SecretAsianMan

One of my favorite Nick moments was back in the days of the Spelunky Explorers Club. This run is my favorite

Bimmy and Jimmy were actual characters in Double Dragon Neon (although he's called Jammy there)

The best reasoning I can think of for digital games not dropping in price as often is the additional costs associated with it being purely digital. The costs of manufacturing a physical copy can be built into the price of the game, are a finite and known quantity, and are a one time cost. The cost of stocking and storage belongs to the storefront. Digital games require server space to store the game as well as network usage to actually download it. These are ongoing costs because you can't just shut those servers down if you want your customers to have access to it. Since you don't know when people will get it or how many of them will be downloading it, you sort of need to maintain them indefinitely. I would imagine the costs of server and network upkeep are comparatively less than those of physical manufacturing, but one has a known end while the other doesn't. Then again I might have no idea what I'm talking about.

I agree that the newer seasons are pretty inconsistent. There are a lot more misses than hits, although I'll admit the ones that do hit I actually found to be funnier than the ones I liked in the early seasons. Notably, the sixth season has my single favorite joke in the entire series because I'm a huge dork.

I'm not really familiar with how Paradox does things since their games aren't ones that I play. Are you saying they don't plan DLC at all and only make it when it seems like there's a demand for it, or are you saying that they do plan DLC but will perhaps change the content based on what they think people want? Or something else entirely?

I suppose I should have said that I meant using the insert key for it's intended purpose (whatever that is). I assumed that people would have rebound it for games, something I've done myself.

I really like the hub area in Halo 3: ODST. It's one of the few instances in Halo where I prefer playing solo. I like the mood and atmosphere (gotta love smokey sax) as you wander the dark streets alone. I also really loved the use of various elements to give you hints and warnings about what's around. I liked the idea of the vignettes for each character as you find the various pieces of their gear in the hub, although I didn't really care for the actual side levels themselves.

By season 5, do you mean the first season after the movies, because that was technically season 6. The four movies (Bender's Big Score, The Beast with a Billion Backs, Bender's Game, and Into the Wild Green Yonder) are considered the 5th season. As for their relationship, I'll just say watch the last episode.

Has anyone ever used the "Insert" key on your keyboard on purpose? When I say anyone, I don't mean all of humanity, I mean literally the people reading this post. Same for scroll lock.

The updates are being rolled out in waves. Microsoft has said it will probably be weeks before everyone who reserved a copy gets the option, assuming you're waiting for a proper invite.

I spent a good 5 minutes trying to figure out what this meant before I realized it said "doer" and not "deer". Although I do like the sound of the phrase "deer of the law".

Then my next question is what way would you rather see it done? If we agree there are continuing costs associated with releasing a game, then I'm not sure what else to do besides either increasing the price, a subscription model, or releasing additional pay content.

Yeah I also have to say I don't agree with this. Like Twig said, games don't update themselves. Servers don't magically appear out of nowhere and definitely don't require zero maintenance. Putting a game out to market doesn't mean the work is done. Saying that dlc is purposely withheld from release is disingenuous at best. There are cases where that's been true (such as the argument about content being on a disc but locked) but I very much doubt most developers are purposely cutting out parts of a game just to sell it to you later. That stuff usually gets worked on after the development of the main game is finished. Yes, they could wait longer and include it with the release but then that costs even more money because you don't have a product on the market in the meantime. I do have a beef with things like season passes but that's a different argument. I don't understand the problem with collector's editions. If you don't like them, that's fine (personally I think they're pretty dumb) but they literally never have anything absolutely necessary to play the game. They are completely superfluous and marketed towards enthusiasts and people with too much money. They contain additional items that cost additional money to make, so why shouldn't they charge more for them? Additionally, be careful not to conflate developers with publishers. A lot of the time the publisher is the one who's making the call about releasing dlc and the like. The developers (ie the actual humans who spend thousands of hours making the thing) usually want to pack as much in as they can, and more than likely they'll never see an additional penny in their paycheck regardless of how much dlc is sold.

All hobbies are pretty expensive. I think the reason gaming seems more expensive than others is the constant reminder due to new releases coming every few weeks/months. Other hobbies tend to have a large expense occur at once and then forgotten about over time, while gaming is repeated increments of $60 or whatever over a much shorter time span. Not to mention the sheer amount of things you can spend money on that fall under the category of "gaming".

So hitchBOT, the hitchhiking robot that successfully and safely went across Canada in 26 days last year and Germany in 10 days earlier this year, was destroyed 2 weeks into it's U.S. visit. The robot was found vandalized in Philadelphia, with all his parts stripped and his head removed (and still missing). This is surely going to be the inciting incident for the robot revolution.

I'm probably going to spend the next few weeks/months watching all the runs and I'll link to any I think are good. Bionic Command 2 100% Hype Mode by PJ Luigi's Mansion 3-way race between Boohead86, Firedragon764, and Veman3000 Megaman 4 race between almondcity and Chelney

Going back to my PJ love, Bionic Commando 2 was hilarious. There was an incentive for 100% which got met, and then an additional incentive for 'hype' mode that became a bid war. Basically, there's a glitch that PJ activates on certain stages that makes the main character constantly yell and is a riot. The TASBot block was pretty entertaining as always. While it's a shame that Ikaruga wasn't a live console run, it was still an amazing thing to see.

Just a heads up, SDA has implemented a new policy regarding the uploading of runs during GDQ. Basically because the runners are at the event, they're unable to upload their own runs on their own channels and all the other uploads are taking their traffic away, so from here on out they're prohibiting the uploading of GDQ runs on anything other than the official channel or the runner's own channel.

I also enjoy the many callbacks to that gag, such as when his son runs around and inexplicably gets smacked in the face by a child-sized rake.

Carl is definitely a great commentator and he's the reason that the Yoshi's Island any% race from this year's earlier AGDQ was so awesome. Not only is he enthusiastic and knowledgeable, he also has good marathon sense as he asks the crowd to quiet down after one of the runners got a tough trick so that the other runner could also succeed (which he did). I found TriHex's run to be a little disappointing in comparison. Even his banter about taking off his shirts and getting some stretching in during a autoscrolling section were relatively lackluster. Although the use of his chin in place of a claw position was amusing. One thing I would love to see at a future GDQ event is a Yoshi's Island marathon race. It would be great to see the controller get passed off from level to level as though it were baby Mario to the runners' Yoshi.

I watched the Kirby Tilt 'n' Tumble run last night which was actually kind of hilarious. It's originally a Game Boy Color game which had accelerometers built into the cartridge. You play the game by tilting the Game Boy to control Kirby as he rolls through various courses. It's essentially super early motion control. Because they can't capture video off of a Game Boy, they used the Game Boy Player with a GameCube, meaning that to play the game the runner had to shake the GameCube itself. It was pretty amusing.

I don't actively save them, it's more like I'm just too lazy to delete them.

What can I say, I love his runs. I also like watching Murphagator, Klaige, and MechaRichter because when one of them is doing a run, the others are usually on the couch.

YES. JOIN ME.

I'm almost surprised that PJ wasn't running it because that is exactly the kind of thing that tends to happen to him.