In our second edition of Behind the Desk, we discuss the rumors surrounding the war against used games, crop circles, and the prospect of life in the universe.[display_podcast]
As always feel free to give us your feedback in the comment section, and please take the time to rate us on iTunes.
hariseldon
March 30, 2012 @ 3:40 pm
Nice podcast guys. Just to play devil’s advocate, because I totally agree with you about the used game market, but the developer would probably argue (primarily ones with an online aspect to the game) that they maintain the servers, fix bugs, release patches etc. long after the game is initially released. To all intents and purposes once the initial consumer has finished with the game (say a year) the developers would not need to allocate resources to maintain the game anymore and the purchase price would only cover all the costs up until the end of that projected one year period.
Instead the developer is forced to continue to provide these services to new customers which the developer did not foresee. You could then argue that it is reasonably foreseeable that someone else would buy the game secondhand. In that case they have to either increase the initial price (which is unfair on the original buyer) or use an online pass (probably the fairer of the two as the game should theoretically be cheaper anyway).
However where even I can’t play devil’s advocate anymore is when they effect kill the used game market for single player games (which is what the PS4/Durango would be doing). I find that hard/impossible to justify. Also, it’s hard for the developer to argue against the ”lost sale” issue imo, the used car analogy that Mike used was spot on.
As I said in another article, the situation will probably play out like this: At the end of the day though, the people like us who like games enough to post on forums about how it’s outrageous and we’re not going to buy the console/game/DLC etc. represent probably 15% max of the total consumer base. The other 85% either don’t know much about what they are buying (casual gamers or parents buying for their kids) or they do know but they just don’t care about it. Sony (and Microsoft as well from the rumours) will force the system on the consumers; 85% will buy it, for all their tough talk 10% will buy the console anyway (either at launch or a couple of years later when the reduced price somehow silences their objections) and the other 5% will hold out in vain.
But the real question is: what can we as gamers/consumers do about this? I’m not talking about storming Sony/MS’ offices or anything like that, but apart from telling other consumers how crap this idea is and not buying it ourselves- we are still in the 5% :/
I thought your segment on the paranormal was very interesting. First off I should say that I do think we are not alone in universe and possibly even our own galaxy. I’ve come to this conclusion using a similar reasoning to Mike; if you look at the Hubble Ultra Deep Field and even our own Milky Way, [url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17539315]click[/url] , then on the balance of probabilities we are not alone. The next logical question to ask is why haven’t we seen any evidence of extraterrestrial life?
I can think of a few answers, the first (and at the risk of destroying all my credibility) comes from Star Wars: ”Without precise calculations, we’d fly right through a star, bounce too close to a supernova, and that’d end your trip real quick, wouldn’t it?”. These beings would have to travel lightyears to reach us, which would necessitate FTL travel. Provided they can get around that hurdle I still don’t see how a ship travelling at FTL speeds can dodge blackholes, planets, asteroids etc without getting blown-up. Essentially we are all stuck within our respective star systems.
Linked to this idea is that if they have managed to reach us, they must be so technologically advanced that they could not possibly have any reason to interact with us (other than to take what resources left on Earth).
Finally, there is the notion that there is evidence but that it is being witheld from us the governments. This is a possbility, but imo given the ability/ineptitude of most governments I find it extremely hard to believe that they know something this big and keep it secret for so long. But as with all government conspiracies we will never know the truth.
The unexplained cropcircles? I got nothing 🙂
Possbilities of alien involvement of earlier civilisations? This is interesting. I’ve seen the pyramids of Giza with my own eyes and they are truly a feat to behold, and to think they were built 4,000 years ago… Not just that as well, but when you take into account the measurements, dimensions and it’s original design (i.e. with the casing blocks) then something just doesn’t sit right with me. No modern tools or technology to build it either. Makes you wonder what those Egyptian Gods/hieroglyphics were really based on. Same goes for other ancient wonders like Stonge Henge, Machu Picchu etc. The only thing that makes me believe that these ancient civilisations may have build them on their own is that 4,000 years is a long time ago and it is feasible for techniques to be lost in that time- e.g. the Romans used concrete but this was lost when their empire collapsed and only rediscovered in the late 1800s.
Anyways, that’s quite a lot of writing so I’ll leave it there….
Jimmy Lara
March 30, 2012 @ 7:41 pm
“but the developer would probably argue (primarily ones with an online aspect to the game) that they maintain the servers, fix bugs, release patches etc. long after the game is initially released. ”
If the game is running long enough then why not use DLC to make cash, cause they are only running cause people still support that game. Either way I think the current method that are rumor to go against used game is just overall bad for the industry as a whole.
As for whether or not we are alone, well there’s just to much going on in space to think that we are the only world to have life is well just crazy IMO.
Why we haven’t made contact or have concrete proof? We’ll I’m not sure. With recent UFO sightings happening all over the world, perhaps disclosure may come. The Roswell incident is very interesting to if you haven’t checked it out. But if all these were to say weren’t extratarrestrial, then perhaps they are like us living on their own planet asking the exact same thing, but are limited by resources to even bother with space traveling.
Mike Bonura
April 1, 2012 @ 3:12 pm
Hey hariseldon thanks for giving us some feedback on that session, if there’s anything you would like us to discuss, by all means write it in the comments and we’ll discuss it in the next session of behind the desk or the podcast.
hariseldon
April 5, 2012 @ 3:29 pm
Thanks for the reply Mike, some topics that I thought might be interesting are cryptozoology, time travel, cloning, AI, possible doomsday scenarios (although this one might lead to a fairly depressing podcast 🙂 ).
Also just on a more general point, given how far the human race has progressed in the last 50-100 years; what do you see as the next major technological/scientific breakthrough and do you think that space travel technology will advance in our lifetime (so say 50 years)?
bleachorange
April 12, 2012 @ 8:49 pm
waterproof electronics, flexible circuitry and screens, and self-driving cars. there’s too much money to be made in these products for them to remain non-commercialized for long. as far as space tech, it depends entirely on how much science is funded in labs, AND how much is budgeted to space agencies. NASA funding always seems to get cut, and the Russian program is investing its’ money in a new launch facility, not new technology.