1) Huh?...that doesn't even make any sense as a sentence and also, please, give a link to this "study"...
2) Just like every other industry on the planet. And who's to say NBA live is inferior to Sega's?...that's just opinion anyway. In any case, trying to advertise a product to beat out another product is basic capitalism.
3) Making money on PC games over console games is very difficult....it's much more easy to make money on console games.
What does Dynamix have to do with EA? And how has Bullfrog or Maxis "fallen"?
And do you have any evidence of any of this, or is it just speculation?
In any case, here's a alternative theory for you: 1) Bullfrog, Westwood, Maxis and Origin all had produced some good games at some point in time. 2) But then later, they started floundering and having difficulties...games weren't coming out right in development, delays were hurting, some games were failing...the place needed help. 3) EA recognized the potential that the studio had...and decided to step in, buy the studio, and try to keep it alive because it believed that it could turn back around to what it once was. 4) However, in the case of Westwood and Origin, the problems were just too great and the places eventually had to be closed because they were just not working out (and EA couldn't afford to keep on pumping money into them to keep the doors open)...
How do you know Privateer 2 wouldn't have sucked anyway if EA hadn't bought Origin? How do you know it even would've come out and Origin wouldn't have collapsed? Why do you completely absolve Origin of any blame for the failure of Privateer 2 while placing it all on EA?
Maybe there is a reason Origin needed a buyer, and EA stepped in? Maybe Origin was having problems developing and maybe THAT'S the reason WC and Ultima started to crumble, and maybe it had nothing to do with EA? Just more speculation to go along with all the rest on this thread.
Also, where's a link for this "article" you just read?
How did EA ruin C&C and not WESTWOOD ruin C&C? Seriously, give me some real hard information as to this?
I'm sick of people just saying "EA did this" and "EA did that" with no evidence whatsoever and also while completely absolving the studio itself of any blame.
Here's a possibility for you: Maybe EA bought Westwood because Westwood was floundering and needed support. Hmmmmm....
UO of 1999-2000 is considered the greatest MMORPG ever
LOL...considered by who? That's like me just randomly saying "blue is considered the greatest color ever"...it's a meaningless statement.
In any case, UO was hardly top-notch during that time compared to AC and EQ, both of which were fully 3D. Most people didn't even consider UO accordingly...
I'm sick to death of reading time and time again on this thread about how "EA killed Origin"...and people seem to basically be unable to state why beyond "they just did".
Did folks just not consider that: Origin had some problems that forced them to look for a buyer? Perhaps these problems continued? Perhaps there are REASONS internal to Origin as to why the games they've been producing haven't been the greatest?
I mean seriously, look on this thread alone, and you'll see OSI employees talking about the poor HR conditions, how they mistreated their employees, and such...something EA is far removed from.
And this just doesn't make any sense: "EA releasing crappy games under the Origin name"???
Sorry, but EA wasn't releasing anything under Origin. The exact opposite in fact, Origin's titles were being released through EA.
People seriously need to backup what they are saying when they say "X ruined Y" without any proof/evidence/background information/etc. In fact, browsing through this thread, it looks like Origin might have closed down a long time ago if it weren't for EA trying to prop it up and give it life support.
"They live a luxurius life, with big houses and cars, and they don't give a fscking damn about their employers."
Seriously, that's hilarious...I mean, you're basically just shouting nonsense that seems like it might be true because you saw it on TV once or something...do you have any source for this at all?
"Austin is the #3 location in the U.S. for game development with more than 50 companies making major contributions to the game industry, including game development, publishing, tools and middleware and chips and hardware."
And the first two? (Yes, I know Silicon Valley, and ?)
Again, as someone already pointed out, Massive is an AI program that is used to direct large groups of CG models...it is not a rendering program. The rendering is done in something completely different, namely Renderman.
about four for each of the eight million Australians it says receive them
Woah...so everyone who gets any gets about four?...or am I reading this wrong? That's a LOT of mix-discs floating around...a lot more than I would've guessed or I would estimate for the U.S. as well...
Which "we" have, too...for example, the UK clan Four Kings is sponsored by Intel, AMD, Alienware, etc...
There's some American one, too.
So, before you start slamming on someone...well, you know, pot, kettle, black.
Re:[spoilers] Re:I thought Revolutions was very
on
The Matrix: Resolutions
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Hardly! While they may have been more formulaic, I hated this movie because they didn't really do much of, well, anything! It's all just hand waving and mystic mumbling with no real coherence or depth.
It might be a cop-out just to simply make humans win, robots die....but it's equally a cop-out just to make a lot of vague references to stuff without trying to make any sense of any of it.
Sorry, but that's just not good enough for me...not for The Matrix...I expected something more than a hand-waving "metaphysical" explanation.
And as for Smith, re-watch the first movie...none of that stuff is hinted at, for the most part, Smith is just another agent, until Neo, seemingly at the end of the first movie, killed him. I feel like after that they just didn't know what to do, since they liked him as a character, and brought him back or something...it just all felt so contrived....
After seeing Matrix Revolutions, I can't help but to want to write a review of it, and more importantly, why I am disappointed with the end of the Matrix trilogy.
The Matrix, simply put, was a fantastic movie. Very innovative, great story, great action scenes, characters I at least somewhat cared about, good music...just an all around solid film. (Note: It did have one flaw, which was endemic to the very background of the story itself, that humans were used as "batteries" and "infinitely renewable energy source", which scientifically is just completely stupid...the machines could get more energy directly from the *food* they'd be feeding the humans to keep them alive).
I guess after that, I expected that The Matrix would be difficult to top in a sequel, but I expected at least something equaling it in quality...
People have lambasted Matrix Reloaded to hell and back, so I'm going to try not to go into that too much...simply put, I thought it was very good *for what is was*...I walked out of it, satisfied seeing more neat Matrix action, and having the background of the Matrix fleshed out a bit. I think people were expecting too much from this one...The mansion fight scene was fantastic. The burly brawl was fantastic. The chase scene was fantastic, with both the agents and the twins. The action all in all was just great across the board. (I could watch the one shot of Morpheous fighting the two twins for the first time in the garage and they keep popping out and into corporeality...it was just so beautiful and so amazing to watch.)
Reloaded did start to get a bit hokey though with the philosophical imagery and it did start to take things in an increasingly abstract direction, where as almost every single last thing in The Matrix was explained. The explanation of why Smith still wanted to kill Neo after "being freed" was weak. Some things were downright silly, like the matrix-pie-crotch scene (which still cracks me up). And I felt like every 20 seconds someone had to say "it's about choice"...if I had the "human choice" mantra slammed down my throat one more time in Reloaded, I felt like I was going to puke. Also, Reloaded re-iterated what could possibly be seen as a second mistake in the original movie: the hokey ending in which Trinity/Neo bring each other back through "their love". The Zion stuff was mostly just "eh"...and almost everyone I know hated the Zion scenes (which is especially problematic for some, since almost all of Revolutions takes place in Zion) and especially the rave scene (personally, I didn't mind seeing Carrie Anne Moss almost naked...hehe). That said, the explanation of many other things (like the "supernatural creatures" and the whole scene with the Architect) were very neat, and all in all, I left fairly satisfied -- although mostly from an action movie point of view.
Now we come to Revolutions. First, let me state what I *did* like about Revolutions...the dock/Zion fight scene WAS AWESOME. Just plain fantastic. Also, the scene near the beginning in which Seraph, Morpheus, and Trinity go to the Merovingian was great. And Monica Bellucci is the hottest woman alive.
Now for the stuff that wasn't...which was basically the whole rest of the plot and story of Revolutions...
- The opening "train station" stuff was just extraneous...personally, I didn't mind it too much, but I could see others really hating it...it didn't really add much of anything to the movie or story...
- When a story is left open-to-interpretation, with not every mystery explicitly solved, this can be a Very-Good-Thing(tm). For example, not knowing whether or not Decker in Bladerunner was a Replicant or not added a lot and provided a lot left to discussion for a long time to come. However, beyond a certain point, something is no longer just "open to interpretation", and just straight up plot holes. If Revolutions had left one or two things open...well, I'd be ok with that, but it left way too long of a list for that to occur...there were just so god
That shows what, exactly?...I mean, except for Dec. 9th, theere could have been 1000 bugs opened and closed in the space of each month, and a handful comparatively left over. Just citing those numbers says nothing as to MS's diligence at keeping their bug count down whatsoever. Having worked on projects with large bug databases, at any given time, there was ALWAYS some amount of open bugs...the question was more an issue of how many new ones were getting found vs. how many were getting fixed. All your chart here shows is that that flow was roughly the same, which is not that bad at all compared to many software projects.
Now, it's a "sport" like this that I could actually get interested in...if only this were on ESPN more often, or similar, I'd definitely be watching such a whole lot more.
IMHO, it would seem that besides the usual suspects (dot.com bubble burst + bad overall economy + etc. etc.), probably the biggest possible additional explanation is the emergency and success of smaller more "specialized" trade shows...
Namely, 'back in the day' COMDEX used to be this super generic very large-scale trade show about "computers" and such. That was back when you *could* have one trade show just about computers. Now there's no longer really just a "computer industry" so much as there is a "storage media industry" and a "office productivity software industry" and so on.
Look at E3...you need a huge entire tradeshow just for games alone, so if you were a game developer, why would you send rep.s to COMDEX?...nah, send 'em to E3. And so on and so on...of course, if your Apple, you just make your own convention...heh.
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, this is just funny...
1) Huh?...that doesn't even make any sense as a sentence and also, please, give a link to this "study"...
2) Just like every other industry on the planet. And who's to say NBA live is inferior to Sega's?...that's just opinion anyway. In any case, trying to advertise a product to beat out another product is basic capitalism.
3) Making money on PC games over console games is very difficult....it's much more easy to make money on console games.
How do you know "EA ran Westwood down to the ground" and not that Westwood did it to themselves?
What does Dynamix have to do with EA?
And how has Bullfrog or Maxis "fallen"?
And do you have any evidence of any of this, or is it just speculation?
In any case, here's a alternative theory for you:
1) Bullfrog, Westwood, Maxis and Origin all had produced some good games at some point in time.
2) But then later, they started floundering and having difficulties...games weren't coming out right in development, delays were hurting, some games were failing...the place needed help.
3) EA recognized the potential that the studio had...and decided to step in, buy the studio, and try to keep it alive because it believed that it could turn back around to what it once was.
4) However, in the case of Westwood and Origin, the problems were just too great and the places eventually had to be closed because they were just not working out (and EA couldn't afford to keep on pumping money into them to keep the doors open)...
An equally speculative alternative theory...
But in the end it DID make it out, because in the end they decided it WAS a good idea and decided to fund it.
So how was the fact that they considered not doing so a failure on their part?
How do you know Privateer 2 wouldn't have sucked anyway if EA hadn't bought Origin? How do you know it even would've come out and Origin wouldn't have collapsed? Why do you completely absolve Origin of any blame for the failure of Privateer 2 while placing it all on EA?
Maybe there is a reason Origin needed a buyer, and EA stepped in? Maybe Origin was having problems developing and maybe THAT'S the reason WC and Ultima started to crumble, and maybe it had nothing to do with EA? Just more speculation to go along with all the rest on this thread.
Also, where's a link for this "article" you just read?
It's been a long time since the days of the 386, and EA hasn't owned Origin that entire time, so why do you blame it all on EA?
How did EA "kill Origin"?
How has EA "gutted" either one of these studios? Give me some real information here, rather than just speculation...
BTW, there's a reason they were bought and didn't remain standing alone. And also, Bullfrog still exists...
How did EA ruin C&C and not WESTWOOD ruin C&C? Seriously, give me some real hard information as to this?
I'm sick of people just saying "EA did this" and "EA did that" with no evidence whatsoever and also while completely absolving the studio itself of any blame.
Here's a possibility for you: Maybe EA bought Westwood because Westwood was floundering and needed support. Hmmmmm....
UO of 1999-2000 is considered the greatest MMORPG ever
LOL...considered by who? That's like me just randomly saying "blue is considered the greatest color ever"...it's a meaningless statement.
In any case, UO was hardly top-notch during that time compared to AC and EQ, both of which were fully 3D. Most people didn't even consider UO accordingly...
I'm sick to death of reading time and time again on this thread about how "EA killed Origin"...and people seem to basically be unable to state why beyond "they just did".
Did folks just not consider that:
Origin had some problems that forced them to look for a buyer? Perhaps these problems continued? Perhaps there are REASONS internal to Origin as to why the games they've been producing haven't been the greatest?
I mean seriously, look on this thread alone, and you'll see OSI employees talking about the poor HR conditions, how they mistreated their employees, and such...something EA is far removed from.
And this just doesn't make any sense:
"EA releasing crappy games under the Origin name"???
Sorry, but EA wasn't releasing anything under Origin. The exact opposite in fact, Origin's titles were being released through EA.
People seriously need to backup what they are saying when they say "X ruined Y" without any proof/evidence/background information/etc. In fact, browsing through this thread, it looks like Origin might have closed down a long time ago if it weren't for EA trying to prop it up and give it life support.
LOL...where do you get this stuff from?
"They live a luxurius life, with big houses and cars, and they don't give a fscking damn about their employers."
Seriously, that's hilarious...I mean, you're basically just shouting nonsense that seems like it might be true because you saw it on TV once or something...do you have any source for this at all?
"Austin is the #3 location in the U.S. for game development with more than 50 companies making major contributions to the game industry, including game development, publishing, tools and middleware and chips and hardware."
And the first two?
(Yes, I know Silicon Valley, and ?)
Again, as someone already pointed out, Massive is an AI program that is used to direct large groups of CG models...it is not a rendering program. The rendering is done in something completely different, namely Renderman.
about four for each of the eight million Australians it says receive them
Woah...so everyone who gets any gets about four?...or am I reading this wrong? That's a LOT of mix-discs floating around...a lot more than I would've guessed or I would estimate for the U.S. as well...
So you can be another minion in their army of hundreds and hundreds?... :)
Which "we" have, too...for example, the UK clan Four Kings is sponsored by Intel, AMD, Alienware, etc...
There's some American one, too.
So, before you start slamming on someone...well, you know, pot, kettle, black.
Hardly! While they may have been more formulaic, I hated this movie because they didn't really do much of, well, anything! It's all just hand waving and mystic mumbling with no real coherence or depth.
It might be a cop-out just to simply make humans win, robots die....but it's equally a cop-out just to make a lot of vague references to stuff without trying to make any sense of any of it.
Sorry, but that's just not good enough for me...not for The Matrix...I expected something more than a hand-waving "metaphysical" explanation.
And as for Smith, re-watch the first movie...none of that stuff is hinted at, for the most part, Smith is just another agent, until Neo, seemingly at the end of the first movie, killed him. I feel like after that they just didn't know what to do, since they liked him as a character, and brought him back or something...it just all felt so contrived....
After seeing Matrix Revolutions, I can't help but to want to write a review of it, and more importantly, why I am disappointed with the end of the Matrix trilogy.
The Matrix, simply put, was a fantastic movie. Very innovative, great story, great action scenes, characters I at least somewhat cared about, good music...just an all around solid film. (Note: It did have one flaw, which was endemic to the very background of the story itself, that humans were used as "batteries" and "infinitely renewable energy source", which scientifically is just completely stupid...the machines could get more energy directly from the *food* they'd be feeding the humans to keep them alive).
I guess after that, I expected that The Matrix would be difficult to top in a sequel, but I expected at least something equaling it in quality...
People have lambasted Matrix Reloaded to hell and back, so I'm going to try not to go into that too much...simply put, I thought it was very good *for what is was*...I walked out of it, satisfied seeing more neat Matrix action, and having the background of the Matrix fleshed out a bit. I think people were expecting too much from this one...The mansion fight scene was fantastic. The burly brawl was fantastic. The chase scene was fantastic, with both the agents and the twins. The action all in all was just great across the board. (I could watch the one shot of Morpheous fighting the two twins for the first time in the garage and they keep popping out and into corporeality...it was just so beautiful and so amazing to watch.)
Reloaded did start to get a bit hokey though with the philosophical imagery and it did start to take things in an increasingly abstract direction, where as almost every single last thing in The Matrix was explained. The explanation of why Smith still wanted to kill Neo after "being freed" was weak. Some things were downright silly, like the matrix-pie-crotch scene (which still cracks me up). And I felt like every 20 seconds someone had to say "it's about choice"...if I had the "human choice" mantra slammed down my throat one more time in Reloaded, I felt like I was going to puke. Also, Reloaded re-iterated what could possibly be seen as a second mistake in the original movie: the hokey ending in which Trinity/Neo bring each other back through "their love". The Zion stuff was mostly just "eh"...and almost everyone I know hated the Zion scenes (which is especially problematic for some, since almost all of Revolutions takes place in Zion) and especially the rave scene (personally, I didn't mind seeing Carrie Anne Moss almost naked...hehe). That said, the explanation of many other things (like the "supernatural creatures" and the whole scene with the Architect) were very neat, and all in all, I left fairly satisfied -- although mostly from an action movie point of view.
Now we come to Revolutions. First, let me state what I *did* like about Revolutions...the dock/Zion fight scene WAS AWESOME. Just plain fantastic. Also, the scene near the beginning in which Seraph, Morpheus, and Trinity go to the Merovingian was great. And Monica Bellucci is the hottest woman alive.
Now for the stuff that wasn't...which was basically the whole rest of the plot and story of Revolutions...
- The opening "train station" stuff was just extraneous...personally, I didn't mind it too much, but I could see others really hating it...it didn't really add much of anything to the movie or story...
- When a story is left open-to-interpretation, with not every mystery explicitly solved, this can be a Very-Good-Thing(tm). For example, not knowing whether or not Decker in Bladerunner was a Replicant or not added a lot and provided a lot left to discussion for a long time to come. However, beyond a certain point, something is no longer just "open to interpretation", and just straight up plot holes. If Revolutions had left one or two things open...well, I'd be ok with that, but it left way too long of a list for that to occur...there were just so god
That shows what, exactly?...I mean, except for Dec. 9th, theere could have been 1000 bugs opened and closed in the space of each month, and a handful comparatively left over. Just citing those numbers says nothing as to MS's diligence at keeping their bug count down whatsoever. Having worked on projects with large bug databases, at any given time, there was ALWAYS some amount of open bugs...the question was more an issue of how many new ones were getting found vs. how many were getting fixed. All your chart here shows is that that flow was roughly the same, which is not that bad at all compared to many software projects.
The Vanu Sovreignty rocks...always kicks the Terran Replubic's and New Conglomerate's all over the planet and back!... ;)
Now, it's a "sport" like this that I could actually get interested in...if only this were on ESPN more often, or similar, I'd definitely be watching such a whole lot more.
Stevie Case is hot!
IMHO, it would seem that besides the usual suspects (dot.com bubble burst + bad overall economy + etc. etc.), probably the biggest possible additional explanation is the emergency and success of smaller more "specialized" trade shows...
Namely, 'back in the day' COMDEX used to be this super generic very large-scale trade show about "computers" and such. That was back when you *could* have one trade show just about computers. Now there's no longer really just a "computer industry" so much as there is a "storage media industry" and a "office productivity software industry" and so on.
Look at E3...you need a huge entire tradeshow just for games alone, so if you were a game developer, why would you send rep.s to COMDEX?...nah, send 'em to E3. And so on and so on...of course, if your Apple, you just make your own convention...heh.
I've had a "flat-screen" monitor for years, as have probably most people...but that is NOT necessarily the same as "flat-panel"...
Minor term-useage quibble...