I've seen comparisons where people claim that the high barrier to entry for VR is similar to the barrier to entry when people need to get a new graphics card, or a new console, to play the latest games. (On twitter, George Weidman (superbunnyhop) said something to the effect, 'I had to buy a $300 radeon in order to play Doom 3', so it's the same deal, etc. etc.)

I don't think that argument holds water, though. For one thing, the use of a GPU isn't limited to a handful of titles; for another, a VR headset itself requires a beefy computer.

(Off-topic, but I really think that *AR* headsets have a higher potential at this point. Jeri Ellsworth's 'tabletop AR' company carefully avoids mentioning pc/console gaming, but it's not hard to imagine exciting new applications -- e.g., I'd be very curious to play something like Papers Please with an AR headset, with the documents actually laying on my desk.)

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It will remain a virtual 'beta', and then they'll shut it down. It's what google does

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Looking forward (?!) to the debates over the packaging of this in various distros. (Though maybe they'll put out an official AppImage.)

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Quoting: CyrilIt's me or Zachtronics release a game every 6 months or so? :D:whistle:

Not their fault, though; they say it happens 'accidentally': https://twitter.com/zachtronics [External Link]

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Compared to SpaceChem, I hope the UI in this one is more straightforward to use. The trailer doesn't give too much of a clue, really.

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The Classic plan is the best way to subscribe

Only existing subscribers who are active when we switch to Humble Choice will automatically be granted the Classic plan. Make sure you are subscribed to Humble Monthly before we launch Humble Choice to get it.

The wording here is a little misleading, though. They aren't offering 'the classic' as a plan under the new system, it will be like a legacy carry-over. When you're describing 'the new ways to subscribe to us', it's odd to enumerate the obsolete way as 'the best way' in your ad. Besides the second paragraph could suggest that new subscribes could, after all, later switch to the Classic plan -- though not 'automatically'.

Better to put a big disclaimer to the effect that if your subscribe before the swithch, you get to have certain privileges. '!!!!ALERT: ONLY FOR THE LOYAL PRE-SWITCH CUSTOMERS!!!!!!!', or something like that.

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Quoting: Kimyrielle

Quoting: mahThis project really legal?
I seems, they can't clear copyright problems.

They didn't say in their announcement, but I can't imagine that it's technically legal, at least I can't remotely begin to imagine the manpower and time needed to track down and contact hundreds of copyright holders to get the necessary permission. And even if it's abadonware, you still cannot make it available in such way without permission. Copyright law is really clear about that you cannot do ANYHING with a protected work, unless with explicit permission or when the law explicitly allows it.

OTOH, I can't see anybody suing them over it, either. These games have no commercial value anymore.

EDIT: Sorry I overlooked the fact that Jason Scott is already mentioned in the article - in any case, check out his talks on youtube.

The project is led by a somewhat eccentric & absolutely intrepid individual called Jason Scott; he has several talks posted on youtube, where he goes into quite a bit of detail regarding the challenges they face, including the legal.

Unfortunately a great many (most?) of the titles available through the in-browser emulator (mame implemented in webassembly) are broken currently -- they're aware of this; because as Jason Scott explains in one of those talks, their #1 priority nowadays is to digitize stuff, put it on the archive, and make it 'available', not necessarily fully-functional.

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I wonder if they'll have to rename it to 'Foreskin Maiden' or somesuch. I mean, the dicks in the trailer seem to have lost their prepuces already, so they'd be giving grief to our foreskinned lad.

... yeah sorry I couldn't think of a clever pun.

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I think also interesting to note is the fact that oreilly no longer sells ebooks themselves -- they used to have a drm-free marketplace with options from pdfs to DAISY formatted texts -- for ebooks, they redirect you to amazon nowadays. Instead, oreilly now has a subscription service.

So in order to get the 'old-fashioned' (?!) drm-free pdfs, the bundle is a good opportunity.

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Just took a look at the books bundle: On the $15 tier there's 'Mastering Regular Expressions' by Jeffrey Friedl - it's a really great book (the paperback goes for $30+), I highly recommend it.

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