Humodour

This is a joke right? Sure MS could become irrelevant in the future(very, very doubtful), but as of now? No. Read the sentence more carefully. It has already happened that Microsoft's competitors - Oracle, Apple, Google - have already become roughly as powerful as Microsoft (and certainly as a combined force overwhelm Microsoft).

I don't think that was ever really an argument. The argument was that Apple just didn't care about gaming, which was true. The official "gaming" department at Apple was something like 5 employees. Apple spent the past year and a half helping Valve to make sure OpenGL on Mac was up to scratch, and helping Valve port their games.

That's more than a 'slight' change of thesis!

Beers!

What is the communism?А то вы тут такую ахинею пишите! Oh? Feel free to explain to us why communism ISN'T crap, mate.

Cuba is not a democracy. Cuba's HDI is equivalent to the worst of the developed nations (mainly by virtue of having many and excellent doctors), and their GDP per capita is $5,000 (Europe and the Commonwealth's are about $50,000 or so on average). In Cuba you get imprisoned for giving away laptops. It is considered a subversive act. In Cuba, hundreds of people rot in prison, and the official reason is 'dangerousness'.

Anyway, Gas Powered Games and EA DICE have said they are in lockstep with Valve on the move and will release all future games on Mac.

Oh, cool, another reason to hope Ubisoft goes bankrupt.

Spellforce 1 is good.

What it means is that the tired argument that the Mac isn't financially viable as a game platform is baloney and can be put out to pasture permanently. I know Obsidian probably still can't be bothered but meh.

I really wanted Beyond Good & Evil 2, but I flat out refuse to fund this sort of trash. There are many other good games out there, and trustworthy and loyal developers (Valve, Blizzard, even Bioware) such that I lose nothing by completely avoiding Ubisoft products.

lol. Oh wow you need a few history lessons.

But would it? Would it really? Or to look at it slightly differently would it collapse worse than what is going on now in slow motion? Yes it would. And yes, it'll collapse anyway unless everyone stops acting like total jackasses. What's it going to take? Another 40 million dead? Of course now it would be 10 times that. Um, what the feck are you talking about?

Where then do you turn when government is the cause of the shenanigans? Or the agent the business uses to cause trouble? You have three choices, and you'd choose depending on the situation and nature of said shenanigans: a) http://www.ombudsman.gov.au/ or similar in your country b) Use your vote. c) Court - government is typically a devolved entity, with most arms being independent or balanced by others... in Australia, you have councils, state governments, the federal government, the House of Reps, the Senate, an independent judiciary - with multiple levels of appeal in case of corruption or 'shenanigans', an independent reserve bank (RBA), an independent consumer watchdog (ACCC), an independent financial watchdog (ASIC), an independent government watchdog (option a above), etc. In Australia the states still hold a lot of power over various enterprises, so they also often have their own independent entities to deal with things like corruption, etc. E.g.: http://www.icac.nsw.gov.au/

Mate, you should probably get that checked out by a doctor.

Trust me, that'll be the best investment you'll make in 2011! Not 2010?

Yeah, I probably should have mentioned that to you. Oops.

The plastic manufacturers ship computer parts in is a special type of non-static plastic. Hopefully that gives you an idea how sensitive the parts are. For reference, when a human actually feels static electricity, that's above 2000 volts. Computer parts are sensitive to 1/10th that voltage. A hand-held portable vacuum is probably safe. A mains vacuum cleaner definitely isn't - they generate massive static.

Socialism in a heartbeat. Assuming it is democratic socialism. Otherwise anarchy, since it'd be easier to eventually form a government from an anarchy then it would be to regain democracy in a totalitarian state. Human nature says, that if you have everything handed to you on golden plate, you do not need democracy Why would you care about who is ruling over you, if he gives you everything you want and need without asking questions? What if he doesn't give you everything you want and need?

MS also showed little interest in the internet as a platform until Mozilla popped up and started eating IE market share. In fact until then, Microsoft said no further development would occur for IE (IE6 at the time). Then it started developing IE 7 and 8 due to Mozilla/Firefox, but the damage had already been done - people ditch IE every day, and the same trend has been happening to Windows in the OS market for a while now, too (though obviously to a far lesser degree). One of Windows's few remaining 'killer apps' (gaming) is going cross-platform in a big way. In fact it may be the only remaining killer app. The office suite market is being squeezed something chronic by Mac, OO, and "the cloud". Oh, I remember the other one - Exchange. But it's being chipped away at by the Linux crowd. If I sound dramatic, it's only in the sense that "Microsoft is doomed, just like IBM". Microsoft will never fold, but it will become reasonably irrelevant, and its competitors will be just as strong as it (truth be told, that's already happened). Maybe when they remove the ugly "this post has been edited" message.

If you own the game (as I said - legitimate uses), then you already have copyright permission to own that game's files, so there is no copyright violation. It's a tenuous argument you have and I think it's noteworthy that the courts in Australia and America (I haven't paid attention to NZ) differentiate between DRM circumvention and copyright infringement. And, as I said, DRM circumvention for legit reasons is clearly legal in New Zealand. Since you seem to disagree, it's now time to cite sources: http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2008/04...on-fair-use.ars And just in case you think that's just an rumour or misinterpretation of the law, feel free to read the exact legislation the article refers to: http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/...ologies_noresel If only Australian copyright law were as progressive (although I am thankful it isn't as bad as America's).

I win. http://forums.obsidian.net/index.php?showtopic=54361 http://store.steampowered.com/news/3569/

Also, I imagine Steve Balmer is throwing quite a few chairs right now.

My bet is that Valve sees well over 1 million Mac Steam users this year (currently 25 million Windows Steam users). Steam adoption on the Mac will far outpace the rate of growth on PC because Mac gamers are richer yet have far fewer avenues for purchasing Mac games. Not to mention that Steam is now a mature platform on Windows so adoption should be smooth for Mac users. More info: "Mac versions of leading internal titles such as Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike, Portal and the Half-Life series will be available for purchase this coming April." Also, Mac and Windows users will play and join the same servers and games in multiplayer.

As far as I understand there has been cracked version of the game since day one, but ubi claims is not "legit" cracked version since it lacks some extra download content. What I keep hearing is that while it was cracked the first day, the cracked version hangs or crashed at several points. The first trip into the animus and some story mission. So, the open world can be played, and using some savegames can get around these points, it doesn't let you play all the way through without issue. Supposedly, the game downloads part of the story mission, thus the isues. But I've also heard everything from one end to the other on whether it's cracked or not, so I'm not really sure what to believe about it. Assuming that's true, I guess that means it won't be fully cracked until next Tuesday.