MadBoris, you just won some internets.

Wow. Well said. You summed up everything that's wrong with today's gaming industry.

Wallshadows wrote on Jun 11, 2012, 21:43:
I can admit that I was one who claimed these were not duped items but rather crashing a game to return to an earlier state in order to constantly provide materials in order to craft until a godly was made.

For exact dupes, there would have had to be another method which was likely not released to the general public which is standard procedure for operation such as this and, either way, it's nice to see they cleaned up the AH even if just for a moment.

Eh, it's the same thing. They were making the same items (or similar items) over and over and over again and then flooded the market with these items. Besides, even Blizzard admits that this so-called exploit is labeled as "item duping". It doesn't really get any clearer than that.

Jerykk wrote on May 28, 2012, 18:39:

theyarecomingforyou wrote on May 28, 2012, 15:05:
I perfectly understand putting a positive spin on things in interviews but it's pretty hard to state the game wasn't delayed when Blue links to the previous press releases that confirm it is. They made a joke of the DNF delay so what's so different about ACM?

Anyway, I'm just hoping it's not going to be a linear and scripted as the trailers have so far suggested. And it would be nice if the graphics on PC were better than the trailers, as low resolution textures and low polygon models aren't going to impress anyone - especially when AVP featured DX11 tessellation.

Sadly, I believe that the game will be just as linear and scripted as the trailers suggest and the graphics just as unimpressive. I saw a gameplay walkthrough at E3 last year and it was pretty much CoD with aliens.

Same feelings here. I seen the walkthroughs, the multiplayer videos and the E3 trailers and I just wasn't impressed. Essentially it's CoD with aliens and it's a little like, do we really need another one of those?

Cutter wrote on May 16, 2012, 21:28:
Gods above I wish both of the pubelishers both effoff and die!

I laughed at first, but then I stared into the sky and started asking for the same thing.

Illumin wrote on Feb 27, 2012, 11:59:
Id like to see this but with less talk more action in the game. Some original game mechanics would be nice also. All the mmo's feel like you do the same thing over and over and over again, but instead of using a elven bow +5 your using a blast tech blaster +5.

That's a good point to a degree. Games like APB: Reloaded focus primarily on skill based PVP and progression entirely centered around that. Story is completely out the window. But it's not a typical MMO.

I think Fallen Earth really goes outside the box, though. It felt a lot like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. meets Fallout and I really enjoyed that. There was a real community feel and survivalist nature to the overall tone of the game, which leant it more to feeling like an individual role-playing experience as opposed to the typical grind for +5 weapon experience.

My only gripe with Fallen Earth is that they should have taken more advantage of the "survival" aspect, enforcing players to at least have to eat and consume natural resources a bit more, sort of the way you have to feed and keep your horse healthy on the game.

If BioWare took a more novel approach to the game's design the way Icarus Studios did with Fallen Earth, a Mass Effect MMO could work.

Realistically, Tumbler, they didn't even need to announce Black Ops 2. Ironically, shortly after this incident started they announced Call of Duty for the PSV.

Common sense PR would have had them take down the Amazon listing like you suggested, but then roll-reverse and have a guy from Infinity Ward or Treyarch do a quick interview and say "Oh that Black Ops 2 stuff was a misunderstanding between Amazon and Activision, it was supposed to be for the PS Vita version of the game that's coming out soon."

Bam!

Problem solved.

Instead, they shot themselves in the foot by saying they don't blacklist people and then shot themselves in the knee with an arrow saying that they were "working towards a resolution". Who in their right mind denies an act and then says they're going to resolve the act that they supposedly didn't commit?

I agree, with you also that they have incompetent and idiotic marketing people working for them. They should have did what you said and just stopped talking.

This comment was edited on Feb 21, 2012, 15:19.

Dades wrote on Feb 19, 2012, 00:05:

You can't get information back when it hits the internet these days, it makes no sense for gameblog to remove it. Activision is well within their rights to revoke an invitation for a press event but it only hurts them more in the end. The rest of your rant reads like you have some issue with gameblog when their perspective in this is really easy to understand. If you think its ok for activision to do this based on a dollar figure then it makes no sense that you won't support gameblog who needs that "attention whoring" for hits and money too. Think about it.

Thank you.

I don't understand why the hate for Gameblog, they make money REPORTING NEWS. If they uncovered a breaking story good for them, it's not like they would have been well-known outside of this event, regardless. As mentioned, Gameblog wasn't going to receive any exclusive content so I cheer them on for sticking to their guns and running the story. I would have done the same thing...better than reporting it as the 200th site on GNews playing follow-the-leader behind CVG, IGN, Gamespot, Game Informer and Eurogamer.

Hump wrote on Feb 18, 2012, 15:00:
For once I'm siding with Acti as much as that pains me. Gameblog are acting as if they are being targeted like political prisoners in a 3rd world nation. Acti messed up and released something by mistake. They asked Gameblog to remove the piece since acti probably had plans for a major roll-out and all the costs involved with that. Instead Gameblog decided to create drama and ignore whatever business relationship etiquette they had to garner attention for their site. Now theyre crying to the game press that they received "unfair" pressure when acti decided to exclude them from future product roll outs etc. Theres no constitutional guarantee of equal access to game announcements. Gameblog acted like petulant little brats and Acti gave them what they deserved. Fuck 'em

Ahaha, yeah because obviously Gameblog would have been a top-of-the-crop pick for an exclusive Call of Duty announcement? Don't kid yourself.

And it obviously didn't pain you to side with Activision, we all know one of the big dogs in the yard will get the "exclusive" reveal and all the smaller guys will fight for the scraps. It's pathetic the way the gaming industry press works.

What's worse is that these guys did legitimate legwork and you're balking at them for being whiney? I hope you're not the same kind of gamer who complains about Top 5 lists and "fan-service" articles because that would pretty much make you anti-video game press.

Rattlehead wrote on Jan 30, 2012, 14:15:
Oh yea getting employed by the biggest publisher in gaming today sure is corrupt. Why pay those guys when they could be doing it for free right?

It's about the preservation of creativity and artistic integrity. Maintaining a fun, entertaining atmosphere within a game is rarely seen from big publishers, who usually force-feed "industry standards" down our throats for $60 a pop and little to no innovation, creativity or originality whatsoever.

Darks is right, EA will buy them up and corrupt them with either annual iterations of the same thing with minor tweaks for $60 a pop or bi-annual iterations with minor tweaks, a texture-reskin and a few extra maps for $60 a pop.

Kobalt wrote on Jan 20, 2012, 11:47:
I think dumbing down is the new hitler. Every game at least once is accused of doing it, no matter how ridiculous.

No, many games really are dumbed down to the point of being infantile and asinine.

In Blinx 2 the entire game was a tutorial...you never got to play it "freely" so to speak. By the time you learned all the game mechanics with all the tutorial-type stage designs the game was ending. It was crap.

Most of Assassin's Creed 2 is composed of learning or re-learning the game mechanics...it's just how its designed.

A majority of the first BioShock was just acquiring and learning about the game's mechanics. By the time you were "let loose" you were turning into a Big Daddy and the game was ending.

Most of GTA IV was a giant tutorial and so was The Lost and Damned. It didn't feel like you were actually on your own and playing freely until the middle of The Ballad of Gay Tony.

I think a few good examples of non-hand holding but dumb-downed games include Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age 2, Saints Row 2, Saints Row The Third and Aliens Vs Predator. These games basically make it where it's almost next to nigh impossible to lose or fail or make the wrong choice...most of the time.

I think games like Alpha Protocol, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Borderlands, and Far Cry 2 are decent examples of games that try to make the hand-holding or the dumbing down as miniscule as possible. Players were given quite a bit of control in the aforementioned games and I think that's what more gamers are looking for when they rag on a title being "dumbed down". Heck, in 007: Blood Stone you just had to press one button and Bond beat up a guy, blocked, countered and incapacitated him, as opposed to 007: Everything or Nothing where you had an attack, counter and grab button which you manually had to execute on your own.

They didn't say it was the best of 1993, just that it's one of the most well-regarded games of that era, which is true.

I think it's safe to say that Doom was the most influential and probably the best game of that time given that it scaled so well throughout the years. Seeing Z-Doom and Doom Legacy and how well they play in this era kind of proves that.

As for XCOM, I just hope they do it right. Destructibility and unpredictable AI is what really made the originals so great. If they can keep the customization in tact then they'll have a real niche winner on their hands.

Hopefully they didn't blow like $50 million to develop the game. I hate when they pour a big budget into something that doesn't need it.

Ludomancer wrote on Dec 24, 2011, 22:04:
Sadly, a console version would be the one thing to keep them afloat, I think... Would be nice to hear though. I could let them go quietly into the night if they finished Stalker2 for PC. Otherwise, I spend this holiday season in mourning.

I have no idea how they would be able to fit STALKER onto the consoles without severly cutting out a lot of active content. The game's main draw is its unpredictable AI and ever-evolving/competitive world.

The main appeal of STALKER would be lost on the console's horribly limited RAM. More than anything a hackened console port would only hurt GSC's reputation.

However, a release on the Wii U might be plausible...again, assuming it has enough RAM.

CJ_Parker wrote on Nov 24, 2011, 19:09:

Really? You mean you didn't first have to create an account? You didn't have to log in with your account credentials, didn't have to add something to your shopping cart and didn't have to enter your payment info? You just click install and play? I want that version of Steam with free games and no account registration requirements, too!

You make it sound like you have to do that every time you buy a game. After the initial sign-up IT IS EASIER to buy from Steam than to pirate. Believe it. No installs, no ISOs, no clunky files to replace or update or the round-abouts for playing online. Try getting that monkey to play a pirated copy of Borderlands with the DLC and the latest patch, compare that to getting Borderlands with all the DLC on Steam...oh wait, it takes less clicks, less download time and less install time. Yep, you're right, Steam is obviously harder to use than torrenting.

I don't condemn people for not wanting to pay full price. Read again what I wrote. I condemn the common practice of people who buy a game for $4.99 that they pirated at a time when it was new and selling for $49 everywhere. Then they act all heroic about their cheap purchase and consider themselves legit gamers. Bullshit. That's like raping a girl and then feeling like a gentleman when you help her wipe the cum off her face. Wow. What a hero you are. Not.

Haha, what the heck does a gamer's principals have to do with a potential purchase? Whether they get the game legally, pirated, new, used, etc., it doesn't matter. Money is money. If a gamer bum-ravished EA and said 'Ya know, that was a really good bum-ravishing, I rather enjoyed that, here's some coin' and tossed EA some money, they would lap it up regardless if they were bum-ravished before or after they received some coin.

Oh wait, Activision is doing that right now with Modern Warfare 3, which was already pirated before it released yet set sales records. Oh wait...EA did the same thing when Battlefield 3 was pirated but it couldn't be played until the access was lifted via Origin. So far neither company has complained about piracy despite the fact that both those titles suffered from the piracy rape scenario you used. Want to know why? Because they made money.

I don't support piracy but in the end if the developers get their share one way or another (personally I don't care how) then it means they can keep making games and that's all that should matter to developers and gamers alike. All that prinpcal/morality/legality BS is a throwaway and pointless in this business.

CJ_Parker wrote on Nov 24, 2011, 17:50:
And Steam is certainly not cheaper (Steam prices are a rip-off compared to retail in most cases and compared to "free", well, there is no comparison... free is free which is as cheap as it gets), nor is it easier than piracy. I don't know what piracy you guys are talking about but I'm talking about the download cracked image and mount via DT kind of piracy which takes less than a handful of mouse clicks and is so easily done you could train a monkey to do it. On the other hand: Try training a monkey to enter account credentials or credit card details. Good luck with that.

Yes Steam is easier to use than pirating. Do you need to goto a forum to learn how to a "mount an image" or do you need to learn about the registry executables required for some games? Last I checked you just click INSTALL from the Steam client and you're done. That's it. If it gets any easier then they obviously aren't catering the service to a species with the intelligence capable of actually playing the game they bought.

As for the prices...yes, Steam's "new releases" are a rip-off but as every other person already mentioned, the sales more than make up for it.

And added to this, why on Earth would you condemn anyone for not wanting to pay full price for a game? That's ludicrous. Consumers aren't the ones telling publishers to gimp them on the gameplay experience with scripted, linear levels and practically zero replayability in half the games released these days.

Remember, without consumers there is no publisher, there is no franchise, there is no game unless the devs pull it out of their own pockets. Most of the games we play on any platform from a big publisher is from funds WE gave them with our purchases.

Ventura wrote on Nov 24, 2011, 18:19:

Verno wrote on Nov 24, 2011, 13:21:
95% piracy rate, oh boy. Well trolled.

Whether you like it or not, piracy on the PC platform is obviously a huge concern. These guys don't want to see 2000 people pirating their game for every 100 sales, and who would?

Titles can still do reasonably well, of course, but as said before, that probably just means an even greater number of pirates are also enjoying it.

Edit:
I picked up the PC version of Modern Warfare 3. According to the info at vgchartz.com, PC sales of the game are at about 3%. I bet more than 95% have pirated this one.

Well misinformed comment there. VGChartz only includes retail NOT DIGITAL.

Did you buy MW3 from Steam or some other online distributor or did you buy the game from retail? If you didn't get it retail then you're part of that 95%, ace.