Oh yeah, also, historically speaking, we're paying much less for a new game than we used to be. Ditto consoles.

That's nice, but it really doesn't have anything to do with it. Why do I care what I paid for games in the past? What I care about now is how much money I have to spare on entertainment now, and comparing how much a gaming costs versus some other entertainment.

For me, gaming is fantastic because, at least on PC, it's so extremely cheap. They definitely aren't going to pull in any PC gamers if they find a way to keep the prices in the $60 range for longer.

It doesn't matter how much it cost in the past or how much it cost to make. The only thing that matters is what people are willing to pay for it now.

I'm not so poor that paying $10 to see a movie I'm excited about is a problem, nor am I so poor or easily amused that I value my entertainment at $1 an hour.

I could pay $1/hour for my entertainment, but since I have the option not to, I don't. I actually keep a detailed spreadsheet, so I know that I actually pay about $.30/hour overall (for games).

I've never bought a game at $60, but I'm primarily a PC gamer. I paid $40 for Skyrim, but spent 120 hours on it so far. Several indie games cost less than $10 but I've got insane hours out of (Minecraft, Dwarf Fortress*, A Valley Without Wind, Crusader Kings, etc.).

And I don't feel like I'm hurting the developers; I'm supporting them! I spent like $300+ on games last year. I really don't see how $60 is needed even for a AAA game when you can get huge numbers of sales at $20.

Anyway, the reason people don't want to pay $60 is that the market is moving away from that. That doesn't mean you only get $1/$5 crappy iOS games. You get a wide range of games at a good price and everyone wins. *I gave Tarn Adams $30 for DF last year, and will probably give more this year.

Unfortunately, the consumer suffers. But what's new, huh?

How has the consumer sufferred under Steam?

Before Steam, even like 20 years ago, my "price point" for a game was around $20. I knew that once the price (used or new) dropped below that, I had a window to grab the game before it dissapeared from the store.

My price point is now well under $10 for a AAA game. Go on a PC gaming website forum like RockPaperShotgun and ask how many games people have. You'll see a thread filled with, "More than I have time to play." Steam has streamlined the whole process and delivered huge price cuts on all levels of gaming (indie to AAA). Steam also has some great competition from GOG, Gamersgate, even GameStop Downloads, so they're not a monopoly either.

As long as the developers play along, I only have to worry about Steam's DRM. I'd prefer none, but Steam's not bad. I can install my games on whichever computer I want.

Sure, I can't sell my old games, but I really don't care. I really don't want to bother trying to get $1 on a trade-in for a game I spent $5 on. I wouldn't buy used with prices like that either. I really don't mind directly supporting the game makers, especially since I buy so much indie stuff.

And you were somehow able to get these games of "baseball" started within minutes of getting home every day?

Nothing about using an XBox stops someone from managing to get everyone together to play ball, but it does make it really easy to quickly get together with absolutely no effort. How is that bad?

It doesn't matter if the book is in the public domain or not since this isn't (just) about copyright. Trademarks last for as long as the owner continues to use and defend them.

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.