Blizzard has been dramatically decreasing the amount of XP/grind is needed to reach the end game content. Of course, they've also been extending the end of the game, but the result of that is more content, not tweaking the dials to cause a grind time. So, grind doesn't win every time. Though it certainly does win most of the time, especially by developers or publishers desperate to maintain their player base, which ironically erodes it further for all but the most patient fans, or those who find other elements (such as social interaction) compelling enough to suffer through it.

Valve doesn't have to worry about piracy because Valve has a large-scale DRM scheme embedded deep into its products.

Yeah. Online authentication with an account you create, have full control over, and can use for social networking is such an arcane and sinister method of controlling their products. Man, what? I guess you could say its deeply embedded since it's a core of their products, but it's also right there on the surface plain for everyone to see, unlike many DRM methods.

Some pirates may be underserved customers. In my case, however, I use pirate copies to check out titles that I'm unwilling to risk $50 on just to see if it's any good.

That's also being an underserved customer. You as a consumer feel that product quality is not sufficiently reliable from external sources. You see a market with a lot of choices for your time and money, but insufficient options for determining which of those choices are best to focus your resources.

Either way, viewing pirates as some type of customer, either potential or actual, is a much healthier and more productive stance. We've seen that when you consider them enemies, you must also consider your actual customers as potential or actual enemies as well.

This was confusing.
I'm making a note here:
HUGE MISTAKE
It's hard to overstate
my disappointment.
Electronic Arts
We name our game theme
without research.
It sounded unique to us.
Except those who got laid off.
But there's no sense blaming
duplicate song titles.
You just keep on trying
till the end of Q-4.
And the game gets shipped.
And the customer gipped.
For shareholders who are
still alive.

Eh, it seems like the Sims expansions which are nothing but clothes and furniture. Crap that could have been in the release? Sure, if they had no concern for a deadline - the same could be said of any expansion.

That it ads no real gameplay is more noteable in my book. I'm waiting for an expansion that adds the plant editor, or hopefully adding a bit more gameplay variety to tribal or civilization mode, or other feature rich possibilities.

But, if you are all about making creatures over playing the game, the first expansion might be a good deal for you. Since I avoided the clothing and furniture Sim expansions like the plague, it's hard for me to judge it.

Ah, so they use outdated disc checking instead of the far superior disc-less online checking. Great, so I'll need the DVD handy anytime I want to play. Fuck that - I'm tired of needing game discs out and accessible.

You can continue to play after 2050, and if you set up a custom game you can enable or disable any of the victory conditions, including the 2050 one.

Yup. Every single version of Civilization has always asked something to the effect of "Do you want to keep playing? No score will be kept." So I'm not sure what that guy is on about. The only time you are forced to end a game is if all your cities were destroyed.

Everytime I get turned into a Zombie as I'm running around trying to do quests and level. But I attack something anyway, a nearby PC or NPC. And the zombie powers give you something different to do and next thing I know I'm running around having a blast trying to build a zombie horde against NPCs to slap a passing PC to give them the disease.

So, all in all, yeah, it's a disruption, but a fun one that as much needed spice to the game. If I didn't have Halloween quests I was trying to get done before the end of the holidays, I'm sure I'd dive into this.

"Netflix finally brings 'Watch Instantly' to Macs."

It's about time!

But WTF is the point of linking to digg instead of directly to the article? If I wanted to click on two links to get to the article, I could click on the link twice.

Finally! Creationist Soccer 2009 has had like 5 patches. I was worried this one would fall by the wayside.

No kidding. Got news for you Ballmer, I was going to wait anyway because Vista is a resource hogging pile of crap. And actually, it's got me looking at MacOSX, so by the time Windows 7 comes out I might get it, but only to dual boot my Mac to.

Vista: Because Windows ME wasn't bad enough.

The 0.2% figure EA quoted was for people who tried to install three times within the first weeks of purchasing the software.

Ah, that clears that up. I wasn't sure if they pulled the number from the history of all their games or what. Either way, it's a ridiculous sample size. They apparently need to hire a statistician.

Well, I know I'll probably be increasing their numbers. I did my three installs (home PC, Mac laptop, work PC) and then a week ago my Motherboard died. So, I'll have to reinstall, and since my old one died, I wasn't able to use the "reclaim" feature by uninstalling. The experience could push me more solidly on the side of the fence I already favor.

I'm not too worried, though. EA, and the other big gorillas, are just being public about denying the changing reality. More and more games have been using online accounts linked with CD-keys (or something like it) without any DRM installed from the disc, like Sins and all other Stardock games, Quake Wars, Unreal Tournament 3, most Steam games, every single MMO, etc. The tide is changing and we are mostly seeing the thrashing of giants holding onto old calcified methods. Even the latest SecuROM is almost there, they just need to remove the install limit and installed DRM and they still have all the DRM they should need.

At least not the press release/interview I saw. They said .2% of users. Thinking their audience is largely composed of people who don't self-identify as gamers is almost certainly correct for The Sims franchise, might be right for Spore, but is flat out wrong for Dead Space, Mass Effect and most of their big titles with public DRM hoopla. .2% is probably still too low anyway, but most of my social circle is made up of gamers. Although up until this media storm, they were probably right. I generally have no idea what DRM solution a company has chosen, if any on a game. At best I'd look up to see if its on the list of SecuROM or StarForce titles.

I personally am apparently only 33% concerned. I skipped Bioshock and Mass Effect solely because of DRM. I would still have gotten Spore even if they had had the old SecuROM rootkit crap on it. I doubt many of us put ourselves firmly on one side of the issue without budging.

Blizzard and the press seem torn on whether this is a trilogy of games or a game with two pre-planned, large single-player expansions.

I'd just like to know if I can wait until the Zerg or Protoss come out and just buy those, or if Terran will be required to play them because the other two will be expansion packs.

I started using this in the Bay Area after moving to get to work, and often to get around to downtown San Jose or up to San Francisco. It's an awesome service and makes using public transit so much easier, especially if you have to transfer or aren't sure what the quickest options are.

Saves me a lot in gas and car wear and tear too.

1 million in two weeks is phenomenal no matter how you cut it. Give it another month, or at worst two, and it will easily sail past 2 million.

I'm curious what percentage of that is the DS sales - which really should be considered as a separate game. I'd say anything over 50% being DS would not be a good sign.

That poll is evidence of nothing. Before the patch I had constant crashing in Tribal stages and later. Usually there'd be a pause or hiccup and then the sound would go out and I'd have to hurry and save before the game crashed (because it would crash within the next minute).

Now, after the patch, I've had that happen once, but I get more frequence temporary game freezes which recover with sound intact and now follow up crash. So that's not "stable" by my book, but it is a slight improvement my some measures (personally, I'm not sure I'd not prefer the crashes) there's no way to vote to compare stability or degree of worsening or improvement. So, for all we know it used to be 52% and the patch is still an improvement.

Actually, one of the producers said it in an interview "Sometimes you have to say 'This is good enough!'"

The NY Times review nails it. It's a great, amazing, toy. But the game parts don't quite live up to the toy aspect. I'm having a really good time with it as a toy, but am a bit frustrated by the lack of game (mainly in the final stage)

Wow, what a bunch of ignorant sheep. Someone says SecuROM and they start foaming at the mouth about unplayable and viruses.

Except that the DRM on Spore is not the root kit SecuROM of the past. It simply links your account with your CD Key and checks online for it. Well, it's a partially online game and its no different than Quake 4, Unreal Tournament 3, Half-life 2, Team Fortress 2, every MMO, nearly every downloadable game out there. Actually it's better than MMO's, you don't have to pay $15 a month for the right to play. I love this new direction. Finally a release from a normally despicable company like EA and I don't need to have my DVD in the drive to play the damn game!

I not only don't mind, I hope this is the future of PC DRM.

I guess "Craft" is the new "Quest"? Except in this case, it makes no sense.

McCain anti-free speech bill, M rated ads banned (but not R rated movies!) and Kneivel suing AOL for a parody - is this insane legal day or something?