GH2 is better though, and a lot more polished. In GH3 when you do star power, nothing happens... there's some lightning and the board turns blue. Woo. In GH2 your character does all kinds of crazy stuff.

.............

XBLA isn't homebrew.
WiiWare isn't homebrew.

You're thinking of XNA Creator's Club, which is homebrew. You're also thinking of "indie" games which aren't homebrew, especially since Nintendo is making it nigh impossible for anybody except Square Enix to develop Wiiware titles.

I'm flattered by everyone's concern for what I would personally do with a flashed 360, but frankly I'm confused as to why it matters to everyone what I would do with it. The topic was about flashing the 360, not the morality of pirating games (which as a side note, I'm surprised to see you all so opposed to, considering the way peak organizations have been treating piracy in the past few years).

If you're going to go that way then where is the PS3 equivalent? Linux? Please, that's hardly cutting it with all the limitations and, you know, requiring you to install linux.

Besides, where's the announcement that you'll be able to download said programs over XBL for free?

Mostly because of the fact that almost no one flashes their 360 to play legitimate backup copies of their games, and instead use it to play pirated games and to rip them.

I also am intrigued by what you were trying to imply with that last comment, because if you were trying to say companies don't care about piracy as much anymore, then you're looney.

I doubt that "no one" does that, but whatever. Even if that were true, what does it matter to you guys, why are you so adamantly defending these large companies?

What I meant was the vicious crackdown that has in most cases been quite unfair to the average person involved by organizations like the MPAA and RIAA (surprisingly we haven't seen this as much in the video game industry though).

People pay attention to the graphics?

You're concentrating on the fretboard!

Going after RIAA and MPAA is a totally different matter than pirating games. Especially when you consider that there's been VERY few lawsuits in the realm of video games vs what the MPAA and RIAA have done.

Let's not forget that "sticking it to the man" on large companies does hurt individuals in that company, not the company itself. The company itself will just absorb it. But that money will come out of something, and that something is sadly oftentimes developer's paychecks. And just like music artists, they don't exactly make it rich.

And finally, no matter how you look at it, breaking the law is not the correct way to make a point, ever.

Because there is no legitimate reason to run copies of games on a console. If you treat your games so poorly that you need backups, you should also look into making a backup copy of your Xbox 360 because I don't think the system is going to last very long with you around either.


The colloquial definition of "homebrew" involves running any of your own code on a console. Even a simple "Hello, World!" application. The fact that the PS3's graphics hardware is locked down by the hypervisor is unfortunate but it's also secondary to the fact that you can, indeed, run arbitrary code.

In this sense the PS3 is less restrictive than the 360, because on the Xbox 360 you are limited to managed code and only resources packaged in your game's manifest.

You know what, though? The PS3 and the Xbox 360 could lock you down to a damn copy of QBasic and it'd still be better than the Wii's absolutely nothing. And Sony's PSN Store policies and Microsoft's XBLA publishing contracts are still a lot better than Nintendo's Wii policy of absolutely nothing (unless you're a huge company).

Which sorta fits, seeing as how Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo share the same relative perspectives about a number of other issues, such as HD, sound, movie playback, multimedia, internet multiplayer and the relative merits of buttons vs. stick waggling.


I'm surprised that people don't just take my word on these things by now, but XBOX LIVE Community Games had a trial in February.

By 4Q2008, XNA Creators Club members will be able to upload games they've created to Xbox Live. Other XNA Creators Club members peer-review the games for stability and content, and if they pass they are opened to the general public for download. There will be a tab in the Xbox Live Marketplace labelled "XBOX Live Community Games" and you will be able to download them there.

Here is a Gamasutra article about the peer review process: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3545/sponsored_feature_democratizing_.php

Also coming soon is XNA Game Studio 3.0 (with expected Visual Studio 2008 integration and Zune "homebrew" capabilities)

We aren't concerned so much as we think you're full of crap...

No.

Theres definitely times when breaking the law is a smart thing. This just isn't one of them. But if the government went to hell you can be sure I'd break the law to make a point.

/hippy

Rosa Parks

The civil rights movement.

Etc

I'm of the opinion that the civil rights movement wasn't illegal and that Rosa Parks' actions weren't necessary to starting said movement. It would have happened anyway.

But I'll retract the "ever" anyway :p

.

I totally win this argument.

I agree with Greenboy, Rob, and NoESC. Especially NoESC.

For the pix

Flawed statement.

That's like saying "Why download JO maps when Ravensoft made JA" The two games are different. People mod Guitar Hero 2 to play songs you can't get in Guitar Hero 3. There's a huge community that provides only the midi charts for the songs. You're required to download the song itself from iTunes (thus paying the artist) in order to keep things legal, and to ensure you have a perfectly synched song. Any 'freeware' warez-ish mp3s from LimeWire or such don't synch. So although I agree that modding a console typically leads to warez, don't lump all of us in that crowd. The guys at scorehero.com work hard to make sure it's all legal. And many members of Harmonix's and Neversoft's teams donate money to the site to keep it running.

You know, had it not be for the FAIL, I'd have thought that dog was sending next to the tire à la Mr. Burns, snickering and saying "Excellent."

It's their job to come up with new features to make people want the new software. Adding new songs is not adding new features. As long as you own the songs, they don't have any reason to complain. You didn't sign some EULA that says you will milk their cash cow regardless of weather they actually have anything new to offer.

Nicely said Taz, nicely said.

Of course the flip side of that argument is that if you really want to support the individuals working on it, you should find the developers and just pay them directly and pirate the games, as when you buy a game through any distribution, the company makes the overwhelming majority of the profits while the people who actually made the game made quite little compared to the company. Seems to be a big problem in this system don't you think?

And as for the "never break the law" thing. Well I think it's been clearly pointed out how there are many cases where breaking the law is justified. And what do you mean the civil rights movement wasn't illegal? Yes it was, and it was also seen as wrong by many in the South, does that make it wrong?

A. Without a publisher to produce the game the developers developed, you'd have nothing to pirate.
B. Without the company as a whole to organize and plan the game for the developers to create, there would be nothing to pirate.
C. You keep equating this to the music industry. There is not a single person or few that "deserve" all the money. When you're working in a company employing up to a 100 people for one game, your wishful thinking doesn't go very far.

You may think it's unfair but pirating games just results in developers losing their jobs. What you suggest is impossible and you know it.



I believe it's also been clearly pointed out that I already clarified this. So good job bringing it back up after it was already taken care of.

Regardless, last I checked the First Amendment was in effect throughout the entire Civil Rights movement, and thus, no, it is not illegal. Just because people were angry about it and didn't like the movement didn't make it illegal.

TSB_Bguitar, just admit it man... Buy your **** and support the developers.

If you were white.

And a male. Oh, and had a pretty good income. And god-fearing. And straight.

A. Firstly, publishing is becoming much easier and an unnecessary step with the spread of higher speed connections. Also they only engage in spreading the actual game, yet they disproportionately get more then those who actually made the game.
B. Those who actually make the game have the capability to plan and make the game. Also anyone involved in actually writing or organizing the game directly is likely involved in the actual production of the game and isn't in the same category of an exec whose job is to simply have money and invest. This role that I'm referring to is wholly unnecessary.
C. Well then you have to also apply this argument to the film industry, and it isn't hard to see how the studio system sucks there.



There were many laws broken in the south during the civil rights movement. For example segregation laws. They were certainly breaking the laws, but it was justified.

And so what if speeds get faster? The publisher moves to internet distribution. It's still not something a group of developers are going to be able to take on themselves.

And as I said, just because it isn't fair doesn't mean pirating software is going to help. It's going to hurt.



Once again, just because you see it as unfair doesn't mean piracy is going to help. It's going to hurt.



Yes, it does also apply to the film industry, which just furthers my statement. Pirating is stupid.


Justified, maybe, but not necessary.

Piracy is neither justified nor necessary. It doesn't achieve what you want, it doesn't spread the message you want, and it sure as hell doesn't "stick it to the man". You're only hurting those you are trying to help.

I cannot believe you're still trying to argue that.

I wish I could force you into one those African American studies courses.

TSM_Bguitar, you are so horribly ignorant of how the game industry works that it's pathetic.

Game publishers are not the RIAA. They are not a bunch of lawyers who take a cut to give some poor innocent drugged-up artistes permission to sing and frolic about. There is no "the man" you can hurt with your indignance.

Game publishers take a cut for a few reasons:

First off, they're often distributors as well. When you get published by a big company you get to take advantage of their retail connections. This pretty much guarantees that you're going to have a copy in every store until the game goes out of print. If you're really lucky they'll even spend the extra dime or pull a favor to get it put up front and center. An independent developer can pull off internet distribution - sorta. The point you seem to be missing is that Valve, Microsoft, Sony and EA are still publishers/distributors even if the service they provide is online only, so they don't count. Not even in your twisted version of the game industry.

Second, game publishers provide a ton of other services to game companies. Technical document writers, QA services, box art design and advertising services in general. Any moron can get a DVD pressed, and any mook can get a book printed. That's not publishing. You might actually have been able to figure out what publishers do if only you had stopped intellectually masturbating over how you're screwing "the man" for more than 5 seconds.

Third, game publishers take a large cut of the game profits.... BECAUSE THEY PAID FOR THE GAME TO BE MADE! This is not a case of a jerkbag lawyer saying "OH HO, YOU MADE A GAME! GIVE US MONEY OR DIE!" it's a case of a businessman saying "Oh, it'll take $1.2 million for you guys to eat over the next year? Well, alright. Here's a cheque." If you independently developed a game and sought private investors, ....guess what?! They'd be taking a huge chunk of the cash too! (And you wouldn't be getting publishing and distribution services out of the deal!) Publishers don't just take in money and sit on it, either - they invest it in other developers! I know this is a shocking concept to behold, but by investing profit from one enterprise into another, we get interesting and innovative (the first time around) games like Katamari Damacy, Guitar Hero, Overlord and Half-Life 1 instead of the miserable and retarded nightmare vision of reality you have where the only way a game company can get ahead is by developing versions of Tetris until they make a million dollars.

In regards to your comment about how you should just pay the money from the game to the developers directly: Okay. Do it. Too bad there are hundreds of people, and you are not technically competent enough to decide who gets what money for what services rendered. Hmm.... if only there were an organization to do that for you. Like maybe a company that maintains a list of employees and how much their work is worth. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...................

I mean, what the hell? It's not that you don't understand how the game industry works, you don't understand how business works. At all. The music industry is not representative of a healthy industry, which is why it's dying. The game industry is a much more traditional business model. I know. Hard to imagine, etc.

As you pointed out earlier, those who actually do the work of making the game are going to get hurt and those who only invest and pay for the game to be made will not be hurt as much. This exposes this warped relationship between those who actually make the game and those who are only involved because they are investing in it.




And many in the film industry are quite fed up with the studio system (and have been for some time).




I would love to see what reaction that someone involved in the civil rights movement would respond to you with if you said "breaking these segregation laws isn't necessary: go through the proper legal channels (which oh by the way are completely controlled by the people you're fighting against)"



Of course, as I pointed out it is debatable whether or not it is helpful or hurtful. It at the very least can expose the messed up relationship between the artist/actual maker of these products and those who only have a financial investment in it. In the case of the RIAA, it became quite clear over time that the artists were getting the minority of compensation for their work while the companies were getting the majority, just because they had the money.

[QUOTE=Jon C]TSM_Bguitar, you are so horribly ignorant of how the game industry works that it's pathetic.[/QUOTE]

Excellent way to start an intelligent discussion. Mature.



Those who own EA and well Microsoft is a great example, they aren't involved in the actual production or even really the work involved with the distribution. Their job is simply to own the company, where it is those who actually work on the product and are responsible for the end product that brings in all of the demand and money get the least amount for their work, you don't see anything wrong with this relationship?



You'll have to expand on this point more, I don't see where you're going with it.



But those who actually pay for the game to be made are often only involved by the fact that they had the money to invest in the game's creation in the first place. They indeed thus "own the game" and those who do all of the work do not own what they are working on. This is an odd relationship and the problem with it isn't hard to see.

Granted my main criticism comes eventually to the economics of private investment vs. those who actually do the work. I see capital as something that should be commonly owned, but if you don't, we disagree on this fundamental principle that will make arguing within the same context from two different perspectives difficult unless we further clarify the context.



That comment was just a counter to the "you're hurting those who actually worked on the game, while those who are the rich owners of the game are not getting hurt" comment.



Immature/condescending/false statements like this have no place in this discussion, I don't see the point of this other than a personal jab. If you want to talk about this issue, I'll be glad to continue. But if you want to resort to high school maturity-level arguments, then I'm not interested.

Except those who invest are also the publishers, they are the SAME THING. READ JONCY'S POST. Jesus.




Okay?



Yes, because everyone knows boycotting and protesting is illegal. Hurr.



Way to continue to ignore that this is not the RIAA, this is the video game industry.



Except, of course, when they are involved. Microsoft Game Studios ring a bell? It's not a bunch of guys sitting around smoking cigars.



You don't see because it makes too much sense and is the basis for the entire argument.



Read above, this is what he was talking about. "Those people who actually pay for the game" are the publishers. Those publishers, as Jon`C described and you so conveniently ignored, do far more than just invest. Hurr.



If that's your criticism you're in a world of hurting. (Mostly because it's ignorant and just... well... not based in reality)



False statements don't have a place here? Guess you're done here then.

That, and the very fact that Valve still relies heavily on a publisher, tells you something. They've made more strides than anyone in the independent internet distribution category and they have significantly more capital than the average dev. studio does, plus an established game distribution system that not even EA can touch.

Well done, by the way, on not responding to all of my real points. You are an internet winner.

Intelligence has nothing to do with it. I'm right about you: you don't know a thing about the game industry. I'm willing to admit that I'm a jerk, but I don't see how you have the right to call anybody immature when you're trying to justify your own copyright violation with an insipid fantasy you invented.

If I pay you to build a house for me, do you own the house?

Game developers - by which I mean the employees - don't 'own' the game they work on either. They're paid a fee (salary plus bonuses) for services rendered. The company pays them to make the game. Thus, the company owns the game.

Ownership of the game is still held by the development studio even in the worst publishing agreements. Sometimes publishers will demand ownership of the franchise, characters and IP, but this isn't always the case. Often, publishing agreements just involve a first rights clause on sequels or other games by the same development studio. These agreements exist because the publisher - being the primary source of marketing, merchandising and advertising for the game series - spent the most amount of money building the name into a marketable series. They exist so the publisher can recoup their costs in the future, and to build a working long-term relationship with the development studio.

And I even did you a favor by considering your argument without discarding it because EA and Microsoft games produce the overwhelming majority of their games either in-house or by wholly-owned subsidiaries.


I believe the inherent values in the various services offered by publishers and distributors are obvious to anybody who can competently talk about the game industry.


Hundreds of people work on a game. No one person can possibly own it. Not that it matters, because game content is by definition a commissioned work and the transfer of reproduction rights (all copyrights) is an obvious term of employment.

I mean, I don't know how to explain this any better. Game development is almost like a real job or something, where you're paid a salary instead of getting paid by the gig. I don't know where you work but I can't imagine you get paid under any other model.

The difference is that your services are being retained. If you play a rock concert you make a few hundred grand. That's super. If you work for a game company, they're going to invest the excess profits back into making more games. Instead of, you know, using it to buy and then snort cocaine.

So what you're talking about is basically socialism?

The reason private investment works is because investors have the leeway to make a personal decision about whether or not they want to invest money in you. And make no mistake: they aren't investing in your product. They're investing in you.

Nationalizing small business financing would be a mistake, because civil servants wouldn't have the experience to nor would they be allowed to use their gut feeling. Private investors got the money to invest for a reason - often times because they were in the exact same position as the guy who's looking for money.

Either way, you're looking at investment from the wrong perspective: the investor is essentially paying you to make your idea for him.



It's a ridiculous chain of comments anyway. The developer and the publisher are taking the same losses, except the publisher has a lot more money. A 100% loss on a game will seriously annoy a publisher, but it'll destroy the company that produced it. So, basically, if you ever want to see another game made by the same company, you should buy it.


Haha. Yeah, right.

Immature and condescending, maybe. I'm not a teacher. I'm not your daddy. It's not my damn job to coddle you and treat your opinions like the beautiful little snowflakes they aren't. You're wrong, you're doing something wrong and you're strutting around like something special because you think you have a righteous cause. I'm damn well going to try to make you see yourself as the fool you are.

False? No. You've made it painfully obvious that you don't understand a thing about this business. Not creation, not financing, not publishing, not distribution, not advertising and not even the retail space. When you talk about hurting those "lazy fatcats" you don't even know who it is you're depriving of money.

TSM, you may not have like Jon'C's tone, but he backed up everything he said. You, on the other hand, were the person who resorted to name calling. Telling someone he's immature doesn't constitute a valid argument. Neither does acting picked upon.

You also don't understand the concept of passive civil disobedience.

Ever notice how everytime someone has an internet showdown with Joncy they lose?

And I see it as quite the opposite.



I don't see what copyright violations have to do with maturity.



That's not a good analogy. Take a more appropriate one: If someone owns a factory (let's call him John Doe) and the workers of the factory work there and do all of the work, John Doe's only job is to be the owner, as he isn't involved in the actual production of whatever the factory makes. Yes the workers are compensated, but since they don't own the factory, they necessarily have to be underpaid because they are just another commodity and a cost for the production of the factory in the owner's eye.



I don't see your point here. Yes the company owns the game, but usually even the writers (those who came up with the idea for the game) are also on the list of "just employees." The companies themselves aren't run (generally speaking) by people involved in the actual process of making the game.



And in a situation where the developers studio is owned mainly by those who work on the game (which is the case in smaller games, e.g. golemlabs or introversion) then I don't have a problem with paying for games like that. But in cases where large companies (Even dev. companies) produce games, those that actually produce the product are given less compensation relative to the owner of the company. That's just how that system of capitalist ownership works. If most of those who worked on it owned their fair share, it wouldn't be capitalist owned.




I'm not claiming that only one person owns it, so I don't see your point here. In cases where large companies produce a game, the way those companies themselves are run makes it so that the owners of the company (who are the minority and do little to none of the work with the actual production of the product) get the majority of the profit. They do this because, yes they are the ones who invested in it, thus their main role is just to be the money provider. You don't have to be an Communist to disagree with this system (e.g.: here



And your point?




Yes



Yes and no. They're investing in your ability to make a product that will make them money.



Well one alternative to this would of course be market socialism. Even though nationalization doesn't have to be as rigid as the few examples of it that we have.



He is looking at something to get a return on his money for. He isn't worried about the idea unless it may possibly conflict with him getting a return.




Also you keep focusing on publisher vs developer companies, where I'm talking even in terms of developer companies themselves. Although it is true that the developer company has less money and has more risk. They're also paid less even when things go well though. And a "well that's how it works" doesn't quite justify it.



All I'm saying is that it's quite sad to resort to immature condescending (especially when you're wrong) comments over the internet. Piracy is not always wrong. Our main disagreement here is also due largely to a wholly different view of how economics do/should work. I doubt that will be resolved in this thread (or any thread in a forum like this).



To just claim that someone doesn't understand something doesn't make it the case.

And as a side note, the only justification for piracy isn't a socialist perspective like my own. There are also a large number of people who simply want to reform intellectual copy rights and aren't ok with the way they currently function (E.g. pirate parties)

Hahahahahahaha. Middle-class white kid who has never worked a day in his life trap sprung. I'll reply in a minute, I almost had a spit-take on my monitor.

Except that you have no idea how economics work.

It's not the crime, it's the attitude.

"I broke the law, but I'm not going to tell anybody because it is objectively (or society deems it as) wrong." - Mature.
"I broke the LAW! WOO! I'm a rebel! FIGHT THE MACHINE!" - You

...I see. So, whatever achievements John Doe made in order for him to come into enough money to buy a factory are worthless? Aren't you arguing for fair compensation? Make up your mind!

John Doe had the money to buy the factory. John Doe had the money to hire the employees. Why in god's name should they be entitled to something John Doe bought and paid for, just because they perform a service they are being compensated for?

My original analogy was absolutely accurate, but I'll give you another one because you apparently just don't 'get it': If I buy a plane, and I hire you to fly the plane, are you saying that you are entitled to ownership of the plane? Or are you saying you are entitled to own me, because I'm sitting in it? Or if I'm on a business trip, you fly me to Tokyo and I buy Hitachi, are you somehow entitled to a few million shares?

Notice the keyword here: entitlement. As in 'you have an unrealistic sense of.'


And? Business is hard work, and investment is very risky. I know you seem to like to think that businessmen and investors are just a bunch of lottery-winning knuckledraggers with a copy of Microsoft Excel but just like everything else you've posted in this thread, reality and your mc escher-esque twisted and deformed perception of it don't have a lot in common.


more of the same crap

more of the same crap and a wikipedia link I'm not going to click on because I'm positive it's already been discredited by every reputable political scientist and economist as useful only as a thought exercise


Yeah, no, you're full of it. Have you even talked to a venture capitalist? Or even looked into getting business financing before? No, you haven't, and this statement of yours is the proof.

Ideas are worthless. Venture capitalists don't give a flying frack what potato-shooting toaster/autoclave you're going to make. An exceptional person can make a miserable idea into a success. An exceptional idea won't save a miserable failure of a person. Venture capitalists won't even sign an NDA and they don't even care if you have a patent. They aren't investing in your idea. They aren't investing in your company, they aren't even investing in a "business related to the gaming industry." They are investing in you, the person. YOU. The guy they are talking to.


Hey guys I went to a party at a poli sci dropout's house once and he started telling me about this great professor he had

blah blah blah more neomarxism crap that only angsty middle class pseudo-rebels believe in


Yeah, right. By that you mean "My piracy is never wrong because I read a BLOG about it!"

Get over yourself. Seriously. Violating a patent on a medication in order to save someone's life is one thing. You aren't standing up for a cause, you're just trying to get out of paying for your own damn worthless entertainment.

Great. So now we've confirmed that you know nothing about the game industry, about business, and about economics! We're off to a wonderful start.