I'm debating if I should post this since it's been an idea of mine for a LONG while now. Sadly, reality is that I do not know people in the market, nor do I have the startup funds (nor time) to try and GET the funds / make the contacts from scratch. The whole point of this is for a FOR PROFIT / Partial OSS company ... and even if I personally don't do it, if someone else can ... I'll still win (better game = I... the player ... wins). That being said, if any major game devs, or people out there read this, feel free to contact me for more ideas, or to get me on board to help run this... I have lots more ideas than what is just written here ...

Now ... The point...

It sickens me that companies don't want to take chances on games that might lose a little money, or make only a measly few million (this is when everyone will say wtf is wrong with a few million). This is the same problem with Hollywood and why tv shows like Firefly were canceled for only having a few million views (few million!!)

The idea then... is to make a company encourages GOOD GAME DEVELOPMENT. I know... horrible idea right? Why make a game that can make 20-50 million in the first year ... then never make money again .. when you can make a game that will make 100+ million over 5 years .. potentially make tons on money on toys like game figurines, maybe make a movie out of it and profit even more? I guess greed = quick money ... not smart investments.

Here is how I see this. All game engines / code created under the name of the company are 100% owned by said overall company. If the game engine is developed from scratch under the name of the overall company ... then only say ... 5-10% of all profits go to the company, and the game devs/company makes most of the money. (wow ... could this mean that a gaming company with more money can hire better / more devs to make games faster / better in the future?! BRILLIANT!!). On the other hand, if you simply use a PRE-DEVELOPED game engine (all engines the overall company owns can be used for any project), with no payment upfront, depending on the age / newness factor, anywhere between 30-70% of the profits go to the overall company.

BUT, no worries, as there is an in between! If you make a significant alteration / addition to an existing engine (how long has the unreal engines been used?!), then the overall company makes less profit, and the gaming company makes more profit. Example, take a REALLY new awesome engine .... One that the company might charge 70% of profit for ... have a predefined set of goals established for the engine from the gaming company for what they want to do (additional modules... potential clean up of lots of known issues from the first game that was using the engine... etc). If they do / add/ make the changes ... then that 70% can be brought down to 40-60% ... they didn't do all the work, but they made the product better. This would encourage using the engines and fixing / cleaning them.

Final money thought ... Caps could be put on to profit for the OVERALL COMPANY (NOT the game company). Example ... overall company would take 70% of all profits ... up to 50 or 100 million dollars. Games like WoW would have hit that limit ... and then suddenly would be making a TON more money. This is actually motivation for the game companies to make a better game, because if they make a long lasting game ... eventually they'll get over that hump and make 100% profit!

BTW, the overall company would NOT set the price on the game ... the overall company would make recommendations.. but if the game company wanted to set the price at half of what the overall company wants ... they could. In the end, the game company might loose some money for this decision... but could help them by making a name for themselves! They wouldn't have to charge $70 for a ps3 game that they know would sell many many many copies more of if the price was set at $40 initially.

This company would be FOR PROFIT. 100% for Profit and proud of this. The reason why, is using this model, eventually this company will make enough money to actually FUND the game devs. Example... making an MMO = LOTS and LOTS of money .... If a company wanted to use the engines, they could with no up front costs... just a contract! I would LOVE to be able to take some major MMO devs who got screwed by EA/Sony/Insert_Evil_Company_Here ... pay them 5-20 mil up front to develop under my companies name... and help make them more profit by using pre-created engines, or at least LOOK at some pre-made engines (all code under the company can be LOOKED at, dissected, and/or used if they are contracted in) to try and come up with a "best version of" a new or upgraded engine ...

In the end... More developers would use this company ... the company would make more profits ... and would encourage even the basic game developers, nerdy/geeky types in their basements to make more games like ... earthworm jim? .... World of goo? ... dance dance revolution? .... Horrible ideas on paper, fantastic games in the end! (yea yea ... arguably fantastic games hehe)

One of the biggest costs to game development is the engine (or so I've been told by many) ... if we don't charge an upfront cost to the engine... and we pay the companies a little bit as well and/or allow them to get funding/grants from all kinds of 3rd party sources ... games would not have to be forced rushed out the door. The game devs could spend the extra 6 months - 1 year to finish the game PROPERLY so that the replay values and bugs don't ruin the games! In the end, all the extra profits the overall company makes could be used for better advertising ... the game companies would make a little more money and be able to pay their developers better ... and the gamers of the world would get better products...

My understanding of Google is that they are smart because they do NOT want a monopoly on almost anything (other than being the search engine of choice). Do not misread this as they don't WANT to be on top, all I'm saying is that they are willing to step down a rank or two if they can get a % of money from the companies who take those top postions... less work, and there is still pay while pushing competition. The public wins, and google keeps making more money. This is an interesting business concept and very smart. No one who is "on top" will ever stay on top, but the person who is friends with those on top will always be popular and in "good relations". This is what Google has done. It's made tons of alliances with open source groups, and if google creates competition between all those smaller groups, but has it's hand in all of them even taking only 1% or 2% profits, in the end, everyone is still paying google, and google never get the bad rep if one of those OTHER companies changes.

It's brilliant if you think about it!

By educating users that IE is broken (by breaking popular sites and putting but a big banner saying "Your browser is broken, try these: ...", That is something that even the most simple users of the internet (non-savvy types) can understand.

Chrome = webkit. Webkit = w3c compliant. By pushing firefox and chrome, they are in fact pushing Safari (webkit based), Konqueror (Webkit), and Opera (I forget what is running opera, but it's almost always 90%+ w3c compliant). In the end, the very few companies / people loose from this move. Microsoft being one of the few that does.

I'm curious to see benchmarks. I've read a couple articles recently from windows reviewers who in the past have been painfully biased, but none show anything other than screens and "It's Snappier" ... or "Works on 512mb ram". If I remember right, Vista was suppose to work with 512mb ram too, but with pretty much any of the features turned on, it's useless.

I think the better question is ... is W7 actually "snappier", or in the past 2 years have more people simply upgraded their computers?

You sell it to her as being able to see the stars. There is some pretty crazy math involved in this, and you could probably get her looking at NASA and stuff like that.

While I realize that this is still nerdy, there is some really fun things / ideas about being an astronaut (or at least directly helping them) that can come from space. Hell, have her look into space business, space travel / space hotels and stuff... it is the future after all.

If that doesn't work... use her interests. Ex: if she likes drawing, go for a civil engineering degree. Don't be an engineer though, be an architect / designer. Lots of money opportunities for an architect who can prove that the buildings not only look good, but will actually stand! Either way, and engineering degree might be good no matter what she does, since it's a BIG resume booster... even if she ends up going into pottery making or becoming a chef.

Even though they were showing it used for games and such, I honestly doubt that they mean it to be used for normal home use (at least initially)

As everyone says, the lack of tactical feedback, and the tiredness factor would keep it out of use for most people. I can on the other hand see a MAJOR markets for these elsewhere:

1. Presentations. Having someone just point towards a screen in a meeting would be great for collaborative use. It's better than a touch screen since people wouldn't need to crowd around the projector and block out the image.

2. How cool would it be if something like this was set up with a "reverse camera"... Then you would point at something, and a system would look to where you are pointing at and pull up information. Example: At the aquarium, you point at a specific fish or shark, and it'll recognize it, and pull up a little information window about that animal.

3. Something MUCH MORE futuristic. This is the beginning of using 3d holographics. With this part done, we just need to show a 3d hologram, use this technology on it, and we can poke certain parts of the hologram image to "select" it. Example: Doctors have a 3d hologram of their patients x-ray, they could use this as a "multitouch" hologram to grab the image and move/rotate it. That would be freakin sweet!

The key here is that it would be used for LOTS of things that don't involve constant use for long periods of time (gaming, computer work, etc). That's just my $.02 though...