Game Artist

Generally in the case of xerox, etc becoming terms for the general item class rather than a specific brands the trademark is simply lost. It impossible to recover damages from the public at large. The dangers of becoming too popular. I bet apple has to be careful about ipod. Alot of people I know use that for any mp3 player.

Copy protection isn't so much about stopping piracy. That's pretty much impossible to do. Its more about delaying it. Games in general have a very short shelf life and every week that you delay a pirated version being available translates into additional sales to people who would have pirated, but bought copies instead of waiting. Once you get past a couple of months I would imaging the return on copy protection drops sharply. You've already made the bulk of your sales and the remaining people who pirate are less likely to be serious customers in any case.

As for this particular instance? It sucks for people without broadband. Unfortunately this is the way that all PC games are going to go. Calling home is probably the most effective deterrent for the casual pirate. It has has the bonus in that it works more like a demo for the friend who installs it on all their buddies machine.

Man, the RSS feed crop of this picture was disturbing.

You can do this on the PC, but with much better physics now. All it takes is money.

I just dont get why games are different than movies or music in this regard. Unless they start legally restricting that media they shouldn't restrict games of similar content.

No benefit, eh? How about game costs didnt go up even more? How about we're able to stay in business and make more titles for you to enjoy. Aside from a few hit titles games are enormously risky. Its on of those 90/10 situations where 10% of the games make 90% of the sales. Even good developers can't have a hit every time and you're lucky to break even if its not a hit. Used games make it even harder for games studios to make it.

The consequences of that are less choice, and devs afraid to take a chance on a new IP. Why take a chance with a new title when we can make blasting aliens part 23.

Good god. Way to try go kill the goose that laid the golden egg.

I think the star power thing is great. Tilting is unreliable. Sometimes it goes off on its own, sometimes it wont't go off without violently shaking the guitar. Plus tilting makes you miss notes and screw up combos. I dont agree with the whammy bar, but the star power pedal sounds great. (I'd also like to see effect switches for the RB guitar)

Crazy. I figured this would be a $30 peripheral.

I wonder how long it will take activision to learn from rock band's DLC?