Julian Eggebrecht, president of Factor 5 has a great editorial over at Eurogamer on how the ESRB handles rating games, or the lack thereof.
Julian Eggebrecht has said that games’ inability to include sexual content, satirical jokes and fantasy violence without degrees of censure are symptoms of a wider problem with ratings - and said that he didn’t feel the US Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) took the medium seriously as an artform.
Just how ludicrous is the ESRB rating system? You can’t get a teen rating with any display of splurting blood or chunks of organic material, yet you can set thousands of people on fire watching them run around in agony dying without a problem, just as long as you don’t have any visible blood…
In this editorial, Consolitis - A PC Gaming Disease, I write my thoughts about this trend that PC gamers have to put up with, and sometimes, end up wasting our money over. How many times have you played a game that was clearly a console port that looked fun, could’ve been fun, but didn’t take advantage of the capabilities of your PC? I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of it, and wish game developers and publishers knock it off and treat PC gamers with a little more respect.
Some recent examples of PC gamers receiving the short straw is Deus Ex 2: Invisible Wars. The original Deus Ex, widely regarded as a classic game for the PC, ushered in a new era of smart shooters. However when Deus Ex 2 came out, the howls of agony by PC gamers could be heard everywhere. It suffered from the affliction known as consolitis. All the elements that made the original Deus Ex great was stripped bare and a ghost of its former self was left in the sequel.
In related news, Evil Avatar has an interview with Randy Smith, who worked on all three Thief games, and talks about what went wrong with Thief 3 (I say it suffered from consolitis, too.)
I’ve just written a short article on my personal experiences with piracy and how it very nearly destroying my passion for gaming. It’s not a preaching ‘thou-shalt-not-copy’ article or anything like that, just my own thoughts and experiences in print. Go have a read.
I thought about it while I was trying to sleep that night. When the answer hit me, well, I can’t describe the feeling I got next. It was like someone had just unlocked a door, a door I’d always been aware of in the periphery of my vision. A door I could’ve unlocked myself had I just turned and tried it. I hadn’t though, I needed someone to do it for me, to let whatever was on the other side of the door grab my attention and force me to look at it. The annoying thing was that it was all so bloody obvious now I look back on it.
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