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Comment Trolling is necessary (Score 2) 457

Whatever dude. There's no such thing as trolling. It's thin skinned treehuggers like you that go and complain to thier facebook "friends" that are the real problem with the internet. Grow a pair or go back to facist Nazi-Russia. And take Obama with you. We don't need him spreading any more lies and ebola to our children. And another thing, Janeway was twice the captain that Kirk ever was.

Comment Re:Missing from the summary (Score 1) 348

perhaps I am missing something, but how can the statement: Having the source code does not make it any easier or harder to exploit go along with: allows for more people to examine the code for exploits. If it is easiers to find exploits in, then that would make it easier to exploit? Quicker to fix exploits, maybe. But definately not the same as closed source.
Music

ASCAP Seeks Licensing Fees For Guitar Hero Arcade 146

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."
Bug

Are Complex Games Doomed To Have Buggy Releases? 362

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.'"
Businesses

Treading the Fuzzy Line Between Game Cloning and Theft 235

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?"
Bug

Saboteur Launch Plagued By Problems With ATI Cards 230

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."
Games

AbleGamers Reviews Games From a Disability Standpoint 125

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

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:IP holder. (Score 1) 65

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.

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