No, it isn't. The gaming industry is bigger than it's ever been and it is growing - publishers spread myths concerning piracy, borrowed games, DRM and DLC in order to justify tighter control over their product and reduced ownership by the person who buys the game. The only ones getting crippled are the consumers, who get less of the software they buy year by year - I wouldn't be surprised if, soon, games became tied to a single console, preventing re-sales and even borrowing.

Do not favor companies over consumers, SPECIALLY when the first are in the wrong.

If you got the game on either Steam or GOG, you should be able to get a refund - contact their customer support and explain your situation (unless you got it from a bundle - then, try contacting the company that hosted the bundle). I can't say for sure if a store is obligated to give you a refund in your country, as customer rights legislation varies from place to place, but I know for a fact that any type of sale (Digital, physical, etc.) is refundable, and if a platform like Steam refuses to give you the refund/ignores you, you can sue them (which is why they usually comply to any refund case, without going through the hassle of legal action).

Tough one. I'll go with Dishonored, if only because I absolutely loved the art direction and setting they went with. Deus Ex: HR was a great game, don't get me wrong, but Dishonored just itches my need for Thief in a way Deus Ex doesn't (because, y'know, it's supposed to scratch the Deus Ex itch :P).

Good news for anyone who enjoyed FEZ! It has sold 1.000.000 (ONE MILLION) copies, as their website informs us in a very serious way. Well, we're not going to get anything from it but I hope it'll convince Fish to make another game.

I'm not mad that you have the opinion that it's an exercise in frustration, I just disagree with you. I don't get frustrated with games - if it ever gets to that point, I just stop playing them. Dark Souls managed to have a difficulty level that was the result of great balancing: the enemies didn't have limitless amount of HP (which is what difficulty scaling has become in video-games, if it ever was something different - just different presets of how much HP you and your enemies have, how much damage you and your enemies deal, etc.), and defeating them was just a matter of discovering their patterns, weaknesses and how to brace yourself against their attacks. And death was, yes, an integral part of the game, and isn't merely a way to punish a player for their mistakes. What I felt with Dark Souls is that they'd managed to re-create the same feeling you had in Castlevania in a 3D environment, something the 3D games of those series always fell short of.

Also, the definition of maschosim: "the tendency to derive pleasure from one's own pain or humiliation." - so yes, when you say Dark Souls players are masochists you are saying that they enjoy suffering. I stand by my previous opinion: there are other games similar to Dark Souls for those who don't enjoy challenges and difficulty. To dumb it down would utterly destroy the game: you're supposed to learn from your deaths, and if they balance so it you always have a chance to defeat a new enemy, boss or level the first time you go through it, most of the game's fun goes down the drain.

People say that sales don't matter for a variety of reasons. Damage control because a product they supported didn't sell well; their genuine opinion that sales do not, in fact, matter; to spite whatever brand fanboy whose worshiped product has sold well by claiming it is irrelevant; or, like I sometimes like to mention to the avid Microsoft or Sony fanboys, because you are irrelevant to the sales and they are irrelevant to you - you had little importance in their amount and you gained absolutely nothing from it. It's part of my incapacity to understand why anyone cares enough about a company they have no financial ties to to the point of spending hours a day discussing why said company is superior, and trying to prove it to other people, providing, essentially, free advertising for the company they're a fan of.

We're clear on us having different definitions for what is masochism and suffering. When I tune up the difficulty or remove handicaps, it's not because I want to suffer - it's because I want a challenge. Similar to how when you're good at something like tennis you get absolutely zero joy in wrecking an opponent because he's new to the sport - the challenge needs to be somewhat close to your own skill level. And with Dark Souls, that is the feeling that I got: it progressively prepared me for harder challenges, and at no point did I feel so overwhelmed or overwhelming that the game was impossibly difficult or ridiculously easy (except, perhaps, for the Ornstein and Smough battle).

As to the plot - yes, it's minimal. So was Demon's Souls. And they're two of the most acclaimed titles this generation. Games don't need stories, they need good gameplay - if you want a game with a story, there are -plenty- of those, but it's not by that venue that Dark Souls will be considered a good game. Your first complaint had nothing to do with its lack of a plot or what you consider to be no reason to progress (I personally found the leveling, items, new spells and bosses plenty to keep me itching to play more) - you merely thought it was too difficult, or difficult in an unfair manner. Which is somewhat ironic, considering you liked Risen - which while a decent game was, at best, a gem in the rough - which was harder in a much more unfair way and often due to bad controls/bugs.

Dark Souls minimalist atmosphere complements the game in a way no narrator voice-over, plot or plethora of NPCs could. It channels the myth of the hero with minimal interaction: within a few minutes you know that this place requires you to save it. I don't know if it's due to I having grown with games from the NES era, where stories were non-existent, but Dark Souls has the same appeal that The Legend of Zelda: you play it because the game's good, it has nice controls, superb level design and you never feel like you're just chugging along to discover more of the plot, an issue all too common in story-driven games.

I reiterate that I am not against stories in video games, and I've in fact played some games solely because of them, but in no way is it a core element of the genre, or even necessary.

Yeah, see? You're calling me and anyone who enjoyed the game masochistic, just because you didn't particularly enjoy it. You're generalizing your opinion and applying it to everyone else as if it were a fact. That's why I made a jape with the image, rather than try and enter a heated debate - because people have different niches of enjoyment and entertainment.

First off, I can't think of any instance of the game where you take more than half an hour to reach a new bonfire from a previous bonfire. Second, there aren't that many instances where you're going to die in one hit, and they're fairly obvious: giant skeletons, stone giants or other enemies that -clearly- stand out from whatever rabble you've been facing. It's a game that rewards experience, and experience comes from failure - it's a design choice that many people enjoyed (and I find it unlikely that masochism be as common a property to warrant millions of people from the restricted community that is "core" gaming enjoying Dark Souls) because it goes against the standard 'you're always ready to face whatever the game throws at you' (usually afforded by linear games or scaling foes, such as we see in Skyrim).

You should broaden your mind and consider that perhaps what isn't enjoyable to you is to someone else. If someone likes something that you don't, it doesn't make them a freak.

Oh, I know, but I disagree with you and I preferred to just give the image a positive spin, rather than insulting you personally or w.e other answer I could've given because I have a different opinion. I enjoyed the game as it was, as have many people, but I can understand that it wasn't everyone's cup of tea - and for those which it wasn't, there are plenty of other games that aren't as difficult as DS and have similar elements/gameplay. I wouldn't like to see the game trivialized for the sake of those who found it too hard, though - there isn't exactly a plethora of difficult, AAA titles to play from.

I hope it's like in the first - if you play that game without using a guide you're still going to be discovering things several dozen hours in.