THIS. I ride a motorcycle and over time have learned to become highly aware of what everyone else is doing around me. I cannot tell you how many times I have almost been merged into by someone refusing to even turn their head to the side to see if someone is next to them. Cagers also love to pull out in front of us, ride our arses, and in general be effing dangerous to everyone around them. Would love to place it all at the feet of cell phone usage but most of the time it is simple lack of attention, putting on makeup, drinking their coffee, watching their GPS screen. The list goes on and on. Anymore I navigate in traffic with the main goal of trying to make sure as few of the bastards are around me at any given time. I wear full gear all the time but I have no illusions about my fate in a collision so a little paranoia has gone a long way.

The problem is people's attitude and lifestyle choices which includes cell phone usage. The major offenders seem to drive large vehicles such as minivans and SUV's but interestingly enough not large pickups or heavy haulers such as semi's and the like. My personal guess is that the same people who choose a vehicle based on how "safe" it is then stops caring about anyone else's safety. I hate saying it but Susie Homemaker seems to be the worst offender.

I think they are two different things. A safe is a physical object that holds, well physical objects. Not the same as encrypting data which is really just making information indecipherable. One hundred years ago today analogy would be closer to having a journal that the government wants to read but you wrote it in code.

Ultimately the developer dances to the pressures of the publisher who is usually the one holding the purse strings. The publisher may or may not dance to the pressure of the gamers clamoring the release or features or whatever. Usually what happens is publisher wants their investment return and wants it now, and starts leaning on the developer to get it done yesterday. If the game is rubbish then the developer runs massive PR and marketing on a level appropriate to how hyped the game was including trying to manipulate reviews. The fans have very little impact on the current model of development until sales time which impacts the future of the franchise. Good games get cranked out ad nauseum (sequels!) because they are shown to profit, and all the "me too" clones get developed to try and cash in. That is the current model of game development.

As for the proposed one by Gabe, I can help but wonder...what if I threw my lot in on games like Kane and Lynch, Army of Two, or FSM help us all: Duke Nuken Forever? I salute Gabe for at least trying to come up with an alternative but it will require a lot of work to refine and get off the ground.

I thought that a EULA could not be legally binding? Last I knew it wasn't a legal agreement, although it does give them ammunition in court...

Exactly. What is Valve thinking? Why on earth would you release a full fledged sequel so soon? Expansion packs? Nah, screw it just go ahead and split the community to turn more bucks? So are they telling us they are such great game creation gurus that within a short period of time a compelling sequel can be developed, that they only needed a year to fix any complaints, and add more content? Or should we see it as they screwed us with a watered down version before deciding to make the full version? Did we just pay $50-60 to play an introduction to the real game? Seems a little credible given that L4D was blasted for the meager content in the first place which of course Valve promised to add more of later. Tell you what Valve, how about we go back and call the original Left for Dead 0.5 and the new one just Left for Dead. This way I feel a lot better for having paid retail price for a game that only had four scenarios and a handful of guns types.

THIS! Nicely done Nursie, this is the reason why console sales are deceiving. Sure the Wii might be outselling the other consoles, but the Wii is sucking wind on peripherals and games post console purchase. It is easy to think that the Wii is doing awesome because everyone wants one. Problem is everyone wants a Wii and the games it comes with. It would be interesting to see some numbers to determine where Sony/Microsoft stand as far as the rest of the equation is concerned (profit in totality not just hardware). I am old school a bit, I think since games couldn't sell on how realistic or detailed they were developers were forced to be more creative, and it tended to weed out developers who didn't love the craft to begin with. That has all changed as the video game industry has become big money and everyone wants a slice. While there are some really great titles out there, we have a much larger selection to distract us, lots of developers now use pretty graphics to cover up design flaws, and every slime bucket who would screw the industry for money now has their greedy little fingers in it. This definitely has deteriorated the quality and attachment rate as gamers are now swept up into what I think is worse than the fashion industry.

The Wii I believe has committed the same crime as the pretties-over-substance crowds that Nintendo fanboys deride constantly. I am of the opinion that the Wii and the Touch Screen on the DS really are gimmicks; more creative (and successful?) gimmicks than their competitors yet gimmicks just the same. Graphics aside there really are not that many compelling games on the Wii. A few would be nice to play but it seems a lot of leftovers and shovelware ends up on that console; the former trying to broaden the demographic appeal, and the latter to make a buck on the motion gimmick to non-gamers who don't know any better. Don't get me wrong I loved the Gamecube. I think it had hands down the best controller ever created for a console. Problem is Nintendo took that old console and instead of improving upon it, decided to go the novelty route by shoehorning it into a smaller box and tied the gimmicky wii-mote to it. Worst part is if you ever bring any of these criticisms up to a Wii owner they get offended as if you just wiped your ass with their family bible. Now it appears that Microsoft is jumping on that bandwagon and it makes me very sad.