Of course.  But once the limitation is gone, that doesn’t mean you just throw out the aesthetics along with it.  It means you make a new aesthetic choice.

Factor into that rationale the fact that only about 30% of bullets fired by police actually hit their target and it becomes incredibly clear to any reasonable person that the police are given far too much leeway to use their firearms in the first place.  

No, they didn’t, and that’s the problem. They’re trying to treat a situation where everyone was wrong in some way to some degree as though only one side can be blamed for the consequences of events.  

Of course it was QA tested.  This was a matter of R* making the minimum possible investment and saying “release by Christmas.”  This is what was done by their deadline, so this is what was released.  

I’m sorry but no. You didn’t discuss gameplay “for paragraphs.” You discussed that the objectives weren’t inspiring, and that the experience was a tad on rails.

This isn’t one or the other.  Charge the two teens with child endangerment (on top of whatever other charges are appropriate for engaging in a public shootout) and charge the cops with manslaughter or something similar.  

You can argue that you like it better with the fog, but that fog was never an aesthetic choice, it was a limitation of the hardware at the time.

We are the ones that should stop asking consumer products to “do better”

When everyone else seems like an asshole, it’s usually because you’re the asshole.  

Makes you wonder why they’d bother doing it if you’re damned either way.  

If they’re not willing to take WWII and its associated issues seriously or deal with them honestly, then they should find a different setting for their games, or at least go the batshit crazy alt-history route like Wolfenstein so that it’s clear they’re not using an actual historical setting. Setting your story in…

I don’t buy that for a second. These games can tell good stories. COD1 and 2 absolutely did.

You can’t just say “let products be products” about pop culture media as though that media doesn’t actually influence how the public thinks about history and the world around them.

Yeah, but I doubt those people own the licensing rights to the song.  A lot of actual famous musicians don’t even own the licensing rights to their songs.

Speculators who think they can find an even bigger mark.  

Non-sexual male friendships are not under-represented in media.  They’re practically a movie/TV trope.

Seems to me if they bought the game they can lay claim to anything in it they want.  If these dudes are boning on their island, that’s canon for them, and the devs don’t have a say in it.  

I’m very confused. What network/service is this on?

You might be confident that you’ll win a marathon, just because you lost doesn’t mean you that confidence was undeserved.

No.