Some people think we're crazy, but on the game "Card Hunter," we publish all of our check-in messages on Twitter.

Here are some of the benefits:

• 1.) We have taken up the discipline of writing check-in messages that are easy to digest.
• 2.) Players have an opportunity to get excited about what we are doing before it is released, but after we have done the work.
• 3.) Players can see that it's a living project -- that we are actively improving the game.
• 4.) Players can see that bugs are being fixed -- that we care.

Obviously, we make an effort not to post things that are going to compromise our security.

Has there been a downside? It hasn't bitten us yet. There is usually no reason to hide what technologies you are using, unless you are using something that is highly vulnerable, or you are making other bad choices. Don't do that. There is no reason to hide that your software has bugs. Everyone knows you have bugs. It's only shameful if you aren't fixing them.

Are we really crazy?

Mwahaha! Perhaps, instead of "like playing console games," I should have said, "like playing Little Big Planet."

The open source world cares as much about the PS3 as a microwave oven. Yep. That about sums it up nicely.

If that were the case, then PS3s would be nearly ubiquitous, and no one would remember how to get by without one. ;-)

That is an entirely fair point! I've worked on embedded systems, too, and you are totally right. It is entirely plausible that my microwave could be running Linux. I suppose it would have been more correct to say that I couldn't install Linux on my microwave, rather than that my microwave doesn't run it. And if I could, the level of difficulty probably wouldn't be worth the (admittedly awesome) ability to reprogram the preset buttons to perfectly nuke my favorite microwavable foods, instead of whatever random assortment of crap the manufacturer thought I would want to microwave.

While I'm dreaming, I would love to be able to write new programs for my bread machine, damn it. It has no setting that can accommodate the extended kneading and rise time necessary for a loaf of whole-grain sourdough started from a home-grown levain. Clearly, I should invest in one of the more expensive programmable models, but that possibility doesn't keep me from itching to hack the one I've got.

I agree. This quote really made me giggle:

But by omitting the option to install GNU/Linux on its new PS3, it has removed the final reason for the open source world to care about Sony.

Unless they -- I don't know -- like playing console games, like the vast majority of people who buy game consoles. My microwave oven doesn't run Linux, either, but it somehow manages to still be useful to me.

Honestly, I think out-of-touch rants like this only serve to further reinforce the "Linux zealot" stereotype, and drive the mainstream away from Linux.

Heh, you don't have to tell me. I grew up in Upper Marlboro, and did all my schooling in the PG County School System. Back when I was in middle and high school (in another decade), it was fairly routine for me to have to sort out some kind of heinous scheduling snafu at the beginning of each year. Given that I was out at the edge of the area covered by my high school, bizarre bus schedule errors were almost guaranteed, as well.

The most spectacular goof-up while I was there was the time they refused to close schools one morning, when a blizzard was rolling in. After freezing to death at the bus stop, waiting for our late bus, we had a grueling trip through white-out conditions to the school. The Beltway looked like some kind of post-apocalyptic nuclear survival horror movie, littered with snow-covered jack-knifed tractor trailers and wrecked cars. By the time we finally reached the school building, we were told that school was canceled. However, we could not simply turn around and go home. Oh no. Instead, the bus was obligated to go back to the first school on its evening routes, to pick them up and take them home, first. We were the last school on the evening routes. So, needless to say, the bus didn't even show up to take us home until stupid-o-clock at night, when we should have been going to bed.

My spelling and grammar have not deteriorated at all, over the years. However, I find writing anything in longhand to be tedious and painful, now. I type 100 words-per-minute, and the quality of my writing suffers terribly when I'm forced to write anything long-hand, because it's so much slower than my usual written communication. I simply no longer have the patience for producing text so slowly and inefficiently.

If the AI Agents are learning to mimic human behavior by observing how they play a game, then the game design clearly already exists. Therefore, what is described in the article is certainly not anything even remotely close to "games that design themselves."

But what I am really trying to say is making up bull shit math isn't going to prove your point (my example doesn't prove anything either). You will just be modded up by mods who lack critical thinking skills and mod based on what they agree with.

No, you're totally right. In the grand scheme of things, his model completely failed to account for the customer who had every intention of spending $60 on a new game, but saw the $50 used copy of the same exact game next to it, and bought that copy instead, because he saw it as the rational thing to do. I can't think of any way to interpret that as anything other than a lost sale for the publishers and developers.

Game publishers put those stores out of business.

I find it much more plausible that Walmart put those stores out of business.

The simple reality is that the margin on most NEW games for GameStop is around $1.

As of the fiscal year ending in January 2009, GameStop has an average 21 cents on the dollar gross profit margin on new software sales. On a $50 game, that comes out to $10.50. (Source: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=23357)

At that margin, they simply cannot stay in business.

This might be true if your number reflected the actual state of affairs. But it doesn't.

The ONLY solution is for the publishers to give more money to retailers.

Er, wouldn't this merely create an opportunity for Walmart to undercut the specialty retailers even further?

Other industries have had to deal with the used market and somehow managed.

Try making a living as a mid-list author, sometime.

The combination of used sales and piracy ultimately drives many media publishers to succumb to the very worst aspects of their corporate natures, and become ever-increasingly blockbuster-driven, by necessity. Hype trumps quality, because it's all about the first week of sales. We're rewarding them for the wrong behavior. The content-creators don't like it and the fans don't like it, but this is how these industries have "somehow managed."

If downloadable direct-to-consumer content creates a little more wiggle room for creativity, risk, and innovation, that's a tradeoff I can live with.

In fact, I would argue that the games industry industry is driven far more by novelty than say, the book industry, which means the competition from used merchandise is is fairly weak.

The problem isn't with New Game X competing against Obsolete Used Game Y. In that scenario, the competition would, indeed, be weak. The problem is that in practice, we are faced with a scenario in which New Game X is often competing against Used Game X, a mere week after release. That is not weak competition at all.

Have you heard of a place called amazon.com?

1. You're comparing web to bricks-and-mortar. The buying behaviors are very different.
2. GameStop makes nearly 50 cents on the dollar for the sale of used products. Usually, more than 80% of the money from Amazon used sales go to the seller, so Amazon has far less incentive to push used products instead of new products.
3. On Amazon, the prominent "Add to Shopping Cart" button on the product page is for purchasing a new item from Amazon.
4. On Amazon, buying the new item is always the path of least resistance, and requires the least time and analysis. If you go to the used page, you have to contemplate things like shelf wear, missing dust jackets, and whether or not you trust the seller, before making a decision.
5. After you have selected a new item, Amazon never asks you if you want a used one, instead. Nor have I ever seen them go out of their way to remind you that you can sell used books to them.

GameStop is a used game store. They may sell some new copies of the latest and greatest games, but that is not their market.

Really? Most stores that sell used products don't advertise on TV, take pre-orders, and tout the fact that they have the hottest new stuff. Replay Games is a real example of a used game store.

In most cases, the people going to GameStop are actively looking for used items.

I have never gotten this impression at all. Maybe the GameStops are different where you live? Most of the ones I've been in used to be Electronics Boutiques, to be honest. EB sold used games, and was even pushy about it, but most of the folks in there were there to buy new stuff.

Why would you go there if your prime goal was to get a new copy of a game. There are plenty of other places that have copies and are usually at a better price.

OK, then, what is our equivalent to Borders? If I want to buy a new game, and possibly browse other new games, and make totally irresponsible impulse purchases in a damn bricks-and-mortar game store (and not Best Buy or Walmart), where, exactly, do I go?

So why don't the publishers get in on it?

You know, to be perfectly honest with you, I was just pondering that very idea. That is, after all, what the auto industry did. I am occasionally disconcerted by Toyota's efforts to buy back my 9-year-old car. :-D

When I was in 9th grade, we made AM tuners! I remember making the coil by very carefully wrapping copper wire around a cardboard toilet paper tube. That was kind of fun.

However, selling used games or DVDs or books whether you are a person, a store or a chain is still legal.

This isn't about the legality of the matter. Just because it's legal doesn't mean it's not abusive, in some cases. My whole point was that the industry's issue is not with the customers, who are behaving in a perfectly rational manner.

Game developers need to factor that into their business model and get on with it.

The retail stores who are reselling used games need to factor into their business model the very real possibility that the game companies will increasingly take measures to circumvent their secondary sales market (and even, to a degree, the boxes-on-shelves model, entirely), since this is already in the process of taking place.

Consider used book stores (and libraries).

People expect to find used books in a used book store. The last time I checked, Borders doesn't put used books on the shelf next to new books for 10% less, and then confront you at the checkout to ask you if you didn't really want to buy the cheaper used book instead of the new one. That would be pretty trashy, would't it?