DLC/Free-to-Play is like a Skinner Box

I have to come clean with something. Back in 2006-09, I was addicted to MMOs. Started off with Maple Story, went over to BOTs from Acclaim, then I got stuck on Grand Chase for 3 years.

Yeah…. it looked gay as hell.

Grand Chase was an MMO that advertised itself as an “arcade-like” MMO… which meant nothing but having the game in 2D and treating it like an action game you’d see on the Genesis or SNES. Believe me when I said it was fucking good. Too fucking good.

I used a character called “Ryan”. In the pic, he’s the orange haired guy on the bottom wit the double spears or w/e. Used him primarily because he could transform into a wolf. Then as you got more classes, he could change into an overpowered “Nephilim”, and then into something called “Magnus” which was basically a Knight that could summon more monsters. Compared to all the other characters, he was a tad underwhelming without his Nephilim trans.

The environment of Grand Chase was nothing short of horrid. While the game itself was fun, the thing that made it a nightmare for the most part was the intense grinding you had to do in the game. It took MONTHS to gain one level past 30, and a lot of times grinding does nothing for you but give you access to shitty gear that amounts to nothing. But see, the was the benefit to using Ryan, see. Nephilim could kill bosses that were past my level. In any other case, you have to party up just to get through higher level’d dungeons, but Ryan’s Neph made that a non-issue. Nephilim transformation was just that mother fucking good. So why bother leveling and grinding? Well, because outside of transformations, Ryan’s normal abilities were… shit. So I wanted to do more than MP grind just for a transformation and rely on his regular abilities cause Neph spamming just wasn’t fun. of course, Ryan’s stats were purposefully shit just to say his real strength lies in Neph spamming.

This wouldn’t be so bad if Neph wasn’t so boring…. and if the game didn’t have a PVP environment. See, PVP is the worst thing you could put into an MMO, especially with characters that are unbalanced. Ryan’s MP gain is horrendous, so when it comes to PVP, he stands no chance most of the time unless you used his Sentinel class which isn’t that good because you have to work extra harder to compensate for short range and shitty attack power. And by then, everyone knows how to deal with Neph players and the Ronan fans are so overpowered themselves with Abyss Knights, and then you get to the Amy users who are equally as overpowered, you get a big mess.

This was a pain in the ass primarily because you cannot avoid the PVP mode even if you wanted to. If you wanted a class change (which was highly beneficial in Ryan’s case), you had no choice. And the problem with PVP is, despite all the idiots that say otherwise, it belongs entirely to the cash users who have gear that completely dwarfs anything you have from the ingame GP shops. It’s frustrating when games have a “pay-to-win” environment which preys on the hyper-inflated alpha male competitive environment to fuel it’s profits, which devolves the gamers into complete monsters.

In order to get job changes, you had to win at least 30-50 matches for the last 2 job, along with finding a certain number of 5% drops from tedious bosses. However, if you wanted a shorter job change, you had to pay for Cash quests. 5 wins, 1 100% drop. If that aint some bullshit, I don’t know what is.

Infact, half the content was Cash exclusive. You could get pets in the game (think Chao) that could assist you during battles. But you can only have one for free. Every other pet is cash, and they’re much more useful than your “goo” pet is in PVP. I haven’t even gotten into the lottery machines which require cash and…. the story goes on and on. The game just pushed you into cashing in for everything. Else, you suffer with a much more difficult game.

Once I got to level 50 with my Ryan, taking 3 years to do so, I stopped playing. There was no point to continuing with that senseless idiocy, the asshole community, the forced necessity of the Cash shop, the jackass mods who would ban people just for winning a PVP match against them, and simply holding out on Ryan’s 4th job gear for cash gear for one whole year, which made his Xenocider class completely worthless in the long run.

The game was published by Ntreev, later known as Ngreed because everything they did to their games was steeped completely in greed. When the majority of the game was dependent on the cash shop, it’s essentially a ruined game. They had essentially ruined another game called “Trickster” when they had some… idk “lolboxes” or w/e which flipped the community on it’s head of how they ruined that game for more cash, it’s a little fuzzy in my memory since I’ve never played the game and heard it from an ex-trickster addict.

Ntreev’s business strategy is…. a Skinner Box. In psychology, it’s the study of behavior modification based off of consequences. It’s usually done with a rat in a box where by it is at the mercy of the person who owns the box. Now, you have the choice of rewarding and punishing the rat based on it’s own behavior, of course if it stands on 2 legs, you give it food. So then if you wanted to stand on it’s 2 legs, you made sure to starve it. And so frequently, the rat would stand on it’s 2 legs over and over just to get food. If you selected a behavior to punish, like say the rat trying to climb out of the box, you would give it an electric shock, and you know, once burned twice shy. So in relation to Grand Chase, the players are essentially punished by having much harsher conditions for completing job change quests, having severely weaker gear to go into dungeons or PVP mode putting you at a significant disadvantage sans Nephilim (which then begs whether or not you actually like Ryan), and of course being denied access to many of the game’s perks like different pets. You will be rewarded with the complete opposite only by paying money. So looking at the community where everyone that is not a newb is fully cashed, the community is a colony of rats.

Grand Chase, more than anything, turned me off from online gaming. When you get into a game that is surrounded predominantly by assholes who wish to make your life miserable by showing off how much better their stats were than yours (yeah, they literally taunt you for shit stats), it gives you a very bleak perception of the online gaming environment. And none of that has changed since getting a PS3.

Kratos and Fat Bitch. LOATHE ENTIRELY!

I tried not buying an online pass for Playstation All-Stars, but my roommate, being the jerkass he is, bought one himself, because he felt that “competition is good for building character” or some retarded philosophical bullshit who used as an excuse to fuel his own desires (plus the insults of “cheapskate” was like a downpour from his mouth). The very nature of PSASBR is similar to a Skinner box. The DLC is all on-disc, ofcourse, but I’ve never seen a game out of it’s way to advertise it’s on-disc faggotry so much as this game. When you go through arcade mode and fight one of those purple diamond clones that appear to be Kat and Zues, it’s a very subtle but devious form of advertisement because now you’re dealing with characters that re clearly more powerful than they need to be, and you have no familiarity with them because, if you bought it used, you would have no access to them eitherway. And Amma help you if you can’t get internet access either. Your content is locked on the disc and you have no means of prying it out. So, in skinnerian terms, you’re punished for buying used or not buying DLC at all which locks you out of the game’s 20% content. And of course, if you have no experience in dealing with characters like Zeus or Issac, then your ability to defend against them is severely hampered. So you’re punished for simply not paying extra. I personally wanna know why Capcom got heat for shit like this, but not Sony in particular. Most people have experience in fighting Blanka and Dudley from Street Fighter, how the fuck do you counter a super armor character?! It doesn’t help that the users online are just as dickish as anyone else.

The competitive environment in this game is actually worse than MK9s. Hell, MK9 was nowhere near this horrendous. Of course with Roomie begging me for help, I had to deal with getting bitched out for evading moves majority of the time, getting trapped in Cole’s infinite bullshit where you’re frozen in the air until they super your ass, and then you have Kratos, goddamn... you hear all about how powerful Kat and Issac are in combating these things, so roomie goes buying them up (and personally, I wanted Emmet for myself so…. yeah, there’s go my integrity.) and….we still get our asses kicked. But all that hype worked in getting him to buy a useless French thing with cat suit costumes that he’s probably jerking off to.

What I really hated was how deliberate the game was with it’s DLC (which probably explains why no one bought em). And not only that game. You also have Castlevania, Harmony of Despair which is, for all intents and purposes, Grand Chase lite. The issue of Chaos Rings. You have the ability to get these rings in Chapter 3 on hard more, but the drop rates for the rings are severely low. If you buy Chapter 11 which is some retro stage based on a game I know fuck all about, you actually have a higher drop rate for Chaos Rings to appear. So even in simple games like this, you are encouraged to buy the DLC for these items as well, or be punished with having to do more runs than need be just for one damn ring.

The issue of needing to buy everything new can’t be stressed enough due to the nature of online passes. As I’ve said plenty of times before, it’s to strong arm the consumer into paying full price. I don’t even know what “season passes” are, but I’m assuming it’s a time limited access to online features in which you have to pay again just to get back online. If that is the case, then I dread whole-heartedly the future of the video game console. The shit I had to deal with in Grand Chase is coming straight to the consoles…. or has been here since 2006 or so. I mean, I’m just now using a PS3 and there is so much bullshit you have to deal with on these piece of techno crap, you have to vacuum the goddamn thing just to keep it from burning up from dust. And then the amount of games I have with locked content is frustrating to deal with.

Thinking about selling PSAS because Roomie nearly lost his damn mind with the DLCs on that mess. He was considering buying those little…. bobble head things that pop up when you kill all the players in the match at once or something, I had to slap him off with a paddle. And then you think about all the hardcore over the internet who praise developers for their rampant DLC practices sans Capcom and I’m thinking…

Can’t you see… .that you are the rats?

One of the things I like though is that Free to Play is actually coming under fire. There’s some investigations or w/e going on in Europe over the legitimacy and legality behind the free-to-play model, which brings a smile to my face because I’m hoping those bastards over at Ntreev gets whats coming to them, but also because it would trace itself toward the console spectrum with the DLC madness going on. Everything that starts on PC usually finds it’s way on consoles. That would include the curses they bring with them.Then again, w/e blessings that grace the rest of the world hardly ever come stateside primarily because we are in a bureaucracy that supports capitalism above ethics.

What I find amusing is that there are so many debates and controversies about things that developers constantly do on the PS3 and 360 in regards to online passes, DLCs, DRM, interactive movies, digital releases, etc. But when you have the Wii that has none of that bullshit? They shit all over it because of a non-issue of catering to a “dreaded audience”. I’m fully aware now of all the butt-fucking these hardcore types have been getting, and I have yet to see why dealing with all of this was worth more than a Wii.

In order for gaming to be the way it is now, you literally have to be out of your mind.

Destructoid plays the role of Captain obvious.

“Normal people aren’t like us”

If there’s proof that internet nerds don’t know their heads from their asses, this would be it. This guy “learns” that normal people (lovin the label) is vastly different from said internet fandom… by having a real job.

So you mean to tell me reviews don’t mean shit to people? How all consoles appear as gaming devices and nothing more to people? Not bloated “entertainment machines” to take over the living room!?

Everything here is common knowledge to me. I don’t know why he’s acting all surprised that there are people who’d rather just play a football game than say Final Fantasy or any other gay ass RPG from Japan.

If you are reading this, you are above the average game consumer.

Why do you feel the need to rub everyone’s dick? Everyone on the internet feels superior in every way to “normal people” to the point of not knowing a damn thing about them beyond stereotypes based around their inflated sense of unwarranted self-importance. Hell, one glance at the Sonic fandom could tell you all you needed to know about how fucked up the arrogance and simplicity of the internet nerd mindset is. Hell, “Sonic is for kids” is a mantra that removes all doubt that they know fuck all about kids.

I don’t know what purpose this article serves rather than to give nerds an (already inflated) ego boost. Instead of actually shunning “normal people”, all you have to do is interact with those that don’t get stuck on the computer all the fucking time debating about why “we MUST go digital even though we don’t want it.” I mean, this article is so pointless in it’s conce-

Oh, wait a sec….

These are the people who might only play a couple of games a year, and they just play what looks cool or what their friends are playing. They don’t think about the mechanics or the controls and compare it to another game and try to classify what they like about them.

You hear that, Nintards!? GAMEPLAY IS NOT THE SELLING POINT! Is that not the shit I’ve been spittin all this time!?

If there’s any benefit to this piece of shit, it spells it out in clear english that people play what looks cool and fun, not what innovates or has the best mechanics in the world. Is it any… fucking… wonder… why football kicks the fat sweaty ass out of Pikmin 3!? They don’t even notice the gameplay, they’re just having a good ass time!

Thank you, random internet nerd, for confirming the Nintard’s greatest denial. That gameplay means jack shit to… “normal people”. Now, I await karmic destruction of the X’er’s greatest denial when Lost Mind bombs next month too.

We are the weird ones for reading reviews and talking about review scores. The public just buys games based on the series’ clout or the cool commercial they saw for it. Marketing departments know this, and that’s why we keep getting endless sequels, billboards, and commercials during the Super Bowl.

Translation: Fuck Metacritic.

I still love how people think high scores on Metacritic equates to a game being a “success”. I harp on about Okami so much because it is the most relevant example of gamer nerd arrogance and vanity. They can’t seem to admit that it has no appeal to anyone except them.

This begs the question of why Sega keeps removing Sonic games with bad review scores. I mean, Sonic 06 is the worst Sonic game known to mankind….. that made platinum hits bitch. Someone’s lovin them some Silver the Hedgehog! Who the hell would look at a game like Sonic Colors and think (based on the title) that this would be a “cool” game?! I feel sorry for the kids who got that game as a christmas present and had their peers in school laugh at them and taunt them about how awesome MK9 was in comparison.

What we don’t have is a way for the public at large to know things like the fact that the Wii U is a new console with all-new games. That you can buy digital games not available in stores, or you should read a few reviews before spending your hard-earned money. That you can buy games significantly cheaper a few months after they come out.

Come again!? You mean…. people don’t usually buy games at cheaper prices!? That means…. used games AREN’T DOING ANY HARM!!! Where’s that cry baby bitch ass David Cage, he needs to read this shit in plain English. Heavy Rain didn’t sell not because people found a cheaper means…. but because it’s ass and people don’t wanna waste money on it!!

I take that back, this article is awesome! If bitches won’t take it from me, they can have a white boy confirm it for ’em! Spread this mother fucker around the nets. I wish to taste nerd tears.

Bayonetta Dairy Part 1: Creeped out by lack of sexiness

HURRAY I HAVE DOA5U! And Momiji is….. FUCKING AWESOME!

I’m genuinely pleased she’s not shit in this game. Then again, being a ninja gives her priority over everyone else. I was actually surprised to see Virtua Fighter characters in the game. I had heard Akira was in, but then there’s Jacky, Sarah, and…. PAI CHAN!?

Erm… not sure how I feel about this…

Call this the Samus dilemma but it’s kinda off putting to see who I figured was a generally classy woman put into this kind of thing for drooling nerds.

Anywho, in-between this and MK9, I decided to look into just why people were raging about Bayonetta 2’s exclusivity as I feel that with Nintendo’s awful fucking console that no one will buy for one game, there’s got to be something very special about this game that drives people insane. And… I’m kinda on a DMC addiction despite Kamiya’s growing insanity. So, found Bayonetta for 7 bucks, pops this bitch in… lets go.

DAY 1

Oh wait, disc was dirty… had to clean it. Fuckers.

Ok, it works. What a nice intro showing Bayonetta being…. sacrificed? Wow, what a long install. I wonder if I’ll have enough space for Rayman Legends.

Wow, this introduction actually lets you play while the narrator monologs about warring clans. Armake21 was bullshittin when he said this game runs like ass on the PS3. I was under the impression that this apparent “patch” would fix the issues, all I see is 20FPS as I fall to my doom.

Now we’re in a cemetery with a Joe Pesci knockoff talking about having a birth day. He’s actually funny though.

Ok, so angels descend from “heaven” and this preacher chick ascends to the skies. I thought they were coming for the guy in the coffin not…

Wait, did this scene skip a frame? I heard lots of bloody murder, but I saw nothing. Oh it’s just Bayonetta.

Hey, they got niggas too! He would have all the guns. >_>. Am I supposed to get off to all the panning shots of Bayonetta’s concealed pussy? I’m beginning to see why everyone was so pissed off at the exclusivity. Actually reminds me of Gloria/Trish’s scene in DMC4. When do I get to play again? You give me a sneak peak and now I gotta wait again like a good 10 minutes later?

Thank  you! dammit, ok lets-OH MOTHER FUCK! Now I gotta do some tutorials with my finger up my ass. I mean really? Why don’t you just tell me the shit while I’m fighting the actual enemies? It’s not like I’m gonna be using most of these things for practical use in the future (I hope).

I had no idea there were so many Sonic references at the beginning of the game. They keep talking about waking up the “Eggman” who is in hell, and you collect rings thinly labeled as “Halos”.

Did they honestly pull the amnesia plot again? You’d think Platinum would be a little more…. variational with their content. I have at least 5 games on this system with plots centered around amnesia, most of which are fighters. So, Bayonetta was killed and now she can’t remember anything. Oh here’s an interesting plot. So Bayonetta has to keep killing angels so that she DOESN’T go back down into hell. Well, I guess that compensates for the tired ass amnesia trope.

You know, even though the CGI scenes flow like shit, I feel nostalgic. Its like I’m watching CGI from the PSX and the Saturn. Damn, those were the days. Ok, so we apparently have this chick in red who is obviously Bayonetta’s rival and resident bitch of the game. The 2 have some shit talking session and then red bitch leaves. Chapter complete.

So now I’m at a bar with said nigga. Apparently he’s a black smith (har har) of hell who can forge weapons for Bayonetta. First thing she gets are 4 red double barrel pistols. It’s kinda clever how her high heels act as holsters for more guns. That’s all cool, but the camel toe shots are starting to disturb me. No really, it’s like she’s a middle-aged woman desperate for attention.

“The tabs on you, dead beat mother fucker!”.

P* really loves their F-bombs. Probably hired writers from Manga Entertainment.

Train ride. Reminded of RE0. That game was awesome. What a nice train station. So I get to this area where after I break down this wall, now I get to some sort of puzzle. Fantastic. My enthusiasm is ever so decreasing. Yeah I know the DMC games had puzzles, but they were never completely intrusive nor did they slow you down as much (well… except DMC3, Amma I hate that game). Well, at least the puzzle was easy to solve, but I’m not exactly wow’ed by the result of running across water while the flow of time stops.

“How do the Americans put it? Oh yes. Bust a cap in yo ass!?”

“Right on Bayonetta, right on”.

……………………….

………………………

………………………

………………………

Well that’s a big mother fucking boss. Good thing he’s easy to… OH… oh… damn, this… “climax” attack makes her go nude! Wait.. so her hair is her suit? And she can turn her hair into a dragon and eat people. ………………………………..Dats tight! Dats tight!

Ok, that was cool. Well, it seems I can use their weapons against them. Did she just create a beheading device?

Fantastic, a flash back. How long is it gonna take before I can kill this 2 headed dragon…. thing? Oh it stops at the midpoint. You gotta love these amnesia plots. There so overdone these days, you can kinda guess what’s gonna happen next. Especially since that small intro before the title screen gives it away, sort of. Red bitch killed Bayonetta for some re-OMA BIG HAND!

The fuck man!? I’m just minding my business, and this big mother fucker just comes out of nowhere and now I have P*’s F-bomb disease! Stop throwing my footing into the wall you asshole! Hmm.. I seem to have some gravitational pull. Even though I jump off the moving platform, I zip right back to the platform and nothing hap-FUUUUUUUUUCK! QTE!!!

Well damn, just toss my ass away. Well, I can’t go backward because big ass golem destroyed the path. So I’ll just continue to the door down the ste-FUUUUUUCK! KILLER GOLEM IS BACK! Oh you son of a bitch! Oh damn! Oh dammit! The horror of Scripted Nonsense! It’s all over the damn place! Red bitch is back!

Ok, so they do more shit talking, then Bayonetta waxes nostalgic about Jeanne (red bitch) challenging her to a duel of death. Oh, this is a boss fight, ok. It plays just like Nero vs Dante from DMC4. Is this supposed to be like some sort of easter egg or is this Kamiya’s way of self-congratulatory conceit? Oh you can walk on walls and fight. I… guess that’s cool?

Oh… walk on walls on the way to the door. How2obvious. Fuck, I still gotta fight enemies while doing this? CHAPTER COMPLETE

Great… more temporal puzzles. Why do I need to dodge lightening just to start the damn thing? Why not just give me the slow down so I can do the puzzle already? As a matter a fact, why don’t you just shove your balls in my mouth?

So we meet a new character named… Juka? Can’t remember. At first I thought he was just some thief who likes giving roses to strangers just because they have 2 legs and a vagina, but then he comes off as a guy looking for revenge against Bayonetta because 20 years back, she accidentally killed his father. And he can’t seem to do anything because all he’s armed with is a camera and a nose. At the same taunt, Bayonetta taunts him like the bitch she is while killing more angels. So I’m running around, had to jump over a car because roller angels tried to kill me with it.

Killed 2 more bosses and went to Hell’s gate to have Rodin forge more weapons that I can’t afford because rings are hard to come by unless you like destroying the environment…. and I stopped there for the time being.

So far, I haven’t seen anything that justifies the rabid anger displayed by Bayonetta fans beyond scripted set pieces and a couple of puzzles. Maybe it’s the content which I will agree, is pretty interesting and puts a whole spin on the heaven and hell concept. You’re fighting against heaven for once. Though the over the top sexuality of the main character who is far from the word attractive beyond the delicately sculptured ass… is unnerving at best. I thought I would feel embarrassed from playing DOA5U, but Bayonetta easily puts Tecmo to shame. And it does run like ass on PS3. It’s like Sega and Playstation just doesn’t mix. I mean even Unleashed plays like ass, there’s so much slowdown I might as well be playing it on PC. That’s exactly the feeling I get. It’s like playing a PC game with the shittiest of specifications. I’m mean WHAT IS THAT MESS, it lags nonstop! It lags and it looks like shit!

Anywho, I’m mildly interested in the game as I’m… hoping there’s some super secret conspiracy from heaven to eliminate the world or something. Moral ambiguity is tits. More tits than DOA5. That new director has a stick up his ass about everything Itagaki did, eh?

…….I really should’ve done a vid instead… Oh well, lack of cheese and no recording software is a bitch to deal…

Why do working class types support DRM?

Because of America’s religion of Capitalism. The mantra of “get money at an expense” “Ends justifying the means”. All that bullshit.

Fuck yer Metal Gear Rising

Recently purchasing Playstation All-Stars used (fun game, actually. More enjoyable than Brawl in some ways as all the characters have PRACTICAL MOVES), I am treated the bird being flipped on my tv screen by an advertisement for an online pass. And this happens all the time. Everytime I boot the mother fucker up, it begs for an online pass. But given that I have a little integrity left, I see no reason for this feature to be disabled. Nor do I see the reason to be denied content unless I pay extra (yep, hacking sounds good right about now).

What puzzles me is the amount of support this BS gets in the real world. While we’d like to think that everyone hates DRM practices, those in their 30s (most of the gaming populace I believe is around this age) support this mess under the pretense that used games are costing companies money. This has never been the case for everyone who lived during the 6th generation. Money was still good, money was still coming in, and everyone who didn’t own a gamecube was happy. But see, the industry slammed head first into the sudden “HD craze” which started to hemmorage cheddar like crazy. You would think that the outrageous development costs for HD gaming would make the devs rethink their ambitious passion to “evolve gaming” via visuals and nothing else, but the option to scale back costs was considered “unthinkable”. So to continue using high costs for pretty visuals (and ditching the fucking Wii because of ideologies instead of economic strategy), we now have developers trying to cut corners…. on everyone else. The customer has to be punished in order for developer passions to remain in-tact.

Let it be known that there is never any good reason to lock content away from people who have already paid their money for the game. Never has been, never will be. But of course, those that are well off would support this scheme mainly because money is nothing to them, not that it’s good for you.

Turns out, even those that earn piddly ass $200+ paychecks every 2 weeks have this same mentality. That used games need to be crushed (the same people that go to Gamestop and make them rich, no less) so that the industry can thrive. It pains me to see another brother talking about how used games are killing business when it’s really the business model and the shitty products they put out? There were less people playing the PS3 and the 360 in favor of the Wii. Hell, the majority of PS3 owners don’t even play games. They just watch movies all day (which was probably Sony’s intent, they don’t give a fuck about games). Yet, while they think this way, the majority working class wouldn’t buy the HD twins en masse.

Perhaps it’s all in the mindset. People are struggling for money, so they feel that getting cheese by w/e means possible is alright. They apply this same “logic” to corporations and suggest it’s “common sense” to prevent our convenience for the sake of them getting money. I’m sorry, who the fuck thought it was a good idea to withhold the ability to move save files in between accounts on the PS3 unless you BUY THE FUCKING FEATURE!? Because trophies!? Naw nigga, Sony was just being a greedy fuck of a company. And yet, these boot-lickin negroes would STILL support this bullshit.

Used games already have less value by virtue of them being used. They may not work properly, might have marks or scratches, cover art is ruined, probably has no manual, etc. Denying CONTENT by virtue of having bought a game used is unethical. Working class types have no concept of what unethical practices are unless it’s in the work place, or some shit happens to them.

And this mentality gave way to the former Xbone polices. Ironically, people actually started getting selfish about their own preferences in battle AGAINST new standards being pushed on people. But that shit is already here, just in a much softer form. You think Microshit and Sony ditching DRM polices means something? 3rd Party developers are very stubborn and, if I may use the term, selfish about their own visions being brought to life by some bullshit called “photo-realism” and they’ll be damned if anyone takes that away from them.

Why is it that regular people cannot see this? Instead of thinking about corporations as these giant stone buildings that sell shit to people who have the choices of buying or no (meaning WE have power over them), they instead throw caution to the wind and fall over themselves in favor of them screwing people over.

It could be propaganda. The unread customer, the gamer who is not a critical thinker, would look at DRM and say “maybe I’m the reason this favorite company of mine is losing money. I enjoy their games and do not want them to stop making games or else I might have to find a new developer to call my best friend”. It’s tempting to take this route. One of my favorite devs (Hudson) did close house back in 2013,  and Atlus recently shut down too. But were their downfalls due to used games or due to being completely fucking niche? No one plays Bomberman anymore, and the Persona series was the epitome of niche entertainment. Niche is not allowed in states of economic weakness. And unfortunately, so many games fit that description unless they’re shooting or sports games.

Whatever the reason, the customer will not see it that way and instead blame themselves and every other gamer that wants to buy games at lower costs. Cracked.com, being fairly popular on the internet, makes it known that gamers are “self-entitled assholes” who think we should get w/e we want when we want it. Problem is going into game development means going into an entertainment business. Meaning you HAVE to give people what they want, when they want it. If people read Cracked.com for humor, and Cracked said “to hell with that” because people looking for humor are self-entitled assholes (based on one or 2 examples they bother to show), then they’d lose readers. Me? I don’t think anyone bothers if I’m not talking about Sonic the Hedgehog, I’m just that nigga that talks about Sonic.

But I digress. Buying a used game should be your business. If anyone asks what your right is to buy used, the answer should be “fuck you is my right”. The game should have the full content for the full $60 you payed for the shit (which is not the case for PS All Stars, they STILL want more money for 4 characters and 2 stages), so why the fuck would I bother getting the full version if I don’t have the full content and I still have to pay more just for that content? And somehow that’s fair? Encouraging or euphemistic strong-arming gamers to pay extra to pay extra?

And yet, developers stubbornly refuse to cut back costs. And now since we have 3 HD consoles currently being supported (Wii ain’t gettin shit), cutting costs is a shrinking option for developers. Of course, none of them want to cut costs but would prefer to slash away features we got for the price of the entire package and hold out for more cheese. The fact that the Working class basically let this happen out of some pity for these assholes gave birth to the Xbone. Microsoft is the pioneer of anti-consumer practices at this point. They were the perfect vessel for the 3rd party madness that is their passion/greed.

Everyone outside of the internet seems to be just a tad bit more insane than I gave them credit for.

Shadow: “Ultimate Victory!”

Heard this from work. Don’t take to heart yet.

CNN: Well, apparently, Obama tries to prove his blackness by shooting down Xbone’s Kinect features of surveillance. Big Brother says Microshit cannot use Kinect’s surveillance technology without cooperation or approval by the government themselves.

Now… this means one of 2 things.

1. Either Microshit ditches the Kinect bullshit entirely.

2. Microsoft becomes Google junior and does collusion’s with Obama’s NSA whores.

If they take option 2, Microshit can no longer hold onto their privacy hype.

If 1, they might actually sell the damn thing.

3 Things I learned from E3

1. Shit be expensive!

I’ve learned that I am not wealthy enough to afford such exquisite and classy entertainment known as a video game console. Even the handhelds are well over $200!  Anyone who could afford these devices could crush me with their morbidly obese wallets. My broke ass is unworthy of video games.

And here I thought that in an economy this fucked up, games would be cheaper than a home computer. But woe is me. The economy is not fucked. My job is fucked! Instead of thinking about my own entertainment, I must instead focus on important things like rent and food, especially with my greedy ass roommates whose ass looks like 2 pigs fighting under a blanket. Video games are no longer a priority in my life.

2. Video games are not about video games.

I’ve learned that the hottest thing about gaming is not about the next killer fighting game (KI3), but about irrelevant features such as TV and…TVii. Instead, this new generation of gaming is more so about social media such as playing and recording your progress to share with friends over facebook. More so about how you get to watch TV in more inconvenient ways such as sports programming. Instead of reaching over to pick up a remote and change the channel, you can instead scream at your television like an asshole to change the channel.

I had to stand back in awe of how voice command, something I could only see on tv, is going to be used only for the tv! Only a video game console could provide me of such a glimpse into the future… of entertainment! I’m astounded that the Xbone acts as a personal Pay-Per-View device with it’s necessity of requiring multiple viewers to pony up each per gaming and/or movie viewing pleasure.

Not to mention just… talking about what I’m doing in a video game with screen names over the internet. Instead of a real social gathering where a group of friends could curse and scream at each other while playing games, social media can allow me to filter out profanities and instead view more mature and classy quotes such as “OMG I TOTALLY PWNED TEH BOSS!” It’s so grand to hear about someone else’s accomplishments, just like on Facebook.

3. Nintendo is oblivious.

I’ve learned that Nintendo, whom I once thought was a company that was concerned about your satisfaction, is actually a company dedicated to the evolution of gameplay. Instead of making more interesting worlds and bold new characters, Nintendo instead focuses on the almighty” gameplay”, a factor which never attracted people to video games in the first place! But this is a bold new venture to evolution! Perhaps the reason the hardcore are so attracted to Nintendo is because of their desire to “evolve” gameplay by using strange contraptions and gadgets, things that might hamper or disorientate your ability to actually play the game and thus alienate  your desire to continue playing. But then, I would not be able to appreciate the surprising value of hard work that went into the product, even if I want to shit on it. Liking something is not the reason I should invest in Nintendo. It is only to witness the evolution of old content via gameplay exclusively. This mentality even creeped it’s way into Sega’s house of developers if Sonic’s Lost Mind is a clue.

But ultimately, I’ve learned that video games suck now because developers don’t care about video games. They set goals for themselves to create technological and gameplay achievements instead of the one goal they should always stick to. Achieving customer satisfaction which would ensure long term gains. But n their minds, I guess they’re thinking “one less nigga to worry about”.

VICTOLY AGAINST MICROSHIT!

Apparently, they’re removing the DRM.

This could be a stunt to get people to buy Xbones, but who knows? After that Army statement, they pretty much had no choice less they risk WORSE PR than ever before.

Unfortunately, nothing has been said about the Kinect, which was the actual issue here. Considering this is a company that hypes up how much they love your privacy, that is still a potential risk.

But hey, progress is progress. I assume they’ll probably put that shit back in after Xbone gets enough positive press with some firmware update or so.

I wonder how many selfish 3rd party devs will jump ship now? Sony is going to get megalithic support now.

And that… price…

Titanfarce

 

It’s hard to believe that I go to work with hardcore gamers. When I was trying to discuss Monolith’s sick looking “X”, I mentioned something about giant robots. That automatically reminded him of a game called Titanstar…. or Starfall, w/e the fuck it’s name is. I tell him “fuck is that shit?”. He seems shocked! Almost taken back by my ignorance of a single title! He demands I research this mythical beast of a video game so that I may gain his approval in knowledge.

This is the fruit of my quest for knowledge.

It’s Modern Warfare….with mechs.

This is what I’m supposed to climax from? This is the game he’s most excited for? Gutter trash! More hyped up military shooters is NOT what this industry needs anymore. “Oh look! A new way to kill army pawns! JOY!”

Too many people think all video games are a bunch of military shooters, and hearing that shit tires the fuck out of me. And then people wonder why everyone runs to Nintendo, hoping for those lying, arrogant assholes to become the “saviors of gamedom”. After the euthanasia of NSMB, the failure of Mario Kart 7, the apparent destruction of Super Smash Bros., and the delusional and utterly deceitful 3D World, there is no hope for Nintendo to fulfill that made up “destiny”. The fucked up thing is Titanfarce is going to end up being GOTY and the second COD craze. I can see it now. All FPS’s will have mech combat. Infact, all future games will feature some sort of mech combat because it was hyped up in Titanfarce, it becomes a hit success in USA, and giant robots are ALL THE RAGE in gaming. Content Saturation begins anew.

There are no cool or interesting features presented in Titanfarce beyond just having mechs. What do you do with the mechs? Same shit you do on foot. FPS standard combat with some sort of gravity gun which seems to have been taken directly from “District 9“. Infact, the game SCREAMS District 9. You know, without all the cool aliens.

As well, the music is as uber serious as can be. There’s a lot that can be said of western developers that design games with serious OSTs. It reeks of insecurity that video games are still not taken seriously despite the hefty amount of work put into them. It’s hard to take a game like Titanfarce seriously because… they’re giant robot mechs. Who in this day in age would take that seriously? Especially on a video game?

I also love the limited enthusiasm of the audience. During the playthrough sequences, no one says a damn thing until the video is over. Probably glad that they don’t have to hurt their eyes with the utter silliness of the game itself.

Not to mention (in typical western design), the mechs look like shit. You know what game has giant mechs but wins more respect from people despite it’s similar content? “X”

And the mechs look thrice as sexy. Unlike those poor man’s APU bots from the Matrix Reloaded.

Not to mention the game requires online components just to function at all, meaning the game is pure Computer Style. I lost interest just hearing that. Not that many people can get access to the internet. What with mass unemployment going around and people having shitty jobs that don’t pay jack, there’s no point in even owning this game. Exclusionary Gaming is real. The masses who cannot get internet are excluded from this game entirely. In order to have true mass appeal, the game must have elements that cater to different interests. If it is only for multiplayer online, those who cannot get internet will not be buying this game. And they can’t blame lost profit on used games with the restrictions already present. This is just a means of justifying Microshit’s double speak on “Always Online”.

Anyone excited for Titanfarce is undeserving of any respect. This could’ve been regular DLC for a Modern Warfare installment for all we care. It is that boring and lifeless. And what’s with this “Parkour” fad all of a sudden? Holding a button and running into shit just do fancy flips is cool now?

*Plays Last Story*

Nope! Just there to be flashy.

Anyone else feel Vanquish deserves this kind of hype and attention? It basically does the same stuff but better and more stimulating than Titanfarce.

Microsoft already lost this generation.

Microsoft will charge fee for secondary installation.

Kinect Required.

Wow. Really? I mean, it’s bad enough that the Durango or whatever the fuck they’re calling it is an attempt to block out used games, but charging people to use the same fucking game on a different Durango!? I can just see failure rates turning people off. Microsoft has purposefully unstable game consoles that demand re-purchases, and poor customer service to boot! If you buy a shit load of Durango games, but your durango fucks up, you have to buy an new console, and REPURCHASE ALL OF YOUR GAMES! So that’s like the normal unit price + the grand total of your entire Durango game collection + the new tax laws for violent video games in the works (which I’m positive will make up like 80% of the hardcore’s collections) + the price of a Kinect device…

Shit, PS4 sounds sexier at this point, despite the lack of BC. If only Sega didn’t sign up with Nintendo’s piece of shit device.

Fuck it, Microsoft is just shooting themselves in the foot this generation. There’s no way in hell they can succeed with all of these factors alone. I don’t give a rats ass what the hardcore dipshits think or say, their optimistic “you haven’t even tried it” bullshit can hang the fuck up for the summer, this is insane.

And requiring a Kinect device? Well it isn;t that a coincedence? I mean, since the device will now actively monitor your activity during play time, Microsoft honestly believes spying on gamers will do anything for the government?

And in this economy, only the stupids will buy this crap. How’s that “COMPUTER GAMING” working out for yah “master race” bitches?

Cheers fuckers!

Well, good bye Amazon

So long rare used Wii games and accessories.