Jonathan Rose

It seems like every couple months there is some flash platform game that catches attention for some 'artsy' element it has in spite of it being generally lackluster in every other regard.

Roller Coaster Tycoon 3? Civilization 4/5? Plants vs. Zombies? Dude. I don't think those games benefit very much from motion controls.

I'm confused. This money was all lost in potential sales? What, do people just decide when there's a big tsunami "you know what, maybe I didn't want that game..." or is it something more macabre.. like they are calculating the number of people who wound up missing/dead who were gamers and multiplying by their estimated lifetime spendings?

As far as I'm concerned, Nintendo being against the garage-developer might as well be the same thing as being for the pirate. Many of those garage-developers are some of the smartest people currently living and if they really want to work with a piece of hardware, they'll find a way to do it and when they do, they'll typically share their work.

@Aguiluz
See, I don't buy this sort of argument for why something is 'wrong'. You could say the exact same thing about computers and computer games, and you could say that something as innocuous as writing a hex editor or a C compiler allows someone to make something like a wallhack for Counter Strike... but are the people who pave the way for someone to make something like a wallhack the ones you should be blaming? Not really, not unless you just oppose progress.

I've only just recently started caring about software freedom, but when you get right down to it, what Geohotz wanted to do wasn't to pirate games or to help people cheat. He just wanted to own a piece of hardware that he paid for and make it do what he wanted it to do. The fact that we criminalize this stuff is insane.

You know, PC game developers have adapted to the kinds of stuff that hackers can do and they've worked around them. There are dozens of tools for anti-piracy and dozens more for prevention of cheating. The bottom line is that it is perfectly feasible to protect your software and your networked games on an open system. Rather than relying on the system being closed in the first place, Sony should instead be focusing on how to survive in a world where every system will eventually become open with time. The easiest way to deal with that is to get it over with right out the game.

Also, I find it distressing that so many people are willing to give away their software freedom over a little bit of stupidity with online games. I'm guessing by the pattern of down votes here that not many of you are fans of Richard Stallman.

Willfully hating on enthusiasts probably isn't the best way to get people... enthusiastic. If Nintendo were sharp, they'd be trying to overtake Apple on the cheap games market with minimal effort (by releasing an open dev-kit) rather than turning their noses up to it.

Actually Bananaboat, that isn't true. The bourgeoisie of the Renaissance came into existence long before the birth of the union and many professional careers (engineers for instance don't have unions) today lack unions entirely (though there were guilds, but that was a little different). Unions mostly exist for the lower to lower middle class for jobs that don't really require any particular skill set.

I wonder if they'll fix that glaring typo. Probably not.

Unnecessary gameplay element? Let me ask you something, did any of the people who played the Gamecube version of Twilight Princess praise the game for not including unnecessary gameplay elements? No. They attacked the game because it failed to significantly innovate over OoT. No, there isn't such a thing as an unnecessary gameplay element. Memorable games are all innovative in some aspect. Memorable sequels doubly so.

Thats like saying that they should have made Duckhunt and World Class Track Meet have an option to play with a regular controller. They can't make a game with worthwhile motion controls while simultaneously pandering to people who don't want to play with them.