I do like Valve, but I'm far from an Apple fanboy. However, the fact that there ARE a lot of Apple fanboys should tell you that a lot of people are very happy with their purchases. How many EA fanboys do you know?
And for the record, I've never had any problems with Steam. It seems like a pretty reasonable system given the very real concerns about piracy on the PC.
So why have game companies adopted this sort of shit, even though their market research tells them that their customers hate it? Blame Wall Street. It's no coincidence that publicly traded companies like EA and Activision are the pioneers of this garbage, and privately-held Valve refuses to participate (see their longstanding refusal to charge for DLC on the Xbox, for example). Valve knows that in the long-run, angering their customers will result in fewer gamers and a declining industry. Are EA and Activision too retarded to realize this? No! But their executives are under pressure to deliver results every single quarter. If you didn't know this, video games are only profitable for one quarter a year, around Christmas.
The dream of the suits has always been to find a way to generate more consistent streams of revenue, so that rather than losing money for 3 quarters, you make money for all 4. Track the rise of subscription-based MMOs, charging for DLC, in-game-ads and Xbox Live, it coincides nicely with Wall Street putting greater and greater pressure for game companies to deliver consistent results. As a result, more and more gamers become disillusioned with the medium, shrinking the customer pool more and more, causing the suits to demand even GREATER ways to wring hard-earned cash out of their customers. All because the fuckers on Wall Street (whose genius caused our current recession) are too stupid to realize that a business that makes enough money one quarter a year while pleasing its customers is better than one that makes money four quarters a year while pissing them off.
Is it any coincidence that two of the most profitable and successful PC game developers are privately-held Valve, and famously-insulated-from-the-suits Blizzard? The assholes who control the money used to finance games are just as good at running game companies as they are at buying mortgages.
People hail Steve Jobs as a genius -- but the only advantage Apple has is the same advantage that Valve has. They realize that the best business strategy is the one that's worked since the beginning of capitalism: Please your customers. There's no future in Wall Street's current infatuation with predatory capitalism.
I totally agree. The smart money was that Clinton had to build at least a 100 delegate (not counting super delegates) lead to have a good shot at the nomination. She came up far short of this. Obama has a very favorable schedule until two toss ups (Texas and Ohio) on March 4, and unlike Clinton, many of his contributors have yet to give the maximum amount. If I were a betting man, my money'd be on Obama right now.
While I like some of the new additions, porting Warpath, Avanti and Crossover would do wonders for this game. It seems like some lousy TFC/TF maps got ported just for tradition (i.e. well and 2fort). Maybe they were fun in 1997, but they don't fit well in the current strategic game mechanic.
Asshole store manager is denying citizens the right to buy things in his store (the original article I read about him had crazy racist overtones, by the way - didn't like "gang members with baggy pants" hanging out in his store, i.e. black people) and his corporate overlords thankfully stepped in and put a stop to the chicanery. I know they're a corporation and all, but props to Gamestop for doing the common sense thing.
Well, just off the top of my head, why were Islamic death squads not going after Christopher Hitchens on his latest book tour? He has said things about Islam that are FAR more offensive than the Danish cartoons (though they didn't "visually depict Mohammad," a crime thats committed by Muslims quite often) but there was not fatwa pronounced against him. It's predictable that the extremist Muslims get riled up by this stuff, but who knows what stuff will rile them up and what won't. Like I said, its unlikely that many of them even SAW the Danish cartoons.
Well, there's this direct precedent of people being murdered over a barely offensive cartoon to Muslims. As far as I know, that's never happened with the loony fundamentalist Christians (who sort of seem to seek getting made fun of, let's them fit themselves into this "victim" frame).
I think that a leading American newspaper caving into the implied threat of violence by fanatical Muslims (and there's no question, that's what this is about) is certainly noteworthy, if not exactly surprising. After so many major American papers refused to run the barely offensive Danish cartoons, this sort of cowardice in the fourth estate hardly shocks me. Saddens, yes, but shocks, no.
I think what the Danish cartoon thing showed is that radical Muslims can flip out over extremely random (or at least unpredictable) offenses to them. Why did the Ayatollah pronounce death to Salman Rushdie and the Danish cartoon guys, but not to the literally thousands of other blasphemous publications out there? I have no idea, and I assume, neither does the Post. Clearly, in neither of these cases did the offended party really understand the work (certainly, in the case of The Satanic Verses he never read the book), it was just the description of the content that caused the offense. I'm sure the newspapers said "why risk it for some fucking cartoon?" Not that I agree with that decision.
Now that combo Blu-Ray HD-DVD players are becoming increasingly available and cheap, any studio would be stupid to not take a cash payout for (what may end being an ultimately meaningless) format switch. With the format war continuing for at least another few years (by all likelihood), it's conceivable that mass adoption of combo players as they become affordable will mean that format difference will ultimately be of as little meaning as DVD+/-R is now.
Besides, with adoption rates lagging so badly, the losses from switching to a less-popular format over the next 18 months are probably outweighed by the cash payment. Great business decision by Paramount.
Loved it, because it confirmed my PC won't be able to run Bioshock, as I suspected. Hope those neat water effects were worth my $50 (and the $50 of everyone else who doesn't have a "100% Directx 9.0c compatible" video card.)
Just let it go. The only times games can achieve the level of control over audience experience necessary to fit the definition of "art" is when they strip so much interactivity out of the experience, they no longer qualify as "games." Who would argue that the cut-scenes in Final Fantasy VII (one oft-cited "arty" game) are anything except movies spliced into the actual game?
The closest I think you could come is a game like Half Life 2. It is both unambiguously playing by the rules of games (no cutscenes that take you away from control of the character), yet stays on rails enough for the developers to give a controlled and interesting experience to the player. If that's the best we can do, it's time to give up the crusade.
For some of the greatest games (in my opinion) it would be impossible to make a strong case for being art, because they allow for experiences largely in the control of the gamer. The best are strong enough that they turn the player into an artist of sorts. SimCity isn't art, but many user-created cities could be.
Ebert is speaking from ignorance here, but he's still right. As much as it gives games a dignity they surely deserve to lump them in with "art," there's no way to make them art without stripping them of what makes them interesting as games.
What does this mean in regards to Dick Cheney's continued influence in the White House? Many had felt Bush had soured on Cheney and began to reclaim ground ceded to the Office of the Vice President, but a commutation/pardon certainly speaks to Cheney still having a large influence. Does this mean that the rumors of Cheney's diminished power in the last few months are untrue, and that he was able to convince Bush to take an unpopular action for his former staffer?
Or does the fact that it was a commutation of sentence rather than a full pardon speak to Cheney's diminished influence? If Cheney still had the sway in the White House he once did, would Libby have gotten a full pardon?
Interesting questions, but on a larger note: what does it say about our supposedly transparent Democracy that we have to resort to Kremlinology to find out who's calling the shots in our government's most powerful branch?
This is a great choice that I've been suggesting since I first played GH. I can't think of another song from the 90's that would fit better in this game. Still no Black Keys, disappointingly.
I bet this is more about EA realizing that the PS3's high price is gonna boost the Wii's market share than about a desire to spend a lot of money developing unique ports for a third place (according to CW) console. Am I the only one who remembers EA not porting to the Dreamcast because of their (somewhat self-fufilling) prophecy of PS2 dominance?
I still bet Madden will suck though.
Slashdot Mirror
Our weapons are only deadly if you stand in front of them!
I do like Valve, but I'm far from an Apple fanboy. However, the fact that there ARE a lot of Apple fanboys should tell you that a lot of people are very happy with their purchases. How many EA fanboys do you know?
And for the record, I've never had any problems with Steam. It seems like a pretty reasonable system given the very real concerns about piracy on the PC.
So why have game companies adopted this sort of shit, even though their market research tells them that their customers hate it? Blame Wall Street. It's no coincidence that publicly traded companies like EA and Activision are the pioneers of this garbage, and privately-held Valve refuses to participate (see their longstanding refusal to charge for DLC on the Xbox, for example). Valve knows that in the long-run, angering their customers will result in fewer gamers and a declining industry. Are EA and Activision too retarded to realize this? No! But their executives are under pressure to deliver results every single quarter. If you didn't know this, video games are only profitable for one quarter a year, around Christmas.
The dream of the suits has always been to find a way to generate more consistent streams of revenue, so that rather than losing money for 3 quarters, you make money for all 4. Track the rise of subscription-based MMOs, charging for DLC, in-game-ads and Xbox Live, it coincides nicely with Wall Street putting greater and greater pressure for game companies to deliver consistent results. As a result, more and more gamers become disillusioned with the medium, shrinking the customer pool more and more, causing the suits to demand even GREATER ways to wring hard-earned cash out of their customers. All because the fuckers on Wall Street (whose genius caused our current recession) are too stupid to realize that a business that makes enough money one quarter a year while pleasing its customers is better than one that makes money four quarters a year while pissing them off.
Is it any coincidence that two of the most profitable and successful PC game developers are privately-held Valve, and famously-insulated-from-the-suits Blizzard? The assholes who control the money used to finance games are just as good at running game companies as they are at buying mortgages.
People hail Steve Jobs as a genius -- but the only advantage Apple has is the same advantage that Valve has. They realize that the best business strategy is the one that's worked since the beginning of capitalism: Please your customers. There's no future in Wall Street's current infatuation with predatory capitalism.
I totally agree. The smart money was that Clinton had to build at least a 100 delegate (not counting super delegates) lead to have a good shot at the nomination. She came up far short of this. Obama has a very favorable schedule until two toss ups (Texas and Ohio) on March 4, and unlike Clinton, many of his contributors have yet to give the maximum amount. If I were a betting man, my money'd be on Obama right now.
Warpath especially needs to be in this game ASAP.
Asshole store manager is denying citizens the right to buy things in his store (the original article I read about him had crazy racist overtones, by the way - didn't like "gang members with baggy pants" hanging out in his store, i.e. black people) and his corporate overlords thankfully stepped in and put a stop to the chicanery. I know they're a corporation and all, but props to Gamestop for doing the common sense thing.
Well, just off the top of my head, why were Islamic death squads not going after Christopher Hitchens on his latest book tour? He has said things about Islam that are FAR more offensive than the Danish cartoons (though they didn't "visually depict Mohammad," a crime thats committed by Muslims quite often) but there was not fatwa pronounced against him. It's predictable that the extremist Muslims get riled up by this stuff, but who knows what stuff will rile them up and what won't. Like I said, its unlikely that many of them even SAW the Danish cartoons.
The press is even more cowardly in standing up for themselves than American liberal politicians. And that's saying something.
Well, there's this direct precedent of people being murdered over a barely offensive cartoon to Muslims. As far as I know, that's never happened with the loony fundamentalist Christians (who sort of seem to seek getting made fun of, let's them fit themselves into this "victim" frame).
Well, yes.
I think that a leading American newspaper caving into the implied threat of violence by fanatical Muslims (and there's no question, that's what this is about) is certainly noteworthy, if not exactly surprising. After so many major American papers refused to run the barely offensive Danish cartoons, this sort of cowardice in the fourth estate hardly shocks me. Saddens, yes, but shocks, no.
I think what the Danish cartoon thing showed is that radical Muslims can flip out over extremely random (or at least unpredictable) offenses to them. Why did the Ayatollah pronounce death to Salman Rushdie and the Danish cartoon guys, but not to the literally thousands of other blasphemous publications out there? I have no idea, and I assume, neither does the Post. Clearly, in neither of these cases did the offended party really understand the work (certainly, in the case of The Satanic Verses he never read the book), it was just the description of the content that caused the offense. I'm sure the newspapers said "why risk it for some fucking cartoon?" Not that I agree with that decision.
I wasn't into music until music piracy. Now I buy music (iTunes, CDs or vinyl) all the time. Just a little anecdotal evidence.
Dude, you could've just said "I'm a libertarian." Saved us all some time.
Now that combo Blu-Ray HD-DVD players are becoming increasingly available and cheap, any studio would be stupid to not take a cash payout for (what may end being an ultimately meaningless) format switch. With the format war continuing for at least another few years (by all likelihood), it's conceivable that mass adoption of combo players as they become affordable will mean that format difference will ultimately be of as little meaning as DVD+/-R is now. Besides, with adoption rates lagging so badly, the losses from switching to a less-popular format over the next 18 months are probably outweighed by the cash payment. Great business decision by Paramount.
Might as well buy a 360 if I'm gonna drop the money to upgrade my video card. Is scalability really that difficult?
Loved it, because it confirmed my PC won't be able to run Bioshock, as I suspected. Hope those neat water effects were worth my $50 (and the $50 of everyone else who doesn't have a "100% Directx 9.0c compatible" video card.)
The closest I think you could come is a game like Half Life 2. It is both unambiguously playing by the rules of games (no cutscenes that take you away from control of the character), yet stays on rails enough for the developers to give a controlled and interesting experience to the player. If that's the best we can do, it's time to give up the crusade.
For some of the greatest games (in my opinion) it would be impossible to make a strong case for being art, because they allow for experiences largely in the control of the gamer. The best are strong enough that they turn the player into an artist of sorts. SimCity isn't art, but many user-created cities could be.
Ebert is speaking from ignorance here, but he's still right. As much as it gives games a dignity they surely deserve to lump them in with "art," there's no way to make them art without stripping them of what makes them interesting as games.
Or does the fact that it was a commutation of sentence rather than a full pardon speak to Cheney's diminished influence? If Cheney still had the sway in the White House he once did, would Libby have gotten a full pardon?
Interesting questions, but on a larger note: what does it say about our supposedly transparent Democracy that we have to resort to Kremlinology to find out who's calling the shots in our government's most powerful branch?
Cool, assuming they eventually integrate this into their displays without breaking the bank.
This is a great choice that I've been suggesting since I first played GH. I can't think of another song from the 90's that would fit better in this game. Still no Black Keys, disappointingly.
I bet this is more about EA realizing that the PS3's high price is gonna boost the Wii's market share than about a desire to spend a lot of money developing unique ports for a third place (according to CW) console. Am I the only one who remembers EA not porting to the Dreamcast because of their (somewhat self-fufilling) prophecy of PS2 dominance? I still bet Madden will suck though.