Henroid

Via Gamasutra, EA's CEO says he wants to deliver an amount of value to players depending on how much money they spend. As in if you spend $1, you get $1 worth of 'value.' $10 = $10 value, etc. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/223651/EA_Access_tip_of_the_spear_for_giving_players_new_ways_to_pay.php My gut reaction to this is, "So free to play models are gonna be your thing?" But this quote is centered on the EA Access thing they launched recently. He went on to say he imagines there's gonna be one digital model for video games to "rule them all." I don't think he understands the Steam model (or GoG or whatever else you wanna use as an example) is already here. In a business sense it is smart for EA to make this declaration, as I imagine Origin doesn't match the numbers other services bring in. How could it, it's a walled-garden. But rather than give up 100% of the profits to pay for distributors, EA wants to instead claim that the current models are a thing of the past and want to "invent" something that they can take credit for and perhaps offer to other businesses. Think like Sony pushing Blu-Ray in a hurry. Practically speaking I don't see EAA going anywhere. Edit - So basically if you're not winning, try to change the game being played so that you are. Maybe that's EA's business strategy.

Can we embed Tweets on here? I forget. Oh well. This: https://twitter.com/ryanjreilly/status/501515140349853697

I think they're starting to try to invoke the "Free speech zones" concept, which is a huge load of shit because I thought all of American territory was a free speech zone. Or a Sonic the Hedgehog level.

I get what the rest of your post is saying, but on this point, I just wanted to note something. You're right that it was meant to establish tone, but they gave it a goal to chase, and in chasing that goal there's an increasing chance of monotony to settle in (rather than terror and hesitation). Even in Danielle's stream of the PT, as much as they were terrified to start, they eventually broke down into jabbing at Kojima the same way I was. There was too much time spent in the same place doing the same thing. If Kojima had practiced some brevity, maybe the impact could've struck at its best. Timing is everything.

I got my insight into it when I was growing up. My mother and a friend of hers would go play bingo every Thursday, which meant my brother and I going to a babysitter's. The babysitter being my mother's friend's husband. They're black, live in a black community, and it was policed heavily by white cops (which I'm sure is the same now 20 years later, I should drive over there to check it out). We arrived one night to see the door kicked in, the husband is gone, and everyone else is in tears. The cops came looking for their son - who was an idiot and got involved in a lot of crime. Rather than knock asking around for him, the cops busted down the door, and when the husband came around the corner ready to defend his home from potential burglary the beat him. Like really, really badly, in front of all the kids. Then hauled him off to jail. We missed the whole affair by about ten minutes. The cops didn't even take statements from my mother's friend. My step-family, nieces and nephews included, are also black, and they've had to go through a thing or two as they've grown up. Nowhere near that bad though. I didn't grow up enduring the shit first hand, because I'm light of skin (half Mexican though), but I was in close enough proximity to see the fallout and know the bullshit.

Reading at the moment that Governor Shithead didn't notify the White House he would be calling the National Guard in. I'm not sure if he has to get their approval or not before doing such a thing, legally speaking, but given that Obama was on TV last week saying that the state and city officials should be coordinating with Obama's staff to figure this situation out, you'd think he would've concluded they should be in on this before he does anything on his own. Because maybe they can remind him to not escalate the situation. My twitter feed is also started to fill in with mention of marijuana being blamed for making people 'violent' in Ferguson. I also got this news story in my Twitter feed. It's from last month, but it was meant to bring the following perspective: A cop shot and killed a family's dog in front of their six-year-old, unnecessarily, and he was fired for it. Mike Brown is murdered by a cop, again unnecessarily, and the cop is on paid leave and his police department is marching out to stomp any and all objection. Fuck everything. http://abc7chicago.com/225283/

Via Gamasutra, Star Citizen has made $200,000 on sales of a single ship and is at $50 million total over this past weekend.

I was hoping the National Guard's orders were to keep the police in check, but apparently their orders are to protect the PD's command center. From who and what?! It's like everyone issuing orders doesn't get it. This protest is about the extreme escalation of authoritative practices.

I dunno, I guess maybe it's a genre that isn't for me. Something that is constructed specifically to "mess with your head" is something that I'll see through right away. The original Silent Hill was actually rather terrifying to me because the impending danger and unknown qualities also carried gameplay consequences with them. As in, you die. In this game, even when I saw a moment that implied death, the people streaming just found themselves waking up in a room and continuing on like nothing happened. But being presented with, "Whoa isn't that weird and scary?!" doesn't do it for me. I think Rob Zombie films were the last straw in my realization of this and it's carried over to video games I guess. Or maybe I'm truly desensitized to things. Knowing it's fiction just has me shrugging it off. I doubt this will end up happening since it isn't Kojima's style, but if it turns out Silent Hills is a character drama more than a plotplotplot thing or a horror sideshow, then I can get behind it. I actually tried applying some of it to the PT, suggesting that maybe we were seeing someone's time-broken perspective of something terrible they did or survived. Which would have more meaning if I knew who the players were playing as, but the implication was nice for a time. Then, of course, the hallway was traversed for the 30th time and I realized I was wrong.

Did the cop show his face? I'm willing to bet they're being told to avoid being on film so that their identity is less clear when this footage appears in court for evidence's sake.

What's it like up there with all your healthcare and maple syrup and hockeys?

Unless they're black apparently. Terrible joke aside, this happens so damn much and there are so many repeat offenders. I'm sure some people can't handle shooting someone else, wounding or to death, but there's other people capable of just walking along in their life fine. Not every war vet needs therapy (well, we know of).

Autopsy report: Michael Brown was shot six times, once in the eye. Apparently the cop that murdered him is on paid leave because he set the Ferguson PD's bar high for excessive force. It's what they seem to be into in a perverse way. Also reading on Twitter some reporters are getting arrested just for being present.

I'm watching the same thing. A cop literally yelled at the guy recording that if he "didn't get the fuck out" he was going to shoot him. All because the guy had a light on for recording purposes. It was crazy how loud the cop was screaming.

Holy shit, the things the cops are saying to people recording directly to the net.

It unfortunately forces the game to devolve into "zoom view on every detail." And that's how people will walk through it. It stops being a game and just going through the motions.

Isn't that a violation of free speech and freedom of the press? The containment of the press?

Wait this happened like last night or something?

That's bad for video games.

I'm watching a Twitch stream of this that Junior Mints is on, and uh... this is the most drag-ass thing ever. Like I appreciated it at first, but... how are you supposed to know things? There's too much openess to wander around without 'progress' or seeing anything worthwhile. Impressions were high at first and rapidly diminished. Also I was reminded that I can't stand Kojima. Oh boy text on the screen randomly thanks again Kojima.

Yoshiiiiii

A curfew is fair enough. What I want to see is what other things the police department will try to impose on the protesters, as a means of showing authority over them still. I'm still worried that retaliation from the local PD will cause an incident or two.

Remember that bank robbery in LA years ago where the two guys were decked out in body armor from head to toe, and the police firearms couldn't do shit to them? That's when higher-grade weapons can be useful for the police. Now. How many times does that sort of things actually happen? (This isn't a trick question, it's not often.) Edit - I mean, common sense would dictate that you bring this equipment out as needed. But for some reason there's a strong belief that brandishing it over any incident will act as a deterrent. It's bonkers.

What about bird.noise?

Even when not lethal they hurt like a motherfuck and can cause serious injury. There's a photo of a woman in Ferguson who got hit with a rubber bullet in her abdomen, and it looks like her skin is cratered. Also back when I lived in Portland, OR there was an issue of police arresting a woman at a transit station, and when she was on the ground getting cuffed a cop put a beanbag shotgun up to her point blank and fired. She lived, didn't lose her arm or anything, but it was a wild abuse of the gear cops have. Essentially what the country needs is Federal level guidelines of police training, especially geared toward when and how to use all the equipment at their disposal. Because they seem to carry whatever they want and use it in whatever fashion, even though it's meant for more extreme circumstances. They're too trigger happy and, worse yet, tend to get away with it.