Recent content by WickedArtist

I agree with the sentiment of your post. For the most part, the industry tries to do smart business (though it doesn't always seem smart, but who am I to know?), and smart business is to do what sells. If consumers demanded better than the lowest common denominator, the money (still) in their...

I used to be an advocate of the "gamer" label. It offers a sense of identity as part of a niche community - no matter how many people play games these days, few describe themselves as gamers. Gamers are the enthusiasts, the ones who really like video games and take up a special interest in all...

I wholeheartedly support your effort to keep calling attention to the Activision scandals, Shamus. It is undoubtedly a case of "same old, same old", but I think that as video game consumers and enthusiasts we shouldn't allow ourselves to ignore and forget just how poisonous Activision's...

I consider grind to be the continuous repetition of the same task for an extended amount of time within the same context. The negative aspects repetition in the same context is already established, but doing so continuously is what I think defines grinding. What I mean by continuously is...

I'm curious, how does file sharing different from piracy? Isn't piracy just a form of file sharing? I don't disagree with the judges' ruling, but I am ambivalent about their absolution of file sharing as a harmless form of lending. All this talk about the freedom of the internet reeks of...

I want to agree with you, Funk, but I've stood on both sides of this argument in the past, and find it more interesting to play the Devil's Advocate here. I will try to do that. I don't think fiction should strictly adhere to certain archetypes. On the opposite, I support imagination and...

My biggest issue with voice acting in games is that it's bad more often than not. Exceptions notwithstanding, most voice acting I encounter in games is banal at its best and catastrophic at its worse. I don't mind that voice acting is potentially limiting our choices in non-linear narratives...

Once again Hollywood exemplifies its creative bankruptcy. I'm at least surprised to see BioWare are not in a hurry of giving away the franchise. But I doubt any good production will ever come out of it, so long as the creatively-bankrupt Hollywood continues to show disrespect to game...

I'll join the wave of dissatisfaction here. I can live with disc-checks and even a 15 activation limit, really. I am even inclined to overlook a questionable DRM software for the sake of a game that's worth it. However, I do not want GFWL, and I refuse to be forced into using it. I might...

I spoke a while ago with a friend about this topic, and she raised an example from the world of photography. Today, everyone and their grandma have a camera. Stores offer a wide selection of affordable cameras of all sorts, we've got cameras plugged in to our computers, and even got cameras in...

I reckon that's because balance is a shaky deal. Players find exploits or superior strategies in the current balance system, and the balance system has to be changed, which creates different opportunities for superior strategies, which calls for more changes to the balance, and this cycle...

It's worth noting one of the reasons one might want to play solo, other than space/time constraints: people on the Internet are assholes, as demonstrated by the Penny Arcade Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory. Every multiplayer game I played to date was dominated by the assholes, jerks, schmucks...

Even if it is possible to do well without graduating school, even if it does somehow depend on what you wish to do for the rest of your life, that's an exception. Do you want the foundation of your life to be the hope of being an exception? Heck, either way it doesn't resolve you from hard...

The PC has been declining and dying as a gaming platform for, what, about ten years now or something? And yet it is still here, and still getting new titles. I think PC gaming will do just fine.

I learned that war, war never changes... More importantly, I learned that I am interested in the game development industry and that I'd like to join it.