It's not a game.

"The Synagogue of Satan' is not playing games."

Poor chap. Never heard (of) the Beatles.

If you want to win, you can to learn to play the game. To play the game you've got know whose game your playing. It's easy.

How many times do they need to say it?

Love, love, love
Love, love, love
Love, love, love
There's nothing you can do that can't be done
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung
Nothing you can say, but you can learn how to play the game
It's easy
Nothing you can make that can't be made
No one you can save that can't be saved
Nothing you can do, but you can learn how to be you in time
It's easy
All you need is love
All you need is love
All you need is love, love
Love is all you need
All you need is love
All you need is love
All you need is love, love
Love is all you need
There's nothing you can know that isn't known
Nothing you can see that isn't shown
There's nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be
It's easy
All you need is love
All you need is love
All you need is love, love
Love is all you need
All you need is love (all together now)
All you need is love (everybody)
All you need is love, love
Love is all you need
Love is all you need
(Love is all you need)
Love is all you need
(Love is all you need)
Love is all you need
(Love is all you need)
Love is all you need
(Love is all you need)
Love is all you need
(Love is all you need)
Love is all you need
(Love is all you need)
Love is all you need
(Love is all you need)
Love is all you need
(Love is all you need)
Love is all you need
(Love is all you need)
Love is all you need
(Love is all you need)
Love is all you need
(Love is all you need)
(Love is all you need)
(Love is all you need)
(Love is all you need)
Yesterday ---------------------https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uqvgPm8U4c
(Love is all you need)
Oh
Love is all you need
Love is all you need
Oh yeah
Love is all you need
(She love you, yeah, yeah, yeah)
(She love you, yeah, yeah, yeah)
(Love is all you need)
(Love is all you need)
Songwriters: John Lennon / Paul Mccartney

To add to that; if these athletes really did protest outside of the sporting event I seriously doubt it would get any coverage AT ALL. I HIGHLY doubt that the media would give it any air time!

This doesn't hurt anyone directly... it's not obscene... they're not delaying game time... I just don't see how it can strike up such controversy. I'm sorry you had to think about the plight of people of color in this country on your leisurely game day Sunday?

We need more people of color in our governing body's if you don't want to see someone take a knee during the national anthem.

Let them have their time and raise awareness.

It's a talent contest, not a game show.

Don't you just hate it when you don't have a point so you try to be priggish and correct someone on a technicality ....but you get it wrong?

We're not talking about a random "beat up this picture" game, or at least, that's not the impression I got (if it IS user-generated, then I retract my statements re Spurr). We're talking about a game specifically about beating up Sarkeesian.

First, it's the old comedy motto... "punch up, not down". Sarkeesian has received multiple, unbelievably vile threats against her. More to the point, those threats are credible. She's not a famous celebrity with an army of bodyguards to protect her. There's a very real chance that someone could just assault her on the street, far more so than Bieber.

Second, the people that want to punch Bieber are doing so because he's annoying. There's really very little malice behind it in almost all cases.

You can't reasonably argue that's the same for Sarkeesian. There is a genuine and widely documented movement of people on the web who have expressed serious hatred of her.

Let me put it this way, if I compared a "Punch Bieber" and a "Shoot Bin Laden" in the head game, which would you say has more genuine ill intent behind it?

When someone did shoot Bin Laden, everyone cheered. If someone seriously assaulted Bieber, even people who are annoyed by him would say that's going too far.

OTOH, if someone seriously assaulted Sarkeesian, there is a sizeable group of people who be delighted by that.

We don't make judgements in a vacuum. We must take what we know of the context surrounding something to decide whether we like it or not.

A game about punching Bill Cosby in the face? We can reasonably assume it's motivated by sexual assault allegations.
Now take the same game, and instead of Bill Cosby, you can choose any black celebrity. Again, you can make a reasonable assumption, except this time we could say it's racially motivated.

Possibly I'm misinterpreting his intentions, but if so, he's not really attempting to correct the public perception of them.

It's not the game. He was playing Minecraft. What you hear is the text to speech of his donation bot. Many Twitch streamers now use text to speech to read donations. I believe somebody said that it kept saying "behind you" but I haven't been able to independently verify that.

There has been contradicting information on the extent of the damage, to being minor with no injuries, to burning his place and 3 others down. There were initially rumors of a death, but that was later found to be another fire.

It rather much an epic fail though. I mean there's being Swatted: http://videosift.com/video/Raided-by-SWAT-SWATTED-while-live-streaming or being robbed at gunpiont: http://videosift.com/video/Twitch-Streamer-Robbed-At-Gunpoint-During-Stream, neither of which is the Streamer's fault, but this guy....

Fallout 1 was a technically antiquated VGA (that's right, 640x480, 256 colours) post-apocalyptic turn-based tactical RPG where you could not control you team mates during combat. It was a bit buggy (and so was F2). It was Mad Max, without cars.

And yet.

Fallout is arguably the best world-building work in the history of video games. People are probably going to dispute that, but most other games are built on pre-existing lore or works, or do not have that scope*. Fallout built its world pretty much from scratch, conflating a pre-war 1950's, golden-era, overly-optimistic world-view with the bleak desolation of the nuclear holocaust that ensued (to clarify for those who really know nothing about Fallout: in this universe a nuclear war happened in the 50s**. all that's left is from that era). Beside its content which was plentiful in and of itself, this created a contrasted, yet highly coherent and mature world (and by mature I don't just mean killing friendly NPC, I mean doing Morally Very Bad Things that don't necessarily result in graphic scenes). An open world that you could roam freely, be surprised by a new discovery that you made, and at the same time find these discoveries to fit perfectly with the game's logic. In most large games you just access new areas or are carried by the story, in Fallout you would go "Holy shit I'm in the middle of a city populated by centenarian ghouls!", shortly followed by "ho, of course it's full of ghouls, that's perfectly normal". There are not many games that have this mix of unexpected/logical and dark/humorous content.

Fallout 2 had the same ho-my-God-how-could-they-get-away-with-it VGA engine (so next to zero evolution there), but quadrupled the world map (with a minimum overlap with the one from F1) and brought it fifty or so years forward, expanding the world greatly (there are now rival quasi-city-states, and your action may influence their future), while also building on the first one: some antagonists 'classes' from F1 have now grown their own identity and became NPC, and some characters are still around -- a young character you saved in F1 went back to her settlement, became its leader, built it into a town, and is now in the process of expanding it into a new state...So Fallout 2 is basically the same game, except they did that one important thing: push the game world's boundaries even more. You could never guess what next city would be like, but you could bet it would have some crazy shit in it, and yet somehow still make sense.

That's why many people don't like Fallout 3. It is not in itself a bad game, but comparatively, it's kind of coasting. Also it's too damn easy.

I'm sorry, I got carried away, you were asking if you should play the previous ones? No, you 'should' not. But you could, and for F1 & F2 you would certainly not lose your time if you know what you're getting into. And if you don't, at least go and watch their intro on Youtube, they'll give you the feel of the world.

* Possible contenders in terms of "original video game world": Elder Scrolls (vast, but less original), Deus ex (not as large), Bioshock (same), Final Fantasy (original and vast, but not as complex). Any other idea?
** Technically not the 1950s, but in practice the 50s + a bunch of high tech gizmo.

Your "obvious" solution has been progressing for years... Indeed Sarkeesian cherry picks games that offend her, but ignores that there are quite a few more games where women are protagonists, and /shock horror even dressed appropriately...

It's obviously not good enough for her, or apparently you...

As for your daughter and Mario, no, there's not something wrong with that. There are quite a few games (and more are coming) with female protagonists. Perhaps you should introduce her to Child of Light? Or let her play through the Longest Journey series? Guess what, not every game is going to give you the choice of a male/female protagonist, and I'm not sure why it's required. Honestly, I'd love it if reality TV shows about dumb socialites would disappear from the entertainment spectrum, but sadly I don't get to dictate to the media (or indeed the viewing public) what they should be doing.

In response to your points about the fight, you're right, and it should keep going and we should all try to support it. But Sarkeesian undermines that fight. Not because she dares to speak out, but how she does it. In her attacks, and they are attacks, she tars all male gamers as either deliberately misogynistic or hopelessly naive. That's great, really, you convince people to support you by insulting them continuously?

As for this snide little bit of crap...

"Look, I'm sorry people pointing out to you how fucked up it is how women are sometimes portrayed in games is somehow ruining your ability to enjoy games. But there are serious problems here. Maybe not problems for you, but problems for people like my daughter. "

This is a problem you and Anita share... Presumption. That just because I think she's a hack, that somehow she's ruining my fun (she isn't), that I support a male character domination of the industry (I don't), that there shouldn't be more strong female characters represented (there should) and so on and so forth. You have concocted a scenario in your head and jumped straight to the insults without ever bothering to find out what my opinion on the games (as opposed to the person blasting them) is...

Would it be sexist/misogynist to think that the woman in the article is batshit insane?

http://thelibertydoll.com/2014/08/22/meet-woman-reduce-male-population-90-for-peace/

Not because she's a woman, but because of what she's saying, and how she's saying it. This is why I object to Sarkeesian and think she's a shameful opportunist who's willing to set back feminism in her quest for fame or perhaps relevance..

"You can still have your Damsel/Dude in Distress trope, by the way. I have no doubt lazy developers will continue to use it as a substitute for meaningful story. Just don't expect people not to call out the utter absurdity of it, is all I'm saying."

Oh, it's my trope now... /eyeroll

I can't point out how ridiculous it is to try and kill off a trope that pervades every aspect of human story telling since the dawn of time without it becoming my personal favourite? Pro tip, if you're trying to convince someone of a viewpoint, it usually helps not to be a patronising git... X D

I get her point about how women are represented in many games, but certainly not all games. There are also many strong, intelligent female characters out there, and a good dose of ineffective, whining, useless male characters too.
If she and other women feel under represented, they need to buy more games like 'The Last of Us' and support realistic characters in gaming. If games like that sell, game companies will make more of them...guaranteed. It's a supply and demand issue, they just need to create more demand and what they want will be supplied.
On another note, she and others need to keep in mind that most gaming is FANTASY, and as such does not realistically represent men or women. Asking it to do so is akin to asking sci-fi writers to be less inventive and more down to earth in their stories, or movie makers to be more realistic when making movies about the Matrix. It's kind of missing the point.

@newtboy, this is actually running on a fairly low-spec pc (around the same as an xbone or ps4).

But yeah, this is similar to the deus ex video I posted a while back,
*related=http://videosift.com/video/Deus-Ex-Human-Revolution-Unreal-4-demo

One small area with great attention paid to lighting and detail with no mechanics or animation.

@jmd, agreed the trees weren't great, but not all games are about open worlds and dynamic events. Look at COD. Very linear, incredibly scripted.

The fundamental problem with AAA games is the cost to create content. I think we're going to ultimately see some blend of procedural and hand created content as the way forward, where the designers build a layout for gameplay and a procedural engine fleshes out the visual details.

Who said anything about "thought provoking meaningful experience"? =)

You're doing what all classic internet "experts" (ie. arrogant twats who think their opinion is the last word on everything) do, creating a fallacious argument to launch your scathing invective at while missing the point entirely. If you tried to bolt depth on to a title like Wolfenstein, you'd be undermining the core of the game, which is Nazi destroying mayhem. Do you really need a complex story arc giving you motivation to kill a thousand mecha-SS riding T-Rexs? Of course not.

A game does not require depth to be fun. Certainly there are plenty of indie games that also indulge in the "no depth all action" genre (http://www.crimsonland.com/ as a classic example).

I do have to correct one error in my previous post however, it's not a stick up your ass. It's your head... ; )

Not uncommon. Game companies can be very touchy of negative feedback. Some games go to great lengths to limit any kind of negative responses banning people, trying to shut people up in 3rd party sites too.

The whole "it's not a game" thing from Boehner was completely hypocritical

Immediately after the shutdown, Everyone starts talking about who the "winners and losers" were.

Obama immediately says "there are no winners"
Boehner immediately starts talking about how they "didn't win"
all the news outlets start running articles about who "won and lost"

And Cruz is already talking about the next shutdown.

If the ACA wasn't already a law, I could SORTA understand it. but nah, It's a law, they have an oath to uphold it. They want to change it, more power to them, but have that argument elsewhere, not as a negotiating tactic to keep the gov't running. They supposedly want to cut costs, but this shutdown costs us even more money so they can't claim ANY sort of fiscal responsibility here.

What is helping with that though is that because the right keeps moving the goalposts, so many people who were once Republicans are now RINOs according to the extremists. Just like this video suggests, Will may be a fictional character, but he's describing exactly what a lot of moderate Republicans are going through right now. The right wing extremists have decided to pursue a personal vendetta against Obama and all the moderates in the party are going "wtf?"

Sorry, but that's the most basic sign of a downfall. when you keep purging your ranks for not having enough ideological purity, you're not exactly planning for long term success.

When all the big historical Republicans heroes like Lincoln, Nixon, and Reagan, and maybe even HW Bush couldn't win a Republican primary in today's climate, you know you're losing touch

I dunno though, speaking more generally however, there's got to be some way of inducing politicians to not play games like this. The whole 10% approval yet 90% incumbancy rate should hopefully shock people into doing something. We've got a bill that passed both houses of congress, signed into law by the president AND upheld by the SCOTUS, and yet a small faction is holding gov't hostage over this.

I don't see how it's even legal to defund something that is law. If it's law, how is it legal to interfere with it like that? If you don't like it, pass a new law repealing it....that should be the only way to stop an existing law (other than Supreme Court of course)

I've heard this numerous times before from conservatives that we need to enforce the laws already on the books....well...ok. Let's do that.

Unpopular opinion incoming!

First, full disclaimer: I am not a game developer, but I do write software for a living I'd prefer to be paid (and paid well) for my skills.

Ok, here's the thing. Sorry, but not your stuff. You didn't make it and you don't own it. You own a licence to use it. End of.

I know I'm in the minority here, but I believe not only is a certain amount of DRM acceptable, it's actually unfortunately necessary. I am possibly crazy, but I believe in paying the fucking writer.

Now DRM as it stands is fucking bullshit. *I* paid to watch this motherfucking movie. *i* paid to play this fucking game. Every time you cunts force me sit through a fucking anti -piracy message, it makes me more inclined to pirate your fucking content.

And I don't want to. If I'm buying your game/movie/book, I've already decided your artistic output is worth my time and energy that I put into working. Fuck it, I could have stayed at home and learned to play drums. I've wanted to do that for years, but I don't have the fucking TIME! So you get my time/work/energy.

How fucking dare you waste my precious free time on your sanctimonious fucking ads targeting the very people who don't give a shit about your message, and who, by some perverse twist of natural justice, don't have to put up with your bullshit.

That said.....

"wah, I don't like your DRM" is not a valid excuse to pirate content. If you don't like the way company X distributes your favourite book/game/movie/tv show.... don't consume that content.

No, seriously, (and I'm well aware I'm going to engender a lot of hate for this) if you feel you are entitled to the fruits of someone else's hard work because you don't agree with how it's distributed, then seriously, fuck you. Yeah, I'm not kidding. I don't care if it's WB or HBO or EA or whatever undeniably fucking idiotic big media conglomerate. At some point, a bunch of hard working, talented people created something you want to consume.

PAY THOSE FUCKING PEOPLE.

Or find another way to let those creators know you want their content but not as it's currently available.

If it's awesome, find a way to let them know. If it's shit, don't consume it.

So back to games and drm and copying.

It boils down to this. Buy the games you want. Support the people who are working their arses off because they love what their doing. If you think the new COD is shit (and you're in good company), then don't buy it, don't pirate it and for the love of FSM, don't play it. Your time is valuable. Buy a cheap PC and play FTL or Monaco or Fez or Walking Dead or Mark of the Ninja.... all great games, none of which need a "next gen" (aka 3 or 4 gens ago on the pc) console. Hell, go kickstart Star Citizen.

Fuck it, this is now so long I don't know where or why or how I started.*

Pay the people who make the things you love. They deserve it. They'll make more cool shit. Don't borrow it, don't pirate it. Just, pay them. They get fuck all enough as it is.

* kids! don't write posts drunk after midnight on Saturday after watching the All Blacks crush the French! You will write unpopular opinions and most likely excommunicate yourself from online communities you enjoy!