"CPA is a good model for Google and a very good model for advertisers. Advertisers, in effect, can pay for only the advertising which results in a sale."
I think Google treads on dangerous ground going through this route. As stated in the article, they essentially are partnering with the business they advertise by going this route, as they only get paid when the advertising business does. Here's a few implications to consider:
1. Google revenue from advertising this way now includes a factor of how successful the linked to site is, something Google has zero control over. So either Google has to pick and choose its advertisers based on a successful sales history (which screws the little guy), or suffer in its own piggybank (which screws its shareholders).
2. Google may prevent click fraud, but what about fraud from the advertiser's side? How does google audit the sales generated from it's own advertisments effectively?
3. On a related note, http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=190555&cid=156 78996 . (Shameless self plug). Company's get free publicity for every ad that users view, but don't buy from. Think about the golden arches from McDonalds. You don't have to buy a cheeseburger as you drive by to have been influenced by the image. Would you agree to put a McDonalds arch in your front yard, if you only got paid specifically when someone saw the sign, then went directly to McDonalds and bought a cheeseburger? You might based on a "hey, this is kind of neat", but financially it's a bad model.
Right the fuck on. I really don't want to see the internet turned into 33% advertisement like television (to which I no longer subscribe, btw). But you let corporate America violate it with the shareholder interests backing every move - I guarantee you that's where we'll be.
You don't have to buy something from the pop up ad. There exists a phenomena most marketers are aware of, that when you have several brands of a product to choose from, most people narrow their choice down to a grouping of 2-4, usually by "hunch" or "intuition", before making any drill down comparisons. It's a compromise of search breadth vs search depth. The pop up's main goal is to preprogram their brand as one of your intuitive choices - if you happen to click and purchase directly then that's an added bonus.
As for stopping the local infection version of the pop up - write a letter to your congressman. Tell them that instead of worrying whether or not gays can be gay, or a dissident can burn a flag in protest of his governments actions, maybe they could write a quick law that makes it illegal to install software on another machine without the owner's explicit consent. Then the websites that distribute this shit will have fines to pay, sucking the profit right out of the whole scheme.
I dunno, if he shows them tanking, and has a fairly popular site, I would think the game companies would produce contrary statistics if he was off base with his guestimate.
I think a lot of it is summer time = go outside time, winter time = snowed in, play games time
I'm pretty sure they don't actively watch all of them, but they apparently watch enough to catch people - I got to witness security roll out and apprehend a kid who was trying to steal cough syrup (likely to get wasted off it). Certain areas such as the pharmacy and electronics departments probably house the bulk of the real cameras, and receive the majority of the monitoring. Just like 1984 - they don't have to watch you, they simply have to present the threat of watching you, and occasionally make good on that threat when people get brave.
I've never shoplifted. I'd like to beleive it's because I'm a good, moral person, but I'm sure the presence of cameras heightening the related risks has had it's influence.
Any bill that favors the little guy and leads to the rich not getting what they want stands no chance in a republican congress. That's why Net Neutrality didn't pass, and won't pass with our current legislature in the US. Undeniable proof:
In the last 9 years, we have not seen the minimum wage rise above $5.15, or roughly $10,700 per year at a 40 hour work week. Yet Congress has voted 5 pay raises for themselves, claiming a need for "cost of living adjustments". Who needs a cost of living adjustment, someone making 10,000 per year or someone making 150,000? http://www.yourcongress.com/viewarticle.asp?articl e_ID=2027 (1,2,3,4) http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/06/20/dobbs.june21/ (and 5, two days ago)
Sorry about the tangent, but I think it's important if you want something done about this, to realise the first step is to get someone into office listening to more than money.
Kick the elitists out of office, and maybe then we'll have our equality on the net.
I have to agree here. I'd love to see more freedom in copyright laws and a move away from the lockdown of DRM.
But even if we successfully elected the Pirate party to a majority position in congress and/or the presidency, if they weren't respectable to the international community we would be where the Palestinians are now with their elected Hamas government - a group that became infamous attacking Israel turned dumb and powerless faced with international and economic crisis. To be successful they have to think things though on all fronts, economic issues, social issues, international issues - sure they can rally people with a "we hate copyrights" campaign, but that won't run a government...
"Everyone knows that you should not open attachments"
Unfortunately, not true, anymore than saying everyone knows not to follow a link emailed to you that requests you enter your login/password. The unfortunate truth is the majority of internet users are not/. computer savvy security conscious people. In fact, in the business world, they may not even by conscious...
I can't wait till Excel 2007 comes out. Not of course for the security system (which will continue to be meaningless as long as dumb Joe leaves the back door unlocked, or the key under the mat), but because you'll be able to have over 1,000,000 rows. Sweet, sweet, data:)
Even the reviewer at the end asks - how the hell is this an RTS/MMORPG mouse? This is clearly the opinion of a PR guy that couldn't even spell out what those acronyms mean. Actions per minute and DPI may be important in first person shooters, but in RTS and MMORPGs any veteran will tell you it's about being able to issue a wide variety of commands through simple inputs - IE - more buttons without convoluting the whole design.
I'll stick with my 20 dollar GE mouse, with 5 buttons, and omgosh, a perfectly clickable mouse wheel. And I'll still get owned by Koreans, and I promise you, it has nothing to do with the mouse.
Interesting math, but I think you double counted the loss of gold.
I think Blizzard's real motive here however, is clear.
30k accounts x 30 dollars per CD key (I thought it was more, but I'll use your numbers) = 900,000 dollars increased revenue in Blizzard's pocket. Not to mention any additional time purchased on said accounts that was taken (IE, if they were paid 6 months in advance, that's up to 80 additional dollars per account). Why do they make extra money on this? Because the farmers will be back. As long as there is a demand, and the design of nearly any MMO creates the demand, certainly WOW does.
Now think about it - if you could do something that would provide a great PR booster, and make nearly a million dollars doing it, why not?
The number one thing on there was to make the advertisements dynamic instead of static. Now if marketing dorks look at that and say, ok, we need a goodyear blimp crossing the screen, they missed. On the other hand, if they lay down a frito lay factory in the middle of Grand Theft Auto, and allow you to BLOW IT UP, then you have something.
Destructable advertisements. You take out your favorite franchises (DIE Walmart!!), they get name recognition. I could deal with this.
Imagine you're playing BF 2, and wham, right in the middle of the map is a McDonalds. Bleh, wonder how much money EA got for that? Then you find you can blow the golden arches off with a tank round.
What if your playing City Life, and actually get to BUY McDonalds? Not some cheap lookalike company conjured up to avoid copyright infringements. You get the burgers, the clown, the tube playgrounds out back - the whole nine yards.
Companies play their cards right in the video game market, and it could work for everyone. If they treat video games like TV shows (stale static pictures on boxes) - they will do more to turn kids away from video games than a whole congress of Jack Thompsons.
A couple things. First, everything you do on the internet, unless you are in the habit of traversing the web by numeric IP addresses, involves the DNS servers, and even if you do, involve hosting servers, and intermediate hubs. Secure your computer all you want, if the NSA is that concerned about which pr0n site you've been to lately, they'll find it. Ok, maybe they won't, but I'm convinced at this point they could. Call me paranoid.
Second, the concern about WGA's ability to execute code, and not be uninstallable, is very valid. Microsoft has repeatedly proven that it cannot produce robust, unhackable code (Windows, cough cough). And the sheer number of hacks around to disable this thing already leads me to believe that the only reason we aren't all on botnets right now is the mere good graces of the hacking community. Here's a strange idea: why not give the user of a computer the ability to choose what code gets run on his own system? I'm pretty sure it hasn't been patented yet, jump on it!! (Yes I know, that's *nix)
These anti piracy conventions make about as much sense as anti-gun laws: the principle is nice, but in the end, all you do is hurt the civilians. The pirates will still crack the OS, and the criminals will still have guns. I seriously want to see a financial statement from Microsoft showing any noticable gain in the number of licensed operating systems as a result of the advent of the "genuine advantage".
I could see WoW as a good way to measure someone's personality. There's the trust building, as was mentioned above, but there's more than that. Aggro management, the key to surviving most of the dungeons and even raids, depends heavily on the group working together, with individual members adhering to others' advice. And between loot distribution, and the dependency on the group, there's bound to come a point of conflict where the character of the players (no pun intended) gets put to the test. Do the members ignore the issue and fail to function as a team? Does it erupt into full blown melee where someone gets pissed and leaves the group? Or do the members have enough ego to resolve it without resorting to immature outlashes? While certainly not a replacement for dating, the group styles of gaming give you the chance to see into other's personalities, one of the main reasons people date before commiting to serious relationships. Thus, I could see it as a sort of ice breaker, enough to convince to strangers that they like interacting with this other person, and that they should continue to develop what potential is there offline; at the same time helping them avoid some of the more "under-developed" personalities out there.
On a side note, I can't hold back a laugh when I look at something called "Millenium Edition" that expires 6 years later, lasting no longer than the 98 it was intended to replace.
Well, in a few months spore's going to come out, with claymation models walking around. I give it about 3 seconds you'll find someone makes 1) A convincing nude female, and 2) a gigantic walking penis. That's not EA's fault, you can do the same thing in MS Paint. Today's 3d graphics just give it a new face.
What rockstar did was left pornography on the disk. The modder didn't have to construct anything out of raw data, nor combine two dissimilar models to create something taboo - all they had to do was direct the game engine to the content. I see a pretty clear difference.
Only if you are unlocking gay bdsm material preexistant(although locked) in the Windows OS.
I see this kind of like a loose Sarbanes-Oxley for Video Games: we're going to hold you accountable for disclosing information about your video game up front, and ignorance is not an excuse. Fortunately for Rockstar, they got the slap on the wrist this go because the law/court ruling didn't exist up until now.
Someone at Rockstar left the material coded into the game. Now believe me, I've got nothing against seeing breasts, and young boys are going to look for sex whether or not they see it in a video game (hell, so will grown men, go figure) - but if the rating system is going to hold any meaning, and provide an effective means of keeping the government off the game producers' backs for creating enjoyable games that might include mature themes, then we have to expect the game companies to be honest in disclosing the true nature of content in the game. IE, if there's nudity/sex, come out and say it. Say it loud and clear. Don't curl back and go "oops, thought we took that out, hehe" Because that's the kind of stupid mistake that gets voters worried that they need government crackdowns on entertainment.
Let's turn it into WoW, it worked for SWG, right?
on
DDO Goes Solo
·
· Score: 1
I'm noticing that since the success of WOW, more mainstream MMOs are leaning towards easier grinds and soloable content, IE, they are mimicing WOW in the hopes of recapturing some of the market share. Honestly though, I think they've already lost the faith of a lot of gamers by not making it this way from the start. MMOs have for me become a losing fight - the game developers are encouraged to introduce long, time consuming content, grinds, collections, or whatever, because you are paying them by month. Take EVE Online for example, in order to fly the higher class ships, you have to be subscribed to the game for X months to accumulate Y skill points in spaceship command and the appropriate ship class skill, not to mention playing the game enough to have the money for it. Take that X months x 14.95 a month, and you've got a premium fee to fly a decent ship. That's brilliant from the developers point of view, but as a gamer I'd rather not be locked into a system that encourages long periods of boredom to reach new content.
WoW was one of the best in terms of providing decent quests/content at every level, but once you struck the level cap it was the same old hundreds of hours of what became repetitive boring content (ie work) to receive marginal benefit in terms of new content.
But it does go to show the power of innovation. Why do we remember pitfall? SMB1? DW1? Because they broke ground, bringing ideas to platforms that did not before exist. Hell, I still long for a game of Genghis Khan 1 sometimes. Others can come along and do them longer, better graphics, shinier treasure, and hold the spotlight for a while. But they'll never be able to say they did it first. Which means five minutes later, someone's going to do it longer, shinier, better than them.
Grats on breaking ground on a golden oldie. I think it's the ultimate statement to today's game producing companies that they can take their 20 pages EULAs and rehashed cliches and go play with themselves.
What underlying problem? Users not knowing how to use their access rights on the OS? You've got that on any operating system.
Since I got my home computer in Spring 05 (over a year ago in other words) I've run it without AV or AS (anti spyware), on a Windows platform. From day one I turned off active X, javascript, scripting, etc except on trusted sites. I've taken it to various shady regions of the internet in that time, and yesterday decided to go ahead and install Ad-aware just to see if anything had broken through. Want to guess what was on my system?
1000s of threats? No. 100s of threats? No.
I had one piece of malware, excluding tracking cookies (which are a necessary evil with any kind of remember me feature). Some dialer that I discovered was completely inactive because my computer lacks a traditional modem.
I do wish Windows defaulted to a less vulnerable state, but securing for day to day use is a matter of point and click, and a little bit of vigilence.
Soooo, in my circle of gaming friends, 4 are parents, one's only 19 but gets more ass than a toilet seat, and one's the typical 24 year old virgin. I think your connection between gamer and cool is a bit dated.
"When the government tells you that persons X, Y and Z were planning on doing something, how do you know if what you are being told is factual?"
When you go to court, if the cell phone records are part of your case, they get played. Chances are the government isn't going to prosecute a case purely on cell phone records, they'll raid someplace and find the evidence they need, or embarrass themselves if they misjudged. Too many embarrassments as determined by the public eye and they'll be replaced.
"And without any privacy, how do you stop the government from claiming that you are a "terrorist" when you start investigating their claims about the other "terrorists"?"
The information age is rapidly consuming our privacy, with or without the government speeding it along. What we need to focus on protecting is liberty.
Privacy will only protect liberty in the short term. If you should be allowed to do whatever it is that you are doing, then you shouldn't need to hide it! Here's an addage older than Ben Franklin: You can't hide forever. So instead of expecting the government to solve for national security by putting its hands over its eyes, we need to expect the government to be responsible with the information that it has, and to bring real evidence forth when it convicts people of criminal or terrorist activities.
Slashdot Mirror
"CPA is a good model for Google and a very good model for advertisers. Advertisers, in effect, can pay for only the advertising which results in a sale."
6 78996 . (Shameless self plug). Company's get free publicity for every ad that users view, but don't buy from. Think about the golden arches from McDonalds. You don't have to buy a cheeseburger as you drive by to have been influenced by the image. Would you agree to put a McDonalds arch in your front yard, if you only got paid specifically when someone saw the sign, then went directly to McDonalds and bought a cheeseburger? You might based on a "hey, this is kind of neat", but financially it's a bad model.
I think Google treads on dangerous ground going through this route. As stated in the article, they essentially are partnering with the business they advertise by going this route, as they only get paid when the advertising business does. Here's a few implications to consider:
1. Google revenue from advertising this way now includes a factor of how successful the linked to site is, something Google has zero control over. So either Google has to pick and choose its advertisers based on a successful sales history (which screws the little guy), or suffer in its own piggybank (which screws its shareholders).
2. Google may prevent click fraud, but what about fraud from the advertiser's side? How does google audit the sales generated from it's own advertisments effectively?
3. On a related note, http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=190555&cid=15
Right the fuck on. I really don't want to see the internet turned into 33% advertisement like television (to which I no longer subscribe, btw). But you let corporate America violate it with the shareholder interests backing every move - I guarantee you that's where we'll be.
You don't have to buy something from the pop up ad. There exists a phenomena most marketers are aware of, that when you have several brands of a product to choose from, most people narrow their choice down to a grouping of 2-4, usually by "hunch" or "intuition", before making any drill down comparisons. It's a compromise of search breadth vs search depth. The pop up's main goal is to preprogram their brand as one of your intuitive choices - if you happen to click and purchase directly then that's an added bonus.
As for stopping the local infection version of the pop up - write a letter to your congressman. Tell them that instead of worrying whether or not gays can be gay, or a dissident can burn a flag in protest of his governments actions, maybe they could write a quick law that makes it illegal to install software on another machine without the owner's explicit consent. Then the websites that distribute this shit will have fines to pay, sucking the profit right out of the whole scheme.
(Oh noes, a spammer might lose his job!)
Here's an interesting website, not sure if they read the letters sent but at least it's a start:
http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/
I dunno, if he shows them tanking, and has a fairly popular site, I would think the game companies would produce contrary statistics if he was off base with his guestimate.
I think a lot of it is summer time = go outside time, winter time = snowed in, play games time
I'm pretty sure they don't actively watch all of them, but they apparently watch enough to catch people - I got to witness security roll out and apprehend a kid who was trying to steal cough syrup (likely to get wasted off it). Certain areas such as the pharmacy and electronics departments probably house the bulk of the real cameras, and receive the majority of the monitoring. Just like 1984 - they don't have to watch you, they simply have to present the threat of watching you, and occasionally make good on that threat when people get brave.
I've never shoplifted. I'd like to beleive it's because I'm a good, moral person, but I'm sure the presence of cameras heightening the related risks has had it's influence.
Any bill that favors the little guy and leads to the rich not getting what they want stands no chance in a republican congress. That's why Net Neutrality didn't pass, and won't pass with our current legislature in the US. Undeniable proof:
l e_ID=2027 (1,2,3,4)
In the last 9 years, we have not seen the minimum wage rise above $5.15, or roughly $10,700 per year at a 40 hour work week. Yet Congress has voted 5 pay raises for themselves, claiming a need for "cost of living adjustments". Who needs a cost of living adjustment, someone making 10,000 per year or someone making 150,000?
http://www.yourcongress.com/viewarticle.asp?artic
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/06/20/dobbs.june21/ (and 5, two days ago)
Sorry about the tangent, but I think it's important if you want something done about this, to realise the first step is to get someone into office listening to more than money.
Kick the elitists out of office, and maybe then we'll have our equality on the net.
I have to agree here. I'd love to see more freedom in copyright laws and a move away from the lockdown of DRM.
But even if we successfully elected the Pirate party to a majority position in congress and/or the presidency, if they weren't respectable to the international community we would be where the Palestinians are now with their elected Hamas government - a group that became infamous attacking Israel turned dumb and powerless faced with international and economic crisis. To be successful they have to think things though on all fronts, economic issues, social issues, international issues - sure they can rally people with a "we hate copyrights" campaign, but that won't run a government...
"Everyone knows that you should not open attachments"
/. computer savvy security conscious people. In fact, in the business world, they may not even by conscious...
Unfortunately, not true, anymore than saying everyone knows not to follow a link emailed to you that requests you enter your login/password. The unfortunate truth is the majority of internet users are not
I can't wait till Excel 2007 comes out. Not of course for the security system (which will continue to be meaningless as long as dumb Joe leaves the back door unlocked, or the key under the mat), but because you'll be able to have over 1,000,000 rows. Sweet, sweet, data:)
Accordian Hero!!
Polka Hero!
Hammered Dulcimer Hero!
Organ Hero (Lookout Jack Thompson!)
Flute Hero
Tuba Hero
Hell, who needs an instrument? Yodelling Hero!
Even the reviewer at the end asks - how the hell is this an RTS/MMORPG mouse? This is clearly the opinion of a PR guy that couldn't even spell out what those acronyms mean. Actions per minute and DPI may be important in first person shooters, but in RTS and MMORPGs any veteran will tell you it's about being able to issue a wide variety of commands through simple inputs - IE - more buttons without convoluting the whole design.
I'll stick with my 20 dollar GE mouse, with 5 buttons, and omgosh, a perfectly clickable mouse wheel. And I'll still get owned by Koreans, and I promise you, it has nothing to do with the mouse.
Interesting math, but I think you double counted the loss of gold.
I think Blizzard's real motive here however, is clear.
30k accounts x 30 dollars per CD key (I thought it was more, but I'll use your numbers) = 900,000 dollars increased revenue in Blizzard's pocket. Not to mention any additional time purchased on said accounts that was taken (IE, if they were paid 6 months in advance, that's up to 80 additional dollars per account). Why do they make extra money on this? Because the farmers will be back. As long as there is a demand, and the design of nearly any MMO creates the demand, certainly WOW does.
Now think about it - if you could do something that would provide a great PR booster, and make nearly a million dollars doing it, why not?
The sudden drop in China's stock prices, and the ripple on the world economy, is suddenly explained.
Nice Job, Bliz...
The number one thing on there was to make the advertisements dynamic instead of static. Now if marketing dorks look at that and say, ok, we need a goodyear blimp crossing the screen, they missed. On the other hand, if they lay down a frito lay factory in the middle of Grand Theft Auto, and allow you to BLOW IT UP, then you have something.
Destructable advertisements. You take out your favorite franchises (DIE Walmart!!), they get name recognition. I could deal with this.
Imagine you're playing BF 2, and wham, right in the middle of the map is a McDonalds. Bleh, wonder how much money EA got for that? Then you find you can blow the golden arches off with a tank round.
What if your playing City Life, and actually get to BUY McDonalds? Not some cheap lookalike company conjured up to avoid copyright infringements. You get the burgers, the clown, the tube playgrounds out back - the whole nine yards.
Companies play their cards right in the video game market, and it could work for everyone. If they treat video games like TV shows (stale static pictures on boxes) - they will do more to turn kids away from video games than a whole congress of Jack Thompsons.
A couple things. First, everything you do on the internet, unless you are in the habit of traversing the web by numeric IP addresses, involves the DNS servers, and even if you do, involve hosting servers, and intermediate hubs. Secure your computer all you want, if the NSA is that concerned about which pr0n site you've been to lately, they'll find it. Ok, maybe they won't, but I'm convinced at this point they could. Call me paranoid.
Second, the concern about WGA's ability to execute code, and not be uninstallable, is very valid. Microsoft has repeatedly proven that it cannot produce robust, unhackable code (Windows, cough cough). And the sheer number of hacks around to disable this thing already leads me to believe that the only reason we aren't all on botnets right now is the mere good graces of the hacking community. Here's a strange idea: why not give the user of a computer the ability to choose what code gets run on his own system? I'm pretty sure it hasn't been patented yet, jump on it!! (Yes I know, that's *nix)
These anti piracy conventions make about as much sense as anti-gun laws: the principle is nice, but in the end, all you do is hurt the civilians. The pirates will still crack the OS, and the criminals will still have guns. I seriously want to see a financial statement from Microsoft showing any noticable gain in the number of licensed operating systems as a result of the advent of the "genuine advantage".
I could see WoW as a good way to measure someone's personality. There's the trust building, as was mentioned above, but there's more than that. Aggro management, the key to surviving most of the dungeons and even raids, depends heavily on the group working together, with individual members adhering to others' advice. And between loot distribution, and the dependency on the group, there's bound to come a point of conflict where the character of the players (no pun intended) gets put to the test. Do the members ignore the issue and fail to function as a team? Does it erupt into full blown melee where someone gets pissed and leaves the group? Or do the members have enough ego to resolve it without resorting to immature outlashes? While certainly not a replacement for dating, the group styles of gaming give you the chance to see into other's personalities, one of the main reasons people date before commiting to serious relationships. Thus, I could see it as a sort of ice breaker, enough to convince to strangers that they like interacting with this other person, and that they should continue to develop what potential is there offline; at the same time helping them avoid some of the more "under-developed" personalities out there.
On a side note, I can't hold back a laugh when I look at something called "Millenium Edition" that expires 6 years later, lasting no longer than the 98 it was intended to replace.
Speaking from the standpoint of software technical support, a metric fuckton.t ric+fuckton
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=me
For a fun blast from the past, try mapping network drives in 98. Now try telling a 60 year old man how to do it.
I don't say this office, but THANK YOU MICROSOFT!!
Well, in a few months spore's going to come out, with claymation models walking around. I give it about 3 seconds you'll find someone makes 1) A convincing nude female, and 2) a gigantic walking penis. That's not EA's fault, you can do the same thing in MS Paint. Today's 3d graphics just give it a new face.
What rockstar did was left pornography on the disk. The modder didn't have to construct anything out of raw data, nor combine two dissimilar models to create something taboo - all they had to do was direct the game engine to the content. I see a pretty clear difference.
Moderated.
I think it's been appropriately modified back to funny though.
Only if you are unlocking gay bdsm material preexistant(although locked) in the Windows OS.
I see this kind of like a loose Sarbanes-Oxley for Video Games: we're going to hold you accountable for disclosing information about your video game up front, and ignorance is not an excuse. Fortunately for Rockstar, they got the slap on the wrist this go because the law/court ruling didn't exist up until now.
Someone at Rockstar left the material coded into the game. Now believe me, I've got nothing against seeing breasts, and young boys are going to look for sex whether or not they see it in a video game (hell, so will grown men, go figure) - but if the rating system is going to hold any meaning, and provide an effective means of keeping the government off the game producers' backs for creating enjoyable games that might include mature themes, then we have to expect the game companies to be honest in disclosing the true nature of content in the game. IE, if there's nudity/sex, come out and say it. Say it loud and clear. Don't curl back and go "oops, thought we took that out, hehe" Because that's the kind of stupid mistake that gets voters worried that they need government crackdowns on entertainment.
I'm noticing that since the success of WOW, more mainstream MMOs are leaning towards easier grinds and soloable content, IE, they are mimicing WOW in the hopes of recapturing some of the market share. Honestly though, I think they've already lost the faith of a lot of gamers by not making it this way from the start. MMOs have for me become a losing fight - the game developers are encouraged to introduce long, time consuming content, grinds, collections, or whatever, because you are paying them by month. Take EVE Online for example, in order to fly the higher class ships, you have to be subscribed to the game for X months to accumulate Y skill points in spaceship command and the appropriate ship class skill, not to mention playing the game enough to have the money for it. Take that X months x 14.95 a month, and you've got a premium fee to fly a decent ship. That's brilliant from the developers point of view, but as a gamer I'd rather not be locked into a system that encourages long periods of boredom to reach new content.
WoW was one of the best in terms of providing decent quests/content at every level, but once you struck the level cap it was the same old hundreds of hours of what became repetitive boring content (ie work) to receive marginal benefit in terms of new content.
and probably never will.
But it does go to show the power of innovation. Why do we remember pitfall? SMB1? DW1? Because they broke ground, bringing ideas to platforms that did not before exist. Hell, I still long for a game of Genghis Khan 1 sometimes. Others can come along and do them longer, better graphics, shinier treasure, and hold the spotlight for a while. But they'll never be able to say they did it first. Which means five minutes later, someone's going to do it longer, shinier, better than them.
Grats on breaking ground on a golden oldie. I think it's the ultimate statement to today's game producing companies that they can take their 20 pages EULAs and rehashed cliches and go play with themselves.
What underlying problem? Users not knowing how to use their access rights on the OS? You've got that on any operating system.
Since I got my home computer in Spring 05 (over a year ago in other words) I've run it without AV or AS (anti spyware), on a Windows platform. From day one I turned off active X, javascript, scripting, etc except on trusted sites. I've taken it to various shady regions of the internet in that time, and yesterday decided to go ahead and install Ad-aware just to see if anything had broken through. Want to guess what was on my system?
1000s of threats? No.
100s of threats? No.
I had one piece of malware, excluding tracking cookies (which are a necessary evil with any kind of remember me feature). Some dialer that I discovered was completely inactive because my computer lacks a traditional modem.
I do wish Windows defaulted to a less vulnerable state, but securing for day to day use is a matter of point and click, and a little bit of vigilence.
Soooo, in my circle of gaming friends, 4 are parents, one's only 19 but gets more ass than a toilet seat, and one's the typical 24 year old virgin. I think your connection between gamer and cool is a bit dated.
"When the government tells you that persons X, Y and Z were planning on doing something, how do you know if what you are being told is factual?"
When you go to court, if the cell phone records are part of your case, they get played. Chances are the government isn't going to prosecute a case purely on cell phone records, they'll raid someplace and find the evidence they need, or embarrass themselves if they misjudged. Too many embarrassments as determined by the public eye and they'll be replaced.
"And without any privacy, how do you stop the government from claiming that you are a "terrorist" when you start investigating their claims about the other "terrorists"?"
The information age is rapidly consuming our privacy, with or without the government speeding it along. What we need to focus on protecting is liberty.
Privacy will only protect liberty in the short term. If you should be allowed to do whatever it is that you are doing, then you shouldn't need to hide it! Here's an addage older than Ben Franklin: You can't hide forever. So instead of expecting the government to solve for national security by putting its hands over its eyes, we need to expect the government to be responsible with the information that it has, and to bring real evidence forth when it convicts people of criminal or terrorist activities.