MrBulwark - Slashdot User

ASCAP Seeks Licensing Fees For Guitar Hero Arcade 146

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday December 16, 2009 @07:55AM from the understanding-is-too-much-effort dept.

Self Bias Resistor writes "According to a post on the Arcade-Museum forums, ASCAP is demanding an annual $800 licensing fee from at least one operator of a Guitar Hero Arcade machine, citing ASCAP licensing regulations regarding jukeboxes. An ASCAP representative allegedly told the operator that she viewed the Guitar Hero machine as a jukebox of sorts. The operator told ASCAP to contact Raw Thrills, the company that sells the arcade units. The case is ongoing and GamePolitics is currently seeking clarification of the story from ASCAP."

Are Complex Games Doomed To Have Buggy Releases? 362

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday December 16, 2009 @05:40AM from the where-did-my-face-go dept.

An anonymous reader points out a recent article at Gamesradar discussing the frequency of major bugs and technical issues in freshly-released video games. While such issues are often fixed with updates, questions remain about the legality and ethics of rushing a game to launch. Quoting: "As angry as you may be about getting a buggy title, would you want the law to get involved? Meglena Kuneva, EU Consumer Affairs Commissioner, is putting forward legislation that would legally oblige digital game distributors to give refunds for games, putting games in the same category in consumer law as household appliances. ... This call to arms has been praised by tech expert Andy Tanenbaum, author of books like Operating Systems: Design and Implementation. 'I think the idea that commercial software be judged by the same standards as other commercial products is not so crazy,' he says. 'Cars, TVs, and telephones are all expected to work, and they are full of software. Why not standalone software? I think such legislation would put software makers under pressure to first make sure their software works, then worry about more bells and whistles.'"

Treading the Fuzzy Line Between Game Cloning and Theft 235

Posted by Soulskill on Thursday December 10, 2009 @07:24AM from the welcome-to-the-world-of-policeactioncraft dept.

eldavojohn writes "Ars analyzes some knockoffs and near-knockoffs in the gaming world that led to problems with the original developers. Jenova Chen, creator of Flower and flOw, discusses how he feels about the clones made of his games. Chen reveals his true feelings about the takedown of Aquatica (a flOw knockoff): 'What bothers me the most is that because of my own overreaction, I might have created a lot of inconvenience to the creator of Aquatica and interrupted his game-making. He is clearly talented, and certainly a fan of flOw. I hope he can continue creating video games, but with his own design.' The article also notes the apparent similarities between Zynga's Cafe World and Playfish's Restaurant City (the two most popular Facebook games). Is that cloning or theft? Should clones be welcomed or abhorred?"

Saboteur Launch Plagued By Problems With ATI Cards 230

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday December 09, 2009 @01:58AM from the more-or-less-finished dept.

An anonymous reader writes "So far, there are over 35 pages of people posting about why EA released Pandemic Studios' final game, Saboteur, to first the EU on December 4th and then, after knowing full well it did not work properly, to the Americas on December 8th. They have been promising to work on a patch that is apparently now in the QA stage of testing. It is not a small bug; rather, if you have an ATI video card and either Windows 7 or Windows Vista, the majority (90%) of users have the game crash after the title screen. Since the marketshare for ATI is nearly equal to that of Nvidia, and the ATI logo is adorning the front page of the Saboteur website, it seems like quite a large mistake to release the game in its current state."

AbleGamers Reviews Games From a Disability Standpoint 125

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday December 02, 2009 @04:59AM from the gaming-for-all dept.

eldavojohn writes "Early last month a visually impaired gamer sued Sony under the Americans with Disabilities Act (and if you think that people with disabilities don't play games, think again). The AbleGamers Foundation has decided to step forward and provide a rating system for games that blends together a number of factors to determine a score with regard to accessibility. Visual, hearing, motion, closed captioning, speed settings, difficulty settings and even colorblindness options are all taken into account when compiling these scores and reviewing these games."

Comment Re:Rain? Insects? Birds? (Score 5, Interesting) 456

by MrBulwark on Monday November 09, 2009 @10:08AM (#30032102) Attached to: Vermont City Almost Encased In a 1-Mile Dome

Remember, it is still raining, just above the dome. It should be trivial to put collectors at teh base of the dome. I would hazzard a guess that it would provide the city with more water than they have currently. My concern would be the long-term durability of the "glass". After 20 years, will it yellow? Will it be so scratched up that everything outside will be a blur? Who is going to climb up there and clean all the bird poop off of it?

Comment Re:How many bits does it take to kill you? (Score 1) 300

by MrBulwark on Tuesday September 01, 2009 @05:24PM (#29278409) Attached to: How Many Bits Does It Take To Kill You?

one, two-hoo, three

Comment Re:IP holder. (Score 1) 65

by MrBulwark on Tuesday October 09, 2007 @10:51AM (#20911527) Attached to: Warhammer Online Beta Shutdown

Unlike business aps, Game software shows it's age much faster. You have to release it while you game engine/graphics looks current. A game from 5 years ago looks much worse than a business application from 5 years ago. Wolfenstein3D looked awesome back in the day, but now its dissapointing.

Submission + - Europeans get vacations, Americans get the shaft.

Submitted by End Program on Thursday July 12, 2007 @11:25AM

End Program writes: According to this article, American workers are getting the shaft when it comes to vacation time and perks. http://www.alternet.org/workplace/56523/ I also noticed the same sentiment is echoed in the new Michael Moore movie Sicko.

I have been working in the tech industry for almost 10 years now and have not passed the two-week mark for vacation time. I also tried to convince my latest employer to start me with three weeks vacation but to no avail. Has the Slashdot community seen the same stingy attitude while working for American corporations?

Submission + - Toilet paper trauma: Are 5 squares enough? (networkworld.com)

Submitted by

coondoggie

on Thursday July 12, 2007 @11:10AM

coondoggie writes: "Is the world ready for an automatic toilet paper dispenser? Kimberly-Clark Professional hopes so as today it rolled out the JRT Electronic Coreless touchless electronic toilet paper dispenser that will immediately ignite a toilet paper strategy battle: the device issues five sheets at a time and uses 20% less toilet paper than traditional hand dispensed paper. According to Kimberly Clark, Americans typically use twice as much toilet paper as Europeans — as much as an arm's length each pull. The company decided the ideal length is about 20 inches — or precisely five standard toilet paper squares, though the machine can also be adjusted to churn out 16 inches or 24 inches, depending on the demand. http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/1746 6"

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