Every devoted gamer I've ever known with the knowledge to do so built their own PC, but most of them own laptops and they buy those prebuilt. To date, I've never known a gamer/overclocker who built his own laptop.
As far as desktops go - I agree. There's no reason to shell out $7k for a high-end gaming desktop. I built my last gaming desktop, and am still pleased with it. However, the need arose to own a laptop - and I went with alienware. I'll admit, the thought went through my head "I remember the days when alienware was hot shit."
So am I the gamer who doesn't know nVidia from ATI? My apartment contains 6 working computers, all homebuilt, serving different purposes, and built to serve their purpose. I work in the IT industry, for what little bit that counts. I don't know everything about computers, but I know a decent bit. So why did I buy alienware?
The laptops are pricey, but decently priced configurations are available, and my warranty allows me upgrade a lot myself (processor, graphics, RAM, harddrives, etc). My previous laptop had various parts break frequently - keyboard, screen, etc, and I got tired of the damn things dying on me. I'm not the most gentle on portables, so the opportunity to spend $200 to ensure I'll have all that crap replaced when it breaks over the next 4 years was well worth it. After I upgraded a number of items in this new laptop, it wound up as quite a respectable gaming machine.
Guess I made a similar mistake the article made - I didn't list time frame. The number was $5000 in-game currency a week. Admittedly, that $18.12 USD isn't miserable - that pays your costs to continue playing the game (standard MMO monthly fee being about $15 USD), but that's hardly livable.
Given one of them said she made at minimum L$1000 (in-game currency) per 30-min 'trick', that comes out to about $3.62 USD, so $7.25 USD per hour. I've worked jobs that paid less, and required much more work than sitting in front of a computer game.
This article uses the in-game currency/real-world currency while RARELY being explicit about which one is being used. I guess it incites the reaction it obviously got - Holy Crap, They're making a considerable amount of money!
Except that it's $5,000 in-game currency. Which, according to the exchange rate, comes out to $18.12.
I could be mistaken, but isn't Harrison Ford in the scientology cult now? But that besides, him being greatly aged and sporting a look that is decidedly un-Solo (and un-Indiana-Jones) would not add anything to the show. It might even approach negative information - I will know less after watching than I did before.
As for the Ender's Game, it would be glorious if they could make it properly...But I think one has better chances at winning the lottery than Hollywood not ruining the movie. Would it even be conceivable for hollywood to make an ending to Ender's that wasn't cuter, cuddlier?
Not to mention the inevitable Bugger comic relief.
I was a pretty avid MUDder in my youth, and did a pretty good deal of tabletop RPing when I hit college (and enough of a gamer community could be found), though most of it was more WhiteWolf than D&D (the females of the group could get behind being a vampire/werewolf/fae/etc more than anything from high fantasy for some reason). Of course, the next step was into MMOGs, where I currently maintain a FFXI and DDO subscription, having given up on most other MMOGs I've played (Lineage2, WoW, EQ2, Planetside, etc).
From what I've seen, the goal of most MMOGs is the opposite of what you want - to build their own global communities. I see no sign of this trend changing. FFXI even requires you pay to have someone you know join your server, otherwise they're randomly assigned a server, while providing some translation tools so you can speak to Japanese players who don't know any English. Ironic, as no amount of breaking down the language barrier removes the racism that's often rampant. I even recognize the katakana for "gaijin", I've seen it so much. So in the big MMOs, I'm afraid you're outta luck without going in with a group of friends you already know.
As for the end-user creative input to the game, you might have some luck with the smaller budget (and often free) MMOs. There's a large number of independently developed games that love for people to help test and add some input. Google for Free MMORPG, or go through lists of betas, you'll find plenty.
Unfortunately, the game community is getting lazy. MMORPGs are to RPGs what TV was to radio. So I'm going to find my bag of d10s, and buy a new laptop to play FFXI on.
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Every devoted gamer I've ever known with the knowledge to do so built their own PC, but most of them own laptops and they buy those prebuilt. To date, I've never known a gamer/overclocker who built his own laptop.
As far as desktops go - I agree. There's no reason to shell out $7k for a high-end gaming desktop. I built my last gaming desktop, and am still pleased with it. However, the need arose to own a laptop - and I went with alienware. I'll admit, the thought went through my head "I remember the days when alienware was hot shit."
So am I the gamer who doesn't know nVidia from ATI? My apartment contains 6 working computers, all homebuilt, serving different purposes, and built to serve their purpose. I work in the IT industry, for what little bit that counts. I don't know everything about computers, but I know a decent bit. So why did I buy alienware?
The laptops are pricey, but decently priced configurations are available, and my warranty allows me upgrade a lot myself (processor, graphics, RAM, harddrives, etc). My previous laptop had various parts break frequently - keyboard, screen, etc, and I got tired of the damn things dying on me. I'm not the most gentle on portables, so the opportunity to spend $200 to ensure I'll have all that crap replaced when it breaks over the next 4 years was well worth it. After I upgraded a number of items in this new laptop, it wound up as quite a respectable gaming machine.
Guess I made a similar mistake the article made - I didn't list time frame. The number was $5000 in-game currency a week. Admittedly, that $18.12 USD isn't miserable - that pays your costs to continue playing the game (standard MMO monthly fee being about $15 USD), but that's hardly livable. Given one of them said she made at minimum L$1000 (in-game currency) per 30-min 'trick', that comes out to about $3.62 USD, so $7.25 USD per hour. I've worked jobs that paid less, and required much more work than sitting in front of a computer game.
This article uses the in-game currency/real-world currency while RARELY being explicit about which one is being used. I guess it incites the reaction it obviously got - Holy Crap, They're making a considerable amount of money! Except that it's $5,000 in-game currency. Which, according to the exchange rate, comes out to $18.12.
I could be mistaken, but isn't Harrison Ford in the scientology cult now? But that besides, him being greatly aged and sporting a look that is decidedly un-Solo (and un-Indiana-Jones) would not add anything to the show. It might even approach negative information - I will know less after watching than I did before. As for the Ender's Game, it would be glorious if they could make it properly...But I think one has better chances at winning the lottery than Hollywood not ruining the movie. Would it even be conceivable for hollywood to make an ending to Ender's that wasn't cuter, cuddlier? Not to mention the inevitable Bugger comic relief.
I was a pretty avid MUDder in my youth, and did a pretty good deal of tabletop RPing when I hit college (and enough of a gamer community could be found), though most of it was more WhiteWolf than D&D (the females of the group could get behind being a vampire/werewolf/fae/etc more than anything from high fantasy for some reason). Of course, the next step was into MMOGs, where I currently maintain a FFXI and DDO subscription, having given up on most other MMOGs I've played (Lineage2, WoW, EQ2, Planetside, etc). From what I've seen, the goal of most MMOGs is the opposite of what you want - to build their own global communities. I see no sign of this trend changing. FFXI even requires you pay to have someone you know join your server, otherwise they're randomly assigned a server, while providing some translation tools so you can speak to Japanese players who don't know any English. Ironic, as no amount of breaking down the language barrier removes the racism that's often rampant. I even recognize the katakana for "gaijin", I've seen it so much. So in the big MMOs, I'm afraid you're outta luck without going in with a group of friends you already know. As for the end-user creative input to the game, you might have some luck with the smaller budget (and often free) MMOs. There's a large number of independently developed games that love for people to help test and add some input. Google for Free MMORPG, or go through lists of betas, you'll find plenty. Unfortunately, the game community is getting lazy. MMORPGs are to RPGs what TV was to radio. So I'm going to find my bag of d10s, and buy a new laptop to play FFXI on.