WTF

There's also the issue that titles like Gravity/Gravity Rush/Gravity Daze will be download only in non-Asian and JP markets.

Can't do anything but agree with you there. XD

While I don't really care about gaming website writers per se, the cut and paste article feels a bit like the formation of a new high school club or an MMO guild more than a new organisation or sub-organisation... Maybe it's just me.

See region-locking and piracy are tough calls really. Lets see now if you pirated a game that sold well in its territory then P4 is absolutely right there is no loss of revenue, in fact the popularity of said pirated game encourages other publishers to think about publishing further titles in that series in that territory. If we look at the history of region-locked systems and games unavailable in a region we'll see that to be the case (It's why part 2 of a game ends up being available when part 1 never was - PAL has plenty of examples of that). Now if a region-locked game sold terribly in a region and it was pirated in another region the developer/publisher will feel annoyed but at the same time it's free market study. Tracking regions and ips where a game is downloaded gives an indication to what the reception would be like in that territory for that title. The issue is that usually when the game is released since the title was pirated at first and the cost of entry was zero if it's expensive then you'll find the audience to be tiny as opposed to if the audience being moderately sized if the game is price appropriately. I think in Europe Tecmo-Koei gets it right, they know their games won't sell for the highest price which is why you can get their titles on release for sub30 and it drops to sub20 fast. They also do publish limited quantities which means they've got their backs and profitability covered. Region-locking doesn't make a lot of sense for big publishers because they're out to control revenue from select markets. It's an open market in games and whether they want to or not the game is going to sell at a price the consumer feels worth it (This last point is entirely because the market is now oversaturated with games, face it, it's true). Unless the industry does a rethink we'll face something similar to the crash of 83. There's a number of things competing with a person's time. It is perhaps thus better if games follow structured pricing models. I'm glad to see it in some form on the Vita (not the ideal one of course but they are following a structured pricing model which in the end helps the industry - whether it helps consumers outside of giving them decent games is up for debate). When a game isn't published in a region, there is no localisation costs and if the company had no intention to bring it and if it's also impossible to play because the system is region-locked what happens is entirely upto the consumer. We usually end up with the old school niche gamer who imports consoles and games from every region supporting their developer, the modern niche gamer who imports the games that aren't released in their territory when the console is region-free or who imports it to play it via jailbroken or homebrewed machines thus still supporting the developer or the one who just pirates it because the cost of import is too high. People are not going to not play a game if they have an interest in it, it's a human instinct to want to experience things. It happens with film more often than with games.However boycotting a game from a territory because they can't bring it over doesn't affect the developer. They never factored in that market, they only factored the local market. Anything that happens outside of that is just helping them market themselves and helps them prepare for a different future. Let me put it this way, if people did not get to play the chinese fake carts of superfamicom games jrpgs would not have gained much of a following in western territories that by the late SNES generation we had a fair few of them and in the PSX, N64 generation we had a lot more and now we have fairly a huge chunk of them available. If these games were not available to the west we wouldn't have the burst of importance of levelling up and skilltrees. Sure there's a few games but honestly black isle games were niche and the early blizzard games weren't hugely popular. These games did create a market. Experiencing games, films and media from an external culture is not a bad thing as it broadens our horizon and so this isn't something where we have a binary answer and extends far from piracy in the impact it has on the market.

I stopped making resolutions for the New Year's ever since I turned 21 maybe. See my birthday is right at the start of the year so making food related resolutions is stupid. Instead I have a list of goals and things I want to achieve in life that I view every morning. I read it to myself and follow through. All I can tell you guys is never give up on what you really want to do despite it feeling and seeming hard. I've had this list since i was 23 and have done almost everything or am on the way to most of the things with the exception of getting a Pilot's license. Maybe to travel outside of business more.

It's a bit pointless to argue over the usage of h because there's the whole issue of grammar. Actually Webster's and Oxfords have created two strains of grammar for what was initially one language. We can't effectively call either of as the singular Modern English. Late 19th century English was mostly of the Wren and Martin's High School English format (one still followed in a few colonial nations), what we foliow today is different from that. The issue is that when languages evolve we might end up with more than one strain and thus it is pointless to say they are the same language. Once we come to that conclusion it's a lot easier. English This is one of the reasons why Theory of Computation and languages and formal Automata is an interesting field of study in Computation and Mathematics. Right now it's similar to very similar programming languages like C and CPP but they are different and the libraries for the two are different as well. Spoken languages once evolved in different ways are no longer the same language and the original language too undergoes a path of evolution. 90% of modern languages are nothing like what they were when they originated. A good example is Arabic where it's impossible to technically translate certain books including the Quran since majority of the words aren't in usage today and thus make little to no sense. The only reason why we know certain things to exist is because we have records. For instance no one ever said Ye olde whatever, the font for TH was written as a Y but not many are aware of it today and look back and say ha they used to say Yee. As for the link HH the errors would probably be more for someone who's already familiar with the language as opposed to someone who was unfamiliar. It's surprising how someone who knows little of a language can sometimes pronounce it exactly the way it's supposed to be (provided it's a phonetic script of course) .

Sonic Generations (though need to finish S Ranking) MGS2 and 3 (well it was over the holidays so) [Platinumed 3]

Got Sideway NY and Halo Anniversary as Birthday gifts. Of course Mario Kart was also a birthday gift. That about sums up the gaming related gifts but outside of that I got a lot of non-gaming related gifts. I'll be getting the Vita for cheaper thanks to some people I know working for Sony so that's definitely good news now. Buying House of the Dead Extended Overkill edition soon. Bought the new indie royale and got hamilton for free.

Happy New Year folks. Was out most of last night and then ended up waking up at 8 thanks to my cat and it's an overcast yet fine Sunday Morning.

@ Ethan Not all Valve games turn into gift coupons when redeemed (Don't think the source games or garry's mod do) and there's a limit to how many you can have at a time as well. I know that you couldn't have more than x valve games as a gift coupon at the same time as well. It's a bit tricky if memory serves me right. I know that I had some Orange Box games that didn't turn into gift coupons during the second gifting. Decided I'll just keep the coal for now. Anyways I got Worms: Crazy Golf though I really wish I got Rochard or Sideway (Similar price at the moment too :/) and also got the following coupons. Coupons 50% X Gold 50% Dawn of War: Retribution 50% Shogun 2: Total War 50% Beat Hazard Collection 50% Worms Crazy Golf 50% ZenoClash 50% Audiosurf 50% Abe's Exodus 25% Atari

@Gerbil It was an amazon lightning deal and I was in front of a computer that day. Technically it was a b'day gift. Lets see now since the last time bought Xotic (it's actually fun and I thought 1.49 was the ideal price for it) Shogun 2 DLC Universe Sandbox Cities in Motion Sequence

6 weeks? lol I don't think I've had such a long break in years. I do however get shorter frequent breaks after weeks of 16-20 hour work sessions.

That's the thing about getting older, the breaks seem a lot shorter than they should be, on the other hand the years are shorter too. I'm off properly for the first time in 3 years for Christmas (Normally I'd either be working or end up getting sympathy visits because I'd have the flu. It's nice to not have the flu during the holidays and my birthday I'm actually a bit confused and sort of clear of head during the break that I want to focus on enjoying myself. Next year's already full of work and I don't really know if I'll be gaming outside of portables to be honest because of the travel but here's hoping that nothing major happens when I am off at work.

So I bought Mario Kart 7 for the 3DS. At 14.99 quid it was the price I'd buy it for. First mario kart I've personally owned since the N64 one (played the others but never really enjoyed them that much).

Hope you guys have been having a good Christmas. I'm still on my break will be home for two days and then heading out and be back on the New Year. Just hope everyone's doing well and staying safe

Haven't been home till right now. Had asked my brother to take care of my purchases and a few of the deals. Got a few of the dailies now but steam sales suck for me in a way since I own most of what I already wanted with a few exceptions. crap i forgot to post what I got: Hard Reset The Polynomial RFA: DLC beat hazard Rock of ages Arkham Asylum

So that's 15 tracks in total XD from games this year without including a lot of titles that i missed out on such as Ghost Trick (a few were good), Persona 2 PSP, Tactics Ogre, Kirby's Epic yarn (since his pants tale was out in the US last year but only here this year) and not worth it to repeat GoW, MGS, Ico&SoTC or the remixes from MK (though some were good )

Music from the severely overlooked title rocketbirds The problem with most of Sonic Generations is that it's awesome listening to it while playing but outside of it it's a bit cheesy just like Tekken and MvC and stuff . But lets see since the thing has so many tracks the one I liked was Good Heist Music from Saints Row the Third This is really like a more modern Ocean's 11 track. Minus the chipmunkiness (which goes well in the level) the music is actually pretty good. Has almost a Disney-esque feel to it. Well technically Tekken Tag Tournament doesn't hit this year but we had the prologue (this track's not in it). The music is pretty good to get you into the mood to play a 'fighting' game http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPymEwwrDLI

One of the better downloadable games of the year. This track is just a throwback to platformers like PoP (the game is more like ikaruga+metroid+castlevania in case people haven't really played it) Friday Night Chillout Music is what Catherine's mostly suited for. I really enjoyed this track for that reason: Catherine - Also Sprach Brooks http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-xAURVtuJE&feature=related Xenoblade's been covered but I prefer colony 9's night music http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLuHvi_WvZ8 I really like this music because it makes me feel so much at ease. I love the arrangement. El Shaddai Also revelation from the same game shows that he hasn't lost his DMCness

Music from games this year that were enjoyable. Some of my preferred tracks were chosen like the deus ex one, so instead of repeating several tracks from a few games mentioned I'm going to try and put one track from each game that I liked for its music and in the order they were released: LBP2 had a lot of decent music but it's not really fair since a lot of it was licensed music so the best original track from it is definitely --> Marvel Vs Capcom. It feels good to win oh yeah. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vf1Nj_73uIg I've left the intro of LA Noire many a day while doing stuff (before I got the OST) simply because I like themes like that. It's the perfect music for a rainy night Though the song existed as a non-instrumental version for nearly two years prior to Infamous 2 the commercial and the instrumental was a pretty good mix http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqj1N_GjE5o This song from SoTD felt like a Throwback to my high school years when I listened to Pantera and the Crow OST (It's always the riffs)

So I thought I'd craft one since I ended up with a fair number of coals. Crappy voucher followed by Frozen Synapse (generally outside of steam sales it's expensive I suppose But still I own it twice (steam and non-steam version). Still have a decent number of coals fortunately. Just realised I still have a non-steam (Gamersgate) copy of the witcher 1 if anyone really wants that. I bought it for the downloadable but since I already had my old key I used that and it remains on my GG account as an unused copy (since the key was untouched). Edit I also have a steam redeemable key for Napoleon: Total War imperial edition (I already own a copy).

yeah. I think they expect us to do it in groups as after the first dropped they just dropped like crazy.

Also trading works fine for me at the moment. I've traded with one of my friends and am about to trade in a voucher for a coal.

Yeah I got the EYE achievement. It's a bit crazy but here's the best way to go about it. Just play the game regularly. After the intro area you'll hit a smallish hub. Every triangle marked guy is a quest giver, speak to them and you'll head out to the next area. The area after that will have a bunch of things to do, if you shoot the people in that level the gift will drop. I had a few drop in that level. It's the second area that you enter after you enter the hub world. Play in single player on the solo campaign. The game has no save as far as I can tell. I believe it syncs with the server once you've completed an area (you'll know this because at the end it gives a report on what you did)

Of course. Fry would've been my first choice but I think I'd end up listening to an hour long discourse XD. Though that's not too bad