I play competitive FOR those points so you’re stance is, in effect, trying to dictate MY fun and since I’m playing a team game as a team player, why should I subscribe to your interpretation of the game?

Can you prove that’s what’s happening? Or is it just sour grapes because you aren’t getting the wins you want? There are an awful lot of times where somebody falls into sore loser territory and starts looking for people to blame for their loss, as if they were owed a win. If somebody is a legitimate bad actor, fine,…

If you can’t prove they’re throwing, then that’s just the risk you take. You know going in that you could be paired with anybody; their skill of play or style of play should not be a reportable offense.

“Hello? Yes, Fun Police? Hi, there’s somebody on my game who isn’t having fun the way I think they should - could you make them play the right way? Thanks!”

Fantastic article! Really interesting insights all around.

My favorite is a quote I’ll paraphrase from Al Franken - Patriots love their country like a parent loves a child, while Nationalists love their country like a child loves their mommy.

Sure, sure, sure... of course, these characters are actual soldiers and law enforcement agents, not people appropriating those symbols ironically, so it’s not at all the same thing...

It was to be, yet again, a map game. I would find new regions, climb some sort of tower, unlock a bunch of icons representing various activities on a map, and then go do them. I would gather endlessly generating materials that would let me craft bags that would let me hold larger quantities of those materials. There…

With you 100%. As a gamer of a certain age (re: over 35) I haven’t got enough free time in my day to get lost in a game world. I already avoid anything open world like the plague because, to me, “Open World” is a nice way of saying “Waste half your time wandering around looking for something to do.” If you remove the…

Same thing happens to me, almost always when I start realizing how awesome the dream is. Like, it’ll be some climactic moment and I’m anxious to see what’s coming, but my brain will be like “Nope, this is way too amazing - I’m totally dreaming right now,” and bam. I wake up, or the dream fades, or something shifts and…

God bless you for reminding me of this movie. Your reference game is strong today.

Got past Zenyatta and was like “Wait, that guy looks like Mr. Freeze. And... hold on, Batman isn’t in Overwatch!” Embarrassed how long it took me to realize there were non-OW portraits presented...

Hot dog! I can finally do this “Dinosaur Park” thing sensibly and just not make any meat-eaters! People would pay out the butt to see living, walking ceratopses, stegasaurs, or sauropods - making a T-Rex is just getting greedy. Plus, in my All-Veggiesaurs-All-the-Time park, nobody is ever at risk of being eaten!…

No kidding. After playing classic SW:BF2 off and on for over a decade, there were few gaming disappointments greater than the new Battlefront was. All the beauty, none of the content.

I just don’t understand why, as a company, you would think it wise to base your decisions on whether you can get away with it with the smallest percentage of your player base. They removed a foundational pillar of why people play and love games seemingly because a marginal percentage of players wouldn’t mind - risking…

a lot of that fan base doesn’t particularly care about the lore; they just want balanced gameplay and solid mechanics

I’ve been playing a lot of Mortal Kombat X lately (because I’m always years behind on fighting games), and what’s amazed me is how much of the personality of the characters comes through in every aspect of the game. Including these kinds of personalized entrances. Everybody has a relationship to the other fighters,…

Thank you for sharing this. It should be presented as a short essay. This changing tide of American discourse is not about economic instability, it’s about white people who are scared, consciously or not, of threats to their supremacy and cultural dominance.

You can play games with your kids. And you can play games on portables that you take with you when you go places. Problem solved.

Some day I pray that the “ME3 ending is the worst insult to gamers ever” meme will die. It might take a generation dying off to make it happen, but what a glorious day it will be. Imagine - some day, a generation of people will be able to play through that trilogy without having their enjoyment ruined by bitter, snide…