I've been playing the Sims 3, which has been out for quite awhile now. There are several expansion packs for it. It is an extremely popular PC franchise with a large rabid community. Despite all that, the game is still buggy.

My first playthrough featured a loss of two hours when I hit "Error Code 16". Basically you can't save your game. Game save bugs are amongst the worst types of bugs.

I have a pet fireman. One of my Sims wanted to "be in a fire". So I had him start grilling some hot dogs and then sit down nearby to play some chess. Cue fire and ridiculous Sims jumping around. The Fireman shows up in a little red firepickuptruck and puts out the fire. Then he stands there. You can't interact with him. I thought he was stuck on the grill that burned, but I moved that out of the way. Even once in awhile he will stumble and look sheepish.

One day while a Sim was watching TV I randomly clicked on the fireman. "Join: Watch TV" was there! I clicked and the fireman moved! Hooray! Problem solved. Except now he is permanently on my couch. That was worse, so I used the same technique to move him back out to the lawn. You can't talk to him, but he will join you in activities.

Having a pet fireman is fine. There's always a chess opponent nearby. He never seems to get hungry/dirty. However, his truck is a problem. First, the garish light is always on. Luckily, no sounds. The big problem is that it blocks the street. Any time a car comes to pick someone up they park really far away.

Anyway, you'd think they'd fix this stuff after several expansions. Actually, the Word Adventures expansion apparently created the "Error Code 16" problem, even for players who didn't buy the expansion.

I think he meant that you will be able to use Netflix without the disk using PSN+ for a month or so, and then that will be rolled out to everyone. You currently have to put the stupid red disk in your PS3 to use Netflix because of MS's exclusivity deal that is finally running out.

Starcraft wasn't a success because of its single-player missions, the new single-player missions weren't what sold most copies of the Starcraft: Brood War expansion.

That's not necesarily true. You might find this interesting. I think it is quite possible that less than half of people who bought Starcraft (ie, gave Blizzard money) actually played the multiplayer (at least within the first few years of it's release). Of course the multiplayer is what kept the game alive for so long, especially in Korea. I imagine a good RTS like Company of Heroes has a similar number of single players as Demigod did (only 23% even attempted it).

People assume that FPSs and RTSs are mostly played for the multiplayer, but this really isn't true. I think the average PC gamer will run from Starcraft II multiplayer. The campaign is definitely something that consumers are interested in. If you don't want to invest a lot of time, SCII multiplayer is going to be pretty scary. Who wants to spend hours every night getting pounded on by SC veterans? OTOH, how about having some fun pounding on on the PC player?

You should check out the Adam Corolla podcast.

I guess one could always say... What do you expect from people who believe they are a product of incest not once, but at least twice. Adam, Eve had 3 sons. Eve was the first Cougar. Then god decided his populous game was going badly and flooded everyone out so the boat people got busy with each other. With that muddled of a gene pool it's surprising we've lasted this long.

Err... didn't it work pretty much the same way under evolution? Once you have a new species, I'm guessing the gene pool is really small. Also you have situations where the gene pool is reduced to a very small size due to near-extinction (gee whiz, just like the flood). I'm pretty sure that doesn't mean every generation is afflicted with massive birth defects or something.

As someone already explained, you won't blow any Christian's mind with the whole free will vs omnipotent God thing. It's something that's been considered for over a thousand years.

This is just EA's "Project Ten Dollar" and it is not limited to just he sports games. It has already been featured in Dragon Age Origins and Mass Effect 2. Both games included content that you got for free with a code that came with the game, but you had to pay $10 to get if you bought it used.

You also get to skip on the console-fee for your games. Games cost more on consoles because the makers have to pay the MS and Sony. You can get games at 50% or more off within just a month or two for the PC. Prices on console titles stay at $60 for a long time. So, if you are the kind of gamer who buys lots of games, you can save big.

PC's also have an insanely huge back catalogue of fantastic games. If you really want some fun, cheap gaming, just buy the cheapest desktop (or laptop!) you can find and check out Good Old Games.

Adventure Games (and flight sims) did not die because of some rush for big bucks. I've always enjoyed Adventure Games, but nothing will change the fact that they really kinda' suck. That style of gameplay doesn't make much sense anymore.

I especially like how AG fans will try to argue that AGs are "smarter" or have "good stories" and other nonsense. How smart do you have to be to spam every item with every other item and then apply that to all the scenery? And the stories aren't any better in AGs than in any other genre that bothers to put a story together. So, you just left with gameplay, and AGs are just really stiff and boring compared to other genres. I think the only thing that could really bring them back is following the game mechanics of Penumbra, which actually had fun gameplay. Too bad they picked the "horror" genre for those games, which many Adventure Gamers don't like.

Sure, shooting/slashing at people/monsters shouldn't be the only gameplay mechanic that exists. It is too bad that you don't see more games like Portal. Portal is a smart game with a great story. It is a better GAME than 99% of AGs.

Flight Sims were cool on early computers. Oh wow, I'm flying. Most people who bought them did not really get into them. They are now, like sub sims, an extremely small niche.

PC Gaming is not being killed because of the lack of good Adventure Games and Flight Sims. It might be dying for you though.

(I don't know what you are talking about when it comes to strategy. There are tons of strategy games out there right now.)

Why go to the store and spend $70 on a disc with 5-6 good tunes and a bunch of filler, when there's more money to be made with DLC ?

Well, if you wait a few months you can get the disk much cheaper. I can't stand spending $2 per song when I can get like 80 songs for like $30. I guess I'm just not that concerned with how awesome the music is. I don't actually listen to a lot of what they offer anyway. I just like playing along to whatever song. I even enjoy playing songs by bands I hate if they are fun to play.

No, it was just flawed. Stability and performance were a problem and the Social Club+GFWL sucked, but GTAIV did a whole lot correctly. The game seamlessly switched from keyboard/mouse to controller. You could drive around with the controller, then switch to sniping with the mouse. Very few ports do this. It came with high res graphics for the PC, if you could manage to use them. That is becoming increasingly rare unfortunately. It came with a fantastic video editor. The video editor alone is good for hours of fun, if you like GTA. The editors controls were great. I've never edited a video and I made some fun clips in just a few hours. I had a riot doing it. Having some random thing happen in a game is funny. Watching it in slo-mo with a panning camera is hilarious.

GTA IV could have been one of the best ports ever, but it was marred with problems.

If you want to play a terrible port of a really fun game, try Saints Row 2.

I was just joking that adventure games are on old forgotten genre. You might as well play Pac-man or something. I love AGs by the way, and am happy when a good one comes out. I've visited those websites before.

Try an adventure game.

But he said he didn't just want to play old games\genres like Pole Position ...

That's not really true for PC Games. I don't even know of a store who sells used PC Games. I guess you can get them on EBay or something, unless they require Steam. Many PC gamers download their games (Steam, D2D, Impulse, etc.), so there are no used sales there. Used sales are a really big problem for consoles though. That's why there is a growing trend to only offer certain content to the first purchaser. Google "Project Ten Dollar".

I think UbiSoft is just making it harder for the scene to create 0-day cracks. If important parts of the game's code is stored on their server, Ubi might get a few piracy free weeks which would probably have a good impact on sales. Of course, the damage to their reputation by implementing this harsh DRM might hurt future sales.

The other possible nefarious plan is to allow them to shut down single player games in a year or so to encourage you to move on. That just seems too crazy to be true though ...

But that's exactly the point! Ubi wants a few weeks or maybe, just maybe, a few months of no piracy.

As several commenters have mentioned above, collecting and submitting taxes for all the various state, city, and local taxes would be a huge burden on small business. It is also unnecessary since most states already have a "use tax". Of course, no one actually pays the use tax. Why? Because the state has no idea how much stuff you have bought on-line, so why would you pay it?

So then, the solution is easy. Why not create a new Federal 1099-E form. A business dealing with another state does not have to collect any tax. At the end of the year they issue a Form 1099-E to each applicable state and to their customers. The customers now know the state knows how much they've bought so they will be compelled to pay the use tax. It will also be easy to do since they just have to add up all their 1099-Es. It shouldn't be difficult for a business to keep track of the total spending for a customer and issue a couple automated forms.