Microsoft doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt, not with the XB1 rollout they had. I think they can expect—and this seems pretty reasonable to me—that people will adopt a wait-and-see attitude. Some of the features they're talking about now seem encouraging, but people are right to remain skeptical until they…

But the age of the subscription-based MMO is not over. The age of the watered-down, story/quest-based MMO is over. Sandboxes with subscriptions are on the rise. Also, I think we're seeing the end of the monolithic MMO. People are going to have to get used to the fact that they won't be the next WoW, and craft their…

Exactly. It seems to have become the standard model for gaming Kickstarters to essentially be modified pre-orders. If the Kickstarter exceeds its goal, it's likely that this is because it received more "pre-orders" than expected. Rewards should be limited to things that don't cost money or an excessive amount of…

Yeah, I think the backer reward thing is kind of silly most of the time. If I'm going to back a project, give me a copy of the finished product. That's all I need. Beyond that, I want the money to be going into the project, not posters and other swag that costs money to produce.

Those people don't have any reason to complain. They're not paying for more features. They're paying for a copy of the game once it comes out. It isn't as though the developers aren't giving the audience anything for all that extra money they got above and beyond what they asked for. They're shelling out more copies…

Because logic has nothing to do with it. Words carry meaning and impact, in part, based on the context in which they are used. So that means where they're said, when they're said, who they're said to, who says them, and things of that nature.

If the guy playing the "Niglet" character is this dude, then he gets to do it. The problem is, I have a hard time believing it isn't just some 13 year old, white, racist kid.

"Prince_Assman" isn't racist.

One of the multiplayer partners is called "Niglet." Gamers: always classy.

But it wasn't criticism. It was vitriol.

I think his level of professionalism is beside the point here, because we're not talking about a business dispute. This guy went and got personal, so what's wrong with Fish taking it to that level? If the guy wants to be street, then we shouldn't be surprised when his target meets him on the pavement. Polytron isn't a…

I don't think Fish's thing is that gamers need to be more mature. I think his thing is that they need to not be assholes in comments sections. There's a difference between criticizing a thing somebody has made and attacking the person directly. From what I can tell, all of Fish's negative interactions with commenters…

The problem is that Marcus Beer, knowing full well that Phil Fish is highly susceptible to baiting, laid out some of the prime stuff, and then tried to claim that he had some grand Journalistic motive for doing so. You know, some people have thinner skins than others. If you know somebody has a thin skin and you set…

Fish's reaction to Beer's remarks were in the right ballpark, at least. I mean, not all of us might have gotten as angry as he did, but I don't think we'd look on being berated as a pleasant experience either.

1) How is the quality of Fez even the issue here? I've never played Fez, and really feel no inclination to buy it. My point is not that Fez is a great game, so we should all love Phil Fish and treat him like a creative genius. My point is that Phil Fish's comment about gamer culture being bullshit is pretty much…

Most people don't have to deal with anywhere near the kind of bile Fish receives online, and that's why I don't think any of us are very well qualified to tell him to buck up.

Yeah, he should become a games journalist, because it seems that any amount of childishness is allowed, as long as you do it in the guise of an "Annoyed Gamer"-like persona. The fact that this Marcus Beer guy actually manages to draw a paycheck for what he does bodes well for Phil Fish's career opportunities.

It's "TD" or "time dilation." Basically, in order to prevent server crashes, the EVE devs came up with a process for slowing down the speed with which processes occur so that the server can keep up in especially hectic situations.

I'll be the first to say that Phil Fish shouldn't have even responded. But at the same time, I find it hard to really stick confidently by that view, because I can't really say that I know what it's like to face constant, endless criticism in online comments whenever an article that is even tangentially about me is…

Yeah, I mean, I have my own feelings about "hipsters" (my basic critique is that they tend to be apolitical and blind to class issues because of their generally privileged backgrounds). But there's nothing more tiresome than picking on somebody just because of how they dress or the frames they've got for their…