions (or several of them) start screwing up you start to ask questions about just how compartmentalized the company is: and whether it matters. If they're all bad independently they're still all bad.
I realize I'm oversimplifying, but so will the market, the media, and the average consumer.
"Earlier this month, U.S.-based chipmaker Cypress Semiconductor Corp. said its SRAM operations were also under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice."
That's one other company under investigation. Maybe the investigation is industry-wide, maybe it's not. There's no reason to assume Zonk is more biased than Sony. I mean, who could possibly be more biased about the fate of Sony than Sony?
In any case "everyone else was pricefixing too" (or whatever the charges, if any, turn out to be) is hardly likely to make the damage of this story go away. We've got ridiculous PS3 prices, the whole Sony DRM fiasco, the exploding laptop batteries, and now this. Even if this was an industry-wide problem, it's not like Cypress Semiconductor Corp has exactly had front-page news of any kind recently. This is like strike 4 for Sony, strike 1 for everyone else. The fact of the matter is that Sony is far, far more vulnerable to this press than another company due to both previous bad press and the vulnerable financial position they're in running up to the launch of the PS3.
If story's the only thing I wanted in a game, I'd turn off my computer monitor and either turn on the TV or go to a library. The goal of a game is to make the person playing the game have fun.
This doesn't make any sense. What does innovation have to do with fun that story doesn't? I mean you say yourself that Counter-Strike is still fun after all these years: and yet does it need new gameplay every week? Every month? Every year? I thought you were the one complaining about attention to multi-player aspects, and yet that's an example of a fun game?
Look, if you don't care about story, fine. But I do. Which is why I think Half Life is a pretty stupid game. I'm almost through the first one and I've also played most of 2. I'm really disappointed by the lack of engaging story or characters I care about.
Oh yeah, and drop the BS about if I wanted to go a story I should do movie/library. Why? Because *you* don't like story in games?
I'm not saying the only reason to like games is story. All I'm saying is this: there's more to gaming than just innovation. If that's your only thing: fine. Whatever. There's no accounting for taste. But other people have more diverse ideas of what makes something fun.
If I buy the newest album from a band I like, and it sounds exactly the same as their previous album, I generally don't buy their next album. The best bands manage to make every album have its own distinctive sound.
Yeah, exactly. So if the story (what you tell with the gameplay) was the same, that would be like the music being the same. But why should the gameplay (e.g. the instruments used to make the music) change?
and a variety. You see very few imitators on those disks.
You picked a ridiculous example. Tell me what the "story" is that is being told with Pac Man? In that case, you're "instrument" is a rock. Not to much to do with it. But I enjoy playing Master of Magic and Master of Orion - the originals. Text-based games still have a following. More diverse games have more diverse possibilities for what you can get out of their gameplay. There's no need to, for example, use the Unreal Engine once and then never again. Eventually you'll want an upgrade - but even then the old games will still have appeal. If someone made a killer FPS game (in terms of storyline) based on the original Quake engine: I'd buy it today.
The Halo developers seem to concentrate more on multiplayer than single player. For the majority of the demographic that seems to be interested in the Halo series, the story is an afterthought.
If you know anything about Bungie you know they care about story. Yes, with xbox they have had to put a lot more work into multiplayer. And that annoys me. But so far the story has not suffered. Some of the 1st person game play did suffer in Halo 2 as a result of multi-player emphasis. Legendary on Halo 2 was not as cool as legendary on Halo 1. I understand this. But so far they have not totally let me down, and I'm excited to see the rest of the story.
In general, the more innovative the game, the higher the quality. The sort of people who think up innovative ideas about gameplay are the sort of people who do good gameplay. The sort of people who copy, are the sort of people who make sucky gameplay.
You're making this statement at a point in time where "episodic gaming" has just started. So yeah, *so far* this is true, but I don't think it will be true for much longer. It's getting to expensive to keep up with next-gen graphics, and I'm tired of it. Tired of $500 vid cards and $600 consoles. I could care less if there are more polygons in the HL3 engine. I'd much rather see someone do something innovative in terms of STORY or PLOT or CHARACTER or THEME with HL2 then just innovate the gameplay for another mindless shooter with (gee whiz) more features.
Notice how few people get excited about EA's latest copycat FPS. Notice how many people get excited about Portal.
The problem with EAs sequels isn't lack of game play innovation: it's lack of innovation OR plot OR story, etc. If EA was putting out FPS games that were heavy on story, plot, character, etc they would be fun to play. In my opinion you're making the problem worse. Sure, Portal may have some new gadgetry, and nerds get excited about gadgetry, but if it doesn't have good writing either it will have no staying power and it will just be an endless cycle of waiting for the next "innovation" without ever realizing that the previous ones all offered nothing genuinely new.
That's a really, really sad statement about what we expect from the gaming industry. Imagine a new album coming out from a band you like, and when you find out that it has guitar, bass, and drums you're like "oh great! screw this! I want some innovation!"
Since when did we measure entertainment by innovation? Are we tired of pianos now? Is it impossible to write new music for the acoustic guitar?
I mean just look at some of the stuff you want from them: Hell most games claim to be REVOLUTIONISING the genre, but Halo 3 doesnt even seem to be trying to fool anyone.
What kind of a medium expects to be "revolutionized" every time a new work comes out? Can you imagine the arrogance - and ignorance - it would take for every new punk album to "revolutionize" the genre? That's not sustainable, and it's not realistic, and it's not even a guarantee of good art. How do you rectify the interest in old-school gaming with this insatiable need for novel gameplay?
This trend of meager sequels is worrying,
Look, everyone knows there's a huge danger of losing the creativity with sequels. But we have one big reason to think that Bungie won't do that with Halo: the story's not finished. The problem with sequels, as with all episodic content, is that there's no overarching arch. You're supposed to tell the story as long as people will buy it, and that means you can't plan on developing characters and plot-lines over multiple episodes.
What I'm saying is this: innovation is good, but it isn't everything. Halo wasn't all that innovative. Halo 2 even less so. In terms of game play there was a good degree of refinement and polish, but the FPS game-play has been more or less consistent since Quake. Who are we kidding here? But that's not necessarily a problem. Movies have been more or less the same for decades. Sure, now we have a better special effects, but they still work the same way. Point the camera at some people, they act stuff out, and you watch it. And we *like* them.
What I want to see from Halo is not necessarily new gameplay. I mean toss in a few weapons, that's cool. What I expect from Halo 3 is the continuation - and completion - of one of the greatest stories ever told via video games. I'm not hear for new stuff, I'm here for stuff done well. I want good voice acting, good script, good pacing, good storyline. I want the gameplay to be enjoyable, but as long as you get that stuff right and don't screw anything up disastrously, I'm sure it will be a fantastic game.
Please stop seeing everything in terms of innovation. There are other metrics for quality.
At the risk of being laballed the resident Halo fanboi or whatever: 1. I don't play Halo (1 or 2) on xbox live 2. I've beaten Halo (1 and 2) more than once on single player. Those are the only two games I've *ever* played through more than once.
I think a lot of the love for Halo comes from the story/art/audio, etc. I get tired of people who complain about gameplay "you only kill stuff in FPS". Well duh, that's why it's fpS. The point is: are you just mindlessly blowing up aliens for no good reason? Or is there actually a plot? Does the game have character or not? Is this "Lethal Weapon" or "Street Fighter: The Movie"?
The music for Halo is fantastic. The voice acting is way above-par. The script doesn't make my mind want to shrivel up and die (see: Resident Evil). The story first and foremost *exists*. You know, not just "bad things try to kill, kill them first", but a genuine plot and everything. Not only does the story exist, however, it's actually a pretty good one. There's good foreshadowing about some connection between the Forerunners and the humans, there's interesting conflict between loyalty/truth-seeking - I mean it's not Albert Camus or anything, but at least there's *some* substance to go with the explosions. I mean when Master Chief leaves Cortana behind at the end of Halo 2 - I *cared*. And just as far as art goes: the worlds are very well-realized, with cool and unique styles for the covenant versus the humans versus the Forerunners.
I mean, if you really want to get a glimpse of how well-realized the universe is, check out the I Love Bees audio. Probably one of the best radio-dramas (for lack of a better term) I've ever heard. And I like radio dramas (e.g. old sci-fi/adventure radio broadcasts). I've also listened to that story all the way through about 3 times since I've first heard it, and everyone I've corralled into listening to it is amazed at how great of a story it is.
Anyway, that's just my two bits. There's more to a game than just what you're doing at any given moment. When you get down to it, all action/adventure/fps type games are just hand-eye coordination. But so what? When you get down to it watching a movie is just sitting in the dark staring at moving pictures on a screen. And listening to music is just experiencing sound waves knock up against your ear drum. It's not what you're doing that matters so much as what's going on inside. The folks at Bungie put together a universe compelling enough that I want to play there. That's why I like Halo.
This is a serious question. Given the odd quirks that come with upper-echelon talent (either correlated, caused by, or causing), and given that programmers are already not exactly renowned for their social skills and even-keeledness (now that's a cool word) - why on earth would you want to find the most volatile combination of the two?
Are the best programmers for a business the superstars? I'd say go with people in the top 20% or so and focus more on getting a well-rounded employee than just looking for the coding superstars. This is a company, right, not professional sports?
I love that even though Hungary is a nation of what, 10 million, you can always find at least a couple Hungarians on a tech site. Can you always find a few Slovakians? A few Romanians? A few Albanians? To be honest - I don't know. Since I lived in Hungary for two years, that's what I pay attention to.
Here's my question, however. Who from Hungary wants to send me some decent kolbasz? Kakaos csigakok perhaps? Maybe even just some decent recipes for rakott krumpli or toltott paprika?
Ugh! That even worse - so much worse - than just random conspicuous consumption! You're absolutely right, of course, it's just that that's not something my wife and I are very keen on. We prefer the kind of babysitter you pay. Well, technically, family is best 'cause you don't have to pay them, but you get the point.
Right before the xbox360 was released I had to wait in line if I wanted to play CoD2. But usually only for about 5 minutes or so, and frequently no one was behind me. I beat the demo level several times that way (I didn't play the whole level if anyone was behind me, just a couple of minutes). Since then the demo kiosks in most Target, BestBuy, etc are empty. And I've only seen one broken.
With DRM, you're trying to say do users have the right to copy music they bought or do the copyright owners have the right to force the user to handle those digital bits in the manner they prescribe? Every case where there is a law is a decision between two freedoms.
I agree entirely that the kidnapping case is not a good analogy for DRM. I kind of conflated 2 arguments. The first was just to demonstrate that you can't simply say "x is allowed" means more freedom (overall). I used the kidnapping example precisely because no sane person is going to think the competing freedoms are really close to equivalent. This doesn't prove DRM is wrong, just that you can't assume it's right. That was my first point.
The second, which I tacked on as an afterthought, was that DRM is wrong. I can't prove this from the kidnapping analogy for precisely the reasons you observed: the competing freedoms are more closely matched. What I can say, however, is that without question DRM limits the ability of customers to enjoy their music - even legally. So there's harm done. Lack of DRM, however, has never been conclusively shown (in my opinion) to lead to harm to the musicians.
Copyright is not an end in itself. It, like most IP, exists because IP is not like regular property (RP). If I steal your RP, I have deprived you of its use. If I steal your IP, I have deprived you not of the IP itself, but of the exclusive use of that IP. IP is a misnomer, you have no ownership of the ideas/songs/patents, etc. None! You have, intead, a right to exclusive use of the IP. What this means is that: IP is a right to profit from your work and artistic control derives from that right, and not the other way around.
The end result is simple: if you do not suffer harm from the loss of exclusive right to your IP, then there is no theft. Because IP is about rights to use IP, and not the IP itself. So until it can be proven that DRM is necessary to prevent the loss of revenue to artists, there's literally no legal basis for it's existence. This is also a cogent argument for saying filesharing - at least in some forms - is arguably not theft. Remember, there's no such thing as owning an idea or a song. There's only temporary (ha!) rights to profit from the idea/song if you thought of it first. As long as the profit is not harmed, "artistic control" is a meaningless buzzword.
It is true that theft would be restricted, but it doesn't necessarily follow from that that therefore DRM would be allowed. For example, we know that we want to outlaw kidnapping, but should we force parents to tag their children with RFID tags to prevent kidnapping? Then it doesn't necessarily follow that just because we want to prevent theft of an artists copyrighted work we should therefore tag everything they release.
Of course, for the analogy to really work, you can't just tag your kids, you also have to shackle them to the yard and also screen all the friends they play with, etc. etc.
Finally, my main point was that it's nonsensical to say that disallowing anything automatically results in loss of freedom (e.g. disallowing kidnapping doesn't result in an overall loss of freedom). It doesn't follow from that automatically that therefore DRM gets rid of freedom. I have to do more work if I really want to prove that.
In this case we don't think it's worth the cost in loss of freedoms to have RFID tags installed in all our kids. Songs aren't kids, so the analogy isn't enough to make my case either. I'd just say that until I see actual evidence that lack of DRM harms musicians, I think it doesn't make sense to start enforcing it to protect them. Why protect people from that which does not harm them? Furthermore, "theft" of IP is not the same as theft of physical goods. The most obvious difference is that when you steal a tangible object you deprive a person of that object. When you download a song illegally you don't deprive them of the song - you make a copy of it. So, in my opinion, it's only theft if they lose revenue from your actions. I don't believe it's been proven that they do lose money, and therefore I'm not sure it makes sense to call filesharing "theft".
No one intentionally goes looking around for five-minute clips of a movie they might be interested in buying before they buy it... they just buy it.
That's because of a magical invention we like to call a "movie trailer". And you know, they make those trailers before movies are completely finished with production as well. So maybe dev/publishers could get their act together to get some demos out there with polish similar to what you see with trailers.
In any case - who juts goes out and buys DVDs they've never seen on impulse? Let me guess - you're not married, or at least certainly don't have kids. For those of us that are and that do there's a little thing called a "budget". Not a ton of fun, I admit, but better than losing your house. In any case, as gamers age, it's going to be increasingly important to cater to those who no longer have buying games as a top priority.
I mean I used to love sci-fi enough that I'd pretty much pick up and enjoy any book with a good spaceship on the cover, but as I've gotten older I don't have as much time. As a result, I choose books these days more based on recommendations, reviews, and even tracking which authors endorse which other authors (since I've found that authors I like tend to endorse other authors I like). Same goes for game demos. You may just pick up games on impulse all the time, but there's going to be an increasing number of gamers like me who don't buy as much (per gamer) and therefore are a lot more picky about what we do buy. And we, I think, want demos. (Good demos, of course.)
I agree, XBOX live has totally changed the demo equation. It's really easy to download them now, and you get to try out the games at your own leisure in your own home (instead of waiting in line at a retail store or something). I think it's especially important for console games since, after all, anyone that wants to "demo" a PC game is just going to torrent it anyway.
Hopefully press like this will convince MS and developers to spend more time making the demos nicer. I liked the idea of being able to use your progress from a game when you buy the full copy (although in demos where you don't start at the beginning this wouldn't make as much sense). Now if only they sold the xbox 360 with a DVD burner and let you just pay for the full version and download it online to burn a copy (while they sent you a box in the mail...)
Back in the days, doom, decent, even half-life 1 had very nice demos that you could get a real feel for the game before you buy it. Those were nice days...
I agree that it's nice to get good demos before a game is released, but if it's a choice between a shoddy demo while the game is still in development and a great demo after the game is released, I'll take "after the game is released", please.
There's really no reason to have to get a game the *day it comes out*, as far as I'm concerned. I routinely buy older games. I mean, if I'm going to hunt down a DOS copy of Master of Orion (and I have on eBay) then why should I turn my nose up at a game that's been out for 6 months or a year? I'm happy to play demos of games that have been around for a while. It means I've probably encountered a fair amount of buzz - from reviews or friends - about the game and now I have a chance to evaluate the recommendations for myself.
It's a pretty simple concept. Want someone to buy your game? Let them try it out first.
I'm kind of confused here. Even if most demos are really bad, that wouldn't contradict that the ones that are really good don't sell a lot of games. And even if the demos are bad - that doesn't mean they don't have an impact. That just means that people are being turned off by shoddy demos.
I personally won't buy a game until I've demoed it or have a friend who knows my very well inform me that I must, in fact, trade my soul to play this game. I probably only buy a handful of games a year, but if you add up all the people like me who don't have money to spend on a game a week, that probably adds up.
Right now I own an xbox360 (a gift, by the way) and two games for it. I already know the next game I buy will be Lost Planet purely because the demo is so much fun. I've played it through several times. I've also played through that zombie-in-the-mall demo and it was so awful that, despite rave reviews from Penny Arcade - I'm not going to touch it.
You're right that the demo is often an after thought, but it *can* and *should* be the most important part of marketing. This was less true before xbox LIVE, etc, but now that there's an efficient way to push the demos to the consumers (and cheap too) this really is the best way to convince someone to buy your game. Hopefully developers will take the hint and start giving their demo's a little love.
Hahahahahaha!!! Yeah, WTF is wrong with that kid? Doesn't he know games are for *adults*!? Just punch him in the face and take the controller next time! And where do you live that the demo consoles in *all* the stores are broken? Did you go around checking? Always one step behind the elusive 6 year old and his console-destroying mashing? LOL! "Damn! That stupid twerp beat me to it again!"
Your myopically self-centered, pathologically egotistical post made my day.
As a general rule it's incoherent to treat the word "freedom" as a grammatical entity rather than to think seriously about whether the words you're typing would mean more or less freedom. In other words, just because freedom is usually associate with saying things like "is allowed" doesn't mean that just plugging anything into this formula "x is allowed" gets you more freedom.
This logic would result in fun things like: "kidnapping is allowed" because otherwise ("kidnapping is not allowed") you're restricting freedom. The trouble is that "kidnapping" inherently takes away someone else's rights, so we have no trouble saying that - in the interests of a free society - we're going to put a restriction on this particular activity. DRM works the same way. It is by definition restrictive and antithetical to freedom. Therefore we can say "no DRM" and have free software just like we can say "no kidnapping" and have a (relatively) free society.
That's what I was wondering, especially the bit about the hair in the soup. I mean, that's just gross. Any man that eats his own hair... ugh... I can't even type any more on that.
On another aspect of the article, I found this line: "Unlike the author, I realize I don't know enough about it to comment." especially amusing. So basically, the editorial refutes none of the assertions of the Forbes article in any concrete sense, and then goes on to say he's ignorant of the actual issue.
I mean it's possible that you could know enough to know that someone else is getting the GPL v3.0 wrong without actually getting it enough yourself to comment, but if that's the best defense you can mount that you may be doing your own side more harm than good.
Of course we should take into account the willingness of astronauts to go into space for this mission. Especially because astronauts are not prone to ignoring safety considerations, and so if they are willing they probably think it is reasonably safe to do so. But it is worth pointing out that in a certain sense an astronaut is not entirely a private citizen. When we lose an astronaut, it's a blow to the entire nation.
I'm just saying that just because we have astronauts willing to go doesn't mean we can neglect to take into consideration the risk to their lives.
Today, songs purchased from Apple's online iTunes Music Store can't be played on portable devices made by other companies. Songs purchased from many other online music stores also won't work on iPods because they similarly use a form of copy-protection that Apple doesn't support.
That clearly points to 2 potential uses: both to strip DRM from iTunes to play on other portatble devices and to add DRM to other devices to play on iPods.
This quote from the article:
An unnamed client will soon use the technology so its copy-protected content will be playable on iPods, she said, declining to give any specifics.
makes it clear that DVD Jon plans to use the crack for reason #2 - but nowhere does this preclude use to strip DRM.
And why would people think that DVD Jon might put out a tool to make stripping DRM easier? What on earth could 'cause Slashdot users everywhere to assume that use #1 might be in play as well? What possible information would lead them to this - according to you - warrentless and baseless conclusion?
Well I don't know, maybe the fact that it's DVD Jon? And that the EFF - [sarcasm]a well-known advocate of DRM [/sarcasm] - is quoted in such a way that they seem to be possibly supporting DVD Jon?
Yes, OK, DVD Jon cracked the iTunes security and now he can allow 3rd parties to create iPod compatiable, DRM-protected tracks without going through Apple. But it's not surprising that people are more interested in the other potential use (DRM stripping) that DVD Jon is famous for. (You do know that's how he got his name, right?)
When the story comes out saying that DVD Jon will only allow his crack to be used for adding DRM, and not for taking it away, then we'll have that story to weep, wail, and gnash our teeth about. This [the AP article] is not that story.
Slashdot Mirror
Except that you're comparing two companies that are structured in completely different ways
Do you really think that matters? I realize that Sony is a conglomerate of rather disparate companies - but so far it looks as though all have of them have been misbehaving. Furthermore, that's kind of the breaks of sharing a brand identity. You sink or swim together.
Even though electronics has nothing to do with, say DRM, when either screws in an extremely public fashion up it's bad for the other. And when all the divisions (or several of them) start screwing up you start to ask questions about just how compartmentalized the company is: and whether it matters. If they're all bad independently they're still all bad.
I realize I'm oversimplifying, but so will the market, the media, and the average consumer.
-stormin
FTA:
"Earlier this month, U.S.-based chipmaker Cypress Semiconductor Corp. said its SRAM operations were also under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice."
That's one other company under investigation. Maybe the investigation is industry-wide, maybe it's not. There's no reason to assume Zonk is more biased than Sony. I mean, who could possibly be more biased about the fate of Sony than Sony?
In any case "everyone else was pricefixing too" (or whatever the charges, if any, turn out to be) is hardly likely to make the damage of this story go away. We've got ridiculous PS3 prices, the whole Sony DRM fiasco, the exploding laptop batteries, and now this. Even if this was an industry-wide problem, it's not like Cypress Semiconductor Corp has exactly had front-page news of any kind recently. This is like strike 4 for Sony, strike 1 for everyone else. The fact of the matter is that Sony is far, far more vulnerable to this press than another company due to both previous bad press and the vulnerable financial position they're in running up to the launch of the PS3.
I think I see vultures starting to circle...
-stormin
Yeah, because we wouldn't expect a quote from Sony about the status of a DOJ investigation into Sony to be, you know, biased anything.
-stormin
If story's the only thing I wanted in a game, I'd turn off my computer monitor and either turn on the TV or go to a library. The goal of a game is to make the person playing the game have fun.
This doesn't make any sense. What does innovation have to do with fun that story doesn't? I mean you say yourself that Counter-Strike is still fun after all these years: and yet does it need new gameplay every week? Every month? Every year? I thought you were the one complaining about attention to multi-player aspects, and yet that's an example of a fun game?
Look, if you don't care about story, fine. But I do. Which is why I think Half Life is a pretty stupid game. I'm almost through the first one and I've also played most of 2. I'm really disappointed by the lack of engaging story or characters I care about.
Oh yeah, and drop the BS about if I wanted to go a story I should do movie/library. Why? Because *you* don't like story in games?
I'm not saying the only reason to like games is story. All I'm saying is this: there's more to gaming than just innovation. If that's your only thing: fine. Whatever. There's no accounting for taste. But other people have more diverse ideas of what makes something fun.
-stormin
If I buy the newest album from a band I like, and it sounds exactly the same as their previous album, I generally don't buy their next album. The best bands manage to make every album have its own distinctive sound.
Yeah, exactly. So if the story (what you tell with the gameplay) was the same, that would be like the music being the same. But why should the gameplay (e.g. the instruments used to make the music) change?
and a variety. You see very few imitators on those disks.
You picked a ridiculous example. Tell me what the "story" is that is being told with Pac Man? In that case, you're "instrument" is a rock. Not to much to do with it. But I enjoy playing Master of Magic and Master of Orion - the originals. Text-based games still have a following. More diverse games have more diverse possibilities for what you can get out of their gameplay. There's no need to, for example, use the Unreal Engine once and then never again. Eventually you'll want an upgrade - but even then the old games will still have appeal. If someone made a killer FPS game (in terms of storyline) based on the original Quake engine: I'd buy it today.
The Halo developers seem to concentrate more on multiplayer than single player. For the majority of the demographic that seems to be interested in the Halo series, the story is an afterthought.
If you know anything about Bungie you know they care about story. Yes, with xbox they have had to put a lot more work into multiplayer. And that annoys me. But so far the story has not suffered. Some of the 1st person game play did suffer in Halo 2 as a result of multi-player emphasis. Legendary on Halo 2 was not as cool as legendary on Halo 1. I understand this. But so far they have not totally let me down, and I'm excited to see the rest of the story.
In general, the more innovative the game, the higher the quality. The sort of people who think up innovative ideas about gameplay are the sort of people who do good gameplay. The sort of people who copy, are the sort of people who make sucky gameplay.
You're making this statement at a point in time where "episodic gaming" has just started. So yeah, *so far* this is true, but I don't think it will be true for much longer. It's getting to expensive to keep up with next-gen graphics, and I'm tired of it. Tired of $500 vid cards and $600 consoles. I could care less if there are more polygons in the HL3 engine. I'd much rather see someone do something innovative in terms of STORY or PLOT or CHARACTER or THEME with HL2 then just innovate the gameplay for another mindless shooter with (gee whiz) more features.
Notice how few people get excited about EA's latest copycat FPS. Notice how many people get excited about Portal.
The problem with EAs sequels isn't lack of game play innovation: it's lack of innovation OR plot OR story, etc. If EA was putting out FPS games that were heavy on story, plot, character, etc they would be fun to play. In my opinion you're making the problem worse. Sure, Portal may have some new gadgetry, and nerds get excited about gadgetry, but if it doesn't have good writing either it will have no staying power and it will just be an endless cycle of waiting for the next "innovation" without ever realizing that the previous ones all offered nothing genuinely new.
-stormin
Where's the innovation?
That's a really, really sad statement about what we expect from the gaming industry. Imagine a new album coming out from a band you like, and when you find out that it has guitar, bass, and drums you're like "oh great! screw this! I want some innovation!"
Since when did we measure entertainment by innovation? Are we tired of pianos now? Is it impossible to write new music for the acoustic guitar?
I mean just look at some of the stuff you want from them: Hell most games claim to be REVOLUTIONISING the genre, but Halo 3 doesnt even seem to be trying to fool anyone.
What kind of a medium expects to be "revolutionized" every time a new work comes out? Can you imagine the arrogance - and ignorance - it would take for every new punk album to "revolutionize" the genre? That's not sustainable, and it's not realistic, and it's not even a guarantee of good art. How do you rectify the interest in old-school gaming with this insatiable need for novel gameplay?
This trend of meager sequels is worrying,
Look, everyone knows there's a huge danger of losing the creativity with sequels. But we have one big reason to think that Bungie won't do that with Halo: the story's not finished. The problem with sequels, as with all episodic content, is that there's no overarching arch. You're supposed to tell the story as long as people will buy it, and that means you can't plan on developing characters and plot-lines over multiple episodes.
What I'm saying is this: innovation is good, but it isn't everything. Halo wasn't all that innovative. Halo 2 even less so. In terms of game play there was a good degree of refinement and polish, but the FPS game-play has been more or less consistent since Quake. Who are we kidding here? But that's not necessarily a problem. Movies have been more or less the same for decades. Sure, now we have a better special effects, but they still work the same way. Point the camera at some people, they act stuff out, and you watch it. And we *like* them.
What I want to see from Halo is not necessarily new gameplay. I mean toss in a few weapons, that's cool. What I expect from Halo 3 is the continuation - and completion - of one of the greatest stories ever told via video games. I'm not hear for new stuff, I'm here for stuff done well. I want good voice acting, good script, good pacing, good storyline. I want the gameplay to be enjoyable, but as long as you get that stuff right and don't screw anything up disastrously, I'm sure it will be a fantastic game.
Please stop seeing everything in terms of innovation. There are other metrics for quality.
-stormin
At the risk of being laballed the resident Halo fanboi or whatever:
1. I don't play Halo (1 or 2) on xbox live
2. I've beaten Halo (1 and 2) more than once on single player. Those are the only two games I've *ever* played through more than once.
I think a lot of the love for Halo comes from the story/art/audio, etc. I get tired of people who complain about gameplay "you only kill stuff in FPS". Well duh, that's why it's fpS. The point is: are you just mindlessly blowing up aliens for no good reason? Or is there actually a plot? Does the game have character or not? Is this "Lethal Weapon" or "Street Fighter: The Movie"?
The music for Halo is fantastic. The voice acting is way above-par. The script doesn't make my mind want to shrivel up and die (see: Resident Evil). The story first and foremost *exists*. You know, not just "bad things try to kill, kill them first", but a genuine plot and everything. Not only does the story exist, however, it's actually a pretty good one. There's good foreshadowing about some connection between the Forerunners and the humans, there's interesting conflict between loyalty/truth-seeking - I mean it's not Albert Camus or anything, but at least there's *some* substance to go with the explosions. I mean when Master Chief leaves Cortana behind at the end of Halo 2 - I *cared*. And just as far as art goes: the worlds are very well-realized, with cool and unique styles for the covenant versus the humans versus the Forerunners.
I mean, if you really want to get a glimpse of how well-realized the universe is, check out the I Love Bees audio. Probably one of the best radio-dramas (for lack of a better term) I've ever heard. And I like radio dramas (e.g. old sci-fi/adventure radio broadcasts). I've also listened to that story all the way through about 3 times since I've first heard it, and everyone I've corralled into listening to it is amazed at how great of a story it is.
Anyway, that's just my two bits. There's more to a game than just what you're doing at any given moment. When you get down to it, all action/adventure/fps type games are just hand-eye coordination. But so what? When you get down to it watching a movie is just sitting in the dark staring at moving pictures on a screen. And listening to music is just experiencing sound waves knock up against your ear drum. It's not what you're doing that matters so much as what's going on inside. The folks at Bungie put together a universe compelling enough that I want to play there. That's why I like Halo.
-stormin
This is a serious question. Given the odd quirks that come with upper-echelon talent (either correlated, caused by, or causing), and given that programmers are already not exactly renowned for their social skills and even-keeledness (now that's a cool word) - why on earth would you want to find the most volatile combination of the two?
Are the best programmers for a business the superstars? I'd say go with people in the top 20% or so and focus more on getting a well-rounded employee than just looking for the coding superstars. This is a company, right, not professional sports?
Just checking.
-stormin
no community can bark louder than than the WoW one
Might that not have something to do with the size of the WoW community?
-stormin
I love that even though Hungary is a nation of what, 10 million, you can always find at least a couple Hungarians on a tech site. Can you always find a few Slovakians? A few Romanians? A few Albanians? To be honest - I don't know. Since I lived in Hungary for two years, that's what I pay attention to.
Here's my question, however. Who from Hungary wants to send me some decent kolbasz? Kakaos csigakok perhaps? Maybe even just some decent recipes for rakott krumpli or toltott paprika?
I really miss Hungary...
-stormin
Yeah, that was the point.
-stormin
Ugh! That even worse - so much worse - than just random conspicuous consumption! You're absolutely right, of course, it's just that that's not something my wife and I are very keen on. We prefer the kind of babysitter you pay. Well, technically, family is best 'cause you don't have to pay them, but you get the point.
-stormin
Right before the xbox360 was released I had to wait in line if I wanted to play CoD2. But usually only for about 5 minutes or so, and frequently no one was behind me. I beat the demo level several times that way (I didn't play the whole level if anyone was behind me, just a couple of minutes). Since then the demo kiosks in most Target, BestBuy, etc are empty. And I've only seen one broken.
Guess it depends on where you're from.
-stormin
With DRM, you're trying to say do users have the right to copy music they bought or do the copyright owners have the right to force the user to handle those digital bits in the manner they prescribe? Every case where there is a law is a decision between two freedoms.
I agree entirely that the kidnapping case is not a good analogy for DRM. I kind of conflated 2 arguments. The first was just to demonstrate that you can't simply say "x is allowed" means more freedom (overall). I used the kidnapping example precisely because no sane person is going to think the competing freedoms are really close to equivalent. This doesn't prove DRM is wrong, just that you can't assume it's right. That was my first point.
The second, which I tacked on as an afterthought, was that DRM is wrong. I can't prove this from the kidnapping analogy for precisely the reasons you observed: the competing freedoms are more closely matched. What I can say, however, is that without question DRM limits the ability of customers to enjoy their music - even legally. So there's harm done. Lack of DRM, however, has never been conclusively shown (in my opinion) to lead to harm to the musicians.
Copyright is not an end in itself. It, like most IP, exists because IP is not like regular property (RP). If I steal your RP, I have deprived you of its use. If I steal your IP, I have deprived you not of the IP itself, but of the exclusive use of that IP. IP is a misnomer, you have no ownership of the ideas/songs/patents, etc. None! You have, intead, a right to exclusive use of the IP. What this means is that: IP is a right to profit from your work and artistic control derives from that right, and not the other way around.
The end result is simple: if you do not suffer harm from the loss of exclusive right to your IP, then there is no theft. Because IP is about rights to use IP, and not the IP itself. So until it can be proven that DRM is necessary to prevent the loss of revenue to artists, there's literally no legal basis for it's existence. This is also a cogent argument for saying filesharing - at least in some forms - is arguably not theft. Remember, there's no such thing as owning an idea or a song. There's only temporary (ha!) rights to profit from the idea/song if you thought of it first. As long as the profit is not harmed, "artistic control" is a meaningless buzzword.
-stormin
It is true that theft would be restricted, but it doesn't necessarily follow from that that therefore DRM would be allowed. For example, we know that we want to outlaw kidnapping, but should we force parents to tag their children with RFID tags to prevent kidnapping? Then it doesn't necessarily follow that just because we want to prevent theft of an artists copyrighted work we should therefore tag everything they release.
Of course, for the analogy to really work, you can't just tag your kids, you also have to shackle them to the yard and also screen all the friends they play with, etc. etc.
Finally, my main point was that it's nonsensical to say that disallowing anything automatically results in loss of freedom (e.g. disallowing kidnapping doesn't result in an overall loss of freedom). It doesn't follow from that automatically that therefore DRM gets rid of freedom. I have to do more work if I really want to prove that.
In this case we don't think it's worth the cost in loss of freedoms to have RFID tags installed in all our kids. Songs aren't kids, so the analogy isn't enough to make my case either. I'd just say that until I see actual evidence that lack of DRM harms musicians, I think it doesn't make sense to start enforcing it to protect them. Why protect people from that which does not harm them? Furthermore, "theft" of IP is not the same as theft of physical goods. The most obvious difference is that when you steal a tangible object you deprive a person of that object. When you download a song illegally you don't deprive them of the song - you make a copy of it. So, in my opinion, it's only theft if they lose revenue from your actions. I don't believe it's been proven that they do lose money, and therefore I'm not sure it makes sense to call filesharing "theft".
-stormin
No one intentionally goes looking around for five-minute clips of a movie they might be interested in buying before they buy it... they just buy it.
That's because of a magical invention we like to call a "movie trailer". And you know, they make those trailers before movies are completely finished with production as well. So maybe dev/publishers could get their act together to get some demos out there with polish similar to what you see with trailers.
In any case - who juts goes out and buys DVDs they've never seen on impulse? Let me guess - you're not married, or at least certainly don't have kids. For those of us that are and that do there's a little thing called a "budget". Not a ton of fun, I admit, but better than losing your house. In any case, as gamers age, it's going to be increasingly important to cater to those who no longer have buying games as a top priority.
I mean I used to love sci-fi enough that I'd pretty much pick up and enjoy any book with a good spaceship on the cover, but as I've gotten older I don't have as much time. As a result, I choose books these days more based on recommendations, reviews, and even tracking which authors endorse which other authors (since I've found that authors I like tend to endorse other authors I like). Same goes for game demos. You may just pick up games on impulse all the time, but there's going to be an increasing number of gamers like me who don't buy as much (per gamer) and therefore are a lot more picky about what we do buy. And we, I think, want demos. (Good demos, of course.)
-stormin
I agree, XBOX live has totally changed the demo equation. It's really easy to download them now, and you get to try out the games at your own leisure in your own home (instead of waiting in line at a retail store or something). I think it's especially important for console games since, after all, anyone that wants to "demo" a PC game is just going to torrent it anyway.
Hopefully press like this will convince MS and developers to spend more time making the demos nicer. I liked the idea of being able to use your progress from a game when you buy the full copy (although in demos where you don't start at the beginning this wouldn't make as much sense). Now if only they sold the xbox 360 with a DVD burner and let you just pay for the full version and download it online to burn a copy (while they sent you a box in the mail...)
-stormin
Back in the days, doom, decent, even half-life 1 had very nice demos that you could get a real feel for the game before you buy it. Those were nice days...
I agree that it's nice to get good demos before a game is released, but if it's a choice between a shoddy demo while the game is still in development and a great demo after the game is released, I'll take "after the game is released", please.
There's really no reason to have to get a game the *day it comes out*, as far as I'm concerned. I routinely buy older games. I mean, if I'm going to hunt down a DOS copy of Master of Orion (and I have on eBay) then why should I turn my nose up at a game that's been out for 6 months or a year? I'm happy to play demos of games that have been around for a while. It means I've probably encountered a fair amount of buzz - from reviews or friends - about the game and now I have a chance to evaluate the recommendations for myself.
It's a pretty simple concept. Want someone to buy your game? Let them try it out first.
-stormin
Downloadable demos are notoriously bad.
I'm kind of confused here. Even if most demos are really bad, that wouldn't contradict that the ones that are really good don't sell a lot of games. And even if the demos are bad - that doesn't mean they don't have an impact. That just means that people are being turned off by shoddy demos.
I personally won't buy a game until I've demoed it or have a friend who knows my very well inform me that I must, in fact, trade my soul to play this game. I probably only buy a handful of games a year, but if you add up all the people like me who don't have money to spend on a game a week, that probably adds up.
Right now I own an xbox360 (a gift, by the way) and two games for it. I already know the next game I buy will be Lost Planet purely because the demo is so much fun. I've played it through several times. I've also played through that zombie-in-the-mall demo and it was so awful that, despite rave reviews from Penny Arcade - I'm not going to touch it.
You're right that the demo is often an after thought, but it *can* and *should* be the most important part of marketing. This was less true before xbox LIVE, etc, but now that there's an efficient way to push the demos to the consumers (and cheap too) this really is the best way to convince someone to buy your game. Hopefully developers will take the hint and start giving their demo's a little love.
-stormin
Hahahahahaha!!! Yeah, WTF is wrong with that kid? Doesn't he know games are for *adults*!? Just punch him in the face and take the controller next time! And where do you live that the demo consoles in *all* the stores are broken? Did you go around checking? Always one step behind the elusive 6 year old and his console-destroying mashing? LOL! "Damn! That stupid twerp beat me to it again!"
Your myopically self-centered, pathologically egotistical post made my day.
-stormin
Nail. Hammer. Done.
As a general rule it's incoherent to treat the word "freedom" as a grammatical entity rather than to think seriously about whether the words you're typing would mean more or less freedom. In other words, just because freedom is usually associate with saying things like "is allowed" doesn't mean that just plugging anything into this formula "x is allowed" gets you more freedom.
This logic would result in fun things like: "kidnapping is allowed" because otherwise ("kidnapping is not allowed") you're restricting freedom. The trouble is that "kidnapping" inherently takes away someone else's rights, so we have no trouble saying that - in the interests of a free society - we're going to put a restriction on this particular activity. DRM works the same way. It is by definition restrictive and antithetical to freedom. Therefore we can say "no DRM" and have free software just like we can say "no kidnapping" and have a (relatively) free society.
-stormin
That's what I was wondering, especially the bit about the hair in the soup. I mean, that's just gross. Any man that eats his own hair... ugh... I can't even type any more on that.
On another aspect of the article, I found this line: "Unlike the author, I realize I don't know enough about it to comment." especially amusing. So basically, the editorial refutes none of the assertions of the Forbes article in any concrete sense, and then goes on to say he's ignorant of the actual issue.
I mean it's possible that you could know enough to know that someone else is getting the GPL v3.0 wrong without actually getting it enough yourself to comment, but if that's the best defense you can mount that you may be doing your own side more harm than good.
And the hair thing is still grossing me out...
-stormin
Of course we should take into account the willingness of astronauts to go into space for this mission. Especially because astronauts are not prone to ignoring safety considerations, and so if they are willing they probably think it is reasonably safe to do so. But it is worth pointing out that in a certain sense an astronaut is not entirely a private citizen. When we lose an astronaut, it's a blow to the entire nation.
I'm just saying that just because we have astronauts willing to go doesn't mean we can neglect to take into consideration the risk to their lives.
-stormin
From linked article:That clearly points to 2 potential uses: both to strip DRM from iTunes to play on other portatble devices and to add DRM to other devices to play on iPods.
This quote from the article:makes it clear that DVD Jon plans to use the crack for reason #2 - but nowhere does this preclude use to strip DRM.
And why would people think that DVD Jon might put out a tool to make stripping DRM easier? What on earth could 'cause Slashdot users everywhere to assume that use #1 might be in play as well? What possible information would lead them to this - according to you - warrentless and baseless conclusion?
Well I don't know, maybe the fact that it's DVD Jon? And that the EFF - [sarcasm]a well-known advocate of DRM [/sarcasm] - is quoted in such a way that they seem to be possibly supporting DVD Jon?
Yes, OK, DVD Jon cracked the iTunes security and now he can allow 3rd parties to create iPod compatiable, DRM-protected tracks without going through Apple. But it's not surprising that people are more interested in the other potential use (DRM stripping) that DVD Jon is famous for. (You do know that's how he got his name, right?)
When the story comes out saying that DVD Jon will only allow his crack to be used for adding DRM, and not for taking it away, then we'll have that story to weep, wail, and gnash our teeth about. This [the AP article] is not that story.
-stormin
You think that matching a real person to a cartoon looks valid?