I just went from a Treo to an iPhone last Saturday. I'm happy to share that experience with you, but it is a bit early. (on the flip side, I've had an iPod Touch for several months...)
If you're still interested after knowing that, I'm happy to share.
What's so innovative about the iphone? Not trolling, I really am curious what is so innovative about it.
They made it work like a phone with web functionality, as opposed to making it work like a PDA with cell phone functionality.
It's difficult to explain until you've sat down and used it. It's not about feature comparisons, it's more like comparing a regular coffee cup to one of those fancy thermal mugs that have a thicker handle, a lid, and a flap to close it. They both do the same job but the latter was a little more thought out for a coffee drinker. (It's also more expensive and lots of people find ways to make due without it.)
Where can I get a phone? You know, something that lets me talk to anyone, anywhere? Not a camera, not a pda, not a music player, not a videogame, but a phone. Anyone?
I like how you came into a smart-phone thread to ask about how to get a not-smart-phone. "...but I was only in there to get directions on how to get away from there."
So does the iPhone. That's why this happened. (You really should read the f'n article.) Ninnle is nowhere near immune to the problem that happened here.
Your grasp of what's happening is amusing.
"You should have a Honda instead of a Ford, it's much more reliable!" "I got a flat tire, you idiot."
DRM is only one of many factors. Another is the game itself....the music, the graphics, the gameplay, and stability.
I think there is also a question of how widely known it is that the game doesn't include copy restrictions. I mean, who'd assume that it was anything but in need of a crack?
Who in their right mind thinks that DRM increases piracy.
Just about anybody in their right mind, actually. Requiring the disc to play the game is annoying, especially on PCs. Not being able to back up said disc is offensively annoying.
The amount of people who would deliberately download a game because it has DRM is so minor it's silly.
Only if you don't think it through. Back in the olden days the easiest thing to acquire was a NoCD patch for any given game. Over time, connections got faster, and games started requiring more and more patches that would, intentionally or not, break the NoCD patch. So in order to play that game without the disc, you are best off acquiring the whole binary.
I could go into anecdotes. I could tell you about how I've downloaded two games that were probably counted as 'piracy' that I had actually paid for in the past. But that doesn't really help here. You see, you have no more frickin idea what the actual loss-ratios/numbers are than I do. You know people, I know people. You see web habits, I see web habits, nothing scientific about the whole mess. That's the funny thing. Nobody knows because nobody has been able to prove anything. There isn't, for example, a profit drop that corresponds to an increase in piracy numbers. Believe me, if they were armed with that we'd never hear the end of it. One of my personal favorites is the RIAA. They claimed that 2 billion songs were being illegally downloaded a month. Two months later, they claimed an increase in profits. Cute.
There's one other thing I'd like to mention about your first question. The pirated copy has more value than the official copy. Who in their right mind would assume the demand would remain equal if the pirated copy, for example, also required a disc to play?
Could it be that UbiSoft was a bit pissed at their former supplyer of DRM, because they themselves couldn't get rid of it from Rainbow Six when it caused too much trouble without stealing a crack from Reloaded? And when you couldn't find a new supplyer of DRM in time for the next release, hey, let's make a PR stunt out of it!
Alternatively I'd suggest that it's fear over people giving negative reviews on Amazon about inclusion of DRM like they did for Spore. It'd be nice if I was right, the customers won one.
No, not when those companies supply open and interoperable products.
Any profit-based business will entice you to stay as a long-term customer. That's not something Microsoft deserves sole credit for. Sorry buddy, that meme is not 'insightful'. Actually it works against the premise in some respects. Oh well.
Umm, Linux does quite a bit better for graphic design. Especially bigtime movie producers (pixar, etc) don't run Mac. They run linux.
Small correction: They mostly run a mixture of Windows and Linux. There's a good deal of 'off-the-shelf' software used and Windows is the most popular OS to release software on.
To this day, there is still no better platform for DTP and graphic design than the Mac.
That may be true in 2D land, but once you cross over into 3D, Mac's popularity drops dramatically. It's kind of sad, really, because I don't think that happens for technical reasons.
Considering that game development cost have skyrocketed in the last years while the actual game price have stays pretty much the same for two decades I find it hard to argue that games are to expensive.
The budget for the game has nothing to do with the price. If it did, the prices wouldn't be so standard across the board. The price is based on value, and for various reasons, that's dropping. What's amusing is these idiots think lowering the value of the games by adding intense restrictions will raise their revenues.
Re:Priorities, people, priorities
on
The Mouse Turns 40
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
The Governor of Illinois has been arrested on charges of selling a senatorship to the highest bidder and we're celebrating the birthday of a fucking mouse?
1.) Not everybody is reading this story from Illinois. 2.) The mouse has already survived longer than this scandal has any hopes of being remembered. 3.) What are we supposed to do, collectively worry about what this guy has already done?
We're not Borg and you're not superior for having a spaz attack over it.
That's almost as bad as saying something bad about Apple... let the flamewars begin.
Actually it's cool to attack Apple now. When the first iPhone was released, it was given a parade here. When a mysterious line formed in front of an Apple store near the 3G's release, suddenly it wasn't cool anymore and retro-active history kicked in. Oh, funny thing, those people were just in line for the next shipment of phones, not because of some rumor.
Standard excuses for not paying for this or any other game (pick any that apply):
Sounds more like standard misunderstandings from an ignorant given game developer to me. Come to think of it, I think you are a game developer, and I might even know which one. Pity you chose to post anonymously. Kudos to you for supporting democracy, rock legend.
1) I will pirate it first and then pay only if I like it (a la when I go into a restaurant and only pay when I liked the food, or go to the theater to see a film and pay only if it didn't suck). If the game is not PERFECT, I don't pay.
2) My pirating is good for the software developer (more people playing, even without paying is good, it gives them lots of free publicity). Piracy increases sales! I am doing them a HUGE favor.
As opposed to the rationale that all piracy is a lost sale? As long as you twits keep releasing sequels and rehashes, then yes, piracy is definitely not a 0 dollar event. You failed to grab their money, but you succeded in making a potential customer for the next sequel. If you had any business sense you'd look the other way like some other companies have.
3) I am a cheap ass.
Then the failure to attract their money is your fault. People make purchases based on perceived value.
4) There is no such thing as copyright (or shouldn't be). Other people should create art, music, games, films, and entertainment for me as a favor and fund it out of their own pocket.
Sadly you've mutilated this one too much for me to trace back its origins. As far as I can tell, this is about public domain suffocating due to the ability of huge corporations holding on to copyrights in perpetuity. Irrelevent without clarification.
5) Piracy is a fact in the gaming world. Get used to it. It's the developer's own fault because they should have taken it into account in their business case...
I don't hear people trotting this one out often, either, but it is a little odd you didn't mutate this one to suit your needs a little better like you did with the others. It is a fact of the PC Gaming world. So is shoplifting. There's a reason stores don't check people on the way in and out like they do at Disneyland. If we're going to discuss business cases here, let's not forget what makes pirated software valuable to begin with. Do you really think that none of the people that downloaded Spore had purchased a copy? Mmm? You'd expect business cases wouldn't overlook the basic rules of economics.
...(besides, they should have been working on this full time as an open source program for free anyway).
I can honestly say I've never heard this one. This sounds more like a generic Slashdot rant about proprietary software than a piracy debate.
6) $50 for this game is too much. Come to think of it, $25 is too. And if it is only $10, then pirating it shouldn't be that much of a burden to the developer.
If your price is too high, not everybody'll buy it. Basic economics. It's worth adding, though, that the lack of ability to return a shitty game, questions over its quality, and the general bombardment of "THE NUMBER ONE GAME IN AMERICA!" messages make it difficult enough to purchase without some form of evaluation. The copy restrictions themselves pose a problem, now. The games are systematically being lowered in value. This does not represent good business sense.
7) I do not want to try the demo because the only meaningful way to try out a game is to try out the ENTIRE game.
Amusing point. We're now seeing trailers instead of demos. Game developers have strengthened this point.
Yeah and the Wii is significantly more powerful than the PS2. It wasn't due to lack of power, it was simply a fuckup and it ended in a class action lawsuit.
I'm all for shitting on FF's memory bloat, but you clearly have 5 tabs open in that one FF window (doing who knows what), and are clearly having the installing of the skype plugin.
It raises doubts, but it does not adequately explain anything.
That's laughable, considering their penchant for pumping out a Mario, Metroid, and Zelda game with every platform. They've got this innovative hardware, and all they've done is changed it so instead of pressing A to swing your sword, you flick your wrist.
Wow. You'd think PS3 owners wouldn't have such poor vision.
Slashdot Mirror
I just went from a Treo to an iPhone last Saturday. I'm happy to share that experience with you, but it is a bit early. (on the flip side, I've had an iPod Touch for several months...)
If you're still interested after knowing that, I'm happy to share.
What's so innovative about the iphone? Not trolling, I really am curious what is so innovative about it.
They made it work like a phone with web functionality, as opposed to making it work like a PDA with cell phone functionality.
It's difficult to explain until you've sat down and used it. It's not about feature comparisons, it's more like comparing a regular coffee cup to one of those fancy thermal mugs that have a thicker handle, a lid, and a flap to close it. They both do the same job but the latter was a little more thought out for a coffee drinker. (It's also more expensive and lots of people find ways to make due without it.)
Where can I get a phone? You know, something that lets me talk to anyone, anywhere? Not a camera, not a pda, not a music player, not a videogame, but a phone. Anyone?
I like how you came into a smart-phone thread to ask about how to get a not-smart-phone. "...but I was
only in there to get directions on how to get away from there."
Gee, my personal observation from several big studios is 'overrated' but the assumption that only Pixar uses Macs because of Steve Jobs is insightful.
I wish my life was as blissful.
Isn't it time Firefox supported the Mac Keychain? :-/
It'll happen pretty quickly once Opera supports it! :D
So does the iPhone. That's why this happened. (You really should read the f'n article.) Ninnle is nowhere near immune to the problem that happened here.
Your grasp of what's happening is amusing.
"You should have a Honda instead of a Ford, it's much more reliable!"
"I got a flat tire, you idiot."
It wasn't a joke.
No bugs in Ninnle!
If you switch to Ninnle Linux, your phone will be trouble free.
I'm impressed that Ninnle is so bug free that 3rd party apps are completely unexploitable.
DRM is only one of many factors.
Another is the game itself....the music, the graphics, the gameplay, and stability.
I think there is also a question of how widely known it is that the game doesn't include copy restrictions. I mean, who'd assume that it was anything but in need of a crack?
Who in their right mind thinks that DRM increases piracy.
Just about anybody in their right mind, actually. Requiring the disc to play the game is annoying, especially on PCs. Not being able to back up said disc is offensively annoying.
The amount of people who would deliberately download a game because it has DRM is so minor it's silly.
Only if you don't think it through. Back in the olden days the easiest thing to acquire was a NoCD patch for any given game. Over time, connections got faster, and games started requiring more and more patches that would, intentionally or not, break the NoCD patch. So in order to play that game without the disc, you are best off acquiring the whole binary.
I could go into anecdotes. I could tell you about how I've downloaded two games that were probably counted as 'piracy' that I had actually paid for in the past. But that doesn't really help here. You see, you have no more frickin idea what the actual loss-ratios/numbers are than I do. You know people, I know people. You see web habits, I see web habits, nothing scientific about the whole mess. That's the funny thing. Nobody knows because nobody has been able to prove anything. There isn't, for example, a profit drop that corresponds to an increase in piracy numbers. Believe me, if they were armed with that we'd never hear the end of it. One of my personal favorites is the RIAA. They claimed that 2 billion songs were being illegally downloaded a month. Two months later, they claimed an increase in profits. Cute.
There's one other thing I'd like to mention about your first question. The pirated copy has more value than the official copy. Who in their right mind would assume the demand would remain equal if the pirated copy, for example, also required a disc to play?
Could it be that UbiSoft was a bit pissed at their former supplyer of DRM, because they themselves couldn't get rid of it from Rainbow Six when it caused too much trouble without stealing a crack from Reloaded? And when you couldn't find a new supplyer of DRM in time for the next release, hey, let's make a PR stunt out of it!
Alternatively I'd suggest that it's fear over people giving negative reviews on Amazon about inclusion of DRM like they did for Spore. It'd be nice if I was right, the customers won one.
No, not when those companies supply open and interoperable products.
Any profit-based business will entice you to stay as a long-term customer. That's not something Microsoft deserves sole credit for. Sorry buddy, that meme is not 'insightful'. Actually it works against the premise in some respects. Oh well.
Drugs are always affordable when the dealer is trying to get you hooked. (Score:5, Insightful)
That metaphor applies to companies you like, too. It's like saying Microsoft's shit stinks or Microsoft's morning breath is bad.
Way to wisely use those mod points.
So a company owned by Steve Jobs for 20 years uses Macs? I'm shocked. Shocked.
All the illustrators I've met at every studio I've worked at had Illustrators using Mac. Your Steve Jobs comment is amusingly ineffective.
Umm, Linux does quite a bit better for graphic design. Especially bigtime movie producers (pixar, etc) don't run Mac. They run linux.
Small correction: They mostly run a mixture of Windows and Linux. There's a good deal of 'off-the-shelf' software used and Windows is the most popular OS to release software on.
To this day, there is still no better platform for DTP and graphic design than the Mac.
That may be true in 2D land, but once you cross over into 3D, Mac's popularity drops dramatically. It's kind of sad, really, because I don't think that happens for technical reasons.
Considering that game development cost have skyrocketed in the last years while the actual game price have stays pretty much the same for two decades I find it hard to argue that games are to expensive.
The budget for the game has nothing to do with the price. If it did, the prices wouldn't be so standard across the board. The price is based on value, and for various reasons, that's dropping. What's amusing is these idiots think lowering the value of the games by adding intense restrictions will raise their revenues.
The Governor of Illinois has been arrested on charges of selling a senatorship to the highest bidder and we're celebrating the birthday of a fucking mouse?
1.) Not everybody is reading this story from Illinois.
2.) The mouse has already survived longer than this scandal has any hopes of being remembered.
3.) What are we supposed to do, collectively worry about what this guy has already done?
We're not Borg and you're not superior for having a spaz attack over it.
If the above is the case, it's a pretty dumb approach, since a GPS-enabled iPhone could just be smuggled in.
Besides, there's no way Apple would allow that software into the app store.
You probably should have put "IANAL" somewhere in that post.
If his sentence ended in a period instead of a question mark, you'd have a point.
That's almost as bad as saying something bad about Apple... let the flamewars begin.
Actually it's cool to attack Apple now. When the first iPhone was released, it was given a parade here. When a mysterious line formed in front of an Apple store near the 3G's release, suddenly it wasn't cool anymore and retro-active history kicked in. Oh, funny thing, those people were just in line for the next shipment of phones, not because of some rumor.
Standard excuses for not paying for this or any other game (pick any that apply):
Sounds more like standard misunderstandings from an ignorant given game developer to me. Come to think of it, I think you are a game developer, and I might even know which one. Pity you chose to post anonymously. Kudos to you for supporting democracy, rock legend.
1) I will pirate it first and then pay only if I like it (a la when I go into a restaurant and only pay when I liked the food, or go to the theater to see a film and pay only if it didn't suck). If the game is not PERFECT, I don't pay.
Crappy food? Don't pay. Crappy movie? Refund. Crappy game? Grab your ankles.
2) My pirating is good for the software developer (more people playing, even without paying is good, it gives them lots of free publicity). Piracy increases sales! I am doing them a HUGE favor.
As opposed to the rationale that all piracy is a lost sale? As long as you twits keep releasing sequels and rehashes, then yes, piracy is definitely not a 0 dollar event. You failed to grab their money, but you succeded in making a potential customer for the next sequel. If you had any business sense you'd look the other way like some other companies have.
3) I am a cheap ass.
Then the failure to attract their money is your fault. People make purchases based on perceived value.
4) There is no such thing as copyright (or shouldn't be). Other people should create art, music, games, films, and entertainment for me as a favor and fund it out of their own pocket.
Sadly you've mutilated this one too much for me to trace back its origins. As far as I can tell, this is about public domain suffocating due to the ability of huge corporations holding on to copyrights in perpetuity. Irrelevent without clarification.
5) Piracy is a fact in the gaming world. Get used to it. It's the developer's own fault because they should have taken it into account in their business case...
I don't hear people trotting this one out often, either, but it is a little odd you didn't mutate this one to suit your needs a little better like you did with the others. It is a fact of the PC Gaming world. So is shoplifting. There's a reason stores don't check people on the way in and out like they do at Disneyland. If we're going to discuss business cases here, let's not forget what makes pirated software valuable to begin with. Do you really think that none of the people that downloaded Spore had purchased a copy? Mmm? You'd expect business cases wouldn't overlook the basic rules of economics.
...(besides, they should have been working on this full time as an open source program for free anyway).
I can honestly say I've never heard this one. This sounds more like a generic Slashdot rant about proprietary software than a piracy debate.
6) $50 for this game is too much. Come to think of it, $25 is too. And if it is only $10, then pirating it shouldn't be that much of a burden to the developer.
If your price is too high, not everybody'll buy it. Basic economics. It's worth adding, though, that the lack of ability to return a shitty game, questions over its quality, and the general bombardment of "THE NUMBER ONE GAME IN AMERICA!" messages make it difficult enough to purchase without some form of evaluation. The copy restrictions themselves pose a problem, now. The games are systematically being lowered in value. This does not represent good business sense.
7) I do not want to try the demo because the only meaningful way to try out a game is to try out the ENTIRE game.
Amusing point. We're now seeing trailers instead of demos. Game developers have strengthened this point.
8) Who cares
Yeah and the Wii is significantly more powerful than the PS2. It wasn't due to lack of power, it was simply a fuckup and it ended in a class action lawsuit.
You don't know what you're talking about.
I'm all for shitting on FF's memory bloat, but you clearly have 5 tabs open in that one FF window (doing who knows what), and are clearly having the installing of the skype plugin.
It raises doubts, but it does not adequately explain anything.
That's laughable, considering their penchant for pumping out a Mario, Metroid, and Zelda game with every platform. They've got this innovative hardware, and all they've done is changed it so instead of pressing A to swing your sword, you flick your wrist.
Wow. You'd think PS3 owners wouldn't have such poor vision.