The internet: parting fools from their money since... forever

PaulC and I had a conversation about some shadiness on the part of Zynga, the developer of Farmville. He sent me this article from techcrunch. Read it first or I don't care what you think.

Okay. I'm not saying anyone is right or wrong, with the exception of the author of this article, who is an asshole. I have personally been fooled into spending money on several of these offers, and I can say with no doubt that every dollar I gave them was because I was stupid, not because I was tricked. Every offer (exactly like those on Farmville) said exactly how much the subscription or service would cost if I didn't cancel it within the trial period.

This guy did no research except to look at the links in the Farmville game client, which link to the actual offers, which ALL state clearly what will happen when you input your credit card information. He's inventing a conspiracy where none exists. If you're stupid enough to give the internet your credit card and/or phone number, you deserve to have your money taken away from you. I am right. I have no sympathy for people who claim to have been "scammed" because they are stupid. That being said, it has happened to me. I paid for a two-month subscription to Blockbuster and a three-month subscription to Stamp.com to get a free iPod. But I didn't get it. Did I cry about it? no. I said "well, that was stupid," and didn't do it again when they offered a free XBox.

This is nothing new. It's probably the oldest "scam" (I put "scam" in "quotes" because a friend of mine in high school actually did get a free xbox. Twice.) on the internet. This isn't going to be the end of the world that this fear-monger is predicting. It's not going to mutate or evolve into... anything. It's making oodles of money for a few people. If they get greedy and try to make more money off it, it won't work anymore. Just like that guy who was skimming a nickel a month from every account at some bank. Then he got greedy and started skimming a dime a month. Then people started asking questions and he got caught.

Again, I'm not saying anybody is doing anything wrong, except the fear-monger who wrote this article. I'm just saying I have no problem with somebody who's smart enough to separate a fool from his money, having been the fool on at least one occasion.

I get that it's "wrong" that Zynga takes money from "shady" advertising firms. But the bottom line is people give out their credit card info and phone numbers when they should know better, and when they are plainly told what will happen. Nobody gets mad at the guy who invented the pet rock. They think he's a genius because he thought of a way to get people to give him money and give them nothing in return.

Anybody reading this have leather seats in their car? How much extra did you pay for them? People don't like car dealers in general, but you don't get mad when you pay extra for leather seats, which do nothing useful and unless you're naked feel the same as cloth seats. If you are naked, they feel great. Until you shift in your seat the slightest bit. Then you get your skin ripped off. While it may be obvious how I feel from the tone of this post, I am not saying anybody (other than the asshole who wrote the above-linked article) is right or wrong. Just stupid. And while I won't say that Zynga is without blame, this article is an obvious and shameless smear attempt, behind which is almost no research and even less relevance.

Whenever I hear somebody complain about someone making money off other people's stupidity, I want to punch them in the boob. There are scams and there are scams. Lying to someone to got their money is a scam. Making the title of your advertisement make people want to give you money is called "marketing." I don't care what the link text was. If you don't read the website before submitting... No. If you click a link on a website and give them your credit card info, you are a retard and you deserve to have your money taken away from you for your own protection.

PS I just noticed that there is a later post explaining that Zynga has "admitted" that one third of their revenue comes from "lead gen and other offers." A third post says they have committed to cleaning up those offers. This is not an admission of guilt. It's a choice by Zynga to avoid a PR disaster. Just wanted to pre-empt that argument.

Google Voice

Coolest phone toy ever. No kidding. I’ll never have to change my phone number again. PaulC invited me to Google Voice today, and I’ve done nothing but play with it for the past three hours.

Google Voice gives me a phone number (which I choose), and allows me to forward the calls to any phone number I want. It also has its own voicemail, WITH TRANSCRIPTS!! Forget paying for Verizon’s visual voicemail. Get it free from Google. I can setup custom voicemail greetings for all of my contacts (imported directly from my Gmail account), or I can put them in groups and assign a message to each group. I can even choose to always dump certain contacts or groups to voicemail.

My Google Voice number can receive SMS and forward them to my phone, or to my e-mail, or just keep them in my Google Voice inbox. It’s fantastic.

Also, you will notice the new widget over to the right. If you click it, it asks you your name and phone number. Google Voice then calls you and dumps you to my voicemail (which I then receive as an e-mail and an SMS). This widget has its very own personalized voicemail greeting.

So cool. Oh. And I can place a call from my web browser. I think. Haven’t tried that yet. I think that’s everything. I’ll post in the comments if I discover something else it does. Or PaulC will get there first.

Go Team Venture!!!

So here are the Team Venture pics I promised. I’d like to have better ones, and I’d like to tweak the twins a bit, but I haven’t figured out how yet. I will though. And I’ll have pics of Brock soon as well. Then I’m going to make Dr. Mrs. The Monarch. Enjoy!

View Full Album

If somebody can’t view the album from that link, comment and I’ll do something about it.

If anybody else bought Sims 3, Brock and the Ventures are available here and here.

The Sims 2: Re… Priced

So I was at the mall today for a follow-up with my optometrist (yep. My eye doctor is in the mall), and I finally broke down and bought The Sims 3. I’ve been excited about it for a while, and I decided today was the day.

So I got home and installed it on Kerry’s Vaio while watching George Lazenby muddle through the most boring Bond movie ever (seriously. That dude gets a bad rap. That movie was terrible and he did a damn fine job with very little to work with). My first order of business after installing the game: create Team Venture.

So I did. I started with Rusty (who looks amazing, if I say so myself), and cloned him (pun intended) as a starting point for the twins (who look less awesome, but are easily identifiable as themselves). That was a horribly rewarding experience (photos will follow). It was easy, and it was fun. Then I started playing the game.

After playing the game for a full ten minutes (at least twice the amount of time I need to established a fully-formed opinion of any game), I have little good to say about it.

It's only barely an upgrade from Sims 2. Sim creation = better. Sims look more polished, and finally custom colors are available right from the start. In Sims 2, you had to use a separate application to create custom hair/clothing colors and save them as textures to open in the game. You really needed to have some know-how. In Sims 3, there is a full color palette available every step of the way. Props to EA for implementing that.

But I still can't import and export easily. Specifically, I can't create a family and export a single sim from it without a work-around.

Stuff available for your sims to buy out-of-the-box (clothing, furniture, etc.) = WAY less. Sims 2 had “tons” of options for both clothing and decorating. The number of options in this new game can best be described in one word: “some.”

Graphics = mildly improved.

If all the other stuff I'm reading in the forums is true, this game is really more of a downgrade than an upgrade.

But my biggest beef? I was really looking forward to having more and better clothing options than in previous games. Better? Perhaps. More? Hell no. I paid fifty bucks for this game, and now EA wants me to pay another hundred to unlock all the content that came standard with Sims 2. Shameless gouging is what that is. I won't be doing that.Thank God for pirates.

Bottom line, this is The Sims 2: Re-Polished and Bug-Free. With all the content taken out. Based on the improvement between Sims and Sims 2, this game is an enormous disappointment. Sims 2 added so much depth to the game, and this adds almost no functionality and subtracts so much content.

Just like they did with Command & Conquer, EA has destroyed a beautiful franchise by watering it down for the masses and then over-charging for it.