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Australia

New Aliens Vs. Predator Game Doesn't Make It Past AU Ratings Board 277

An anonymous reader writes "Australia refused to give Rebellion's new Aliens Vs. Predator game a rating, effectively banning it in the country. Rebellion says it won't be submitting an edited version for another round of classifications, however. (As Valve did with Left 4 Dead 2.) They said, 'We will not be releasing a sanitized or cut down version for territories where adults are not considered by their governments to be able to make their own entertainment choices.'"
Games

Copyright and the Games Industry 94

A recent post at the Press Start To Drink blog examined the relationship the games industry has with copyright laws. More so than in some other creative industries, the reactions of game companies to derivative works are widely varied and often unpredictable, ranging anywhere from active support to situations like the Chrono Trigger: Crimson Echoes debacle. Quoting: "... even within the gaming industry, there is a tension between IP holders and fan producers/poachers. Some companies, such as Epic and Square Enix, remain incredibly protective of their Intellectual Property, threatening those that use their creations, even for non-profit, cultural reasons, with legal suits. Other companies, like Valve, seem to, if not embrace, at least tolerate, and perhaps even tacitly encourage this kind of fan engagement with their work. Lessig suggests, 'The opportunity to create and transform becomes weakened in a world in which creation requires permission and creativity must check with a lawyer.' Indeed, the more developers and publishers that take up Valve's position, the more creativity and innovation will emerge out of video game fan communities, already known for their intense fandom and desire to add to, alter, and re-imagine their favorite gaming universes."

Comment Sounds like he needs to team up with Ferran Adria (Score 1) 127

For any who are new to this approach to cooking, it is called molecular gastronomy. See here for a good primer.

This stuff is seriously cool and eating at a restaurant specializing in this style, while expensive, is definitely an experience worth having.

I live in Chicago and we are proud to have several famous chefs from this school of cooking with great restaurants including Alinea, Graham Elliot and Moto (along with its sister restaurant Otom). I only wish some of the ingredients and techniques were less expensive and more accessible although you can buy some of the things online easily enough.

Comment Re:We own a 4x HD monitor (Score 1) 101

Is this similar to that ultra-hd I had heard about on /. years back? I seem to recall them setting up a test monitor in Japan somewhere and playing a video of the ocean and supposedly it looked so realistic people thought water was going to splash on them.

I remember being not just impressed with the specs but also the producer of the video...to make something with camera angles, lighting, sound, etc. that fit that well into the location must have been tricky and likely had more of an impact than the resolution.

Comment Re:time to update headline (Score 3, Insightful) 234

"new headline: Hulu may begin loosing viewers next year."

Subhead: "General public learns how to use bittorrent--traffic to EZTV.it and Mininova surge!"

I am a heavy bittorrent user. I honestly tried to like Hulu when it came out, but the ads were just too long for me. So now I just "timeshift" my shows via bittorrent exclusively. HD rips + no commercials + no buffering + ability to easily archive + hookup to my flatscreen TV = not touching anything else with a 10ft pole.

Comment Re:Apply it on MPs and Ministers first (Score 1) 272

Realistically, they'd have a good shot at overturning this new law if a big enough public stink was made about MPs and Ministers blatantly disobeying this. I think someone needs to make a very public database of all the offenders. And hey, if you happen to be a hacker and can anonymously publicize some evidence of their violating this well, that's public info now and should be displayed everywhere.

Comment Re:The state is correct (Score 1) 554

Is that a state by state thing? This issue has me seriously scared. The revenue (not much, a couple hundred a month) from one of my sites goes into a business checking account that is basically setup as a sole proprietorship (in IL). If I've been collecting unemployment because I don't have an actual job, while earning revenue from that site, am I fucked? What is my best course of action if that is the case? I don't even know what sort of lawyer would deal with this kind of law.

Comment Personally... (Score 5, Insightful) 619

Personally I try to avoid companies that care that much about what I do in MY time in general. If I'm not on the clock, its none of your fucking business. If I decide to learn a new language on my own, it is irrelevant until I start using it at work, in which case I expect my going above and beyond to be noticed. If it is required that I learn something new for work, I sure as hell had better be paid by the company for it one way or another (even if it just means doing the learning during company time).

Comment Will the number of drug-related calls go down? (Score 1) 304

Not a troll, I swear. Just someone interested in the works of Steven Levitt...

I've read many racially slanted comments elsewhere that seem to indicate a general opinion that the majority of Sidekick users are african american or hispanic. Someone responded at one point that there would be a huge drop in the number of drug deals that occur because everybody will lose their dealers number.

Now, the nerd in me started wondering...what if there actually was a connection!? Or not even something drug-related...could there be other connections that occur as a result of this data failure? Just food for thought...

Comment Re:OCCT (Score 1) 274

Will this catch fried graphics cards? I have a Dell (yeah, I know) m1730 xps with dual nvidia 8800m gtx cards thatg no longer seem to work and show exclamation marks in the device manager and windows is using it's backup drivers.

I played around with different driver versions and other fixes but Dell still feels it is a software issue despite there being many forum threads from people with the same setup experiencing the same symptoms and it seems to be caused by the cards overheating due to poor engineering on nvidias part and an issue with the Dell bios that doesn't turn the gpu fans on until it's already way too hot.

Trying to find some way to confirm and isolate the hardware issue to prove the situation to Dell.

Comment Re:And.... (Score 1) 404

Of course they don't care. While consumers give the obvious answer that they don't like things more targeted, the unfortunate truth is that these ads are more effective. Just ask anybody who runs contextual ads. If it performs better than people will continue to use it, period.

Comment Re:DLC (Score 1) 358

The problem is that they do this in such small increments and in very sneaky ways that the frog (consumers) doesn't know it's being boiled alive.

Remember, they would not be moving to this model if it made us give them LESS of our money. Bottom line is everybody wants to suck on the residual/subscription revenue tit now that they've seen how much it's made for blizzard and gamers will ultimately suffer as the average cost for a game continues to go through the roof. Frankly I miss the days where you'd pay 50 bucks for the game, get some free updates, and then pay 50 bucks more for the sequel since the original was so good and the company had good support.

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