I suppose you are THE Anonymous Coward. Most of this thread filled with words of wisdom from AC's seems pretty hypocritical...

Your advice to man-up is pretty lame considering you can't even post using your fairly anonymous internet handle.

So...games go from being able to show 20 sprites at a time to 10's of millions of polygons, screen resolution quadruples and you think the budgets should stay the same? Maybe you think the budgets should go down. It's clear you have no idea what you are talking about. I'm not saying that to be mean, but there are some pretty obvious reasons for the budgets growing like they have and they have been known since the "CDROM" game collapse.

1) Development cycles have stayed roughly the same 18-24 months-ish
2) Game asset creation is significantly more complex with each new console generation
3) To accommodate the unchanging development cycle more people are added to offset the compressed schedule
4) Games used to fit on a 400K floppy, now game discs are 40 gigs..that is a significant amount of content increase
5) To add to #4, that content requires people to create it, it requires tools to manage it, and innovation to wrangle evolving tech.

I like indie games too, but they will never "take over", they live and die in the puddle made by the hoofprint of the game industry. They exist because there is a larger industry in whose shadow they can stand. I think you have a nostalgic view of the 90's games. I enjoy retro gaming, but I'm always surprised at how my memory of a game does not jive with the reality of the game.

All of that is to say, the game industry needs all the players. If you, Anonymous Coward (way to stick it to the man...anonymously), don't like the mainstream games industry, don't buy their games.

Maybe not opening your screed with rectal insertion comments, might... just might save your comment from being redirected to /dev/null.

Can't we use FOIL to recover lost files? I have a couple of directories I would like to recover.

At least people would see some value from their tax dollars...

Supportive of what exactly?

Being from the US you probably don't see the xenophobia for what it is. I moved to the US in the late 70's and the common response to anything not American was that's communist. Now it's probably more along the lines of that's socialist, but the vibe is the same. I see it as fueled partly by fear (of the unknown) and ignorance with a dash of idiotic national pride.

Consider taking a stand against that sort of stupidity and acknowledging your detractors might have a point. It isn't a sign of weakness to admit fault.

New study proves peanuts cause cancer...

"I don't know where this water is coming from" ...really

The obsession with printing a gun is annoying. How come no one is printing cars? or actual devices...

3d printing used to be called rapid prototyping...which used to lead to questions like... "That IS cool looking! Does it shoot?" ...and answers like "No, it's a prototype"

I think that's the important bit...they are really hamfisted when it comes to everything they do.

Gmail has ads...but they don't popup, they don't send you to an intermediate site before going to your mail etc...

If they were slick...Apple slick, people would love them for it (probably not now), but instead they claim to have some grand vision, then destroy existing workflows in favour of some new target audience.

So you think only US citizens should be protected by the Constitution? I'm glad the Constitution disagrees.

The constitution protects ANYONE under its jurisdiction...even Canadians (if they are in the US). 14th amendment, equal protection etc... etc...

...and Cloud...

Aren't they violating the millennium act? I suppose that's only if they try to circumvent an encryption scheme....

I think the complaints are twofold...the flicker is one part. It is so ingrained in our subconscious that video games now only have flickering fluorescent fixtures.

The other part is the quality of light emitted from a fluorescent. Full spectrum lights produce better light (full range of wavelengths), but they are many times the cost of a regular fluorescent. Most people would describe the light quality as harsh/stark etc...