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Game refund petition at whitehouse.gov
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KCB
Mar 9, 2013, 8:08:14 AM3/9/13
to
Tim O
Mar 9, 2013, 9:28:58 AM3/9/13
to
On Sat, 9 Mar 2013 08:08:14 -0500, "KCB" <bcg...@hootmail.com> wrote:
>https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/institute-industry-wide-return-policy-video-games-rely-remote-servers-and-drm-function-properly/nMy1wrtC
Slacktivism.
People need to stop with this do nothing time-waster BS and vote with
their wallets. Do you have the Origin client installed? I don't like
the way EA has been doing business, so I sure as hell don't.
>https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/institute-industry-wide-return-policy-video-games-rely-remote-servers-and-drm-function-properly/nMy1wrtC
Slacktivism.
People need to stop with this do nothing time-waster BS and vote with
their wallets. Do you have the Origin client installed? I don't like
the way EA has been doing business, so I sure as hell don't.
KCB
Mar 9, 2013, 2:12:01 PM3/9/13
to
"Tim O" <timo56...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:aehmj85pqbokjoiki...@4ax.com...
David Lamb
Mar 9, 2013, 3:14:22 PM3/9/13
to
Lou
Mar 9, 2013, 3:33:41 PM3/9/13
to
"David Lamb" wrote in message news:khg53m$d6b$2...@dont-email.me...
Xocyll
Mar 9, 2013, 5:03:51 PM3/9/13
to
"KCB" <bcg...@hootmail.com> looked up from reading the entrails of the
porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs say:
>https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/institute-industry-wide-return-policy-video-games-rely-remote-servers-and-drm-function-properly/nMy1wrtC
Typical of modern Americans.
1. Online petitions never accomplish anything - it's far too easy for
people to sign the things multiple times. You want it to mean anything
come up with a form letter people can print and mail in. Yeah you can
still send in multiple copies but the difference is you have to PAY
postage on them all.
Mail your Congressman, Mail your Senator, Mail the White house, Mail the
game company, Mail the retailer you bought the game from.
Digital signatures accomplish nothing, rooms full of letters get
noticed.
2. Industry wide? I guess it still escapes some that America is not
the whole world and the entire gaming industry does not reside there.
Xocyll
--
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably,
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr
porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs say:
>https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/institute-industry-wide-return-policy-video-games-rely-remote-servers-and-drm-function-properly/nMy1wrtC
Typical of modern Americans.
1. Online petitions never accomplish anything - it's far too easy for
people to sign the things multiple times. You want it to mean anything
come up with a form letter people can print and mail in. Yeah you can
still send in multiple copies but the difference is you have to PAY
postage on them all.
Mail your Congressman, Mail your Senator, Mail the White house, Mail the
game company, Mail the retailer you bought the game from.
Digital signatures accomplish nothing, rooms full of letters get
noticed.
2. Industry wide? I guess it still escapes some that America is not
the whole world and the entire gaming industry does not reside there.
Xocyll
--
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably,
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr
David Lamb
Mar 9, 2013, 5:47:41 PM3/9/13
to
On 09/03/2013 5:03 PM, Xocyll wrote:
> 1. Online petitions never accomplish anything
I spent some time perusing the answers at Whitehouse.gov and a few did
> 1. Online petitions never accomplish anything
say that action had been taking as a result. A small fraction, of
course. So "never" is too strong. I'd be happy with "rarely".
Xocyll
Mar 9, 2013, 8:36:19 PM3/9/13
to
David Lamb <dal...@cs.queensu.ca> looked up from reading the entrails of
You can bet that the few that appear to have been acted on were things
the people who acted _wanted_ to act on in the first place and used the
petition as an excuse.
You can also bet they were things that mattered to a lot of voters
and/or were good for a lot of positive media attention.
Convincing them to act on something they don't give a damn about on the
other hand or are actively on the other side of.
Game buyers are individuals (often below voting age), game companies and
drm companies are corporations who may have made campaign contributions,
guess who carries more weight in the USA?
Since you need nothing more than a name, email address and zip code to
make an account, there doesn't seem to be any check in place to stop you
making hundreds of accounts to votes with.
Nothing to stop you making up names and making email accounts with
various free providers for this.
Something Joe Average signing a petition to stop abuses in day cares
isn't likely to do, but kids protesting video game DRM would do to skew
the vote.
the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs say:
the people who acted _wanted_ to act on in the first place and used the
petition as an excuse.
You can also bet they were things that mattered to a lot of voters
and/or were good for a lot of positive media attention.
Convincing them to act on something they don't give a damn about on the
other hand or are actively on the other side of.
Game buyers are individuals (often below voting age), game companies and
drm companies are corporations who may have made campaign contributions,
guess who carries more weight in the USA?
Since you need nothing more than a name, email address and zip code to
make an account, there doesn't seem to be any check in place to stop you
making hundreds of accounts to votes with.
Nothing to stop you making up names and making email accounts with
various free providers for this.
Something Joe Average signing a petition to stop abuses in day cares
isn't likely to do, but kids protesting video game DRM would do to skew
the vote.
Xocyll
Mar 10, 2013, 6:07:14 PM3/10/13
to
"KCB" <bcg...@hootmail.com> looked up from reading the entrails of the
It occurred to me that what this petition is asking for is probably not
actually what we need. The problem being that no matter what the
legislation you're going to have issues with the retailers themselves,
not to mention the taxes paid on the purchase.
The problem isn't the DRM or the online component, it's that as in the
case of SimeCity5 the game company didn't actually provide the servers
in any kind of reliable manner.
Let em add whatever DRM they want, let em have online activation, let em
have online all the time links, BUT, they have to guarantee 100% uptime
of activation servers, game servers, etc or pay a fine to every customer
who bought the game that requires it for every hour the service is
unavailable.
Perfectly feasible in this age of micro transactions and it's the one
thing that might stop the game companies from going in this direction
since they all seem incapable of even close to 100% up time of anything,
especially anywhere near launch.
Set it at oh I don't know $1/hr and a 6 hour outage (that's their fault
because of insufficient hardware for the load, insufficient testing
before sale, etc, not because the phone/cable company went out or a DDoS
attack was launched) would result in them paying $6 to every registered
buyer.
Would not take much for them to actually _lose_ money on a brand new
game that sold like wildfire and over the long run almost guarantees
that they will, since they'll be making payments to people who aren't
even playing anymore.
72 hours of buyers unable to connect - $72 - well that's more than they
bought the game for in the first place, so they're probably happy
despite the aggravation.
This is the sort of thing that would result in every game being released
actually having been tested that it will reliably connect to the servers
and those activation/authentication servers would be ROBUST and tested
and the DRM would be fully tested that it would connect every time
despite the user not having a firewall-less direct connection to the
internet.
Them having to pay out would result in a MASSIVE increase in QA or, more
likely, a MASSIVE move away from badly configured DRM and online all the
time connections in games that aren't even multiplayer.
Getting something like this legislated though would not be easy.
porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs say:
>https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/institute-industry-wide-return-policy-video-games-rely-remote-servers-and-drm-function-properly/nMy1wrtC
It occurred to me that what this petition is asking for is probably not
actually what we need. The problem being that no matter what the
legislation you're going to have issues with the retailers themselves,
not to mention the taxes paid on the purchase.
The problem isn't the DRM or the online component, it's that as in the
case of SimeCity5 the game company didn't actually provide the servers
in any kind of reliable manner.
Let em add whatever DRM they want, let em have online activation, let em
have online all the time links, BUT, they have to guarantee 100% uptime
of activation servers, game servers, etc or pay a fine to every customer
who bought the game that requires it for every hour the service is
unavailable.
Perfectly feasible in this age of micro transactions and it's the one
thing that might stop the game companies from going in this direction
since they all seem incapable of even close to 100% up time of anything,
especially anywhere near launch.
Set it at oh I don't know $1/hr and a 6 hour outage (that's their fault
because of insufficient hardware for the load, insufficient testing
before sale, etc, not because the phone/cable company went out or a DDoS
attack was launched) would result in them paying $6 to every registered
buyer.
Would not take much for them to actually _lose_ money on a brand new
game that sold like wildfire and over the long run almost guarantees
that they will, since they'll be making payments to people who aren't
even playing anymore.
72 hours of buyers unable to connect - $72 - well that's more than they
bought the game for in the first place, so they're probably happy
despite the aggravation.
This is the sort of thing that would result in every game being released
actually having been tested that it will reliably connect to the servers
and those activation/authentication servers would be ROBUST and tested
and the DRM would be fully tested that it would connect every time
despite the user not having a firewall-less direct connection to the
internet.
Them having to pay out would result in a MASSIVE increase in QA or, more
likely, a MASSIVE move away from badly configured DRM and online all the
time connections in games that aren't even multiplayer.
Getting something like this legislated though would not be easy.
Peter Huebner
Mar 10, 2013, 7:35:48 PM3/10/13
to
In article <qtvpj89p2dgougntk...@4ax.com>,
Xoc...@kingston.net says...
It's a cute idea, but I am afraid I don't buy into it.
The number one question is, for instance: how long will they be obliged
to supply the servers for? Especially in a rumored setup where the game
actually does processing on said servers - which makes it a matter of
not simply issuing a patch before the validation servers get shut down.
The moment EA's server farm burns out, all those boxes of SimCity will
be only good for the landfill.
I have been bitten by Ubisoft like that. They simply shut down the
servers, and Fuck You if you happened to have bougt the software.
I got burned on a SSG title and on a Frog City title that way, both
published by, and dependent on Ubisoft servers. (in the case of the Frog
City program, they simply shut down the support servers, but
nevertheless - there were several of us in dialogue with the programmers
and developers at the time -- even THEY didn't get notice by ubisoft).
If they can't deal in good faith, then I won't deal with them at all,
that is my [re]solution.
Fortunately we now have alternative distribution methods to publishing
giants shipping boxes to warehouses that ship boxes to retail stores.
The real sufferers, apart from the end customers will be the stores.
They get the aggro from disgruntled buyers. And their business will
probably go the way of bookstores - fewer and fewer sales.
-P.
Xoc...@kingston.net says...
The number one question is, for instance: how long will they be obliged
to supply the servers for? Especially in a rumored setup where the game
actually does processing on said servers - which makes it a matter of
not simply issuing a patch before the validation servers get shut down.
The moment EA's server farm burns out, all those boxes of SimCity will
be only good for the landfill.
I have been bitten by Ubisoft like that. They simply shut down the
servers, and Fuck You if you happened to have bougt the software.
I got burned on a SSG title and on a Frog City title that way, both
published by, and dependent on Ubisoft servers. (in the case of the Frog
City program, they simply shut down the support servers, but
nevertheless - there were several of us in dialogue with the programmers
and developers at the time -- even THEY didn't get notice by ubisoft).
If they can't deal in good faith, then I won't deal with them at all,
that is my [re]solution.
Fortunately we now have alternative distribution methods to publishing
giants shipping boxes to warehouses that ship boxes to retail stores.
The real sufferers, apart from the end customers will be the stores.
They get the aggro from disgruntled buyers. And their business will
probably go the way of bookstores - fewer and fewer sales.
-P.
Tim O
Mar 10, 2013, 9:18:34 PM3/10/13
to
On Mon, 11 Mar 2013 12:35:48 +1300, Peter Huebner
<no....@this.address> wrote:
[snip]
>If they can't deal in good faith, then I won't deal with them at all,
>that is my [re]solution.
>-P.
Your solution is all it takes.
The irony that nerds are petitioning the White House to fix their
little sim world can only mean they haven't noticed their rather
haphazard record at fixing the real one.
Close your wallets, EA will be chopped up and sold to the highest
bidder within a year. I'm doing my best... The last EA game I bought
was Crysis 2.
<no....@this.address> wrote:
[snip]
>If they can't deal in good faith, then I won't deal with them at all,
>that is my [re]solution.
Your solution is all it takes.
The irony that nerds are petitioning the White House to fix their
little sim world can only mean they haven't noticed their rather
haphazard record at fixing the real one.
Close your wallets, EA will be chopped up and sold to the highest
bidder within a year. I'm doing my best... The last EA game I bought
was Crysis 2.
Xocyll
Mar 11, 2013, 3:16:54 AM3/11/13
to
Peter Huebner <no....@this.address> looked up from reading the entrails
That's part of what would have to be laid out, to stop the game company
from just arbitrarily shutting down access to a game whenever they feel
like it.
They want to make an always online link in a single player game, then as
far as I'm concerned, they have to have an authentication server or
whatever it is available as long as people want to play the game.
Maybe a max limit of 10 years.
OR they can patch the game to remove the online requirement.
>I have been bitten by Ubisoft like that. They simply shut down the
>servers, and Fuck You if you happened to have bougt the software.
>I got burned on a SSG title and on a Frog City title that way, both
>published by, and dependent on Ubisoft servers. (in the case of the Frog
>City program, they simply shut down the support servers, but
>nevertheless - there were several of us in dialogue with the programmers
>and developers at the time -- even THEY didn't get notice by ubisoft).
>
>If they can't deal in good faith, then I won't deal with them at all,
>that is my [re]solution.
That's my standard choice, but with more and more companies jumping on
the always-connected bandwagon, with the inherent risks to the consumer
that the game won't be playable except when the company feels like
letting you play, something needs to be done.
I don't remember the last time I bought something Ubi had their grubby
hands on, since they've been untrustworthy for some time now.
>Fortunately we now have alternative distribution methods to publishing
>giants shipping boxes to warehouses that ship boxes to retail stores.
>The real sufferers, apart from the end customers will be the stores.
>They get the aggro from disgruntled buyers. And their business will
>probably go the way of bookstores - fewer and fewer sales.
Yeah but some of the stores bring it on themselves. I've seen games for
sale in Best Buy that no longer exist - MMORPGs that were canceled up to
5 years ago still on the shelves.
RE: bookstores, well I think at least half the problem there is that so
many bookstores (at least chain ones) are carrying more and more
non-book stuff and less actual books.
I go to a bookstore for books, not for knick-knacks, baby clothes, toys
or any of the other crap that seem to infest them these days.
Seems like every couple months another bookshelf vanishes to be replaced
with more kitsch.
from just arbitrarily shutting down access to a game whenever they feel
like it.
They want to make an always online link in a single player game, then as
far as I'm concerned, they have to have an authentication server or
whatever it is available as long as people want to play the game.
Maybe a max limit of 10 years.
OR they can patch the game to remove the online requirement.
>I have been bitten by Ubisoft like that. They simply shut down the
>servers, and Fuck You if you happened to have bougt the software.
>I got burned on a SSG title and on a Frog City title that way, both
>published by, and dependent on Ubisoft servers. (in the case of the Frog
>City program, they simply shut down the support servers, but
>nevertheless - there were several of us in dialogue with the programmers
>and developers at the time -- even THEY didn't get notice by ubisoft).
>
>If they can't deal in good faith, then I won't deal with them at all,
>that is my [re]solution.
the always-connected bandwagon, with the inherent risks to the consumer
that the game won't be playable except when the company feels like
letting you play, something needs to be done.
I don't remember the last time I bought something Ubi had their grubby
hands on, since they've been untrustworthy for some time now.
>Fortunately we now have alternative distribution methods to publishing
>giants shipping boxes to warehouses that ship boxes to retail stores.
>The real sufferers, apart from the end customers will be the stores.
>They get the aggro from disgruntled buyers. And their business will
>probably go the way of bookstores - fewer and fewer sales.
sale in Best Buy that no longer exist - MMORPGs that were canceled up to
5 years ago still on the shelves.
RE: bookstores, well I think at least half the problem there is that so
many bookstores (at least chain ones) are carrying more and more
non-book stuff and less actual books.
I go to a bookstore for books, not for knick-knacks, baby clothes, toys
or any of the other crap that seem to infest them these days.
Seems like every couple months another bookshelf vanishes to be replaced
with more kitsch.
taxalot
Mar 11, 2013, 12:52:42 PM3/11/13
to
> Slacktivism.
>
> People need to stop with this do nothing time-waster BS and vote with
> their wallets. Do you have the Origin client installed? I don't like
> the way EA has been doing business, so I sure as hell don't.
>
Has it occured to you that people might be doing this AND not use Origin ?
>
> People need to stop with this do nothing time-waster BS and vote with
> their wallets. Do you have the Origin client installed? I don't like
> the way EA has been doing business, so I sure as hell don't.
>
When there are more than one way to fight for a cause, little as the
cause may be, there is often no reason to ignore any of the way if it is
good.
I'd support the initiative if I was an US citizen.
-Moa Dragon
taxalot
Mar 11, 2013, 12:54:57 PM3/11/13
to
> 1. Online petitions never accomplish anything - it's far too easy for
> people to sign the things multiple times. You want it to mean anything
> come up with a form letter people can print and mail in. Yeah you can
> still send in multiple copies but the difference is you have to PAY
> postage on them all.
> Mail your Congressman, Mail your Senator, Mail the White house, Mail the
> game company, Mail the retailer you bought the game from.
enough. This is not your typical onlinepetition.com
At least, it is going to bring attention to the powers that be. They
will likely dismiss it, but... baby steps.
Moa Dragon
taxalot
Mar 11, 2013, 1:00:26 PM3/11/13
to
> Close your wallets, EA will be chopped up and sold to the highest
> bidder within a year. I'm doing my best... The last EA game I bought
> was Crysis 2.
There are jobs on the line, and I never actually wish for a company to
> bidder within a year. I'm doing my best... The last EA game I bought
> was Crysis 2.
close down, but rather to change.
There is another solution that can be used in conjuction : buy DRM free
games. Buy a lot of these. Buy innovative products. Rather than the
negativity of a boycott, show the studios and publishers what you are
actually interested in.
Ubi Soft got partially the message.
-Moa Dragon
Xocyll
Mar 11, 2013, 7:05:20 PM3/11/13
to
taxalot <tax...@meh.fr> looked up from reading the entrails of the porn
email address and zip code to sign up for an account.
Oh look that's all you basically need to make an account at hotmail or
gmail too and you can easily make fake accounts there then use that fake
to sign up on whitehouse.gov.
Does a ZIP code resolve to a specific street address?
Are they going to check that there is a "whatever name you choose"
living at the ZIP code you enter?
If not (and frankly I can't see them bothering) then it's just as bad as
any onlinepetition.com petition.
>At least, it is going to bring attention to the powers that be. They
>will likely dismiss it, but... baby steps.
I don't think they'll even consider it for a moment, not with the other
actual real issues taxpaying voters are petitioning about on that site.
Stuff like veterans education tax credits, child abuse in daycare and
such - things that make GREAT media clips and gain votes.
This petition has as much chance to fly as a seagull with a battleship
tied to it's feet.
The only way they're going to gather any real attention is to do what I
said, send real mail, pay real money to send that mail, show that you
care enough to write a letter and pay for a stamp, not the 10 seconds it
takes to "sign" a digital petition.
100,000 signatures (many of which will be fake) on a e-petition, or
100,000 letters in the White House mail room - which one do you think
demands attention and which can easily be ignored?
spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs say:
>
>
> > 1. Online petitions never accomplish anything - it's far too easy for
> > people to sign the things multiple times. You want it to mean anything
> > come up with a form letter people can print and mail in. Yeah you can
> > still send in multiple copies but the difference is you have to PAY
> > postage on them all.
> > Mail your Congressman, Mail your Senator, Mail the White house, Mail the
> > game company, Mail the retailer you bought the game from.
>
>This is an official thing that warrants a response if the numbers are
>enough. This is not your typical onlinepetition.com
Yeah but it's a next-to-anonymous official thing. You only need a name
> > people to sign the things multiple times. You want it to mean anything
> > come up with a form letter people can print and mail in. Yeah you can
> > still send in multiple copies but the difference is you have to PAY
> > postage on them all.
> > Mail your Congressman, Mail your Senator, Mail the White house, Mail the
> > game company, Mail the retailer you bought the game from.
>
>This is an official thing that warrants a response if the numbers are
>enough. This is not your typical onlinepetition.com
email address and zip code to sign up for an account.
Oh look that's all you basically need to make an account at hotmail or
gmail too and you can easily make fake accounts there then use that fake
to sign up on whitehouse.gov.
Does a ZIP code resolve to a specific street address?
Are they going to check that there is a "whatever name you choose"
living at the ZIP code you enter?
If not (and frankly I can't see them bothering) then it's just as bad as
any onlinepetition.com petition.
>At least, it is going to bring attention to the powers that be. They
>will likely dismiss it, but... baby steps.
actual real issues taxpaying voters are petitioning about on that site.
Stuff like veterans education tax credits, child abuse in daycare and
such - things that make GREAT media clips and gain votes.
This petition has as much chance to fly as a seagull with a battleship
tied to it's feet.
The only way they're going to gather any real attention is to do what I
said, send real mail, pay real money to send that mail, show that you
care enough to write a letter and pay for a stamp, not the 10 seconds it
takes to "sign" a digital petition.
100,000 signatures (many of which will be fake) on a e-petition, or
100,000 letters in the White House mail room - which one do you think
demands attention and which can easily be ignored?
Peter Huebner
Mar 12, 2013, 1:45:34 AM3/12/13
to
In article <513e0daa$0$2090$426a...@news.free.fr>, tax...@meh.fr
says...
Nice to see another Kiwi here :-) anyway:
Basically that's what I was saying, and that's what I do: I am
supporting several kickstarter projects from people who have some
reputation (to lose) and/or a well prepared brief, and I support
sourceforge projects by making donations.
If EA turns into roadkill then that's not a huge loss to the industry. I
expect a lot of the grassroots employees will do something along the
lines of starting up their own projects, and with kickstarter etc making
capital available this has become viable for startup capital as well as
digital distribution.
Unless things have changed from the situation a few years back, EA uses
the employees as asswipes and burnout material in the first place -
there was a hot of grumbling about it from ex-employees as well as
family members as I recall. Typical abusive corporate policy that only
benefits the suits. (there ARE corporates that follow a different
strategy, but EA is not one of them by all accounts).
-P.
says...
Basically that's what I was saying, and that's what I do: I am
supporting several kickstarter projects from people who have some
reputation (to lose) and/or a well prepared brief, and I support
sourceforge projects by making donations.
If EA turns into roadkill then that's not a huge loss to the industry. I
expect a lot of the grassroots employees will do something along the
lines of starting up their own projects, and with kickstarter etc making
capital available this has become viable for startup capital as well as
digital distribution.
Unless things have changed from the situation a few years back, EA uses
the employees as asswipes and burnout material in the first place -
there was a hot of grumbling about it from ex-employees as well as
family members as I recall. Typical abusive corporate policy that only
benefits the suits. (there ARE corporates that follow a different
strategy, but EA is not one of them by all accounts).
-P.
JAB
Mar 12, 2013, 4:01:37 AM3/12/13
to
> RE: bookstores, well I think at least half the problem there is that so
> many bookstores (at least chain ones) are carrying more and more
> non-book stuff and less actual books.
> I go to a bookstore for books, not for knick-knacks, baby clothes, toys
> or any of the other crap that seem to infest them these days.
> Seems like every couple months another bookshelf vanishes to be replaced
> with more kitsch.
>
In the UK book sales are still going strong although it seems that
> many bookstores (at least chain ones) are carrying more and more
> non-book stuff and less actual books.
> I go to a bookstore for books, not for knick-knacks, baby clothes, toys
> or any of the other crap that seem to infest them these days.
> Seems like every couple months another bookshelf vanishes to be replaced
> with more kitsch.
>
volumes are up by overall spend is down due to the amount of very cheap
e-books. Even a major bookshop chain, Waterstones, is now in partnership
with Amazon/Kindle.
As for bookshops that sell other stuff - not here yet thankfully. I
agree with you, I go to a bookshop to buy books not something else.
Tim O
Mar 12, 2013, 5:23:23 AM3/12/13
to
On Tue, 12 Mar 2013 18:45:34 +1300, Peter Huebner
<no....@this.address> wrote:
>Nice to see another Kiwi here :-) anyway:
>
>Basically that's what I was saying, and that's what I do: I am
>supporting several kickstarter projects from people who have some
>reputation (to lose) and/or a well prepared brief, and I support
>sourceforge projects by making donations.
>
>If EA turns into roadkill then that's not a huge loss to the industry. I
>expect a lot of the grassroots employees will do something along the
>lines of starting up their own projects, and with kickstarter etc making
>capital available this has become viable for startup capital as well as
>digital distribution.
>Unless things have changed from the situation a few years back, EA uses
>the employees as asswipes and burnout material in the first place -
>there was a hot of grumbling about it from ex-employees as well as
>family members as I recall. Typical abusive corporate policy that only
>benefits the suits. (there ARE corporates that follow a different
>strategy, but EA is not one of them by all accounts).
>
>-P.
Supporting a horrible company because you think you're saving jobs is
<no....@this.address> wrote:
>Nice to see another Kiwi here :-) anyway:
>
>Basically that's what I was saying, and that's what I do: I am
>supporting several kickstarter projects from people who have some
>reputation (to lose) and/or a well prepared brief, and I support
>sourceforge projects by making donations.
>
>If EA turns into roadkill then that's not a huge loss to the industry. I
>expect a lot of the grassroots employees will do something along the
>lines of starting up their own projects, and with kickstarter etc making
>capital available this has become viable for startup capital as well as
>digital distribution.
>Unless things have changed from the situation a few years back, EA uses
>the employees as asswipes and burnout material in the first place -
>there was a hot of grumbling about it from ex-employees as well as
>family members as I recall. Typical abusive corporate policy that only
>benefits the suits. (there ARE corporates that follow a different
>strategy, but EA is not one of them by all accounts).
>
>-P.
noble, but I still don't think its realistic. The larger companies buy
out smaller ones and constantly shut them down anyway.
Activision is worse than EA for this, with a pattern of buying a
company, having it release something, then shutting it down.
An immediate example that comes to mind is Red Octane, a company that
created what is arguably the largest genre/fad of the 2000's, Guitar
Hero. Activision bought them in 2006, racked up over a billion dollars
in sales on the Guitar Hero series, then closed it down in 2010 as the
genre faded.
The good guys will find work, the big studios are unaffected unless
you hurt their income as a whole.
Xocyll
Mar 12, 2013, 8:25:39 AM3/12/13
to
JAB <nowa...@feckoff.com> looked up from reading the entrails of the
Count your blessings.
There used to be a whole bunch of used book stores in this town as well
as 5-6 different chains.
Now there's, I think, two remaining used book stores and maybe 4 other
stores, one of which might be an independent.
Two of the others, Indigo and Chapters are owned by the same people and
the Chapters, which used to be a good bookstore, is now about 50% books
and 50% other shit (as in totally non-reading related.)
The one non-book thing that was sorta good was a TV/movie/music area, so
of course they got rid of that for more stuffed animals and novelty
ceramics.
To cap it off they have banks of floodlights lighting up the crap near
the checkout area, as if it wouldn't be visible otherwise. This
naturally raises the heat level noticeably making the sometimes long
wait in line a whole lot less fun.
porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs say:
There used to be a whole bunch of used book stores in this town as well
as 5-6 different chains.
Now there's, I think, two remaining used book stores and maybe 4 other
stores, one of which might be an independent.
Two of the others, Indigo and Chapters are owned by the same people and
the Chapters, which used to be a good bookstore, is now about 50% books
and 50% other shit (as in totally non-reading related.)
The one non-book thing that was sorta good was a TV/movie/music area, so
of course they got rid of that for more stuffed animals and novelty
ceramics.
To cap it off they have banks of floodlights lighting up the crap near
the checkout area, as if it wouldn't be visible otherwise. This
naturally raises the heat level noticeably making the sometimes long
wait in line a whole lot less fun.
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