Yes, new regulations would definitely have to be created through proper channels first, and I appreciate you pointing that out. It’s going to be a tough issue for legislators to work through.

I understand your concerns, but I can’t think of a source of revenue in video games that would be worse than exploiting addictive tendencies. Even if the base price of certain video games is raised in lieu of gambling-like mechanics, I would consider that a win for consumers.

Yeah, I think you’re right. But it would be nice if an addiction warning could at least be slapped onto games that allow players to pay real money for a randomized chance at an item they want.

I’m not familiar with Hearthstone’s mechanics. Does it have loot boxes or a loot box equivalent that turns real money into a virtual roll of the dice? If it does, then yes, I do think it should be regulated.

QUOTE | “While the payment of money for a loot box with the contents of which are determined by chance many appear to be gambling, the Department is of the view that loot boxes to not meet the legal definition of gambling.” - New Zealand becomes the latest government to weigh in on the loot box controversy.

I think 2018 will be the final year for the 3DS. The Switch is going to explode even more than it already has and the 3DS line won’t be all that interesting by this time next year. We may even see a $99.99 New 2DS XL. (I think it would be smart to drive that price down into impulse buy territory. They could even cut…

Splatoon was supposedly a good one. It was one I couldn’t seem to get into during the Test Fire period, but I know a lot of other people really liked it. But Splatoon came out before E3 2015. I was talking about games that E3 was forecasting for Nintendo’s future.

I agree with you. I could see that Nintendo had abandoned the Wii U all the way back in 2015 at that year’s E3. Their showing that year was underwhelming to say the least. It was like just enough was being developed for their existing platforms to allow them to bide their time while they worked on the Switch.

Despite fan outcry, BioWare/EA doesn’t seem to care about re-releasing the Mass Effect Trilogy. This past N7 Day would have been the perfect time for them to announce a Trilogy remaster, generate some goodwill in the process, and help everybody to push past the Andromeda misstep. Instead, the day ended up being a dull…

QUOTE | “As we kept reviewing the game, it continued to look like a style of gaming, a much more linear game, that people don’t like as much today as they did five years ago or 10 years ago.” - EA CFO Blake Jorgensen, explaining why the publisher canceled Visceral Games’ Star Wars project and shut the studio down.

I just started playing Destiny 2 for the first time, so all this controversy is new to me. The only significant issue I’ve had with the game so far is the lack of checkpoints in story missions. If I’m in the middle of a story mission and I have to stop playing for some reason, I’ll have to start the entire mission…

The folks at Nintendo generally seem to understand that you shouldn’t treat consumers like sentient ATMs. Look at Breath of the Wild: a massive, complete experience with DLC that seems so optional that I feel no need to buy it.

Your reasoning sounds spot-on to me. A program like this would be severely limited by stock. If you only have one or two customers per store taking advantage of the program, then it’ll probably work out great. But what about five or six? Nine or ten? You’ll start to run into a situation where all of the most desirable…

Did somebody at Panic Button (the studio handling the Switch port) hold a gun to somebody’s head over at Bethesda until they handed over their Doom code?

Did somebody at Panic Button (the studio handling the Switch port) hold a gun to somebody’s head over at Bethesda until they handed over their Doom code?

I don’t know why they didn’t announce a trilogy remaster. They wouldn’t have even had to show any footage. They could have just pulled a Metroid Prime 4 and let us know that it’s coming at some point in the future.

STAT | 16.74 million - The number of Switch consoles Nintendo expects to have sold by the end of its fiscal year (March 30). That would put it well ahead of the Wii U’s lifetime-to-date sales of 13.5 million after just over a year on shelves. The Wii U launched in November of 2012.

DOOM is the only one in that list that I’m excited about. I’ve never played the game and now I’m glad I waited. When I finally get a Switch at some point, I think DOOM might be one of my first purchases for it. And I’m fine with 30 fps gameplay, so I don’t think that will bother me as long as it holds at a pretty…

It’s not just in the original series that Kino is shown to be female. In the second movie based on the original series (which was never released in the US), we get to see an older Kino. She’s shown to be a fully grown and very developed woman (despite still having an overall androgynous appearance due to her short…

I think the PS3 was comparable in terms of power to the Xbox 360 (with the 360 sometimes getting a better version of a multi-platform game because its architecture made it easier to develop for), but my understanding is that it was priced so high at launch because of the inclusion of its very expensive and completely…