Rather Infrequent Open Thread
Saudi Arabia will build nukes if Iran does.
That’s what you call “regional stability”, I guess.
That’s a pittance, in online terms. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. In related news, Justin Timberlake was evidently one of the partners in the group that purchased the ailing social network.
Did you know that Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix lost $167 million?
Yeah, me neither. But thanks to the strange magic that is “Hollywood accounting”, even a billion-grossing film like the fifth Harry Potter movie can be made to look like a box-office loser.
HP might just have the right idea for its tablets.
Apple’s one great strength in the computing market — especially, perhaps, in the tablet market — is that they don’t just have a very sleek, functional operating system. They also impose very tight control over the hardware used in manufacturing their computers, and don’t tolerate much in the way of change to that hardware environment. If you’ve ever tried to “hackintosh” OS X onto a non-Apple computer, you will probably have come to realize that OS X only supports a very limited range of drivers for an equally limited range of hardware.
It’s nigh-impossible to heavily upgrade a Mac, but the OS is phenomenally stable as a result of it.
HP wants their revamp of Palm’s WebOS to succeed in the market. I, for one, think they’re making the right move by committing to exercising control over the hardware side of the platform, then; it will mean a more limited range of WebOS devices, but it will mean that those WebOS devices are always able to take full advantage of the mobile OS.
Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea of Android. But Google’s OS, despite its large market share, is hampered by the fact that there are a lot of different manufacturers producing tablets intended to run Android, and Android is thus being expected to support a very wide range of hardware environments, not all of which it fully does. This also makes upgrading Android a pain in the ass on some devices.
Tribes: Ascend will be free to play.
If you’re like me, your first thought was: they’re still making Tribes games?
Was Mass Effect inspired by Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within?
Well, there is a certain aesthetic connection, I suppose. The battle armour of the Deep Eyes does look rather like some of the battle armour available in the first Mass Effect game.
Capcom may have just come up with the ultimate game publishing “dick move”.
Resident Evil: Mercenaries 3D will be playable…once. The save game cannot be wiped, evidently, meaning that the first owner can play it through once, and that anyone who buys the game used can only pick up and resume play from where the first owner left off.
Still think adult sites are the primary malware vector?
You may need to update your online safety knowledge.
“Free to play” continues to gain momentum.
EA Games’ president Frank Gibeau has come right out and stated that so-called free-to-play games can, in fact, be as profitable for a company as mainline console releases, and he affirmed that “F2P” titles are now a definite part of EA’s business strategy.
And frankly, I think that’s a good thing. Yes, actually playing such games for free means accepting certain limitations in one form or another (usually something which limits play duration), but I would argue that being limited to an hour of play a day by some sort of artificial “food” system is still vastly preferable to paying a subscription fee for a game that one might not have more than a few hours a week to play anyway. That’s my circumstance, at least.
In related news, World of Warcraft is now free until you hit level 20. Because whoever got hooked on crack from just one little hit?
Tonight’s post brought to you by Glastonbury:
Dinosaurs always make a party better.
Bonus: Royal Photoshop fail!
Zombie Diana looks quite fashionable.
Ah, Diana. In death, as in life, used to sell newspapers. One further reason the UK should become a republic (I’m a British republican for clarity).
The hollywood accounting thing really annoys me also. Creative accounting for the benefit of those at the top, and to minimize their tax liability.
The biggest story over here has been the News of the World phone hacking scandal. Info here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12253968 and here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/phone-hacking
Andy: I still have some affinity for the monarchy (never much cared for Charles or Diana, though), but I will agree that the magazine cover here is rather crass.
“Saudi Arabia will build nukes if Iran does.”
Good news. We’re a real embarrassment, so the less evidence left behind the better.
“MySpace sold…for $35 million.”
Someone got ripped off, and someone got away with 35 million dollars.
“Did you know that Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix lost $167 million?”
And people wonder why the U.S. economy is so shitty. Fucking morons.
“HP might just have the right idea for its tablets.”
Yes and no. Any OS worth its salt will work on multiple platforms. Take Linux. Runs on any chip under the sun. Satisfying every random retard in the known universe however is a known impossibility, consistent hardware or otherwise.
“Tribes: Ascend will be free to play.”
Such is the trend. The repercussions come later, when people realize the game is shit and quit playing even though it’s free.
“Was Mass Effect inspired by Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within?”
I hope not. While a great tech demo, the movie was otherwise shit. Also a huge disappointment by any FF fan’s standards, especially those of the earlier, more pure games.
“Capcom may have just come up with the ultimate game publishing “dick move”.”
I read that. Welcome to the new DRM. Keep buying those games though, assholes!
I can’t continue to comment. I have other things to do (like hitting my bowl), and the inanity of human progress is just too much to comprehend right now (or ever). I will leave something other than snarky commentary however:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6Aczu6MUhQ
The old stag purred away real horrorshow – a nice, warm, vibraty feeling all through your guttiwuts. Soon, it was trees and dark, my brothers, with real country dark.
Well, technically, WebOS is a Linux kernel…or so I seem to recall reading. And I’m sure some enterprising people will figure out how to put Android (or some other Linux flavor) onto one of these HP tablets soon enough.
Not that I don’t agree with you in general (despite the fact that I despise most Linux distros), though I think it makes more sense in a tablet (or any fixed-hardware system) for the vendor to supply and support only one particular OS, preferably one that is optimized for the role it’s being deployed in.
As to the DRM thing…it sounds like Capcom is backing down from deploying that particular scheme again.
And honestly, it was really just an attempt to kill game resales. I don’t mind people selling used games, and I generally think publishers that liken the practice to piracy are out to lunch. But I also am already a proponent of the most effective countermeasure against resales: digital distribution.
With the exception of GOG, of course, most digital retailers have some form of DRM in place on the games they sell; Steam has their custom DRM scheme, whereas Impulse uses the publisher’s standard DRM (whatever that might be). I actually prefer Impulse’s way of doing things, because I can download every EA game I’ve purchased (via Impulse) in Origin as well.
Generally, DRM doesn’t annoy me; publishers have always (or nearly so) tried to protect their games against copying, and that copy protection has had to grow in sophistication as games and the means to pirate games have grown in like manner. It’s unfortunate, but then, so are bars on windows, deadbolts on doors, and other means of denying thieves access to one’s home. But because some people are willing to steal, those of us with things worth stealing (if only in the eyes of thieves) must deploy countermeasures.
Call it what you want: way of the world, concupiscence, sin, human nature…whatever.
Sadly — or maybe fortunately? — people refusing to keep on buying games isn’t the answer; all that such a course of action will result in is game companies folding and game production ultimately ceasing. The need for DRM will evaporate overnight if people decide to stop pirating games, but that’s not likely to happen either.
Relatedly: I’m glad to see game demos becoming more common again. I earnestly believe people should buy the games they want to play, but it’s nice when a demo comes out that gives you an idea of whether a game will be good or bad beforehand. We need to see more of that, I think.
Several studies have shown that movie and music piracy is increased by studios failing to meet consumer expectations with their pricing and distribution models. There will always be piracy and DRM will always be circumvented, so other methods of reducing it should be explored.
My dad bought some game in the PS3 online store, which then required him to do some crap on the publisher’s web site to “activate” it, which failed because his account with the publisher didn’t match his account with Sony. Many others had the same issue and the solution was some crazy hack. It had been that way for months with no official solution.
He contacted Sony and they said they don’t issue refunds for digital purchases, so he just lost his money. Fortunately he got it back by pirating the living shit out of Sony Pictures’ films via bittorrent. If I remember correctly the publisher was actually EA.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not attempting to excuse overly restrictive DRM. But even if there is a correlation* between DRM restrictiveness and increased piracy, that doesn’t excuse piracy itself…and as long as piracy happens, publishers will take measures (excessive and not) to combat it, and to a point they are well within their rights to do so. Capcom went too far, obviously, but that’s an argument against their chosen DRM method and corporate attitudes…not against DRM in general.
* and you know what they say about correlation and causation…
My point is that DRM doesn’t stop pirates, but it inconveniences people who buy the games. I don’t think DRM increases or decreases piracy significantly. There are cracks for everything, some simple, some elaborate. For example, I jailbroke my Wii and downloaded about 140 games using bittorrent. Did Nintendo or the game publishers lose money? I can’t afford to wipe my ass most days, so no, they didn’t lose a dollar. If I had the money I’d buy games and it’s always been that way. I support the industry when I can. For me it’s more about whether harm is caused than some abstract concept of “right” or “wrong”.
The studies showed that high prices for music and movies and inadequate digital distribution encouraged piracy. People will get what they want, one way or the other, so if media companies aren’t giving it to them then the consequences are obvious.
Like I said, there will always be piracy, but DRM isn’t the answer. It flat out doesn’t work because it’s circumventable.
There’s a workaround for almost everything…someone even figured out how to sorta circumvent this Capcom idiocy. The question is whether a workaround is easy to use (and thus can and likely will be used by a large number of people) or complicated and messy (and so will only be used by geeks like us).
As to the cost of games and suchlike, I’m of the belief that I’m not entitled to possess things that it is beyond my means to pay for. If I can’t afford a game in a particular month, I don’t buy that game, nor do I obtain it by other means. The reason why has much to do with a very concrete definition of what is right and what is wrong, though “do no harm” is a consideration as well.
Is there harm done by piracy? Yeah, there is. I might not do much harm, just myself, by downloading a game, but somewhere along the line I am preventing someone from realizing revenue that they otherwise would have realized from me. To be fair, the gaming, movie, and (especially) music industries overstate the damage piracy causes and the losses they suffer from it…but it does cause harm even so. And it ain’t right, regardless.
True, but if someone knows how to download an ISO with a bittorrent client, or copy a DVD, they can probably figure out how to read a text file and follow the instructions. Jailbreaking a console is a bit more complex for sure and will weed out the weaklings, haha.
The way I look at piracy is that there are two kinds of folks who do it. Those who wouldn’t buy the game anyway and those who would buy it but don’t because they found it for free. The former doesn’t cause any harm other than by inadvertently seeding to the latter, and the latter causes direct financial loss. One guy is poor and eats only the bad apple’s from the King’s orchard, while the other guy has a steady job but poaches the best apples regularly. Both are stealing, but only one is causing damage. Of course if caught, the King would execute them side-by-side without a second thought.
As far as right and wrong, you and I have very different beliefs about that and always will. No point in arguing. I only lurk in flame wars. 😉
I’m of the mindset that stealing is stealing, and that we are none of us entitled to things beyond our means — this includes voluntary refusal — to obtain by legal means. Want to play a game? Buy the game. Done deal. Don’t want to buy the game? Find one you want to play and would be willing to buy, and do just that.
Even in the case of the apple orchard thieves, I’d label both men thieves, which they are. The fact that one steals out of convenience and one out of desperation might mean that the gravity of their common act of theft is different, but it is still theft even so. In the case of the poor man, we might inquire as to why he is poor and whether there is another whose greater wrongdoing is ultimately the cause of his poverty (though often, poverty is self-inflicted), but even this does not change that he has committed theft.
It’s not a particularly complex way to break the matter down, I know, but it’s been my (often all too personal) experience that the best moral reasoning is simple and straightforward. It’s not, generally speaking, the light part of the heart that cries out for just a little more complexity.