Jan 18, 2008, 08:49 PM
Halo was a horrible example, by the way. I still can't tell the difference between the first and the second (except for a couple multiplayer modes and weapons)
in fact, all of your examples were sort of lacking.
in all of those examples they have actually changed the base product in order to make it better. (computers got better, half life and sourceop got a completely new engine,)
as for my beef with office, I know they add some functional differences, but at the price tags they are tacking onto these, for the few differences there actually are, it is ridiculous. I mean, the only real difference in Word07 boils down to a fancy skin (wow, a 'ribbon' that helps me use features that I can easily have just searched for in a help file, that is worth the extra 100$)
and I'm not claiming that these gimmicks don't evolve into worthwhile features after a while, they just don't have enough backing them when they are first released (if you can remember the first versions of spell check)
with software, a gimmick is essentially something that could have easily been released in a patch, but the company is full of giant whores.
in fact, all of your examples were sort of lacking.
in all of those examples they have actually changed the base product in order to make it better. (computers got better, half life and sourceop got a completely new engine,)
as for my beef with office, I know they add some functional differences, but at the price tags they are tacking onto these, for the few differences there actually are, it is ridiculous. I mean, the only real difference in Word07 boils down to a fancy skin (wow, a 'ribbon' that helps me use features that I can easily have just searched for in a help file, that is worth the extra 100$)
and I'm not claiming that these gimmicks don't evolve into worthwhile features after a while, they just don't have enough backing them when they are first released (if you can remember the first versions of spell check)
with software, a gimmick is essentially something that could have easily been released in a patch, but the company is full of giant whores.
/sarcasm