The misconception that you have to buy a 500 dollar video card every year is a complete fallacy and myth. I owned a 8800gt for 3 years before I finally bought a new one and to top that off the only reason i did that was so I could run it at ultra high resolutions. I could of run the card for another couple years and been just fine and still been ahead of whatever the xbox resolution is which I think is 720p capped. Furthermore you don't even need to spend 500, 300 or even 200 dollars to have a card that will play most everything on the market maxed. Anyone who tells you otherwise is an idiot. On the flip side this does sound like a call from activision to increase their own profits. I don't think they care if their game is on one system or another they just want to make more money and if they can deliver pay DLC without having to pay a middleman $5 dollar tax on a $15 dollar DLC they would increase their profit %30. I don't know what changed in peoples minds to make them accept pay DLC. Even 6 years ago paying for extra content outside of a seperate expansion pack was unheard of. Now developers charge the price of the game for content that was already included in the game. I hate this practice with a passion. Especially when I'm paying a $60 price tag.

I guess the warranties could cause this issue. I know people who will intentionally wait till a card is out of print and then break it and send it in and get a new one. Pretty sleezy but i guess people will do whatever it takes to save a buck

THis is pretty surprising news. I would never of expected this. I always thought BFG was profitable. Perhaps it has somthing to do with the high failure rates of fermi cards.

Neither am I. Perhaps I am just old fashioned. Perhaps I have an incorrect opinion. I just don't think kids should be playing violent games. I was raised that way. Not to say that I don't play those games. Cause I do. Just don't think kids should. I think the reasoning behind this law is everyone is wanting a scape goat for all those times kids are going in to schools and shooting people up. First thing that always comes up somewhere in the news is hey they played counter strike, hey they played GTA, hey they did this or that. I would also agree with you that the Government should have no right to interfear with what people watch, listen to or read. But I can' understand what they are trying to do.

I think it really depends on what the court rules that will determine the outcome. I think the outcome has major implications for future "law making" endevours. For example if they rule for this new law i suspect their will be a long list of states in line attempting to pass similar restrictions/bans on content in games. However if they vote against it then I am sure that we will be better off in the end. In all honesty this is just one more thing I don't want to see the GOV get their hands on.

I think this is a two edged sword. I get frustrated to no end when I see minors walking out of a store with something like Gears of War, Halo and GTA. Parents do almost nothing to help prevent their kids from view "inappropriate" content. However on the flip side is it's really the governments right/responsibility to get involved in such affairs?

Because they add to the overall experience of the game. They give artwork, keyboard/controller commands, they give alot of backstory and on the side they make you actually feel like your getting somting for all the money you just spent. When i spend 60 dollars i want somthing more then a disc. Have you tried "figuring out" how to play NHL10 without the booklet there are over 5 pages of commends in there. Games like Final Fantasy have pages of story, character info, etc. It just gives you somthing tangible that makes your gaming experience that much better.

Does this make anyone else angry besides me? I don't have a problem with companies wanting to save money but I constantly feel like I'm getting screw by publishers. They seem to go out of their way to screw consumers out of their hard earned money. Doing this under the guise of being "green". Really rubs me the wrong way. I personally love getting manuals with my games. I always read them. It helps add to the game expreience as a whole. Most manuals give you extra indepth insight into the game that you just can't get from an "in game tutorial"? This is just another money grab. I hope the public see's through this guise.

I understand how advertising works just fine sir... but for the end user it doesn't cost a dime. Thats what I was getting at. Why would the average person pay for it if they can get it for free. I know very well how the industry works because i have associates who work within it.

The names themselves don't have any value, at least i don't think so, I rarely go to direct web addresses anymore. You could have website: www.xyzilovepennies123.com/blah and it wouldn't matter as long as you showed up in the first page of google results.

Not to mention you can get full length videos on the net for free now. Porn isn't going to be etting any more popular. Granted it still makes a gargantun amount of money but I can't see much more growth potential. Until they can develop somthing like a holodeck they have already done everything... seriously... everything. Personally I can't see how anyone would pay that kind of money for a Non-Physical piece of property but then hey someone spent 250k on a virtual space station so what do I know :P