Mr. GOH!

The world's supply of oil is not infinite. I'm not a geologist or energy specialist, but I do know that it will run out one day and I fear that the transition to whatever replaces fossil fuels will be, well, less than smooth. I advocate exploration of all rational alternative sources (not corn-based ethanol) and support increased usage of nuclear energy. Also, those who deny global climate change can go ahead and stick their anti-science fairy tales and stick them where the sun don't shine.

I don't mind paying $60 when the game is worth it. I think Mass Effect 2 is easily worth that when you take into account how massive it is. and I think part of the reason N64 games were so expensive was the cart format. It's not so much the exact price point that I'm getting hung up on. It's the packaging of less and then selling the missing parts for extra. Word. Hell, I'd pay more for well-made niche games, like deep and robust Baldur's Gate style RPG's with tactical combat, since the mainstream seems to like dumbed-down, action RPG's. I mean, if paying $90 for Dragon Age: Origins meant that Dragon Age 2 wouldn't be "streamlined," I would have happily paid the higher price.

Oblivion was like going to a local Ren Faire or large-group D&D LARP session with a strong catgirl contingent while on a really, really vivid and terrible acid trip.

True. And people pirate World of Goo despite the fact that you could pay what you wanted to for it at one point. But that just proves that people will pirate anything, i.e., people will take anything if it's free. On the other hand, the Humble Bundles raised something like $4 million (not sure if that was just the amount for charity or total amount sold).

Just because it isn't available at retail doesn't mean you can pirate it, at least in the US. Copyright holders may not protect such media, but they very well could.

I regretted the way I worded that as soon as I hit the submit button. I guess there is no editing it now. That's what I get for trying to post while I'm in the middle of coding and talking to Dean. I didn't mean to imply that any kind of unlicensed distribution is treated as a loss in a general sense. What I meant was that there are cases where plaintiffs have proven damages due to unlicensed distribution. If you are still interested and it wasn't just my poor wording in the OP that intrigued you, then I could find some cases. How would you approach it? Yeah, I'd be interested, insofar as consumer media piracy goes. I've read cases involving business defendants (even individuals) in which real losses have been proven at trial. That is, the media pirated has been used to make money for the defendant. How would I go about doing a quantitative study on piracy's effects on revenues? Well, I'd do a series of surveys with large n's to get some self-reporting piracy behavior numbers amongst computer gamers and folks who purchase games. I'd also run a series of smaller studies (social science-type experiments) amongst the general population to determine the effects of more specific behaviors, such as how a product's cost affects piracy, the amount of people who would normally pirate a game but would also pay for a game in the absence of a free alternative, and so on. It would have to be a massive study to be definitive. This would be expensive and time-consuming and would likely paint a complicated picture of piracy, so it's doubtful it will get done soon. As it stands, I think a significant number of pirates wouldn't buy the games they pirate at the prices the games currently sell for, but would buy the games for a lower price. I'm not sure what price point would capture some of these pirates, but I suspect that Steam sales manage to get a lot of business from would-be pirates due to the massive discounts and relative ease of use (pirating games can be a hassle for those not savvy). A great number of pirates, I think, wouldn't buy the games they pirate at any price and these pirated games can't be considered a loss in revenue at all (though the pirates still are breaking the law).

Exploration of interesting physical spaces, characters and stories. Multiple interesting and significantly different solutions to a problem, whether that be different configurations of an army in Final Fantasy Tactics or different story choices that alter the narrative or gameworld. Fun gameplay systems.

People who claim piracy is stealing should not be allowed to enter into any discussion of any sort ever. Why is this, you ask? Well, because you are basing your whole argument on a FACTUAL ERROR. Why the hell would you do that? You are making yourself look like an idiot while contributing absolutely nothing to the discussion at hand. Piracy is the act of making a copy of a product. It does not remove the original product. Hence, logically not stealing. Furthermore, it is not legally considered stealing either. It is considered copyright infringement. So, oppose piracy if you want to, but please, for the love of whatever deity you believe in, base that on some sort of rational argument, not a plain lie. Why should a difference in semantics completely negate the spirit of an argument? Copying might not fit the legal definition of "stealing", but it does fit the legal definition for "copyright infringement." Unlicensed distribution has been proven to incur very real losses in some cases. If you need a rational argument for that, there's plenty of case law out there for you to choose from. Just make sure that you have a legal dictionary handy in addition to that Websters of yours. What cases have established that unlicensed distribution of virtual media (i.e., piracy) incurs real losses? I don't disbelieve you, I'm just interested in this factual assertion since almost all my knowledge of copyright law stems from decisions of law rather than trial findings of fact. I know that some piracy by businesses (or folks using the media for-profit)demonstrably reduces revenue for the copyright holder, but that's not what we're talking about here. From policy reading, though, my understanding is that although piracy of consumer media has some effect on revenues, there's not really much agreement as to the extent of that effect. Some (overly simplistic) sources assume that every pirated copy is a loss in revenue equal to the consumer price of the media, while others factor in the fact that a lot of pirates wouldn't download the media but for the fact it's free, among other methodological differences. I also recall that most studies have been about mp3 and film piracy, which are different beasts than game piracy for a number of reasons. Just to reiterate: piracy is illegal, and the pirate does benefit from a work without compensating the creators or owners of that work. I do not advocate piracy at all.

Adobe doesn't care about piracy from home users? I did not know that. I do know for a fact that the company has mixed feeling about the use of photoshop as a generic term for photo manipulation because it fears its trademark will become, well, generic.

I see this discussion is evolving into a thoughtful debate about the philosophical underpinnings and ramifications of various theories of property. Oh, fuck, wait, no it's not. It's turning into righteous indignation and an unwillingness to explore the other person's viewpoint. I always get that confused with thoughtful debate.

I used to pirate games when I was a poor undergrad student, but I haven't pirated anything in years. Well, except a copy of The Witcher because I can no longer activate my legitimately downloaded copy because Atari is fucking retarded so fuck them in the ear. Then again, I just applied a crack, which is legal to do to; you can circumvent DRM to use copyrighted material you have the license to use (this is somewhat simplified, but I know folk 'round these parts don't much cotton to lawyer-talk). I'm somewhat sympathetic to pirates because damn, games are fucking expensive and companies who don't release demos are assholes. Well, that and I doubt many pirates would actually buy the games they pirate if piracy somehow became magically impossible. On the other hand, it is illegal and the folks who make a game should be compensated for it. I'm not quite convinced piracy is theft because no one is deprived of the use of a game due to one downloading it, though I understand the moral outrage of anti-piracy advocates.

Tactics is the best. I voted for VI. I've played all the main line FF games except II and III. I could have voted for FFIV for nostalgia's sake or IX as an excellent palette-cleanser after the terrible, awful, no-good FFVIII. Everyone who likes VIII has bad taste in games and should feel bad.

First game I played was a skiing game for an ancient Atari system. I played it at a friend's in the mid 80's. First games of my own was Super Mario Brothers/ Duck Hunt, Kid Icarus and Castlevania. I don't remember which I played first.

In a survival game, or something where the game wants the decisions you make to have an important impact, it's fine, but if I want to start a New Game, I should not have to give up my past saved game. Agreed. Although I haven't played much Pokemon at all, I suspect the whole 'gotta catch 'em all' would be severely fucked with if it allowed multiple saves. But I could be wrong.

GTAIV.

I always thought the whole premise for Aerobiz Supersonic was bizarre for a SNES game. I loved it to death, though.

I didn't realize many games did this at all. I sorta loved it as a feature in the original Dead Rising. Then again, I'm in the minority who thought a lot of the arbitrary design decisions to increase that game's difficulty were pretty good.

Battletoads for NES. I never got past the speeder bike level. I don't play shmups, which I suppose are probably the hardest genre of modern games. I think the most difficult modern game playthrough I've played must be Europa Universalis on a harder difficulty as some minor country in Asia. Straight-up overall hardest modern game I've played is either Dwarf Fortress (which I suspect doesn't count) or Super Meat Boy.

No manual save. I love Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood bunches, but I hate the autosave mechanism. I get freaked out whenever I quit out by the ominous "unsaved progress will be lost" message because I'm never sure when the last time the game autosaved. Well, at least until I realized that it autosaves all the fucking time.

Fighter/mage/thief. Or perhaps fighter/cleric/mage or fighter/cleric/thief. I like the idea of being a jack of all trades.

I like to multi with friends. I loathe multiplayer games on public servers; I juts don't have the time to sift through the bullshit. Since most of my close friends either don't game or play different games than I do, I don't play multiplayer very often at all. On the other hand, I have had fun messing around in random AC:B matches for the past week. For some reason it's multiplayer doesn't aggravate me nearly to the extent other games' multiplayer modes do.

Mass Effect 2 FO:New Vegas Final Fantasy 13 Dragon Age: Awakening Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood Red Dead Redemption (on track to beat it, at least) GTAIV: Ballad of Gay Tony Metro 2033 CoD: Black Ops Darksiders Dead Rising 2 Civ 5 Just Cause 2 Singularity