Guild Wars did well at launch, but if the expansion does badly this year, it's game over for ArenaNet.

Many MMOs that are nominally 'Free to Play', such as LotRO, SWTOR, STO, and so on are primarily subscription based, and derive the vast majority of revenues from subscribed players. I play The Old Republic, and 'Free2Play' is nothing more than a trial mode for prospective players. Everyone I have ever grouped with and…

I enjoy the occasional art game, but 9 hours seems a little long. Gone Home was about the right length imho.

I don’t think W3 is the prettiest game out right now. Even if you look purely at raw graphical fidelity, AC: Unity (for all its many flaws) is more visually advanced in terms of lighting and texture resolution.

Absolutely agree. People these days seem to have no idea how expensive actual game development is. Anything remotely approaching AAA (developed in the US/Canada) is looking at $25mm+ development, and at least $20mm marketing on top of that, if not much more.

Hardly. The movie is about what’s happened at the beginning, not now.

Most Youtube game videos are just pure entertainment with a cast of characters. The games are just the background noise.

It's technically got 2 zones. The Skellige Islands, and a mainland area with the city of Novigrad and surrounding wilderness.

I think it's far more likely they've decided to copy GTA with the multiple characters than that the Polygon articles swayed a multi-billion euro corporation.

Feudal Japan didn't have a lot of tall buildings and is extremely cliché.

I am a mega AC fanboy and I can't wait. Hype Train Engaged.

Spore was, as a game, too ambitious. The original title was 'Sim Everything', and it shows, because even if they'd had 2500 developers on it for six years and spent hundreds of millions of dollars on development, it would still have failed.

I think core games will have a new lease of life when we end the era of consoles and start the era of streaming. In ten years time, consoles won't exist, you'll just boot up the Rockstar App on your Smart TV, login to your account and stream GTAVII. And when that happens, that $300 barrier to play console games…

I agree, but there's a big issue when Partner A can get all the extra-marital/relationship sex s/he wants, while Partner B cannot.

Pointless anecdote: The only polygamous relationship I ever knew that worked out was one in which both partners were extremely conventionally attractive (and thus could both get laid easily, reducing the jealousy factor) and very very laid back.

The funny thing is that the voice acting wasn't racist at all. In fact they specifically hired South-East Asian voice actors from Singapore and Malaysia. They just *really* sound like that.

I mean that's the key right. Hide away a few thousand bitcoins or whatever it is (and hope they aren't worth nothing in 20 years) and do your time quietly.

I haven't set foot in a grocery store in about five years (except when going with other relatives), and I absolutely agree. Why even go to the store anymore?

The fact is that sales information is some of the most important information there is to companies. Why should Steam (or EA, or Activision etc..) give away numbers? If the numbers are good, they'll send out a big press release a week after launch boasting about their numbers. If the numbers are shit, they'll wait as…

What to make of it is simple- more evidence that playing games, even those that contain violence, brutality, or expressions of unsavoury societal attitudes (sexism, homophobia etc..) has minimal, if any, impact, on the player, and certainly does nothing to encourage violent or prejudiced tendencies in them.