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8-Year Fan-Made Game Project Shut Down By Activision 265

Posted by Soulskill from the of-doors-and-ways-out dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Activision, after acquiring Vivendi, became the new copyright holder of the classic King's Quest series of adventure game. They have now issued a cease and desist order to a team which has worked for eight years on a fan-made project initially dubbed a sequel to the last official installment, King's Quest 8. This stands against the fact that Vivendi granted a non-commercial license to the team, subject to Vivendi's approval of the game after submission. After the acquisition, key team members had indicated on the game's forums (now stripped of their original content by order of Activision) that Activision had given the indication that it intended to keep its current fan-game licenses, but was not interested in issuing new ones."
The Almighty Buck

EA Flip-Flops On Battlefield: Heroes Pricing, Fans Angry 221

Posted by Soulskill from the put-your-money-where-your-gun-is dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Ben Kuchera from Ars Technica is reporting that EA/DICE has substantially changed the game model of Battlefield: Heroes, increasing the cost of weapons in Valor Points (the in-game currency that you earn by playing) to levels that even hardcore players cannot afford, and making them available in BattleFunds (the in-game currency that you buy with real money). Other consumables in the game, such as bandages to heal the players, suffered the same fate, turning the game into a subscription or pay-to-play model if players want to remain competitive. This goes against the creators' earlier stated objectives of not providing combat advantage to paying customers. Ben Cousins, from EA/DICE, argued, 'We also frankly wanted to make buying Battlefunds more appealing. We have wages to pay here in the Heroes team and in order to keep a team large enough to make new free content like maps and other game features we need to increase the amount of BF that people buy. Battlefield Heroes is a business at the end of the day and for a company like EA who recently laid off 16% of their workforce, we need to keep an eye on the accounts and make sure we are doing our bit for the company.' The official forums discussion thread is full of angry responses from upset users, who feel this change is a betrayal of the original stated objectives of the game."
Power

7th-Grader Designs Three Dimensional Solar Cell 719

Posted by timothy from the lucky-guess dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "12-year-old William Yuan's invention of a highly-efficient, three-dimensional nanotube solar cell for visible and ultraviolet light has won him an award and a $25,000 scholarship from the Davidson Institute for Talent Development. 'Current solar cells are flat and can only absorb visible light'" Yuan said. 'I came up with an innovative solar cell that absorbs both visible and UV light. My project focused on finding the optimum solar cell to further increase the light absorption and efficiency and design a nanotube for light-electricity conversion efficiency.' Solar panels with his 3D cells would provide 500 times more light absorption than commercially-available solar cells and nine times more than cutting-edge 3D solar cells. 'My next step is to talk to manufacturers to see if they will build a working prototype,' Yuan said. "If the design works in a real test stage, I want to find a company to manufacture and market it.""

Comment Well there you go... (Score 1) 918

by BcSchnei (#2765676) Attached to: Handling Discrimination in the IT Workplace?
It seems to me that what we are seening here in this forum is quite likly what is happening to RJ, and the IT comunity in general.

There are a number of IT professionals who have very strong opinions regarding what is termed "Professional Experience", and may feel that someone who is very young has not "Put in their dues". I can see where this could lead to some people making judgements about young IT professionals before really understanding their capabilities.

Keep in mind that you are dealing with a profession where the people who founded the technology that we work with, and are still working in the field today. And I'm sure many of them are in managment roles now and could feel that some young upstart could not possibably know more then them! After all they helped create the technology. I don't know if this is the case with RJ's situtation, but its a safe bet that the director is from another generation, mid 40's+, and may feel that RJ could not possibably have the experience that someone who is 25+ has. He probably thinks he can find someone with more experience that could do the job better. (And in the current job market, its a safe bet unfoutunatly)

One thing to remember about the "Real World" is that it is very political. Everyone is looking out for themselves, and have strong opinions on their profession. It may be that RJ has claimed 5 years of experience and the director feels the same way as many of the people posting here, that its not possible. And this alone could have marked RJ as a showoff, and no one likes a showoff.

As for advice, your best bet is to keep your head down, and do your job to the best of your ability. Look for oprotunities to be proactive, that is, don't wait for someone to tell you to do something if you know it has to be done anyway. One thing you can look forward to is, you will get older, and then for a breif time you will be the right age.

My $0.02

Good luck!
Ben

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