orionfoxgibson : talking like that to him was uncalled for. Quit being an ass. He happens to be right that you can't compare renting a game for a few minutes at 25 cents versus buying a permanent copy of the game.

Jordanv78 : regarding the comment about how it is mostly kids who buy games for $10, I can easily point to many many games I have bought for $10 or less. A lot of people actually buy heavily discounted games, because it is a smarter way to get the most value for their money.

Jordanv78 : Price may not have gone up as much, but that doesn't change the fact a lot of people either don't want to or cant spend the money on a full priced new game. Also, I understand they want to get more people to buy new instead, that's why i said they should reward customers who do. Give them the first dlc free, give them a code for the soundtrack, give them points that when combined with points from other new games by the same company can get you a coupon for a different game. Any of those would be good options that would convince some more people to buy new. But thing is, even buying new doesn't mean buying at full price. A lot of people wait until a game is $30 or $20 or even less before buying it. This is not wrong, it is being careful and smart with your money. Rewarding people with customer loyalty and incentives to purchase new are the only fair ways to handle the competition from the used market. Punishing people for buying used does nothing but piss people off and causes the company to be associated with cash grab schemes (look at all the websites that reported on online access codes when they first started). And you may say they would lose money by giving these discount offers or free dlc/soundtrack to the customers, but think of it this way, what do you think makes more money for them, the $10 dlc, or the video game they are selling for $40+? The increase in profit from the game sales would more than cover any losses from the freebies.

Jordanv78 : Thing is, there is nothing wrong with someone reselling something. It happens with every other market. Should I not be allowed to sell a car I bought? Or a movie or music cd? What about books or furniture? People sell these things all the time, yet no one bats an eyelash, but whenever it comes to games somehow it becomes a different story. A lot of people buy used for many reasons, some of which were already mentioned here. The fact is the used market can be used as a way to allow unsure buyers the chance to jump into a series with low risk, as thudricdholee said about bioshock. if they want to increase sales of new copies (not necessarily full priced ones, but discounted ones as well), then let them make it more appealing to do so without taking away features that would have been there to begin with. Give the customer a REWARD for buying new, not a PUNISHMENT for buying used.

Beneath a Steel Sky: http://www.gog.com/gamecard/beneath_a_steel_sky

A fun point and click adventure game. Lots of puzzles, great story, and loveable characters. Definitely a must play for any fan of the genre.

Tribes Ascend: https://account.hirezstudios.com/tribesascend/

Fast paced first person shooter action! Players may use the "ski" ability to move at an incredible pace. Jetpacks are used by players to fly and perform great jumps when moving at highspeeds. "9 playable classes, unlock and upgrade weapons, three different vehicles to use, and open battlefields." Also, unlike in most FPS, you must account for distance when taking your shots in this game as your shots will not travel in a straight line.

I'm sorry if there is already a thread like this somewhere, but I wanted to get thoughts on this. The companies are making the claim that used games are sorely hurting the industry and that it is costing them a lot of money. I think this is just ridiculous. Almost every industry has a used market, and they deal with the fact that they have that competition. The video game market however seems to think that bad mouthing that market is a better approach. I personally think their claims of losing money are blown out of proportion. Yes, some money is lost to the used market, but considering the vg industry is a multi billion dollar industry, and also considering the fact that games keep breaking sales records (i.e. every time a new cod launches) I'm willing to bet they aren't being hurt by it. I think used games is the new piracy, if something doesn't make as much money as the company wanted it to, they just blame used games/piracy. Not bad marketing, not bad design, bad story, bad bug testing, or anything else that is the fault of the people who made the game, it's all just used games/piracy. Ubisoft is especially bad for making this claim (after they started the always online drm on pc, their pc sales sunk like a rock, so they blamed piracy...cus it obviously couldn't be that people just didn't want to deal with all the problems the drm on the pc caused...I also think they are using this as a way to justify adding more drm to games and charging for things like online access codes to increase their profit whithout having to do any additional work.. So what do you guys think? Are used games hurting devs? Is it just an excuse to make a money grab by limiting used games (i.e. online access codes or drm) ? Or is it a scapegoat to cover their mistakes?

I personally wont miss them much. THQ had some really great games of course, but in recent years they made decisions which helped bring this about. I don't see how this is the second coming of the video game crash. One company went out of business, while bethesda, EA, activision, valve, insomniac, capcom, etc are all making money. I will admit, part of why I am a bit indifferent to THQ's issues may be because of how they decided to seriously milk the dlc market in the latest dawn of war game, but that is just one example of the decisions i mentioned earlier.

Happy birthday Sephi, may your bday be filled with captain america socking hitler in the jaw. In honor of your birthday, I found this for you: Enjoy

port753 : This isn't Yahoo. Forums put rules like that into place to help keep things organized and prevent a flood of threads about the same thing. If you look at most other forums, they will have the same types of rules. Also, vizzed is actually a bit more lenient when it comes to certain things like posting in old threads.

Singelli : Maybe I am being a bit huffy, but after hearing the same argument for the hundredth time about a hundred different things, it starts to wear a bit thin. And the fact is when you say that a part of us enjoyed the act of murder, your words not mine, that isn't stating it in a way that suggest you don't understand. It is stating it as a judgement. Plus, you also said (in the same post) that the reason people play games where they can do these things is because they enjoy those things. "What I mean is this:  I have an interest in
exploration, so what kinds of games do I enjoy?  Games with exploration.
 What am I not a fan of? Prostitution.  Why would I seek games with
prostitution if I had absolutely no interest in it?  The logic that
people don't enjoy the thought of such activities as they play is
absolutely ludicrous. There IS an element of fun in the activities for
the game's players, or else the game would not be played by those
people." I'm not a fan of murder, but I play games that involve it. You can't just say we are playing these games cus we are interested in all these aspects, and then go on to say that "our minds enjoyed the act of murder" and then claim you are saying you just don't understand or that you are just giving your views. If you didn't understand it you wouldn't make these statements as if they were facts. And as far as "I'm just giving my views", that doesn't mean it isn't allowed to be criticized. And also, it isn't a case of me accusing someone of insulting others, it is a case where people HAVE insulted others. again, I reference the OP's comment about people being sadists.

I swear, as many times as I have seen this argument being made, I am really sick of it. Everything under the sun has had its day of persecution by those of "higher moral fiber". I'm sick of it. If you don't want to play a game due to your morals, good, it is a good thing you are true to your morals, but don't expect everyone else to feature the same morals.

Singelli
 "I'm not saying that everyone who plays games like this secretly wants to kill, rape, and steal, so don't even go there and stop making assumptions while you're ahead."

You can say that all you want, but when you continue on to say stuff like this:

"Your victims aren't real?  So what.  I'll give you
that your victims weren't real.  That doesn't mean your mind did not
enjoy partaking in the action of murder.  I'll never understand anyone
with a conscience feeling okay playing a game like that"

It becomes very clear that you ARE saying that. You are saying that we secretly enjoyed murdering people,stealing,destroying things, and everything else our characters did. This reminds me of how people try and say "no offense" to cover themselves in case they upset someone. Just because you claim "no offense" doesn't mean it wasn't offensive. And likewise, just because you claim you weren't saying we want to kill, doesn't change the fact you yourself said we enjoy killing IN THE SAME POST.


devinlv17
 As far as you're argument about art reflecting society, that is true in some cases, but in life there are very few universal truths. I mean can you honestly say every piece of art in every form has reflected the morality of the society or of the creators? Also, by most people, art is considered a secondary role for video games, entertainment being the primary role. Entertainment is not always grounded in reality, and therefore does not reflect reality. Also, I don't know who came around and made you some higher being among men, but if you are going to go around and call people sadists simply for not sharing your moral views on a FICTIONAL GAME, don't be surprised when no one wants to talk to you.


When I played through Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, I made my character as evil as I could. I know this is about skyrim, but the same principles apply. My character murdered, stole, betrayed people, and was in every way a horrible person. If you want to call HIM a sadist, I won't argue with you there, my character was indeed a sadist. But last I checked, I have not killed anyone, nor have I stolen all their money, or turned them over to people who want to kill or torture them. I know this kind of became a rant, but I am so sick of hearing the same crap repeated a thousand times and, frankly, I'm not going to let it slide when someone tries to insult and smear people who have done nothing wrong.

I can't recall, it has been a while since it last happened thankfully.
Next Elite: What is your favorite 80's/90's cartoon?

Without a doubt my favorite global is ken. He is an awesome guy to talk to, doesn't abuse his power, treats people with respect, and he is very kind and funny. No offense to the other globals, but I don't know most of you very well (except legacyme3) so I can't form an opinion either way about you guys.

So Annette, if you could have any super power, what would it be and why?

So, I just got my new layout! Big thanks to:
Galacta : for making this awesome layout. What do you guys think of it?

Well there are a couple of theories on why it hasn't been released on DVD. Some people think it could be a licensing issue between FOX and WB. Others (and this is the theory I think is likely) think it is because DC is trying to play down the image of the old campy batman and push the image of batman as the dark knight.

I'm debating if I should leave the site for a while or not. I'm not going to make a big long "I'M LEAVING FOREVER CUS OF THIS" rant, but honestly I just don't know how well I really fit in here.