@hogstomp Glad to see it doesn't bother you that people are working 60 hour weeks to make a 60 dollar game: all while not getting paid for overtime. Wait....what are you smoking?

Competitive gaming is a joke. I don't care at all about "pro" gaming. You can't just be the best at Call of Duty and say you are good at gaming. It's just a couple games selected because they are well known and widely played. There are many other games with skilled players, but they aren't "professional" gamers because MLG didn't choose their game.

In the end, Publishers AND Retailers are killing themselves. They need to face the facts. The development costs of games needs to go down, so the sales costs can go down. They are jumping on a glass ceiling. They're going to crash through

Bungie is definitely not big on post-game player feedback, but you can't argue that they made their gameplay formula out of thin air without play-testing. Bungie definitely does extremely thorough playtesting, because their formula is basically "10 minute action-sandboxes" repeating through each level, and they make an entire game out of 10 minute combat segments that are all enjoyable. The problem is play-testing roots out problems, but post-release feedback is no substitute for play-testers and beta releases. Valve has that advantage over Bungie because 1) steam tracks player gameplay data, and 2) there are a gazillion mods that exemplify what players want to change about their games. As for Epic games- I firmly believe they have the best level designers in the business, but in terms of design programmers, I don't see them being as ambitious as they could be,

I'm not impressed with the Wii U. From a technical standpoint, that controler with a display screen, and wireless, is going to suck up waaaay too much from the processor, which is only slightly more advanced than what is currently in the PS3. I hope they are going to introduce some kind of magically awesome GPU that can pick up the slack, but I doubt it.

Its completely jarring how these supposed experienced game journalist keep mixing up the publishers with the developers. Everything they said makes no sense if you consider that executives from EA aren't going down to DICE and telling them how to make their game. EA has a much different relationship with DICE than Activision has with their developers. Publishers are naturally profit oriented, but Activision plays an overly active role in development in order to maximize profits, whereas in this case, EA has a developer, and play a passive role in the outcome of the game because they rely on their choice of the developer, rather than influencing the developers choices. The different approaches culminated in West and Zampella leaving Activision for EA. Of course, this is completely ignored. They are talking about MW3 like the same developers are behind it. It's like expecting Nintendo to make a better Halo game than Bungie ever could. They are so hung up on titles like "Battlefield" and "Call of Duty" that their analysis ends up being as shallow as that.

Oh please. They are complaining about people buying games used? If you bought Mass Effect 2, Battlefield Bad Company 2, or Alan Wake, any of these games for example (there are many more) you were supposedly going to be rewarded with FREE downloadable content from buying the game new, with the code given. In all of these cases, people who bought it new got the first round of content free, while they charged the hell out of the other 90 percent released after. People are being PUNISHED for buying the game new, almost as much as buying the game used. There are so few perks for buying used games. Like Gabe Newell said , we are going through a transition from Entertainment as a Product, to Entertainment as a Service. If people are buying your game used, its because the product is good, and nothing is expected of a service. Game developers, support your buyers with steady content, stop charging FIFTEEN dollars for multiplayer map packs, and maybe then we will buy the game new, if it means we don't get compensated a measly bonus dlc before an onslaught of bloatware DLC. Venting complete.

Article is right on target. But I also agree that a shortage of female developers and a lack of strong central female characters make the industry a target for sexism accusations. Duke Nukem will be unfairly blamed as being sexist, when it is nothing but satire. Than there's Samus, a strong female lead, until someone was like, "hey, remember the guys who made Dead or Alive:Extreme Beach Volleyball? Let's give THEM the job of creating the next Metroid!" And the news and gaming community had a small response at best to that debacle. The reason stupid news outlets can go after Duke Nukem for sexism is because Duke serves as a meat-shield for a problem that does indeed exist in the industry. I'm a guy, and a white guy on top of that, so there's no prejudice towards me, -isms end up hurting us all, because we can't tap into the creative power of everybody if we start ignoring some groups.

kudos to the people who mentioned S.T.A.L.K.E.R. should be in here. The AI in stalker is far more advanced in terms of algorithm than anything here, including Halo- but I suppose the task that the AI in stalker was given was too great, to the point that the AI in stalker seemed stupid at times. Basically, a developer can make a superb AI, but it will only be considered great if it measures up to the task. Halo AI has pretty limited functions (fighting). Stalker AI has to litterally travel around the world like the player, fight, form alliances, set up camps, trade, etc (the dub this the "a-life" system). So if stalker wasn't mentioned, it wasn't because the AI isn't good. It's because the writers of this feature don't take into account the actual process that goes into programming these "living" entities.

A kid who shoots his parents for whatever reason has way bigger problems than just a video game addiction. But yeah, it's good that even Gamespot is acknowledging that too much video games (as with just about everything else) can be problematic. They can be great fun; but nothing should be taken in such excess. As with almost all addictions, the best thing is to not get it in the first place. You can't compare it, however, to other addictive drugs; in this case, because we actually produce the chemical that causes the addiction ourselves (dopamine) without bringing in any sort of drug- what causes the addiction would have to be more of something the addicted person had to begin with, such as ADD OCD etc. This is interesting, I'd like to see more research.