I'll give you that there is a difference between Western and Eastern developers and publishers, but I seriously don't think the model works in this respect. You have a high-value AAA singleplayer game being pushed out the door, and the multiplayer portion is being shipped as it's own service.

I'll believe it when I see it. Of course they'll SAY they'll continue to develop content for it, but if they can't monetize it enough they'll drop it hard.

I'll believe it when I see it. Rockstar isn't that great for multiplayer support.

I'll believe it when I see it. So far the history of "Multiplayer packaged as a different game, but uses similar assets" (like MGO) hasn't ended well.

The thing that worries me about GTA Online is that it will have the same amount of post-release support that Metal Gear Online did, and get shutdown fairly early. If that means standard free-roam is detached from the original product, we may very well see a loss of a core draw for the game.

It does seem to be a little early to be pushing out videos like this.

...freedoms for speech do not apply to private spaces.

Absolutely not. The Pay-to-Win scenario stems from having more choices than anyone else has unlocked as soon as you pay the cash.

All the way up to X3 it's been messy, but it seems this time they are more conscious about control issues.

Can't really tell your ship to pilot a specific course with one button.

No words.. just macro image. *sniff*

When you have long-range navigation, short range navigation, equipment management, weapon management, target identification, auto-pilot systems, and economic utilities in place that you have to be able to access, it's not that easy.

You buy a weapon that others don't get unless they grind the certs for it. SOE sells power, and therefore someone with more cash translates into more weapons (and it also means their certs are also saved for upgrades on said weapons right away) which means they have more tools and better options to win different…

GW2's model is not free-to-play. There is a barrier to entry and that is the purchase of the client. There is a distinction and it is a different business model.

Yeah.. FFXIV is an absolute sucker for GPU usage. A GeForce 335M won't do well here.

Sure, but this time Square-Enix is the publisher and developer. (Bioware was the developer for EA.)

EQN, an aesthetically boring Free-to-Play game that will ultimately be as pay-to-win as Planetside 2 and Wizardry is.

If you want early access, you have to pre-order the new version.

Perhaps, and we'll all just have to deal with it. Supposedly, the game itself doesn't have to have stellar numbers in order for it to be doing "well enough" (at least that's what Yoshi-P claims), but it is what it is.

At present, Yoshida has made a strong commitment to keeping the game a subscription based game. Whether this means a cash shop (for cosmetics) will show up is still in the air. As far as things like the soundtrack (granting a Dalamud vanity pet), those are sort of expected, and account services such as server…