RockyRan

To EA, it's the idea of keeping 100% of the profits vs. 70% of the profits of DLC sold. They're so big that they think "well I'll make my own damn DLC distribution service and let everyone pay US instead". But there's a reason why this doesn't happen all the time. A very big reason, which EA seems to be completely oblivious to, is consumer convenience and potential fracturing of the user base. Like you said, Universal could very well manufacture their own players and make "exclusive" content for them, but the only thing that's going to do is discourage people from buying those movies in the first place if they think they're being shortchanged. With EA it's even worse. They're getting their games booted off by far the most popular platform on the PC, all because they want to make some more pennies on their DLC. They're going to lose a lot of sales of full-priced games just because they want to make more pennies per DLC. It's a very short sighted approach, but such is the way of large, publicly traded companies.

Games should be as long as I want them to last. And I'm not trying to be facetious here. I've played a couple of games that end simply far too abruptly for my liking, and then some that simply last far longer than I think they should, or pad the game with pointless bullshit that doesn't seem to go anywhere. Tales of Vesperia lasted me 51 hours if I remember correctly, but it honestly didn't "feel" too long. That's mostly because I didn't go lollygagging about doing random sidequests (which was mostly because the sidequests were utter BS consisting of "read our minds and do this despite nothing in the game telling you to do it, at this precise moment, or you get nothing"), but the story's pacing was very well told. New plot threads appeared just as the old ones were tied up, and all the game's antagonists weren't dangled in front of you for the entire game's duration, but rather got rid of them just as they introduced new ones. The result was the game ended up feeling fresh more or less the entire time, and the fact that you knew the game didn't treat the antagonists as "forever immortal until the very end of the game" made the story and the game's pacing that much more dynamic. It was certainly a long game, but I don't think it was "too" long. I don't think my stance with game length depends on the genre. I mean, I don't want to say I EXPECT 40-hour RPGs all the time because Oblivion's main quest was like 10 hours and that dragged on far too much (those mandatory runs through the Oblivion gates. Just...ugh). It far more depends on the specific game's pacing and how engaged the player is for that duration of time.

Isn't there some animal control number you can call?

AW DAYUM WE GETTIN' CONTROVERSIAL UP HEAH

Indeed. Capcom's got shit for brains right now.

Indeed. Kind of the reason why I dislike huge, publicly traded companies. Always lack the foresight and concepts like "you have to lose some to win more" are completely foreign to them.

Yep. To me it seems like the bot is going "ALL RIGHT BITCH!! URGHHHH *flexing muscles* YOU WANT KETCHUP?!? HERE'S YOUR DAMN KETCHUP!! URGHHHH!!! *flexing muscles* *squirts explosive ketchup everywhere&* YEAH BITCH THAT'S HOW IT'S DONE!! URGGHHHH!!!!"

You should hear us Cantonese folks. It come out as natural as things piss. Now to continue reading all the walls of text. Cantonese? You haven't heard swearing until you've heard swearing in Spanish. Swearing in Spanish is like a form of poetry. It's inserted always just at the right moments, at the right rhythm, in the right situations, and with the right diction. The Spanish language has an enormous amount of swear words, all meaning a wide variety of things, each with their own unique phonetic sounds and often onomatopoeia. I mean, just look at this. Swearing in Spanish has its own wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_profanity Neatly divided and categorized in classifications such as "Scatological acts", "Profanity related to religion" and "References to one's backside". 99% of english-speaking people who swear do so by using about 100 different variations of "fuck", all quite referring to the same thing, or sometimes not even belonging anywhere in the sentence. Not so with Spanish profanities. Most anyone who speaks knows the art of profanities in Spanish. And they're always inserted precisely at the right moments with the added benefit of being part of the sentence and furthering the intent of the speaker. You bunch of fucks.

I'm not at all saying its bad. I'm saying its bad to get upset when you see a repeated mechanic/concept/idea. I'm referring to people harping on Microft for borrowing from the Eye Toy, or saying that Uncharted is a Tomb Raider Rip off. I'm ranting about the people who claim to hold innovation above all, but aren't willing to accept that not every aspect of a game needs to be innovative. Like does anybody really get upset when they see yet another phone with a camera in it? No, we like camera's in our phones. Nobody needs to yell at the next phone to also have a phone. Just like we like a cover mechanic in our third person shooters. What's wrong with keeping the things we like? Square Enix can't understand this concept whatsoever. Every Final Fantasy has to be so vastly different from the previous version, that they forget to keep aspects that people love. I loved the Materia system, but I've never seen it since. Hell, Chrono Trigger's double and triple techs was one of the coolest battle systems ever, and yet I've rarely seen it since 1995. What's wrong with keeping the things we love, maybe tweaking them minorly to make them even better, and discarding the stuff we don't like, until we are left with a truly great game? And no, I don't beleive in evolution In that case I do agree with you, though personally I think it's less about claiming innovation is the end-all-be-all and more about bitching how X is a "ripoff" of Y. That's one thing I don't understand. Unless we're talking about those Asian games that really DO ripoff games (like the many asian TF2 clones. The one with the toys and the one with the firemen), it's practically impossible to make a game that's completely detached from any other game ever, but that certainly doesn't stop some people from bitching. I've heard the wildest things about how Minecraft is "crap because it's a ripoff of Infiniminer" and Assassin's Creed is "crap because it's a ripoff of Prince of Persia". It's very possible for a game to use elements from another game and have it turn out different and new depending on its execution. Hell, it's possible for a game to revolve around elements from another game that revolves around the same elements and still feel new. It just depends on whether the developers are using the elements as a good starting point or just flat out recycling them without any creativity coming from them. It's the difference between Sanctum, a neato FPS/Tower Defense hybrid (neither genre being totally original) and Homefront, a completely derivative game with nothing even remotely novel.

I agree with this. Innovation is the natural product of evolution, and innovation isn't simply about making up new concepts entirely but can also mean splicing existing things together that haven't been put together before. An industry that doesn't clamor for innovation is a stagnant industry, and while I like sequels to well-known established IPs as much as the next guy, there comes a time when sequel-itis starts to take away from the series and/or industry. For instance, the current industry's infatuation with FPS's because they have this weird idea that "only FPS's sell these days" stuck in their heads is the result of thinking that innovation isn't the answer for anything. Thinking that recycling old ideas is fine because it worked for "that other game" doesn't get anyone anywhere and more often than not actually results in lukewarm reception and poor sales. Although at the very end of the day I simply say this: I just have more fun with games that have novel ideas than games that regurgitate existing ones with no real change to them.

Isn't it kind of weird, how some people go watch a movie just to see the trailer? It's kind of like the people who watch a movie just because "such-and-such actor/actress is hot".

Rationalizing =/= "defending the honor". The post below blatantly rationalizes their poor behavior: Calling this tactic "effective" gives it far more credit than is due. More like sleazy, underhanded, and classless.

Well, what else would you call it?

You can say THAT again. ¬_¬ Although I would like to point out, usually when someone wants to defend a publication it usually involves pointing out ways in which said publication is significant. You know, put them in a good, respectable light. Doesn't really say much if we defend a publication with "well, they want attention, this is how they get it". It's the same rationalization cheapo tabloid editors like to use.

Done. Mediafire link I luv you.

The first to market helped out a lot? They're barely a few million ahead of PS3. As this gen progresses it becomes more and more certain that PS3 sales will surpass the 360. And that's with the handicap of starting a year later and a $900 price tag. And the stigma of the RROD as a result of the early launch will most likely have some kind of side effect if they have an early launch for their next xbox too. Also we're in the WiiU thread. I'm thinking an 8th Gen general discussion thread is in order. Though I think there is one. Thursday has hit a nail on the head. Officially it's the first 8th gen machine. But on a technical scale it's the last of the 7th gens, and since it has similar spec, it's going to end up with similar 3rd party games of PS3 n 360; 7th gen consoles. It remains to be seen if 8th gen will turn it into another Wii. An under powered console with a gimmick. Exactly. Nintendo has repeatedly said that the Wii is holding them back, making me wonder if they're really that short sighted. When the rest of the 8th gen systems release they're right back to square one with the Wii U "holding them back", so did they really do anything to rectify that in the long run?

I really like the game, but I find the pacing to be completely, uh, off? Mostly because the worlds are randomly generated, but I feel like there's no rhyme or reason to the game's pacing in terms of how much the game progresses. You could go hours and hours in caves and find nothing of use, then turn around and see six crystal hearts right next to each other. The world generator algorithm could definitely use some changes. I mean, it's neat at first at how random it is, but then it gets really annoying how slow the game seems to progress.

I'm speaking at it from a consumer's point of view. As a consumer, I get to dictate whatever I want in my Skyrim, including (hopefully), the UI. Should Bethesda fuck up yet again and make yet another shitty UI, I'll still be mildly annoyed at the fact that they can't apparently take a hint, but at the end of the day my experience of the game will not (I hope) be hindered by this. Based on Bethesda's comments I doubt they'll give the PC UI any real thought, and yes it will most likely be consolized (they've already said it's primarily a console game anyhow). Complaining on internet forums isn't exactly going to change their minds, and it's not like we have to settle for the UI (again...hopefully) anyway. EDIT: But in the case that the UI is shitty AND it's not possible to change for whatever reason, I'll be first in line to bitch about it.

Wait wat. What publication was this?

I want this wallpaper. NOW

I don't know if they'll get outright killed, but they'd definitely be back in the situation they're in now, where they're competing with two competitors with hardware from the previous generation. It's worked fine now, but considering how they're trying to change their target audience it doesn't look like it'll be as explosively popular as the Wii was during its first couple of years.