Either you're implying that you really don't know how "so" works as a conjunction or you're backpedaling. I'd believe either at this point.

You're a good statistician and sociologist. Strongly persuaded by the narrow anecdote you used to support your loosely worded presumptuous conclusion. This is the quality bullshit comment systems were invented for.

I abhor the use of personal resources to aid any specific group of people for any reason. People should spend their money only in ways that further my own interest, I'm too insecure to have it any other way.

People trying to help others overcome inequality makes me sick.

If labor is abolished in the future she can kick back and lounge around in her underwear all day eating junk food and watching Netflix. It's what I do.

You're talking in circles because you're making a point that was already raised and addressed. Going back to it doesn't further this discussion.

It's irrelevant because it's only tangentially related and mentioned only as an antecedent to a completely different point. I'm not going to address your argumentum ad populum.

You're talking in circles.

Irrelevant.

Well I am very happy for you.

You can make a city as elaborate as you like, it does nothing to determine your success as far as the game's win/lose conditions are concerned. It's just dicking around, the gameplay itself is incredibly unimpressive. Dwarf Fortress, by comparison, actually does involve the designs the player manages to come up with directly in determining their success or failure, and is by far the better game.

Actually I hadn't even considered Portal. It's an entertaining game but offers a rather narrow difficulty curve.

I don't really care if a game is linear or not, infinite spawns, etc. All that really matters is what options the game puts in the player's hands and how well opportunities presented by those options are exploited by the game itself. I think the game could have been improved in a number of ways (in particular, the acceleration curves found throughout the game were awkward. Vehicle sections could have tested a player's attention to detail, instead you just awkwardly flop from point A to B. Rockets also seemed random but this i s a minor point.) but in general it was solidly designed, particularly with regards to weapon diversity and how each affected your positioning and timing in each engagement.

Valve knows how to find skilled developers and put them in an environment in which they can be creative but still focused. Dota 2, CS:GO, Left 4 Dead, these games show a lot of attention to detail while being embellished by unobtrusive fluff.

Just reached. Sales are continuing.

I don't see how that matters, the point is games are homogenized for the sake of market friendliness.

Okay.

Why did you bold that and then not follow up on it

Well that's a contradictory statement if I've ever seen one.

...pay enough attention to game design to consistently produce quality games. Not that they can't, mind you, but it seems pretty clear to me that game devs tend to have their attention split between designing a game's mechanics and appealing to a broad audience. You end up with a game that isn't too far afield of what you tend to see these days, but that tries to compensate by having gameplay features designed to be marketed as 'innovative' and conducive to creative and emergent gameplay. A good example is Watch Dogs, marketed as a game centered around hacking but designed as a GTA clone with a hacking gimmick.

Games are an awkward state of limbo these days, publishers know they have to start pushing out the impression of creativity and devs try to figure out how to do that without alienating the average player. The mentality sticks, and developers everywhere end up glossing over technical details, focusing instead on the impression a game will make.

Exclusivity deals aren't a problem either. This strategy is not hidden from consumers, as in the case of, say, a manufacturer lowering the quality of the materials in their products while taking steps to maintain the appearance of the former product. In this case consumer consent is necessary, the opportunity to obfuscate facts is not presented from the idea in question. The information consumers use in assessing whether the product is worth the cost goes unaffected.

Gamestop is depending on a market with idiosyncratic practices. These practices may themselves seem strange or senseless, but if one is to take these as cultural shortcomings then the fault lies with the consumer, not Gamestop. This is an industry where the cozy relationship between critics and publishers is no secret, where being excited regarding an event consisting entirely of three days of advertisements is considered normal. If this idea seems exploitative, it's only because they're serving a demographic that wants to be exploited.

Please. A white mouse's idea of a party is a pint of Ben & Jerry's and a game of Jenga.

So you're just suggesting once someone gets put in solitary, they're kept there until they die, without ever seeing another human ever again? The fuck kind of person are you?