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No, the problem is that the video gaming hobby is becoming a sacrifice of digital freedom and ownership, and involves bedding in with powers that you wouldn't necessarily want to. There's nothing wrong with video gaming itself, but people are turning away from them (at least on certain platforms) due to other affected principles.

Yahtzee said it best. Paraphrased, originally referring to the upcoming console games, "It would not be providing access to something I want; it would be holding something I want hostage."

Is MSFT gonna buy out all the ISPs? If not then who cares, the combination of shitty service and bandwidth caps will make this a non starter for a good 70%+ of the population if the states I've been to are any indication.

As Jim Sterling points out MSFT is pretty much giving the finger to everybody that doesn't have 1.-A ton of money and 2.- Incredible broadband, but the very same people that are left already have better devices to do the same thing such as gaming PCs, smart TVs, its the same stupid as hell strategy they did when pricing the Surface and that worked out real well didn't it?

Looking at these next gens I can see two positives, 1.- It'll make guys like me that sell and build affordable gaming PCs a LOT of money and 2.- With any luck the crackers will break this thing and then when MSFT can't give the damned things away because nobody wants their DRM-paloza we can pick 'em up and crack them and make halfway decent HTPCs out of the things like we did the original Xbox One.

But as far as an upside for the consumer? Sorry, not seeing one. Hell anybody with a PC less than 5 years old can pick up an HD4850 for like $40 and be able to play pretty much any game out there, most with medium to high settings thanks to how long the consoles have held back the PC and by Xmas I expect to see the HD7750 if not the HD7770 for less than $65 and those on average are 40% faster than the 4850 while using half the power.

Lets face it PC gaming has never been cheaper, heck AMD quads have been going for just $50 online, and thanks to there being competition on both the hardware and the software the price is going down all the time. Now you can buy games from Steam,GOG,D2D,Origin,Desura, box games from Amazon, with so much competition you can have more games than you can ever play for practically nothing AND you get online MP for free AND there are literally thousands of FTP games to choose from...lets face it, all MSFT is doing is making going to the PC a better choice. YOU control the hardware, YOU control the software, YOU choose whom to buy what from, its just a better experience now that MSFT has taken all the positives away from the console.

IIRC, in Vegas gaming machine makers are required to write code that doesn't overtly cheat the gambler. As in, if the jackpot reaches astronomical size, the machine doesn't change the odds UNLESS that is the game, and everyone knows it. Which for video slots is not the game. the odds are supposed to stay the
same.

Haven't there been some court cases over whether software bugs could be used to recover unexpected winnings, after the gaming commission certified that the software was fair?

Oh. This, and an example of the casino, saying 'sorry, mistake, no jackpot for you'. the comments for this story include references to some classic 'outs', like disclaimers etc.

I'll just leave this here: Why Boycotts Fail Where Whining Tantrums Win.

the "new" endings to me3 are just as shitty as the old ones. just a little longer and underlining more precisely that yes, they wrote the script to be stupid(as to shut up some creative types who had came up with more sensible explanations for the last 5 minutes).

I'll just leave this here: Why Boycotts Fail Where Whining Tantrums Win.

Code Hero dev is a lying scammer

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.395980-Code-Hero-Kickstarter-Goes-Bad-UPDATED

and thousands of articles just google: Code Hero scam

There is already a lawsuit forming against the scammer

Ben Croshaw (aka Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation) also does an admirable job; to the point of questioning how video games can achieve the status of art when so many AAA producers refuse to break away from bad television cliches.

Back on topic, never having known the man (Roger Ebert, that is), I'm still saddened by his passing. He was a standard in his field -- and always appeared to approach his task with professionalism and genuine integrity. Regardless of whether I agreed or disagreed with his final view, I managed to respect him for his efforts.

Oh and one thing I forgot to address was your question on cheating? Punkbusters. Pretty much all the games that aren't cooked up in a garage uses it and it works quite well, if you try to cheat your ass will get the banhammer but quick. Honestly I haven't seen any obvious cheating in years, oh sure you'll get some that use behavior that many consider lame, just watch the Call Of Duty Circus to see some of the lame things like the "sniper spin" but that isn't actual cheating, that is just dumb game mechanics. I prefer to use masher revolvers in BL because while you can find guns with higher damage because of the way they designed critical hits if you are good at headshots the masher can be a monster.

Anyway as I said if you actually want one I'll be happy to point you in the right direction. Frankly if you are older than 12 and can follow picture directions YOU can build a Tiger kit, they literally come with pictures that hold your hand through every step of the way. If you want casual only? Bobcat. want more of the HT in the HTPC than gaming? The Liano and those of its kind with built in midrange GPUs can be useful for this while saving money, and if you want a monster, one that will last you for years with plenty of upgrade room down the line? get a hexacore, not only are the chips cheap but you can go up to an octocore later if you wish and most of the boards support 16GB-32GB of RAM, more than you will ever need for gaming.

To give you an idea how long you can go I've been gaming for 3+ years on the same $50 HD4850 card, I'll be changing it for an HD7770 when the 8 series comes out as they'll be around $70 then, my board can hold 16GB but since its DDR 2 I'll probably just stick with the 8GB its got now (not that I've found a game that can use its 8GB and need more yet) and maybe pick up an AM3+ board in a year or two to max out the OS at 16GB.

I'll admit I made a few boo boos when i built this one, I went with Win 7 Home because I was able to get it for $40, I should have spent the extra and got Pro but to be fair I didn't see any point in having more than 8GB of RAM and other than just to say you have it? Not really any point now, its just so cheap you might as well get the big sticks anyway. And I should have went with a DDR 3 board two years ago when i went from quad to hexa but again to be fair I was able to get a damn nice gamer board with Crossfire capability and lots of nifty extras for just $45 by sticking with DDR 2 and I already had the 8GB of RAM so I just didn't see a point in adding a good $100+ to the cost just to add more memory down the line. Hell I can still pick up 4GB DDR 2 sticks when I happen to trip over them and can put the max RAM the OS will take with the board I have now so its not really affecting me, its just something I would have done differently if I had to do it over because i could have gotten RAM even cheaper.

But frankly this Thuban just curbstomps any game I throw at it, in fact I'll often be playing a game WHILE burning a DVD or transcoding a video and since I keep the OS and the game files on separate drives it never slows down. Rather than go through all the bullshit of migration I'm just gonna add a cheap 32GB or 64GB SSD as a caching drive in a few months but even without it honestly I have more power than i know what to do with so I can easily see this PC still gaming in 2020 when Win 7 goes EOL. Considering that I paid less than $550 for a PC with 3TB of space, 8GB of RAM, dual burners including Lightscribe on the top one (I just love Lightscribe, it makes my DVDs and CDs just nicer to hand out), an HD4850, Win 7 Home and 10 USB ports? I really can't complain, everyone that sees it says "Man that is a VERY nice computer you have there" and it just runs like a champ, its just nice to have everything at my fingertips..ya know?

Besides lets be honest folks...its an HTPC. Both MSFT and Sony have gone with low power HTPC chips from AMD...so why not just build an HTPC and have control of the system?

Hell you can buy a nice AMD Hexacore for $300 that will curbstomp the chip in the Sony and MSFT consoles, just slap whatever GPU you prefer (If you want to save money the HD4850s are dirt cheap and play most games at 1080P and med/high settings, spend a little more you can get the HD7770 and double the memory and boost the performance by 50%) and whatever OS suits your fancy, I prefer Win 7 but on an HTPC Windows 8 actually works nice as those big ass tiles are easy to hit with a remote and since Valve has ported Steam Linux is always an option, and unlike the consoles its YOURS, want multiple OSes? RUN IT. Want to buy games from a dozen different vendors? DO IT. Nobody has control over the hardware but YOU.

I could understand the consoles in the past because it was hard to hook a PC to a TV for the average Joes and the consoles used exotic chips that gave them advantages in some areas...but its an AMD Jaguar folks, a bog standard X86 netbook chip, all they did was bolt 2 jaguar quads together and there ya go. I built a system just like the one linked for my oldest and it just blows through games like they were nothing WHILE playing his tunes AND having his chat running AND his browser loaded in the background, it never bogs down. And hooking a PC to a TV is as simple as an HDMI cable now, my mom could do it, it will detect the TV and do all the setup and Bob's your uncle. And if you want the little case? They make VCR looking cases you can use if that is what melts your butter but I've built several HTPCs and when folks see how nice the new cases look they usually just skip the HTPC case.

So I don't get it this time, like Jim Sterling said about the current consoles they are just crappy PCs with all the hassles like long updates and online passes but none of the upsides like cheaper prices and better MP...so why? Its not like you can't plug a wireless controller into a PC, Valve has big picture mode now which makes driving with a wireless thumbstick or remote easy peasy, the games are cheaper, MP lasts longer, hell you can still fire up Counterstrike Classic and be blasting away with dozens of folks inside of 4 minutes, and the best reason it leaves YOU in control of your system, so why? Why get worse prices and all the BS from Sony and MSFT along with gimped hardware? The sad part is when MSFT and Sony move to the Xbox 5 and PS5 they'll abandon the systems but thanks to DMCA they'll make sure nobody can just put out a simple unlock so all that bog standard X86 hardware will be dumpster bait...why put up with that?

No prob on the formatting, and I'm glad that Linux works for you, made me want to pull my damned hair out. Since you are on Linux you might want to try QTWeb which is what I used when I was cross platform, built in adblock and privacy mode as well as Flash support, its nice.

As for Infinite it sounds like it'll be my cup o' tea, but first I have to pick up Borderlands II (waiting for them to get finished putting out DLC and lvl cap boosts) because that is the first time since Bioshock I've had the AI give me a really good fight. First time I ran into a large Skag nest and saw the small ones hitting my front and sides while the big guys ran off I thought "Where are they going? Nooo, you don't think?" and sure enough I turned around just in time to get a 3D up close view of a giant Skag mouth about to use my head like a giant Pez dispenser. My youngest HATES first person shooters but after watching me play it 5 minutes he was like "You know, that really looks like fun" and now he is hooked.

No splicers and Little Sisters kinda sucks though, those are just so iconic. BTW if you haven't heard Little Sister by Miracle of Sound check it out, why they don't hire this guy to write the themes for some of the games is beyond me. His songs for Borderlands and Left For Dead as especially catchy, I have caught my oldest singing them into his mike as we are playing MP, I warn you they are catchy and stick in your head!

So is this review still accurate for the new Bioshock?

I think people are overcomplicating this departure. I'd be surprised if it had the slightest thing to do with the latest upsets involving the company (SimCity and Real Racing 3). Rather, I think the share price decline - and hence the departure - is being driven by one very simple thing.

spunkgargleweewee

Forget all the "free to play" and "pay to win" crap. Investors know where the money in gaming is right now. It's in spunkgargleweewee. They look at Activision's profits from Call of Duty and think "I want a bit of that".

Until late last year, EA had a story to tell on this. The Medal of Honor reboot did ok. Not brilliantly, but ok. It got a foot in the door. Battlefield 3 did a bit more than that. It did quite well; it got a lot of the casual spunkgargleweewee drinker crowd playing because it tickled their tastebuds and it got a good degree of core-game interest because it was clear that the tech powering it was likely to be the starting point for the next console generation.

But then Medal of Honor: Warfighter happened. Crap marketing. Crap game. Profoundly negative appeal (for all sorts of cultural reasons) to the non-US market. Critical disaster. Commercial disaster.

Suddenly, EA no longer has a story to tell its investors on spunkgargleweewee. In this most important of markets, the graph no longer trends upwards.

That, more than anything else, will be what has driven this. Not proactive consumer boycotts. Not online protests. But the fact that their spunkgargleweewee ended up as a disappointment.

Allow me to say that this is further proof that VOTING WITH YOUR DOLLARS WORKS and it works VERY well, its just not magical or instant.

Remember folks this is NOT just about SImcity, its about how under his watch sales have gone down as he ran off more and more customers with douchebag behavior, from gouging on DLC to bad DRM schemes to bad services like Origin John Riccitiello has done for EA what Steve Ballmer has done for MSFT, run it into the ground. And I'm proud to say many folks have voted with their wallets and refused to buy these "DRMapaloza" games that treat the customer as a criminal, just look at how hard Activision and Ubisoft had their sales hit for this kind of shit, with Ubisoft going so far as to remove it from their games and apologize for it.

So just don't buy products that treat you like crap, vote with your wallet and you CAN change things, just not overnight. EA under John Riccitiello has been widely derided for bad behavior so its really no surprise that people voted with their wallets, we need to continue to refuse to buy products that treat us like crap. As long as D3 is always online I won't have it, i instead bought my friends and family Torchlight II instead, I refuse to buy any game that treats me badly and encourage everyone to do the same as we CAN make a difference, it just takes time.

And where, other than in the rantings of outraged geeks who are find almost every capitalistic move that a large company might make offensive, and so cannot be trusted to be detached enough from these events to report upon them in an unbiased manner, do you find anyone who is reputable suggesting the two events are causally connected?

EA's already stated that they believe that the extreme outrage that was recently expressed about their practices was just a very "vocal minority", and not a reflection of the true direction that today's market is heading for... which does not suggest they are a company that genuinely thinks they had made any real mistakes.

Show me an official statement, from the company, or an otherwise objectively issued report that states that was the reason for it, and I'll buy it. But so far, it sounds like just another conspiracy theory to me... one built on nothing more than wishful thinking.

Go find me the professional gamer making the league minimum in any professional sport.

In 2010 the Starcraft player Lim Yo-Hwan had an annual salary of $400,000 + $90,000 in endorsements.
For Major League Soccer the minimum salary is $40,000.

This doesn't mean that your entire point is wrong but don't use arguments that can be refuted within a minute of googling.
I also recommend that you try to be less of an ass when you don't provide sources.

Ironically all the fanbois who have made arguments in favor of blocking used games use the "Its no different than Steam!" argument without being willing to accept games are MUCH cheaper on the PC than they are on console and those prices tend to drop a LOT quicker. This is why I don't care about first sale rights when it comes to Steam games as on average I paid less than $15 a pop, many under $7, so what would the resale be? 50c? A buck?

But frankly with the console manufacturers and developers adopting the worst aspects of PC gaming like online passes and long path times without the good like long term MP support and cheaper prices I'm just glad I was able to get my 2 boys off of the consoles. I built the youngest an AMD triple while the oldest got an AMD 6 core from his grandfather so they both have plenty of power and will be able to game for years with nothing more than the occasional $75 GPU upgrade and the MUCH lower prices on steam has easily made them gaming on the PC the cheaper option.

I have a feeling if Sony and MSFT kill first sale we may see another console crash like we saw in 84 as the console gamers I know use trade ins to afford more triple A games and without those trade ins they wouldn't buy a fifth of what they do now. With Steam offering more games than ever and HDMI making it so simple your grandma could hook a PC to a TV maybe its time for yet another PC gaming golden age.

All I know is their stupid DRM has made me say goodbye to the consoles because I just can't stand throwing away hardware which could be re-used but would require a mod chip and soldering iron just to use. i hung onto both my original Xbox and Dreamcast long after those systems were EOL precisely because they had other uses, the Dreamcast made a great emulator and the Xbox made a great SD home theater. If they kill first sale on top of all the other hassles like locked down hardware, higher prices and MP that seems to die a week after the next thing comes out? I have a feeling I won't be the only one passing on these systems. After all both the Xbox Next and PS4 are just PCs with hardware DRM, why not just skip the DRM part and get a cheap PC?

Cool song and since you like stuff off the beaten path right back at ya..kickin tunes. This guy is good enough I bought a lot of his singles and now listen to them in my truck, be sure to check out "life in bullet time" "breaking down the borders" "Binary divide" and "The dead don't shuffle (they run)". Hell most of his stuff is completely different from each other and kickin!

Anyway glad I was able to help get the MSFT server thing straightened out, I was lucky enough to have a teacher that loved demonstrations and one of his first was a little "Why won't this PC hook to the Internet" test where it turned out he had simply unplugged the router. So many started tearing into Windows that nobody thought to ask such a basic question but that was the point, we geeks are so used to dealing with the big problems we rarely think about the little things that can cause just as many headaches.

Wow, thought you were joking for a second but I see it is indeed true.
http://www.diffchecker.com/h14Uhs74
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/122119-Valves-Newell-Issues-Firings-Statement

Looks like Valve is focusing on the Steam Box + Linux.

I agree with MovieBob.
He's already got two of the biggest sci-fi franchises of all time. JJ Abrams missed the wonder and universal good will inherent in all other Star Trek movies, and turned it into a mediocre action flick. WTF were water pipes doing in the engineering room? It was stupid, existing only for a hardly humorous plot device. Transporting at Warp Speed, DESTROYING a tenet of the Star Trek Universe, simply because the movie wrote itself into a corner?! Spock and Uhura? It's Pon Farr 24/7 now? I mean damn, I'm surprised Spock didn't have a romantic interlude with his future self as some Abramsian loop hole in the mating rituals. RED MATTER?! What the hell is that crap? No explanation, it's a pointless mcguffin -- not even an ounce of pseudo-scientific techno-babble: In a ST movie that had multiple time travelers, not a word of tachyons.

No surprise that since Abrams demonstrated his ability to destroy planets he's got himself appointed master of the Death Stars as well. Must this be the era of samey sci-fi? Oh damn, the philistines will finally be right! "What movie are you watching?" "Who cares, it's science fiction, they're all basically the same."

You know what? Screw it. I'm done with franchise recycling. The movie could have been great if it had been in any other universe, why borrow existing playgrounds to stomp in? Is Hollywood really that hard up for ideas? I wasn't pleased when they mined comic books for plot and mindshare. I actually will watch movies with NEW characters. There's no reason to lobotomize and reprogram the old ones. May the gods not ever let Hollywood learn of series such as Steins;Gate, especially not JJ!

Well I think you are wrong on MSFT, not that investor panic might get Ballmer booted from the big chair, that is possible (although I am not sure if its even possible to "boot Ballmer" as I don't know how his and Gates shares are set up, if like Brin and Page they have supervoting shares or just regular shares) but the part I seriously doubt is them getting out of consoles.

The Xbox line has been profitable for a couple of years now, the XBL income is a steady revenue and from all reports the hardware for the Xbox Next is already a done deal which means contracts for the hardware have already been signed, this would make pulling out more costly than its worth. A much more likely scenario is that the guy brought in to right the ship spinning off mobile and Bing to sink or swim on their own while going back to a more traditional model when it comes to the core OS and then selling services on top ala IBM. The Xbox next would play well into that strategy as it allows them to make deals with content providers to sell services to console users as well as giving them a way to further connect the PC and the Xbox, media extenders and the like.

Now with Blizzard I agree but I don't know if it will take WoW or CoD going tits up to deal a serious blow, after all they have put a LOT of money into the D3 real money market and as we saw with PSN the hackers can cause some serious damage to your brand if they get into the right spots. Imagine some hacker group like Anon getting the CC numbers from the D3 RMM or finding a way to dupe a bunch of high level items and flooding the market? Frankly it wouldn't take much to spook off gamers and the clean up costs can be enormous for something like that.

But my money is still on EA, if its one thing Riccitiello has shown us is that EA has a knack for pissing people off and they seem to be one of the worst for taking an IP and running it into the ground. so honestly I really wouldn't be surprised if EA sinks $150 million plus into some "WoW killer" or "CoD Killer" and then trying to pull a Resident Evil 6 and make it cover every damned demographic that your average PHB can fit into a PPT slide they just cock the whole thing up.

But when a company the size of THQ can end up broken to pieces on the auction block I'd say anything can happen so the next few years ought to be interesting if nothing else.

Well I think you are wrong on MSFT, not that investor panic might get Ballmer booted from the big chair, that is possible (although I am not sure if its even possible to "boot Ballmer" as I don't know how his and Gates shares are set up, if like Brin and Page they have supervoting shares or just regular shares) but the part I seriously doubt is them getting out of consoles.

The Xbox line has been profitable for a couple of years now, the XBL income is a steady revenue and from all reports the hardware for the Xbox Next is already a done deal which means contracts for the hardware have already been signed, this would make pulling out more costly than its worth. A much more likely scenario is that the guy brought in to right the ship spinning off mobile and Bing to sink or swim on their own while going back to a more traditional model when it comes to the core OS and then selling services on top ala IBM. The Xbox next would play well into that strategy as it allows them to make deals with content providers to sell services to console users as well as giving them a way to further connect the PC and the Xbox, media extenders and the like.

Now with Blizzard I agree but I don't know if it will take WoW or CoD going tits up to deal a serious blow, after all they have put a LOT of money into the D3 real money market and as we saw with PSN the hackers can cause some serious damage to your brand if they get into the right spots. Imagine some hacker group like Anon getting the CC numbers from the D3 RMM or finding a way to dupe a bunch of high level items and flooding the market? Frankly it wouldn't take much to spook off gamers and the clean up costs can be enormous for something like that.

But my money is still on EA, if its one thing Riccitiello has shown us is that EA has a knack for pissing people off and they seem to be one of the worst for taking an IP and running it into the ground. so honestly I really wouldn't be surprised if EA sinks $150 million plus into some "WoW killer" or "CoD Killer" and then trying to pull a Resident Evil 6 and make it cover every damned demographic that your average PHB can fit into a PPT slide they just cock the whole thing up.

But when a company the size of THQ can end up broken to pieces on the auction block I'd say anything can happen so the next few years ought to be interesting if nothing else.

This is why I gotta agree with Jim Sterling who says consoles are just crappy PCs because instead of consoles embracing the good parts of PCs, lower prices, faster refreshes, they have adopted the absolute worst aspects of the PC, the DRM, lots of patches, and added shitty on top like lousy MP (which in the case of the X360 you actually pay for) and prices staying higher for longer. As he points out there really isn't any upsides to the consoles anymore, even a low end PC can do better graphics while lowering your cost for games by a pretty damned large amount.

Reminds me of the cancer cure for (much of) cancer. This one was even on The news

But they do have an obligation when they're claiming to be an impartial review journal.

But I suppose we can cut them some slack. It's not like this has ever happened with a CBS Interactive property before -- oh, wait.

That's why demo discs and eventually demo downloads via PSN became commonplace.

I'm aware of these. But demo downloads help the case for open platforms as much as they help the case for closed platforms. In either case, the market has changed since 1984.

They simply don't want every basement dweller who thinks he's the next Shigeru Miyamoto putting his unimaginative crap without a graphics person or music composer on their system. [...] unless you're part of a team, you're not ready.

I'm aware that by myself, I'm not ready to compete with AAA games. But it appears to take experience to get experience, and I'm trying to find a good way to begin. I imagine that getting someone to fly me out to Seattle will require building a portfolio on at least some platform. How should a programmer with a draft design document organize a team to make a game for a portfolio in order to get a job offer from the establishment?

They want pro-level stuff.

What harm does it do, specifically, to make amateur games available? The harm was easier to see in the retail era when including one game on a shelf meant another game got left off, when reviews were in magazines that cost money, and when it wasn't as easy to get a taste of a particular game risk-free. The market has changed since then: reviews are on ad-supported or fan-run web sites, and players can try the demo for a game on an open platform before buying.

Sure IOS/Androidand XBLIG have lower barriers but have you SEEN the games....most of them aren't even up to PSone or PSP standards.

I haven't seen XBLIG just yet, but I have seen a bit of the mobile selection. True, there's a lot of obvious 90 percent, but not everything is crap. Nor does a retraux art style necessarily equal crap; not all people buying "snack size" games require scope and graphical detail comparable to a PlayStation disc game. Otherwise, the alleged Metal Storm knockoff with C64-esque graphics known as VVVVVV wouldn't have sold. Perhaps playing on grown-up gamers' nostalgia for the atmosphere of third and fourth generation games is a good way for a new developer to build experience. And if the concern is end users' perception of the effort needed to find a diamond in the rough, that's what free demos and third-party review sites are for.

It's a haven for two guys in a garage to release a ton of derivative me-too crap.

It's not as if the established studios don't engage in the same me-too practices, just with bigger production values and bigger marketing budgets. The market hasn't exactly changed. There's Call of Duty, Call of Duty by another name, Call of Duty by another name, sequels to Call of Duty, the other parallel franchise also called Call of Duty... One thing I've learned is that violent first-person shooters are a played-out genre.

And piracy is rampant!

I've read that playing infringing copies was fairly easy with the double swap trick on the PlayStation and the knife trick on the PlayStation 2, but they still won their respective generations. It's not that all players pay; it's that enough players pay to make an attractive return on investment. Some developers have realized this and returned to the free-trial model or even making most of the game free except for a few cosmetic items. Ultimately, as Gabe N. pointed out, widespread use of infringing copies is a service problem.

those who could afford it jumped ot the C64 (and other computers) but there were plenty who couldn't. (Remember, a full c64 system cost the dquivalent of a few thousand dollars) Then the NES hit and it was cheaper than the C64

I can accep

For all of you that feel that way (and I personally agree) you might enjoy this rant by Jim Sterling at the Escapist that we have entered into this black is white land where while PCs are getting better, less DRM, cheaper prices, the consoles are getting worse as they seem to embrace the worst parts of PC gaming, long downloads, online passes and other crap,but without the lower prices, cheaper DLC, or in the case of Xbox free MP.

Who cares? Let's just post big lists of web comics so we can all click and read and woohooooo!

Beyond the obvious (XKCD, Penny Arcade, Dilbert, The Oatmeal) there are at least these:

http://amultiverse.com/
http://www.virtualshackles.com/
http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/comics/critical-miss.latest
http://chainsawsuit.com/
http://dresdencodak.com/archives/
http://www.happletea.com/
http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2347

Sure, but you still look like a complete idiot if you claim a bunch of functionality is not there when, in fact, it is. Also, most (or pretty much all except for the "Start" button thing) of his rant is in regards to metro. Now I didn't have a problem figuring out everything in metro inside of an hour, which I know is maybe a bit too long, but once you find it, the hinting issue is gone. Most of what was there I was able to access on the first try. Maybe I'm just smarter than him. Maybe he's just whining and trying to make a video that is amusing like those on The Escapist's Zero Punctuation, which means it's more for comedy and entertainment than actual content. He fails pretty badly in that regard. Really, there is no excuse for him.

Warfighter:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/6492-Medal-of-Honor-Warfighter-Doom-3-BFG-Edition

May you enjoy a short article on the subject.

On the contrary I would argue that it does, because when the laws are unjust and bought by the highest bidder then they should be ignored. Case in point see this video by Jim Sterling where even the artist that creates a property often has zero say in it anymore, its all tollbooths run by rich old fucks that don't give a shit about anything but screwing everyone, artist and consumer alike, in their never ending greed. then there is "Hollywood accounting" that allows companies like Cheap trick's former label to pay them NOTHING for every song sold on iTunes because digital didn't exist when they were under contract, or which allowed them to drive meatloaf into bankruptcy because they had the sheer unmitigated gall to say that Bat Out Of Hell I, an album that actually holds the WORLD RECORD for longest time on the Billboard top 200, didn't make a cent therefor they owe him NOTHING.

So I'm sorry but I really don't give a fuck, this is like a robber crying that somebody broke into his house while he was robbing you, really couldn't happen to a more perfect douchebag. does this mean I think you should be able to just go download anything on the day of release? No, but what it DOES mean is I think everything released more than 25 years ago is fair game, as that was what the original copyrights as written by the founding fathers was, and I think that once you have bought a game or movie that is it, if i can't find the disc or need the cracked version because their shitty 32bit DRM don't work on 64bit its nothing that I should have to give a fuck about.

Until We, The People actually get a seat at the table I'm sorry but I don't have a drop of sympathy, and if breaking a treasonous law written through bribery is theft then we should call these corps what they are, extortionists and muggers.

That's not the average outcome but the average *budget* is about $23m

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/97413-Study-Claims-Average-Game-Budget-Is-23-Million

Even Star Citizen acknowledges that their budget will be about 4-5x more than they raise on Kickstarter. So you're looking at $12-$25m to make your game. And you have to start wondering "Have all of our customers already pledged?" It's certainly great to have 10-20% of your budget up front to attract investors but investors have to wary too that the game is going to bomb and they're going to lose the other 80% of their investment in the game.

Also the budget for a AAA title is about $75m. And if they can make $500m off of $75m budget that's a lot better than making $4m off of a $12m budget.

The other thing that concerns me is that every single one of the named 'blockbuster' Kickstarter projects are by well established designers who want to re-make some nostalgia for customers.

"Hey did you love wing commander? Do you want another one? Great!"

For all of the complaints that the big publishers are just doing re-makes and clones--they are the ones who are taking the big risks on actually funding a new generation of game designers. Portal was the result of Valve funding a small team not kickstarter. When the next Portal is funded by kickstarter then we'll have something to really talk about. I just can't help but think if nothing changes in 20 years we'll have Cliff Bleszinski on Kickstarter "Hey guys remember chainsawing people in Gears of War?! For only $10m I'm going to make another third person cover based shooter!"

Now of course I'm a kickstarter funder for many of these projects (I'm as nostalgic as the next guy). But I don't see it having any notable impact. After all, the publishers passed up these projects for a reason. As happy as I am to play a new Wing Commander, I don't expect them to be kicking themselves when it barely breaks even in 3 years.

I'm more than happy to risk my money for something I want. But there is no way for Activision to ask me for $50 and maybe or maybe not release a game that may or may not be good. There's a good chance a lot of these games are going to suck and bomb. A chance I'm willing to take with some daring individuals. Otherwise I'm waiting for the demo.

Simple logic, and possibly what they are going for, but in no way 100% accurate. The PC gaming industry is still doing just great. I even think there is some statistic about Steam's profits doubling for 7 years running ( http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/115085-Steam-Sales-Double-Again-in-2011 ). If Microsoft is fine giving that up, they're crazy. Which, I think, is what's happening. There is money to be made from people who just don't WANT an Xbox and so far Microsoft has been in a position to make that money. There is probably some exec at Microsoft who THINKS PC gaming is dead, and logically follows through with the thought that it's ok to give it up. I predict that in a few more years, Microsoft will see their mistake and try to run back way too late, as Steam dominates with Google-like intensity.

Google: "site:techdirt.com apple arbitrary"

Well you could do that if you wanted to end up with a lot of out of date and incorrect information. But that's close enough for an Apple Hater!!

http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2009/04/24/crudebox-becomes-prudebox-to-make-it-into-the-app-store/

The link even says it's in the App Store. Next!

http://almerica.blogspot.ca/2008/09/podcaster-rejeceted-because-it.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10042127-2.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Podcaster is in the App Store.

http://forum.nin.com/bb/read.php?59,651569
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/91508-Apple-Blocks-Obscene-Newsreader-Apphttp://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/91508-Apple-Blocks-Obscene-Newsreader-App

Apple is very clear they do not allow obscene/pornographic content in the app store (this is not an arbitrary rule):
"Applications must not contain any obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content "

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/may/21/apple-iphone

Apple is in fact Allowing Kama Sutra on the app store.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2008/09/apple-imposes-n/

This article was not correct even way back in 2008 when it was posted.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/36946/Interview_Molleindustria_On_Phone_Storys_Objectionable_Message.php

Prohibiting child abuse in an app is not an "arbitrary" policy.

SInce you can't even be arsed to check a lint you copy from Google, I see no reason to read anything further from you or to respond again. As such you may have the last most and copy blindly from Google all the outdated links you like.

You sure are snarky for someone who is seemingly incapable of using a search engine.

Google: "site:techdirt.com apple arbitrary" They've done a fairly thorough job of documenting Apple's arbitrary policies. Of course, Apple is free to be as arbitrary as they wish, as are the fanboys free to defend them blindly (thanks for your shining example!). And the rest of us are free to criticize their silly approach and enjoy a superior product.

For the lazy ones:
http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2009/04/24/crudebox-becomes-prudebox-to-make-it-into-the-app-store/
http://almerica.blogspot.ca/2008/09/podcaster-rejeceted-because-it.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10042127-2.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
http://forum.nin.com/bb/read.php?59,651569
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/91508-Apple-Blocks-Obscene-Newsreader-App
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/may/21/apple-iphone
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2008/09/apple-imposes-n/
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/36946/Interview_Molleindustria_On_Phone_Storys_Objectionable_Message.php

I await your apology with bated breath.

Not to mention this: Just think about how the world would look if he had gotten this passed in say 1972. Well we'd have no DVDs, because DVD was originally a backup medium before it was a movie medium, and of course VCRs would have never existed. Can't have an Internet because people could trade files on it, no PMPs like iPods because of course they can carry and play infringing content, if you were even allowed to have computers and iPads and smartphones they wouldn't be allowed to play any media by law unless it was protected, hell I could go on all day with things we take for granted.

I hate to have to say this but Thank the FSM for the Chinese who don't give a fuck about our IP laws because thanks to douchebags like him we are ALREADY seeing tech that should have taken over by now pushed to the corner. For an example take the media tank, your WDTVs and the like. Those should have taken over by now, because they are exactly the kind of experience folks want, just put everything in one spot where they can just push a button and watch everything instantly anywhere in the house but thanks to pricks like this one even when Real tried to sell a device that KEPT copyright protection assholes like this guy had it blocked. Now there is NO legal way to play movies on a media tank, not if it doesn't stream.

This is why I say until We, The People, get a voice at the negotiating table we should simply ignore all copyrights as the unjust laws they are. do you think Americans would have voted for 150+ year copyrights just so Disney can make another billion off old Mickey Mouse cartoons? not a chance in hell, yet that is the law. Of course these laws aren't compatible with the constitution anymore, since giving dead men 70+ years of copyrights after they die certainly doesn't "promote the sciences and the arts", all it does is promote rich old geezers who have the cash to buy up these copyrights and use them to fuck us.

Jim Sterling at The Escapist used to call pirates "dirty thieves" he made a great video where he apologizes and points out how we are getting fucked, and we are...we're getting fucked. may this douchebag DIAF, the world would be a better place if greedy corporate ball lickers weren't in it.

I refuse to buy Diablo 3 because of the elephant in the room that nobody seems to mention, being constantly connected to their servers for SP means you are gonna deal with la-la-la-lag. I've watched friends with 20MBit cable connections play and they would still get spots where it was obviously jerking and it wasn't their systems, its the thousands of miles between them and Blizzard's servers. Jim Sterling at The Escapist made a nice rant about how we should ALL be pissed at them for the DRM, and a big part was the jerking laggy mess he'd find or not being able to get on after buying on release day.

Compare this to Torchlight 2. it took me and my boys less than 5 minutes to tie our Steam to Torchlight IIs matchmaking service (which is required because they also sell standalone Windows and soon Linux copies as they do TL I) and 3 minutes after that I was hosting a private server on my own system and the boys were in game and joining me in the fun. ZERO lag,no matter how many "super fireballs" the youngest liked to throw or insane supermoves the oldest pulled off, instant trading between us, it all "just worked" and when I had to sit in the doctor's office to get me some antibiotics for my bi-annual sinus infection i was playing my SP character (we agreed to save separate characters for MP and SP so that we'd be on the same level) on my little E350 netbook with no online and just having a ball.

But isn't that the problem of Sony in a nutshell, great hardware with fuck all for games, which is why they don't sell? well that and them acting like its 1996 with funky cards instead of using SDHC of course.

Personally I think Sony has burned too many bridges, fucked over too many people, for them to pull out of the nosedive unless they come out with a Halo style "ZOMFG you HAVE to play this!" supermega game. As it is now they simply release God Of War 326, Resistance 29, and then are shocked when nobody buys.

My youngest bought a PSP, it sits in the closet, why? After he had beat the handful of games that were good he really didn't have anything he wanted to play on it and he doesn't feel like fucking with emulators because he's not big into nostalgia. If Sony doesn't come out with a real blockbuster the Vita will end up another PSP Go, not to mention they are mistreating their customers bad enough you have Internet pundits that love the system saying Sony is begging for piracy on the Vita simply because compared to the iPad "click and get game" they make buying from them a PITA.

Riiiight, that is why Valve is completely broke...oh wait, they are backing money trucks up to GabeN's place so he can fill his swimming pools with $100 bills.

I'd suggest you watch this video by Jim Sterling where he says Sony is practically begging for piracy to go nuts on the Vita, why? Because they refuse to compete with the pirates and instead make actually paying them more of a PITA than just using BT to get the thing.

Valve has shown by using classical business 101 you CAN not only make a damned good living on PC games but even turn some, not all mind you but you'll never get all, of those pirates into actual paying customers. Myself and all of my friends used to pirate like crazy, now none of us have bothered in years...why? Classical business 101, make it simple, make it cheap, make it convenient. Why should I bother hunting down a BT on TPB, risking some malware or zero day infecting my machine, when with Steam I can just whip out my CC and have the game in under 3 minutes WITH all the DLC, WITH the MP, WITH the ability to pop up a chat window and get my friends in the game, and all at dirt cheap prices?

Too many corps have forgotten classical business 101 and instead are trying to anally rape as many dollars as they can get out of each individual and on top of that they wear a spiked condom called DRM. I wish I'd thought to save the page but in an article with Valve one of the guys pointed out when they slapped L4D on there at $2 a pop just to see what kind of sales they would get they made something like 1700% PROFIT on the game, why? Because digital means no shelves or boxes and the cost of shipping bits is very low so they were able to make out like bandits because they found at under $10 games quickly become impulse buys and people that might not even like the genre will pick it up at that price.

So I have to agree with Mr Sterling, don't blame the pirates, blame the retarded companies for refusing to compete. We humans are lazy creatures and will happily pay for products that meet classical business 101 rules, cheap, easy, and convenient, but these companies simply refuse to pull their heads out of their asses to see the kind of money you can make by doing things that make it easy for them to give you their money. Thank the FSM we have Valve so at least ONE company does get it.

Well if it was like Bioshock II, where you could completely ignore it if you wanted? i don't see a problem with that. With Bioshock II you could completely ignore the MP if you wanted, it was just there if you wanted to spend a few minutes blasting other players but really didn't matter, same with Bulletstorm. But if you have to be online always? No thanks, even Ubisoft abandoned that crap.

Is it really any surprise that EA is on the selling block with stupidity like this though? They have been puking out assembly line crap for years and with PHBs like this are we really surprised they are up for sale? Jim Sterling at The Escapist as a great video on why people hate EA but I guess he'll have to update it now to add "Having stupid MP in games that don't make sense having MP" to that very long list he already gives.

Kickstarter projects have to tell you VERY clearly what you're getting for your money. Its right there next to the radio button you have to click when you decide what amount to contribute. So what is this BS about "slick salesmen" and "information asymmetry"?

This kind of bullshit. And this was only one of the ones that got caught.

Agreed humor is definitely the way to go.

i.e. cRPG
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/5020-The-Elder-Scrolls-V-Skyrim

and
DnD in the movies / history
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/escape-to-the-movies/2002-Dungeons-Dragons

Agreed humor is definitely the way to go.

i.e. cRPG
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/5020-The-Elder-Scrolls-V-Skyrim

and
DnD in the movies / history
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/escape-to-the-movies/2002-Dungeons-Dragons

That is what I've long called "PPT math" where some PHB trots out a PPT to whichever politician they are buying this week and goes "As you can see we sold X on the consoles, and since there are many more PCs on the planet we should have sold X+Y but since we didn't? It has to be those ebil pirates! Give us nastier laws."

But what do you expect from such a anti-consumer company like Ubisoft? This is why even though I haven't downloaded a single Ubisoft game I'm sure their PPT has me as a pirate. After all I buy PC games, but I haven't bought any of theirs, therefor i HAD to have stolen them, right? Their shit is just too damned good for me to avoid like the clap because of always online DRM, right?

So if you wanna snatch then snatch, if you don't then don't, they'll have you on their little PPT as a pirate anyway.

Yes and no, because as Jim Sterling wrote about this last week on the escapist they USED to add new gameplay twists with each release like Zelda does. Now you have games like Meatboy and Rayman doing new things and giving us new twists while Mario...just treads water.

I guess its time for the big N to either bring some new talent in or let Mario rest for a few years because they are just rehashing now. Nobody wants to see Mario become another generic where they just slap a new coat of paint and trot it out, Mario is to Nintendo as Sonic was to Sega, you're supposed to bring your A game when you use the mascot.

I didn't need to read it even once, since Jim Sterling beat him to the exact same review by a week.

Jim Sterling at Zero Punctuation spells out in this videos EXACTLY why EA is in the shape its in, and it all comes down to screwing the customers. day one DLC, online passes for single player games, overdone DRM crap, watch the video because he gives a list of just one douchebag practice after another with EA. he says they are a perfect example of the bloated, overblown, grey sludge spewing corporate game publisher. Everything the industry does wrong? EA does it worse and I have to agree.

Once upon a time EA was a great gaming house, now they just spit out one more generic POS after another and like Symantec and MSFT just destroy any company that is stupid enough to be bought by then instead of using that talent to make even better games. Bullfrog, Westwood, the list of companies gutted by EA is a long one and in each case EA lost what could have been another great team making great products. So yeah no surprise here, company puts out overpriced garbage and treats its customers like crap, company goes to hell.

I'd love to see how much Origin cost them, my guess is that was the final boat anchor that sunk them as I know a LOT of people, myself included, that were lined up to buy a product for them and when we saw it was Origin said "fuck that!" and bought something else. I learned after GFWL that if it requires anything other than Steam to avoid like the plague, and the rep EA got for banhammering any customer that dared to complain about bad service was just the shit icing on the fail cake.

Didn't it get canned?

It was too different from the source material and there was a lot of internet backlash that they decided to cut their losses.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/115098-Live-Action-Akira-Shuts-Down

Right, so if you ignore all the problems with console gaming then you won't have problem with gaming on the consoles? After all i just listed several, getting screwed on patches, getting screwed with higher prices, hell don't take MY word for it, watch this video by Jim Sterling at the Escapist whose been a lifelong console gamer that says that consoles have picked up all the bad habits of the PCs, but none of the good.

And I'm sure there were some that DID have problems with Deus Ex HR, but I bet if they bought it through Steam it would have been solved very quickly and unlike the consoles it will be patched long after it has been abandoned on the consoles. I also have to wonder how many of those "problems" frankly were caused by underpowered systems or running ancient drivers. One look at the Steam page would tell them what the minimum was as well as offer to update their drivers for them. Considering I'm playing it on a 4 year old graphics card that cost a whole $50 it isn't like there isn't a wide range of dirt cheap hardware they could play it on. Hell I have a friend that does all his gaming on steam and is running a truly ancient Pentium D and an HD4650 GPU and he is rocking out to his WWII flying sims just fine.

In the end unlike the consoles frankly the PC problems are easy to solve, they are beyond easy to solve if you are using Steam. I've known people that ran into a problem with a game the Steam support couldn't solve, they got their money back and a "We're sorry that you had a bad experience" note which is a hell of a lot more than I've heard anyone get on a console. Hell do you have any idea how many times i get asked at the shop each month if I work on X360?

But as I said, I'm sure MSFT appreciates your contributions, so please do enjoy paying more for less. Me I've gotten a ton of games on the Steam sale, 6 games including all the DLC for less than $50 and the kids made out like bandits getting over a dozen a piece, so I'm gonna be quite happy enjoy my free MP and all my AAA gaming goodness.

Haven't looked at PCs in awhile have you? I'm playing on an AMD 6 core and an HD4850 I got for $50 and I have tons of bling and have no problem with the new games like Saints Row 3 or Deus Ex HR. Very few games are doing the old Far Cry I "Our game is useful for benchmarking!" bit because it simply limits your audience too much. I have no doubt my boys and I will be playing on our two hexas and the youngest with his quad come 2020 when the OS goes EOL with nothing but a $50-$100 GPU update in about another year that will take all of 10 minutes and is simple enough my teen boys will change out their own. Oh and as a bonus you can put your old cards on Craigslist and get some of your money back which makes the cards even cheaper.

This is why I'm glad me and the boys have switched almost exclusively to PC gaming, too much BS, too much price gouging, and talking to friends frankly the patches are just as bad and large for the PC only as in TFA you simply may not get them and instead get stuck with a buggy game for your hard earned $$. Thanks to the Steam sale by the time its over on the 22nd me and the boys will have enough games to last us until the big Xmas sale and that's with crazy cheap prices, games automatically patched for free, free MP with matchmaking and chat, its just a nicer experience all around. hell nearly all the games support controllers if that's what you prefer and nearly all the modern cards have HDMI out so you can plug that PC into your widescreen no problem.

For those that prefer consoles you might want to watch this video by Jim Sterling where he points out that all the advantages consoles use to have frankly are rapidly disappearing, with consoles having the same bad attributes as PCs such as long loads and large patches, and the good things are being matched or surpassed by the PC.