"If your answer is "no, they don't need all these ungodly rich Britney Spears types" etc., and should be able to sell it for just the costs of bandwidth, who the hell are YOU to decide that?"
Sir, I'll tell you "who the hell" I am to decide that:
I am the consumer.
I don't care what product you make or how wonderful it is or how rich you want to be. If I, the consumer, don't want to pay your price for it then you have two choices:
1. Sell it for less.
2. Don't sell it.
Conversely, I have a choice as a consumer, too. I have to decide if your price is worth it to me. If so, I buy it. If not, I don't.
Why do people pirate music? Because they aren't willing to pay the price asked and they don't fear repercussion of violating the laws requiring them to purchase the music.
Case in point: Why do you think iTunes is doing so well? Because it's incredibly easy to buy just the music you want and a price that feels more fair. Your average album on iTunes goes for about $10, vs the $15 to $20 you'd pay for a physical CD.
If you're a developer and you've never used someone elses code to solve a problem you're either lying or stupid. That said, it's important to understand completely the code you didn't write before implementing it.
See, part of the reason Slashdotters don't like the FTC and other "anti-gaming" legistlation isn't because of the legislation itself. It's the Walmart effect they're afraid of.
See, most of the legislation out there isn't unreasonable. Mostly it just makes it a crime to sell M rated games to minors (give or take a provision). But the effect that will have is significant because of the trickle.
If more games are rated M and AO, Walmart stops carrying them. If Walmart doesn't carry the game, that's a huge market missed out on by the developer. The developer doesn't want to miss out on huge markets, so high budget games will be Care-Bear'd down to a rating that will sell at Walmart.
Gamers looking for mature content will ultimately end up with fewer choices because of the Walmart effect if legislation passes. And Walmart is a little too big and otherwise appealing to a lot of people for the free market of games to have any effect on what Walmart will carry.
Yep, just another case of the government trying to step in and raise our children. Well, someone has to - sure as heck isn't the parents doing it in today's world.
Granted - there are several bugs and flaws in the design of the game. These, left unfixed, do take away from the gameplay. However, Bethesda did the same thing in Oblivion that they did with Morrowind, and offered a full Construction Set.
There are already several mods and plugins out there that serve to make the game a lot more fun and more well balanced:
BTMod - improves the UI dramatically.
Better Water - makes the water more realistic
VA's Better Coins - gives a nice high res texture to the coins
Rare Items - improves the item rarity and economy
Lighter Alechemy - alchemy items weigh less, allowing the alchemy portion to be more fun
I'm also looking forward to improved mini-gams for the Personality and Haggle interfaces, as those games aren't nearly as fun as I'd hoped.
But back to my point - Bethesda has done a marvelous job getting us 85% of the way to an perfect RPG. The mod community, without a doubt, will get us the other 15% with the great power of the Construction Set that Bethesda has offered.
The more the RIAA does this kind of petty crap to try to claim moneys they may or may not have gotten, the more I want to download music illegally, just out of spite. Heck, I download any Metallica song I see as a result of the Napster thing, and I don't even listen to much Metallica anymore (they've sucked donkey toes since that black album with the snake on it)
But back to my point - this is a capitalistic country (mostly, friggin gov't.. but I won't get into that here) and in such an economy the consumer can best voice displeasure with a company by no longer purchasing their goods. We, in the US, take this power too lightly.
Stop buying CDs. Tell the RIAA you don't like their business practices by reducing their bottom line.
Uhm, the way you FIND security holes is by thinking of various ways a feature can be exploited. It's not like you write 10,000 lines of code and leave little comments in there like,//this is a security hole or/* plug this security exploit later */. Security holes aren't things you just have - they're methods or features that someone else figures out can be used in a way that wasn't thought of by the designer.
Take the WMF thing - there's no comment in there saying//i hope no one notices this security hole. It's a method that provides a way of cancelling print jobs that someone realized had a tie in to WMF files and could be exploited to execute other code.
English in India is different from English in the United States. More so, I'd hazzard, than even the differences from British. Taking an Engish document and having it proofread by someone in India or Britain, then sending it back to Americans to read would not be quite wise, imo.
Well, as you read the replies, you notice that you have a lot of jaded, insulting pricks responding with things like, "You're an idiot for expecting anything less." And while they're expressing their opinion in a rather sophomoric manner with little more than a 3rd grade mentality.. they're mostly right in the message that it's pretty common to be treated that way.
On the other hand, there are still companies out there who treat their employees with respect. The last company I left, I retained my full control and system access right up to my last day of my 2 weeks. I was leaving for another position, as well, and they knew it.
Anyway.. I really just wanted to respond and say it's not THAT stupid a question and all these guys gettin' all high and mighty on you are just actin' like children.
Slashdot Mirror
"If your answer is "no, they don't need all these ungodly rich Britney Spears types" etc., and should be able to sell it for just the costs of bandwidth, who the hell are YOU to decide that?"
Sir, I'll tell you "who the hell" I am to decide that:
I am the consumer.
I don't care what product you make or how wonderful it is or how rich you want to be. If I, the consumer, don't want to pay your price for it then you have two choices:
1. Sell it for less.
2. Don't sell it.
Conversely, I have a choice as a consumer, too. I have to decide if your price is worth it to me. If so, I buy it. If not, I don't.
Why do people pirate music? Because they aren't willing to pay the price asked and they don't fear repercussion of violating the laws requiring them to purchase the music.
Case in point: Why do you think iTunes is doing so well? Because it's incredibly easy to buy just the music you want and a price that feels more fair. Your average album on iTunes goes for about $10, vs the $15 to $20 you'd pay for a physical CD.
If you're a developer and you've never used someone elses code to solve a problem you're either lying or stupid. That said, it's important to understand completely the code you didn't write before implementing it.
See, part of the reason Slashdotters don't like the FTC and other "anti-gaming" legistlation isn't because of the legislation itself. It's the Walmart effect they're afraid of. See, most of the legislation out there isn't unreasonable. Mostly it just makes it a crime to sell M rated games to minors (give or take a provision). But the effect that will have is significant because of the trickle. If more games are rated M and AO, Walmart stops carrying them. If Walmart doesn't carry the game, that's a huge market missed out on by the developer. The developer doesn't want to miss out on huge markets, so high budget games will be Care-Bear'd down to a rating that will sell at Walmart. Gamers looking for mature content will ultimately end up with fewer choices because of the Walmart effect if legislation passes. And Walmart is a little too big and otherwise appealing to a lot of people for the free market of games to have any effect on what Walmart will carry.
Yep, just another case of the government trying to step in and raise our children. Well, someone has to - sure as heck isn't the parents doing it in today's world.
Granted - there are several bugs and flaws in the design of the game. These, left unfixed, do take away from the gameplay. However, Bethesda did the same thing in Oblivion that they did with Morrowind, and offered a full Construction Set.
There are already several mods and plugins out there that serve to make the game a lot more fun and more well balanced:
BTMod - improves the UI dramatically.
Better Water - makes the water more realistic
VA's Better Coins - gives a nice high res texture to the coins
Rare Items - improves the item rarity and economy
Lighter Alechemy - alchemy items weigh less, allowing the alchemy portion to be more fun
I'm also looking forward to improved mini-gams for the Personality and Haggle interfaces, as those games aren't nearly as fun as I'd hoped.
But back to my point - Bethesda has done a marvelous job getting us 85% of the way to an perfect RPG. The mod community, without a doubt, will get us the other 15% with the great power of the Construction Set that Bethesda has offered.
The more the RIAA does this kind of petty crap to try to claim moneys they may or may not have gotten, the more I want to download music illegally, just out of spite. Heck, I download any Metallica song I see as a result of the Napster thing, and I don't even listen to much Metallica anymore (they've sucked donkey toes since that black album with the snake on it)
But back to my point - this is a capitalistic country (mostly, friggin gov't.. but I won't get into that here) and in such an economy the consumer can best voice displeasure with a company by no longer purchasing their goods. We, in the US, take this power too lightly.
Stop buying CDs. Tell the RIAA you don't like their business practices by reducing their bottom line.
Uhm, the way you FIND security holes is by thinking of various ways a feature can be exploited. It's not like you write 10,000 lines of code and leave little comments in there like, //this is a security hole or /* plug this security exploit later */. Security holes aren't things you just have - they're methods or features that someone else figures out can be used in a way that wasn't thought of by the designer.
Take the WMF thing - there's no comment in there saying //i hope no one notices this security hole. It's a method that provides a way of cancelling print jobs that someone realized had a tie in to WMF files and could be exploited to execute other code.
English in India is different from English in the United States. More so, I'd hazzard, than even the differences from British. Taking an Engish document and having it proofread by someone in India or Britain, then sending it back to Americans to read would not be quite wise, imo.
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Haha... here I was reading that as "gay-oh-el"... whoops!
All 16 of you... ;P
Well, as you read the replies, you notice that you have a lot of jaded, insulting pricks responding with things like, "You're an idiot for expecting anything less." And while they're expressing their opinion in a rather sophomoric manner with little more than a 3rd grade mentality.. they're mostly right in the message that it's pretty common to be treated that way. On the other hand, there are still companies out there who treat their employees with respect. The last company I left, I retained my full control and system access right up to my last day of my 2 weeks. I was leaving for another position, as well, and they knew it. Anyway.. I really just wanted to respond and say it's not THAT stupid a question and all these guys gettin' all high and mighty on you are just actin' like children.