The Internet exploded last week (in the gaming sphere at least) beginning with an article and a comic. It was followed by tons of articles…
So, lets talk… First, the guy from THQ isn’t wrong. Anytime you buy anything second hand, the original creators see nothing of that sale. This is true of video games just as it is true of books and DVDs. I’ve got one friend who is all up in arms about this, that we need to stop second hand video game sales, to help protect the industry, but he’s also a comic book collector. So I asked, “When you sell a comic, do you sent the author and artist their cut?” He doesn’t. I asked him if this needed to change, he didn’t think so. He couldn’t explain how the two were different.
And of course, no one really bats an eye at second hand DVD sales. But then, a DVD retails for under $20 in most cases. Buying it for $10 might be saving you 50% but it’s only saving you $10. A video game, however, might be $60 new, and $30 used. Still 50% but now it’s $30 of savings. Really though, the guys in the industry aren’t upset at the $30 sale of a year old game. Their ire, which they don’t specifically state, is leveled at games less than a month old that places like GameStop are selling for $55. In this case, someone bought it for $60, then sold it to GameStop for $20 (might be more, might be less – it varies), and GameStop turns around and sells it for $55. People are saving $5 here and bilking the game company out of any cut at all.
If THQ really wanted to stop GameStop, you know what they’d do? Drop their price to $55. They’d garner a few new customers, the ones willing to pay $55 but not $60. GameStop would probably drop to $50, and THQ could decide if going to $50 is worth it. Games that come out for consoles currently tend to retail at $60. If the same game is available on PC, they tend to retail at $50 or even $40, so clearly there is room to move the price around, especially since the console version often has less packaging than the PC version (who knows… perhaps producing a cardboard box and a jewel case is less expensive than the DVD case console versions get).
Or, they can do what they are planning to do, which is to put a one-time code in the game that unlocks some content (levels, online play, etc). Their solution is fine, in my opinion, so long as they never hamstring the game so that it is unplayable. I have no problem with them putting a code on online play since often online play means that they run servers, and they can always sell online play as DLC through the systems their games appear on, so that a player who buys used will still have to pay a small fee if they want online play.
Personally, I’d love to see prices drop. I know I’d buy more games sooner if I could afford them, but as it is I wait usually six months or more so that I can pick them up for $40 or less (often a year or more later when I can get the Platinum Hits edition for $20). That is less likely to happen than the one-time code hostage situation that is developing. Oh well… I’ll just have more time for watching TV and reading books.
A while back I got a netbook. An ASUS 1005HA. Sure, it’s not the graphical monster that the Dell/Alienware MX11 or whatever it’s called is, but it suits my needs just fine. Those needs? Browsing the net, email, writing, and the occasional game. Oh, and it is awesome for traveling. Much better than lugging around a full laptop with a 15″ or 17″ screen.
Obviously, such a machine is limited in it’s gaming capabilities. Though, mainly the issue is resolution. It has a 1024 x 600 desktop. I can run it at 1024 x 768, but that squishes everything. The 600 height is native. Puzzle Pirates runs great on it. So does Wizard 101. Free Realms absolutely fails. Most flash games run, though some websites hosting them expect a larger than 600 height so their ads and layout can make playing an issue.
As you can tell by my list, I’m looking for MMOs that will run on it. I’ve heard that World of Warcraft will run, though not optimally, plus I’m not playing that game anymore anyway. But what other MMOs are out there that will run in a 1024 x 600 resolution and run well without needing a super graphics card? What’s a good MMO On The Go?
We all hate spam. But I suspect that some of you out there are ruining the Internet for the rest of us.
The good thing about spam is that either by content or by source 99% or more of it is fairly easily identifiable. Spam filters look for words or groups of words or sources or other characteristics of the content or sender to flag undesired emails and put them in the spam bin.
However, if you sign up for a newsletter, just because you don’t want it anymore that doesn’t make it spam. I have seen tons of people do this. Sadly, because spam filters often strive to be better they try to learn from items people manually mark as spam in order to better filter. Many legitimate newsletters get thrown in my spam folder, not because they are spam, but because other lazy people have been marking them as spam instead of unsubscribing.
And while I’m at it… Gmail? Just because I delete mail from a particular sender all the time doesn’t mean I don’t want to get their mail. Stop marking them spam. I’m deleting them because I don’t need them, not because I don’t want them. Cut it out. Unlike many people, I don’t keep emails that I’ll never need again ever. If I send someone an email and they send me back a “Thanks!” reply, I delete it. If I happen to send that same person too many emails, each of which they reply “Thanks!” to (which I like, mind you, I love when people acknowledge getting an email, that way I don’t have to ask them later “Hey, did you get my email?”) and each of which I delete, Gmail decides they must be spam since I keep deleting them and now I have to go to my spam folder every day and look for the falsely accused.
So, to recap… People, stop marking things as spam that are not spam. Google, stop marking things as spam that are not spam.
I’m excited. Are you excited? I mean, how often do you get to go to a place and congregate with more than 35,000 people of similar interests to your own? I do it once a year. And how often do you get to be a part of making an event like that happen? I’m hoping this year is the first of many.
This will be my first year working as staff and I couldn’t be more thrilled. Sure, I could just go to con like I usually do and see some panels and go to some parties, but this year I’m helping make the magic happen… as long as by “magic” I mean “standing at the door counting people and occasionally telling them the room is full” which is likely to be the extent of my action. It’s not like I’m running the panels (although, you never know) … I’m more of a Kleezantsun. Yeah, I just went there. But it is an apt description. Dragon*Con is a convention for fans by fans. It isn’t run by companies or marketing firms, it’s run by us.
Anyway, PBS is going to be airing Four Days at Dragon*Con on Saturday the 28th at 9PM.
Are you a Facebook user? Do you like posting photos and status updates? Do you enjoy posting on people’s walls and having them post on your wall?
One of the main issues that I have with Facebook is the illusion. You log in and you are presented with your news feed. Over on the left you see the smiling faces of your friends that are online, and your feed is full of them telling you about random stuff. And see all this friend-centered stuff and you think, “Hey, I’ve got something to say, let me update my status and share it with my friends…” Who can really see that? If you’ve gone into your privacy settings then it might just be your friends. More likely, it’s your “Friends of Friends” or even “Everyone”.
You might have heard that horror story about someone who bitched about their boss and the boss saw it and it got them in trouble, so you haven’t friended your boss. However, you are unaware that your boss actually went to high school with someone who is your friend. You’ve got your status updates set to “Friends of Friends” which means your boss, who is a friend of your friend, can see that you just called him a twat, so maybe you don’t get that raise or promotion.
That photo you posted of your girlfriend meeting you at the door when you got home, naked with a beer and a steak… sure, the plate covered all the naughty bits, but you just posted that to your Mobile Photos album (since you uploaded it from your phone) and that album is marked visible by Everyone! That’s on the Internet now. Tagged and cached, for-ev-ver. The next time your girlfriend goes looking for a job, someone just might Google her name, see that photo and decide her future based on it. Maybe she doesn’t get the job… or maybe she does and her new boss treats her like a girl willing to have half-naked photos of her posted on the Internet… or maybe it doesn’t matter…
I prefer to err on the side of thinking that it matters…
A caution about privacy and the Internet might seem odd coming from a guy who blogs and mentions his real life now and then, but know that every tidbit of information I put into a blog post is carefully considered. I ask myself, “Do I mind if everyone knows this?” I have over 1,100 posts here and I’ve probably put just as many in the trash bin. It’s actually common for me to come here, write out a diatribe on the latest frustration at work or amongst friends, let it sit in draft form for a couple of days and then delete it. It’s one of the reasons I love blogging and haven’t been a huge fan of most social networks, like Facebook and Twitter, because they are immediate, there is less chance for careful consideration.
So, my Monday morning bit of advice this week is to go to your privacy settings in Facebook and make sure all your sharing is at levels you are comfortable with. At the very least, be aware of who can see what you say…
This month’s Gamer Banter: “How important is cover art to you?”
Back in the day, we’d go to the store as a family, and in the electronics section there would be the wall of Atari games. The cover art was pretty much always like a million times better than the actual game graphics. The art mattered, because that’s what got you to pick up the box and flip it over to see a couple of game shots. Even into the Nintendo and early PC eras this continued. The art of a King’s Quest box didn’t match the game, but it drew you in.
These days, I almost never go to the store to browse games. I check websites, I browse Amazon. I buy games there too, and the only time I ever see the game box is when I’m getting the disc out to put it in the 360 or installing the game on my hard drive… though Steam has pretty much ended the latter.
If I did, though, game box covers are like a movie poster. It’s art, meant to catch your eye. And much like movie posters the same layouts get used so often that I have become almost immune to them. They fail to catch my eye. And yet, now and then a movie poster comes along that I have to find and buy and I have to put on my wall. But game boxes are so small. Perhaps I might display a particularly good one if it was sold in a poster size, but so few are.
So to answer the question, the cover art is unimportant to me. I barely even notice it.
This post was part of Gamer Banter, a monthly video game discussion coordinated by Terry at Game Couch. If you’re interested in being part of this, please email him for details.
The other day, I went to tour a colocation facility. For the uninitiated, it’s a place to put your business servers so you don’t have to house them yourself (and maintain UPS and generators and other things like that). Outside this facility were some protesters. They had signs about unfair wages and other stuff. I found out from the employees that the reason for the protest was thus: this company decided to expand, took bids for sheet rock work, and accepted the lower bid, a company with a higher bid didn’t like it and claims the only reason the other bid was lower was because “that company doesn’t pay a fair wage”, but it turns out the upset company is a union shop and likely pays more due to contract not because it’s “fair”.
That’s fine. I understand, company upset, protests. But the kicker is, the protesters are not employees of that company or members of that union. The protesters are homeless people that the company is paying (well below the minimum wage) to stand there 24/7. I know, I asked, and protesters, when approached, often ask if you know about the protest and offer to give you details, they don’t usually ask for cigarettes and money – homeless people do.
Look. If you don’t care enough to do your own protesting, then I can’t be bothered to care about your protest. And the ironic part of paying people an unfair wage to protest unfair wages is not really helping you.
Besides, have you been inside? Their setup is freakin’ sweet!
The Internet exploded last week (in the gaming sphere at least) beginning with an article and a comic. It was followed by tons of articles…
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