What I find interesting is that mobile gaming is essentially in the "coin-op" arcade era. The games are demanding, punishing, instant gratification, closed loops that demand you to feed them small amounts of money (or be really, really good/lucky) in order to continue playing.

My friend bought SC4 during the Steam Sale and thought it was the latest. I had to give him the bad news that it wasn't, but the good news that he lucked out and got a better one.

The underlying tech is probably hackable to an extent. I don't know what it is here, maybe RFID? If you're a tech wiz, perhaps you can "roll your own" plastic-figure-free version :)

My kids have to buy their own toys outside of holidays/birthdays. Nothing feels better than saving up and getting something you really want, and it's a good lesson in budgeting for them as well.

I have to say, reading the comments here and elsewhere and my reaction to the BL2 "second season" has kind of got me thinking about the inconsistent use of "season pass" in gaming.

Given the uneven, relatively low quality of SR3's DLC (sadly... I wish it was good :( ) I am tempted to sit this season pass out. 2 DLC packs for $10 is pretty typical - BL2's "season pass" (air quotes due to the dubious nature of their DLC) was 4 for $20.

I more or less had the feeling that this was going to happen to a lot of these crazy-overfunded Kickstarter projects. I wrote a whole article about why I won't back funded Kickstarters anymore, even. There's just no benefit to the consumer (and potentially it's a detriment) to doing that versus preordering it or…

Gosh, an overfunded game kickstarter that was overly ambitious and is floundering? Who'da thunk it? OH WAIT I DID