Bjorn

It is possible to escape the Painted World without dealing with the most difficult areas, and you can always come back later. You still have to fight a few things, or spring past them, but it is doable:

I'm still rather wondering if there wasn't some translation issue or misunderstanding regarding that $50,000 a day quote from advertising. That's like an unfathomable amount of advertising money, even for an incredibly popular game/app.

Wow, that's crazy. I genuinely can't imagine the kind of hate/abuse she must have seen sent towards her over the last year or so.

My wife is 6 foot tall and likes to wear heels so she can tower over almost every man in the room, including me.

As an example, Don't Starve sold about one million copies last year. It released earlier, is a lower price, has a wider audience, went through a paid beta/EA stage that built up a community for it, has had a series of free content updates, has a robust modding community and has gone on deep sales a few times. Klei considers it to be a huge success. Gone Home selling a quarter the copies of Don't Starve, given the advantages that Don't Starve has, seems quite good.

250K copies sounds amazing to me for a first time game from a new indie dev, a $20 pricetag for 2-5 hours of content and exploring themes that are considered niche and controversial for video games. If it averaged around $8 a game figuring in fees, Valve's cut and sale prices, that's pushing $2 million in revenue for a 4 person team in their first full year of business.

Gaynor revealed that GH has sold around 250K copies since release. I'm really happy it has done so well, surely that blows away any expectations they had. That's better than a lot of retail games do.

Steed! Steed! Steed!

We went and saw Laverne Cox, of Orange is the New Black, speak tonight and it was fabulous. Funny, poignant, at times painful and depressing. If she's ever speaking in your neck of the woods, I'd suggesting going.

Burroughs is worth mentioning, for me personally, as I was around while he was still alive, was introduced to his work and history while he was still alive, and never had any of the reaction that I've had towards Allen. His death isn't nearly as far back in history as most of the other examples that have been brought up.

Not to continue the previous discussion (since I'm the one who called for us to move on), but I saw an article today that kind of stopped me in my tracks after thinking about the Allen conversation on here. I thought it only fair to point out my own ambivalence about the topic in general and possible hypocrisy. This week would be William S. Burroughs' 100th birthday, and he spent the last couple of decades of his life in Lawrence, Kan., the town I've lived most of my adult life in or around. I was here for a couple of years before he died, though I never encountered him. Between the known reality (killing his wife and decades long drug abuse) and the rumor mill (mostly around pederasty, which was a theme explored in his writing), you cannot fault someone for completely writing off the man and his work. And yet I've always felt a bit of pride that my adopted home town is where he chose to spend his golden years. That he brought his particular brand of crazy to our patch of weird in Kansas, and only helped further shape the storied history of this place. Maybe I just don't like Woody Allen and appreciate the chance to have some bullshit to backup that feeling, something to validate my distaste.

That's the most brilliant thing, I ought to use Chrome more, just always default to Firefox.

5:38 of that video: "In Steed, you play as a horse for hire and save a storybook land full of inept heroes." I may have to actually get on and vote for that.

Weird! Though I concur that an in-depth analysis of a Disneyland ride is a perfect introduction to the Thumbs. I just got a mental image an entire wall devoted to Thumb locations. Current and former homes/jobs, favorite vacation sites, preferred coffee shops, etc.

The only thing I was able to take away from that is that Bogost is incapable of fixing a drawer pull.

I am on the email list for a company that specializes in anti-static material and devices, which occasionally makes me think I'm living in some sort of sci-fi future world. The names of the antistatic stuff always crack me up. Chargebuster Ion Gun Now In Stock

Any particular reason for the sudden influx of new listeners? Did you guys get featured somewhere, or get a huge boost in your iTunes' rating or something?

Gawdammit gamers Felicia Day cuts hair, Internet freaks out and attacks her Make sure you get to the part about the before and after picture.

I'm not quite sure why my comment about him being a master manipulator of emotions got put on there. I mean, that's one of the things a great filmmaker and story teller is. I wasn't using that as an insult, but to point out the power imbalance of when he began dating his girlfriend's teenage daughter. I admit to being uncomfortable judging him based purely on a single allegation. But I am also uncomfortable with the relationship choices he's made, to the point that his marriage to Soon-Yi had already somewhat turned me off his work and makes me question his ability to make ethical, or healthy, decisions. Fair or not, he gets less benefit of the doubt because of that. Edited to add: I know I've seen people who've worked Allen describe him in master manipulator terms. Here's one quote from Josh Brolin:

Inevitably, ineffable excitement emerged for Enemy Starfighter.

Woah Amazon Acquires Video Gaming Studio Double Helix Games

I had missed the news that Chris was officially part of Campo Santo now.

It's funny how after the near death of the space flight genre, we are on the verge of having a bunch of games in it all come out at once.

Good thing they are serving the drinks before the presentation.

Unfortunately the practice of militarizing our police has been on an expressway for a good couple of decades now. The amount of firepower, armor and specialized vehicles available to most metro police squads is insane. I'm going to visit St. Louis soon, will be curious to see what my friends there have to say about this.