lobotomy42

You're right, oversimplifying is tempting. A $300 million loss within a single quarter probably isn't attributable to Dead Space. But I still think the reason they're backing off the "new IP" bandwagon is largely that it doesn't work as a large-scale business model. As I mentioned earlier, we've seen at least two publishers try it before, and then turn away from it as soon as they could, reporting huge financial losses.

What numbers are these? Sales? Revenue? Profit?

In other words, people whose purchasing habits are fairly similar to non-casual gamers. This almost makes sense, except that the Wii is the best-selling console of this generation by enormous margins and at least one rail shooter - Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles - has done quite well. Here's a thought: Maybe the problem here isn't EA. Maybe the problem is that PEOPLE DON'T BUY ORIGINAL GAMES AND THUS IT IS ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO HAVE A SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS MODEL CENTERED AROUND "ORIGINAL IP." EA is behaving completely rationally here. It's better to layoff *some* of your workforce and stay profitable, than to go bankrupt and end up laying off your *entire* workforce. If you're upset about the direction that games are headed, then encourage your friends to buy better games.

Why is anyone surprised by this? This was completely predictable. Ubisoft, 2003: "We're going to release original games! Beyond Good & Evil! Far Cry! XIII! A new take on Prince of Persia!" *Ubisoft gets burned financially* Ubisoft, 2005: "That was a bad idea." Majesco, 2005: "We're doing the 'original IP' dance now! Check out Psychonauts and Advent Rising! Not to mention Nanostray, Infected, and Raze's Hell." *Masjesco gets burned financially* Majesco, 2006: "Wow, that was really, really dumb. We're never doing that again." EA, 2007: "New IPs! Dead Space, Mirror's Edge, Brutal Legend, Bloom Blox and more! Don't worry, we won't make the mistakes of those other guys." *EA makes the mistakes of those other guys, gets burned financially.* EA, 2009: "Uh, hey guys, remember Madden?" The idea of "original IP" being the basis for a sustained business model at a large video game publisher is a nice one, but ultimately a false one.

Anyone have a sense of which would be a better experience - playing the PC version on a just-meets-the-minimum-requirements MacBook Pro, or the console (specifically, Xbox) version that all the reviewers seem to think is so terrible?

It's different. I don't think "hard" is the word exactly, because it's not like it's unfair or...particularly challenging in terms of gameplay or strategy. I think I would say that it is "punishing." You die easily - this is the main source of challenge - so you're forced to proceed carefully and slowly through each level, lest you lose your accumulated souls. It forces you to appreciate the nuances of the various enemies, level design, etc in a way that most games do not.

Am I crazy for saying that I actually think those screenshots look pretty good?

I only qualified for ...whatever status is below Platinum. So I get a Nintendo-themed calendar.

The Onion recently released this website: http://www.closerangegame.com/ The best part is the interviews with gamers, with obligate comparisons to "a piece of literature" and congratulating the "open-ended gameplay."

This is hard. Favorite: Probably Grim Fandango. Possibly Phoenix Wright. Best: Shadow of the Colossus. Island: Umm...Civ3? Super Mario World? Something infinitely re-playable, that's for sure.

To play devil's advocate... Obviously, gaming is a luxury product and no one is inherently "entitled" to play any particular game, regardless of ridiculous pricing choices. No one's injuring you or harming you by locking you out of a game or pricing things in a way that discourages you from buying them. But by that same token, it's a little unclear who exactly is hurt by downloading illegal copies, too. If I'm a game developer, there are people who are willing to buy my game, and people who aren't willing to buy my game. Someone who downloads my game without paying for it hasn't reached into my bank account and plucked out $50. And games undergo price discrimination fairly heavily, too - You can usually get the same game for $50 at launch, $20-30 a year later, $5 when it goes on sale on Steam, and eventually less than that when it's packaged as part of a value compilation. (Basically, this is charging different customers different amounts based on how long they're willing to wait to play the game, or whether they're willing to buy without the manual, or a scratched disc, or....) So it's not as if the game has some inherently-fixed value that the developer "lost." I'm not saying everyone should go pirate games willy-nilly. But it does seem equally self-righteous to say "If you're unwilling to pay full price, don't play the game" as to say "If you charge more than I want, then I won't pay anything." The whole situation is complicated as a result of laws and economies that evolved prior to the information age and don't always make sense as a result.

It does look kinda cool. I do like Diablo. However, I'm poor and have a huge backlog of games. So this will have to wait.

"Brutal Legend is front heavy with the humor stuff" - IGN.com

Deus Ex

I think it would have been bearable without the ice-cleavage.

YOU HAVE JUST TURNED MY WORLD UPSIDE-DOWN

Wait...."book" ????

Being "subversive" in any meaningful sense is pretty damn difficult in *any* commercially released media product, especially multi-million dollar projects like video games. I agree that "Mickey Mouse, but, like, cooler" is all we can reasonably hope for but that may very well still be a damn entertaining game. The company's evil-ness does not prevent it from occasionally releasing cool shit in spite of itself.

So, after a lot of weird delays and internal modder politics, there is now a mod out that restores a lot of the cut content from Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords. Has anyone else been playing it? Does it address the complaints raised in this ancient Idle Thumbs review? I've been playing through it again, and for the most part, I haven't noticed the changes. To be honest, the experience is reducing my memory of the game from "pretty awesome, but buggy" to "wow, why does everyone in this galaxy live in ugly corridors." I just got to the surface of Telos, and I was wondering when I was going to see some "magic new content." I then re-read the list of restored content and realized that I had already encountered a bunch of it. I'm not sure if this speaks to how well the modders integrated it into the rest of the game, or how inconsequential the missing content was to begin with. Apparently the really good stuff happens later on, though, so I guess I'll keep playing. But, wow, does this game have a lot of combat in a lot of corridors that I totally blocked out after my first time through. EDIT: The mod is here.

*This* mod is in open beta. It was created directly in response to the (apparent) lack of progress being made by Team Gizka. An incomplete version of The Team Gizka mod was leaked awhile back, but that has not much to do with the recently released one.

(Thanks, elmuerte) My snarkiness aside, this could be totally rad if they do it right. I like the idea of the old Disney characters ganging up on Mickey, but I'd want to play on their side, not Mickey's.

I can't tell if this is sarcastic or not.

Yeah, because "capturing a vibe" has so much to do with hardware and so little to do with talented artists. That's why all my Sega Genesis, N64 and Playstation 2 games look like shit -- they were completely incapable of rendering images that looked remotely like what the artists intended. Like and and

If Mass Effect 2 includes an optional makeout scene with a male Shepard and a male party member, it would almost make up for "Subject Zero."

You kill a lot of Geth in Mass Effect. And a fair number of zombies/drones/etc. But if you played as a good guy you probably didn't kill that many people. (Taking "people" to mean a living, sentient individual of a Citadel race.)