Miss Teen Stupidverse
Posted by Ray @ 4:37 pmQn: Why can’t Americans find America on a map?
Ans: We don’t have enough maps. Also, we must help Iraq and South Africa!
I’d still hit her it, though.
Ratatouille FTW
Posted by Ray @ 12:04 amGo and watch it!
What’s incredulous is the 6 “rotten” reviews on rottentomatoes. For shame.
It may not be as good as some of pixar’s earlier works, but it is so far above everything else on cinemas that it doesn’t matter. Shame on crappy old Singaporean cinemas for taking so long to bring it here and instead show shit like Rush Hour 3.
Anti-piracy in games: Why?
Posted by Ray @ 10:09 amI wonder what anti-piracy companies tell their investors and customers in order to convince them to fund/continue to use their product. We all know that SecuROM, Safedisc and StarFuck StarForce don’t actually reduce the incidence of piracy at all (go to torrentspy and see for yourself!).
Even if it does, any savvy game developer would weigh the pros (number of pirates stopped) and cons (price of implementing an anti-piracy measure) and surely they would reach the conclusion that the cost isn’t worth it?
It’s not like games make incredible sales. A game that sells 50,000 copies can be considered a hit; most games sell far less. If you, as a developer, are already hard pressed to break even on the game… why pay an anti-piracy company more for an anti-piracy measure that will be cracked within hours of the game’s release to retail?
Because believe you me, it will be cracked. Most within hours, some within days, a few really tenacious ones within weeks.
And the anti-piracy companies have got to know that.
2K Games and BioShock
The reason I’m pondering the existence of anti-piracy measures is, of course, the saga that is currently screwing over PC BioShock customers. In a nutshell, the BioShock installer only lets you install the game twice. If you want to install it more times, you actually have to uninstall the game first. That is, you go to your control panel and click “uninstall”. Otherwise it doesn’t count.
“Big deal,” you say. “Normal users should be doing that anyway; why are so many people whinging over this measure? It’s nothing more than a minor inconvenience!”
But see, it most definitely is a big deal.
It is a big deal just from principle. If I buy a game, I should be allowed to install it multiple times on multiple PCs that I own. After all, I bought it. If I cannot do so, then you must tell me that I cannot do so, so I can consider whether or not I want to continue with the purchase of the game.
It is a big deal because of the viscissitudes of PC use. How many times does your windows installation crash? How often does your hard disk fail, your RAM go bad, or any number of system-disabling disasters occur? A lot! It is a fact of a PC gamer’s life. Some of us play games over extended periods of time; weeks or months, because we simply do not have the time to invest. In that period, what are the chances that something prevents you from properly uninstalling the game, thus forcing you to take some potentially expensive measures just to play again?
Even if the above only happens to say, 1% of your consumers, is that not 1% too many?
It is a big deal because of practicality. The practical reality is, everybody who wants to pirate this game will pirate it - guaranteed. Anti-piracy measures depend on one simple fact: that those measures be actually present on the game disc. The only people who will have anti-piracy measures on their game disc, are the people who bought legitimate copies of the game. Pirates would be using a cracked version. Therefore the only people who will be affected by these measures… are the people who bought the game! Pirates will never be affected by these measures, and therefore it doesn’t work at all to stop piracy.
It is a big deal because it defies common sense. Imagine you are in a family of 5; Mom, Dad and 3 kids. Dad buys BioShock for his teenage kids, and wants to play himself. Dad is pretty well off and has a computer for everybody in the house (believe me this is not uncommon, my house has 4 computers for a family of 4). Can Dad buy just one copy of BioShock? Common sense says yes! It is only for his family’s use, after all. But 2K games, BioShock’s developers, say NO.
It is a big deal because it pushes users towards piracy. Do you think Dad will buy a new copy of BioShock, or do you think Dad will download a cracked version and never buy from 2K games again? Maybe he is so rich he doesn’t give a damn. But most of our dads aren’t.
It is a big deal because of the poor way developer/publishers continue to treat their customers, who are their lifeblood. The official response on the 2K games forum, from someone named “Elizabeth”, is this:
hey guys,
first, let me say this. you DO NOT NEED TO USE THE INTERNET EVERY TIME YOU PLAY THIS GAME. it is only the first time.
second, you can uninstall and reinstall this game, and if, by chance, you have 2 computers you want to simultaneously play this game on, you also can do that.
if by some chance you are reinstalling this game without uninstalling it first, a lot, there is a chance you may have to call securom and get a key, or deactivate some older installations.
but if you upgrade your hardware next week, you’ll still be able to play the game. if you revamp your system and need to reinstall bioshock, just uninstall it before you go through the overhaul, and then do your reinstall.
calling it “hardware fingerprinting” is a bit alarmist. we do not transmit any of your data to any companies.
really, the only people who will be concerned about any of these security measures are those who are rapidly putting bioshock on many pcs… if you use the game as you normally do, you won’t notice this at all (emphasis added).
Note how the company just defined what amounts to “normal use”! According to 2K games, if I install my game on more than two computers, or if I reinstall without properly uninstalling the game, I am not using the game normally. Who are they to tell me how to play my game? If I want to play it on three different computers with the save files synced on a central server somewhere why can’t I? If I want to buy it so that my family members can all play from the same purchase why can’t I?
And most importantly, if I can’t… why didn’t you tell me so?
Why anti-piracy?
Forgive me if I am still a little bit confused as to why these anti-piracy companies are still around. It’s like DRM, except it makes even less sense - and that’s saying a lot. Even DRM vendors clued in a long time ago that limited-play and limited-copy restrictions were simply not going to fly.
How are they getting the money to continue to think up asinine schemes that get broken within days? Do their shareholders not know that the latest SecuROM protocols have already been cracked? Why do they keep funding it? Do their customers not know that the protocols are ineffective against piracy? Why do they keep buying it?
Even if you are a big publisher with lots of money, surely you realize that the price of putting these shoddy pieces of shitware in your products is not worth the amount of flak you get from your own customers, the gamers! Why not save that tiny bit of money, give it back to your shareholders and save us all the heartache? The piracy problem is going to be there forever, believe you me. You will not suffer any losses, gamers will be happy, and your shareholders will be happy; it’s win-win-win!
Mayhaps I am too naive; no matter. I will end by saying this: stop being so damn terrified of piracy, and worry about getting a good product out first. If you have nothing worth buying, then you have nothing worth protecting. And if you do get a good product out, believe you me: it will be bought, and you will make money.
Superbad.
Posted by Zeng @ 2:27 amRatatouille is FINALLY coming out on big screen in Singapore,to think that we get Pirates of the carribean 3,Shrek 3 and many more visually astounding hollywood banging movies out even earlier than the official openings in US.
You’ll probably think they do the same for a masterpiece from Pixar, but for all the local animators and CG artist here waiting for it a few months back… yeap we only get to see it shown this week.
Wait, are we still promoting animation in this island? This is …Superbad. *search the local papers for more garbage*
SuperBad trailer…
Now this is something I’m looking forward to. :)
Let’s see how long we’re gonna wait for this superbad ass movie to come to our shores.
Rambo 4 trailer is out too.
And I think we can all shut our mouths about Stallone getting too old to party. yeahhh more blood!
I (heart) Charley
Posted by Ray @ 12:51 amThis is one of the most… um… beautiful youtube clips I have ever seen.
Meet Charley.
He’s spastic.
He’s a cat.
If you don’t love him and want to laugh and cry at the same time when you watch this video, you are inhuman. Please kill yourself and clean the gene pool.
BitTorrent goes closed-source, nobody surprised
Posted by Ray @ 5:14 amBack in December last year there were rumblings that BitTorrent was acquiring the uTorrent project. And why not? After all, uTorrent was more succesful than the mainline client ever was.
It eventually turned out that the purchase was true, and copyfighters everywhere despaired, for of course Bram Cohen, like his predecessor Shawn Fanning, had by that time sold out to the MPAA.
Now they’re turning the project closed-source. That’s right, the version 6 protocol will be closed source, thereby destroying one of the very reasons why the protocol was succesful in the first place - the ability for any developer, anywhere, to make a better product.
So the several million users of uTorrent are going to use an “improved” feature set (I use that word with some doubt), and the several other million users of Azureus, BitComet et al are going to use another. Who wants to bet that part of the v. 6 protocol will include some lame-ass oppressive DRM scheme?
Didn’t think so.
Read the official response and weep.
Sure, you can buy a licence to the protocol. But d’you really think the next big thing is going to come from someone who is pedantic enough to purchase a licence?
Bleah.