"I disagree with A (most media is crap; Sturgeon's law and all that stuff), and I agree and disagree with B."

Perfect. I like the name, too - "Sturgeon's Law" - in part due to the otherwise fishy connotation.

Damn, that's a nice desk... That's the thing I like about Restoration Hardware. Everything looks worth every penny. It's not too showy, but still has that "design" kind of quality that keeps everything looking great. I do wish it was a bit cheaper - but, hey, that's what saving is for.

This is honestly why I'm confused how this writer managed to get paid for this article - "dumb" is such a magically uncritical term, it's laughable that anyone would really, really be taking notes from this guy.

Well, and that's why I'm not defending him on the grounds of providing an incomplete and, to speak in a language he understands, dumb analysis of video gaming as a medium. Most media sucks. Gaming is no different - for better or worse.

Well, the writer's clearly drunk Blow's Kool-Aid. As I've said, I'm not sure that Blow's general gist is statistically wrong - but his attitude's down-right toxic and often ignores the great work that some dev studios are churning out on a semi-regular basis. Those are rare exceptions from a quantitative standpoint -…

Thanks to Amazon's self-publishing, that 10:1 ratio just shot up - really in the wrong direction. Everyone's a writer now! Yay! ...

Well, not everyone's gonna love it - for sure. A lot of people didn't like Journey because it was "boring."

Well, I mean, actually read the guy's quote first.

Ah, see - that mix of minimalism and Scandinavian design always gets me buying things at IKEA. That, and I can't afford to buy pricey furniture yet. I'm still pretty much in a shift adrift until I get through grad school (which takes me through ~2015 at this point). That, and the small size of a lot of IKEA's…

I love IKEA - so, there's that.

"Broadly speaking, there are two main reasons we do anything in narrative games (as opposed to games that are primarily about mastering a specific skill, or raking up a score). One is to realize some kind of in-game benefit for the characters we play: we want to receive an item, to remove a threat, to gain experience…

Too bad PC rhymes with Hitler.

"It was when film created its own language for storytelling that it became a well regarded art form, before that it was seen as more of a novelty."

The north coast of Skyrim, with all the ice and whipping wind, doesn't remind you of "The Wanderer" at all? Barren, desolate, frightful? Huh. Different strokes/different folks, I guess.

Skyrim had a Dark Ages thing going for it, though. I mean, it looks like what I see when I read Beowulf or "The Ruin" - or, really, any of those Old English poems. While that's not going to be attractive or very noticeable to some audiences, it does stick out to others.

"I suppose what I'm saying is more that the games that put story first tend to have less interaction in general, or gameplay is more shallow and simplistic compared to something that's deep but still derivative."

I haven't - but I'm more than OK with trippy. I thrive on trippy.

If it's Sandman-quality work, this might have to become a moving present for myself once I finally get settled in. Sandman's one of those rare collections that I feel like I need to own, not rent or borrow, because I might find myself quoting it some day. (And I have.)

Given that it's Neil Gaiman, I might have to.