Only reason people don't like Halo 1 pc is that you needed a top line pc to run it sluggishly when it came out. By the time you had a pc that could decently run HL2 or DOOM III the game was a gem to play...and really old.
Which I'm positing only existed because MS wanted to push Vista... with a then-three-year-old game...
This is pretty much a fact.
In 2007 they published on the PC:
Shadowrun
Halo 2
Gears of War
Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties
Viva Piñata
Microsoft Flight Simulator X: Acceleration
The first 3 were Xbox/360 ports released as DX10 only (therefore Vista only), although with minor modification (I think just removing the lines of code that said "don't let this use DX9") would work on XP. At the time you needed to pay for a GFWL subscription to pay online (I am pretty sure anyway)
They shut down ensemble after making them work on the 360.
Viva Piñata was a 360 port, released exactly a year after the original.
And a Flight Sim expansion.
Since then they've done nothing except Tinker, which is not a proper game, and push GFWL and GFWLGOD, their incompetent online gaming service and their incompetent DD service.
They are doing less for PC gaming than pretty much any single major publisher, and they make the damn OS, it is a disgrace.
-Loki-Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
edited April 2010
Halo 1 and 2 are ridiculously cheap at the moment. Like, I could get both brand new for $20au. Is there any hope of Halo 3 seeing a PC release? I'd grab them if I could actually finish the trilogy. I won't buy Gears of War on PC for the same reason.
Halo 1 and 2 are ridiculously cheap at the moment. Like, I could get both brand new for $20au. Is there any hope of Halo 3 seeing a PC release? I'd grab them if I could actually finish the trilogy. I won't buy Gears of War on PC for the same reason.
There hasn't been a peep about a Halo 3 PC, unfortunately. I can see delaying PC releases to encourage would-be pirates to just get the console version already, but at this point it's just plain leaving money on the table.
If nothing else, maybe Microsoft will port it for a quick buck in two years or so when they realize no one's going to fill Bungie's shoes for new games in that series.
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Johnny ChopsockyScootaloo! We have to cook!Grillin' HaysenburgersRegistered Userregular
The Halo 1 shotgun was also a pretty great video game shotgun
Good spread, good damage, decent range, satisfying ch-chick sound
This.
The Halo 1 and F.E.A.R. 1 shotguns are two of my all-time favorite FPS guns ever.
As for the Bungie/Activision deal, I'm hoping that Activision's recent outright soullessness doesn't hurt Bungie any, as I've been a fan of Bungie since their Macintosh days.
FairchildRabbit used short words that were easy to understand, like "Hello Pooh, how about Lunch ?"Registered Userregular
edited April 2010
Not to mention how incredibly easy HALO 1 and 2 are on the PC. I think they left in the Xbox targeting assistance, and when you combine that with pinpoint mouse aiming control the Master Chief becomes a walking death machine.
Not to mention how incredibly easy HALO 1 and 2 are on the PC. I think they left in the Xbox targeting assistance, and when you combine that with pinpoint mouse aiming control the Master Chief becomes a walking death machine.
They took out the auto aim. You only get autoaim in Halo 2 if you're using a 360 controller.
They might get as much clout as Blizzard, and get away with relative autonomy
They're not a part of Activision, so comparisons to Blizzard aren't really an issue.
The only problem Bungie would encounter is whether or not Activision, as a publisher, threaten to with hold payments on Bungie's product in order to force them into something they may not want.
Which is kinda what is happening with IW.
Was that confirmed? That they withheld or are still withholding royalties? Because the last time I really followed that story it was just another rumor
Activision has said repeatedly they'll finally pay IW their bonuses IF they manage to win their lawsuit with the two IW heads who left.
So yeah, confirmed.
Also, to retain the IW people who are remaining Activision execs have promised to pay them the bonuses they were supposed to pay to the two heads.
Yup.
Usually when you develop a game, and go through crunch time, you take a break and then pick up development when everyone convenes later.
Activision basically told IW that they were not getting paid until they pumped out another game. Modern Warfare 3.
This has not been confirmed. Hate the publisher, but mind your rumors.
Except it's in the lawsuit.
"Activision has withheld most of the money to force many of my people to stay, some against their will, so that they would finish the delivery of Modern Warfare 3."
Here's the part about that article and all of this that kills me.
Allegedly, the employees of IW have received $28 million in bonuses, and are claiming to be owed another $54 million from just 2009.
Note, that number is "in bonuses" and not for regular yearly salary. Just how many employees does IW have who worked on MW? Giving an estimate of 150 (ballpark guess, here) that's 186K paid out to each employee, with another $360K waiting to be paid. Adjust that for positions within the company cause I doubt Joe Schmoe the QA Tester got the same bonus that Mr. Top Exec did. And of course the guys who can walk away from that kind of money are the ones who know they can afford to. The average graphic designer in the team of 20 or so that worked on the game can't cause his wife and 2 kids are at home and there's college tuition that needs to be paid.
Well, yeah, the pessimist in me wants to say that maybe 10 people at IW were getting more than 7 figures out of the numerous millions being offered in bonuses. Everyone else was getting chump change. Like less than their yearly pay.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited April 2010
A bonus is a bonus. You don't decline a bonus just because someone on your team gets a bigger one, you take what you can get. <_<
Yeah, the two guys at the top were probably in line for bonuses in the millions of dollars.
Dudes at the bottom probably get a check for a few thousand bucks.
Actually, West and Zampella were due to get a hell of a lot more than that. According to the group IW suit (sad that we have to specify WHICH IW suit we're talking about at any given monent), the total bonus pool was $118 million. Minus West and Zampella's cut, it was "at least" $82 million.
Crunch the numbers, and West and Zampella were due up to $36 million. No wonder they got testy.
A bonus is a bonus. You don't decline a bonus just because someone on your team gets a bigger one, you take what you can get. <_<
Interestingly that's not the normal human psychological response, although it's the most rational one.
Although in the weird power structure of a company you could see it.
I imagine the normal response to, "Well, if you don't want the bonus then you don't have to get it then" would be, "No no, I'll take it!"
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited April 2010
I imagine the normal response to, "Well, if you don't want the bonus then you don't have to get it then" would be, "No no, I'll take it!"
There's a pretty standard economics thought experiment that goes as follows (although in this version the executive loses the bonuses, so not quite the same);
you and another passenger are sitting next to each other on a plane, and a man turns round and says that he will give you $1000, split according to the other passenger's wishes. However, you only get the money if you both agree to accept it (and he's only offering once).
The other passenger thinks for a moment then says he'll take $990 and you take $10. According to standard economic theory the rational agent will take the $10, because it's free!
However, the vast majority of people in practice refuse the $10, because we have a built in punitive sense of cooperation, where we will punish people who we deem to have behaved unfairly. It's kind of interesting, really.
I'd be righteously pissed if I wasn't getting $36 million. And maybe I'd be a different man if I was in their shoes, but I know right now, I'd also be thinking of everyone else who helped make the game the fastest fucking seller in history. I'm getting $36 million and could live off the fat of the land. My friends down in graphic design and marketing? I doubt they'd be getting 1% of that.
On the one hand, good on West and Zampella for fighting for what's owed to them and their team. On the other hand though, you're two guys taking the lion's share of the bonuses. How the hell was this deal fair at all for anyone else? "Oh, they should just be happy they're part of the team that made an awesome game and getting extra money cause of this deal with struck."
El Fantastico on
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
I imagine the normal response to, "Well, if you don't want the bonus then you don't have to get it then" would be, "No no, I'll take it!"
There's a pretty standard economics thought experiment that goes as follows (although in this version the executive loses the bonuses, so not quite the same);
you and another passenger are sitting next to each other on a plane, and a man turns round and says that he will give you $1000, split according to the other passenger's wishes. However, you only get the money if you both agree to accept it (and he's only offering once).
The other passenger thinks for a moment then says he'll take $990 and you take $10. According to standard economic theory the rational agent will take the $10, because it's free!
However, the vast majority of people in practice refuse the $10, because we have a built in punitive sense of cooperation, where we will punish people who we deem to have behaved unfairly. It's kind of interesting, really.
Interesting when you consider how our nation's rich folk operate against the poor and middle-class. But that's another thread. Maybe a D&D one. :P
Society is structured in a way that the people at the top get whatever they want, and the rest of us got to work for it. Raging against it does no good, because the people benefiting from this policy just so happen to be the people in power.
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DrakeEdgelord TrashBelow the ecliptic plane.Registered Userregular
Society is structured in a way that the people at the top get whatever they want, and the rest of us got to work for it. Raging against it does no good, because the people benefiting from this policy just so happen to be the people in power.
surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited April 2010
This also reminds me of one of those phrases that makes me rage.
People who say "life isn't fair" to small children who complain about something being unfair.
There are two possibilities:
a) They are idiots who are mindlessly reiterating what the child just said as though this constitutes an adequate response.
b) They believe that life should be unfair, and are explaining that this is true as a consequence of it being unfair (is-ought fallacy).
It's just dribblingly stupid. Especially as it's normally said to defend the actions of the adult in question (some defense).
Society is structured in a way that the people at the top get whatever they want, and the rest of us got to work for it. Raging against it does no good, because the people benefiting from this policy just so happen to be the people in power.
Or maybe plenty of people at the top bust their ass to get there because really really stupid people can't hold on to money if you tied it around their neck. My boss has worked hard and smart his whole life and makes several times what I do; nothing unfair about it considering I can't do what he does.
Anyway, all the comments about "lol society unfair" are silly here. Activision was supposed to hand out bonuses, they're withholding the cash to try and bully folks into getting what they want, and the people at the top are telling them to go to hell with a lawsuit. Don't need pointless societal commentary to see that Activision is crooked enough to screw over the same people who just made them untold mounds of cash. A smart company would've given them extra bonuses to make sure they stay on; a greedy, corrupt company tries to strong-arm them into making another product.
It is pretty remarkable how as soon as EA stopped being evil, Activision came around and decided that EA just wasn't being evil the right way and needed to be shown how to play the game. Obviously not just with this issue, but starting however long ago when it became apparent Activision was the Gaming Satan.
Also, whenever you have to tell a kid that something about life isn't fair, just give them a big cookie. The recuperative effects are remarkable.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
I imagine the normal response to, "Well, if you don't want the bonus then you don't have to get it then" would be, "No no, I'll take it!"
There's a pretty standard economics thought experiment that goes as follows (although in this version the executive loses the bonuses, so not quite the same);
you and another passenger are sitting next to each other on a plane, and a man turns round and says that he will give you $1000, split according to the other passenger's wishes. However, you only get the money if you both agree to accept it (and he's only offering once).
The other passenger thinks for a moment then says he'll take $990 and you take $10. According to standard economic theory the rational agent will take the $10, because it's free!
However, the vast majority of people in practice refuse the $10, because we have a built in punitive sense of cooperation, where we will punish people who we deem to have behaved unfairly. It's kind of interesting, really.
I disagree.
While I believe this experiment fully, we choose the $10 not because we fell unfair behaved. It's because we ARE. As impossible as it seems, you and I we all have rights. We don't have to take shit from everybody. Sure, sometimes life does bring us in a situation were we do it out of our natural survival but that isn't the case here.
You know what I would do? I wouldn't even consider this unless the money is distrubiuted remotely fair. Becuase the alternative only leads to more of the same.
P.S If you don't stand up when something is clearly faulty and unfair its your own fault. Sure maybe you have your own problems, but there is no situation where you can do nothing about it.
P.P.S I'm not talking big here. I mean it.
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited April 2010
Oh, it's behaviour that has evolved to make certain kinds of social structure work better (having everybody with a sense of punitive fairness reduces free riding and encourages cooperation). So in that sense it's "rational". But homo economicus is an incorrect model of homo sapiens, and only recently have attempts been made to account for this in economic theory.
I'm not using "rational" here as a synonym for "best option" or "morally correct".
Posts
And I will never fucking forgive Microshit for beaching the series on the Xbox with no more ports. EVER.
Which I'm positing only existed because MS wanted to push Vista... with a then-three-year-old game...
This is pretty much a fact.
In 2007 they published on the PC:
Shadowrun
Halo 2
Gears of War
Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties
Viva Piñata
Microsoft Flight Simulator X: Acceleration
The first 3 were Xbox/360 ports released as DX10 only (therefore Vista only), although with minor modification (I think just removing the lines of code that said "don't let this use DX9") would work on XP. At the time you needed to pay for a GFWL subscription to pay online (I am pretty sure anyway)
They shut down ensemble after making them work on the 360.
Viva Piñata was a 360 port, released exactly a year after the original.
And a Flight Sim expansion.
Since then they've done nothing except Tinker, which is not a proper game, and push GFWL and GFWLGOD, their incompetent online gaming service and their incompetent DD service.
They are doing less for PC gaming than pretty much any single major publisher, and they make the damn OS, it is a disgrace.
so they disbanded
Where'd I leave that old rape whistle...?
heh
If nothing else, maybe Microsoft will port it for a quick buck in two years or so when they realize no one's going to fill Bungie's shoes for new games in that series.
This.
The Halo 1 and F.E.A.R. 1 shotguns are two of my all-time favorite FPS guns ever.
As for the Bungie/Activision deal, I'm hoping that Activision's recent outright soullessness doesn't hurt Bungie any, as I've been a fan of Bungie since their Macintosh days.
Steam ID XBL: JohnnyChopsocky PSN:Stud_Beefpile WiiU:JohnnyChopsocky
I'm glad they address the future space nipples, because those things probably require custom armor.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
They took out the auto aim. You only get autoaim in Halo 2 if you're using a 360 controller.
Except it's in the lawsuit.
http://www.joystiq.com/2010/04/27/infinity-ward-employee-group-sues-activision-for-75-to-125-m/
Note, that number is "in bonuses" and not for regular yearly salary. Just how many employees does IW have who worked on MW? Giving an estimate of 150 (ballpark guess, here) that's 186K paid out to each employee, with another $360K waiting to be paid. Adjust that for positions within the company cause I doubt Joe Schmoe the QA Tester got the same bonus that Mr. Top Exec did. And of course the guys who can walk away from that kind of money are the ones who know they can afford to. The average graphic designer in the team of 20 or so that worked on the game can't cause his wife and 2 kids are at home and there's college tuition that needs to be paid.
Steam: TheArcadeBear
Dudes at the bottom probably get a check for a few thousand bucks.
Steam: TheArcadeBear
It just sucks that the dudes who really don't need a mountain of money are the only ones that get said mountain of money. Being middle class sucks.
Actually, West and Zampella were due to get a hell of a lot more than that. According to the group IW suit (sad that we have to specify WHICH IW suit we're talking about at any given monent), the total bonus pool was $118 million. Minus West and Zampella's cut, it was "at least" $82 million.
Crunch the numbers, and West and Zampella were due up to $36 million. No wonder they got testy.
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6260459.html?tag=result%3Btitle%3B3
Interestingly that's not the normal human psychological response, although it's the most rational one.
Although in the weird power structure of a company you could see it.
I imagine the normal response to, "Well, if you don't want the bonus then you don't have to get it then" would be, "No no, I'll take it!"
There's a pretty standard economics thought experiment that goes as follows (although in this version the executive loses the bonuses, so not quite the same);
you and another passenger are sitting next to each other on a plane, and a man turns round and says that he will give you $1000, split according to the other passenger's wishes. However, you only get the money if you both agree to accept it (and he's only offering once).
The other passenger thinks for a moment then says he'll take $990 and you take $10. According to standard economic theory the rational agent will take the $10, because it's free!
However, the vast majority of people in practice refuse the $10, because we have a built in punitive sense of cooperation, where we will punish people who we deem to have behaved unfairly. It's kind of interesting, really.
On the one hand, good on West and Zampella for fighting for what's owed to them and their team. On the other hand though, you're two guys taking the lion's share of the bonuses. How the hell was this deal fair at all for anyone else? "Oh, they should just be happy they're part of the team that made an awesome game and getting extra money cause of this deal with struck."
Steam: TheArcadeBear
Interesting when you consider how our nation's rich folk operate against the poor and middle-class. But that's another thread. Maybe a D&D one. :P
Society is structured in a way that the people at the top get whatever they want, and the rest of us got to work for it. Raging against it does no good, because the people benefiting from this policy just so happen to be the people in power.
Hey Comrade! Join our collective farm!
Oh wait, wrong stereotype.
Um, let's have some vodka?
People who say "life isn't fair" to small children who complain about something being unfair.
There are two possibilities:
a) They are idiots who are mindlessly reiterating what the child just said as though this constitutes an adequate response.
b) They believe that life should be unfair, and are explaining that this is true as a consequence of it being unfair (is-ought fallacy).
It's just dribblingly stupid. Especially as it's normally said to defend the actions of the adult in question (some defense).
You, sir, fail at stereotypes.
Clearly, you should mention something to do with hats.
Or maybe plenty of people at the top bust their ass to get there because really really stupid people can't hold on to money if you tied it around their neck. My boss has worked hard and smart his whole life and makes several times what I do; nothing unfair about it considering I can't do what he does.
Anyway, all the comments about "lol society unfair" are silly here. Activision was supposed to hand out bonuses, they're withholding the cash to try and bully folks into getting what they want, and the people at the top are telling them to go to hell with a lawsuit. Don't need pointless societal commentary to see that Activision is crooked enough to screw over the same people who just made them untold mounds of cash. A smart company would've given them extra bonuses to make sure they stay on; a greedy, corrupt company tries to strong-arm them into making another product.
It is pretty remarkable how as soon as EA stopped being evil, Activision came around and decided that EA just wasn't being evil the right way and needed to be shown how to play the game. Obviously not just with this issue, but starting however long ago when it became apparent Activision was the Gaming Satan.
Also, whenever you have to tell a kid that something about life isn't fair, just give them a big cookie. The recuperative effects are remarkable.
AAAH MOTHERLAND!
Steam: TheArcadeBear
I disagree.
While I believe this experiment fully, we choose the $10 not because we fell unfair behaved. It's because we ARE. As impossible as it seems, you and I we all have rights. We don't have to take shit from everybody. Sure, sometimes life does bring us in a situation were we do it out of our natural survival but that isn't the case here.
You know what I would do? I wouldn't even consider this unless the money is distrubiuted remotely fair. Becuase the alternative only leads to more of the same.
P.S If you don't stand up when something is clearly faulty and unfair its your own fault. Sure maybe you have your own problems, but there is no situation where you can do nothing about it.
P.P.S I'm not talking big here. I mean it.
I'm not using "rational" here as a synonym for "best option" or "morally correct".