From experience I've found that it's much harder to return anything in Europe than it is in the US, the countries I've been to anyway. Regardless, even in the US, stores wont except returns for music and software if the package has been opened for obvious reasons.
How does someone even go about returning downloaded music? Unless the seller starts tracking what music you're playing and whether it's legal I don't see how this could possibly work. As much as I want to see the music industry get hit I can't say this is entirely fair, not without a way of ensuring song has been truly returned.
A few years ago I knew of a woman who started writing about where she worked. She avoided referring to the company or anyone there directly. However, she was so specific with details that fairly quickly her coworkers discovered this blog. It probably wouldn't be a big deal if she weren't insulting her coworkers constantly and inadvertently disclosing some sensitive information. Needless to say, soon enough she was out of a job.
That brings me to one of the problems with this kind of site. I don't think many people feel comfortable writing about their employer, especially if it's something negative. More importantly, however, do most people even have the time or inclination to bother with this? If they're already exhausted from being down in the trenches they're going to want to dwell on work in their free time.
If there is a bias towards management in the media it's because those guys are the people making the decisions. They're the ones who matter, they're the ones with the money and guiding the company. Obviously every employee is important and there are countless stories of incompetent managers. But that's irrelevant. The person down in the trenches is simply taking orders. For obvious reasons people want to know what companies are doing. It's easy to be informed because the information is readily available in most cases.
The only way I see for such a site to be effective is for it to have a unique hook. Fucked Company is one example that comes to mind. The information regarding layoffs and company closings is easy to gather. And any affected employee could easily share information. But most importantly, there was an emotional draw to the site. It made people want to visit and more importantly want to contribute.
At best this TrenchMice site will turn into a rant about companies. Usually the only people driven to comment are those who are unhappy with their situation. The ones who are happy see little need to contribute and likely are preoccupied with other things anyway. And if it ends up being mostly negative I don't think management is going to be too happy about some site disparaging their company.
It's an interesting idea, but I don't see it as too viable in it's present form.
Who ever said that cut-throat and capitalistic was fair.
This is a bit off-topic, but I just have to address this since it seems to be a common habit to bash capitalism on Slashdot.
People have a tendency to talk like these traits are unique to capitalistism, as if the system were somehow especially conducive to such imbalances. These are characteristics of the human race, not any particular political and social system.
I think I recall quite a few systems where the fewer effectively exploited the many. Monarchies and communism are two that spring to mind. Communism might have seemed nice on paper but in practice it was a complete and utter disaster. The people live in poverty with little drive to excel because there's no reason to bother and they've come to depend on the government for assistance.
In most situations capitalism allows anyone with a good bit of drive to be at least moderately successful. Humans, and nature in general are competitive. That's how we evolve. The ideal system encourages that and rewards people for their drive and hard work.
What's happened in Eve Online is not a result of a capitalist system. It's a result of people exploiting the system unfairly. And it wasn't a flaw in the system, it was a flaw in the management of the game that created imbalances and cheating on the part of some developers who decided to collude with players.
The box art looks amateurish at best. A minimalist design only works well when the design has one distinct element in the layout. In the case of that Half Life 2 packaging you've got a few logos competing for attention, the worst one being that Playstation 3 logo.
The designer might have been forced to use to logos, but that still doesn't excuse the typography which is atrocious. There's no sense of order and the text runs on like it's one long title. Nothing is emphasized.
Game packaging is rarely known for it's good design anyway, but this does look like a hack job. There are some applications out there that have minimalist packaging but are very attractive. Game packaging is generally gaudy and colorful because the developers want it to jump off the shelves. Of course the problem is when you've got every other game package designed with the same goal in mind. Instead a you're greated to a sea of colorful nonsense where it's difficult to identify anything.
For the love of god... I actually had this idea a few years ago. I was playing around with my phone and found it easier to access the keys with the phone upside down. My idea would have the screen offset by a few millimeters so that it wouldn't be obscured by the palm.
I didn't actually think it was a patent worthy idea. I didn't think much of the idea at all. I guess somebody else has. What a joke.
I think people should be outraged that Boston somehow managed to spend over $750,000 in a day investigating this nonsense.
I recall sometime last year during a strike how this town somehow spent $250,000 in 20 days to have a few police officers keeping order during the day. My recollection was that they had two cops stationed there at any time. $250,000?
It's like the government, local and federal, just can't spend money quickly enough. But then, what the hell do they care? They just raise taxes and screw everyone. It's not their money. The government is like a bad welfare case.
It's not that someone couldn't develop a portable console that could compete with the Nintendo DS. It's that nobody seems to have the sense to do it right. Nokia doesn't have a history in game development, which is a huge deficiency if they intend on entering the console market. If they could establish a tight-knit relationship with some developer that may help, but that's very unlikely.
The fact that Nokia has mentioned they're looking to EA Mobile and Gameloft to develop games indicates that the N-Gage is already doomed. Let's ignore for a minute the fact that EA generally develops crap. Gameloft makes some good-looking games, but they don't always play well and too much of their line-up consists of licenses. The biggest issue here is that these companies both have experience with mobile phone game development. I doubt they have the skill set necessary to develop games on the level of what's seen for the DS or PSP. No one is likely to see the N-Gage as anything other than an overgrown mobile phone.
So Nokia will likely cram the N-Gage full of features. They'll give it the usual overdone Nokia design treatment that looks outdated within a weak. It won't appeal to their target and will likely confuse everyone else.
The problem ultimately is that the N-Gage is driven by a desire to cash in on what looks like a burgeoning market. It's driven by money. If their motivation was to do something that was truly compelling, if they had a goal of outdoing the competition I'd say they might have a chance. But instead, they're just doing what anyone else might have done, offering nothing new, and hoping buy on to this thing.
I've played the Wii a bit, and while I did find it to be very entertaining I can't say the games are any more enjoyable than anything else I've played. I've had at least as much fun gaming with friends on the Gamecube. So ultimately, while I could appreciate the unique control scheme I don't think it was compelling enough for me to decide to spend the money on a Wii. I'd say a DS, which offers similar gameplay albeit with a different, but still unique control scheme provides more value for the dollar.
We've seen the thinking for a while that advanced graphics somehow translate to superior gameplay. But there's this expectation now that somehow a unique controller is somehow going to spur new unheard levels of gameplay. Playing with the Wii I was already seeing limitations with the controller. What it does it does amazingly well and it does make for games that are undeniably fun. But the game has to be built around the controller. A regular controller still makes for a better general device. I'd say the functionality that will provide the most benefit will be the targeting feature, being able to point at something on the screen and not fiddle with an analog stick.
Being a PC gamer I've never spent money on a new console. What I have gotten was used, so my console experience has all come from gaming at a friend's house or more recently, via emulation. However, it has crossed my mind to go out and get a PS2. Although I tend to favor Nintendo for gaming, I'd get a PS2 over a Gamecube because of variety. And some of the most unique or compelling games out there haven't been released on Nintendo's console. Look at Katamari Damacy, Shadow of the Colossus, God of War, Okami, and Guitar Hero among others. And these are all recent games. The other console I'd seriously consider is the Nintendo DS. It already has a strong library, it's portable and being able to play other people online is great.
Even with the Wii's strong sales it's still far too early to tell who's going to win in this generation. But last generation consoles offer a massive library of proven games, they're inexpensive and by this point any reliability issues have long since been worked out. When looking at gameplay it quickly becomes apparent that the new consoles are all over-rated in their own ways.
This, just days after two Final Fantasy VII fans were arrested in connection with a series of killings.
Most people are a fan of something. Is the media going to start associating other crimes with the personal interests of those perpetrators? In some cases it may provide some insight but in most cases it does not. I can think of a few things out there more closely related to crime than this and those aren't investigated.
But I guess this hits closer to home for many people and when was the last time the news media hasn't sensationalized a story to make a few extra dollars?
There's something very frustrating about government officials getting fixated on non-issues when there are far more serious problems to contend with.
I'm amazed... I managed a score of 0. I've noticed that it's strictly taboo. I've noticed that it's strictly taboo to even remotely criticize anything related to games on Slashdot. I bet my post would have been deleted if it had been possible, which is kind of ironic considering the nature of the discussion.
Having seen the game for myself I stand by my argument that the game was created for no other reason that for it's shock value. And not seeing anything particularly merit-worthy, gameplay-wise I don't see how the game even ended up as a finalist. I can only assume the justification was to make a statement or because of the aforementioned shock value. Perhaps I haven't played the game enough to appreciate the original standing; it's entirely possible.
Very sensitive subjects have been touched on in literature and art for ages. And I've got no problem with that at all. But it all depends on the context and how it's depicted. I can think of several ways I could have depicted to Columbine murders in a disturbing manner, giving you insight into those two kids without having made it so shockingly offensive. There seems to be this tendency to deem something praise-worthy merely because it creates a stir by offending people.
Back to the censorship issue. I can't go into your house and force you to watch or play something you don't like. Isn't the common argument when people see something they don't like on television to change the channel? So if a private organization decides to remove a game from their competition, regardless of their initial acceptance, why shouldn't they be free to do so? Must people no be forced to acknowledge anything and everything regardless of whether or not they find it offensive simply because other people insist on it?
Isn't that how this country works? If people are unhappy, they have other means of protesting. They pull out of this competition and take part in another where such games are given the kind of recognition they deem worthy. Jeez, this is so elemental that I'm honestly shocked there was such a reaction to my first post.
And mind you, I never said that the game should be banned in general. Those guys are free to distribute that game to their heart's content. I'm simply expressing my own opinion on the matter. So much for my karma, not that I much care.
Imagine Dominoes Pizza deciding it objected to the theme of Brokeback Mountain and told the Academy Awards to remove it.
That's a poor analogy. It would be like Domino's pizza objecting to a movie that glorified the two kids who went on a rampage at that school. And I would fully expect that such a movie would be pulled from such a competition.
People like to throw around the term censorship, but it's really only censorship if the government is involved. A private entity has every right to screen whatever they want. Why is it improper for them to have decided they don't want that RPG included in their competition. It isn't, just like the creator of Flow had every right to protest by pulling out of the competition.
I tend to be fairly open-minded, but I can't help but get the distinct impression that the creator of that Columbine RPG created that game for the sole purpose of being controversial. He want to get a rise out of people and hopefully get their 15 minutes of fame by being offensive. He seems to try to make the game seem more profound than it actually turns out to be. He could have explored the motivations of those two kids in a more thought provoking manner. He could have been just as shocking but far less offensive. However, people go for shock value because it's easy. I frankly think it's an amateurish way of getting attention.
We don't just get to partake in free speech and that's the end of it. We're supposed to be responsible for what we do. But it seems most people have chosen to forget that part of the equation. Ultimately, at what point do you draw the line? What if I decide to make a game where the player is a rapist? The player earns experience by going around raping women and children. Or worse, how about a game where the player works at a Nazi concentration camp massacring innocents?
Regardless of whatever profound statement claim I'm trying to make should should that sort of crap be permissible? At what point do we decide a line has been crossed or do we just say that anything is fair game?
Like I said before, I'm fairly open-minded. I think the reaction to that hot-coffee mod was absolutely ridiculous, for example. And these political campaigns to stop offensive games are absurd. There's no substitute for proper parenting, although that's something sorely lacking in this day and age. Nevertheless, I do think there's a limit; there's a point when someone has really gone too far.
How the matter is addressed at that point quickly becomes a tough question for many people. But one thing that I don't think should even be an issue is Slamdance's right to ban any game they find offensive. Whether they came to the decision themselves or advertisers requested this of them is irrelevant. You have the right to control what is watched in your own home, why shouldn't these companies have the right to do the same?
Can't televisions networks produce anything that's isn't interesting in it's own right without trying to be trendy? Can't they produce something that isn't intended for someone with a 3 second attention span?
They can't present a machine going through the motions in normal speed. They have to shave off a few seconds my constantly speeding video up several times. Either that or they spam the view with a barrage of imagery that never quite convey anything. Some shows are so bad about it to the point of it being a distracting. They can't get into detail with anything instead glossing over everything and instead presenting simplistic facts. And almost worst of all are the obnoxious hosts who can't be professional and serious, preferring to be stupid twits instead.
And it looks like advertising is leading he way with this garbage. Advertisers no longer just have a person stand in front of a camera and speak. Now they have to splice together a series of unrelated nonsense statements that don't actually make any point. I guess it's more "real" that way. And that's when they aren't filming the proceedings with a jittery camera that isn't constantly going out of focus. It's enough to drive someone insane.
It's sad that PBS has succumbed to this sort of nonsense. But then, what do you expect considering how pervasive this garbage is on American television. We have 24 hour news networks that can spare more than 30 seconds for a news story. Everything is always presented like they're in a rush. But they never provide anything of substance to begin with, instead regurgitating whatever poor investigating some other news agency passes for journalism.
I guess it's fairly apparent I don't like television much.
Prius and Civic hybrids get 55 and 50 MPG combined, respectively.
That's nice, expect that both of those cars have been publicized to get mileage in the 40s, at best. I know people who own the Prius who confirm those stories. I'm not looking to absolve the US automakers of any wrongdoing. Their excessive focus on SUVs is inexcusable. But stupid consumers have an unhealthy obsession with those things. Even in Europe the things are starting to be popular. My problem is with the attitude that hybrids are somehow going to save the world.
Having driven the Prius I've found that the engine comes on far too often. The only way to have the electric motor motivate the car on it's own is to accelerate slowly or coast at speeds slow enough to aggravate most drivers.
Hybrids are a fad more than anything. If people truly cared about economy they'd be demanding the sorts of economy cars available in Europe with 1 and 1.2 liter engines which truly get 50mpg, or better yet, small displacement diesels which get well above 60mpg. Americans, however, see cars as too much of a status symbol so we get stuck with cars like the Fit or the Yaris which despite being small don't get mileage above 40mpg because they're equipped with unnecessarily large engines.
And let's not forget about how polluting the batteries themselves are both during manufacture and especially during disposal. And those batteries aren't expected to last 100,000 miles which means in a few short years people are gonig to be facing a bill of at least $5000 to replace them; the batteries alone cost that much and who knows how much more labor will be. To put that in perspective rebuilding an engine shouldn't cost more than $2000 and there are virtually no cars on the road today that would need a rebuild at 150,000 miles let alone 100,000. I suppose those who switch cars every couple of years will never experience the problem, but the rest of us who do hold onto our cars or buy used will be forced to deal with these problems.
Hybrids are a fad, nothing more. Automakers are simply jumping on the bandwagon because so far it seems to be an easy way to make money. It's an overly complicated system just to achieve minimal fuel savings. You could get an economy car in the early 90s with as good mileage as a hybrid today. It didn't have the power output of a contemporary car, but when you're concerned about fuel consumption who the hell cares?
I hope there are some automakers out there who sidestep the nonsense and work on truly innovative. The GM Volt seems cool, but I hate to admit that I don't have high hopes given who's promising to build it. Not because of that documentary which was a bit biased anyway, but because GM has a history of making promises to build some publicity and then not following through with it.
Maybe that is why atleast in the North-Eastern part of USA, we have had a wet Christmas instead of a white one.
Having grown up in the Northeast I'd like to know when it is that we've ever had a white Christmas. In fact, a few years ago I read something about how contrary to the expectation that we should get snow on Christmas very few parts of the country actually see snow on a consistent basis for the holiday. I don't remember the percentage exactly, but it was quite high.
Even though I generally think the PS3 is crap doomed to failure I actually thought Motorstorm was a lot of fun. I also thought the graphics and vehicle physics were quite good. You don't need an exaggerated, unrealistic sense of speed for a game to be fun.
I'm curious to see how Flash games will run on the Wii given that Flash can make even a decent machine bog down. Of course, a lot of it is dependent on how efficient the code is but Flash itself is far from ideal as a programming language. It still seems not to use any hardware acceleration, although that might be irrelevant given that the Wii is a completely different platform.
I'm curious to see, however, Flash handles the Wii remote and how its buttons get mapped in Flash. The only solution is to have the buttons mapped to any key on a keyboard. There is something out there that allows a controller to be used with Flash, but I don't think it would ever work with the Wii. Also, if I'm not mistaken Flash still only supports the left mouse button. It's cool if they get it working, but I foresee quite a few issues. Of course, not having used a Wii myself I may be overreacting about this.
There are some great flash games out there that put even some commercial software to shame. That's one thing that struck me in particular about some of what's available for the DS; they look like nothing but a collection of glorifed Flash games.
And in fact, this is how Japanese businesses typically behave in the Japanese market. Taking responsibility, sometimes more than they deserve blame for, and making it right, even if it means the president of the company has to go from Okinawa to Hokkaido and personally ring doorbells and apologize to everyone who was wronged.
No, this isn't how every Japanese business behaves. Many companies have covered up and denied problems, it's no different than Western companies. In fact, it's customary for companies there to cover up problems, quietly address them and release those fixes in subsequent models. Mitsubishi a few years ago was discovered to be covering up defects in their automobiles. I think one of their own veteran test drivers, who had been very loyal to the company ultimately helped to disclose these problems. There have been cases where people have gotten sick at restaurants and they offer a palty sum of money, not even enough to cover medical expenses. And, the last time I check Sony was a Japanese company and they've tried covering up countless problems and in fact have often failed to recall defective products.
If anything, it's easier for companies to get away with this in Japan than it is in the US because Japanese are a lot less likely to become vocal and try to fight a big company. They certianly don't engage in lawsuits like Americans do.
I do agree, however, that when someone is has been uncovered of wrongdoing they will openly apologize for it. In the US corporate management will deny everything and make excuses to the bitter end. In Japan they'll hold a press conference and make a direct apology to everyone, stating how they've shamed themselves, their family and their company. You'd never see that in the US. Then again, many Americans think money is the best form of apology and a CEO apologizing would be seen as an admission of guilt and thus paving the way for a lawsuit.
Those girls in hentai are young. They're all high school girls, at best.
And asians don't necessarily look younger than westerners. In many cases they do, but that's because of culture and fashion more than any genetic trait. The fashions coming out of Japan, and influencing much of Asia all tend to be more child-like. It's all about looking as young as possible. Contrast that with the US where the trends among young people is to look older. Of course this is all driven by corporations and the entertainment industry. And interestingly, this gets reversed at about the age of 30. From that point on Westerners generally look younger than their Asian counterparts.
Back to the original topic... This looks like thought control to me. I can understand the rationale behind this, but I think this is yet another example of the government being overly protectionist and the citizens not wanting to be responsible for anything.
In some cases I'd argue 2D games are superior than 3D games. Excluding truly old games, 2D in general ages much better than 3D. NES games, and especially anything produced since then generally still looks good today whereas PS1 and even many PS2-era games look severely outdated. I suppose it's a consequence of how much 3D has evolved but I also think it's that there is a general lack of style to 3D.
In 2D creativity is required to properly depict a character or environment. And because it's closer to a cartoon or comic book in how the art is produced that enables the artist to be more faithful to the original concept. I can't help but notice that in 3D games the concept art is consistently more impressive than the three-dimensional end result. Part of it is a technological limitation, but I think a more significant problem is production limitation. Designers just don't have the time to invest in producing artwork that's detailed to the level of the original concept. I do think, however, that cartoony 3D games are more faithful to the source because that complexity isn't there.
It does bring me to another problem which is developer's current obsession with recreating reality in game art. It seems that there's this consensus that the only way to impress people with graphics is by making them as realistic as possible. Unfortunately, it also sucks the personality out of the game. Let's take Oblivion. Technically, it's impressive. But from an artistic and stylistic sense it's terrible. The game looks like a tech demo where they tried to recreate photos of forests and castles. The characters don't look like battle-hardened, magically-infused inhabitants of a fantasy world. They look like actors, like they pulled some guy off the street and had him wear a suit of armor.
Certainly, there are exceptions. Japanese RPGs, for example, tend to use a more creative art style but then they're also being more faithful to 2D art to begin with. Even recent Final Fantasy games which tend to look more realistic are infused with plenty of style and fantasy.
However, even then there is yet another problem. The amount of production required for many current 3D games is mind-boggling. It often feels like the developer has put more effort into the art than they have into the gameplay. A developer isn't limited by being forced to reproduce a fairly realistic physics model, for example. It doesn't matter that Mario can jump 10 meters, it doesnt matter whether he looks convincing when he falls. There are no concerns about the camera. 2D games are all about gameplay. The emphasis isn't put on whether something looks and feels convincing but rather if it plays as desired. It doesn't matter if an environment doesn't look like a realistic location if the sequence is entertaining.
It's not to say that 2D games are easy to create. It still requires a lot of work to make a 2D game look good. And excluding perhaps shooters and puzzle games, it demands an immense amount of illustration. Imagine trying to create all the artwork for a game like Street Figther 3. It's so daunting a task that it does make 3D very attractive. 3D can simplify production immensely.
Ultimately, the problem isn't 3D in and of itself but the fact that developers today overdo everything. It's entirely possible, if they kept things simple, that a 3D game could require less production than some of the more complex 2D games. Either way, in the end it does all come down to gameplay more than it does the number of dimensions.
Please people -let's try to stay on track, and not degenerate into evolution/religion flame wars. Slashdot is about nerd news - science, computers, etc. Evolution falls into that, and should be discussed here with the concept of that it is an accepted scientific process. If you wish to dispute that, please go to another website, where evolution is not accepted.
Am I missing something here? Who here was arguing evolution that it required this kind of comment? This might as well be an instigation for that sort of argument. This sort of pointless overreaction seems uncalled for.
There are millions of people who live on less than $25,000 per year in North America and they are probably not going to rush out to spend hundreds of dollars on a new TV.
Well, I know of two cable guys who would disagree with that statement. They'd point out that there are probably more people who earn less than $25,000 in the inner city who own new HDTVs than you'd find in most middle-class neighborhoods. And by the time 2009 comes around these television sets will be even cheaper, assuming people dont just get adapters. I just hope that in the US we don't start seeing tax dollars go to handouts to provide assistance to people who supposedly can't afford a brand new TV set.
I feel compelled to add that Taiwan does at least as much LCD manufacturing as South Korea and Japan does it's fair share. The key companies are LG, Philips as you mention in addition to AU Optronics which is another huge player. They don't have their own brand, however, which is why no one ever thinks of them.
Sharp doesn't rebrand LCD displays produced by other manufacturers, not as far as I know. They design and manufacture their own LCDs and have produced some fairly innovative display technologies. The American computer companies tend to be the ones putting their own brands on someone else's product, Dell being one of the more prominent ones.
There are so many companies involved in the various aspects of LCD manufacturing and design that I'm a bit surprised that there would be any kind of collusion going on. And given how LCD prices prices have fallen, it makes it even more unlikely. But then again, I guess it's possible.
This to me just demonstrates the quality of the advertising and marketing industry. They produce this sort of garbage more for their own reputation and portfolio than they do for the good of the client.
They want to demonstrate that they're capable of doing extreme, creative work but the end result is lame and far from being creative. It's like they produce the first crappy idea someone comes up with. And it seems they're obsessed with Adult Swim and Youtube.
I'm curious is Sony openly embraced these campaigns or if they were forced into it by the marketing company. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the latter. From personal experience, I've found the people at many of these advertising companies to be very arrogant. I also get the distinct impression from their surveys that they seem to have a habit of fabricating market research which somehow always demonstrates that their way of doing things is the most effective.
I realize everyone seems to enjoy bashing Sony and I can't say I disagree with much of what is said. That said, I can't say this is unique to Sony. I'd say most consumer goods companies use this sort of advertising. To single out Sony for this over anyone else is a bit foolish to me. What I do hate is this sort of advertising, to me it's an insult to my intelligence. But then, I hate advertising in general.
So Super smash brothers brawl, wario Ware, Wii Play, Super mario galaxy, Super Paper Mario,Metroid Prime 3 are all shovel ware
I don't have much doubt that those will all be great games. However, those are also all being developed by Nintendo. That's not much different than the Gamecube where most of the best games were also developed by Nintendo. These games can sustain the system but they won't make it a true success without good third party games.
Slashdot Mirror
From experience I've found that it's much harder to return anything in Europe than it is in the US, the countries I've been to anyway. Regardless, even in the US, stores wont except returns for music and software if the package has been opened for obvious reasons.
How does someone even go about returning downloaded music? Unless the seller starts tracking what music you're playing and whether it's legal I don't see how this could possibly work. As much as I want to see the music industry get hit I can't say this is entirely fair, not without a way of ensuring song has been truly returned.
A few years ago I knew of a woman who started writing about where she worked. She avoided referring to the company or anyone there directly. However, she was so specific with details that fairly quickly her coworkers discovered this blog. It probably wouldn't be a big deal if she weren't insulting her coworkers constantly and inadvertently disclosing some sensitive information. Needless to say, soon enough she was out of a job.
That brings me to one of the problems with this kind of site. I don't think many people feel comfortable writing about their employer, especially if it's something negative. More importantly, however, do most people even have the time or inclination to bother with this? If they're already exhausted from being down in the trenches they're going to want to dwell on work in their free time.
If there is a bias towards management in the media it's because those guys are the people making the decisions. They're the ones who matter, they're the ones with the money and guiding the company. Obviously every employee is important and there are countless stories of incompetent managers. But that's irrelevant. The person down in the trenches is simply taking orders. For obvious reasons people want to know what companies are doing. It's easy to be informed because the information is readily available in most cases.
The only way I see for such a site to be effective is for it to have a unique hook. Fucked Company is one example that comes to mind. The information regarding layoffs and company closings is easy to gather. And any affected employee could easily share information. But most importantly, there was an emotional draw to the site. It made people want to visit and more importantly want to contribute.
At best this TrenchMice site will turn into a rant about companies. Usually the only people driven to comment are those who are unhappy with their situation. The ones who are happy see little need to contribute and likely are preoccupied with other things anyway. And if it ends up being mostly negative I don't think management is going to be too happy about some site disparaging their company.
It's an interesting idea, but I don't see it as too viable in it's present form.
This is a bit off-topic, but I just have to address this since it seems to be a common habit to bash capitalism on Slashdot.
People have a tendency to talk like these traits are unique to capitalistism, as if the system were somehow especially conducive to such imbalances. These are characteristics of the human race, not any particular political and social system.
I think I recall quite a few systems where the fewer effectively exploited the many. Monarchies and communism are two that spring to mind. Communism might have seemed nice on paper but in practice it was a complete and utter disaster. The people live in poverty with little drive to excel because there's no reason to bother and they've come to depend on the government for assistance.
In most situations capitalism allows anyone with a good bit of drive to be at least moderately successful. Humans, and nature in general are competitive. That's how we evolve. The ideal system encourages that and rewards people for their drive and hard work.
What's happened in Eve Online is not a result of a capitalist system. It's a result of people exploiting the system unfairly. And it wasn't a flaw in the system, it was a flaw in the management of the game that created imbalances and cheating on the part of some developers who decided to collude with players.
The box art looks amateurish at best. A minimalist design only works well when the design has one distinct element in the layout. In the case of that Half Life 2 packaging you've got a few logos competing for attention, the worst one being that Playstation 3 logo.
The designer might have been forced to use to logos, but that still doesn't excuse the typography which is atrocious. There's no sense of order and the text runs on like it's one long title. Nothing is emphasized.
Game packaging is rarely known for it's good design anyway, but this does look like a hack job. There are some applications out there that have minimalist packaging but are very attractive. Game packaging is generally gaudy and colorful because the developers want it to jump off the shelves. Of course the problem is when you've got every other game package designed with the same goal in mind. Instead a you're greated to a sea of colorful nonsense where it's difficult to identify anything.
For the love of god... I actually had this idea a few years ago. I was playing around with my phone and found it easier to access the keys with the phone upside down. My idea would have the screen offset by a few millimeters so that it wouldn't be obscured by the palm.
I didn't actually think it was a patent worthy idea. I didn't think much of the idea at all. I guess somebody else has. What a joke.
I think people should be outraged that Boston somehow managed to spend over $750,000 in a day investigating this nonsense.
I recall sometime last year during a strike how this town somehow spent $250,000 in 20 days to have a few police officers keeping order during the day. My recollection was that they had two cops stationed there at any time. $250,000?
It's like the government, local and federal, just can't spend money quickly enough. But then, what the hell do they care? They just raise taxes and screw everyone. It's not their money. The government is like a bad welfare case.
It's not that someone couldn't develop a portable console that could compete with the Nintendo DS. It's that nobody seems to have the sense to do it right. Nokia doesn't have a history in game development, which is a huge deficiency if they intend on entering the console market. If they could establish a tight-knit relationship with some developer that may help, but that's very unlikely.
The fact that Nokia has mentioned they're looking to EA Mobile and Gameloft to develop games indicates that the N-Gage is already doomed. Let's ignore for a minute the fact that EA generally develops crap. Gameloft makes some good-looking games, but they don't always play well and too much of their line-up consists of licenses. The biggest issue here is that these companies both have experience with mobile phone game development. I doubt they have the skill set necessary to develop games on the level of what's seen for the DS or PSP. No one is likely to see the N-Gage as anything other than an overgrown mobile phone.
So Nokia will likely cram the N-Gage full of features. They'll give it the usual overdone Nokia design treatment that looks outdated within a weak. It won't appeal to their target and will likely confuse everyone else.
The problem ultimately is that the N-Gage is driven by a desire to cash in on what looks like a burgeoning market. It's driven by money. If their motivation was to do something that was truly compelling, if they had a goal of outdoing the competition I'd say they might have a chance. But instead, they're just doing what anyone else might have done, offering nothing new, and hoping buy on to this thing.
I've played the Wii a bit, and while I did find it to be very entertaining I can't say the games are any more enjoyable than anything else I've played. I've had at least as much fun gaming with friends on the Gamecube. So ultimately, while I could appreciate the unique control scheme I don't think it was compelling enough for me to decide to spend the money on a Wii. I'd say a DS, which offers similar gameplay albeit with a different, but still unique control scheme provides more value for the dollar.
We've seen the thinking for a while that advanced graphics somehow translate to superior gameplay. But there's this expectation now that somehow a unique controller is somehow going to spur new unheard levels of gameplay. Playing with the Wii I was already seeing limitations with the controller. What it does it does amazingly well and it does make for games that are undeniably fun. But the game has to be built around the controller. A regular controller still makes for a better general device. I'd say the functionality that will provide the most benefit will be the targeting feature, being able to point at something on the screen and not fiddle with an analog stick.
Being a PC gamer I've never spent money on a new console. What I have gotten was used, so my console experience has all come from gaming at a friend's house or more recently, via emulation. However, it has crossed my mind to go out and get a PS2. Although I tend to favor Nintendo for gaming, I'd get a PS2 over a Gamecube because of variety. And some of the most unique or compelling games out there haven't been released on Nintendo's console. Look at Katamari Damacy, Shadow of the Colossus, God of War, Okami, and Guitar Hero among others. And these are all recent games. The other console I'd seriously consider is the Nintendo DS. It already has a strong library, it's portable and being able to play other people online is great.
Even with the Wii's strong sales it's still far too early to tell who's going to win in this generation. But last generation consoles offer a massive library of proven games, they're inexpensive and by this point any reliability issues have long since been worked out. When looking at gameplay it quickly becomes apparent that the new consoles are all over-rated in their own ways.
Most people are a fan of something. Is the media going to start associating other crimes with the personal interests of those perpetrators? In some cases it may provide some insight but in most cases it does not. I can think of a few things out there more closely related to crime than this and those aren't investigated.
But I guess this hits closer to home for many people and when was the last time the news media hasn't sensationalized a story to make a few extra dollars?
There's something very frustrating about government officials getting fixated on non-issues when there are far more serious problems to contend with.
I'm amazed... I managed a score of 0. I've noticed that it's strictly taboo. I've noticed that it's strictly taboo to even remotely criticize anything related to games on Slashdot. I bet my post would have been deleted if it had been possible, which is kind of ironic considering the nature of the discussion.
Having seen the game for myself I stand by my argument that the game was created for no other reason that for it's shock value. And not seeing anything particularly merit-worthy, gameplay-wise I don't see how the game even ended up as a finalist. I can only assume the justification was to make a statement or because of the aforementioned shock value. Perhaps I haven't played the game enough to appreciate the original standing; it's entirely possible.
Very sensitive subjects have been touched on in literature and art for ages. And I've got no problem with that at all. But it all depends on the context and how it's depicted. I can think of several ways I could have depicted to Columbine murders in a disturbing manner, giving you insight into those two kids without having made it so shockingly offensive. There seems to be this tendency to deem something praise-worthy merely because it creates a stir by offending people.
Back to the censorship issue. I can't go into your house and force you to watch or play something you don't like. Isn't the common argument when people see something they don't like on television to change the channel? So if a private organization decides to remove a game from their competition, regardless of their initial acceptance, why shouldn't they be free to do so? Must people no be forced to acknowledge anything and everything regardless of whether or not they find it offensive simply because other people insist on it?
Isn't that how this country works? If people are unhappy, they have other means of protesting. They pull out of this competition and take part in another where such games are given the kind of recognition they deem worthy. Jeez, this is so elemental that I'm honestly shocked there was such a reaction to my first post.
And mind you, I never said that the game should be banned in general. Those guys are free to distribute that game to their heart's content. I'm simply expressing my own opinion on the matter. So much for my karma, not that I much care.
That's a poor analogy. It would be like Domino's pizza objecting to a movie that glorified the two kids who went on a rampage at that school. And I would fully expect that such a movie would be pulled from such a competition.
People like to throw around the term censorship, but it's really only censorship if the government is involved. A private entity has every right to screen whatever they want. Why is it improper for them to have decided they don't want that RPG included in their competition. It isn't, just like the creator of Flow had every right to protest by pulling out of the competition.
I tend to be fairly open-minded, but I can't help but get the distinct impression that the creator of that Columbine RPG created that game for the sole purpose of being controversial. He want to get a rise out of people and hopefully get their 15 minutes of fame by being offensive. He seems to try to make the game seem more profound than it actually turns out to be. He could have explored the motivations of those two kids in a more thought provoking manner. He could have been just as shocking but far less offensive. However, people go for shock value because it's easy. I frankly think it's an amateurish way of getting attention.
We don't just get to partake in free speech and that's the end of it. We're supposed to be responsible for what we do. But it seems most people have chosen to forget that part of the equation. Ultimately, at what point do you draw the line? What if I decide to make a game where the player is a rapist? The player earns experience by going around raping women and children. Or worse, how about a game where the player works at a Nazi concentration camp massacring innocents?
Regardless of whatever profound statement claim I'm trying to make should should that sort of crap be permissible? At what point do we decide a line has been crossed or do we just say that anything is fair game?
Like I said before, I'm fairly open-minded. I think the reaction to that hot-coffee mod was absolutely ridiculous, for example. And these political campaigns to stop offensive games are absurd. There's no substitute for proper parenting, although that's something sorely lacking in this day and age. Nevertheless, I do think there's a limit; there's a point when someone has really gone too far.
How the matter is addressed at that point quickly becomes a tough question for many people. But one thing that I don't think should even be an issue is Slamdance's right to ban any game they find offensive. Whether they came to the decision themselves or advertisers requested this of them is irrelevant. You have the right to control what is watched in your own home, why shouldn't these companies have the right to do the same?
This is the best explanation I've seen to date for why quantum entanglement doesn't work as a means of communication.
Can't televisions networks produce anything that's isn't interesting in it's own right without trying to be trendy? Can't they produce something that isn't intended for someone with a 3 second attention span?
They can't present a machine going through the motions in normal speed. They have to shave off a few seconds my constantly speeding video up several times. Either that or they spam the view with a barrage of imagery that never quite convey anything. Some shows are so bad about it to the point of it being a distracting. They can't get into detail with anything instead glossing over everything and instead presenting simplistic facts. And almost worst of all are the obnoxious hosts who can't be professional and serious, preferring to be stupid twits instead.
And it looks like advertising is leading he way with this garbage. Advertisers no longer just have a person stand in front of a camera and speak. Now they have to splice together a series of unrelated nonsense statements that don't actually make any point. I guess it's more "real" that way. And that's when they aren't filming the proceedings with a jittery camera that isn't constantly going out of focus. It's enough to drive someone insane.
It's sad that PBS has succumbed to this sort of nonsense. But then, what do you expect considering how pervasive this garbage is on American television. We have 24 hour news networks that can spare more than 30 seconds for a news story. Everything is always presented like they're in a rush. But they never provide anything of substance to begin with, instead regurgitating whatever poor investigating some other news agency passes for journalism.
I guess it's fairly apparent I don't like television much.
That's nice, expect that both of those cars have been publicized to get mileage in the 40s, at best. I know people who own the Prius who confirm those stories. I'm not looking to absolve the US automakers of any wrongdoing. Their excessive focus on SUVs is inexcusable. But stupid consumers have an unhealthy obsession with those things. Even in Europe the things are starting to be popular. My problem is with the attitude that hybrids are somehow going to save the world.
Having driven the Prius I've found that the engine comes on far too often. The only way to have the electric motor motivate the car on it's own is to accelerate slowly or coast at speeds slow enough to aggravate most drivers.
Hybrids are a fad more than anything. If people truly cared about economy they'd be demanding the sorts of economy cars available in Europe with 1 and 1.2 liter engines which truly get 50mpg, or better yet, small displacement diesels which get well above 60mpg. Americans, however, see cars as too much of a status symbol so we get stuck with cars like the Fit or the Yaris which despite being small don't get mileage above 40mpg because they're equipped with unnecessarily large engines.
And let's not forget about how polluting the batteries themselves are both during manufacture and especially during disposal. And those batteries aren't expected to last 100,000 miles which means in a few short years people are gonig to be facing a bill of at least $5000 to replace them; the batteries alone cost that much and who knows how much more labor will be. To put that in perspective rebuilding an engine shouldn't cost more than $2000 and there are virtually no cars on the road today that would need a rebuild at 150,000 miles let alone 100,000. I suppose those who switch cars every couple of years will never experience the problem, but the rest of us who do hold onto our cars or buy used will be forced to deal with these problems.
Hybrids are a fad, nothing more. Automakers are simply jumping on the bandwagon because so far it seems to be an easy way to make money. It's an overly complicated system just to achieve minimal fuel savings. You could get an economy car in the early 90s with as good mileage as a hybrid today. It didn't have the power output of a contemporary car, but when you're concerned about fuel consumption who the hell cares?
I hope there are some automakers out there who sidestep the nonsense and work on truly innovative. The GM Volt seems cool, but I hate to admit that I don't have high hopes given who's promising to build it. Not because of that documentary which was a bit biased anyway, but because GM has a history of making promises to build some publicity and then not following through with it.
Having grown up in the Northeast I'd like to know when it is that we've ever had a white Christmas. In fact, a few years ago I read something about how contrary to the expectation that we should get snow on Christmas very few parts of the country actually see snow on a consistent basis for the holiday. I don't remember the percentage exactly, but it was quite high.
Even though I generally think the PS3 is crap doomed to failure I actually thought Motorstorm was a lot of fun. I also thought the graphics and vehicle physics were quite good. You don't need an exaggerated, unrealistic sense of speed for a game to be fun.
I'm curious to see how Flash games will run on the Wii given that Flash can make even a decent machine bog down. Of course, a lot of it is dependent on how efficient the code is but Flash itself is far from ideal as a programming language. It still seems not to use any hardware acceleration, although that might be irrelevant given that the Wii is a completely different platform.
I'm curious to see, however, Flash handles the Wii remote and how its buttons get mapped in Flash. The only solution is to have the buttons mapped to any key on a keyboard. There is something out there that allows a controller to be used with Flash, but I don't think it would ever work with the Wii. Also, if I'm not mistaken Flash still only supports the left mouse button. It's cool if they get it working, but I foresee quite a few issues. Of course, not having used a Wii myself I may be overreacting about this.
There are some great flash games out there that put even some commercial software to shame. That's one thing that struck me in particular about some of what's available for the DS; they look like nothing but a collection of glorifed Flash games.
No, this isn't how every Japanese business behaves. Many companies have covered up and denied problems, it's no different than Western companies. In fact, it's customary for companies there to cover up problems, quietly address them and release those fixes in subsequent models. Mitsubishi a few years ago was discovered to be covering up defects in their automobiles. I think one of their own veteran test drivers, who had been very loyal to the company ultimately helped to disclose these problems. There have been cases where people have gotten sick at restaurants and they offer a palty sum of money, not even enough to cover medical expenses. And, the last time I check Sony was a Japanese company and they've tried covering up countless problems and in fact have often failed to recall defective products.
If anything, it's easier for companies to get away with this in Japan than it is in the US because Japanese are a lot less likely to become vocal and try to fight a big company. They certianly don't engage in lawsuits like Americans do.
I do agree, however, that when someone is has been uncovered of wrongdoing they will openly apologize for it. In the US corporate management will deny everything and make excuses to the bitter end. In Japan they'll hold a press conference and make a direct apology to everyone, stating how they've shamed themselves, their family and their company. You'd never see that in the US. Then again, many Americans think money is the best form of apology and a CEO apologizing would be seen as an admission of guilt and thus paving the way for a lawsuit.
Those girls in hentai are young. They're all high school girls, at best.
And asians don't necessarily look younger than westerners. In many cases they do, but that's because of culture and fashion more than any genetic trait. The fashions coming out of Japan, and influencing much of Asia all tend to be more child-like. It's all about looking as young as possible. Contrast that with the US where the trends among young people is to look older. Of course this is all driven by corporations and the entertainment industry. And interestingly, this gets reversed at about the age of 30. From that point on Westerners generally look younger than their Asian counterparts.
Back to the original topic... This looks like thought control to me. I can understand the rationale behind this, but I think this is yet another example of the government being overly protectionist and the citizens not wanting to be responsible for anything.
In some cases I'd argue 2D games are superior than 3D games. Excluding truly old games, 2D in general ages much better than 3D. NES games, and especially anything produced since then generally still looks good today whereas PS1 and even many PS2-era games look severely outdated. I suppose it's a consequence of how much 3D has evolved but I also think it's that there is a general lack of style to 3D.
In 2D creativity is required to properly depict a character or environment. And because it's closer to a cartoon or comic book in how the art is produced that enables the artist to be more faithful to the original concept. I can't help but notice that in 3D games the concept art is consistently more impressive than the three-dimensional end result. Part of it is a technological limitation, but I think a more significant problem is production limitation. Designers just don't have the time to invest in producing artwork that's detailed to the level of the original concept. I do think, however, that cartoony 3D games are more faithful to the source because that complexity isn't there.
It does bring me to another problem which is developer's current obsession with recreating reality in game art. It seems that there's this consensus that the only way to impress people with graphics is by making them as realistic as possible. Unfortunately, it also sucks the personality out of the game. Let's take Oblivion. Technically, it's impressive. But from an artistic and stylistic sense it's terrible. The game looks like a tech demo where they tried to recreate photos of forests and castles. The characters don't look like battle-hardened, magically-infused inhabitants of a fantasy world. They look like actors, like they pulled some guy off the street and had him wear a suit of armor.
Certainly, there are exceptions. Japanese RPGs, for example, tend to use a more creative art style but then they're also being more faithful to 2D art to begin with. Even recent Final Fantasy games which tend to look more realistic are infused with plenty of style and fantasy.
However, even then there is yet another problem. The amount of production required for many current 3D games is mind-boggling. It often feels like the developer has put more effort into the art than they have into the gameplay. A developer isn't limited by being forced to reproduce a fairly realistic physics model, for example. It doesn't matter that Mario can jump 10 meters, it doesnt matter whether he looks convincing when he falls. There are no concerns about the camera. 2D games are all about gameplay. The emphasis isn't put on whether something looks and feels convincing but rather if it plays as desired. It doesn't matter if an environment doesn't look like a realistic location if the sequence is entertaining.
It's not to say that 2D games are easy to create. It still requires a lot of work to make a 2D game look good. And excluding perhaps shooters and puzzle games, it demands an immense amount of illustration. Imagine trying to create all the artwork for a game like Street Figther 3. It's so daunting a task that it does make 3D very attractive. 3D can simplify production immensely.
Ultimately, the problem isn't 3D in and of itself but the fact that developers today overdo everything. It's entirely possible, if they kept things simple, that a 3D game could require less production than some of the more complex 2D games. Either way, in the end it does all come down to gameplay more than it does the number of dimensions.
Am I missing something here? Who here was arguing evolution that it required this kind of comment? This might as well be an instigation for that sort of argument. This sort of pointless overreaction seems uncalled for.
Well, I know of two cable guys who would disagree with that statement. They'd point out that there are probably more people who earn less than $25,000 in the inner city who own new HDTVs than you'd find in most middle-class neighborhoods. And by the time 2009 comes around these television sets will be even cheaper, assuming people dont just get adapters. I just hope that in the US we don't start seeing tax dollars go to handouts to provide assistance to people who supposedly can't afford a brand new TV set.
I feel compelled to add that Taiwan does at least as much LCD manufacturing as South Korea and Japan does it's fair share. The key companies are LG, Philips as you mention in addition to AU Optronics which is another huge player. They don't have their own brand, however, which is why no one ever thinks of them.
Sharp doesn't rebrand LCD displays produced by other manufacturers, not as far as I know. They design and manufacture their own LCDs and have produced some fairly innovative display technologies. The American computer companies tend to be the ones putting their own brands on someone else's product, Dell being one of the more prominent ones.
There are so many companies involved in the various aspects of LCD manufacturing and design that I'm a bit surprised that there would be any kind of collusion going on. And given how LCD prices prices have fallen, it makes it even more unlikely. But then again, I guess it's possible.
This to me just demonstrates the quality of the advertising and marketing industry. They produce this sort of garbage more for their own reputation and portfolio than they do for the good of the client.
They want to demonstrate that they're capable of doing extreme, creative work but the end result is lame and far from being creative. It's like they produce the first crappy idea someone comes up with. And it seems they're obsessed with Adult Swim and Youtube.
I'm curious is Sony openly embraced these campaigns or if they were forced into it by the marketing company. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the latter. From personal experience, I've found the people at many of these advertising companies to be very arrogant. I also get the distinct impression from their surveys that they seem to have a habit of fabricating market research which somehow always demonstrates that their way of doing things is the most effective.
I realize everyone seems to enjoy bashing Sony and I can't say I disagree with much of what is said. That said, I can't say this is unique to Sony. I'd say most consumer goods companies use this sort of advertising. To single out Sony for this over anyone else is a bit foolish to me. What I do hate is this sort of advertising, to me it's an insult to my intelligence. But then, I hate advertising in general.
I don't have much doubt that those will all be great games. However, those are also all being developed by Nintendo. That's not much different than the Gamecube where most of the best games were also developed by Nintendo. These games can sustain the system but they won't make it a true success without good third party games.