sephfire

Yeah, that was the one. Geez, that thing's like five years old now...

I think Tweek and I had it darn near done, but we were waiting on zyko for vocals. I should go bug him about that again.

Wow, I just remembered I had actually been working on a WIP for this thing at one point. I ought to dig it up and finish it just for kicks.

It's like a beautiful mad-lib haiku.

It's not saying everything you want, just clarifying exactly what you're trying to prove to us with your full length argument. You can always go in depth fleshing out your stance afterward, but having that initial, brief explanation of where you're about to go helps the reader to be able to follow you. Never mind, this explanation is better than mine: ... I've just realized I'm leading us on a tangent again. My bad!

It's called a thesis statement. A clear, concise summary of your argument. Every proper college paper, thesis or dissertation starts with one. Your "current argument" summary did help, though.

To Jack: This isn't meant to be sarcastic or antagonistic, but have you ever considered joining a debate team or taking a debate class on the side or something? I mean, you've clearly got a head on your shoulders, you're a philosophy major, you've got a point of view you enjoy the heated discussion ... you've got a lot going for you in this kind of environment, but your debate tactics really handicap your position. The things is: you do have a pretty decent argument you're making. I don't agree with every facet of it, but your perspective isn't unreasonable. But every time you deliver that perspective, the post is laced with thinly-veiled insults to the opposition and a constant air of condescension. You aren't engaging in an exchange of ideas so much as firing volleys from a tower, and it completely cripples the argument you're trying to make. It's counter-productive. The reason the entire thread is ganging up on you is not because of your stance, but because of those tactics. For a similar example: the original draft of our Piracy episode was much more incendiary, much more blunt in calling pirates on some of their bullshit. But we knew that if we delivered the episode that way, we would convince no one. The episode would only succeed in angering people, and no one is receptive to new ideas or world-views once they enter that mental state. So we re-wrote it a few times in an attempt to deliver the argument in the least abrasive way possible. Again, not meaning this as a slight, just as food for thought. If it weren't for the wealth of personal insults, tangential arguments and condescension filling this thread (and coming from both sides), we could have wrapped this debate up in a neat bow by page 5.

Part of the reason you see so many lame little titles like that is actually because they're relatively cheap to make and the audience for them isn't nearly so discerning (pretty much the definition of "shovelware"). You don't tend to see many companies complaining about the lost piracy revenue for those games. Most of the companies complaining about the lost revenue are the ones trying to make the big-budget Mass Effects and Red Deads (sometimes succeeding, sometimes not). Black Ops was the most pirated game this year, and we can debate its quality but it definitely fits into that AAA category. And there's also the factor that, yes, many of the "superfluous" games the industry puts out don't interest us in the slightest, but that doesn't mean they don't have an audience. Do we care about the latest Spongebob game? Nope. Did it sell anyway? Damn straight. It's easy for us to write them off (or even forget they ever came out), but there's definitely an audience for those games.

Or, a slightly more succinct alternative:

I think this is where the industry desperately wants things to be eventually, but it's going to be a gradual process to get there. Many game customers have never connected their console to the internet and many more have never even considered the option of digital game purchasing. Broadband access and adequate hard drive space still aren't available on a broad enough scale. That cuts out a huge chunk of your potential consumer base, a scary prospect. And sure, cutting out the retailers will allow for lower prices, but you've still spent multiple millions of dollars making the game, and now with a vastly smaller consumer base to sell to. This model will eventually be much more viable, but it's definitely not a sure-fire route to success right now. There's a reason almost no one is doing it. At this point, the industry and retailers have an uneasy truce going on. Gamestop is kinda screwing the industry with the secondhand market, but the industry needs them, so they put up with it. Undercutting Gamestop's prices on the digital distro side would be declaring all out war. Gamestop might stop carrying their products altogether, which would be devastating. Retailers have all the power right now, but hopefully that power will be shifting pretty soon.

Who said that? It's so dark in here.... That would be kinda cool actually. All normal-voiced and weirding people out.

Edit: Actually that was kind of in poor taste, nevermind. I'm a bit tired and my "funny barometer" is a little wonky. Carry on!

Well, FFX-2 ended up having my favorite FF battle system ever. We'll see, I guess.

Partially because James is the writer and it was a point he wanted to add. Partly because "speed" is widely accepted as being the games' key element and we didn't really have time to go into a long spiel about what they should really be about. And it's not like speed isn't a key element of the Sonic games either. I don't personally think it's the MOST important element, but it's up there.

I actually feel similarly about Sonic; it should be more about momentum than speed. I remember that 2D Mirror's Edge demo EA released a while back being the most fun Sonic game I ever played for that reason.

Thanks for being the first and best internet community I've ever joined. Merry Christmas all!

Hell yeah, I wondered how long it would take OCR folk to get a track on there.

Seems to be the same trend for Pixar (Toy Story 2, Ratatouille). But yeah, super glad to see that all the production problems for Tangled resulted in a success.

Yeah, ignore that guy. Tangled is pretty excellent.

The problem with anime english dubs is that it always tends to draw from the same pool of actors, and many of them aren't terribly good at what they do. The reason Disney's dubs for Ghibli films are so much better is not just because they put so much more work into the dub, but because they hire people outside that anime pool. Admittedly, it's a little unfair to compare the two, because Disney has access to some high profile talent.

I listen to these episodes in the morning at work now. You guys are my wacky morning radio personalities. If you count the VGDJ censorship, you even had sound effects.

The animation is all Disney, although some of Pixar's higher-ups do have a level of creative control now. I'm thrilled to hear it's good. One of my co-workers went through hell working on this movie and it's great to hear that it paid off. Can't wait to see it.

Man, I sound so scatter-brained in that interview. At least James is there to save it.

For those of you needing to be sonically cleansed, Pogo put out a new track yesterday. Snow White.

It's one of my favorite bits of his too.