One individual revolutionary isn't going to change anything. One revolutionary that spreads his ideas to others and builds a following can. Thats why their internet is censored in the first place. It blocks the message and blocks the crucial organization of followers.
Despite analyst assurances that there would no longer be many console exclusives, EA is forming an entire studio for Wii titles.
I'm not sure why analysts thought the Wii wouldn't have a lot of its own excusives, even from 3rd party developers. Porting to the Wii a game that was designed with the other two big consoles in mind presents two challenges:
1) The Wii has less graphics horsepower.
2) The controller is completely different.
Downscaling the graphics may not be terribly difficult, but I suspect adding Wii controller support onto a game that was built trying to work with traditional control schemes as well, or worse didn't even consider them at first, will have crummy results. Look at the poor porting results of console to PC titles, with interfaces that don't change to take into account the advantages different platform offers. I suspect a similar thing will happen with the Wii.
The best and most competitive games in the Wii market are going to be ones that were designed for the Wii from the ground up and take advantage of everything that it has to offer. Which is really no different from any other console.
You bring up some important points. The 'contact' is putting his trust in the guy he's helping do the circumvention. Its the same idea as an open wireless network. Even if you don't mind sharing your bandwidth with strangers, do you trust them to not download kiddie porn or run a phishing scam over your internet connection? That'll probably come back to bite you in the ass if they do.
Your first point depends on how hard it is to detect that some one is using this circumvention software. They're doing something illegal obviously, but that goes without saying.
The article says the data between the proxy and user is encrypted.
I think the idea is there is no single point of failure. Each user has one 'contact' in the 'free' country. Even if the proxy is identified and blocked you're only cutting off one user. Whereas usually you block the servers at the source, stopping everyone from seeing it.
I also fail to see any advantage in taxing by the mileage. Despite feasibility concerns and odometer fraud potential, the current system of taxing the gas at the pump accomplishes the same goals, is already in place and is easier to administer. The only advantage the mileage tax is that because it would be yearly its more easily "hidden" and people would be less likely to complain about it. But you state your goal is to change behavior, not to increase tax revenue in and of itself. When you want to get more tax revenue without unrest, you split the taxes up to reduce visbility and confuse the populace so they don't know who to blame. But you want to change behavior I think you want that visibility.
Consider that people already pay more when they drive more miles throught he gas tax. The behavior change largely hasn't occured because the cost of gas just isn't high enough for it to occur. People have been bitching and moaning about the increase in gas prices the last few years now, but the fact is they've hardly changed their buying habits or driving behavior at all. So its clear to me that despite all their moaning, it was still worth it to them. They wanted their SUVs and if gas cost a lot, well, they could still afford it this time. When we touched on $3/gallon you started to see a bit of a shift, but that was brief.
Plus you have to consider that it will take awhile for the behavior to change. If I just bought an SUV last year and then gas jumps $1/gal I'm not just going to buy a new car. I wouldn't really save any money there. By the same token, its not a trivial matter for some one to say "wow, gas is expensive now...I'll just sell my house and move to the city, uprooting my family and possibly making my spouses commute worse". It'll change future decisions, but not many decisions that have already been made.
While I don't agree with everything you said, I think your point about people in SUVs having a false sense of invincibility is true. And when it snows, I seem to see a lot more SUVs on the side of the road then anything else. It seems like a lot of people get them around here because "they're good in the snow." They offer an advantage because of their weight and 4WD but some people seem to buy them thinking that they can now do 70 on the interstate in a blizzard. And then they can't.
...Scoble responds that Microsoft's innovation can be found in the little things: 'I remember when they improved the error messages you get in Internet Explorer, or when they improved fonts in Windows with ClearType technology. That improved our lives in a very tiny way. Not one that you usually read about, or probably even notice. Is Microsoft done innovating in those small ways? Absolutely not. Office 2007 lets me do some things (like cool looking charts) in seconds that used to take many minutes, maybe even hours for some people to do.'"
Wow. Improved error messages in Internet Explorer. Which side of the argument is this guy on again?
There have been these kinds of games in the paste for the PC. If you've ever played Atomic Bomberman it fits the bill. (And I really did hitch up a couple gamepads and play 4 player in that game a few times, it was a lot of fun)
But the PC in general just isn't really suited to that type. Just like consoles are clunky with RTS games or games with a lot of inventory management. Every PC comes with a mouse that makes those actions simple and consoles don't. You can plug four gamepads into a PC, but most people don't.
There's a niche market on PCs for that kind of play, but since the console is so much better suited to that I think people that it appeals to just buy a console anyway. So you're fighting against the PCs technology for a tiny piece of the pie.
My first thought when I read this was the same. All of my first experiences with computers as a child of the 80s were with apples. And handful of Macs, and mostly Apple IIs. The idea of giving the kids Apple computers so when they became adults they would want them seemed like a good plan. But the computer market, particularly during the 80s just didn't work that way. Computers were a tool of business, and at that time an expensive one. Apple computers were extra expensive. So businesses bought IBM PCs. The idea that the kids would buy the computers they used at school was trumped by the reality that people buy the computers they used at work. Kids don't actually have money to buy computers. I suspect there was a miscalculations on how quickly widescale computer adoption would take place.
I volenteered as an IT internship with schools early on and went on to work for an education company for some time. And among teachers, mostly the older ones, Apples are still seen as what should be the "cheated winner" of the PC war. They all use PCs now, but the few that actually cared about computers use them begrudingly. (And never seemed to miss an opportunity to point out that their problems didn't happen on their Mac!) You see, they used the apple's at work when it all went down...just like most kids parents used the IBM PCs.
If only some one had had the foresight to sterilize the people responsible for producing this generation in the first place...
If we suck its their fault!
To be fair, it seems like everyone I meet has the "I'm important, get out of my way" attitude. I'm beginning to think thats just the way people are.
While its true that the 55+ demographic has a lot of disposable income, there's a reason the 18-25 demographic is the most coveted. Young people buy more junk and we're probably less immune to fads. Older people have generally lost interest in these things, or maybe they have the wisdom required to not get caught up in the marketing bullshit.
I'd wager a guess that 55+ demographic is the one that has the most people using old iMacs or some Dell box from 1997, because "its good enough for them" or "it still works great!" Its that 18-25 demographic that wants the latest and great.
When was the last time microsoft actually paved the way and met with success? They only seem to succeed with their me-too-but-cheaper products.
A headstart means something, buts a hell of a lot easier to watch some one else fall down 10 times and succeed and then copy them then it is to fall down 10 times yourself.
I think there's an advantage to doing something first, but not as big as you would think. There's a reason patents exist, otherwise no one would do any research...they'd just wait for the other guy to do it and the copy it.
Exactly. Why should video games have more government restriction and regulation then movies? Oh thats right, because the who-screwed-up-the-kids? flavor of the month is video games.
Steam is far from perfect and still has plenty of room for improvement. But a lot of issues with it I just don't see.
1) I'll agree it could probably be a bit faster, but I never thought about it being slow until now. It doesn't really seem that bad.
2) As has been mentioned, that can be turned off. And the off switch actually works for this one.
3) I'm not sure what you mean on disk space. My wife's machine has a 40GB, the smallest one can buy new these days, and steam + office + windows + other games still only get about 50% full.
4) I'm split on this one. I can see very good reasons why they wouldn't want to allow this. Its tough to support, opens up opportunities for fraud and ultimately ends up undermining their own sales anyay. Regardless, I have bought a steam account from some one without issue.
5) This just isn't feasible for at least the multiplayer content. It would be also be a nightmare juggling two versions of the game from a logistical standpoint. Not to mention it would undermine the adoption of the steam platform, which seems to be one of valves goals.
6) I've heard this complaint, but just haven't really noticed it myself. I just turn steam off when I'm not playing games anyway though.
7) Agreed. I prefered the initial releases rather blasse layout and wish it was at least still an option.
8) Agreed. I would like to see this as well. Have people had any luck running it under cedega?
9) As long as they don't start requiring IE7 or the.NET framework I won't complain here.
10) Steam is download happy. Its offline mode never seems to have worked right. But the real problem is that valve often breaks stuff with their automatically downloaded updates. If they're going to make it so hard to avoid the automatic downloading they could at least make sure the updates were better tested. But, most of the problems seem to be corrected quickly and we are talking about games here...not software that monitors a nuclear reactor.
I've thought the same thing. I want a Wii, but haven't bought one because I prefer to wait until the rush is over. (I know they aren't that hard to find, but they aren't extremely easy yet either) But I've noticed that most of the initial games that have been released follow that kind of minigame format. While that format certainly has its place, I prefer something a little more robust. If I had to guess I'd say that before the novelty of the controller phase wears off we'll start to see some more complete titles rolling out that will keep the Wii's momentum strong. There's a lot of potential in that controller that isn't being tapped yet from what I've seen...and I'm sure some one is working on tapping it as we speak.
Am I the only one that absolutely hates split screen gameplay? I kind of wish that modern consoles at 2-4 video outputs so we couldn't see eachothers screens.
While you're right about the PS3 have several uses, I wonder if that feature is really appealing to that many people. It seems more like a case of "jack of all trades, master of none"
Sure you could use it as your primary PC...but I could put wood screws in with a sledge hammer too. That doesn't mean its the best way to do it. Does it work better then that $400 dell special, that probably comes with its own monitor? And you point out that I can plug it into my HD TV, but how many people type word documents while sitting on the couch? Even people with laptops do most of the work at a desk and this example would be analogous to a desktop PC. It seems like, as a PC, this would be an expensive and potentially cumbersome solution. I just don't know who that will really benefit.
The rest of your comments regarding the PC are how it functions as a game machine. Thats the same old console versus PC gaming debate there, but not really relevant here IMO. The xbox 360 is the direct and cheaper alternative in this case, not the PC.
You're right about it being a cheap blue ray disc player. I'm just not all that sure how much appeal that really offers the vast majority of consumers. I have a feeling the majority of people buying a game console would rather the console be cheaper at the expense of blu ray myself. Sure, a similar thing happened with the PS and DVD, but thats apples and oranges. I just don't think there's the kind of demand out there for either of the new formats that there was for DVD.
The crux of my point is that people buy a console to play console games, and thats about it. You can toss those extra features in and people will brag about them and maybe it'll even sway a few fence sitters to your side...but its not going to sell the consoles.
Steam was a huge risk, and had a rocky start. Valve basically leveraged the power of its Half Life franchise to semi-force market adoption of steam. A lesser title just plain couldn't have accomplished that. Now that all the risk as paid off you've got other publishers, that didn't have to risk anything, crying that they aren't getting the benefits.
Valve is 3D Realms competitor...but that goes the other way too. They're Valve's competitor as well. Why *should* they turn over the keys to the castle they built? They might end up locking themselves out!
In the last few years the number of big publishers has dwindled and most publishers only want the 'safe' titles. There's lots of small shops that are chomping at the bit to get what steam is offering. It seems they're doing pretty well and have already started to amass a pretty solid selection of different titles from different smaller developers.
Regardless, I think the calls for a divestiture are pretty premature given how young Steam and even valve itself are.
Would updating the client really be sufficient though? This sort of brings us full circle. You could hide the key in different memory spaces in the client all day long if you liked, but isn't the file going to have to be updated to use the key as well? And if you change the file, you're back at square 1. You're diluting the usefulness of the bittorrent protocol if everyone doesn't have the same file.
Thats another problem. In the US at least, most people are shafted on upload bandwidth, myself being no exception. I've got gobs of download bandwidth that I can never actually saturate because the server is always the bottleneck. Gobs of download bandwidth that comcast frequently brags about upgrading and can't stop talking about in their advertising. Of course they upgrade it, I already had a bunch of extra I couldn't use so lets give me some more!
But I've got 384kbps upload, which is an upgrade from last year when it was 256k. I've got an old slow box whose sole purpose is to be hold files and move torrents around all day. So I cap it off at like half my upload bandwidth so I can actually use my internet connection while its on. Its the upload bandwidth thats the bottleneck, and here comes some one else wanting a piece of that tiny pie again. For free no less, while they turn around and charge me for it on the other side.
If I had any confidence that the price would be lowered because of the lowered costs it might not be such a big deal. But I think we all know thats not going to happen. Mainly because past precidents indicate thats never happened. CDs came out, offering much cheaper production costs compared to cassettes. The initially sold at a premium price compared to cassettes, like any new technology does. But that price never went down even when cassettes disappeared. In fact it went up!
You mean I can pay for the movie I'm downloading AND provide the seller with the bandwidth to do it?
What a fantastic opportunity for consumers to share the crippling costs that hollywood is enduring!
Ubisoft titles always seem loaded with bugs, but I wait patiently for the patches and often buy their games. At least some of their titles try to break out of the norm, which is more then I can say for the other guys. At least some of their titles can be considered a little innovative. The closest thing EA does to innovation is buying out a small shop that did innovate, then defecating all over it.
Understand I'm not giving them a pass on their sloppy releases, but to their credit they do seem to eventually get things working like they should. Even if it takes a year. You may think thats not much of a standard to be held too...and you're right. But it still seems to be a higher standard then the one EA is held to with its battlefield series...where the priority is the sequel and expansion packs and the glaring flaws in the previous title seem to be completely ignored.
I still think valve is the only place with much new and innovative to offer. Not so much from their own games, but steam seems to provide an avenue for small indy-style titles to get to consumers. I think we'll see that business model continue to grow despite its naysayers. At the very least, it should be able to hold onto a healthy niche.
I'm actually pretty sure that a toaster uses way more electricity than a laptop does. But I don't know if that energy usage is enough to make it the worse offender to the environment compared to the rapid like cycle of a laptop, especially since the toaster probably won't be on all day whereas the laptop may.
I think the trouble is its just not cost efficient to fix much of anything these days. Once upon a time televisions were expensive, and it made sense to pay a skilled person $50/hr or whatever to open it up and repair it. These days, the TV is so cheap its not worth it. The new item has its own set of new benefits, and the repair costs aren't known until after the repair is completed. So not only does it have to be cheaper, it has to be a lot cheaper to make sense to repair the old.
Printers are the worst for this. I personally can't bring myself to toss an entire printer in the dumpster every time its ink cartridge empties...but they give the printers away with the ink and change almost the same for the ink on its own. So it makes more sense really to get a new printer thrown in with you ink purchase. Its a good thing its a hassle to dump the printer otherwise the problem would be even worse.
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One individual revolutionary isn't going to change anything. One revolutionary that spreads his ideas to others and builds a following can. Thats why their internet is censored in the first place. It blocks the message and blocks the crucial organization of followers.
Despite analyst assurances that there would no longer be many console exclusives, EA is forming an entire studio for Wii titles.
I'm not sure why analysts thought the Wii wouldn't have a lot of its own excusives, even from 3rd party developers. Porting to the Wii a game that was designed with the other two big consoles in mind presents two challenges:
1) The Wii has less graphics horsepower.
2) The controller is completely different.
Downscaling the graphics may not be terribly difficult, but I suspect adding Wii controller support onto a game that was built trying to work with traditional control schemes as well, or worse didn't even consider them at first, will have crummy results. Look at the poor porting results of console to PC titles, with interfaces that don't change to take into account the advantages different platform offers. I suspect a similar thing will happen with the Wii. The best and most competitive games in the Wii market are going to be ones that were designed for the Wii from the ground up and take advantage of everything that it has to offer. Which is really no different from any other console.
You bring up some important points. The 'contact' is putting his trust in the guy he's helping do the circumvention. Its the same idea as an open wireless network. Even if you don't mind sharing your bandwidth with strangers, do you trust them to not download kiddie porn or run a phishing scam over your internet connection? That'll probably come back to bite you in the ass if they do.
Your first point depends on how hard it is to detect that some one is using this circumvention software. They're doing something illegal obviously, but that goes without saying.
The article says the data between the proxy and user is encrypted. I think the idea is there is no single point of failure. Each user has one 'contact' in the 'free' country. Even if the proxy is identified and blocked you're only cutting off one user. Whereas usually you block the servers at the source, stopping everyone from seeing it.
Especially since there are so few station wagons available these days. (Although its looking like they're starting to make a bit of a comeback)
I also fail to see any advantage in taxing by the mileage. Despite feasibility concerns and odometer fraud potential, the current system of taxing the gas at the pump accomplishes the same goals, is already in place and is easier to administer. The only advantage the mileage tax is that because it would be yearly its more easily "hidden" and people would be less likely to complain about it. But you state your goal is to change behavior, not to increase tax revenue in and of itself. When you want to get more tax revenue without unrest, you split the taxes up to reduce visbility and confuse the populace so they don't know who to blame. But you want to change behavior I think you want that visibility.
Consider that people already pay more when they drive more miles throught he gas tax. The behavior change largely hasn't occured because the cost of gas just isn't high enough for it to occur. People have been bitching and moaning about the increase in gas prices the last few years now, but the fact is they've hardly changed their buying habits or driving behavior at all. So its clear to me that despite all their moaning, it was still worth it to them. They wanted their SUVs and if gas cost a lot, well, they could still afford it this time. When we touched on $3/gallon you started to see a bit of a shift, but that was brief.
Plus you have to consider that it will take awhile for the behavior to change. If I just bought an SUV last year and then gas jumps $1/gal I'm not just going to buy a new car. I wouldn't really save any money there. By the same token, its not a trivial matter for some one to say "wow, gas is expensive now...I'll just sell my house and move to the city, uprooting my family and possibly making my spouses commute worse". It'll change future decisions, but not many decisions that have already been made.
While I don't agree with everything you said, I think your point about people in SUVs having a false sense of invincibility is true. And when it snows, I seem to see a lot more SUVs on the side of the road then anything else. It seems like a lot of people get them around here because "they're good in the snow." They offer an advantage because of their weight and 4WD but some people seem to buy them thinking that they can now do 70 on the interstate in a blizzard. And then they can't.
...Scoble responds that Microsoft's innovation can be found in the little things: 'I remember when they improved the error messages you get in Internet Explorer, or when they improved fonts in Windows with ClearType technology. That improved our lives in a very tiny way. Not one that you usually read about, or probably even notice. Is Microsoft done innovating in those small ways? Absolutely not. Office 2007 lets me do some things (like cool looking charts) in seconds that used to take many minutes, maybe even hours for some people to do.'"
Wow. Improved error messages in Internet Explorer. Which side of the argument is this guy on again?
There have been these kinds of games in the paste for the PC. If you've ever played Atomic Bomberman it fits the bill. (And I really did hitch up a couple gamepads and play 4 player in that game a few times, it was a lot of fun)
But the PC in general just isn't really suited to that type. Just like consoles are clunky with RTS games or games with a lot of inventory management. Every PC comes with a mouse that makes those actions simple and consoles don't. You can plug four gamepads into a PC, but most people don't.
There's a niche market on PCs for that kind of play, but since the console is so much better suited to that I think people that it appeals to just buy a console anyway. So you're fighting against the PCs technology for a tiny piece of the pie.
My first thought when I read this was the same. All of my first experiences with computers as a child of the 80s were with apples. And handful of Macs, and mostly Apple IIs. The idea of giving the kids Apple computers so when they became adults they would want them seemed like a good plan. But the computer market, particularly during the 80s just didn't work that way. Computers were a tool of business, and at that time an expensive one. Apple computers were extra expensive. So businesses bought IBM PCs. The idea that the kids would buy the computers they used at school was trumped by the reality that people buy the computers they used at work. Kids don't actually have money to buy computers. I suspect there was a miscalculations on how quickly widescale computer adoption would take place. I volenteered as an IT internship with schools early on and went on to work for an education company for some time. And among teachers, mostly the older ones, Apples are still seen as what should be the "cheated winner" of the PC war. They all use PCs now, but the few that actually cared about computers use them begrudingly. (And never seemed to miss an opportunity to point out that their problems didn't happen on their Mac!) You see, they used the apple's at work when it all went down...just like most kids parents used the IBM PCs.
I'm not sure of the circumstances, but I suspect that Apple gave their computers away to schools at a heavy discount, if not outright donating them.
And, is this a toMAYto toMAHto thing you're doing with the PC definition here?
Regardless, Apple made plenty of computers, which could be used by persons even, during the 1980s.
If only some one had had the foresight to sterilize the people responsible for producing this generation in the first place... If we suck its their fault! To be fair, it seems like everyone I meet has the "I'm important, get out of my way" attitude. I'm beginning to think thats just the way people are.
While its true that the 55+ demographic has a lot of disposable income, there's a reason the 18-25 demographic is the most coveted. Young people buy more junk and we're probably less immune to fads. Older people have generally lost interest in these things, or maybe they have the wisdom required to not get caught up in the marketing bullshit.
I'd wager a guess that 55+ demographic is the one that has the most people using old iMacs or some Dell box from 1997, because "its good enough for them" or "it still works great!" Its that 18-25 demographic that wants the latest and great.
When was the last time microsoft actually paved the way and met with success? They only seem to succeed with their me-too-but-cheaper products. A headstart means something, buts a hell of a lot easier to watch some one else fall down 10 times and succeed and then copy them then it is to fall down 10 times yourself. I think there's an advantage to doing something first, but not as big as you would think. There's a reason patents exist, otherwise no one would do any research...they'd just wait for the other guy to do it and the copy it.
Exactly. Why should video games have more government restriction and regulation then movies? Oh thats right, because the who-screwed-up-the-kids? flavor of the month is video games.
Steam is far from perfect and still has plenty of room for improvement. But a lot of issues with it I just don't see.
.NET framework I won't complain here.
1) I'll agree it could probably be a bit faster, but I never thought about it being slow until now. It doesn't really seem that bad.
2) As has been mentioned, that can be turned off. And the off switch actually works for this one.
3) I'm not sure what you mean on disk space. My wife's machine has a 40GB, the smallest one can buy new these days, and steam + office + windows + other games still only get about 50% full.
4) I'm split on this one. I can see very good reasons why they wouldn't want to allow this. Its tough to support, opens up opportunities for fraud and ultimately ends up undermining their own sales anyay. Regardless, I have bought a steam account from some one without issue.
5) This just isn't feasible for at least the multiplayer content. It would be also be a nightmare juggling two versions of the game from a logistical standpoint. Not to mention it would undermine the adoption of the steam platform, which seems to be one of valves goals.
6) I've heard this complaint, but just haven't really noticed it myself. I just turn steam off when I'm not playing games anyway though.
7) Agreed. I prefered the initial releases rather blasse layout and wish it was at least still an option.
8) Agreed. I would like to see this as well. Have people had any luck running it under cedega?
9) As long as they don't start requiring IE7 or the
10) Steam is download happy. Its offline mode never seems to have worked right. But the real problem is that valve often breaks stuff with their automatically downloaded updates. If they're going to make it so hard to avoid the automatic downloading they could at least make sure the updates were better tested. But, most of the problems seem to be corrected quickly and we are talking about games here...not software that monitors a nuclear reactor.
I've thought the same thing. I want a Wii, but haven't bought one because I prefer to wait until the rush is over. (I know they aren't that hard to find, but they aren't extremely easy yet either) But I've noticed that most of the initial games that have been released follow that kind of minigame format. While that format certainly has its place, I prefer something a little more robust. If I had to guess I'd say that before the novelty of the controller phase wears off we'll start to see some more complete titles rolling out that will keep the Wii's momentum strong. There's a lot of potential in that controller that isn't being tapped yet from what I've seen...and I'm sure some one is working on tapping it as we speak.
Am I the only one that absolutely hates split screen gameplay? I kind of wish that modern consoles at 2-4 video outputs so we couldn't see eachothers screens.
While you're right about the PS3 have several uses, I wonder if that feature is really appealing to that many people. It seems more like a case of "jack of all trades, master of none"
Sure you could use it as your primary PC...but I could put wood screws in with a sledge hammer too. That doesn't mean its the best way to do it. Does it work better then that $400 dell special, that probably comes with its own monitor? And you point out that I can plug it into my HD TV, but how many people type word documents while sitting on the couch? Even people with laptops do most of the work at a desk and this example would be analogous to a desktop PC. It seems like, as a PC, this would be an expensive and potentially cumbersome solution. I just don't know who that will really benefit.
The rest of your comments regarding the PC are how it functions as a game machine. Thats the same old console versus PC gaming debate there, but not really relevant here IMO. The xbox 360 is the direct and cheaper alternative in this case, not the PC.
You're right about it being a cheap blue ray disc player. I'm just not all that sure how much appeal that really offers the vast majority of consumers. I have a feeling the majority of people buying a game console would rather the console be cheaper at the expense of blu ray myself. Sure, a similar thing happened with the PS and DVD, but thats apples and oranges. I just don't think there's the kind of demand out there for either of the new formats that there was for DVD.
The crux of my point is that people buy a console to play console games, and thats about it. You can toss those extra features in and people will brag about them and maybe it'll even sway a few fence sitters to your side...but its not going to sell the consoles.
JMO.
Is that really good for valve though?
Steam was a huge risk, and had a rocky start. Valve basically leveraged the power of its Half Life franchise to semi-force market adoption of steam. A lesser title just plain couldn't have accomplished that. Now that all the risk as paid off you've got other publishers, that didn't have to risk anything, crying that they aren't getting the benefits.
Valve is 3D Realms competitor...but that goes the other way too. They're Valve's competitor as well. Why *should* they turn over the keys to the castle they built? They might end up locking themselves out!
In the last few years the number of big publishers has dwindled and most publishers only want the 'safe' titles. There's lots of small shops that are chomping at the bit to get what steam is offering. It seems they're doing pretty well and have already started to amass a pretty solid selection of different titles from different smaller developers.
Regardless, I think the calls for a divestiture are pretty premature given how young Steam and even valve itself are.
Duke Nukem Forever must actually be getting close to release for real this time. He's already starting making excuses for its impending failure!
Would updating the client really be sufficient though? This sort of brings us full circle. You could hide the key in different memory spaces in the client all day long if you liked, but isn't the file going to have to be updated to use the key as well? And if you change the file, you're back at square 1. You're diluting the usefulness of the bittorrent protocol if everyone doesn't have the same file.
Thats another problem. In the US at least, most people are shafted on upload bandwidth, myself being no exception. I've got gobs of download bandwidth that I can never actually saturate because the server is always the bottleneck. Gobs of download bandwidth that comcast frequently brags about upgrading and can't stop talking about in their advertising. Of course they upgrade it, I already had a bunch of extra I couldn't use so lets give me some more!
But I've got 384kbps upload, which is an upgrade from last year when it was 256k. I've got an old slow box whose sole purpose is to be hold files and move torrents around all day. So I cap it off at like half my upload bandwidth so I can actually use my internet connection while its on. Its the upload bandwidth thats the bottleneck, and here comes some one else wanting a piece of that tiny pie again. For free no less, while they turn around and charge me for it on the other side.
If I had any confidence that the price would be lowered because of the lowered costs it might not be such a big deal. But I think we all know thats not going to happen. Mainly because past precidents indicate thats never happened. CDs came out, offering much cheaper production costs compared to cassettes. The initially sold at a premium price compared to cassettes, like any new technology does. But that price never went down even when cassettes disappeared. In fact it went up!
You mean I can pay for the movie I'm downloading AND provide the seller with the bandwidth to do it? What a fantastic opportunity for consumers to share the crippling costs that hollywood is enduring!
Ubisoft titles always seem loaded with bugs, but I wait patiently for the patches and often buy their games. At least some of their titles try to break out of the norm, which is more then I can say for the other guys. At least some of their titles can be considered a little innovative. The closest thing EA does to innovation is buying out a small shop that did innovate, then defecating all over it. Understand I'm not giving them a pass on their sloppy releases, but to their credit they do seem to eventually get things working like they should. Even if it takes a year. You may think thats not much of a standard to be held too...and you're right. But it still seems to be a higher standard then the one EA is held to with its battlefield series...where the priority is the sequel and expansion packs and the glaring flaws in the previous title seem to be completely ignored. I still think valve is the only place with much new and innovative to offer. Not so much from their own games, but steam seems to provide an avenue for small indy-style titles to get to consumers. I think we'll see that business model continue to grow despite its naysayers. At the very least, it should be able to hold onto a healthy niche.
I'm actually pretty sure that a toaster uses way more electricity than a laptop does. But I don't know if that energy usage is enough to make it the worse offender to the environment compared to the rapid like cycle of a laptop, especially since the toaster probably won't be on all day whereas the laptop may. I think the trouble is its just not cost efficient to fix much of anything these days. Once upon a time televisions were expensive, and it made sense to pay a skilled person $50/hr or whatever to open it up and repair it. These days, the TV is so cheap its not worth it. The new item has its own set of new benefits, and the repair costs aren't known until after the repair is completed. So not only does it have to be cheaper, it has to be a lot cheaper to make sense to repair the old. Printers are the worst for this. I personally can't bring myself to toss an entire printer in the dumpster every time its ink cartridge empties...but they give the printers away with the ink and change almost the same for the ink on its own. So it makes more sense really to get a new printer thrown in with you ink purchase. Its a good thing its a hassle to dump the printer otherwise the problem would be even worse.