AgamemnonV2

Why, because I said standard PC features are absent in most ports? No, THIS is why PC gamers have such a strong dislike to console gamers (as I do). 95% of the market caters to console gamers and if a PC gamer ever raises his voice one of you lot come out of the woodwork and start some terribad argument off of Strawmen and slippery slopes. You've gone on for at least four pages simply saying, "Why? Why do you complain?" And your loaded question has been answered by at least six people in seven different ways to Sunday. So yeah, EXCUSE ME if I sound a little testy when you continue your charade of playing the subjective one when you're apparently not interested in reading logical arguments and facts.

Considering I'm ecstatic that Bill Roper is out of a job, that would be a yes. Fool me once, Hellgate. I wouldn't even use the CD as a coaster these days.

Straw man says what? This conversation is not about a game I haven't played.

That's what opens the door to elitism. Blaming console games when a game doesn't live up to "potential" is where the elitism begins. It's where the facts begin, actually. Frankly I'm a little tired of you playing the ignorant console-only gamer. If you bought a triple-A title for the Wii and it didn't support the motion function you'd complain. If you bought a PS3 game and it asked you to connect to Xbox Live you would complain. And if you bought an Xbox game that had too many key functions for your controller, thus forcing you to use a USB keyboard just to play the game well enough, you'd complain. When features of PC games that have been the staple of gaming norm before consoles were even a glimmer in the video game industry's eye are absent, why the hell is it then "elitist" to complain about the lack of BASIC features we have come to expect for the last thirty years?

Oh yes, because $8 billion alone in the MMO genre (which is PC-exclusive at the moment) is certainly a "niche market," especially when PC gaming sales only continue to increase as the years go by.

Since when do the ESRB and EMA have Shareholders? And since when do they make they make much money? Even if we were to go under the assumption that the current prices of rating a game have been consistent and all games rated were AAA then over it's 17 year history the ESRB would still have only made $80million tops. It's not exactly a massive money spinner, especially when you take into account not every game is a AAA title going for the full rating fee. The $80million is the theoretical maximum. The EMA is made up of a group of retailers. Not sure where he was talking about the ESRB having the power to do anything but rate video games. With or without a rating, it's still up to the retailer to sell it.

http://board.pressxordie.com/topic/534-fucking-kotaku/page__st__620__p__55598#entry55598 In the words of Yahtzee... FUCK THAT BOLLOCKS Where the shit do I read about video game news now?

Actually, such reasoning has no place in Constitutional arguments. The Constitution restricts government power regardless of private agreements or organizations. The EMA could disband tomorrow and ratings could be abolished, but the ruling would still be pretty iron-clad precedent that could not be overturned. In legal terms, what you're making is a policy argument; whether the policy of the law would be served or be redundant or whatnot. Policy arguments are summarily discounted by the courts and the Court in constitutional cases. The debate is about the scope of government power, which is not contingent on whether the Court believes the exercise of that power is a good idea but rather on whether it it permissible in the face of Constitutional restrictions. The ruling speaks at length (from page 15 of the pdf) about how the ESRB and EMA currently fulfil the need this act purported to fill. The fact remains that you have turned control over to an unaccountable private company (or NPO, same difference) rather than vest control in a government that is duly elected by the people. If the EMA decide to start pulling video games off the shelves tomorrow (which is expressly provided for in their contract) there's precisely nothing you can do about it. You can't write to your senator, you can't lobby the government, all you can do is write a strongly worded letter to the board of the EMA which they are in no way incentivised to respond to. I find it odd that America is so fearful of handing power to its elected government, yet so eager to pony over control to a bunch of boardroom executives, I mean, have none of you seen Wall Street? Your whole argument hinges on someone who has to start hating money. Which is never going to happen. Ergo they're never going to do something like damage what's making them buku money currently. And even on the off-chance that 2/3's of a ruling board decision just happened to be nucking futs they'd just be kicked off by shareholders. Governments are there to regulate the people. If they pull a product off a shelf, they still get paid the same. They won't catch hell for it--instead, they'll probably get promoted. So, yes, I'll go with the free market rather than some 60-year-old grandpa who names off Mario and Pac-Man when video games are mentioned.

Is it just me or does the ca.kotaku.com redirect trick not work any more? I'm getting the fail format now...

Every time when I'm on the cusp of getting into Eve, I hear about something that completely turns me off from it.

It's not even up for discussion. If television and movies, which have a much further reach into influencing the population, aren't regulated by the government in any way shape or form then neither should video games. End of discussion. Period. Punto. It has ALWAYS been up to the retailers to use their judgement in regards to distribution. That judgement has never failed (yet). Putting forth Postal 2 as the main issue in the case just went to show how absolutely flimsy California's argument was--THE DAMN GAME ISN'T FOUND IN ANY RETAILER STORES. Hell, it's not even on popular online distribution stores. Add to the fact that everyone thought it was shit and it sold like shit and you're looking at someone making the argument that movies should be regulated by the government and your example you are using is the travesty known as Showgirls.

Great first post. I should start a thread where I wonder if video games are far too violent and use Postal 2 as an example.

Generally the folks that complain about MetaCritic are the folks whose favorite (or one of) game has received a "low" score. Except MetaCritic didn't give the score; it pooled the reviews from popular video game publications from around the world and combines it into a mean score. People always bring up the issue about how they can surmise a 0 to 10 scale when a lot of reviews don't score reviews on that scale. Personally I don't think it's hard to guess what sort of score someone might rate a title if they said, "I'd rather slit my wrists than play this game." Even then MetaCritic might be liberal and give that review a 4 out of 10 score. Regardless it's all moot. The video game world is a joke when it comes to criticism. People of industry like to tote that we're an art form and yet the majority of games are literal regurgitations of yesteryear's hit title. Do you know what happens in the movie industry when something like that happens? Critics go batshit. Do you know what happens in the video game industry when that happens? It gets an 8. I think I can barely agree with people who claim video games are an art form when the majority of its audience doesn't even treat it as much.

This is what I thought the thread was about at first, btw.

So it's not garbage because of its gameplay or anything important but rather because of loose license usage? Yeah... Bit extreme bro Yeah, "loose." Because "magic" is such a common occurrence in the original mythos. You'd care if it was a series you really enjoyed, like Escalades with spinners or black ghetto robots in Star Wars or something.

Portal.

I'll bank on people instead just pirating Origin-only games. Well, it's definitely what I'll be doing considering my track record of "trusting" EA.

Uh, LotRO? Because LotRO is definitely more polished than any MMO on that list. And I refuse to touch anything Bill Roper has had his hand in.

I've seen Elves slinging fireballs in their promos, ergo it is crap. If they wanted the Dungeons & Dragons license then they should've just dealt with Wizards of the Coast instead.

War in the North is garbage. I suspect the only reason they covered that is because Snowblind Studios kept sending them crap. And generally they only cover "popular" MMOs up to their release as well. I made this point in the last "How can we improve Kotaku?" bit and Crecente flat-out told me that "we cover MMOs pretty well." Yeah. Must be why I still go to Massively to read the actual NEWS on MMOs.

Yeah, except DDO is uninteresting. Who partners up with Wizards of the Coast and misses out on getting the Forgotten Realms campaign setting to use rather than the borefest that is Eberron?

It really annoys me how every single time anyone mentions any free PC game someone ALWAYS has to throw out LotR Online. Well, it is free, and it was a solid sub-only MMO before. Compared to any other F2P MMO, it definitely has more polish because of that point. And before we get into the whole, "Nuh-uh, it's not free! You have to purchase stuff off the in-game store!" I'll remind you that the in-game store works with points you earn in-game--points you earn from doing normal things, like completing quests and deeds. People have already managed to recreate lifetime-account equivalents with free accounts just by amassing points and unlocking basic features simply because you can create three characters on ANY server. Check this out: http://lotro.mmorsel.com/p/tpfinder.html Free players can earn 1,610 points per character (with the basics they start off with). You can create three characters per server (for starters). There are 29 servers. Needless to say, if you like the game enough and you don't want to spend a dime, you literally can get everything for free with enough time. And I say this not as a selling point to the game but out of ANGER considering how much money I've dropped on this game and now twelve-year-old Timmy with can replicate the same features I have because he doesn't have a day job.

If he ever says that he'll be destroyed by his own community and the only thing he'll be remembered for afterward is, "That guy who made Minecraft and ripped everyone off."