Spoilers may not ruin the story, but having a surprise every now and then is nice. Besides, for genres like detective stories, part of the fun for some people is in figuring out who is the criminal before it's revealed.

Fun is not an absolute concept quantifiable by value that adds up that way. Mario, Zelda and Metroid, as well as Metal Gear, God of War and Uncharted are fun in different ways among themselves and than Angry Birds. A significant amount of people is not gaming just for killing time and even if there cheap smart games that are fun, they sometimes they can't provide the same value as a $40 game.

In case you haven't read, games and game notifications will be placed on it's own, entirely separate, area. But don't let that stop you from being bitter and grumpy, if that's what you want.

But they were tricked. The fact that they didn't pay anything doesn't change the fact that they were misled.

Another thing about the free shirts is that at the same time you didn't pay for the shirt, they didn't pay you for the free advertisement. They had the cost of producing the shirts, but they reap the benefits indirectly.

So, how do I know a game is fun? What makes a game fun? How can I define fun? And so it goes...

Possibly, but gaming is how I spend significant amount of my free time. During this time, I'd rather play quality games, so it's interesting to clarify which factors can make a game better or worse. That would allow me to choose better games to play, as well as recommending better games to interested people. Hobby or not, if you pour thousands of hours over the years into something, it's not surprising it starts being given more importance.

Discussion of this nature might reach the attention of people involved with the game industry. That way, the player opinions can influence, even if slightly, the direction that the gaming medium goes. Also, don't forget that, for the people involved with the game industry, discussions of this nature are undeniably serious, since they involve considerable amounts of very real money, their livelihoods and investments.

Besides, I do have an interest in game design myself, just as people may be interested in literature, paintings, music and the most diverse subjects. Are we not allowed to? What is the problem in discussing seriously about something that you like? Why would not taking it seriously be better in any way?

You seem to think that productivity is related to success. There are people handicapped for being born in a lower class and people that have everything easy because they were born in a golden cradle. Even when they can compensate for the handicap, they aren't paid what they are really worth. There are competent people being overworked for shitty pay everywhere.

So you can't build an archive to release when the content becomes public domain. While it doesn't surprise me, it makes me wonder. How one should go about legally preserving content for the future? Are there initiatives dedicated to that?

Great, now I'm hungry.

Including the eletronic components? I don't think so. Everytime they I hear someone saying that any 3D printer can "print itself", it strikes me as marketing speech.

Twitter is itself a digest of opinions, announcements and general information. There is no "best of twitter" just as there is no best of any social networking site. Especially because there is not a single way to use Twitter. Some use it as a RSS feed, providing links for news and articles, some use it as the microblogging service it's called, whether like a personal (but public) diary, for discussing specific topics, for jokes or social commentary. It is also often used as a way of leaving messages for your friends, without having to to contact them one by one, since you account broadcast your messages publicly or just to the people you allow to follow you, if you protect your account.

If you want to get into Twitter, see if there is someone who posts about matters you are interested into and follow them. Unfortunately, their recommendations aren't too good. They only start being barely useful when you already follow people.

Uninspired? What are you talking about. DJ Hero was far more interesting than just another rehash of the same plastic guitar thing.

Films are a passive medium with the narrative densely packed whithin 2 hours, often less. Games depend on player interaction and a standard AAA game is expected to have 10+ hour gameplay. While movies are usually finished in one sitting, games have to stay engaging so that the player will come back as many times is needed to finish it. They are very different media.

I would say games are more like TV series, but likening it to any non-interactive medium would be putting aside games' most important difference: the ability to act and make choices. Unfortunately, many games put this aside. While it doesn't stop the game from being engaging, it misses the point of delivering the narrative through a game. And that's not the only problem of narrative in games.

Separating chunks of gameplay from chunks of narrative, something that is often done, it's the worst possible way to create an engaging experience. Those interested only in the gameplay will skip cutscenes or be forced to watch them. Those interested only in the narrative will force themselves through the gameplay. Only those in the middle ground will enjoy it, as long as the game is compelling overall.

A car can be like any other car, because it's a tool with a specific function. Games are meant to entertain, novelty factors significantly. If every sci-fi book was like every other sci-fi book, it wouldn't work so well. The problem is that not only most games aren't trying to push the genres, they aren't even trying to nudge them.

It isn't so much "for the sake of art", either. When a game plays the same than a dozen others that you've played before, it playing gets dull.

Randomly generated content does work. Quite well, actually. See Spelunky, as an example. Not only that, but the entire genre of roguelikes is defined by randomly generated content and it has been for quite some time.

Of course Minecraft isn't like Mario or any other game, it has won its place due to its own merits. Although it isn't completely unlike Amnesia in the sense that many players can tell tales of silent tension and desperate flights, but I digress.

You have to remember that Minecraft isn't finished yet. It started as just lego pieces, but it greatly increased in complexity. It's still a sandbox, but it's more like a living (albeit simple graphically) world each new update. While it probably won't be as complex as Dwarf Fortress (which is also an astounding game based on randomly generated content), it is easier to get immersed into.

Minecraft is about exploring as well as creating. It isn't about platforming and probably wouldn't be better if it was. But if that's what you want, there is Terraria.