Rant
”Why The Bad Company Win Isn't A Win At All
So EA & DICE have, as you've probably heard, altered their decision to charge users for certain weapons in the upcoming Battlefield: Bad Company. Cue high-fives and slapped backs across the internet. It's a victory! Score one for the little guy! Take that, big business! I'm sure a lot of people feel very proud of themselves! Thing is, how many of you have really sat back and considered what, exactly, just happened?
More »
Game "Decorated" Cakes Aren't Game Cakes
iron lore entertainment
THQ Creative Director Rants On Piracy, Death Of Iron Lore
When Iron Lore Entertainment announced it was closing its doors, some readers found it hard to believe. After shipping two quality products, with another promising project underway, how did several unspecified "unrelated events" put Iron Lore out of commission? Michael Fitch, Director of Creative Management at THQ, publisher of both Titan Quest titles, helps to shed some light on part of the reason in a rant posted yesterday to the Quarter To Three forums. More »
newsweek
Game Publishers Hold Enthusiast Press in Contempt
Still having trouble making sense of this whole Eidos-CNet-Gamespot clusterfuck? Newsweek's N'Gai Croal does a nice job of summing up what it all means. N'Gai writes:
The reality is this: publishers generally hold the enthusiast press in utter contempt, and they have for a long time. This disdain began as scorn for the enthusiast media's roots in videogame fandom, rather than traditional journalism from "respectable" publications, but it has since metastasized into a veiled but nonetheless seething anger over the advent of the Internet and with it the rise of fan sites, forums and blogs over which publishers can exert little pressure, let alone control. The contempt emanating from the publishing community, by the way, is not limited to the enthusiast press. In our view, it extends to publicists, whom certain executives believe can and should be able to dictate the nature of their coverage and secure review scores of a certain magnitude. It even extends to their own developers, for whom Metacritic and Game Rankings scores can dangle as precipitously as the sword of Damocles, as if these executives were incapable of determining for themselves the quality of their games and taking action accordingly.
Pretty heavy. The solution to this? That, after the jump.
More »
hysteria
Brownback Blog Late To Handheld Dangers Party
With their candidate on the brink of no longer being a candidate, the unofficial Sam Brownback blog has found some time to try and generate some anti-gaming hysteria, dredging up two relatively ancient stories in the name of ruining Christmas for children across the country. The main gist of the article is the Nintendo DS as a tool for child molesters. It includes video of the news story I dissected back in February and some extremely entertaining propaganda speech.Introduced in 2004, the Nintendo DS (for Dual Screen or Devil Screen), this game machine has sold some 700 million or so units. That's an epidemic. It's undeniable that it has been a "success" for its Japanese manufacturer, Nintendo (makers of Donkey Kong aka Monkey Donkey, a game in which a monkey kidnaps a young girl to satisfy his bestial desires). It's also been a tremendous success for pedophiles everywhere.More »
Why Does Turning on My 360 Make Me Nervous?
op ed
How Companies Can Avoid Countdowns
For a generation of marketers raised on TV and print, the internet is a gray nebulous. What works in traditional media? Getting as many eyes on a new product as possible — that creates buzz. But since the internet doesn't have "Prime Time" per se and is powered by a series of sites (not channels or publishers), focusing those eyes all at one time and one place poses a challenge online. More »
rant
Bethesda Counts Down To "Please Stand By"
Thirty-four days ago, Bethesda began a countdown for its upcoming RPG Fallout 3. And what did this huge build up count down to? A screen that says "Stand By." Why? Probably a gazillion people clicking "refresh" in unison. More »
nintendo
Nintendo Fans Are Never Happy
You can please some of the fans sometimes, but none of the Nintendo fans none of the times. Over at Newsweek's Level Up, GoNintendo's Kevin Cassidy (cool sunglasses, dude) takes the mic and challenges how some view all things not truly Nintendo: More »Jack to Crecente: You Are a Hypocrite, Curious
Facing a contempt hearing in a few hours, Jack Thompson sent out a letter to the press explaining how he is the one being bullied over the game Bully. More »
original
World of Warcraft Needs to Grow-Up
I was talking over the weekend with some friends about the World of Warcraft. I'm not a WoW player, but I did play it back when it launched. More »
wii
Opinion: In Defense of Wii
Okay, so the name sucks. The general consensus is that Nintendo's boffed naming their new console. The moniker is reminiscent of everything from the French word for "yes" to the childish word for "urine." Not exactly the association that Nintendo was looking for, but is that why everyone is freaking out? More »
clive thompson















