Feel the same. Exactly why I didn’t buy Mass Effect Andromeda. Couldn’t justify paying $50 (Amazon Prime 20% off) for a game lacking polish and quality in so many areas, when this game I’ve been playing for two years (including both expansions) is such high quality. Can’t go backwards in that sense, at that price.…

Surprised Ultimate Team in EA Sports games didn’t even get a mention. It’s essentially built on gambling principles and has many slot machine and casino like gratification hooks. FIFA Ultimate Team also notoriously has a giant underground gambling and scam community online and on YouTube.

Looking at you, Fanduel/Draft Kings.. And you.. Madden/FIFA Ultimate Team..

They would also have to forego much of their business. People forget, they release most of their games not just on PS4/X1/PC, but also Android and iOs phones and tablets, and I think still PS3/360. The biggest reason they’ve stuck to one formula for so long, because it’s easily portable across everything and they can…

That’s awesome! Yeah, like a lot of the commenters, I started with the demo for THPS1 and eventually played the hell out of the retail game. Played the hell out of THPS2 (in my opinion, one of the best games/sequels of all time). Played quite a bit of THPS3 (Darth Maul and Spiderman, best secret characters of all…

Dying for that. May run outside naked on the day if it ever happens. It has some glaring flaws, but the core is still THPS. I played the hell out of it on 360. Over 50 hours. Have the highest score on my friends list for every level (well over a million on most) except Marseille (300,000 or so off the high score of…

Ubiquity is king. Amen. Cheers to video games on every platform.

“It was a matter of scope, capacity, and what we wanted to focus on. We wanted to focus on the global conflict and the unknown for the main game”

Disagree with your premise somewhat but I appreciate how thorough and respectfully you laid your points out. I agree everything doesn’t need to be some massive macro commentary on the world with deep narrative hooks. But, where I fork in a different direction, my ideology, if you’re going to take the time to craft…

The same reason people (men especially and most notoriously) stand their ground on everything. Pride and ego. What typically happens, they’re handcuffed to intent and usually unwilling to look at how it comes off and or is perceived by others. As a result, keep trying to drive home intention, even though that’s…

That’s a pretty gross overstatement. Comedy is doing just fine (although there are certainly realities that even professional comedians have to grapple with now). The problem with this, the idiocy served up by PewDiePie and other personalities and celebs more recently, almost every case reaches for the lowest hanging…

I love that you attached my premise to a series of other unrelated arguments (none of which I made) and didn’t look at the context of what I was responding to. Hardly defending anything. Made a specific point in regard to intimation of EA/Dice never giving stuff away for free. Battlefield 4 has five map packs and…

Yeah, they gave away Close Quarters in BF3 the weekend of the E3 they first premiered BF4. As far as BF4, forgot all about the free maps you mentioned when I originally posted. Last summer for limited periods, they gave away all the official map packs (China Rising, Naval Strike, Dragon’s Teeth, Second Assault and…

Marketing people are dopy. Since the majority of the sales for this game will likely come from the US, I’m sure they felt like pandering to that audience out of fear that historical accuracy and a non American focus would hurt sales. The same reason lead character diversity is still such a rarity. Not malicious intent…

In fairness, they’ve been giving away map packs for free since BF3. Usually a year or two after its been out though. Battlefield 4 last year gave away every single map pack for free. They’ll probably do it again here, but not anytime soon. Once they’ve made everything they can make off the season pass, and they need…

You won my heart and my wallet with that last paragraph sir.

It makes sense actually. I’ve been following the industry closely and sort of have a historical isometric perspective on it. This generation, we’ve sort of gone backwards. Last generation, a lot of emphasis was placed on buffing enemies and artificial intelligence to create greater challenge for players. In series…

I got the exact same ending and had a lot of the same feelings (including how the beginning of Hearts of Stone is a quazi accountability course). My beautiful Blood and Wine ending made up for all of it. And, even though I had considered doing a new game when I initially got my worst case scenario Ciri ending, I…

It’s not at the expense of anything. Single player is a diminishing field for anything (for the most part) that isn’t an RPG because people don’t buy them. It’s the biggest reason the industry has pivoted to open world game design this generation (even though that’s astronomically more expensive to develop). People…

Interesting read. Happy for upcoming Switch owners (Not one of them personally. Pretty content with my Xbox One, but enjoy the industry as a whole) that it sounds like BOTW channeled some of the individuality and water cooler fun that made stuff like Skyrim, Fallout and GTA V amazing. Having unique experiences that…