I have no problem with a company trying to maximize its profits. Disclosure: I'm a game developer, so I have an obvious interest in my company actually earning profits from customers.
This is the kind of crap dreamed up by moneymen and management, not by game developers. Game developers dream of making it big by creating an awesome game that everyone wants to own and play. Management looks at an existing market and asks "what sort of tactics could we employ to squeeze more revenue of our existing customer base?" It seems reasonable to them, but it's ultimately a short-sighted approach.
EA executives, here's a word of advice for you. If you want to increase sales, follow this simple set of rules:
1) Focus on creating fantastic games. That's your business. Treat your own developers with respect. Allow them some room to innovate and create some cool stuff for you.
2) Treat your customers with respect. Get rid of invasive DRM tactics that treat your valuable customers like criminals. Look to companies like StarDock as a model for how to win not just customers, but fans.
3) ???*
4) Profit!
* EA Execs: The missing step is just a joke, originally based on an episode of South Park involving underpants gnomes - don't ask. It represents a "magic step" in a business plan that transforms an otherwise failed business strategy into success and profits. In your case, the "magic step" is probably something like "Stop being greedy and evil", so we'll just leave it at ???, m'kay?
The PS3 has an option to allow/disallow Blu-Ray discs to connect to the Internet.
No, it doesn't. What it has is an allow/confirm option. If you don't want it talking to someone on the internet every time you watch a movie, it still is going to bug you about it every damn time. I have to admit, it really pisses me off that they don't give you an option to shut it off completely and permanently, no questions asked. I'm stubborn enough that I'll likely continue choosing 'no' from here to eternity.
I work for game developer (small by corporate standards, but big for a developer), with about 150 employees. Most of us are running 64-bit Vista. See, the trick is, though, this was part of a round of hardware updates as well. With our machines (quad core, 4 GB RAM, fast video card, etc), the performance impact of Vista is largely negligible.
Most companies are not running games that demand high-end systems. They're running office machines that calculate spreadsheets, write letters, create powerpoint presentations, track inventory, and play the occasional game of solitude or watch youtube videos with office mates. It's hard to justify upgrading to a new operating system with a lot more overhead when your basic computing requirements haven't changed much. In general, I expect that Vista is likely selling at just slightly over the rate of new Windows-based PCs being sold. There are probably more users that upgrade than downgrade, and most new PCs have Vista on them now.
I think this is mostly a case of unrealistic expectations - the idea that an operating system is so compelling that people will rush out to upgrade. I could have told them that most users with would not feel entirely compelled to upgrade their existing hardware. Users seem much more likely to upgrade their operating system at the same time they upgrade their hardware. And frankly, people are finding it harder to justify upgrading their computers when the only thing that a 4 year old computer can't handle is a) the latest, greatest PC games, or 2) the latest, greatest operating system.
The funny thing, if Microsoft had forecast realistic adoption rates of Vista (at just above the purchase rate of new Windows-based PCs), then they probably could have claimed success. But they all drank the kool-aid since it made their forecasts look so much better if large numbers of people suddenly said "Hey, let's give Microsoft a bunch of money to Microsoft for a new operating system, and I'll get a) better security (uh, shouldn't that be freely available as patches?), b) a slower machine (uh... wait a sec), and c) a shiney new desktop - unless your video card can't handle it, or unless you buy the wrong version of the OS." And from a corporate perspective, even if you're already paying for the software, it still doesn't negate the cost of migrating, retraining, and performance-related issues.
And now, rushing a new version of Windows out guarantees a fragmented Windows market of THREE operating systems (which we developers still have to support, even if you don't, thank you). It's not going to encourage adoption rates any more than Vista did. These guys just don't learn.
I think the key word here is *novel*. You're seeing a new flood of MMOs, because publishers and developers are salivating all over themselves, seeing how WoW is raking in more cash yearly than some third-world countries. Obviously, they want a piece of the action too. Unfortunately, the MMO is a bit of a different beast than most games.
1) The development costs are more significant. By definition, MMOs have to be very content-rich game. Moreover, you have the added technical complication of developing a server infrastructure along with your game.
2) It's much harder to innovate in terms of gameplay. Fast action in an MMO is still damn near technically impossible with today's internet. Too many users simply don't have the low latency needed to compete in a twitch game. As such, most MMOs end up doing statistical combat. Point and click on a monster, and the server rolls the dice. The other problem is world persistence - you can't dramatically alter the state of the world without impacting every other player. As such, most MMO games simply punt on this. The player can't truly alter the state of the world, and so any actions ultimately feel futile.
3) A pay-to-play model is a limiting factor. People play a fewer number of MMOs than traditional games because of the monthly fee. As such, the market space is more fiercely competitive in an already competitive industry. Gamers already playing with one game are highly unlikely to subscribe to another game. Additionally, many gamers are simply uncomfortable with the notion of paying for a game, and then *also* paying a monthly fee, and so won't be a part of the market regardless.
4) MMOs require a minimum amount of user participation in order to remain commercially viable. Unless the game develops a certain amount of traction, the servers are likely to shut down. After that, the game becomes unplayable forever. Gamers are aware of this, and so are often wary of MMOs that seem questionable.
We've already seen EA try and fail in this space. Earth and Beyond, The Sims Online, etc... Others have also had their share of failure: Asheron's Call 2, Auto Assault... These are not piddling startup companies or unknown properties here.
I think we're heading for a large number of MMOs released in the near future, and an almost equally large number of MMO failures and closures about a year or two from now. After that, only the largest competitors will be left, along with a small number of innovators. And by then, most publishers will be scared to death of the MMO market.
but you can get a pretty good idea what they are if you do a little research on the Unreal Tournament 3 engine
Well, you can perhaps get an idea of what technological features may be available, but minimum requirements is a little different. A lot of people attribute way too much of how a game looks and runs to the engine. System requirements are determined by the developer, not the engine - it's a matter of the poly, texture, and animation budgets they've allocated, and what minimum shader model they're requiring. Two different games both using the Unreal 3 engine could have *very* different runtime requirements based on this.
You joke, but that was a pretty freaky weird headline to someone like me who had no idea what "Android" was. It took me a few seconds to come to the conclusion that "Android" must be some sort of platform or SDK, but before that my brain came up with a few pretty strange scenarios.
We ended up reaching a consensus that not everyone needs WPA, and people who do should buy a second AP for Nintendo WFC.
"Consensus"? On Slashdot? [citation needed]
Since I can only speak for myself: WEP is essentially a lock on a screen door at this point - it only keeps out those who make no effort to circumvent it. As it is, my wireless network stays as secure as I can make it with WPA security, and my DS stays disconnected. I have no interest in buying a redundant piece of hardware from Nintendo.
But then Obama and ACORN didn't have to twist bankers arms too much to get em to loan money to people who had damned near zero chance of repaying the loan.
In fact, a law was passed in 1977 and strengthened in 1995 requiring banks to do just that. Banks had to enter the sub-prime market to boost their CRA ratings, which was a prerequisite to acquiring other institutions.
Getting back on topic, though, it does really demonstrate how institutions can go up in a puff and flash of smoke. And if your date is with them, it's gone in a puff as well. Yeah, I'm afraid I have to agree with RMS here. Anyone who would entrust any sort of vital data to these schemes is insane.
Most people in the video game industry, and many people who write about them for a living, hope for games to be taken seriously as art or literature.
I've been a programmer in the game industry for 11+ years now. I don't recall ever wishing video games to be taken as seriously as art or literature. I love what I do, but I have no illusions about creating "art", at least as this author is defining it. To me, "art" isn't some lofty goal - it's a department.
I take professional pride in creating the best game I know how to. For me, the best part of this job is knowing that someone is having a blast playing the game I had a small hand in creating. If someone wants to call that art, or a toy, or even a game, that's fine by me. As long as they had fun playing.
Oops, my bad. I was puzzling over your post and trying to figure out what you were getting at without looking at what you were responding to. Although I'm still not sure what the link to XNA has to do with anything.
My guess is since the Xbox doesn't have a true USB port, they can't implement a standard MIDI-over-USB protocol, and as such can't handshake properly with a computer or other USB MIDI device (most modern keyboards and such implement USB MIDI now).
Yeah, that's why I asked the question - I was curious what was needed beyond the built-in utilities (I probably could have worded it better - and I think I sparked some ire by raising a question about the pricing issue). Thanks for the info.
Computing for the blind is an interesting problem for me. I'm a game developer, and I specialize in audio programming specifically. I've long thought about creating more software that only requires audio to play - about what sort of games those could be and how one would go about playing them.
Microsoft does do a good job with accessibility, especially Office, but there is no good to be had in overstating their effort.
I wasn't trying to overstate it. I was just trying to clarify what the Windows OS offered.
As TaxMan explained in his reply to your post, those are more like utilities than robust features that can be relied upon every day.
Ok, I'll take your word on that. I only have experience in programming for those features, not actually using them. I'll accept others' expertise on that.
You are trolling.
Just because someone disagrees with you doesn't mean they're trolling. It's great way to kill a discussion though.
These features probably couldn't be used for games unless they were bundled with the new DS, because they're not consistent across the DS hardware.
Generally speaking, add-on hardware tends to have much less of an impact in the gaming market than what the core hardware shipped with. You have to create games that work on ALL generations of hardware - that's the implied contract with customers. Consoles *shouldn't* be moving platforms. That would just alienate existing customers, and ultimately be a recipe for disaster.
If you buy a toaster and it doesn't work, you take it back. What makes the gaming industry so fucking special?
Simple. The fact that people can make a perfect digital copy of the game before returning it, then continue to play it.
If you could throw your toaster into your Scan-o-Replicator-3000 and make a perfect copy of it, I can guarantee you that retailers would be a bit less enthusiastic about accepting returns.
BTW, I'm not defending the practice or advocating it. Just giving you the reasoning behind it.
In XP, just look under Start | All Programs | Accessories | Accessibility... You'll find a number of accessibility programs, including a screen reader, magnifier, and programs to configure manage these features (Vista has these too, of course). What added services are you thinking of that cost $1000s?
There's plenty to knock Microsoft for, but I don't think accessibility support in their OS's is one of them. And honestly, are you seriously trying to tell me that buying a Mac is ever cheaper than a roughly equivalent Windows PC? Macs are great computers, don't get me wrong. But they're also *premium* devices, and cost more than PCs.
For me, if I lent someone my copy of StarCraft, it meant I was no longer able to play the game while my copy was loaned out. And naturally, loaning a console game is truly "loaning" for most people. That's what I was thinking of.
But you're correct, of course. If you're talking about pure digital content that can be completely installed on and run from the hard drive, then there's no such concept as "loaning" the software to someone. It's always a copy. And then the problem gets a bit more nebulous.
Ultimately, though, PC game developers are going to have to face up to a hard truth: they're relying on the good will of their customers to pay for a product that they could, without too much technical difficulty, get for free. This means that developers need to focus two aspects of game development:
a) They must forge a relationship with their customers, so that their customers are enthusiastic about supporting their development efforts with their money. Blizzard and StarDock operate on completely different scales, but both companies have very loyal customers who are willing to part with their money, with the understanding that it will likely go to fund further development of products they enjoy.
b) They can provide online services to enhance the game, and thus provide an incentive for legitimate purchases. Obviously, an MMO is the most extreme example of this, where the entire game takes place online. But matchmaking for online play, quick and easy patches, online bonus content... these are all ways of enhancing the player's experience as well.
The sad thing is, Spore has integrated online content. EA could have simply used the same method Blizzard and Stardock have used successfully - you must have a legitimate CD-Key to connect to online services. Now, they're simply alienating potential customers, and those who were determined to obtain the game without paying would have done so anyway.
I don't particularly agree with loaning it to someone,
"Loaning a game" implies that while the game is loaned out, the original owner can't play it. It's your game - you should be able to damn well decide who to loan it to. If you substitute "book" for "game", it sounds pretty ridiculous.
It's only when "loaning a game" translates to "burn a copy of the game" that you run into trouble. But that's not really "loaning", is it?
I think the truth of your statement will drive more and more games to be online only with no physical media. I'm not a game dev, but probably they would try to cache textures, and images locally but anything playable ("code") would be on the servers only. Because we all know that there are way too many people who will take anything for free that they can get - and just won't pay if they can get away with it.
You've just described why MMOs are the only truly successful genre left on the PC. Sad...
If I understand correctly, you're playing a version of Spore you didn't pay for then?
I guess the problem with that is you lose all moral authority when you actually decide the game is worth playing but don't wish to pay. In other words, if you had told us "I'd love to buy Spore, but the DRM made that impossible for me, so I'll just play and support games from companies like StarDock", it would then be a principled decision.
A boycott only means something when the consumer is willing to *go without*. No one listens to someone "boycotting" a product while they're still enjoying that product's use.
As someone who basically grew up on Sierra adventure games
As did I - Sierra games were among my first PC gaming experiences.
I have to wonder what in the world their problem is.
Well, from someone in the gaming industry, I can tell you what happened from my perspective. It's the same reason many companies go to hell - horrible management. For the past decade or so (a few years after Sierra was sold to CUC International), it's been pretty well known in the industry to stay far, far away from Sierra. I had heard many stories from a fellow programmer who had escaped - he had worked there for a number of years before being let go in one of their many "reorganizations".
Essentially, they were borderline abusive to their employees... long hours, low pay, little respect, and constant lies. People were developing chronic health problems from the stress, etc... If anyone complained too much, they were simply replaced by new developers fresh out of college - who would tend to put up with much worse than seasoned developers. Basically, it epitomized the worst of the game development industry from a few years ago (it's not like that so much anymore).
The result was obvious and predictable. Sierra's ability to create and release a decent product dwindled along with it's company morale, and the best and brightest employees were slowly bled off. Eventually, internal product development was canceled, and they became a publisher only. However, bad management screws up all things over time, and this was no exception. Sierra eventually reorganized pretty much out of existence, and the doors of their Bellevue, Washington offices closed in 2004. At this point, they're essentially just a division in name only of whoever owns them.
I really hope these games don't get buried under legal BS as so many important titles have in the past. There's a lot of marketing potential there, and if it's done the right way it could make whoever has the rights a nice little pile of cash, and maybe a new following.
I'd love to see this happen. My bet is that Activision will be too greedy to sell the rights at a price anyone could afford, but too indecisive to make any use of them, and they'll lie unused in perpetuity. It's what happens with a lot of great properties.
I suppose I could be wrong, but I'm really not holding my breath.
It's not just about sharing - it's about security practices as well. If you are not running with Administrator privileges (which normal users are *supposed* to be running at), then these user directories are the only legitimate places an application can freely write to. In Vista, writing to the program files directory will be virtualized and shunted to a user-specific location anyhow. Games today still can't ignore running well on XP, but neither can they ignore the requirements of Vista.
Unfortunately, Microsoft has been pretty inconsistent about the recommended location of these types of files in the past - it's a bit of a moving target - as the inconsistency of your game saves shows. And unfortunately, Windows users (your post illustrates this exactly) have been wrongly trained to expect user-specific data to simply be written to a subfolder under the program's install directory or something like that (because this mechanism just hasn't been used or enforced on the Windows platform previously).
I empathize with the "messiness" of it, though. Incidentally, are you aware that you can point your "My Documents" folder anywhere, even a separate partition, or a common folder on your C drive? That might help you to keep things organized a bit better.
There was a method to block, you had to press Space (PC version, obviously) when the enemy's name blinked or something like that.
Wow... I still don't recall that mechanism. Lol, thanks. I'm going to play again and see if that even game up in the tutorials before the slum areas. Probably did, I'm sure I just forgot.
And yeah, one of the self-balancing mechanisms of RPGs is the ability to level grind if a player is having difficulty getting past a particular enemy. By removing this, they're fixing the difficulty level for us thick-headed folk at an absolute level. If we can't beat an enemy at the level they deem appropriate - well... SOL - or resort to hopping over to the forums to get hints.
You lost an achievement if any of the characters died, at all, even if you revive them. Assuming the Steam achievements match the Xbox achievements, of course.
Once again, good to know. You've earned that +Informative friend, thanks.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you forgot to read this part of AC's post:
So, no, I don't think PC gaming is really dying.
I have no problem with a company trying to maximize its profits. Disclosure: I'm a game developer, so I have an obvious interest in my company actually earning profits from customers.
This is the kind of crap dreamed up by moneymen and management, not by game developers. Game developers dream of making it big by creating an awesome game that everyone wants to own and play. Management looks at an existing market and asks "what sort of tactics could we employ to squeeze more revenue of our existing customer base?" It seems reasonable to them, but it's ultimately a short-sighted approach.
EA executives, here's a word of advice for you. If you want to increase sales, follow this simple set of rules:
1) Focus on creating fantastic games. That's your business. Treat your own developers with respect. Allow them some room to innovate and create some cool stuff for you.
2) Treat your customers with respect. Get rid of invasive DRM tactics that treat your valuable customers like criminals. Look to companies like StarDock as a model for how to win not just customers, but fans.
3) ???*
4) Profit!
* EA Execs: The missing step is just a joke, originally based on an episode of South Park involving underpants gnomes - don't ask. It represents a "magic step" in a business plan that transforms an otherwise failed business strategy into success and profits. In your case, the "magic step" is probably something like "Stop being greedy and evil", so we'll just leave it at ???, m'kay?
The PS3 has an option to allow/disallow Blu-Ray discs to connect to the Internet.
No, it doesn't. What it has is an allow/confirm option. If you don't want it talking to someone on the internet every time you watch a movie, it still is going to bug you about it every damn time. I have to admit, it really pisses me off that they don't give you an option to shut it off completely and permanently, no questions asked. I'm stubborn enough that I'll likely continue choosing 'no' from here to eternity.
I work for game developer (small by corporate standards, but big for a developer), with about 150 employees. Most of us are running 64-bit Vista. See, the trick is, though, this was part of a round of hardware updates as well. With our machines (quad core, 4 GB RAM, fast video card, etc), the performance impact of Vista is largely negligible.
Most companies are not running games that demand high-end systems. They're running office machines that calculate spreadsheets, write letters, create powerpoint presentations, track inventory, and play the occasional game of solitude or watch youtube videos with office mates. It's hard to justify upgrading to a new operating system with a lot more overhead when your basic computing requirements haven't changed much. In general, I expect that Vista is likely selling at just slightly over the rate of new Windows-based PCs being sold. There are probably more users that upgrade than downgrade, and most new PCs have Vista on them now.
I think this is mostly a case of unrealistic expectations - the idea that an operating system is so compelling that people will rush out to upgrade. I could have told them that most users with would not feel entirely compelled to upgrade their existing hardware. Users seem much more likely to upgrade their operating system at the same time they upgrade their hardware. And frankly, people are finding it harder to justify upgrading their computers when the only thing that a 4 year old computer can't handle is a) the latest, greatest PC games, or 2) the latest, greatest operating system.
The funny thing, if Microsoft had forecast realistic adoption rates of Vista (at just above the purchase rate of new Windows-based PCs), then they probably could have claimed success. But they all drank the kool-aid since it made their forecasts look so much better if large numbers of people suddenly said "Hey, let's give Microsoft a bunch of money to Microsoft for a new operating system, and I'll get a) better security (uh, shouldn't that be freely available as patches?), b) a slower machine (uh... wait a sec), and c) a shiney new desktop - unless your video card can't handle it, or unless you buy the wrong version of the OS." And from a corporate perspective, even if you're already paying for the software, it still doesn't negate the cost of migrating, retraining, and performance-related issues.
And now, rushing a new version of Windows out guarantees a fragmented Windows market of THREE operating systems (which we developers still have to support, even if you don't, thank you). It's not going to encourage adoption rates any more than Vista did. These guys just don't learn.
I think the key word here is *novel*. You're seeing a new flood of MMOs, because publishers and developers are salivating all over themselves, seeing how WoW is raking in more cash yearly than some third-world countries. Obviously, they want a piece of the action too. Unfortunately, the MMO is a bit of a different beast than most games.
1) The development costs are more significant. By definition, MMOs have to be very content-rich game. Moreover, you have the added technical complication of developing a server infrastructure along with your game.
2) It's much harder to innovate in terms of gameplay. Fast action in an MMO is still damn near technically impossible with today's internet. Too many users simply don't have the low latency needed to compete in a twitch game. As such, most MMOs end up doing statistical combat. Point and click on a monster, and the server rolls the dice. The other problem is world persistence - you can't dramatically alter the state of the world without impacting every other player. As such, most MMO games simply punt on this. The player can't truly alter the state of the world, and so any actions ultimately feel futile.
3) A pay-to-play model is a limiting factor. People play a fewer number of MMOs than traditional games because of the monthly fee. As such, the market space is more fiercely competitive in an already competitive industry. Gamers already playing with one game are highly unlikely to subscribe to another game. Additionally, many gamers are simply uncomfortable with the notion of paying for a game, and then *also* paying a monthly fee, and so won't be a part of the market regardless.
4) MMOs require a minimum amount of user participation in order to remain commercially viable. Unless the game develops a certain amount of traction, the servers are likely to shut down. After that, the game becomes unplayable forever. Gamers are aware of this, and so are often wary of MMOs that seem questionable.
We've already seen EA try and fail in this space. Earth and Beyond, The Sims Online, etc... Others have also had their share of failure: Asheron's Call 2, Auto Assault... These are not piddling startup companies or unknown properties here.
I think we're heading for a large number of MMOs released in the near future, and an almost equally large number of MMO failures and closures about a year or two from now. After that, only the largest competitors will be left, along with a small number of innovators. And by then, most publishers will be scared to death of the MMO market.
but you can get a pretty good idea what they are if you do a little research on the Unreal Tournament 3 engine
Well, you can perhaps get an idea of what technological features may be available, but minimum requirements is a little different. A lot of people attribute way too much of how a game looks and runs to the engine. System requirements are determined by the developer, not the engine - it's a matter of the poly, texture, and animation budgets they've allocated, and what minimum shader model they're requiring. Two different games both using the Unreal 3 engine could have *very* different runtime requirements based on this.
You joke, but that was a pretty freaky weird headline to someone like me who had no idea what "Android" was. It took me a few seconds to come to the conclusion that "Android" must be some sort of platform or SDK, but before that my brain came up with a few pretty strange scenarios.
From TFA:
"Java and Google Android programming experience" is listed as "highly desirable," but not required.
Still, yeah, it would have been funny, and not the first time we've seen that.
We ended up reaching a consensus that not everyone needs WPA, and people who do should buy a second AP for Nintendo WFC.
"Consensus"? On Slashdot? [citation needed]
Since I can only speak for myself: WEP is essentially a lock on a screen door at this point - it only keeps out those who make no effort to circumvent it. As it is, my wireless network stays as secure as I can make it with WPA security, and my DS stays disconnected. I have no interest in buying a redundant piece of hardware from Nintendo.
But then Obama and ACORN didn't have to twist bankers arms too much to get em to loan money to people who had damned near zero chance of repaying the loan.
In fact, a law was passed in 1977 and strengthened in 1995 requiring banks to do just that. Banks had to enter the sub-prime market to boost their CRA ratings, which was a prerequisite to acquiring other institutions.
Getting back on topic, though, it does really demonstrate how institutions can go up in a puff and flash of smoke. And if your date is with them, it's gone in a puff as well. Yeah, I'm afraid I have to agree with RMS here. Anyone who would entrust any sort of vital data to these schemes is insane.
...at least for me.
Most people in the video game industry, and many people who write about them for a living, hope for games to be taken seriously as art or literature.
I've been a programmer in the game industry for 11+ years now. I don't recall ever wishing video games to be taken as seriously as art or literature. I love what I do, but I have no illusions about creating "art", at least as this author is defining it. To me, "art" isn't some lofty goal - it's a department.
I take professional pride in creating the best game I know how to. For me, the best part of this job is knowing that someone is having a blast playing the game I had a small hand in creating. If someone wants to call that art, or a toy, or even a game, that's fine by me. As long as they had fun playing.
Oops, my bad. I was puzzling over your post and trying to figure out what you were getting at without looking at what you were responding to. Although I'm still not sure what the link to XNA has to do with anything.
My guess is since the Xbox doesn't have a true USB port, they can't implement a standard MIDI-over-USB protocol, and as such can't handshake properly with a computer or other USB MIDI device (most modern keyboards and such implement USB MIDI now).
Correct. They obviously are using a custom MIDI sequencer and player. Your point is...?
Yeah, that's why I asked the question - I was curious what was needed beyond the built-in utilities (I probably could have worded it better - and I think I sparked some ire by raising a question about the pricing issue). Thanks for the info.
Computing for the blind is an interesting problem for me. I'm a game developer, and I specialize in audio programming specifically. I've long thought about creating more software that only requires audio to play - about what sort of games those could be and how one would go about playing them.
Microsoft does do a good job with accessibility, especially Office, but there is no good to be had in overstating their effort.
I wasn't trying to overstate it. I was just trying to clarify what the Windows OS offered.
As TaxMan explained in his reply to your post, those are more like utilities than robust features that can be relied upon every day.
Ok, I'll take your word on that. I only have experience in programming for those features, not actually using them. I'll accept others' expertise on that.
You are trolling.
Just because someone disagrees with you doesn't mean they're trolling. It's great way to kill a discussion though.
These features probably couldn't be used for games unless they were bundled with the new DS, because they're not consistent across the DS hardware.
Generally speaking, add-on hardware tends to have much less of an impact in the gaming market than what the core hardware shipped with. You have to create games that work on ALL generations of hardware - that's the implied contract with customers. Consoles *shouldn't* be moving platforms. That would just alienate existing customers, and ultimately be a recipe for disaster.
If you buy a toaster and it doesn't work, you take it back. What makes the gaming industry so fucking special?
Simple. The fact that people can make a perfect digital copy of the game before returning it, then continue to play it.
If you could throw your toaster into your Scan-o-Replicator-3000 and make a perfect copy of it, I can guarantee you that retailers would be a bit less enthusiastic about accepting returns.
BTW, I'm not defending the practice or advocating it. Just giving you the reasoning behind it.
In XP, just look under Start | All Programs | Accessories | Accessibility... You'll find a number of accessibility programs, including a screen reader, magnifier, and programs to configure manage these features (Vista has these too, of course). What added services are you thinking of that cost $1000s?
There's plenty to knock Microsoft for, but I don't think accessibility support in their OS's is one of them. And honestly, are you seriously trying to tell me that buying a Mac is ever cheaper than a roughly equivalent Windows PC? Macs are great computers, don't get me wrong. But they're also *premium* devices, and cost more than PCs.
For me, if I lent someone my copy of StarCraft, it meant I was no longer able to play the game while my copy was loaned out. And naturally, loaning a console game is truly "loaning" for most people. That's what I was thinking of.
But you're correct, of course. If you're talking about pure digital content that can be completely installed on and run from the hard drive, then there's no such concept as "loaning" the software to someone. It's always a copy. And then the problem gets a bit more nebulous.
Ultimately, though, PC game developers are going to have to face up to a hard truth: they're relying on the good will of their customers to pay for a product that they could, without too much technical difficulty, get for free. This means that developers need to focus two aspects of game development:
a) They must forge a relationship with their customers, so that their customers are enthusiastic about supporting their development efforts with their money. Blizzard and StarDock operate on completely different scales, but both companies have very loyal customers who are willing to part with their money, with the understanding that it will likely go to fund further development of products they enjoy.
b) They can provide online services to enhance the game, and thus provide an incentive for legitimate purchases. Obviously, an MMO is the most extreme example of this, where the entire game takes place online. But matchmaking for online play, quick and easy patches, online bonus content... these are all ways of enhancing the player's experience as well.
The sad thing is, Spore has integrated online content. EA could have simply used the same method Blizzard and Stardock have used successfully - you must have a legitimate CD-Key to connect to online services. Now, they're simply alienating potential customers, and those who were determined to obtain the game without paying would have done so anyway.
I don't particularly agree with loaning it to someone,
"Loaning a game" implies that while the game is loaned out, the original owner can't play it. It's your game - you should be able to damn well decide who to loan it to. If you substitute "book" for "game", it sounds pretty ridiculous.
It's only when "loaning a game" translates to "burn a copy of the game" that you run into trouble. But that's not really "loaning", is it?
I think the truth of your statement will drive more and more games to be online only with no physical media. I'm not a game dev, but probably they would try to cache textures, and images locally but anything playable ("code") would be on the servers only. Because we all know that there are way too many people who will take anything for free that they can get - and just won't pay if they can get away with it.
You've just described why MMOs are the only truly successful genre left on the PC. Sad...
If I understand correctly, you're playing a version of Spore you didn't pay for then?
I guess the problem with that is you lose all moral authority when you actually decide the game is worth playing but don't wish to pay. In other words, if you had told us "I'd love to buy Spore, but the DRM made that impossible for me, so I'll just play and support games from companies like StarDock", it would then be a principled decision.
A boycott only means something when the consumer is willing to *go without*. No one listens to someone "boycotting" a product while they're still enjoying that product's use.
As someone who basically grew up on Sierra adventure games
As did I - Sierra games were among my first PC gaming experiences.
I have to wonder what in the world their problem is.
Well, from someone in the gaming industry, I can tell you what happened from my perspective. It's the same reason many companies go to hell - horrible management. For the past decade or so (a few years after Sierra was sold to CUC International), it's been pretty well known in the industry to stay far, far away from Sierra. I had heard many stories from a fellow programmer who had escaped - he had worked there for a number of years before being let go in one of their many "reorganizations".
Essentially, they were borderline abusive to their employees... long hours, low pay, little respect, and constant lies. People were developing chronic health problems from the stress, etc... If anyone complained too much, they were simply replaced by new developers fresh out of college - who would tend to put up with much worse than seasoned developers. Basically, it epitomized the worst of the game development industry from a few years ago (it's not like that so much anymore).
The result was obvious and predictable. Sierra's ability to create and release a decent product dwindled along with it's company morale, and the best and brightest employees were slowly bled off. Eventually, internal product development was canceled, and they became a publisher only. However, bad management screws up all things over time, and this was no exception. Sierra eventually reorganized pretty much out of existence, and the doors of their Bellevue, Washington offices closed in 2004. At this point, they're essentially just a division in name only of whoever owns them.
I really hope these games don't get buried under legal BS as so many important titles have in the past. There's a lot of marketing potential there, and if it's done the right way it could make whoever has the rights a nice little pile of cash, and maybe a new following.
I'd love to see this happen. My bet is that Activision will be too greedy to sell the rights at a price anyone could afford, but too indecisive to make any use of them, and they'll lie unused in perpetuity. It's what happens with a lot of great properties.
I suppose I could be wrong, but I'm really not holding my breath.
Well, games that are writing to your user folder are doing the "correct" thing, according to Microsoft.
http://ati.amd.com/developer/SwedenTechDay/02_Preparing_Games_for_Windows_Vista.pdf
It's not just about sharing - it's about security practices as well. If you are not running with Administrator privileges (which normal users are *supposed* to be running at), then these user directories are the only legitimate places an application can freely write to. In Vista, writing to the program files directory will be virtualized and shunted to a user-specific location anyhow. Games today still can't ignore running well on XP, but neither can they ignore the requirements of Vista.
Unfortunately, Microsoft has been pretty inconsistent about the recommended location of these types of files in the past - it's a bit of a moving target - as the inconsistency of your game saves shows. And unfortunately, Windows users (your post illustrates this exactly) have been wrongly trained to expect user-specific data to simply be written to a subfolder under the program's install directory or something like that (because this mechanism just hasn't been used or enforced on the Windows platform previously).
I empathize with the "messiness" of it, though. Incidentally, are you aware that you can point your "My Documents" folder anywhere, even a separate partition, or a common folder on your C drive? That might help you to keep things organized a bit better.
There was a method to block, you had to press Space (PC version, obviously) when the enemy's name blinked or something like that.
Wow... I still don't recall that mechanism. Lol, thanks. I'm going to play again and see if that even game up in the tutorials before the slum areas. Probably did, I'm sure I just forgot.
And yeah, one of the self-balancing mechanisms of RPGs is the ability to level grind if a player is having difficulty getting past a particular enemy. By removing this, they're fixing the difficulty level for us thick-headed folk at an absolute level. If we can't beat an enemy at the level they deem appropriate - well... SOL - or resort to hopping over to the forums to get hints.
You lost an achievement if any of the characters died, at all, even if you revive them. Assuming the Steam achievements match the Xbox achievements, of course.
Once again, good to know. You've earned that +Informative friend, thanks.