If these astronomers are going for "bang" with their names, why not choose something offensive like a racial slur instead of something cute. Or name the planet after genitelia like Uranus. Planit Hizpenis or Jerbrest. If they don't care about going intellectual, why care about tact at all?
It seems to me like its either Disney or Fox who is getting the naming rights to these planets.
I remember getting SC2 for the PS2 and playing the heck out of it and loving every minute. Then I read scathing reviews and felt, what did these people not get out of the experience that I did? I simply couldn't understand it. Yet, SC2 is still one of the most beloved fighting games out there, partially due to the cross-platform release.
So now with SC3, I see people consistently criticizing the Create A Character mode as being gimmicky and mundane. This is ridiculous folks! How many of us fighting game peoplehave always wanted to put our own imagined characters into the game and see if they can cut it. The shear amount of customization is incredible, so with a little creativity, you can creat some simply amazing characters. It just takes a long time to unlock all of the items, as you have to unlock access to them in the store and then earn gold to buy them. So my guess is that these editors did not go through this process and simply based their reviews off of a shallow quick run through of the character edit. I wonder if they know that you can unlock main character's weapons styles for your created character classes? Ever wanted to have a small, puny, neko girl weilding Astaroth's Axe? Neither did I, but you can do it.
They essentially took the most well polished weapon fighting system here imaginable, and tuned it up, balanced the fighters more (darn that Ivy!), and then gave the player a window to be as inventive with the game as they wished. The reviewer here didn't even point out that the custom characters have their own ten seperate unique weapons/fighting styles that the main characters don't use.
I couldn't live without the jousting pole charge!
I'll throw this out there just for those who give any thought to investing in game stocks. EA and Activision's stock has already partially taken the bump that it is going to receieve from lukewarm 360 sales, but the story that is going to make the month, is whether that built up "game" demand is then converted into software purchases. There are alot of people out there who may get refunds on their pre-orders or use saved up cash to purchase a few more games instead of the 360 hardware. So while, in the shortrun, these big companies wont make as much money on the specific titles they had pushed for the 360, others titles may benefit to an even greater extent and sell more than expected. If I were an executive, I would put on the afterburners and run a 1 week blitz campaign on current generation "big titles", such as Prince of Persia.
Of course, take this with a grain of salt. There is still the PS3 on the horizon, possible spring says slashdot. My predictions are simply based on the cashflow of the holiday season, and those who invest wisely may see a nice late gift when holiday quarter profits are announced.
All music conservatories must now be shut down as they are producing students capable of transposing music from just listening to it and therefore becoming music pirates. I wonder if the people who own the sounds studios have the copyright for things like the sound a river makes. If so, our national parks are in danger of a lawsuit!
As I remember, the PS2 had its lower release number due to the complete meltdown of a chip forging plant. Yet Sony, by producing its own hardware, had enough in backup store in order to at least satiate a heathly part of consumer demand.
Ravenous demand is great if you can push your product out the door to feed the slobbering consumer zombies. How many parents are going to buy their kids $400-$600 giftcards so they can pick up the box later? I'll save myself by not wagering a guess, but my own experience is that kids want something to open and play with on Christmas, not the promise of getting something, and then maybe not even before they get back to school starting. This is not a debate on the merits of the system itself, but a revelation once again of how the marketing/finance departments simply don't communicate with the nuts and bolts guys. A bad situation just got worse.
Increasing predominance of publicly traded reading material is causing a society-wide addiction to reading! This plague of literacy must stop as its causing children to learn at rates hundreds of times faster than the previous generation. Pornography is being more easily distributed and people are even using mass-produced advertisements to blanket communities!
The sloppyness is in the release, not the console design. My comments were not from a technical perspective, but from a marketing one. The idea that the 360 has an advantage over its competitors because of an early release is a financial and marketing advantage, not a technical one, so I was criticizing that concept.
I did not say this it had to have blu-ray. I said that it did not contain either blu-ray or HD-DVD and that that is a legitimate fault, when they have made press releases stating the inclusion of a next generation media reader in their new console. So I would not have criticized the inclusion of one or the other, just the lack of one althogether. It requires one of a few outcomes: a "Sega CD" type add-on reader at quite an expense, a new version with built in capability, or both. Any of these are less than enviable positions when your main competitor is coming into the market with only the built in from the very beginning. Any of these create a negative impact on the very market you are trying to win over.
If they only offer a "built in" model, parents/sane human beings, will not buy an entirely new console just for this functionality. And if this new format becomes prolific, they will feel cheated of having access to that functionality. A "reader/player" add on would be quite expensive, as they are predicting the first generation to least be over $400. And what do you call a newer updated version? X-Box360 2? 361? 520?
In my book, "aggressive" can easily translate to "without careful thought", and the oly advantage I see here is, those non-thinking first adopters will sign on. And yea, that TOTALLY worked for the Dreamcast.
I'm still unclear about why the fact that 360 is out first is a definitive advantage. I guess they get a chance to take a first crack at the market, but...there seems to be some extremely dark clouds on the horizon due to this early arrival.
1. No HD-DVD or Blu-Ray- whatever happens with this media format debacle, the people with the new 360 out now wont have it.
2. Future Version Product Confusion/Backlash- Because of the above, when they begin to release future updated hardware versions of the 360, the market will be confused as to what they should purchase. Its not a new system, but it has new features this time around. Will there be expensive add-ons to accommodate current owners? Because those who have the old and not the new are gonna be pissed that they didn't get the finished system. This isn't the slim-downed PS2 I'm talking about here. That was a cosmetic change or downgrade option(imho), this will be a complete technical upgrade.
3. Debut game lineup-What lineup? If I don't like sports or shooting Nazi's... not much left, maybe Kameo. Much of the "meat and potatoes" was delayed past X-mas, creating a weird kinda of late winter "secondary launch".
4.All they are competing with is heresay and conjecture-The hard and fast realities of the PS3 and Revolution are still out in the open. So a decision by the consumer is hard to make, because no real comparison can be made. This will inevitably create a bubble of "undecided". Although with how rabid gamers can be, there will always be those too impatient to wait.
I'm no fanboy, I own all three of the current generation and agree all have things about them I like. It just seems to me that we've got a situation here where the 4th grader has rushed to finish his test first and hand it in to the teacher so he can look back at the class and say "I'm done first". Even though he did a sloppy job, didn't fully answer each question and in the end didn't get a great grade.
I've seen many of your shows where you work together with people from the FBI so it seems that you have some government contacts. Is there any chance that you could get access to some declassified military tech that have many myths surronding them? A few examples I can think of off hand are the "raditiation poisoning" from depleted uranium shells and the "see through walls/clothing" of some of our newer, not newest, nightvision technology.
Or, in our favorite world of blowing things up, how about the rumored inpenetrability of A-1 Abrahms tank armor? (Probably the most expensive to "bust")
After reading many of th eposts above I came up with an idea that would do at least something to improve these award shows, computer generate them. What better way to truly show off the industry than by having the away show come to us in the form that we are awarding. I know it seems gimmicky, but no more than what we have already. Much of the feigned enthusiasm could be cut and some seriously cool stuff could be shown off. As well, game designers could have their studios make their own acceptance speeches using the characters from the games that won. This would only be a first step in improving the innane nature of this show, but it would at least remove much of the ridiculous celebrity self-congratulation that goes on currently. I mean, I really don't care if some movie star plays the same games I do.
I am well aware of Russia's history, I was simply working from the fact that in policy discussions done in English concerning that country, the autonomous governmental unit just under the federal level, the respublik http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ rs.html , is commonly refered to here as a "state". Now this is once again a common simplification used to aid our thinking when trying to discuss the country, but it is close in its administrative concept.
I think we all just need to agree to disagree. I think "the States" is annoying but I understand your use of it. Just understand that the term America is just a conventional term for us, and when we see on the news all the people who "Hate America" that is the name which they use. And that seems to be all that our own media outlets are feeding us nowadays. Thank god for BBC online. And we can all agree that the guy who doesn't like "brit" is just weird.
Ok, I am aware that the use of American is jingoistic, but it is the only geographical reference in our country title. Canada and Mexico and all other North and South American countries use a specific indentifier in their official state title by which they can be refered to. "United States" is abhorrently general since there are hundreds of countries that use the federal system to "unite" their seperate municipalities. This is exactly why U.K. is ok, because Britain is unique in that its government represents a united set of seperate former kingdoms and recognizes itself as such. Although other current countries are made up of former kingdoms, the U.K. seems to be the only one that recognizes this status in their title (although I may be wrong). So yeah, if you want to get technical on slang terms for nations, there ya go. But if you want to just stay in the informal, I say American almost anywhere in the world and what do people think? I'm pretty sure its not 2 continents. "The States" could be Russia for all I know, as they are comprised of several semi-autonomous units referred to as states.
We'll stop it the minute I stop hearing the U.S. being referred to as "The Colonies" or "The States". You've got all those wonderful choices like America, the U.S. the United States, the U.S. of A., or many others.
The Germans are just tired of seeing so many games where you are killing them. I mean if there were an entire genre of games where you were, say, a British soldier fighting the American rebellion, you think we would be pissed about it?
That being said, can't wait to fire up CoD:Big Red 1 and get back to killing Nazis...
Look around everybody. I'm guessing we all see gamers on both sides. This report was for stock analysts and brokers. Reports like this have no relevance to people like us, its purpose is to "inform" those who have absolutely no idea what is going on in the gaming world other than it is a $5billion a year industry with some high performance stock. Lets leave these types of articles were they belong, because here they are just flamebait for fanboys.
Mod: -1 Flamebait to 1up.com
Ps. If you follow the game industry religiously like some of us around here do, and have some business sense, I recommend getting some stock. I've made a pretty sizable gain on EA and Gamespot and they look even better every day, despite my personal issues with some of their practices. And yea, that does make me a hypocrit, but at least I get to vote at the stockholder meeting.
Not to say I told you so or anything.
But here's a quote from myself commenting on the original story before the conference,
ICANN will not change as the article says so. What will be created is a UN regulatory body without enforcement regimes. SOP for the UN solving problems. Abuses will not occur and stipulated in the charter for that body will be the fact that it should do nothing to violate the sovereign rights of each nation (ie. U.S. 1st Amendment). Although the "control" aspect will be a complete sham, I do think that this may have some positive consequences. This body could be used to coordinate the more technical nations in questions of global spam, copyrights and other IT issues, and negate the need for constant conferences. If we had a international group of people working together for years on these issues, we might actually make some progress.
As the news spread, check here often
on
Bad Day To Be Sony
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
This news story has really only begun to break onto mainstream media and just wait for it to hit the general public. I bet Sony cant wait to have regular Joe Schmoe think that when they buy a Sony CD, they are going to mess up and get a virus on their computer. And just before the Christmas season as well. Average consumers have no was to discern what the real problem was here, the concept of a "rootkit" would probably lead to potato or carrot issues, so they will just blanket Sony products with the "full of bad stuff" stigma.
And then just wait for the sales #'s to come in after the Christmas season. This stock is going from bad to worse. Boycotts are fun, but when the guys who own $300 million in stock are getting screwed, then the fun really begins.
Seppuku anyone?
As a politician instead of a scientist, the first thing that came to mind when I read this story were the faces of the people who made the budget for that robot. They just heard that their spacecraft flung a $20million bag of money into the great unknown. I imagine that feels just about the same as getting kicked square in the nuts.
Is it really all that surprising that there are pirates off the coast of Somalia. As a US General said on NPR yesterday, "That place is basically just Madmax and Thunderdome". Two men enter, one man leaves. So the Somali warlords got some speed boats, I don't think that makes them pirates. A few quick bouts of scurvy, an influx of bad eye patches, a wooden leg or two and a parrot would go a long way for these guys. Until then, its a bunch of crazy dudes with Russian AK-47's made in the 70's shooting in the air and firing incredibly inacurate grenades. They wouldn't even know what a mizzen-mast was, let alone the ever-important jigger-mast. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mast_(sailing)
I currently work for a law firm that partly specializes in real-estate law. Although EULA's currently discount any possibility for legal action based on in game activities, (killing someone outside the game with an "ingame" motive" doesn't count), can we possibly see a future where property laws come into play. If someone can find real and established value for their property, ie. Dragon Sabre=500Gold, 500 Gold=$200, then who says that you, by affecting my property or causing me a financial loss, cannot be liable for compensating me.
Although not likely, this seems outwardly plausable and would lead to a rather grim future indeed. Especially if the government caps medical and other malpractice suits. That would leave alot of lawyers with alot of free time to look into shit like this. Personally, with all the Tack Jhompsons of the world out there, I think we have enough lawyers making a living off of video games.
Can you even imagine having the RNC pay 5-10 people a day to create a bunch of accounts on here to post on political articles of relevance? You may be thinking that no one would care enough to do it, but with the kind of money involved, they could hire 50-1000's to do it on as many American news sites/blogs as they wanted.
All of that aside, its nigh impossible to enforce broad internet legislation that is not copyright oriented (so the RIAA pays for its enforcement).
If you own stock in Take Two, its sell-time folks. 4th quarter profit #'s are what drive the prices, no matter the reasonable decisions that cause those numbers to drop. They may have a better than expected 2nd quarter, but they are going to take it in the deuce for 4th and 1st quarter.
So yea, bad news for them, and us =p
I'm a warcrafter from the very beginning the only humanoid race I can think of offhand that isnt evil is the Pandarens.
On the horde side there are were ogres and goblins and they didn't go with either of those (to my disappointment).
Has anyone read the books? They seem to reference them and those tomes may clue us in to any alliance additions that have gone on.
The Pudding-"According to Spike TV, ballots were sent out to the VGA Advisory Board, which was responsible for advising on categories and determining nominees in selected award categories. Winners of the VGAs are determined by votes from the Video Game Industry Voting Council which is made up of more than 200 industry journalists - all of which will have presumably received review copies of the unreleased games in time to vote."
200 Industry Journalists...ie. the people at Official Playstaion Magazine? Oh, there's an unbiased source. Good thing they are going for legitimacy like the Academy of Film. Everyone here knows that at least 50% of major game journalists are bribed in one way or another for good reviews and it is to them that Spike turns for its awards. And who determines what journalists are involved in this travesty? The Sponsors of course....which just happen to be the video game industry itself. So it is completely transparent that this is just a show put on by the industry to promote/congratulate itself on money well spent.
Of course, with the tried and true "Just Add Boobs" formula for flavor.
Slashdot Mirror
If these astronomers are going for "bang" with their names, why not choose something offensive like a racial slur instead of something cute. Or name the planet after genitelia like Uranus. Planit Hizpenis or Jerbrest. If they don't care about going intellectual, why care about tact at all?
It seems to me like its either Disney or Fox who is getting the naming rights to these planets.
I remember getting SC2 for the PS2 and playing the heck out of it and loving every minute. Then I read scathing reviews and felt, what did these people not get out of the experience that I did? I simply couldn't understand it. Yet, SC2 is still one of the most beloved fighting games out there, partially due to the cross-platform release.
So now with SC3, I see people consistently criticizing the Create A Character mode as being gimmicky and mundane. This is ridiculous folks! How many of us fighting game peoplehave always wanted to put our own imagined characters into the game and see if they can cut it. The shear amount of customization is incredible, so with a little creativity, you can creat some simply amazing characters. It just takes a long time to unlock all of the items, as you have to unlock access to them in the store and then earn gold to buy them. So my guess is that these editors did not go through this process and simply based their reviews off of a shallow quick run through of the character edit. I wonder if they know that you can unlock main character's weapons styles for your created character classes? Ever wanted to have a small, puny, neko girl weilding Astaroth's Axe? Neither did I, but you can do it.
They essentially took the most well polished weapon fighting system here imaginable, and tuned it up, balanced the fighters more (darn that Ivy!), and then gave the player a window to be as inventive with the game as they wished. The reviewer here didn't even point out that the custom characters have their own ten seperate unique weapons/fighting styles that the main characters don't use.
I couldn't live without the jousting pole charge!
I'll throw this out there just for those who give any thought to investing in game stocks. EA and Activision's stock has already partially taken the bump that it is going to receieve from lukewarm 360 sales, but the story that is going to make the month, is whether that built up "game" demand is then converted into software purchases. There are alot of people out there who may get refunds on their pre-orders or use saved up cash to purchase a few more games instead of the 360 hardware. So while, in the shortrun, these big companies wont make as much money on the specific titles they had pushed for the 360, others titles may benefit to an even greater extent and sell more than expected. If I were an executive, I would put on the afterburners and run a 1 week blitz campaign on current generation "big titles", such as Prince of Persia.
Of course, take this with a grain of salt. There is still the PS3 on the horizon, possible spring says slashdot. My predictions are simply based on the cashflow of the holiday season, and those who invest wisely may see a nice late gift when holiday quarter profits are announced.
All music conservatories must now be shut down as they are producing students capable of transposing music from just listening to it and therefore becoming music pirates. I wonder if the people who own the sounds studios have the copyright for things like the sound a river makes. If so, our national parks are in danger of a lawsuit!
As I remember, the PS2 had its lower release number due to the complete meltdown of a chip forging plant. Yet Sony, by producing its own hardware, had enough in backup store in order to at least satiate a heathly part of consumer demand.
Ravenous demand is great if you can push your product out the door to feed the slobbering consumer zombies. How many parents are going to buy their kids $400-$600 giftcards so they can pick up the box later? I'll save myself by not wagering a guess, but my own experience is that kids want something to open and play with on Christmas, not the promise of getting something, and then maybe not even before they get back to school starting. This is not a debate on the merits of the system itself, but a revelation once again of how the marketing/finance departments simply don't communicate with the nuts and bolts guys. A bad situation just got worse.
Increasing predominance of publicly traded reading material is causing a society-wide addiction to reading! This plague of literacy must stop as its causing children to learn at rates hundreds of times faster than the previous generation. Pornography is being more easily distributed and people are even using mass-produced advertisements to blanket communities!
The sloppyness is in the release, not the console design. My comments were not from a technical perspective, but from a marketing one. The idea that the 360 has an advantage over its competitors because of an early release is a financial and marketing advantage, not a technical one, so I was criticizing that concept.
I did not say this it had to have blu-ray. I said that it did not contain either blu-ray or HD-DVD and that that is a legitimate fault, when they have made press releases stating the inclusion of a next generation media reader in their new console. So I would not have criticized the inclusion of one or the other, just the lack of one althogether. It requires one of a few outcomes: a "Sega CD" type add-on reader at quite an expense, a new version with built in capability, or both. Any of these are less than enviable positions when your main competitor is coming into the market with only the built in from the very beginning. Any of these create a negative impact on the very market you are trying to win over.
If they only offer a "built in" model, parents/sane human beings, will not buy an entirely new console just for this functionality. And if this new format becomes prolific, they will feel cheated of having access to that functionality. A "reader/player" add on would be quite expensive, as they are predicting the first generation to least be over $400. And what do you call a newer updated version? X-Box360 2? 361? 520?
In my book, "aggressive" can easily translate to "without careful thought", and the oly advantage I see here is, those non-thinking first adopters will sign on. And yea, that TOTALLY worked for the Dreamcast.
I'm still unclear about why the fact that 360 is out first is a definitive advantage. I guess they get a chance to take a first crack at the market, but...there seems to be some extremely dark clouds on the horizon due to this early arrival.
1. No HD-DVD or Blu-Ray- whatever happens with this media format debacle, the people with the new 360 out now wont have it.
2. Future Version Product Confusion/Backlash- Because of the above, when they begin to release future updated hardware versions of the 360, the market will be confused as to what they should purchase. Its not a new system, but it has new features this time around. Will there be expensive add-ons to accommodate current owners? Because those who have the old and not the new are gonna be pissed that they didn't get the finished system. This isn't the slim-downed PS2 I'm talking about here. That was a cosmetic change or downgrade option(imho), this will be a complete technical upgrade.
3. Debut game lineup-What lineup? If I don't like sports or shooting Nazi's... not much left, maybe Kameo. Much of the "meat and potatoes" was delayed past X-mas, creating a weird kinda of late winter "secondary launch".
4.All they are competing with is heresay and conjecture-The hard and fast realities of the PS3 and Revolution are still out in the open. So a decision by the consumer is hard to make, because no real comparison can be made. This will inevitably create a bubble of "undecided". Although with how rabid gamers can be, there will always be those too impatient to wait.
I'm no fanboy, I own all three of the current generation and agree all have things about them I like. It just seems to me that we've got a situation here where the 4th grader has rushed to finish his test first and hand it in to the teacher so he can look back at the class and say "I'm done first". Even though he did a sloppy job, didn't fully answer each question and in the end didn't get a great grade.
I've seen many of your shows where you work together with people from the FBI so it seems that you have some government contacts. Is there any chance that you could get access to some declassified military tech that have many myths surronding them? A few examples I can think of off hand are the "raditiation poisoning" from depleted uranium shells and the "see through walls/clothing" of some of our newer, not newest, nightvision technology.
Or, in our favorite world of blowing things up, how about the rumored inpenetrability of A-1 Abrahms tank armor? (Probably the most expensive to "bust")
Will they get away with it among the non-technical public?
Anyone ever lost betting on the ignorance of the general public?
After reading many of th eposts above I came up with an idea that would do at least something to improve these award shows, computer generate them. What better way to truly show off the industry than by having the away show come to us in the form that we are awarding. I know it seems gimmicky, but no more than what we have already. Much of the feigned enthusiasm could be cut and some seriously cool stuff could be shown off. As well, game designers could have their studios make their own acceptance speeches using the characters from the games that won. This would only be a first step in improving the innane nature of this show, but it would at least remove much of the ridiculous celebrity self-congratulation that goes on currently. I mean, I really don't care if some movie star plays the same games I do.
I am well aware of Russia's history, I was simply working from the fact that in policy discussions done in English concerning that country, the autonomous governmental unit just under the federal level, the respublik http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ rs.html , is commonly refered to here as a "state". Now this is once again a common simplification used to aid our thinking when trying to discuss the country, but it is close in its administrative concept.
I think we all just need to agree to disagree. I think "the States" is annoying but I understand your use of it. Just understand that the term America is just a conventional term for us, and when we see on the news all the people who "Hate America" that is the name which they use. And that seems to be all that our own media outlets are feeding us nowadays. Thank god for BBC online. And we can all agree that the guy who doesn't like "brit" is just weird.
Ok, I am aware that the use of American is jingoistic, but it is the only geographical reference in our country title. Canada and Mexico and all other North and South American countries use a specific indentifier in their official state title by which they can be refered to. "United States" is abhorrently general since there are hundreds of countries that use the federal system to "unite" their seperate municipalities. This is exactly why U.K. is ok, because Britain is unique in that its government represents a united set of seperate former kingdoms and recognizes itself as such. Although other current countries are made up of former kingdoms, the U.K. seems to be the only one that recognizes this status in their title (although I may be wrong). So yeah, if you want to get technical on slang terms for nations, there ya go. But if you want to just stay in the informal, I say American almost anywhere in the world and what do people think? I'm pretty sure its not 2 continents. "The States" could be Russia for all I know, as they are comprised of several semi-autonomous units referred to as states.
We'll stop it the minute I stop hearing the U.S. being referred to as "The Colonies" or "The States". You've got all those wonderful choices like America, the U.S. the United States, the U.S. of A., or many others.
The Germans are just tired of seeing so many games where you are killing them. I mean if there were an entire genre of games where you were, say, a British soldier fighting the American rebellion, you think we would be pissed about it?
That being said, can't wait to fire up CoD:Big Red 1 and get back to killing Nazis...
Look around everybody. I'm guessing we all see gamers on both sides. This report was for stock analysts and brokers. Reports like this have no relevance to people like us, its purpose is to "inform" those who have absolutely no idea what is going on in the gaming world other than it is a $5billion a year industry with some high performance stock. Lets leave these types of articles were they belong, because here they are just flamebait for fanboys.
Mod: -1 Flamebait to 1up.com
Ps. If you follow the game industry religiously like some of us around here do, and have some business sense, I recommend getting some stock. I've made a pretty sizable gain on EA and Gamespot and they look even better every day, despite my personal issues with some of their practices. And yea, that does make me a hypocrit, but at least I get to vote at the stockholder meeting.
Not to say I told you so or anything. But here's a quote from myself commenting on the original story before the conference,
http://money.excite.com/jsp/qt/full.jsp?time=0&typ e=QT
This news story has really only begun to break onto mainstream media and just wait for it to hit the general public. I bet Sony cant wait to have regular Joe Schmoe think that when they buy a Sony CD, they are going to mess up and get a virus on their computer. And just before the Christmas season as well. Average consumers have no was to discern what the real problem was here, the concept of a "rootkit" would probably lead to potato or carrot issues, so they will just blanket Sony products with the "full of bad stuff" stigma. And then just wait for the sales #'s to come in after the Christmas season. This stock is going from bad to worse. Boycotts are fun, but when the guys who own $300 million in stock are getting screwed, then the fun really begins. Seppuku anyone?
As a politician instead of a scientist, the first thing that came to mind when I read this story were the faces of the people who made the budget for that robot. They just heard that their spacecraft flung a $20million bag of money into the great unknown. I imagine that feels just about the same as getting kicked square in the nuts.
Is it really all that surprising that there are pirates off the coast of Somalia. As a US General said on NPR yesterday, "That place is basically just Madmax and Thunderdome". Two men enter, one man leaves. So the Somali warlords got some speed boats, I don't think that makes them pirates. A few quick bouts of scurvy, an influx of bad eye patches, a wooden leg or two and a parrot would go a long way for these guys. Until then, its a bunch of crazy dudes with Russian AK-47's made in the 70's shooting in the air and firing incredibly inacurate grenades. They wouldn't even know what a mizzen-mast was, let alone the ever-important jigger-mast. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mast_(sailing)
I currently work for a law firm that partly specializes in real-estate law. Although EULA's currently discount any possibility for legal action based on in game activities, (killing someone outside the game with an "ingame" motive" doesn't count), can we possibly see a future where property laws come into play. If someone can find real and established value for their property, ie. Dragon Sabre=500Gold, 500 Gold=$200, then who says that you, by affecting my property or causing me a financial loss, cannot be liable for compensating me. Although not likely, this seems outwardly plausable and would lead to a rather grim future indeed. Especially if the government caps medical and other malpractice suits. That would leave alot of lawyers with alot of free time to look into shit like this. Personally, with all the Tack Jhompsons of the world out there, I think we have enough lawyers making a living off of video games.
Can you even imagine having the RNC pay 5-10 people a day to create a bunch of accounts on here to post on political articles of relevance? You may be thinking that no one would care enough to do it, but with the kind of money involved, they could hire 50-1000's to do it on as many American news sites/blogs as they wanted. All of that aside, its nigh impossible to enforce broad internet legislation that is not copyright oriented (so the RIAA pays for its enforcement).
If you own stock in Take Two, its sell-time folks. 4th quarter profit #'s are what drive the prices, no matter the reasonable decisions that cause those numbers to drop. They may have a better than expected 2nd quarter, but they are going to take it in the deuce for 4th and 1st quarter. So yea, bad news for them, and us =p
I'm a warcrafter from the very beginning the only humanoid race I can think of offhand that isnt evil is the Pandarens. On the horde side there are were ogres and goblins and they didn't go with either of those (to my disappointment). Has anyone read the books? They seem to reference them and those tomes may clue us in to any alliance additions that have gone on.
The Pudding-"According to Spike TV, ballots were sent out to the VGA Advisory Board, which was responsible for advising on categories and determining nominees in selected award categories. Winners of the VGAs are determined by votes from the Video Game Industry Voting Council which is made up of more than 200 industry journalists - all of which will have presumably received review copies of the unreleased games in time to vote." 200 Industry Journalists...ie. the people at Official Playstaion Magazine? Oh, there's an unbiased source. Good thing they are going for legitimacy like the Academy of Film. Everyone here knows that at least 50% of major game journalists are bribed in one way or another for good reviews and it is to them that Spike turns for its awards. And who determines what journalists are involved in this travesty? The Sponsors of course....which just happen to be the video game industry itself. So it is completely transparent that this is just a show put on by the industry to promote/congratulate itself on money well spent. Of course, with the tried and true "Just Add Boobs" formula for flavor.