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And as another side-note, I don't envy the Blizzard employees that have to deal with beta tester feedback. The beta community forums are horrible which is why I don't feel like I can effectively provide any feedback or criticism. It's an immature forum full of players whining, where most arguments include some form of "you're retarded" remarks and where a bunch of platinum-level players acts like anyone from a lower league is automatically wrong about any issue. Gah.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2003/9/1/

Dude, absolutely EPIC karma burn. Keep it rolling.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/ is pretty much all I can say about it.

...there is more than one way to play...

Winning in a Wii game does not necessarily mean exercising.

Ah, but which Moby dick are you referring to? The original, or this one

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/1/15/

CmdrTaco writes:

I've always envied their ability to maintain control over their brand and ...

That reminds me of the time they signed away their book publishing rights and nearly lost the rights to their intellectual property and the name Penny Arcade. Except for that, I agree.
I'm a big PA fan, but they totally needed a business manager. And since I'm writing about him, I love this anecdote about Robert Khoo.

It seems is easy to be a guru on the internet. You can make lots of weird predictions, and some will be right.

Like this 2006 comic:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/05/01/
And this today news:
http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/54532/Activision-Bungie-Sign-Ten-Year-Publishing-Partnership

And this part of the reason Penny Arcade is still relevant.. theres a lot of predictions, and some are right.

Wow. It's hard to find the words. Yeah, there are reasons to be cynical about corporate charities, like how tobacco company Philip Morris spent tons more on advertising about how charitable it was than on actual charity...

Right, or a great example today I heard on the radio. KFC is trying to raise $8.5 million to donate to cancer research. They're doing this by selling pink buckets of chicken at something like $8/pop, and donating $0.50 of each. This is the typical cynical corporate method of charity contributions: Making their donation dependent on product sales, advertising this fact, and thus trying to directly leverage their "generosity" into increased product sales. I wouldn't be surprised if they expected the extra sales to completely offset the donation itself.

If, instead, KFC just donated $8.5mil directly, even wrote that off their taxes, and didn't spend millions advertising their generosity, that would be fine. Getting some PR benefit out of charity is okay with me.

But dude, you can't let that cynicism blind you to real charity. I don't think you have any idea how hard volunteers for Child's Play work every year.

Yeah, he obviously has no idea what Child's Play is all about. There are a million easier ways to get the same tax benefit.

I have heard nothing, not even a rumor, of any funds from PA revenues being somehow 'laundered' through CPC.

Well I don't know about that, but I have heard rumors of foul play at the CP auction. ;)

I agree. I remember actually crying when I read the story he wrote for his newborn son.

Every time a read a thoughtful, poetic post from him, I think, "That's how I want to write."

You're right! Your "I don't think anybody finds it funny" argument is flawless. Now I realize that I only found their comics funny because I thought that, somewhere, SOMEBODY else thought they were funny. Eager to fit in, I quickly forced and tricked myself into enjoying it. THANK YOU for showing me the light.

I mean, why would I ever find awkward phrases like "Do you have snakes that come in sometimes? Don't stand for that shit!" hilarious?

All webcomics, hell all COMEDY is hit and miss. I cannot say that because one thing a person does is funny, everything else that that person does must necessarily be funny or else the first thing becomes unfunny. I find Penny-Arcade to be more often funny than not... so I like it. You might disagree.

They answered you years ago.

As a consumer, all I care about is that the stuff I buy is good value for money and doesn't punish me too much as an honest user

Uhm ... and what is a reasonable punishment as an honest user? It is a kick in the balls?

Yes, yes it is.

~jaraxle

If you have to ask, it's not for you.

This is essentially the same issue Penny Arcade ran into with their infamous American McGee's Strawberry Shortcake comic.

You can parody American McGee's Alice, you can parody Strawberry Shortcake, but you can't parody one by using the other.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/3/19/

Bollocks, I don't even have a facebook account, but I hear all about it from co-workers, family and so on, and it is indeed 99% drivel.

You have no idea what you're talking about, then? I notice that isn't stopping you.

I have absolutely no inclination to tell the world every time I drink a bottle of wine or buy a new pair of socks, it must be a generational thing.

That's what twitter is for. People generally only tell you about such things on Facebook if the wine or the socks were particularly good. And yes, that's what I want to know from my friends. We share recipes too. Or in short, we talk about the same kinds of things we would talk about in person, if only we could meet face to face, instead of being spread out across the country (and to a lesser extent, the globe.) Unless, of course, you have a bunch of fucking lames for friends and family. I'm sure you don't think so, but more than half of everyone thinks they're above average, so there's a good chance that you're wrong.

Hehe, this one is what I think of.

Ob PA: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/4/23/

It's all I ever think about every time twitter is covered by the popular media or NPR or whatever. And it unnerves me tremendously that I can't twack the anchor with a wet trout wrapped in a printout of that comic.

Hush, or he will stab at thee.

Dude, it's not for you. (Yes, I know you're being satirical.)

Seriously, though, what "nerds" want and what "users" want aren't entirely parallel; heck, half the time, they're completely orthogonal. Granted, the users aren't terribly happy with the nomadic button placement either, but I'm at least willing to let Mark see this thing through and do what he wants to do before I start casting judgment. I mean, if it really bothers me, it's not like there aren't ways to either move the button or try different distributions.

You'd think with their brand name, premium rates, and large customer base, they'd have the budget to architect and administer a superior hosting solution, rather than the substandard packages they offer now. Instead they are milking it, dwindling, and will eventually go tits-up.

"There is an old story, something about a golden goose; I can't remember the particulars." -- Tycho (Penny Arcade)

  -- 77IM

Terrorists, OK, but what are their plans for the Deep Crows?

This. GoW co-op with a friend (split-screen or two-console in the same room) is so much fun. I also recommend Army of Two for fun shooty co-op, though you do have to get past the fist-pounding "yay, murder!" aspect.

Hi, @librarycongress! I just took a shit. I am honored that you will be archiving this momentous occasion for future generations.

Obligatory.

Gabe will be THRILLED.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/3/29/

I remember doing this fondly behind my DM screen. The great thing about imagination is that the guy making up the story/rules also has imagination, so when your "friends"/players try and break your game, you just break them... painfully.

A conference call with Kotick was the inspiration for the penny arcade comic - a different conference call than the one Ars talked about in your link. So apparently he really likes that word "exploited".

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/12/5/

Duh.

Ahhhh...If you don't why people on the Internet can be so batshit crazy, allow me to elucidate. You see it has been proven that Professor Gabriel's Fuckwad Theory has time and time again been correct. I hope that has cleared up why you have to deal with douchbaggery so often.

As for TFA? if it ain't broke, don't fix it. We have enough fake penis pill emails without making it easier for the spammers, mmmkay?

So now can people see exactly what restroom stall poop is coming out in?
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/4/23/

How is a driveling, abusive, content-less post like yours modded up for insightful? You are compliant with the GIFT.

For what it's worth, the Wall Street Journal was and is an excellent source of objective news and discussion on the op-ed. Murdoch is old and out-of-touch, but rather irrelevant, it seems to me. I think Steve Jobs has as much potential to damage the Internet's openness than Rupert Murdoch or Comcast.

Oy Carumba? Are you a Mexican Jew? Not that there's anything wrong with that or anything.

Yes, actually. http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2003/11/07/

Pulling a Leroy Jenkins on your friends is simply not the same as having them attacked by rabid ninja gerbils. For one thing, they still have hope.

In fact, they covered it in more general terms some five and half years ago.

The Fivefold Mother

Once the admins and users will start getting jail time and huge fines more often, we would have already moved to more decentralized and anonymous P2P technologies

After Napster, there was Gnutella. Highly distributed technology, which certainly caught-on. Kazaa had a little bit of central control opportunities, but if you've experienced it, you're familiar with the same problems...

Namely, this: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2002/11/4/

Bittorrent is actually the regression, driven mainly by hype more than real benefits over other P2P technologies. But it does have on thing to it's benefit, and that is trust... You don't search for file names across the whole network, you visit a website you trust, and download torrents submitted by other (trusted) users, any of whom can be kicked by the site admin if they post deceiving descriptions. Much noise has been made about cryptographic trust relationships, but the fact that none has ever materialized in P2P over the last decade+, indicates it's not as easy of a problem as people would like to believe.

It is very likely they don't consider pirates their customer base. And frankly, I don't think they actually have to worry about a boycott of the MPAA. People may hate the MPAA, but they still like the people who make the movies. Seriously, even you, this might make you upset, but I'll bet you'll keep watching movies.

It's kind of an evil cycle, though.

Obligatory

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/02/20/

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/4/23/

Reference fail

Yeah. Wow. I never dreamed that anyone would find that obscure. For example.

-Peter

The people who play these games are, as a blogger recently put it, addicted to fake achievement. They want to fill the bar over and over again, level up, and unlock the next item.

It's really not that baffling. People like winning. The actual value of the "win" is often unimportant.

Saruman is a Decepticon!

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/5/28/

No, if you bothered to READ my previous post, you'd see that I buy tons of games that DON'T have DRM. I only have no intention of buying it due to DRM.

Wait, you only buy games that don't have DRM, and you pirate games that do have DRM? Your argument is cyclical: You play it, but you're not gonna buy it ... which is why the game companies feel there's a reason to add DRM. Repeat.

You weren't the only one who had keeping the spoils from the DLC.

No, Apple is more like... like a giant solid gold wang! Oh sure it's shiny and all golden but in the end it's still a wang. And, like any wang, it has serious growth potential!

I know Macs have model numbers and I know they have CPU's which also have model numbers. I don't know any of those numbers.

"Mine's 'Grape'!"

Well, they weren't doing this, so I didn't really pay too much attention ...

I use Linux primarily, but I find Win7 to be quite good actually. My experience was kinda like this. So this jury member has decided, and for the apps I use it for (Adobe Premiere/Photoshop) it performs very well, looks pretty and it not too bad from an interface point of view.

Yeah! 3000K is almost as hot as the Macbook Pro when it gets cranking!