Bjorn

I'm willing to give that a try. Hell, I still play ME3: MP (just played some this weekend in fact). It sounds like they are using the exact same progression system that ME3 used: No pay walls are good, but the ME3's progression was ultimately pure bullshit, as much as I like it mechanically. By the time all the expansions were out, it took something like 54 million credits to unlock all the Rare cards and lower, and 100s of millions (if not more) to unlock all the Ultra-Rares. A good player could make 200K an hour, taking hundreds and hundreds of hours to unlock everything. An average player could literally be looking at 500+ hours of playtime just to see all the characters and weapons, not even level them up. Plus, the packs were obscenely expensive for what you got. I'm hoping that system is balanced out a bit more, a shorter progression curve (ie., not impossible for average players), and more reasonably priced packs. It sounds like there may be a bit more structure and story to the co-op mode as well. Over time, they cobbled one together around ME3, and you could see the potential for something much more ambitious there, it just wasn't built from the ground up to support that.

The Dreamfall guys stepped right into hornet's nest unintentionally. They offered a competition through which a few fans could get their music included in some role in the Dreamfall game, winners would be unpaid and have a credit and a thank you in the game. Twelve hours later, they canceled it after getting a ton of criticism for trying to solicit unpaid creative work.

That's kind of blaming the audience, which feels unfair. It's not like Microsoft made sure that there were a couple of killer, OMG games to demonstrate the power and versatility of Kinect v2 at launch, and then continued to release interesting games over the next 6 months. The first Kinect had games like the Gunstringer, Child of Eden and the DoubleFine stuff, several of which came out within the first year. It seems like if MS was serious about Kinect being successful, they would have been paying for the people who made good Kinect 1 stuff and really got it into making more good stuff for Kinect 2.

You're just being opinionated in a way that is different from me. Edited: This is my favorite thing the forum does.

My opinion is that if she's 11, your folks should probably already be having a conversation with her if they haven't. If she hasn't seen it, it's likely that she has friends who have, who have talked about it, she's heard about it, something. As for whether it's a breech of trust, I'd say no, as long as you're not trying to act like the parent. That's what you should be talking to her about! Introduce her to some good games, with ethical monetization, that are a good fit for her.

Wat? Please, explain something to me. Why is it you're willing to devote this time to analyzing Quinn's place, role and actions, but you don't appear to have applied any critical thought to the FYC? The FYC should be apologizing to a lot of people, and explaining their project better, not trying try to surf a tidal wave of hate to fund their sketchy ass project. How is it that you keep treating them as not deserving of criticism? What it looks like is you are giving them a free pass, just...because? Because it's convenient? Because it justifies how you feel about Quinn? Tell you what, I'll seriously consider your posts about this if you show me why the FYC campaign is trustworthy and credible. Is that fair?

NHL is now denying that the rumor had any validity to it. I'd be bummed if it were true, Kansas City has been trying to sell itself as a great place for an expansion team for years and I'd much rather have a hockey team than basketball team if we're going to add another sport to the town.

Got it downloaded before calling it a night, played through the tutorial and the first mission. I see what you all mean about the sniper, she's badass. Lots of potential, can't wait to see more.

I liked Critter Crunch, and loved Clash of Heroes, so I've had high hopes for this. Just bought it, probably going to have to crash before it finishes downloading, but now I've got something new to play tomorrow.

When I see that hashtag, I just want to add #IStandWithJonTronInTheI/OTower #GetTheMessageOut

I'm consistently surprised, and disappointed, at the communities I've been a part of that aren't as open and loving of people of all types. You would think that hetero-subcultures that involve sexuality would be more open than the mainstream, but that hasn't been my experience, particularly when it involves bi-men.

:tup:

Ha, fixed and thanks! I had googled this thread (fastest way to find threads here), and apparently somehow copied and pasted it instead of the Atlantic link.

64-Bit fonts, the next generation of typography, exclusive to Google Chrome. edit...really, a new page for this post...dammit

Super opinionated and willing to personally engage with pretty much anyone about anything he has an opinion on. Bunch of people decided he was an ass after how he was shown in Indie Game: The Movie. Bunch of internet drama.

He's been pissing them off for years with HL3, don't see how this would change much. What are they going to do, not use Steam?

With the FYC, I did a bit more reading after my original post, and I can't find any evidence that anyone involved with it has any history with video game production. It's a visual effects and design studio doing the work, which is great for concept art, but poor for game design. It appears to be a guy (Matthew Rappard) who founded it, but you won't find his name on any of the official pages nor is it easy to find information about what kind of experience he has with a project like this or video game production.

It was several pages back, so easy to miss, but I'd ask you to read my interpretation of the FYC and their...thing, and explain to me why the project is credible to you.

No, but I find media ethics fascinating and its one of my favorite topics, so I'm happy to participate Personally I scan Joystiq for headlines of the days gaming news, do the same for RPS for PC stuff Joystiq misses, and then follow a handful of individual writers who I trust and/or particularly like and read their stuff. Then I trust a place like the Idle Forums to point me towards other interesting things I ought to read/watch. I understand what you mean, but don't find that over combative. If you're interested in how regular journalists approach this, many places use the SPJ's Code of Ethics as a general model, and then tailor it with specifics applicable to their organization. The Act Independently and Be Accountable sections would be most appropriate to gaming blogs. An interesting counterpoint is that many news organizations cover not just breaches of trust, but things like the ethics of reporting well and on recognizing the harm that may be caused by lazy or unthoughtful reporting. I don't know of any gaming outlet that considers these points in their ethics policies, even though both of those areas apply to them. Like neither Polygon nor Joystiq even mention plagiarism, the cardinal sin of journalists. Which is really interesting.

Interesting read for parents from the Atlantic, about a dad and his conversation with his 9-year-old son after catching him watching porn. Sharing it here, in part, because those of you with little ones might as well start thinking about this conversation sooner rather than later. But also because of the rather funny juxtaposition of the author's reaction to porn vs Let's Play videos. He's clearly ethically uncomfortable with porn, but completely understanding of the inevitability of his son discovering it. But he loathes Let's Play vids. There are also some delightful conversations in the comments bouncing around between people's introduction to LPs, parenting and porn. This piece is my delightfully surreal discovery on the Internet today.

I was just pointing out that using high end food and drink actually has been one way that companies have attempted to influence niche journalists in the past, and valuing food and drink can be difficult. It can be doubly difficult if you're at a multi-hour event, and the only food present is gourmet quality. Ultimately I think its small potatoes (food pun!) in the larger ethical picture, but it is certainly something that has come up again and again. I personally think limiting access is one of the single biggest ways companies can influence outlets. Simply denying an outlet interview opportunities can be crippling for some places if their competitors are getting all the best stories thanks to access.

Just to point out, I know in the 80s/90s, professional sports teams laid out massive gourmet buffets for sports writers at games and events because most papers excluded food and drink in their ethics policies. This would include lobster, prime rib, and really good booze (those examples come from a longtime sports writer I knew). In the sports world, that changed after a couple of minor controversies and the rise of sports media empires that have challenged the traditional role of journalists. I've now seen journalists complaining about the condition of the facilities they have at some stadiums. The NFL cable channel, partial ownership or business partnerships for individual teams with cable channels, social media, university/college league ownership of cable channels and other examples show how the business of sports has attempted to divest itself of needing to rely on traditional sports journalists for coverage. You can also look at the economic threat that's been leveraged against ESPN by the NFL to discourage ESPN from digging too deep on things like concussions. Sports media now needs access more than sports business needs the exposure, and the result is less bribery through buffets and more strong arm tactics. I think the relationship between sports teams and the media has more in common with gaming journalism than just about any other part of the journalistic sphere and a lot can be learned from looking at what all has happened there.

You're right, it was unthoughtful and it's a hurtful stereotype to perpetrate. I apologize for that. Thank you for correcting me, and for pointing out something I hadn't even considered before (the Daily Show's long running Putin thing).

I've felt for awhile like there are certain behaviors that our society has gendered (being emotional, complaining and gossiping) and that the gendering of those behaviors contributes to men (some men, #notallmen) being relatively blind to those behaviors when they or other men engage in them. In the reactions to Sarkeesian, or the mob going after Quinn, you can see men (manbabies) just being emotional as fuck, like complete temper-tantrum freakouts, but they accuse other people of being too emotional, seeing their own emotions as calm, rational behavior. They complain about women like Sarkeesian criticizing gaming, viewing her work as being nothing but one big complaint, without being able to see their own behavior. And a lot of the stuff around Quinn is similar to very traditional gossip, and you can see people dig on Sarkeesian to try and get gossip material on her. And the gossip even fulfills a similar purpose, of identifying those who violate the shared group norms and punishing them. It's not a thing I just see online, I see it all over in my regular life too. I feel like its a really pervasive attitude that runs through our culture.

Right! I didn't look to see who all had been in it, just figured I'd link for ease.