Fry's now flogging the HL2 Collector's Edition for $49.99...

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..... thru Tuesday February 15. See Saturday Ad.

For those who believe that download from $$misers like Valve is the
way to go... I have a message. Should download ever become the only
purchase path for Single-player PC games and the developer/distributor
try to keep the price high for many months (regardless of waning
popularity)... I guarantee that piracy of such games will become
rampant. The inability to readily trade, transfer or re-sell a
Single-player game with Steam-style authentication will give
additional impetus to piracy.

Anyway, it seems as if Fry's are dumping their HL2 Collector's
Editions. The HL2 Collector's Edition has gained some reputation of
having the worst value-for-price in a Collector's Edition of any
recent PC game. Too bad it came out at the same time as the WoW
collector's edition - the quality comparison was unfortunate.... for
Valve. Since VU distributes both games, the source of the quality
difference is obvious - the decisions by the respective developers
as to what to include.

John Lewis

 

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John Lewis wrote:

> .... thru Tuesday February 15. See Saturday Ad.

Ha ha, you're acting like difool.

 

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Walter Mitty wrote:
> John Lewis wrote:
> >
> > Anyway, it seems as if Fry's are dumping their HL2 Collector's
> > Editions. The HL2 Collector's Edition has gained some reputation of
> > having the worst value-for-price in a Collector's Edition of any
> > recent PC game. Too bad it came out at the same time as the WoW
> > collector's edition - the quality comparison was unfortunate....
for
> > Valve.
>
> It must really irk you that HL2 has gathered so many awards and has
sold
> millions of copies to gamers who enjoy good quality, top notch games.
>
> And yet you touted that flop Vampire. So much for your judgement.

Hehe, go Mitty!!

 

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<flightlessvacuum@lycos.com> wrote in message news:1108253860.248606.130840@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
>
> Walter Mitty wrote:
>> John Lewis wrote:
>> >
>> > Anyway, it seems as if Fry's are dumping their HL2 Collector's
>> > Editions. The HL2 Collector's Edition has gained some reputation of
>> > having the worst value-for-price in a Collector's Edition of any
>> > recent PC game. Too bad it came out at the same time as the WoW
>> > collector's edition - the quality comparison was unfortunate....
> for
>> > Valve.
>>
>> It must really irk you that HL2 has gathered so many awards and has
> sold
>> millions of copies to gamers who enjoy good quality, top notch games.
>>
>> And yet you touted that flop Vampire. So much for your judgement.
>
> Hehe, go Mitty!!
>

"Tee-hee, tee-hee-hee. You go Mitty. Don't forget the reach-around."

 

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John Lewis wrote:
>
> Anyway, it seems as if Fry's are dumping their HL2 Collector's
> Editions. The HL2 Collector's Edition has gained some reputation of
> having the worst value-for-price in a Collector's Edition of any
> recent PC game. Too bad it came out at the same time as the WoW
> collector's edition - the quality comparison was unfortunate.... for
> Valve.

It must really irk you that HL2 has gathered so many awards and has sold
millions of copies to gamers who enjoy good quality, top notch games.

And yet you touted that flop Vampire. So much for your judgement.

 

[vinCe]

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"Einstine" wrote

> "Tee-hee, tee-hee-hee. You go Mitty. Don't forget the reach-around."

Is that a type of toothbrush?

 

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"Vince" <vmelia@nospamblueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message news:_nJPd.88759$B8.34667@fe3.news.blueyonder.co.uk...
> "Einstine" wrote
>
>> "Tee-hee, tee-hee-hee. You go Mitty. Don't forget the reach-around."
>
> Is that a type of toothbrush?

I guess it depends on where Walter aims it. You would have to ask Flightlessvacuum.

 

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Einstine wrote:
> "Vince" <vmelia@nospamblueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
news:_nJPd.88759$B8.34667@fe3.news.blueyonder.co.uk...
> > "Einstine" wrote
> >
> >> "Tee-hee, tee-hee-hee. You go Mitty. Don't forget the
reach-around."
> >
> > Is that a type of toothbrush?
>
> I guess it depends on where Walter aims it. You would have to ask
Flightlessvacuum.

....

 

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<flightlessvacuum@lycos.com> wrote in message news:1108361464.050697.274470@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
>
> Einstine wrote:
>> "Vince" <vmelia@nospamblueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:_nJPd.88759$B8.34667@fe3.news.blueyonder.co.uk...
>> > "Einstine" wrote
>> >
>> >> "Tee-hee, tee-hee-hee. You go Mitty. Don't forget the
> reach-around."
>> >
>> > Is that a type of toothbrush?
>>
>> I guess it depends on where Walter aims it. You would have to ask
> Flightlessvacuum.

Looks like he is speechless. Nice aim Walter.

 

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On Sat, 12 Feb 2005, "Hank the Rapper" wrote:

you really don't get John Lewis...
he tries its best but gamers like you will never understand what
he has been trying to proof since the beginning, which is:
the retail channel is the best one for us gamers when it comes
to price!
anything that will make pc games out of the retail channel will
damage us gamers cause we will end up paying more!
don't you get it by now!!!! you end pc games being sold in the
retail market and you will pay more for games!!!!
there can only be a reason for you not wanting to admit and its
you and others don't really care about price and don't mind
having to give 50 or even 60 dollars for a game
you and others don't care about how much you pay for your games
mr hank, but John Lewis and me and the majority does! ok!
the majority of pc gamers are very price sensitive!
so at least try and respect the majority of us gamers who care
about how pc games cost! and we know the retail channel is the
best when it comes to price!

--
post made in a steam-free computer
i said "NO" to valve and steam

against steam campaign
http://nosteam.afterdarknet.at/

steamwatch - independent observatory about steam
http://www.steamwatch.org/

please sign petition "Say NO! to Steam!" available at:
http://www.petitiononline.com/nosteam/petition.html

 

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sayNO2steam wrote:

> you really don't get John Lewis...

Yes I do, he's like you, only literate.

 

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On Sun, 13 Feb 2005, Walter Mitty wrote:

> It must really irk you that HL2 has gathered so many awards and has sold
> millions of copies to gamers who enjoy good quality, top notch games.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Can you please offer us some concrete numbers here? I could never find
any, contrary to the record sale numbers stated for Doom 3 and Halo 2.

> And yet you touted that flop Vampire. So much for your judgement.

Vampire may flop on the sales side, because it wasn't hyped like HL2 and
unfortunately is quite buggy, but gameplay wise it beats HL2 hands down!

If you haven't tried it, you should not make any comments about it. After
all the posts here about SS2 and DX, I do wonder why no one notices VTMB.

--
Werner Spahl (spahl@cup.uni-muenchen.de) Freedom for
"The meaning of my life is to make me crazy" Vorlonships

 

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Werner Spahl wrote:
> On Sun, 13 Feb 2005, Walter Mitty wrote:
>
>
>>It must really irk you that HL2 has gathered so many awards and has sold
>>millions of copies to gamers who enjoy good quality, top notch games.
>
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> Can you please offer us some concrete numbers here? I could never find
> any, contrary to the record sale numbers stated for Doom 3 and Halo 2.
>

The sales numbers of retail units sold were released by someone recently.

>
>>And yet you touted that flop Vampire. So much for your judgement.
>
>
> Vampire may flop on the sales side, because it wasn't hyped like HL2 and
> unfortunately is quite buggy, but gameplay wise it beats HL2 hands down!
>

In your opinion. Not in the opinion of the majority. Example of "hype"?
Hl2 has swept the awards : how can it have been "hype"?

 

[noman]

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On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 14:18:27 +0100, Werner Spahl
<spahl@cup.uni-muenchen.de> wrote:

>On Sun, 13 Feb 2005, Walter Mitty wrote:
>
>> It must really irk you that HL2 has gathered so many awards and has sold
>> millions of copies to gamers who enjoy good quality, top notch games.
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>Can you please offer us some concrete numbers here? I could never find
>any, contrary to the record sale numbers stated for Doom 3 and Halo 2.
>

1.7 million retail copies in two months (up to January 15th). Since
that press release by Vivendi, NPD have released two weekly sales
lists and HL2 continues to stay at #1, ahead of even Sims2.
Considering its $55 MSRP, it's selling phenomenally well.

Search for 'Vivendi 1.7 Half-Life2'. You should be able to find the
press release.
--
Noman

 

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On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 16:28:07 +0100, Walter Mitty
<mitticus@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

>Werner Spahl wrote:
>> On Sun, 13 Feb 2005, Walter Mitty wrote:
>>
>>
>>>It must really irk you that HL2 has gathered so many awards and has sold
>>>millions of copies to gamers who enjoy good quality, top notch games.
>>
>> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>> Can you please offer us some concrete numbers here? I could never find
>> any, contrary to the record sale numbers stated for Doom 3 and Halo 2.
>>
>
>The sales numbers of retail units sold were released by someone recently.
>

On the VUgames website. Did not bookmark the URL, sorry.

Worldwide sales claimed of 1.7 million; no mention as to whether that
included any Steam-download numbers - presumably just the retail
sales. Not a very good result for this super-hyped game. HL1 sold
>3 million copies, afaik. It is highly unlikely that HL2 will exceed
this number, even adding the potential of budget/GOTY editions.
Considering the very expensive delays to HL2 and the (er..)
investment in Steam, I doubt if Valve is going to recover much
more than their development/overhead costs on HL2 sales. They
may be relying on future license revenue from the Source engine and
Steam to fund their on-going projects. On-going Cyber-cafe revenue
from the HL franchise is not likely to add up to much....all too long
in the tooth...

BTW, Halo 2 has exceeded 5 million already..........

and World of Warcraft has reached ~ 1 million in the US, Australia, NZ
<alone> with the assurance of a huge on-going revenue stream from the
monthly subscriptions. Shipments of Wow have been deliberately limited
by Blizzard to permit time to add sufficient server capacity, hence
the delayed European release.

VU will not have to rely on beating the HL2 dead-horse for more
earnings, considering the sales plus monthly-subscription money
now rolling in from WoW.
>>
>>>And yet you touted that flop Vampire. So much for your judgement.
>>
>>
>> Vampire may flop on the sales side, because it wasn't hyped like HL2 and
>> unfortunately is quite buggy, but gameplay wise it beats HL2 hands down!
>>
>
>In your opinion. Not in the opinion of the majority.

.... of game-reviewers ??? About as useful and on-the-money in terms
of their judgement as stock-market analysts....

> Example of "hype"?
>Hl2 has swept the awards : how can it have been "hype"?

.... see above.

John Lewis

 

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John Lewis wrote:

> Worldwide sales claimed of 1.7 million; no mention as to whether that
> included any Steam-download numbers - presumably just the retail
> sales. Not a very good result for this super-hyped game. HL1 sold
>> 3 million copies, afaik.

Is that 3 million to date or 3 million after 3 months (which is how long HL2
has been out)?

 

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On Mon, 14 Feb 2005, Walter Mitty wrote:

> In your opinion. Not in the opinion of the majority. Example of "hype"?
> Hl2 has swept the awards : how can it have been "hype"?

Hype for me is unusual large press coverage and similar before the game is
available. This happened with HL2 a lot and lots of awards and tests shine
by refusing to state obvious weaknesses like it's linearity, lack of cool
weapons, lack of enemy diversity, lack of story, I won't start about the
Steam issue . Fileplanet even has a special menue section for it! Why?

--
Werner Spahl (spahl@cup.uni-muenchen.de) Freedom for
"The meaning of my life is to make me crazy" Vorlonships

 

[Andrew]

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On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 17:52:57 +0100, Werner Spahl
<spahl@cup.uni-muenchen.de> wrote:

>Hype for me is unusual large press coverage and similar before the game is
>available. This happened with HL2 a lot and lots of awards and tests shine
>by refusing to state obvious weaknesses like it's linearity, lack of cool
>weapons, lack of enemy diversity, lack of story, I won't start about the
>Steam issue . Fileplanet even has a special menue section for it! Why?

Much as I love a good non-linear game, I would far rather play a well
crafted linear game like HL2 than a soulless pretend non-linear game
like Far Cry, and you don't consider the gravity gun(s) to be cool?
--
Andrew, contact via interpleb.blogspot.com
Help make Usenet a better place: English is read downwards,
please don't top post. Trim replies to quote only relevant text.
Check groups.google.com before asking an obvious question.

 

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>
> Worldwide sales claimed of 1.7 million; no mention as to whether that
> included any Steam-download numbers - presumably just the retail
> sales. Not a very good result for this super-hyped game. HL1 sold
> >3 million copies, afaik. It is highly unlikely that HL2 will exceed
> this number, even adding the potential of budget/GOTY editions.
> Considering the very expensive delays to HL2 and the (er..)
> investment in Steam, I doubt if Valve is going to recover much
> more than their development/overhead costs on HL2 sales. They
> may be relying on future license revenue from the Source engine and
> Steam to fund their on-going projects. On-going Cyber-cafe revenue
> from the HL franchise is not likely to add up to much....all too long
> in the tooth...
>
> BTW, Halo 2 has exceeded 5 million already..........
>
http://www.ferrago.com/portal/cluster/130132

apparently its now over 6.4 million for Halo 2 according to a site listed on
that url.

 

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Walter Mitty wrote:

> Lack of cool weapons???!!!???
>
> What constitutes "cool" in your book? Icepops?

Hehe Mitty.

The gravgun wasn't cool?

For me that weapon alone was almost worth the price of admission.

 

[Guest]

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Thusly "Les Steel" <a@aolnot.com> Spake Unto All:

>> Worldwide sales claimed of 1.7 million; no mention as to whether that
....
>apparently its now over 6.4 million for Halo 2 according to a site listed on
>that url.

1000x bigger installed base, a far better game, everyone and their
grandmother's played it... and yet Half Life2 is outsold by Halo2 on
the xbox.

Thank piracy for that.

I know I shouldn't care. I know I should just get a console and live
with the shitty controls, shitty resolution, and cutesy graphics, but
it *annoys* me that moron pirates are killing PC gaming. It truly
does.

 

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John Lewis wrote:

> Judging by the number of Sims2 copies lingering on the used shelves
at
> EBX and the very slow post-Christmas retail new-copy sales of that
> title... Sims2 has not exactly been a raging success. So the
> comparison is not a very good one. Exact numbers sold please...
>
> John Lewis

While sales are very important they are not the only measure of success
for a computer game.

What about collecting a whole swag of GOTY awards, remaining popular
through a number of years and becoming a genre defining classic?

 

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Andrew wrote:

> Much as I love a good non-linear game, I would far rather play a well
> crafted linear game like HL2 than a soulless pretend non-linear game
> like Far Cry, and you don't consider the gravity gun(s) to be cool?

Very well put.

 

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John Lewis wrote:
> A FPS with some reasonably polished graphics and a weapons gimmick
> or two....a genre-defining classic ? No truly original game-play or
> story-line ideas there.
>
> HL1 was original in terms of its premise and story-line and the
> execution was superb, considering the available PC technology.
>
> Not so HL2. Disappointingly old-fashioned game-linearity with
> corridor-shooter-quality AI, and as for the rag-doll physics,
> have you ever played BF1942 ?
>
> HL2 is a glaringly milk-the-franchise product, just like Doom3.
> Certainly no classic.

True, HL2 was never going to be original because it is by definition a
sequel to HL1. Valve would have been foolish (IMO) to have deviated too
much from the HL1 formula.

Valve obviously did listen to opinions of HL1 because they've removed
Xen and based it around the soldier combat and also reduced the jumping
puzzles (aguably replaced by the physics puzzles). Key elements of HL1
almost *had* to be retained, namely the crowbar, HEV suit, zombies and
headcrabs. For new stuff, we now see more open air maps that were
necessarily lacking in HL1 (technical reasons), vehicles, (limited)
squad combat and - the big draw - the physics engine. The latter is
used to excellent effect.

They've tried to give us some new experiences without straying too far
from what made the original good.

I think the criticism of "no sniper rifle" is weak. Every FPS has a
sniper rifle. Isn't it time we had something different, like a silent
sniping weapon?

HL2 GOTY? Personally I think not this time. Certainly in contention,
but edged out by Far Cry for me.

 

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Werner Spahl wrote:
> On Mon, 14 Feb 2005, Walter Mitty wrote:
>
>
>>In your opinion. Not in the opinion of the majority. Example of "hype"?
>>Hl2 has swept the awards : how can it have been "hype"?
>
>
> Hype for me is unusual large press coverage and similar before the game is
> available. This happened with HL2 a lot and lots of awards and tests shine
> by refusing to state obvious weaknesses like it's linearity, lack of cool
> weapons, lack of enemy diversity, lack of story, I won't start about the
> Steam issue . Fileplanet even has a special menue section for it! Why?
>

Lack of cool weapons???!!!???

What constitutes "cool" in your book? Icepops?