PC leader's behaviour raises alarm
March 21st, 2008
here must be something eerily – even horrifyingly – familiar to Ontario Progressive Conservatives in their leader’s behaviour this weekend in London.
In last year’s election, in which he hugely underachieved, there was for the first time a fixed date. For John Tory, there were no surprises. He knew when the buses rolled. His strong suit, by all accounts, was the organization he’d learned in the backrooms and corporate suites. And still his campaign was, by his own acknowledgement, a four-alarm organizational disaster.
Over and over this weekend, Tory insisted he’d learned from that shambles, that preparedness, planning, clarity were his new watchwords. And what happens the first time he gets to prove it?
On Saturday, at the leadership review required after his loss to Premier Dalton McGuinty, Tory won the backing of 66.9 per cent of the 1,308 members who voted.
Astonishingly, when all reasonable expectation was that he would have prepared himself for any outcome and determined in his mind the support he needed to stay, Tory didn’t know what to make of it.
This despite the fact the support he received is the most famous reference point in the history of leadership reviews in Canada, spot on the infamous Joe Clark Threshold.
It was the 66.9 per cent that the former prime minister decided was not good enough to sustain his leadership of the federal party in 1983.
The easy calls are what to do if you get a lot or a little. Tory fell in that teeter-totter zone from which his decision could fairly have gone either way.
Still, one would have thought the first question he and his advisers had asked and answered was what to do if he got the Clark number.
Instead, looking shocked and dispirited, Tory said he needed time to think it over, left the convention hall and appeared headed, so far as his leadership went, for the exit.
Tags: john, teeter
March 21st, 2008 at 5:17 am
Isnt Pacsteam suppose to be a cracked steam where you can download everything for free? I could be wrong but i think i saw it somewhere.But i wont buy a steam game. Steam is like the bastard child of gamespy that is possessed by the devil.
March 21st, 2008 at 6:07 am
I beg to differ. I found that KOTOR was well done on the PC. Now, I’m the only person that I know who has played KOTOR in real life but I found no issues with it and in fact enjoyed it immensely.
March 21st, 2008 at 6:58 am
People are moving to consoles.The videogame is becoming a social, family, group activity. The average age of a gamer is increased. I own my own home, couch and 50″ plasma.My wife and friends will play when we have friends over.The Consoles have grown into well into being well capable of giving a top-notch experience (compared to PCs).PC gaming isnt going anywhere, it will always offer the the lowest barrier to entry for Developers (though, XNA Community may start to change that..).Piracy doesnt help either. These guys need to see return for their tens-of-millions of investment.
March 21st, 2008 at 7:48 am
Epic has been coding console style since unreal tournament. No loss there this is just a we’re “out of the closet” press release.Really PC gaming is looking pretty bleak. I frankly see no difference between consoles and vista, simply put software’s(or software like hardware’s) lack of merchantability, add to that the increased ability to brick software/hardware, is not something I care to fund, if possible.So my only hope is Linux, since I’m sure most major studios won’t develop for XP after MS ordains it so. I had I console when I was a kid, it was an atari. I have friends with consoles, I’ve played games on them, it as step backwards. To claim otherwise is just a delusional rationalizing of a poor purchasing decision.And as far as piracy is concerned, either you’re a turfer or obtuse. Epic’s claim is moot, online game = auth server so where’s the issue again. I suggest what really persuades EPIC is the ignorant consolers that are willing pay for something that came free with PC games.Consoles are all about lowering expectations and more importantly predictable obsolescence of proprietary supply channels.
March 21st, 2008 at 8:39 am
Fuck Epic.<edit>I should probably explain myself, but that really was my emotion response to this. I’ve always thought of Epic as being one of the big-three PC gaming developers (the others being ID and Blizzard) that will always have my respect and my money, because they support multiple platforms, consistently put out brilliant games, and maintain excellent support for their respective communities through interaction, patching work, and the creation of brilliant map-making and modding tools. This, however, feels like a betrayal. Let’s be frank; PC gaming made Epic what it is, and to have it turn tale and say it’s going to be porting to the system that made it great is disturbing to me. PCs aren’t that expensive, nor do they have the ulta-short usefulness lifespans that everyone seems to assume they do, but the nice thing about them is that if I have money to spend, I can maximize my gaming experience by buying the best components I can (plus, I can do a hell of a lot more than gaming on them). I have never encountered a good from-console port, because any optimization is done as an afterthought and a lot of the changes seem forced, and you can bet that the big publishing houses are going to use this secondary support as an excuse not to bother developing for PCs as a primary platform anymore when they use UE4. I don’t want PCs to become second-class citizens, because while consoles have their benefits, they also have significant downsides.</edit>
March 21st, 2008 at 9:29 am
Yes but valve is a pain in the ass. You gotta be on the internet to log in and get on and every time you go play a game it wants to update and sometimes you have to or it wont let you play and bugs the shit out of you. Sometimes i just wanna click a game and open it and play. If i cant play online without logging on so be it but offline it is annoying.