MetaFilter posts tagged with PC

Step 1. Make an utterly fantastic game. Step 3. Profit!

straight — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 09:24:08 -0800

2D BOY made around $100,000 in a week. That’s $50,000 each for writing a blog post about a game they finished a year ago. By letting people pay whatever they wanted. 2D Boy stirred up a lot of discussion (previously) about game piracy when they used online scoreboard data to estimate an 82% piracy rate for their fantastic indie game World of Goo (previously). For World of Goo's first birthday, they decided to try the Radiohead model and let people buy the game for any price they choose. Now they've released extensive data about the results. Short version? "A huge success," even though the most commonly chosen price was only a penny. Don't miss the excellent analysis in the Rock Paper Shotgun article (that first link), including the comments where one reader has created a chart showing that the bottom 40% of the downloads account for 1.5% of the profit and the top 30% of the downloads account for 83% of the profit.

Strange Adventures in Infinite Space

CrunchyFrog — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 13:55:22 -0800

Strange Adventures in Infinite Space is a game of space exploration that can be played in under twenty minutes. Its adjustable difficulty and random maps make it very replayable, and for the first time ever, it's completely free. PC and Mac versions are available. Plenty of user-made mods are available for download, as well as the full source code.

You sure don't see a lot of sidecars nowadays.

Afroblanco — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 18:36:48 -0800

15 Classic PC Design Mistakes, along with explanations as to what exactly they were thinking at the time.

Wandering lonely as a cloud-gamer.

permafrost — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 06:33:45 -0800

Beta-registration has already started for Onlive, a revolutionary cloud-gaming service that promises to put an end to costly PC hardware upgrades, videogame piracy and the entire console industy and game retail sectors. There's just one small problem: it can't possibly work.

Mmmm... Free Goo.

Effigy2000 — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 22:33:05 -0800

World of Goo was released last year on PC and Wii and, despite an 82% piracy rate (previously), still went on to become one of the best selling games of 2008 and win a swag of awards. In a recent blog post (the first of seven) the developer, 2D Boy, has been detailing the early days of development for World of Goo. But just don't read about this proto-Goo... play it! They have made this early version of the game available to download for free. And don't forget that the soundtrack to the completed game is also still free and available for download.

They're Leasing Old Gateway Stores

Xurando — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 14:00:34 -0800

Microsoft announced today, it will open a small number of stores to compete directly against Apple. Some think it's a dubious idea. "In a statement, Microsoft said the first priority of Mr. Porter, who is also a 25-year veteran of Wal-Mart, will be to define where to place the Microsoft stores and when to open them."

Mac Vs PC

Effigy2000 — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 19:51:34 -0800

Mac Vs. PC. Inspired by Transformers, this short visual effects piece shows us what would happen if our home computers could turn into robots and started beating each other up.

640K ought to be enough for anybody

netbros — Fri, 09 May 2008 15:11:05 -0800

The History of Computing Project is a collaborative effort to record and publish the history of the computer and its roots. The site includes a chronological timeline, biographies of computing pioneers, a look at computing hardware through the years, as well as software and games. Having a 30-year career in the field, I am partial to mainframe computing. I started my career in 1973 working on this machine, and ended it on this one, with many in between. Other mainframe timelines: IBM mainframes Viking Waters Computer history: IBM 360/370/3090/390

An Untitled Story

juv3nal — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 12:53:27 -0800

An Untitled Story. (apologies, pc download only). An action-platformer by Matt Thorson in the tradition of Seiklus, Knytt (previously 1 2), & Metroid It is full of awesome. Protip: there's some pretty difficult jumping stuff in there, but the most difficult stuff is generally optional so if you get stuck in one area it may be that you need a power up from somewhere else. Bonus link: karoshi2 (also pc download only). Clever puzzler. (I hate the phrase "think outside the box" but it's very literally appropriate to the solution of at least one of the puzzles.)

Total Annihilation Modification Excitation!

Effigy2000 — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 20:55:07 -0800

Total Annihilation, released over ten years ago by the now defunct Cavedog Entertainment, was one of the most popular RTS games of its day. And it is still being played today, partly due to the mod community who have been working on keeping it alive through the release of patches, units and maps, a list of which you'll find inside. Total Annihilation: Twilight is the most balanced of all the TA mods. TABA includes unique features such as upgrading and new balance changes. FileUniverse contains over 3000 mods, races, maps, utilities and tutorials for TA and TA:Kingdoms. UnitUniverse has an archive of over 5,000 downloadable first and third party units. TA-Zone bills itself as the Ultimate TA Resource site, with a TA 1v1 Ladder, TA Replays and forums. D-Gun provides more links to information and files for playing Total Annihilation online. Switeck's Junkdrawer has many useful TA files, such as the TA Bugfix and AI Guide. Epic Class Productions has a large collection of gigantic 63x63-screen "Epic Maps" by James Beatty.

Itsy Bitys Zesty Systy: The Wifi Touch-screen 3G 20GB Asus Eee PC (now with Leopard)

humannaire — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 13:30:46 -0800

What's better than a wifi-equipped Asus Eee sub-notebook PC with touchscreen? Simple. An Asus Eee sub-notebook PC with touchscreen and 3G HSDPA modem. Still want more? How about an upgrade of on-board storage — from 4 gigabytes to 20gb? And if you're planning on overwriting the Eee's Xandros/pre-installed Linux distribution in the first place (in order to install a non open-source platform) you may want to consider making a complete switch-over and being the first on your block with a (legally iffy) sub-notebook running Macintosh. Previously: 1, 2, 3.

Chromatron - a game about reflections

ikkyu2 — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 17:28:45 -0800

Chromatron 1, 2, 3 and 4 just became freeware. In these little standalone puzzle games for PC and Mac, you align splitters, benders, and mirrors to direct colored laserbeams into like-colored targets. Enjoyably difficult, and an example of great game design. Mentioned previously on Mefi, but only in comments, so I figured that since it just became free, now would be a good time for a proper FPP.

Say goodbye to your schoolwork, social life, and all your loved ones

XQUZYPHYR — Fri, 18 May 2007 23:48:34 -0800

After nine years of waiting, Blizzard has just announced Starcraft II. IGN is liveblogging the announcement from the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational in South Korea, where love for the original is so great it brings with it $100,000 tournaments, matches aired on television, and fatalities from over-playing.

Store-wide Freak Out

chuckdarwin — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 08:59:41 -0800

Hobo Expert, MeFite, Daily Show Resident Expert, and reluctant celebrity John Hodgman's recent appearance on This American Life is truly inspired stuff. "He tells the story of what happens when celebrity hunts you down and finds you...on your living room couch, pushing 40, and a couple sizes larger than you want to be." Apparently Bill Gates isn't a fan. His loss.

Tha Japanese Tradition

ikahime — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 09:30:19 -0800

Comedy duo, Ramenz (ラーメンズ), aka Kobayashi Kentaro and Katagiri Jin, also known as the Japanese versions of Mac and PC, have recently done a number of shorts collectively called "The Japanese Tradition." Apparently, these tongue-in-cheek pseudo-instructional vids about famous aspects of Japanese culture (Tea, Chopsticks, Sushi, Origami, Apology, Onigiri, and Relationships) have been fooling a lot of non-natives into thinking they are actual guides. (YouTube, each approx 4-6 min).

Mac VS PC

tatnasty — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 16:33:46 -0800

Mac VS PC And this time PC is the cool guy and Mac is the stooge! Gems like "Mac works for PC", "PC gets the girl." and "Mac may be cool but PC has the money." (Quicktime links)

PC or PS3: The hardest choice or anything but?

Effigy2000 — Sat, 18 Nov 2006 20:30:30 -0800

With hundreds of die hard PS3 fans camped outside Metreon, site of the San Francisco Playstation store and home of the official US launch for the Playstation 3, PC Gamer magazine showed up and presented one die-hard PS3 fan with arguably the hardest choice he'll ever have to make; to give up the right to own (or be gifted) a Playstation 3 for the next three years in exchange for a free $7,500 custom-built Falcon PC and "a better gaming experience." Here's what happened and here's the signed contract.

Bondage for Lumber Fetishists

Bugbread — Mon, 01 May 2006 08:32:22 -0800

Zen Bondage (game, non-sexual, large download (~28 MB), Windows only) [more inside]

Slips of the tongue injurious

fcummins — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 04:13:03 -0800

Slips of the tongue are usually a result of the sound structure of an utterance. For example, saying 'Martin Luther Koong Junior', where the vowel in 'Koong' might be taken from either of the two flanking words. Freudian slips are much rarer. Why then, are these two people losing their jobs? [More inside]

This just in--Starforce still sucks.

graventy — Sat, 11 Mar 2006 18:16:19 -0800

It turns out, in the PC game business, no copy protection doesn't mean everyone pirates your game. This makes some people angry. From the article:

"For example, we were quite disturbed to discover that the company that makes Starforce provided a working URL to a list of pirated GalCiv II torrents. I'm not sure whether what they did was illegal or not, but it's troubling nevertheless and was totally unnecessary."

via digg

Happy 20th birthday, PC virus

Plutor — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 11:03:44 -0800

On January 19, 1986, the first PC virus — Brain — was detected. It was virtually harmless, and the Pakistani creators claim that it was only intended to protect their copyrights. (They did, after all, include their own address and phone number in the machine code.) In the past 20 years, though, both creating viruses and destroying them have become billion-dollar industries.

Blue Screen of Google death?

LondonYank — Tue, 03 Jan 2006 08:49:45 -0800

Google and Wal-Mart to launch the Google Computer [GoogleFilter] - Rumor-merchants around the industry are abuzz with speculation that Google is about to launch a no-frills, $200 networked computer via (ahem) Wal-Mart. They will also announce Google Cubes, media and home automation control devices. Will this be a watershed event or an infamous folly? Film at 11.

Hope me!

WolfDaddy — Mon, 26 Dec 2005 22:04:00 -0800

Having trouble with that new videogame you got for Christmas? Text-only walkthroughs don't do it for you? Then try Stuck Gamer. Video walkthroughs for a pretty good number of games. Including, thanks the Lords of Kobol, Ninja Gaiden.

It's a mouse, sir, not a foot pedal.

brain_drain — Fri, 09 Dec 2005 11:47:10 -0800

Stupid Computer Tricks. Photo array of one computer service employee's favorite customer problems. Don't miss the intense AOL user, the sealed floppy, the floating hard drive, and the extreme case mod.

I'm sorry, Dave, you have been outbid by another user.

Eothele — Fri, 14 Oct 2005 10:17:36 -0800

It is with great regret that we place our PC Collection up for purchase. We being The Freeman PC Museum, not to be confused with any of these. Move over, leicester codex?