I've noticed that it takes a pretty good game to get me to pay CDN$60. However, I'll buy even mediocre games on the spur of the moment for $20. I'll even buy bad games for $10.
A smarter pricing scheme, IMHO, would be $30 new, then down to $20 after a year, and $10 after three. To me, that sounds about right for proper game pricing. But that's just me, and I haven't done any real market analysis. (Then again, it seems that most game companies don't bother with market analyses anyway.) All I know is, I'd be buying new games left right and center if they were $30 brand new.
I remember when the console market crashed back in the 80s and Atari carts were a couple of bucks apiece. We amassed quite a library of decent games at those prices.
Galileo would argue with what? My post is not in disagreement with what you are saying. My point is that this hindrance is not of the scale the OP makes it out to be.
The big innovations, the ones that change our culture fundamentally are going to come at a cost that most people are afraid to pay. Namely religous beliefs.
Not this nonsense again. To all you antitheists out there: the religious people aren't out to get you. They are not out to stop science and force you to be good "or else". Please, give it a rest. Religious beliefs didn't prevent us from getting to the point we are at today, and they will not prevent us from going beyond that point tomorrow.
Sure some people get in a tizzy and try to prevent scientific progress for their own petty religious reasons, but to say this will bring progress to a grinding halt while simultaneously elevating it beyond other "anti-science" activites such as corporate meddling, governmental corruption, self-serving scientists, and the like is intellectually dishonest. It belies your real motive for posting.
It's amazing this kind of crap gets modded up so high in this day and age. If this wasn't slashdot, where this kind of thinking is tolerated (and, after looking at the moderation of the parent post, apparently ensouraged), I'd tell you to take your obviously anti-christian rhetoric (and, let's face it, that is what you're talking about) someplace else. None of the scientific topics you've listed have any real bearing on Christian beliefs.
I have been killed by asshole aliens uncountable times, and have gone bankrupt many many times
When I first got that game many, many years ago, I had the same problem. I discovered that by "playing it safe" and not venturing too far from Arth, I eventually ran out of money. You just can't make enough on minerals and alien specimens to finance your explorations.
You just have to bravely set out to distant systems, looking for planets that can be colonized and planets with ruins & Endurium deposits.
You are forcing me to program for your enjoyment without paying me. By doing this you are making of me a slave.
You know, I always see outrageous comments supporting intellectual property and I think to myself "There's no way anyone is ever going to top that!". And then someone like you comes along and proves me wrong.
So I can have your Social Security number and you won't mind?
Absolutely. It's just information. However, if you decide to use that information against me, then we've got a problem.
Yours is a lame argument that simply doesn't work. Your implication is that you will use the information against me. This is equivalent to someone copying a game, then turning around and selling it in an attempt to undercut the original seller, not just copying a game and playing it or giving it to a friend (who won't sell it).
Let's face it: information just simply does not work with the same rules that apply to physical things.
If you remember an old game, but don't remember the name, you can try finding it in the Killer List of Video Games. This is also a great resource for looking up information about various games.
When you know what you want, you can either look for the roms on eDonkey/eMule (if you know the rom set names), try to find a good roms site (there are some, but you have to wade through a lot of crap sites to find them), or you can find (and request) roms on Usenet at alt.binaries.emulators.mame (probably your best bet).
If you want some good old school games, try Ms. Pac-man, Frogger, Q*Bert (or the fun, but rare sequel Q*Bert's Qubes) for starters. Vector games like Asteroids work well, too. One of my favorites is Liquid Kids (I can't believe that game is 15 years old). Bank Panic - another old one -- is a fun *twitch* game. The original Rampage is great. Oh man, what is MAME not good for?!
Here's a list of things that software developers should continue putting in games. Thankfully they haven't steered away from these features for decades:
When you die, you should always start back at the beginning of the level. This builds perserverance, which is a good character trait.
If a game is really good, gamers won't mind excessive backtracking. Getting the key at area A, inserting it into the slot back at area B, heading back to area A to move the now unlocked lever, and running back to area B before the door closes gives the player a lot of time to look at the beautiful backgrounds and maybe learn new and better techniques to defeat the monsters along the way.
Have every neat thing in the game become available after completing a certain task. In fact, don't make the regular game available until you've successfully completed a few training levels. This gives the player goals to achieve. Oh, and don't make multiplayer available until you finish a few single player levels. This just gives the players a chance to practice before playing against each other. To be fair, never put in any code to make all "unlockables" available. If someone can't put in the forty hours of gameplay to unlock the cool stuff featured on the back of the box, they shouldn't be playing the game.
Nothing says "fun" like a big maze!
A great way to introduce variety in a game is to use the same bad guys, but make them different colors. This surprises the player because he thinks "Hey, I've fought this guy before, but he was a different color. Something's up! I'd better be on my guard"
Include as few options as possible. Too many options may overwhelm the player.
Never re-use gameplay from previous games, even if thoes games did well. You can always improve the control scheme on the First Person Shooter genre.
Players should not be allowed to save their games "whenever". This makes them too easy. Have save points strategically placed throughout the game (but not too close to bosses).
I'm sure there's more, but these are the ones I could rattle off at the top of my head. So, stand tall, video game developers, and continue providing the level of excellence that has stood the test of time in the video gaming world!
No, I can't imagine what it would have been like for a political ideal to somehow defeat armies of living, breathing, physical people. I imagine that would be quite a surreal event to witness.
Sometimes I fear that that Fear is fading, but I hope that enough is left to keep us alive until we hopefully mature as a species.
Mature as a species? This isn't Star Trek. We're not going to magically evolve into "better human beings" one day. We've been this way for thousands of years and we're not going to change any time soon.
The only thing worse than the fact that we are the way we are is this idea that some day we will simply stop being evil. The kind of thinking that one day we'll "mature as a species" just shifts the responsibility for each person to overcome his own sin on to some kind of abstract event or process in the future.
There is no maturing of the species. There is only the maturing of a person.
Weren't those shows, like, three minutes long, with one minute spent recapping events of the preceeding episode? And weren't there only about two dozen shows? How on earth did they manage to split that up into two volumes?
Let me guess: the answer involves some Lucasian economics...
Yeah, his post was a few minutes before mine. I didn't realize Durinthal had made his post until after I made mine and refreshed the page.
Though, technically, I did have the third link, which game me the edge.:-P
Maybe the mods are all C64 fans?
Video Game Music Terribly Underrated
on
Video Game Mixlist
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Most people think it's strange that others like to listen to video game music. I imagine its because many remember the beeps and boops that emanated from yesterday's game machines. (I hesitate to say it was because of the repetitiveness of said music, judging by the sound of commercial music today). Ironically, music from old 8-bit an 16-bit machines far surpass most pop songs in terms of melodic beauty and richness.
There are some amazingly good composers out there that really deserve some credit. Some of my favorites include Yuzo Koshiro (Actraiser), Rob King & Paul Romero (Heroes of Might & Magic III) and Ben Houge (Arcanum - full score to the music is available from the link!).
And this cream of the crop site is slashdotted to hell.
My friend, who runs the server, was having some problems with his bandwidth limiter program before I posted the link. It was already dog slow before I posted the link to slashdot. You can always bookmark it and check it out in a few days. I've got a lot of stuff there that is not available on the other sites.
It is amazing. The programmers at Sony are wasting their time to prevent other programmers to program for PSP and the PSP programmers waste their time trying to hack the PSP.
This is stupid. All that creativity could be used for some cool apps.
I truly believe these kinds of idiotic behaviors and the draconian laws relating to IP have stunted our societal development and are preventing it from entering a Golden Age of Information.
SIR - Your article on software piracy was extreme, misleading and irresponsible ("BSA or just BS?", May 21st). The headline was particularly offensive. The implication that an industry would purposely inflate the rate of piracy and its impact to suit its political aims is ridiculous. The problem is real and needs no exaggeration.
Beth Scott
Business Software Alliance
London
I am honestly curious how people who are this stupid can even live. Do they set themselves up an Outlook reminder that pops up every ten seconds to tell them to breathe? I'm just stunned.
Slashdot Mirror
A smarter pricing scheme, IMHO, would be $30 new, then down to $20 after a year, and $10 after three. To me, that sounds about right for proper game pricing. But that's just me, and I haven't done any real market analysis. (Then again, it seems that most game companies don't bother with market analyses anyway.) All I know is, I'd be buying new games left right and center if they were $30 brand new.
I remember when the console market crashed back in the 80s and Atari carts were a couple of bucks apiece. We amassed quite a library of decent games at those prices.
Galileo would argue with what? My post is not in disagreement with what you are saying. My point is that this hindrance is not of the scale the OP makes it out to be.
Not this nonsense again. To all you antitheists out there: the religious people aren't out to get you. They are not out to stop science and force you to be good "or else". Please, give it a rest. Religious beliefs didn't prevent us from getting to the point we are at today, and they will not prevent us from going beyond that point tomorrow.
Sure some people get in a tizzy and try to prevent scientific progress for their own petty religious reasons, but to say this will bring progress to a grinding halt while simultaneously elevating it beyond other "anti-science" activites such as corporate meddling, governmental corruption, self-serving scientists, and the like is intellectually dishonest. It belies your real motive for posting.
It's amazing this kind of crap gets modded up so high in this day and age. If this wasn't slashdot, where this kind of thinking is tolerated (and, after looking at the moderation of the parent post, apparently ensouraged), I'd tell you to take your obviously anti-christian rhetoric (and, let's face it, that is what you're talking about) someplace else. None of the scientific topics you've listed have any real bearing on Christian beliefs.
When I first got that game many, many years ago, I had the same problem. I discovered that by "playing it safe" and not venturing too far from Arth, I eventually ran out of money. You just can't make enough on minerals and alien specimens to finance your explorations.
You just have to bravely set out to distant systems, looking for planets that can be colonized and planets with ruins & Endurium deposits.
I'd say we'd have one hell of an IP lawsuit brewing!
You know, I always see outrageous comments supporting intellectual property and I think to myself "There's no way anyone is ever going to top that!". And then someone like you comes along and proves me wrong.
Bravo.
Absolutely. It's just information. However, if you decide to use that information against me, then we've got a problem.
Yours is a lame argument that simply doesn't work. Your implication is that you will use the information against me. This is equivalent to someone copying a game, then turning around and selling it in an attempt to undercut the original seller, not just copying a game and playing it or giving it to a friend (who won't sell it).
Let's face it: information just simply does not work with the same rules that apply to physical things.
You can look through the list of all emulated games here:http://www.mame.net/gamelist.html
If you remember an old game, but don't remember the name, you can try finding it in the Killer List of Video Games. This is also a great resource for looking up information about various games.
When you know what you want, you can either look for the roms on eDonkey/eMule (if you know the rom set names), try to find a good roms site (there are some, but you have to wade through a lot of crap sites to find them), or you can find (and request) roms on Usenet at alt.binaries.emulators.mame (probably your best bet).
If you want some good old school games, try Ms. Pac-man, Frogger, Q*Bert (or the fun, but rare sequel Q*Bert's Qubes) for starters. Vector games like Asteroids work well, too. One of my favorites is Liquid Kids (I can't believe that game is 15 years old). Bank Panic - another old one -- is a fun *twitch* game. The original Rampage is great. Oh man, what is MAME not good for?!
Go easy on him, guys. I read in the Onion that Dancin Santa doesn't learn the concept of satire until 2033.
Or, better yet, make that 2006.
I'm sure there's more, but these are the ones I could rattle off at the top of my head. So, stand tall, video game developers, and continue providing the level of excellence that has stood the test of time in the video gaming world!
rm -r microsoft.com
(oh please oh please oh please...)
No, I can't imagine what it would have been like for a political ideal to somehow defeat armies of living, breathing, physical people. I imagine that would be quite a surreal event to witness.
Mature as a species? This isn't Star Trek. We're not going to magically evolve into "better human beings" one day. We've been this way for thousands of years and we're not going to change any time soon.
The only thing worse than the fact that we are the way we are is this idea that some day we will simply stop being evil. The kind of thinking that one day we'll "mature as a species" just shifts the responsibility for each person to overcome his own sin on to some kind of abstract event or process in the future.
There is no maturing of the species. There is only the maturing of a person.
Let me guess: the answer involves some Lucasian economics...
"combine this with preaching..."
I hear they picked up Genesis cheap after Sega went under.
Though, technically, I did have the third link, which game me the edge. :-P
Maybe the mods are all C64 fans?
There are some amazingly good composers out there that really deserve some credit. Some of my favorites include Yuzo Koshiro (Actraiser), Rob King & Paul Romero (Heroes of Might & Magic III) and Ben Houge (Arcanum - full score to the music is available from the link!).
My friend, who runs the server, was having some problems with his bandwidth limiter program before I posted the link. It was already dog slow before I posted the link to slashdot. You can always bookmark it and check it out in a few days. I've got a lot of stuff there that is not available on the other sites.
What I, personally, consider the cream of the crop. The server is a bit slow right now, though.
Or, my personal favorite: 8-Bit Weapon - MULE (Bitblaster mix)
VGMix
Overclocked Remix
RKO
It is amazing. The programmers at Sony are wasting their time to prevent other programmers to program for PSP and the PSP programmers waste their time trying to hack the PSP. This is stupid. All that creativity could be used for some cool apps. I truly believe these kinds of idiotic behaviors and the draconian laws relating to IP have stunted our societal development and are preventing it from entering a Golden Age of Information.
Beth Scott
Business Software Alliance
London
I am honestly curious how people who are this stupid can even live. Do they set themselves up an Outlook reminder that pops up every ten seconds to tell them to breathe? I'm just stunned.