This is a great post. I never understood why people's love of Valve runs so inexplicably deep for something that amounts to a digital distribution model. It would be like if there was a huge cult following for used car dealerships or Costco (at least in the latter example, you actually own what you take home with you…

Are you referring to Hitler's 'Mein Kampf'? /s

My problem with this logic is that it's not limited to video games, but they seem to get the brunt of the blame. For these troubled girls, it could have been any mythical creature that could have been the source/excuse. Maybe they'd throw a friend in an oven because they'd read the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale too…

When I read this, I thought, 'Oh fuck. The media's going to go mental.' The problem is, they wouldn't go on as long if it were a film that 'influenced' these kids. That said, in Britain, Child's Play 3 was blamed when a boy was killed by two others in the early 90s. Then of course Matrix and Boondock Saints were…

Lulu is correct - that's what I meant. The 'channels' reference was to the big buttons that said things like 'News' and 'Games' on AOL. Remember that? And yes, there were of course things to do, but it was hardly a robust experience. If you were surfin' like crazy and knew of a lot of awesome sites, then you had a…

I think we first got the internet in late '93 or '94. We started out with Prodigy and then moved on to AOL and finally Earthlink. We had a 14.4k modem plugged into our Macintosh LC, which ran at 16MHz. Those were the fucking days. There was no 'internet' to speak of - or nothing of particular use anyway. There were a…

The Shadow Link drawing was awesome and I think Zelda II is way underrated. All that said, some of the commenters above have it correct: we need a game about Zelda herself. That would be dope (yes, I said dope). I always pictured Zelda as quite powerful, particularly after Ocarina. It would be cool to see how she…

Same here. I thought it was a Walking Dead homage.

So it's truly an issue of semantics for you then? Copyright infringement is not theft, because the original owner still has access to his/her original material, and being deprived of the estimated value of that material is also not theft. Your reference to MPAA v Hotfile is an interesting one, because much of the…

That's amazing. Have you considered changing your name to Muhammed or Jesus?

Any time I think about moving back to the US, I get cold feet on the issue of how internet and mobile phone services work out there. They're exorbitantly priced and they have crazy restrictions. My friend told me he pays $80/mo for his cell phone plan. I pay £13 with an off-contract iPhone and on-contract, it would be…

When Napster came out, my dad came home from work and said that a bunch of colleagues were talking about it and discussing how cool it was that you could download individual tracks. No one, not even someone as legal-conscious as my dad, seemed to think downloading an individual song amounted to theft. It's funny in…

Tell me of your magic - to manipulate one's perception of reality in such a way that it fulfills his or her expectations of it so perfectly. You truly are a wizard!

I'm typically not particularly bothered by a little theft, because there's so much disparity in earnings in this world. I saw a guy being held down outside a music store by store employees yesterday while they waited for the police to arrive presumably because he stole some sheet music to 'Frozen'. Was that really…

Conan: 'This is a very nihilistic look. "In a way, aren't we all in a corner?"'

Oh look, the rest of the media (and arguably Kotaku) displaying women in various forms of skimpy to nonexistent dress. What a surprise! =P

Meh. Face still looks like a porcelain doll's. Good effort, though! I anxiously await your next three posts! =)

Fair point, though to hear Nintendo tell it, emulation (not provided by them) is ALSO piracy.

Fair opinion. I appreciate the pale skin, it must be said, but it's a bit plasticy and, oh, vampire eyes!

One of my biggest concerns is the extent to which PC versions of games will be 'dumbed down' to meet the paltry specs of the newest consoles. It happened before with 360 and PS3, but can you imagine in 5 years time being held back as a PC gamer by the insides of the Xbone and PS4? All that said, I don't doubt that in…