Comment Re:censorship (Score 1) 625
Recently ? That was years ago and the courts ruled it to be legal, on several occasions now.
Comment Re:so long ago (Score 1) 625
... most of them are dead.
You've never been to Bavaria, have you?
I guess in Saxony they have bigger problems with those people.
Comment Re:censorship (Score 4, Informative) 625
The law was done by the Allied Control Council and was then taken over into our "Grundgesetz" (constitution). So you can blame your politicians for our censorship, in a sense ;-) Still, most of us Germans regard the law to be a non-issue. It's meant to keep right-winged people from glorifying the Nazis. Normally, it's only an issue if you're right-winged or a game maker placing your game in WWII.
Comment Re:censorship (Score 1) 625
Well, it's an old thing in games here in Germany. Basically, the law forbids to show "anti-constitutional" symbols (unless it's in a historic, educational and/or satiric context). According to the German Wikipedia entry this law was made by the Allied Control Council during their move to forbid the NSDAP and its symbols. It was then taken over into our "Grundgesetz" (think constitution) and AFAIK you need more than a normal majority to change a "Grundgesetz" law which would make it very hard to change the law. Especially since a lot of people here in Germany still are afraid that right-winged people might ever gain too much ground again. We want to keep right-winged people to from glorifying the Nazi time and we want to keep them from using their symbols, if possible.
The english Wikipedia also has an article regarding that issue.
Submission + - Hotline launched to combat child porn 2
Norsefire writes: "The New Zealand Government has assisted in the creation of an internet hotline where internet users can report websites containing child pornography via a browser plugin, available for Internet Explorer and Firefox. The hotline was launched by the NZ Department of Internal Affairs in association with End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography, Child Sex Tourism and Trafficking in Children (ECPAT). Ecpat director, Alan Bell, said 'with an ... increase in the number of clicks to inappropriate websites, the need for such a tool is paramount in protecting the innocence of our children ... If a suspect website is viewed, the computer user simply clicks on the Child Alert icon and the screen will disappear ...'"
Inside Video Game Localization 90
Atlus USA is a company known for their skill at localizing games — that is, adapting the text and speech in a game to a different language or culture. They've written a summary of their timeline for modifying a game, explaining that it's much more complicated than just running everything by a translator. They also have other articles looking at various parts of their work with more detail. When work begins, they take a few weeks to familiarize themselves with the game, giving them the proper context to understand character interactions and names. The actual translation then takes anywhere from a week to a few months, depending on how much material there is and whether they need to bring in new voice actors. Another month or so is allotted to actually implementing the changes and making technical modifications, after which another month or two is dedicated to bug testing. Then the game is submitted back to its original manufacturer for approval, a process that can take two months, and finally the new discs and game boxes are created, which adds another month. Thus, what many gamers see as a "simple" localization process can take six months or more to complete.
Comment Make the user feel guilty (Score 5, Insightful) 77
Three things come to my mind:
First, if your game awards some score or something then getting a hint must cost them.
And/or you only give a set amount of hints throughout their session. Maybe allow for an additional hint every x levels.
And/or make them aware that they have not succeeded themselves. I remember a good Solitair back in the MS-DOS days which also gave you a hint if you asked it to. When the game was finished it displayed ''You won (with my help)''. The ''with my help'' was what encouraged me not to press the button.
Submission + - AMD Fusion to add to x86 ISA
Giants2.0 writes: Ars Technica has a brief article detailing some of the prospects of AMD's attempt to fuse the CPU and GPU, including the fact that AMD's Fusion will modify the x86 ISA. From the article, "To support CPU/GPU integration at either level of complexity (i.e. the modular core level or something deeper), AMD has already stated that they'll need to add a graphics-specific extension to the x86 ISA. Indeed, a future GPU-oriented ISA extension may form part of the reason for the company's recently announced "close to metal" (CTM) initiative."
