Software/Gaming companies, that have made bad decisions.

[Woe Is You]

Then again, to the consumer, what a device looks like from the inside is largely irrelevant so long as it works and doesn't crash. I personally never had any problems with overheating and I used it like much more than I use my gaming equipment these days. And firmware problems? What? This is the first I've heard about it.

 

[thePyro_13]

Well they are trying to save the PC gaming market from its self, people who steal games are destroying the market. What company is going to invest money in a game that 30% of there players will have stolen it.

perhaps, but their doing it the wrong way. all they've accomplished is making sure i buy left 4 dead instead of red alert 3. why on earth would i choose to buy a game i can only install 5 times over a game i can play until the internet becomes obsolete?

Keep in mind the people who did pirate the game use cracks, so they don't even notice the new DRM.


/back on topic

Sony made a fair mistake with the PS3. it is a great platform, but being last to the show and being at least twice as expensive as its competition really screwed Sony over.

 

[Caliostro]

EA... installation limits

That and every other thing they've done.

Well they are trying to save the PC gaming market from its self, people who steal games are destroying the market. What company is going to invest money in a game that 30% of there players will have stolen it.

...You sound like Cliffy B... I mean, Dude Huge.

You say this because piracy totally does NOT exist. Nor has it ever existed for the past 10 - 20 years.

You know what's dragging the gaming market down? Greedy companies that keep pumping out shit instead of good games. Here's a piece of education for you. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/op-ed/5518-Used-and-Abused]

On that note: DRM. I don't think I need to elaborate.

 

[Hevoo]

EA... installation limits

That and every other thing they've done.

Well they are trying to save the PC gaming market from its self, people who steal games are destroying the market. What company is going to invest money in a game that 30% of there players will have stolen it.

...You sound like Cliffy B... I mean, Dude Huge.

You say this because piracy totally does NOT exist. Nor has it ever existed for the past 10 - 20 years.

You know what's dragging the gaming market down? Greedy companies that keep pumping out shit instead of good games. Here's a piece of education for you. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/op-ed/5518-Used-and-Abused]

On that note: DRM. I don't think I need to elaborate.

You can't buy Used PC games as far as I know. I dont know a gamestop or EB that will take them.

What does putting shitty games out have to do with the fact that a game like Crysis 30% of the people who played it stole the game..........

 

[thePyro_13]

You can't buy Used PC games as far as I know. I dont know a gamestop or EB that will take them.

Game traders, trading post, eBay... I should be able to by an old game without ever having to think about weather it will refuse to run due to DRM.

What does putting shitty games out have to do with the fact that a game like Crysis 30% of the people who played it stole the game..........

Its sad that people are stealing these games, but i find it hard to believe that company's can have such accurate data on how many games are being pirated.

 

[Hevoo]

You can't buy Used PC games as far as I know. I dont know a gamestop or EB that will take them.

Game traders, trading post, eBay... I should be able to by an old game without ever having to think about weather it will refuse to run due to DRM.

What does putting shitty games out have to do with the fact that a game like Crysis 30% of the people who played it stole the game..........

Its sad that people are stealing these games, but i find it hard to believe that company's can have such accurate data on how many games are being pirated.

The companies track there games by vendor sales and compare them to how many people are playing online, or register online, etc etc. The numbers are there. Look Epic said they will not bring GoW2 to the PC, because people are stealing so much, Its a major problem if GEARS OF FREAKING WAR wont got to PC. That is a cash cow.

 

[Woe Is You]

Obsidian releasing KotOR 2 too early and not finishing it (did untold damage to their reputation).

You can actually blame Lucasarts for that. They gave Obsidian less than a year to make it to get it shipped around the same time as Episode III, so the fact that there is a playable game at all is surprising.

They've since improved their games; NWN2 was decent, though it's ending was bullshit, Mask of the Betrayer had almost Torment level dialogue and was challenging. Haven't tried Storm of Zehir, though.

 

[TerraMGP]

Then again, to the consumer, what a device looks like from the inside is largely irrelevant so long as it works and doesn't crash. I personally never had any problems with overheating and I used it like much more than I use my gaming equipment these days. And firmware problems? What? This is the first I've heard about it.

yes but it can still effect how things function. It was not just the putty issue its more the placement of components with what seemed to me at least like using the putty to compensate. Really to me it just upset my sensibilities to have a design like that. Not everyone had a problem from the original X box though, hell people have had 360s last a while now, but it is obvious when you look under the hood that microsoft needs to spend a bit more time in the design phase to make sure their systems are hardy throughout.

 

[Hevoo]

Gears of War wasn't a cash cow on PC though.

because all of the people who stole the game. They are not going to waste there time.

 

[Woe Is You]

Then again, to the consumer, what a device looks like from the inside is largely irrelevant so long as it works and doesn't crash. I personally never had any problems with overheating and I used it like much more than I use my gaming equipment these days. And firmware problems? What? This is the first I've heard about it.

yes but it can still effect how things function. It was not just the putty issue its more the placement of components with what seemed to me at least like using the putty to compensate. Really to me it just upset my sensibilities to have a design like that. Not everyone had a problem from the original X box though, hell people have had 360s last a while now, but it is obvious when you look under the hood that microsoft needs to spend a bit more time in the design phase to make sure their systems are hardy throughout.

Like I said: that something looks ugly inside does not automatically follow that the device has problems. If the original Xbox had overheating problems or problems with its firmware (which is what you're implying here), then they surely would be widely reported. It's 7 years from the release, so there'd be more about it lying around.

I've personally seen plenty uglier vendor built PCs than the original Xbox was. Some HP machines have looked quite ghastly indeed once I'd open them to help a friend of mine do a RAM upgrade or along those lines.

 

[Woe Is You]

Microsoft, releasing Vista in a beta state........


What do you guys got?

Copying and pasting my post I directed to you about this very same topic:

Do you remember XP's launch? Or 98's launch?

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=382
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=18

Nothing has changed. It's just a lot easier for people who don't know what they're talking about to loudly voice their misinformed opinions.

As far as I know, they do have a completely new driver API in Vista, which makes things a tiny bit harder than on the 98/XP launch at the time.

 

[TerraMGP]

By ugly though I don't mean specifically looking BAD I mean it just looks like it was not put togeather well, and the heating problems back that up. If it looked bad but had good functionality that would be one thing. However when the bad looks stem from a design flaw, admittedly a minor one in the case of the original one but still a design flaw, well then its diffrent.

Keep in mind I'm not saying "it just looks like its bad" i am saying that "its got a design flaw in that the component placement makes it a bit harder to cool and it appears they just put more foam on it to compensate, which is not as effective." And that they should have spotted that and fixed it for the next system, learning from a minor mistake before it became part of a major one.

Bottom line though is that Microsoft is not taking the time to engineer their product well. They do a good job of keeping a network up but the hardware has some issues.

 

[cuddly_tomato]

Obsidian releasing KotOR 2 too early and not finishing it (did untold damage to their reputation).

You can actually blame Lucasarts for that. They gave Obsidian less than a year to make it to get it shipped around the same time as Episode III, so the fact that there is a playable game at all is surprising.

They've since improved their games; NWN2 was decent, though it's ending was bullshit, Mask of the Betrayer had almost Torment level dialogue and was challenging. Haven't tried Storm of Zehir, though.

Yep. I know the story and believe Lucas Arts should face a firing squad for their wrecking what looked to be the greatest game of all time.

It still did the company harm though.

 

[Caliostro]

You can't buy Used PC games as far as I know. I dont know a gamestop or EB that will take them.

I don't know how is it like where you live, but in the rest of the world the reselling of games is quite common.

What does putting shitty games out have to do with the fact that a game like Crysis 30% of the people who played it stole the game..........

Did you read the article? A game like Crysis is a bad investment. It's pretty, it's "hot" when it's released, but ultimately it's a bad investment. It has very limited replayability, a year after they were releasing a new one, and most likely will release a new one next year.

It's a good game, don't get me wrong, I personally reviewed Warhead and said It was a fun game to play... But to buy? Does it justify a permanent investment into it when there's no way to get your money back but the amount of fun you can have with it is rather limited... Finish the campaign... Play the online for a few hours... Move on.

Now take a game like Half-Life... 10 years later it's still a landmark... A game like Portal that only has 2-3 hours of gameplay, but that you'll replay 2, 3 or 4 times, is also a timeless classic and costs like... 10 bucks now? CoD4. Diablo II, Left4Dead.

The difference is that while Crysis is pretty and gives an interesting playthrough, these other games are classics and viewed as a worthy investment.

 

[ImmortalItalian]

SOE for what they did to SWG

...

Nuff' said

 

[songnar]

Does anyone remember when Sega trusted Microsoft to handle the OS for the Dreamcast and then the thing became so easily pirated that it failed miserably and it died shortly after the release of the X-Box?

Also

When 3DO sold out to Ubisoft. (Heroes of Might and Magic IV being the proof in this argument)

SoE for keeping Everquest going even today.