pmp10

Besides getting a good connection you can play with several of your friends in the same location.

I mean one that can afford a good internet connection. That's not a given everywhere.

People who attend LAN parties, organize offline e-sport tournaments and game in internet cafes. Just because Blizzard highly values centralized control and DRM Battle.net gives them doesn't mean that demand is not there.

Actually that is not an uncommon technique of inducing hypnosis. The game didn't make it all that clear but the 'I-use-speech' solutions are rarely given the lines to make them believable.

Deus Ex tops NPD sales chart. All it needed was 5 days of sales.

I'm don't understand what is so surprising about it. Standards of writing in video games are simply not very high and I think even for all his faults MCA still stands head and shoulders above competition. And comparisons to non-interactive fiction are not always valid. Especially to written works were the author can write anything without worrying about resource-cost of on-screen execution.

I get that they are trying to appeal to elitists but the whole "consoles are dying" argument really doesn't hold water unless you are willing to put some evidence behind it. And why dose he thinks he can single-handedly revive middle-tier games where developers like Raven have failed? I wish him luck but don't expect they'll make another game.

It sounds like it was assembled from separate words and sentence fragments. There is completely no proper tone or flow to the monologue.

Now that's somewhat surprising. I wonder if the review embargo is still in force. Don't know about the full game but as a software package the PC demo was utter trash. Depend on how they were obtained. Many sites offer region specific versions (from Russia/Ukraine/Asia) which are much cheaper. The problem is selling them outside determined regions breaks terms of agreement so you never know if your cd-key won't get revoked. Once it's activated you can download it from anywhere. Valve doesn't stalk 30 million people on who got their keys from where. They occasionally stalk people who buy 'gifted' games (especially when the US version is noticeably cheaper) or those who unlock games early via VPN so you never know.

On digital distribution platforms (like Steam) keys are proof of ownership. So buying a steam cd-key amounts to buying a game. You just register it on your account and then can download the game from provided servers.

Depend on how they were obtained. Many sites offer region specific versions (from Russia/Ukraine/Asia) which are much cheaper. The problem is selling them outside determined regions breaks terms of agreement so you never know if your cd-key won't get revoked.

And the source of those numbers is what exactly? Haven't seen any Square-Enix press release/interview and after barley a week of sales this looks like a vgchartz number. It sez that the source comes from SE directly. Well I don't buy it then. Those numbers are identical to the ones vgcharts put out and unless I missed an "anonymous source" or SE employee name somewhere then that article is simply unsourced.

And the source of those numbers is what exactly? Haven't seen any Square-Enix press release/interview and after barley a week of sales this looks like a vgchartz number.

Witcher 2 sold almost 1 million That's depressing. If they can't sell 1 million units worldwide in 3 months then high profile PC games are most likely doomed. Only 20% of sales were digital so it looks like DD isn't saving anything and nobody cares about DRM. I guess new business models will have to emerge before PC gaming is actually worth investing into.

Newest LHC findings: Higgs existence even less likely. Supersymmetry in doubt. That should upset a few things in participle physics.

The comments make me sad. Gamers in general prefer a more "epic" story over a personal/subdued narrative (e.g. FO3 fans arguing FO3 had a better story than FNV because of "epic" moments like Liberty Prime). It's the same reason why the Transformers movies are so financially successful. Not news to me. If I were just following narrative, I'd rather watch movies or could play even JRPG. You are essentially following a narrative in any type of game that presents a storyline. It's just that gaming standards for it's handling are so poor that people apparently think it's something only JRPGs have. The whole reason for aiming at that 'epic' style is because designer cannot create any emotional reaction in the player. All they can try is dropping giant monster or pushing giant world-changing battles to instill at least some notion of wonder. Also, NV has some memorable characters, too. Such as?

Done with Bastion. It was great. Hopefully someone will pay attention to how they handled the narrative.

On the subject of Space Marine - demo is now out on all platforms for the unwashed masses. Anybody tried it? 40K fans seem to love it although it looks unplayable to me.

If you really think that, you know nothing. Can you back up your claim with facts, then? There aren't that many humurous games out there. Freedom Force games sold like ****, even the NOLF games sold like ****. Borderlands? And it's not like it's all about the humor. Non-serious themes allow for a less realistic art-style and thus smaller graphics budget.

Blizzard on Diablo 3 online requirement I guess Blizzard is not a proponent of gaming on laptops.

Warhammer Online is 'free' for all of ten levels. And I'm not sure if anyone still plays in premium tiers. IIRC Age of Conan has better population and less restrictions.

You do realize that Fallout was also a tactical/strategy game and a console action game long before Bethesda bought the rights to it? Where do you want to draw the boundary on how much change is too much and what audience is too modern? And what is it with the attitude that such an interesting setting is better off dead? Especially since game worlds has gotten terribly generic lately and Bethesda treatment wasn't that bad - they clearly had some fans working on it. It gets you free publicity. By people naive enough to think that a new game will resemble the old one in the gameplay department. And by those who cry and complain that the new installment will somehow ruin all their precious childhood memories. It works because gamers get terribly upset when someone so much as touches their beloved franchise. Take the emotion out and it should be pretty obvious that revisiting IPs that had their high-point 17 years ago is an indication of a cheap cash-in or a desperate act to gather some attention. And if publishers have no faith in those games why should we care? There is plenty of bad games out already.

It's all well and good except that games today target audiences many times larger than they have a decade ago. A game can't have modern AAA production values and make money from sales numbers that were good back then. The constant drive for better technology brought the industry to the point were it needed to charge more for games or expand the customer base and unsurprisingly it went with the latter. Just because something appealed to us at one time doesn't mean it will today, and it most certainly doesn't have to be accepted by larger audience that is not nostalgia-ridden and has different standards.

Oh I agree that Bioware has confidence in the game. It's just a sad sign of the times that hype sells games better than demos do.