Recent content by JamesW

Hi Susan. I think this article misunderstands the purpose of advertising on TV, and the reason why videogames are only advertised on certain channels. Let's go through it bit by bit. Some of this was covered in passing in your article, but it all feeds into the conclusion, so bear with me...

I'm not just talking about this in the abstract, I'm talking about it literally. How much do you know about his private life? Does he have kids that he needs to buy Christmas presents for? Does he have a sick mother whose medical bills he's paying? Does he have a house to make payments on...

Which is exactly why the finger should be pointed at CNET, not Jeff.

As far as the contract goes, it likely has a clause saying that if Gertsmann causes sizeable damage to CNET at any point, he's liable to be fired. I've had such clauses in contracts (albeit freelance contracts rather than editorial team ones). The reason for the firing didn't come into it, and...

That's actually an excellent point, and one that hadn't occurred to me. I guess we also have to remember that the internet allows for the dissemination of news, the development of such stories and the airing of reactions to that news faster than any other medium in the history of mankind...

I'm not going to deny the idea that there are too many middlemen or that games companies can become too bloated, but the money issue is one area that's not really the companies' fault. Audiences expect games to be more and more visually impressive with each new iteration of hardware - but...

Depends. What do you think the flaw is?

If that were the case, he would have been hung out to dry days ago. No company would suffer this kind of grief and bad publicity if it had a reasonable scapegoat to kill.

It's a bit harsh to come down on Gertsmann like that; for all we know, he has a contract that would result in him being sued for divulging confidential information so close to the firing, or his severance package hangs in the balance. And yes, it would take balls to say fuck it and spread the...

I was referring to Bloodlines. Haven't played Redemption, so I can't make a comment about that. Sorry for not being clear.

Not quite right. Many of the games on that site have been made into freeware by the publishers. And UD is very careful about not leaving up links to games whose publishers are making them available through other means (like Planescape, in fact). As for "illegal" - well, that's not always the...

Actually, that sounds great. I'll look into picking that one up. What lpatforms is it for?

I don't think that's really fair. The nature of the game means that virtually no characters will be introduced that aren't in some way connected to criminal activity or organised crime. So it's not that everyone from Italy is in the Mafia, it's that everyone in the Mafia is from Italy. Also...

I would have thought female writers could only do so much if the male designers were still sticking giant tits and flimsy g-strings on the characters. I guess you'd need more female producers/development managers, but given the shameful reaction to Jade Raymond's role in Assassin's Creed, I...

Arcanum is a corking little game, set in a fantasy world which is undergoing an industrial revolution. Plenty of replayability, with about six different races (human, half-orc, etc) to choose from. The only problem is that once you get past about level 25 the difficulty completely drops off and...