@carolynmichelle @malighos Blueberries are in my oppinion [sic] the worst fruit.

It's interesting to notice how the industry seems to be slowly departing from photo-realist aesthetics, judging from the nominees.

The main problem with discussions of relations between violence and video games, television, cinema or any media, is that it is done with polarized, biased and fallacious arguments. That's why this article is great. There is a relation between depictions of violence in video games and real world violence, only it's much more complex than playing violent video games makes you violent. What matters is not whether violence is depicted or not, it's how it's depicted. Even more important is the way people are taught to think about their experiences with violence and the depictions of violence. Video games are possibly the best medium to make you think back on ethical issues because it puts you in a position that is engaged: you are making a choice. It's hard (although possible) to be apathetic about a moral decision you made. The mistake of many video game developers is not to reflect on how violence works in their games. Most shooters completely put aside the moral reflection, or offer a superficial pre-cooked moral reflection.

It's not very fair to listen to songs that are meant to be experienced in conjunction with a game and then judge them on their own. Most of these are not very memorable because they are composed to fit the game without drawing attention to themselves. If I had to judge soundtracks on their own, however, then I would give my vote to Hotline Miami's soundtrack.

I think it would be best to focus on events that took place prior to the trilogy because it would allow the story to stand completely on its own and therefore maybe depart a little bit from the Mass Effect aesthetic and narrative. There's fertile ground to expand on the background history. On the other hand, writers would have more freedom if they chose to work on events that take place after the trilogy. The blurry endings leaves a lot of ambiguity in terms of narrative.

Could that be considered a form of suicide?

@Gusz2 A "true gamer"? What does that even mean?It's quite simply about market, the video game market is expanding, there are new players, and those are not so used to complex control schemes, orientation inside rich level designs, etc. Do they not deserve to be capable to play a game like Shadoe of the Colossus nonetheless? (and actually they are, Shadow of the Colossus is not so punishing as you are making it sound like)

I think a lot of people misread his thesis.He's not saying that there shouldn't be any graphic violence in video games, he's saying a huge majority of games depict it immaturely. Compare the violence in The Expendables to the violence in Apocalypse Now, for example. Apocalypse now is not any less violent, it simply uses violence for narrative purposes whereas Expendables uses violence as a means of entertainment and excitement. Is it too much to expect from mainstream games to be a little bit more than simply escapist entertainment praising immature, adolescent fantasies? They can be equally entertaining and yet thought provoking.

Interesting, I'm getting tired of the lazy narratives motivated by profits and excused by escapism. I hope they give this guy the liberty to accomplish what he envisions.

Are these really screenshots from the game? Or are they ugly concept art? It starts off with quite a bad visual direction.