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Comment: The problem George Broussard has (Score 5, Interesting) 360

by PocketPick (#46150863) Attached to: Why Games Should Be In the Public Domain

The problem George Broussard has with the issue is that companies like 3D Realms (while they were actually still a game development studio, and now during it's quasi-half-existence as a publisher) cling desperately to old properties as their their only source of revenue. They've failed miserably at actually releasing any updates to their own works or creating new properties, and so their revenue streams has devolved to porting Duke Nukem 3D to the Xbox, PlayStation, Steam and any other platform that comes to mind, and licensing everything else out to separate studios (such as the Duke Nukem Forever, and last year's Shadow Warrior update).

The later, I assume, is the only thing that is holding them together as a corporate entity, along with anything that might of come out of the settlement with Gearbox (if they got anything).

Take away their copyright to those IPs, and companies like 3D Realms would not last another year.

As a result, his reaction to these kinds of comments is totally unsurprising.

Comment: Re:Neil deGrasse Tyson (Score 5, Insightful) 520

by PocketPick (#43061419) Attached to: Neil deGrasse Tyson On How To Stop a Meteor Hitting the Earth

Why do you say that? He's an established scientist and has a Bachelors in Physics and a Graduate/PH-D in Astrophysics. He's held positions at several universities and is the director of the Hayden Planetarium. Sure he goes on television more than your average physicist, but so did Carl Sagan. He's charismatic, and it works well for him. Nothing wrong with that.

Dr. Phil is a pool of waste that puts people on television and exposes their issues to millions of viewers, for the ratings and a fat pay check. He doesn't add anything to his profession, and his discussions on television don't enlighten anyone.

There's a huge difference.

+ - 'Code Hero' Kickstarter Woes Continue->

Submitted by PocketPick
PocketPick writes "In a tale of the risks that come with Kickstarter, the project 'Code Hero' (a game that teaches the basics of programming, previously covered on Slashdot)) has continued it's struggles in a well publicized spat with it's backers. After reports last year in which at least one project contributor had considering legal action in response to the perception that the developers had discontinued work on the game, the developers issued a response promising more regular status updates and a second alpha candidate to demonstrate progress.

The promises however have not come to fruition, and after failing to provide additional status updates this month or the promised alpha candidate, Joystiq and Develop are reporting again that backers are beginning to question whether the project is defunct and what their options may be, including whether the project should surrender it's assets (code and artwork) to the backers if the project cannot be completed and delivered as promised.

While 2012 brought an explosion of popularity in crowd-funded games, the increased risks have come with it. To any Slashdot users who have contributed to this project, or other Kickstarter projects, what are your thoughts?"

Link to Original Source

+ - HP Software Update Cancels Food Stamps-> 1

Submitted by Spy Handler
Link to Original Source

Comment: What Amazing Techniques? (Score 3) 209

by PocketPick (#42087117) Attached to: Does Even Amazing Partisan Tech Deserve Applause?

I'm confused - What "exciting new techniques" did the candidates came up with? Using Twitter? Writing a blog? Campaigns and PACs soliciting donations or informing people of important dates through text messages, phone calls, emails or applications on phones?

Wow - What an age we live in...if you ignore that the underpinnings of these technologies have been around for years if not decades.

All they did was leverage what was there to spam everyone and rake in money for advertisements, travel, staff expenses and otherwise. The tools may be relatively new, but the "technique" is a century old.

Comment: Re:There was also the fact (Score 1) 383

by PocketPick (#38556130) Attached to: Crysis 2 Most Pirated Game of 2011

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was also on Steam, and only missed being the piracy top-dog by about 10%.
      > Whether that difference has to do with being available on digital download services, or just because people are attached to the online play for Black Ops over Crysis and needed legit copies to play, it's hard to tell.

Comment: Witcher 2 (Score 1) 383

by PocketPick (#38556038) Attached to: Crysis 2 Most Pirated Game of 2011

Of course CD Projekt Red reported having 20-25% more piracy (4.5m) for their major title of the year (Witcher 2) than either Call of Duty or Crysis 2
    * http://www.gamespot.com/news/the-witcher-2-pirated-45-million-times-cd-projekt-6346876

If those numbers are correct, I have to wonder where the Witcher 2 devs got their figures.

Comment: Somewhat Obvious Who Had It Pulled (Score 4, Insightful) 190

by PocketPick (#36282820) Attached to: Google Yanks Several Emulators From App Store

"While most speculate that one of the Big Three are behind the purge–Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft"

Why even speculate which of the Big Three it was? The emulators were for:
  - Nintendo SNES
  - Nintendo Gameboy
  - Nintendo NES
  - Nintendo N64

Call me crazy, but if it wasn't pulled because of licensing issues, shouldn't it be obvious who would of had the beef with this guy?

Comment: Elimination of Load Times? Unlikely (Score 2, Insightful) 277

by PocketPick (#32132554) Attached to: Will Game Cartridges Make a Comeback?


Cartridges will result in somewhat lower load times, for sure, but the complete elimination? I highly doubt it - The terrains of games like Oblivion and Fallout still take massive amounts of time to render in memory, and then display on the screen...The bottleneck is not necessarily the time required to simply extract it off the DVD or Blu Ray disk it resides on.

As game creators push the limits further and further with the inevitable next generation of consoles, you'll find the limiting factor in how long it takes to get up-and-running has less and less to do with the choice of optical media vs. SSD.

Comment: Complete waste of money (Score 2, Interesting) 25

by PocketPick (#30553110) Attached to: Twitter Buys Mixer Labs For Geolocation Services

I find it incredulous that they would throw money on the purchase of something such as this, given the fact their projected Q3 income for 2009 is just $400,000 with a staff of 75+ - Either they're paying ~$6000/year salaries, or just wasting the venture capital dollars they have on things which really can't improve the bottom line or resolve major issues their users truly have with their site.

Of course, they project $4 mil in sustained incoming for Q4 2009 and up to perhaps $1.5 billion by 2013 if you believe their estimates, though I have a hard time accepting that - Especially in a down economy like this which doesn't look to recover back to it's former pace for at least another year or two. Quite frankly, this has 1999 dot-com bust written all over it, complete complete with the ridiculous hype, overpriced acquisitions and no defined strategy for how to actually make money.

All we need now is an IPO

Comment: Re:Let me be the first one to ask it ... (Score 1) 1870

by PocketPick (#27631757) Attached to: Pirate Bay Trial Ends In Jail Sentences

In United States legal system, all things are weighed within the context of their predominate actual use. You have no idea what you're talking about.

If I had the heart to continue this debate, I would. But since you have no interest in posting facts to support your arguments, I will leave it at this.


by PocketPick (#27629679) Attached to: Pirate Bay Trial Ends In Jail Sentences

And your point is? It requires a rather narrow scope of vision to state that public-domain material constitutes a "substantial" amount of it's indexed torrents. The fact that there exists a non-copyrighted copy cannot justify the existence of a service if it is predominantly used for acquisition of illegally acquired materials.

Here's the Top 100 for The Pirate Bay:
  - http://thepiratebay.org/top/all ...Count them. How many non-copyrighted works can you find? And of those which are freely available, how many of those torrent seeders are really authorized to publish these materials? Or do you think it's an entitlement that you have quick, fast and free access to these materials?

I mean, it has the name THE PIRATE BAY, for god sakes. Courts and legal authorities can execute search warrants if they believe that an organization is assisting or enabling criminal acts if there is substantial indications of such - In modern courts, the name of an organization IS CONSIDERED an indication of intent (the same is true if a I opened a shop called "Bongs and Things").
