Rant
32% Of The Top 25 Software Companies Are Gaming Companies
I came across this little table during my work today and was totally blown away. Almost a third of the Top 25 Software Companies (based on revenue) are in the Gaming Industry (source). It is crazy that people who game are still regarded as Geeks and Social Recluses and there is still no decent Computer Games program here on terestial TV in the UK (whilst Property Porn shows dominate the TVerse (since most Media Execs have invested all their cash in Property and are desperate to artificially prop up a market that has been over-valued for decades…)). Makes.You.Sick.
<disclosure>I am a PS3, PSP, PC and Wii gamer.</disclosure>
That's a lot of Gaming Companies.
Does success destroy a blog?
Some of my recent posts have definitely had somewhat of a lifehacker bashing feel to them. And, well, that is because I feel lifehacker has moved away from the reasons I first started reading it three years ago.
lifehacker
When I first came across lifehacker whilst I was teaching English in China in 2005, it was full of great posts about how to be more techy and geeky and use software and web apps to make your life easier. It was choc full of recommendations of software to download, new websites to try out and clever hacks to make software do things that weren’t in the script. However, these days, although those posts still exist, they are swamped by useless posts about software/OS not yet released (Windows 7 being the current culprit) or gushing about the iPhone and iPhone apps that are simply re-inventing things that can already be done on a Symbian or Windows Mobile device but that, wait for it….USES YOUR FINGER as an input device.
Lifehacker has also failed to introduce a forum, even though users have been calling out for one for years, a restriction apparently demanded by lifehacker’s owner, Gawker Media. Instead it has implemented a comment system, that although quite powerful, still does not really allow its readers to have any real form of discussion other than about the posts themselves.
I guess the reason for these changes is, as lifehacker has grown, and good on them for that, it has taken on more editors to create more content and thus keep increase the number of readers thus produce more advertising revenue. Since there is only so much news or hacks to write about, it becomes harder to find original content and thus the quality of the content goes down hill. I wonder if this is the curse of successful blogs, or is it possible for a blog to maintain quality, even when it gets much more popular? Another blog I like to read is Ghacks, this blog seems to be where lifehacker was a few years ago. Its author now writes the blog as his full time job and has taken on a number of contributing authors. So far, the quality of the blog has remained and it still offers original content. It’ll be interesting to see what continued success has on Ghacks and to see if it goes down hill, the same way lifehacker has.
Remember, of course, this is simply my opinion, you might still love lifehacker. I just hate having to wade through the crud to get to the good stuff, kinda like why I hate eating an artichoke.
When will techies be satisfied
So, as more Windows 7 news leaks out and people try out preview builds, the techie naval gazing continues. Windows 7 startup times get analysed, which really is a waste of time considering this is a preview pre-beta build, whilst more features are drooled over, or bashed, depending on your point of view. Meanwhile, as is always the case, people try and adopt the new features of the new OS, only to invariably bash it when it is released because it doesn’t place nice with the hardware they own that was designed before their fancy new OS was released. And there will be the moans that the system requirements are too high and the OS is really unresponsive compared to the last version – of course ignoring the fact that this is an OS designed to cope with hardware for the next five years.
navel gazing
And, as normal, reviews will concentrate on form, not function.
How to loose customers and aggravate people
For the last few days I fell into the hellish world that is Creative Technology and their sound cards.
Even just doing a cursory search you find the pain that this company has put its customers through, namely bad drivers, updated drivers removing features original included in the product and shutting down attempts to rectify failures in their drivers.
Such horror stories include:
- failing to release drivers for Vista until 6 months or so after the release of Vista. Then when a user creates their own, fully Vista-compliant drivers before Creative do, they pile on loads of pressure and force the guy to stop development,
- releasing updated drivers to their sound card range that actually removes Dolby and DTS decoding, after advertising it as a feature of the original card,
- having various varients (via S/N) of the same product that have different features turned on and off, leaving it down to a S/N lottery for the user and never telling them.
So, after toying with the idea of updating my soundcard to be able to decode my PS3′s optical output, I realised the error of my ways and went for this excellent surround sound speaker setup that includes digital decoding built in.
Nice one Creative. I am sure their products are fine for the average user, but for anyone who is expecting anything more than average use might find they run into a whole heap of pain.
Why do commercial blogs advocate stealing
One thing that really vexes me are the tech blogs that freely post stories about how to rip copy-protected DVDs or illegally save music from music sites or that list ways to get hold of MP3s.
down with DRM
Now, we all want free stuff and the good news is, there is a lot of free stuff out there – free pictures, free music from new artists, free software, heck, even free operating systems. All of them legal and completely free. So why do people feel the need to steal stuff as well. And yes, however you may like to argue it, copying friends music and films and downloading music streams IS stealing. You do not own the media, you did not pay for it, so you are stealing it.
The sad problem with the influx of technology is that people have lost contact with what goes into producing something. They forget about IP. Artists who make a song deserve to profit from that song or not, if they so choose. But we as their fans have no right to steal their music just because it is in MP3 format and we aren’t stealing a CD so what’s wrong?
And to top it all off, tech blogs go on posting ways to do this, when these very same blogs depend upon advertising revenue and the capitalist system. You can be damn sure that these blogs will never post a way to circumvent advertising revenues, or how to steal someone’s advertising clicks and they are pretty unlikely to post any advertising blockers 
Kinda smacks of hypocrisy if you ask me.
Music, films and software that are not free should not be stolen.
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