I had the privilege of working with an insurance organization (government run) in Canada recently, and I wonder why American health insurance companies don't take the same clue. I keep reading about horrifying health care abuse by your private insurance companies - denying care to those who deserve it and have paid their premiums, etc.
Why not focus on prevention? Here in Canada I notice we pend a *huge* amount of money on prevention education. Free nutrition classes for the overweight, lots and lots of adds on workplace safety and household safety... All of that goes towards reducing your eventual payout, and it's a win-win situation, as opposed to the much less morally justifiable situation of denying patient care once the patient has fallen ill.
I rent, aka I can't make too many modifications to my place. I use DSL, which comes into the bedroom via phone jack, and I've got a wireless router hooked up to it. Out in the living room where the 360 is and the TV, there is no internet connection. I can't drill through the wall, and I'd like it if I could go wifi for less than $100. Honestly, 3rd party adapters are $20 or less, there's NO reason MS can't do it for $30 or so, which IMHO would be a decent price. $100 is just gougery.
I'm aware that there are legitimate uses for mod chips. That I acknowledge. What I have a beef against are self-righteous mod chip dealers who peddle chips to people they know are only there to pirate stuff, not run XBMC, emulators, etc. These people cannot turn around when faced with trouble and get on a moral high horse - because for them there is none.
They knew full well that 99.9% of the chips they were selling were meant for piracy and piracy only. Despite the tiny minority of people who make legitimate use of them, they don't have a moral leg to stand on.
Which I guess is the reason I have mixed feelings towards mod chips. I believe they should be legal - the buyer ought to have the right to do whatever they want with the machine they purchased. But at the same time I believe mod chip dealers to be engaged in highly immoral activity (unless they can somehow reasonably guarantee that the majority of their chips are for homebrew, not piracy).
I'm not familiar with Datel's DS mod chip. But if it's something that, when marketed as a purely homebrew solution, will honestly respect it and take reasonable measures to ensure that it isn't used for piracy, I'm happy.
...how do you get your games onto end users' monitors that are larger than 19 inches (namely TVs)? How do you get GP2X units into end users' hands so that they can play your games?
I don't target consoles. But if I were to, I would do it in the way every single other indie dev so far has done it - XBLA, PS Network, etc.
Likewise, no amount of EBAY and GMAIL arguments you make will deny the fact that 99% of the cable modems you install will be used to pirate mass amounts of music or movies, or to relay spam.
Invalid analogy. While most home broadband has been used at some point or another for piracy, it is not their intended purpose. The connection is good for and IS used for many other purposes than merely piracy. On the other hand, 99% of mod chips out there has only one raison d'etre - to enable its owner to play pirated games.
In this case IMHO culpability has a lot to do with intent.
Let's say I go to Sports Mart and buy a baseball bat. I then proceed to beat someone to death with it. Obviously the store here is not liable for what I did illegal with what is otherwise a legal tool. This is the most common argument made by mod chippers.
But this isn't really analogous. If I walk into a store, talking loudly on my phone about buying a baseball bat for the express purpose of beating someone to death with it, I would sincerely hope that someone calls the cops, or at least refuses to sell the bat to me. That should be common sense.
The same situation applies to chippers. You can't have your cake and eat it too. If you know full well that 99% of your customer base is getting the chip to play pirated games (as opposed to homebrew, as opposed to abandonware which is of questionable legality anyways...), then I have no sympathy for you if your operation is busted and shut down by The Man. This isn't a situation where the service/tool you are providing is overwhelming used for good, but occasionally may be used for bad, it is the opposite.
As an indie game dev I really dislike how mod chippers hide behind this veneer of moralistic attitude. What you people do may or may not be legal, but it certainly is not moral. And no amount of MAME and XBMC arguments you make will deny the fact that 99% of the chips you install will be used to pirate mass amounts of games.
*buzzer* Nope. I'm not sure who was truly first, but I know that C&C predated SC in terms of balancing different units for each side (as opposed to having both sides "clone" each others' units). Granted, C&C multiplayer left a lot to be desired, especially the matchmaking service, but SC certainly wasn't the first.
RTS games have come a long way since SC, but the thing I remember most fondly about it was its ability to tell a story while *in* a game, where previous games in the genre were limited to telling stories BETWEEN missions.
Try Total Annihilation. The AI in that game is ridiculously smart, and learns between sessions. I remember when I first started playing I went heavy on bombers and fast airborne strafing runs across the enemy base. A couple of games later I tried to steamroll the CPU again, but this time all my aircraft were met with a hail of grisly anti-air death. I was shocked, and amazed.
In the end it really forces the player to constantly be trying new playing styles, new strategies, and the resourcing became even more important. TA worked on a "income vs. expenses" model, instead of having resource "stockpiles" like traditional RTSes. This allowed you to maintain a totally automated production line, whose unit AI you can set before it even rolls out of the factory. It allowed truly large-scale thinking, where you can hold a line and fight a massive war instead of micro'ing your units and engaging in limited skirmishes.
Wait, you mean municipal broadband will give preferential treatment for its own service? The one run by an elected entity, representing the people they serve? The one that won't be profit seeking (other than providing nominal tax dollars to fund other services)? The one whose pricing, serving level, and whatnot would be controlled by the citizenry at the city council level? HOLY COW BATMAN!
I don't see a SIGN UP button on the article, damn...
Actually, the Rolls Royce analogy may be apt. But really I think it's more like a BMW analogy. Both Toyotas and BMWs are nicely built, one has more luxury trimmings than the other, but all in all they still get you from point A to point B. Both are likely to experience problems during their lifetimes, and the difference comes out then. With the Toyota you will receive adequate service after bitching at the warranty guy, whereas with the BMW you will receive prompt, courteous service that addresses your concerns quickly and completely.
Having owned both Macs and PCs (guess which one I'm on now), I can tell you without a doubt that this is true. When my Toshiba broke down I had to bring it to the retailer, deal with a support tech who was more than unwilling to help me, and in fact tried to deflect every malfunctioning bit as normal behaviour, or somehow make it seem like accidental damage. I was extremely dissatisfied.
Compare and contrast to when the hinge on my MacBook Pro broke. I phoned it in (no Apple store where I was), my call was answered in less than 5 minutes (try THAT with any other major consumer laptop manufacturer!). The tech took my serial, verified my warranty coverage, and immediately passed me off to a product expert who is more familiar with case issues. The other tech answered in less than 2 minutes, and the first tech even stayed on the line to summarize the problem for him, so I don't have to repeat myself. The second tech immediately gave me an authorization number for the repair, and my laptop was back to tip top shape in a couple of days.
Time taken with PC: 2 hours. Aggravation: 10
Time taken with Mac: 15 minutes. Aggravation: 0
Many people will feed you with BS about how Macs are unbreakable or such other BS. They break like any other laptop. The difference is in how you're treated after that fact.
Personally I'm just glad to see casual gaming move away from crappy rip-off flash games for once. Yes, I know, people enjoy them, but it's one segment of the industry I never had much respect for. How much props can you give a bunch of guys who are really making the same match-3 games and Bejeweled clones over and over again?
I'm so glad Nintendo has proven that there's more to casual gaming than PopCap:P
I wish OS X would put the menu bar on both screens. It's really not too hard to do.
That said, I think Windows is a worse violator, or maybe it's just the drivers... The task bar only goes on the secondary display. When I hook my laptop up to my big monitor, the task bar simply refuses to budge! But at home, with the big LCD, I only use my laptop screen as a tools palette for apps like Photoshop and 3dsmax. This is very annoying. I can't even get games to run on the big monitor, since the display panel would not allow me to switch the external monitor to "primary". Argh.
Nobody insinuated that rural residents don't have computers, or are too dumb to have computers, or any such trash. You are attacking a straw man that doesn't even exist. I suspect part of your problem with "right wing dumbasses" like myself (though I consider myself quite far left), is more so with your perception with how they think of you, rather than what they actually think of you.
The mere reality of it is that Vancouver, Victoria, and related areas are far more densely packed. A single recycling centre may take quite a bit of money to run (I'm no recycling expert), and there needs to be enough population in the area to have enough computers worth recycling. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if rural areas purchase less computers per capita, less often, than urban areas. This isn't a value judgment, nor am I theorizing why, but I suspect it is plain statistical truth.
Disclaimer: I am not a regular MMORPG gamer, and have not seriously played one since the Planetside days.
IMHO the big problem with MMOGs is grinding. That being said I don't think getting rid of levels or skill advancements is necessarily a good idea.
There needs to be a move towards regarding grinding as a specialization, as opposed to a generic level-up. I think Planetside had this down, and to this day I still regard it as the best MMOG I've ever played. It's too bad the expansion fuxed it and its lack of players killed it.
In PS, leveling up isn't a generic strength increase, you still get generally the same HP as everyone else, you're not suddenly infinitely hard to kill, nor do your shots suddenly become more accurate. In the end you level up for the skill points, which can be invested into character specializations. Like the big guns? Throw SPs into big hulking MAX suits... Like being a support player? Then throw some SPs into driving transports. In the end a successful squad or team relies on members of all specializations, making each one important, and allowing players to truly play their style.
This is nothing but FUD. BC is 357,216 square miles and contains 4.3 million people (note: I did not verify the parent's numbers, but they seem reasonably correct from memory). On the other hand, California, Nevada, and Oregon put together contains 39 million people. That's almost a 10x difference.
Also remember, the population of Vancouver, Victoria, and the next 3 largest cities in BC total 2.8 million. That's 65% of the entire population of the province, with Vancouver comprising 2.1 million of the total alone. I'm pretty sure the recycling program exists THERE.
Given how dense Victoria, Vancouver, and its outlying areas is (after all, the whole region is walled in by mountains), 70 locations is not outrageous, and can in fact cover a LOT of people's recycling needs.
So take the "blatant thievery" and shove it, unless you have some real proof of a conspiracy to steal taxpayer dollars.
I agree. I always do my research for large purchases, but for a bottle of hand soap I certainly don't spend hours going over studies and papers and whatnot. That being said, I do feel a negative response when I see products that have been advertised to me in an extremely annoying manner, whether it's through flashing banners on the Internet, in-game ads, or merely a poorly conceived ad that annoys me to no end every time I see it on TV. For small products that don't need research, and where I am faced with multiple products that seem largely the same, I would probably go with price, as opposed to which brands I've seen on a sign somewhere.
Case in point: Axe did a *lot* of advertising in Ubi games, and they still do. When buying deodorant I have never bought Axe. Never. That being said, some of their TV ads are quite clever, and my feelings towards the brand are fairly neutral overall, and I'm more disappointed at Ubi for stuffing an otherwise awesome game (Rainbow Six Vegas) full of ads.
When I play games, I notice the ads. How can you not? When my secret agent runs head first into a Comcast van, how does one not notice?
So yes, I have no doubt that 81% of players or whatever notice their insipid ads. The question is, do gamers care, and are they more likely to purchase an advertiser's service due to the ad? There is such a thing as bad publicity.
Personally I've never made a buying decision off an ad in a game. In fact, they annoy me, and when I see the product/brand in real life I am reminded of that annoyance. I would say I'm *less* likely to choose a product over its competitor because of the annoyance it has caused me while I'm trying to relax.
Secondly, are in-game ads really worth it for game developers? My ire towards in-game ads are less directed at the advertisers than the game companies responsible for producing the mess in the first place. My opinion of EA and Ubisoft is decreasing very rapidly due to their rampant participation in this money grab. I am less likely to purchase their games, and in fact I have stopped purchasing EA games completely as a matter of principle. How much are advertisers giving them, and does it balance out with loss of customers like myself?
Riiiiiight. This is despite the fact that Windows still occupies 90%+ of the end-user market (i.e. not servers), or is this despite the fact that Microsoft has huge research arms that are pumping out non-Windows products... or were you referring to the fact that man people still prefer to work for MS over Google, both in terms of potential career advancement and stability?
I haven't heard many cases of MS'ers escaping Bill's grasp to work for Google, but I've heard many reverse cases.
Heck, I'm a Mac user, I don't even like Microsoft. But neither do I have a Slashdot groupthink-indoctrinated idea that Google is some uber-company that we should all cream our pants to work for...
The parent is very right. I'm currently in college, notably the best CS and engineering school in all of Canada. Many top notch corporations recruit heavily here (food is practically free on campus:P), and Google is constantly behind. Microsoft flies people in to conduct interviews for interns and graduating students, and most of the time offers are made the day of, or the day after the interviews finish.
Google on the other hand likes to take their sweet time. They do not contact applicants until months after applying, and even then they insist on a long drawn out 2 phone-interview process. I understand they want to find good people, but this is a competitive marketplace, and as the old saying goes, you snooze you lose.
Take my experience, for example. I'm heading into an internship in the fall, and naturally I started applying as soon as I got back to school in May. Companies responded very quickly, I had over 10 interviews within 3 weeks of sending off my applications. I received offers from a number of them, and many expressed great interest in bringing me in, discussing with me exactly what I would be working on, alternate opportunities within the company, etc. Google was dead silent the whole time.
It was until well after I'd settled on one of my many offers that Google called me up and wanted an interview. They suggested that I attend a campus recruitment session, which I did go to just to check it out, and what shocked me was how they were coaching people how to pass the "Google Interview". Who the heck do they think they are? If you need to coach people just so qualified candidates can even pass your screening process, there's something seriously wrong. Sorry Google, I'd like free food, massages, and hair cuts too, but I'd rather work for a company that honestly is ecstatic to have me aboard, as opposed to one who treats me like a trivia-solving monkey.
Personally I see desktops all but disappearing in the average home. Sure, the die-hard gamers and work-from-home coders will still need their monster desktops, but they're not the typical bunch. For most people I see no significant future for desktops, they'll become a niche item for sure.
But that doesn't mean doom and gloom for the desktop, it just means it'll be pushed into serving more niches. Hardcore gamers will still spend a ridiculous amount of cash on hardware, as will professional-level people who need the raw performance (3D artists, anyone?). Not to mention the fact that I really don't see offices moving away from desktops. Some people will need them, most do not, and if I were running a business I'd try to keep as many computers chained to a desk as possible. I don't want my information walking around leaving the office with every single employee.
So yeah, you will get the hardcore performance monsters for media-heavy workers and gamers, and you will get the el-cheapo desktops for secretaries and data entry guys. I would say... beyond that, most people will move to laptops in due time.
One: Middleware (and just about any production software) is constantly in a state of flux, and there is never a "final" version of it. People who licence the Unreal Engine technologies are given secure access to Epic's CVS repository, where daily engine builds and patches can be checked out for use by the game developers.
Yes, and how often is this repo updated? All HL2 modders (you don't even have to be a licensee!) are given read access to their Perforce repos, but those are updated only once in a blue moon for good reason. As a licensee you expect builds from your engine provider to be relatively bug free and at the very least stable - I don't want Epic's daily changes for GOW sneaking into my code base until they're sure it's solid. It's entirely possible that Epic failed to update said CVS on a timely basis, or even if they did, they failed to address discovered critical issues in a timely manner (which sounds like what the lawsuit claims).
Three: if you read up on it you will find that SK is looking to claim that all of the modification work that they are doing on the game constitutes an "entirely new engine" and that they should retain all rights to it. In other words, they want the benefits of using UE3 technology without having to pay for it.
I read the same document. It sounds to me like SK developed its own in-house engine without any UE3 code, and they want a court to acknowledge that fact on paper in order to cover their ass from any inevitable counter-moves by Epic. I don't think they were implying at all that their modifications to UE3 should grant them a free license.
The fault is with SK, not Epic.
Maybe it runs a bit both ways. But in any case, if it's true that Epic failed to deliver an acceptably stable version of the 360 and PS3 code bases as dictated by the contract, Epic is guilty of either incompetence or fraud, in either case SK is entitled to refund/compensation. Whether or not SK's developers were competent enough to produce a game from it is rather irrelevant. If Epic failed to provide code, or held back code from licensees, or failed to provide the level of support dictated by their contract, then SK has a case.
Four: SK is seeking damages - they want the complete profits from Gears of War.
Yeah, I'm not comfortable with that part. I think it's just a display by SK to get attention, there's no chance in hell they'll get ALL the profits from GOW even if they won, nor do they deserve it. They deserve their license fee back PLUS interest, and also damages maybe amounting to a year's worth of dev time, I would say. Maybe on top of that it'd be justified to roll in some punitive damages if it can be proven that Epic knowingly and flagrantly disregarded their licensing contract.
Five: Epic has licenced its technology to a rather vast collection of developers, including some of the biggest in the business. No one else has complained, just Silicon Knights
Really? I've heard from several developers working with UE3 that it's a load of junk. Is it also any surprise that *all* of the UE3 games that have been announced for either next gen console has either been delayed or cancelled? Even Rainbow Six Vegas took forever to come out and suffered long delays, though it did in the end make it out the door.
Six: Epic has a long history of supporting developers, from the corporate level all the way down to the hobbyist modder at home. Epic provides tools and help free of charge to anyone who wants them. If SK gets their way, this could have severe ramifications for the entire gaming industry and engine middleware licencing in general.
You seem desperate to make Epic sound like the good guys here. Okay, they made Unreal, and Unreal Tournament, those were great games, but that doesn't mean much about them as a middleware vendor. From my experience, licensing technology from a company producing its own ga
Really? Maybe Arby's multi-million dollar ad campaign will push ads onto your phone as you drive by an Arby's, but Bill certainly isn't cut out of the competition. Heck, for pocket change Bill can set up a halfway decent website with store hours, directions, menu, prices, etc, on his own domain, and with a little bit of know-how and a minor amount of cash, Bill can get a fair amount of exposure in the form of Google rankings for "roast beef".
The web is the great equalizer. Now a tourist from Australia can know how great Bill's Deli is before he even gets into town. With a little bit of skill and a small bit of cash, small businesses can declare their presence better than ever before.
I think I brought this up in another thread yesterday... but what's with the double standard with movies and games? I don't ever hear anyone on Slashdot complain about how the new summer action blockbuster du jour is too formulaic and predictable. People somehow learn that, while some movies challenge the art of the cinema, others are simply meant to entertain, not revolutionize, and we can successfully leave the critical artsy part of our minds at the door and just enjoy things blowing up and one liners being delivered.
Why can't we do the same with games? Some games revolutionize (Spore anyone?), others are meant to be the gaming equivalent of a summer blockbuster - repeated, formulaic, but totally fun. I'd be very sad if they stopped making action movies just because they've been around forever; likewise, I'd be pretty disappointed if people stopped making clone games, because TBH they are damned fun.
While I agree that the PS3 often gets a hard time from anti-fanboys, I fundamentally disagree with your insinuation that MS has somehow been overly monopolizing in pushing the Xbox and the 360. Let's face it, both Sony and MS have been guilty of making huge subsidies to consumers to try and push their console - this is no secret, so if you're going to string up MS for it, you have to do the same to Sony. As for your accusation of oppressive leverage - where has MS exerted this where no other console manufacturer hasn't?
I hate to be a Microsoft apologist, but honestly, I think MS won the 360 battle fair and square, there was nothing underhanded about it, which is surprising, given that this is Microsoft we're talking about. Despite all their aggressive tactics in other divisions, this is one battle that MS won by itself.
Personally, I own a 360, and aside from the obnoxiously loud DVD drive, I can't be happier. I was excited about PS3, but was sorely disappointed after last year's poor E3 showing. I am still disappointed. Despite all the cool technology that the PS3 has packed in that neat little package, there simply aren't any games that make me want the console. MS has already rolled out with GOW, GRAW, Guitar Hero, and a whole slew of must-haves, and will very quickly be following that up with absolutely delicious looking games like BioShock and Mass Effect (not to mention the 500-lb gorilla, Halo). I don't buy a console for the machine or for its CPU, I buy it so I can play games that are released on it. To that end the PS3 has given me no reason to buy it. Besides a very slick looking Killzone and MGS4, there is simply nothing on the PS3 that compels me, and 2 games doesn't cut it to justify a $500 purchase.
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I had the privilege of working with an insurance organization (government run) in Canada recently, and I wonder why American health insurance companies don't take the same clue. I keep reading about horrifying health care abuse by your private insurance companies - denying care to those who deserve it and have paid their premiums, etc.
Why not focus on prevention? Here in Canada I notice we pend a *huge* amount of money on prevention education. Free nutrition classes for the overweight, lots and lots of adds on workplace safety and household safety... All of that goes towards reducing your eventual payout, and it's a win-win situation, as opposed to the much less morally justifiable situation of denying patient care once the patient has fallen ill.
I rent, aka I can't make too many modifications to my place. I use DSL, which comes into the bedroom via phone jack, and I've got a wireless router hooked up to it. Out in the living room where the 360 is and the TV, there is no internet connection. I can't drill through the wall, and I'd like it if I could go wifi for less than $100. Honestly, 3rd party adapters are $20 or less, there's NO reason MS can't do it for $30 or so, which IMHO would be a decent price. $100 is just gougery.
I'm aware that there are legitimate uses for mod chips. That I acknowledge. What I have a beef against are self-righteous mod chip dealers who peddle chips to people they know are only there to pirate stuff, not run XBMC, emulators, etc. These people cannot turn around when faced with trouble and get on a moral high horse - because for them there is none.
They knew full well that 99.9% of the chips they were selling were meant for piracy and piracy only. Despite the tiny minority of people who make legitimate use of them, they don't have a moral leg to stand on.
Which I guess is the reason I have mixed feelings towards mod chips. I believe they should be legal - the buyer ought to have the right to do whatever they want with the machine they purchased. But at the same time I believe mod chip dealers to be engaged in highly immoral activity (unless they can somehow reasonably guarantee that the majority of their chips are for homebrew, not piracy).
I'm not familiar with Datel's DS mod chip. But if it's something that, when marketed as a purely homebrew solution, will honestly respect it and take reasonable measures to ensure that it isn't used for piracy, I'm happy.
...how do you get your games onto end users' monitors that are larger than 19 inches (namely TVs)? How do you get GP2X units into end users' hands so that they can play your games?I don't target consoles. But if I were to, I would do it in the way every single other indie dev so far has done it - XBLA, PS Network, etc.
Likewise, no amount of EBAY and GMAIL arguments you make will deny the fact that 99% of the cable modems you install will be used to pirate mass amounts of music or movies, or to relay spam.Invalid analogy. While most home broadband has been used at some point or another for piracy, it is not their intended purpose. The connection is good for and IS used for many other purposes than merely piracy. On the other hand, 99% of mod chips out there has only one raison d'etre - to enable its owner to play pirated games.
In this case IMHO culpability has a lot to do with intent.
Let's say I go to Sports Mart and buy a baseball bat. I then proceed to beat someone to death with it. Obviously the store here is not liable for what I did illegal with what is otherwise a legal tool. This is the most common argument made by mod chippers.
But this isn't really analogous. If I walk into a store, talking loudly on my phone about buying a baseball bat for the express purpose of beating someone to death with it, I would sincerely hope that someone calls the cops, or at least refuses to sell the bat to me. That should be common sense.
The same situation applies to chippers. You can't have your cake and eat it too. If you know full well that 99% of your customer base is getting the chip to play pirated games (as opposed to homebrew, as opposed to abandonware which is of questionable legality anyways...), then I have no sympathy for you if your operation is busted and shut down by The Man. This isn't a situation where the service/tool you are providing is overwhelming used for good, but occasionally may be used for bad, it is the opposite.
As an indie game dev I really dislike how mod chippers hide behind this veneer of moralistic attitude. What you people do may or may not be legal, but it certainly is not moral. And no amount of MAME and XBMC arguments you make will deny the fact that 99% of the chips you install will be used to pirate mass amounts of games.
*buzzer* Nope. I'm not sure who was truly first, but I know that C&C predated SC in terms of balancing different units for each side (as opposed to having both sides "clone" each others' units). Granted, C&C multiplayer left a lot to be desired, especially the matchmaking service, but SC certainly wasn't the first.
RTS games have come a long way since SC, but the thing I remember most fondly about it was its ability to tell a story while *in* a game, where previous games in the genre were limited to telling stories BETWEEN missions.
Try Total Annihilation. The AI in that game is ridiculously smart, and learns between sessions. I remember when I first started playing I went heavy on bombers and fast airborne strafing runs across the enemy base. A couple of games later I tried to steamroll the CPU again, but this time all my aircraft were met with a hail of grisly anti-air death. I was shocked, and amazed.
In the end it really forces the player to constantly be trying new playing styles, new strategies, and the resourcing became even more important. TA worked on a "income vs. expenses" model, instead of having resource "stockpiles" like traditional RTSes. This allowed you to maintain a totally automated production line, whose unit AI you can set before it even rolls out of the factory. It allowed truly large-scale thinking, where you can hold a line and fight a massive war instead of micro'ing your units and engaging in limited skirmishes.
This isn't about Abandonware, this isn't about someone "mod chipping" an SNES or a Genesis. These are 360s, PS3s, PS2s, Wiis, etc.
Wait, you mean municipal broadband will give preferential treatment for its own service? The one run by an elected entity, representing the people they serve? The one that won't be profit seeking (other than providing nominal tax dollars to fund other services)? The one whose pricing, serving level, and whatnot would be controlled by the citizenry at the city council level? HOLY COW BATMAN!
I don't see a SIGN UP button on the article, damn...
Actually, the Rolls Royce analogy may be apt. But really I think it's more like a BMW analogy. Both Toyotas and BMWs are nicely built, one has more luxury trimmings than the other, but all in all they still get you from point A to point B. Both are likely to experience problems during their lifetimes, and the difference comes out then. With the Toyota you will receive adequate service after bitching at the warranty guy, whereas with the BMW you will receive prompt, courteous service that addresses your concerns quickly and completely.
Having owned both Macs and PCs (guess which one I'm on now), I can tell you without a doubt that this is true. When my Toshiba broke down I had to bring it to the retailer, deal with a support tech who was more than unwilling to help me, and in fact tried to deflect every malfunctioning bit as normal behaviour, or somehow make it seem like accidental damage. I was extremely dissatisfied.
Compare and contrast to when the hinge on my MacBook Pro broke. I phoned it in (no Apple store where I was), my call was answered in less than 5 minutes (try THAT with any other major consumer laptop manufacturer!). The tech took my serial, verified my warranty coverage, and immediately passed me off to a product expert who is more familiar with case issues. The other tech answered in less than 2 minutes, and the first tech even stayed on the line to summarize the problem for him, so I don't have to repeat myself. The second tech immediately gave me an authorization number for the repair, and my laptop was back to tip top shape in a couple of days.
Time taken with PC: 2 hours.
Aggravation: 10
Time taken with Mac: 15 minutes.
Aggravation: 0
Many people will feed you with BS about how Macs are unbreakable or such other BS. They break like any other laptop. The difference is in how you're treated after that fact.
May I also mention that the 10% of the US population captured 25% of the beaches on D-Day? :P
Personally I'm just glad to see casual gaming move away from crappy rip-off flash games for once. Yes, I know, people enjoy them, but it's one segment of the industry I never had much respect for. How much props can you give a bunch of guys who are really making the same match-3 games and Bejeweled clones over and over again?
I'm so glad Nintendo has proven that there's more to casual gaming than PopCap :P
I wish OS X would put the menu bar on both screens. It's really not too hard to do.
That said, I think Windows is a worse violator, or maybe it's just the drivers... The task bar only goes on the secondary display. When I hook my laptop up to my big monitor, the task bar simply refuses to budge! But at home, with the big LCD, I only use my laptop screen as a tools palette for apps like Photoshop and 3dsmax. This is very annoying. I can't even get games to run on the big monitor, since the display panel would not allow me to switch the external monitor to "primary". Argh.
Nobody insinuated that rural residents don't have computers, or are too dumb to have computers, or any such trash. You are attacking a straw man that doesn't even exist. I suspect part of your problem with "right wing dumbasses" like myself (though I consider myself quite far left), is more so with your perception with how they think of you, rather than what they actually think of you.
The mere reality of it is that Vancouver, Victoria, and related areas are far more densely packed. A single recycling centre may take quite a bit of money to run (I'm no recycling expert), and there needs to be enough population in the area to have enough computers worth recycling. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if rural areas purchase less computers per capita, less often, than urban areas. This isn't a value judgment, nor am I theorizing why, but I suspect it is plain statistical truth.
Disclaimer: I am not a regular MMORPG gamer, and have not seriously played one since the Planetside days.
IMHO the big problem with MMOGs is grinding. That being said I don't think getting rid of levels or skill advancements is necessarily a good idea.
There needs to be a move towards regarding grinding as a specialization, as opposed to a generic level-up. I think Planetside had this down, and to this day I still regard it as the best MMOG I've ever played. It's too bad the expansion fuxed it and its lack of players killed it.
In PS, leveling up isn't a generic strength increase, you still get generally the same HP as everyone else, you're not suddenly infinitely hard to kill, nor do your shots suddenly become more accurate. In the end you level up for the skill points, which can be invested into character specializations. Like the big guns? Throw SPs into big hulking MAX suits... Like being a support player? Then throw some SPs into driving transports. In the end a successful squad or team relies on members of all specializations, making each one important, and allowing players to truly play their style.
This is nothing but FUD. BC is 357,216 square miles and contains 4.3 million people (note: I did not verify the parent's numbers, but they seem reasonably correct from memory). On the other hand, California, Nevada, and Oregon put together contains 39 million people. That's almost a 10x difference.
Also remember, the population of Vancouver, Victoria, and the next 3 largest cities in BC total 2.8 million. That's 65% of the entire population of the province, with Vancouver comprising 2.1 million of the total alone. I'm pretty sure the recycling program exists THERE.
Given how dense Victoria, Vancouver, and its outlying areas is (after all, the whole region is walled in by mountains), 70 locations is not outrageous, and can in fact cover a LOT of people's recycling needs.
So take the "blatant thievery" and shove it, unless you have some real proof of a conspiracy to steal taxpayer dollars.
I agree. I always do my research for large purchases, but for a bottle of hand soap I certainly don't spend hours going over studies and papers and whatnot. That being said, I do feel a negative response when I see products that have been advertised to me in an extremely annoying manner, whether it's through flashing banners on the Internet, in-game ads, or merely a poorly conceived ad that annoys me to no end every time I see it on TV. For small products that don't need research, and where I am faced with multiple products that seem largely the same, I would probably go with price, as opposed to which brands I've seen on a sign somewhere.
Case in point: Axe did a *lot* of advertising in Ubi games, and they still do. When buying deodorant I have never bought Axe. Never. That being said, some of their TV ads are quite clever, and my feelings towards the brand are fairly neutral overall, and I'm more disappointed at Ubi for stuffing an otherwise awesome game (Rainbow Six Vegas) full of ads.
When I play games, I notice the ads. How can you not? When my secret agent runs head first into a Comcast van, how does one not notice?
So yes, I have no doubt that 81% of players or whatever notice their insipid ads. The question is, do gamers care, and are they more likely to purchase an advertiser's service due to the ad? There is such a thing as bad publicity.
Personally I've never made a buying decision off an ad in a game. In fact, they annoy me, and when I see the product/brand in real life I am reminded of that annoyance. I would say I'm *less* likely to choose a product over its competitor because of the annoyance it has caused me while I'm trying to relax.
Secondly, are in-game ads really worth it for game developers? My ire towards in-game ads are less directed at the advertisers than the game companies responsible for producing the mess in the first place. My opinion of EA and Ubisoft is decreasing very rapidly due to their rampant participation in this money grab. I am less likely to purchase their games, and in fact I have stopped purchasing EA games completely as a matter of principle. How much are advertisers giving them, and does it balance out with loss of customers like myself?
Riiiiiight. This is despite the fact that Windows still occupies 90%+ of the end-user market (i.e. not servers), or is this despite the fact that Microsoft has huge research arms that are pumping out non-Windows products... or were you referring to the fact that man people still prefer to work for MS over Google, both in terms of potential career advancement and stability?
I haven't heard many cases of MS'ers escaping Bill's grasp to work for Google, but I've heard many reverse cases.
Heck, I'm a Mac user, I don't even like Microsoft. But neither do I have a Slashdot groupthink-indoctrinated idea that Google is some uber-company that we should all cream our pants to work for...
The parent is very right. I'm currently in college, notably the best CS and engineering school in all of Canada. Many top notch corporations recruit heavily here (food is practically free on campus :P), and Google is constantly behind. Microsoft flies people in to conduct interviews for interns and graduating students, and most of the time offers are made the day of, or the day after the interviews finish.
Google on the other hand likes to take their sweet time. They do not contact applicants until months after applying, and even then they insist on a long drawn out 2 phone-interview process. I understand they want to find good people, but this is a competitive marketplace, and as the old saying goes, you snooze you lose.
Take my experience, for example. I'm heading into an internship in the fall, and naturally I started applying as soon as I got back to school in May. Companies responded very quickly, I had over 10 interviews within 3 weeks of sending off my applications. I received offers from a number of them, and many expressed great interest in bringing me in, discussing with me exactly what I would be working on, alternate opportunities within the company, etc. Google was dead silent the whole time.
It was until well after I'd settled on one of my many offers that Google called me up and wanted an interview. They suggested that I attend a campus recruitment session, which I did go to just to check it out, and what shocked me was how they were coaching people how to pass the "Google Interview". Who the heck do they think they are? If you need to coach people just so qualified candidates can even pass your screening process, there's something seriously wrong. Sorry Google, I'd like free food, massages, and hair cuts too, but I'd rather work for a company that honestly is ecstatic to have me aboard, as opposed to one who treats me like a trivia-solving monkey.
Personally I see desktops all but disappearing in the average home. Sure, the die-hard gamers and work-from-home coders will still need their monster desktops, but they're not the typical bunch. For most people I see no significant future for desktops, they'll become a niche item for sure.
But that doesn't mean doom and gloom for the desktop, it just means it'll be pushed into serving more niches. Hardcore gamers will still spend a ridiculous amount of cash on hardware, as will professional-level people who need the raw performance (3D artists, anyone?). Not to mention the fact that I really don't see offices moving away from desktops. Some people will need them, most do not, and if I were running a business I'd try to keep as many computers chained to a desk as possible. I don't want my information walking around leaving the office with every single employee.
So yeah, you will get the hardcore performance monsters for media-heavy workers and gamers, and you will get the el-cheapo desktops for secretaries and data entry guys. I would say... beyond that, most people will move to laptops in due time.
One: Middleware (and just about any production software) is constantly in a state of flux, and there is never a "final" version of it. People who licence the Unreal Engine technologies are given secure access to Epic's CVS repository, where daily engine builds and patches can be checked out for use by the game developers.
Yes, and how often is this repo updated? All HL2 modders (you don't even have to be a licensee!) are given read access to their Perforce repos, but those are updated only once in a blue moon for good reason. As a licensee you expect builds from your engine provider to be relatively bug free and at the very least stable - I don't want Epic's daily changes for GOW sneaking into my code base until they're sure it's solid. It's entirely possible that Epic failed to update said CVS on a timely basis, or even if they did, they failed to address discovered critical issues in a timely manner (which sounds like what the lawsuit claims).
Three: if you read up on it you will find that SK is looking to claim that all of the modification work that they are doing on the game constitutes an "entirely new engine" and that they should retain all rights to it. In other words, they want the benefits of using UE3 technology without having to pay for it.
I read the same document. It sounds to me like SK developed its own in-house engine without any UE3 code, and they want a court to acknowledge that fact on paper in order to cover their ass from any inevitable counter-moves by Epic. I don't think they were implying at all that their modifications to UE3 should grant them a free license.
The fault is with SK, not Epic.
Maybe it runs a bit both ways. But in any case, if it's true that Epic failed to deliver an acceptably stable version of the 360 and PS3 code bases as dictated by the contract, Epic is guilty of either incompetence or fraud, in either case SK is entitled to refund/compensation. Whether or not SK's developers were competent enough to produce a game from it is rather irrelevant. If Epic failed to provide code, or held back code from licensees, or failed to provide the level of support dictated by their contract, then SK has a case.
Four: SK is seeking damages - they want the complete profits from Gears of War.
Yeah, I'm not comfortable with that part. I think it's just a display by SK to get attention, there's no chance in hell they'll get ALL the profits from GOW even if they won, nor do they deserve it. They deserve their license fee back PLUS interest, and also damages maybe amounting to a year's worth of dev time, I would say. Maybe on top of that it'd be justified to roll in some punitive damages if it can be proven that Epic knowingly and flagrantly disregarded their licensing contract.
Five: Epic has licenced its technology to a rather vast collection of developers, including some of the biggest in the business. No one else has complained, just Silicon Knights
Really? I've heard from several developers working with UE3 that it's a load of junk. Is it also any surprise that *all* of the UE3 games that have been announced for either next gen console has either been delayed or cancelled? Even Rainbow Six Vegas took forever to come out and suffered long delays, though it did in the end make it out the door.
Six: Epic has a long history of supporting developers, from the corporate level all the way down to the hobbyist modder at home. Epic provides tools and help free of charge to anyone who wants them. If SK gets their way, this could have severe ramifications for the entire gaming industry and engine middleware licencing in general.
You seem desperate to make Epic sound like the good guys here. Okay, they made Unreal, and Unreal Tournament, those were great games, but that doesn't mean much about them as a middleware vendor. From my experience, licensing technology from a company producing its own ga
Really? Maybe Arby's multi-million dollar ad campaign will push ads onto your phone as you drive by an Arby's, but Bill certainly isn't cut out of the competition. Heck, for pocket change Bill can set up a halfway decent website with store hours, directions, menu, prices, etc, on his own domain, and with a little bit of know-how and a minor amount of cash, Bill can get a fair amount of exposure in the form of Google rankings for "roast beef".
The web is the great equalizer. Now a tourist from Australia can know how great Bill's Deli is before he even gets into town. With a little bit of skill and a small bit of cash, small businesses can declare their presence better than ever before.
I think I brought this up in another thread yesterday... but what's with the double standard with movies and games? I don't ever hear anyone on Slashdot complain about how the new summer action blockbuster du jour is too formulaic and predictable. People somehow learn that, while some movies challenge the art of the cinema, others are simply meant to entertain, not revolutionize, and we can successfully leave the critical artsy part of our minds at the door and just enjoy things blowing up and one liners being delivered.
Why can't we do the same with games? Some games revolutionize (Spore anyone?), others are meant to be the gaming equivalent of a summer blockbuster - repeated, formulaic, but totally fun. I'd be very sad if they stopped making action movies just because they've been around forever; likewise, I'd be pretty disappointed if people stopped making clone games, because TBH they are damned fun.
While I agree that the PS3 often gets a hard time from anti-fanboys, I fundamentally disagree with your insinuation that MS has somehow been overly monopolizing in pushing the Xbox and the 360. Let's face it, both Sony and MS have been guilty of making huge subsidies to consumers to try and push their console - this is no secret, so if you're going to string up MS for it, you have to do the same to Sony. As for your accusation of oppressive leverage - where has MS exerted this where no other console manufacturer hasn't?
I hate to be a Microsoft apologist, but honestly, I think MS won the 360 battle fair and square, there was nothing underhanded about it, which is surprising, given that this is Microsoft we're talking about. Despite all their aggressive tactics in other divisions, this is one battle that MS won by itself.
Personally, I own a 360, and aside from the obnoxiously loud DVD drive, I can't be happier. I was excited about PS3, but was sorely disappointed after last year's poor E3 showing. I am still disappointed. Despite all the cool technology that the PS3 has packed in that neat little package, there simply aren't any games that make me want the console. MS has already rolled out with GOW, GRAW, Guitar Hero, and a whole slew of must-haves, and will very quickly be following that up with absolutely delicious looking games like BioShock and Mass Effect (not to mention the 500-lb gorilla, Halo). I don't buy a console for the machine or for its CPU, I buy it so I can play games that are released on it. To that end the PS3 has given me no reason to buy it. Besides a very slick looking Killzone and MGS4, there is simply nothing on the PS3 that compels me, and 2 games doesn't cut it to justify a $500 purchase.