Pixelantes Anonymous

I don't have that kind of space on my hard drive.

I think this is not good at all.

PBone, so bring backt he code. Shouldn't be a problem.

So what's Gamestop's pre-order cancellation policy?

I pre-order, get my demo code, play the demo for a few days, cancel the pre-order. No problems.

I think I might have to get store credit for the deposit, but that's $5 that I can easily use towards another game purchase.

Finally! At least Microsoft now acknowledges it's a feature people want.

Gamers in online gaming communities are going to appreciate this a WHOLE lot.

Now, what's the release date?

@Vcize, friends of friends lists are nowhere as flexible as real tagging (or other grouping) functionality would be.

And obviously they're bound by the same 100 people limits the friends lists have in general.

I think from my list of recently played games only two come to mind:

Bioshock
Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway

Too many moments to remember from Horde marathon sessions.

Last minute heroics by the only surviving team member to clear the last Locust. Fighting two boomers, a mulcher and two grinders after they ambushed the team from behind.

Love the Horde mode!

Need swag

It's great in some respects, not so great in others.

For example, the new friends list looks absolutely amazing with the avatars and the whole 3D thing. But it's much less functional than the old one was. You can see much fewer friends on the screen at once than you used to. It's also a little disappointing Microsoft didn't enhance the friends list in other ways at all. Group friends by the games they are playing would've been one obvious example. Or any other type of grouping mechanism for that matter.

I also like the new XBLM interface a lot. But again Microsoft kinda botched it when they added release dates only on some content types and not all of them. Furthermore, you can't search content by release date...the "new arrivals" selection is far too limiting.

The interface overall feels a little more confusing than the blades did, but it looks much better. I'm sure the confusion will wear off once I use it more though.

The avatars are really nice, but the limited number of customization choices, especially in clothing items, is disappointing.

NetFlix streaming is absolutely kickass. Couldn't be happier with it.

Anyway, personally I'd hope for more functional changes. The visual changes are, mostly, for the better.

If Microsoft keeps improving it, unlike the old user interface, which they kinda abandoned and never did much with after it was launched, it should eventually be top notch. I think, for now, the visuals are great, the functionality is so-so.

"I suspect that a large percentage of those claiming to be in category 2 are actually in category 1. Without the option to pirate the game, how can we really know whether someone would buy it or not? The moralization of those who claim to be in category 2 seems to be entirely too self-serving to be trustworthy, does it not?"

Well, I don't know. Nobody knows, because nobody has studied this. All we have is RIAA/MPAA/ESA propaganda on it. I have some thoughts about it though.

The group who wouldn't buy the game in the first place includes at least these sub-groups:

1. People with no money. If you don't have $60 to spare on the game, you won't be buying it no matter what. When I was a kid 25 years ago, I was in this group. I grew up poor, so I didn't have money for games, so I bought C-cassettes (or re-used my dad's old ones) and empty floppies for a fraction of the cost instead and copied all my games.

2. Collectors (or obsessive leechers). People who torrent everything. These are the people who download dozens of different games every week. There's absolutely no way in hell these people would buy even a fraction of those games, ever. Many of them won't even really play the games, instead they get their kicks on "owning" a crapload of games, most importantly "more than the kid next door" (also see achievement whores...)

3. People living in places you can't buy the games...probably a pretty small group these days, but torrents can reach many more places than retail channels can. I remember back in the day before the Internet (*GASP*) and living in a small country, we just would not get all the games distributed in the country. The pirated copies, however, somehow always found their way in.

These people do not cost you any sales, because they will not buy your games no matter what.