Each one can spend his money as he wants. It is his right.
Personally I find mos CE items like Diablo statues, Assassin Creed clothes, Neverwinter rings completely silly. I also have no interest in artwork. At least no interest to pay extra for it.
About the art issue, anything can be art. From a unique pre-development drawing that took hours to complete to a child's drawing that took 5 minutes. The difference is to be able to tell the two apart. Same goes for statues etc.
I completely agree on the issue of rarity. Most CE items are not limited. Which again even if they were limited, this does not mean they have some sort of value by default. If a good artist makes 5 unique pieces that have artistic or historic value then indeed scarcity adds to their value. If my niece pick her nose 5 times in a lifetime, people should not buy her "discoveries" if I marketed it as AliensTM acid substance.
Finally a little piece of advice from an old fart like me: There are NO houses/appartments that a Lara Croft statue could blend in with the decoration without ruining your chance to have s e x for the rest of your life. There are plenty of basements though that a statue like that would fit perfectly. But then again ... you get the point.
On a more serious note I do see a point in it if someone would want to spend more money to support the company he likes.
Market follows demand. Let 's face it. The 1998 average gamer profile is not the same with the one of the 2012 gamer. Through the years the average age of the gaming audience was decreased for several reasons, mostly though because of the increasing popularity of consoles combined with the user interface of home computers becoming significantly more friendly. This in addition to the revolution of graphics led to an audience seeking mostly "pew pew" titles instead of sophisticated gameplay. The economic crisis played its role on this as well, as developers were too afraid to experiment with new mechanics and ideas. And the problems can be seen in all genres and not just in the survival horror. Good examples which are considered AAA titles are the Dragonage 2 game which lost the "Origins" element, Assassin's Creed 2 which lost the stealth element for more "John Rambo" sequences, Starcraft 2 which even if it was a great game it was still primarily focused on the dated apm game mechanics, Diablo 3 for the unnecessary simplification of gameplay and Civilisation 5 for the removal of religion which later on was sold as a DLC.
However now that we gamers are stuck in an era where we wait for the next generation of hardware to be released some small gaming diamonds have been revealed. Dishonored proved to be an unofficial Thief clone without the tediousness of "trial and error" that Thief had. Achron even with its terrible graphics managed to introduce one more dimension in real time strategy and the success of Torchlight 2 proved that there are still people out there looking for sophisticated gameplay even in the simplest of genres, the dungeon crawling.
And just to end my thoughts with something more Survival Horror related, my 3 personal favorites are : Resident Evil 2, The Forbidden Siren and I am Alive. Specially the last one proved that there can innovative climbing mechanics and survival horror WITHOUT zombie type creatures.
So with 500 USD (about 385 Euro) you get a "I can run everything" gaming machine which will allow me to play pc games on the comfort of my living room. Not bad assuming of course that it can run everything. Valve nowdays does hold software devs by the balls and can indeed affect requirements but are we absolutely sure this will be the case in a few years? Furthermore each household needs at least one decent pc for document editing, photo editing and sometimes video editing (at a lower scale of course). Assuming that this will be a laptop, it will cost approximately from 400 to 700 Euro. In total about 800 Euro for both the Steam box thingy for your gaming and a laptop for your work. Are you a gadget or performance freak? In that case the cost will go to 1000Euro for both. Which is pretty much what you need to spend for a pc that can run every game, and even do some video editing.
I guess it depends on what type of gamer you are. I for example can not see me playing Rome Total War 2 in my living room but I would love some Legacy of Kain with the comfort of my couch.
I find it really hard to immerse in an mmo. Maybe it is just me. Or maybe it is those idiots constantly jumping around instead of "moving normally". And then comes the matter of time commitment and how this is rewarded by the not so modern loot system. The more you play the higher chance for decent loot. Just to keep you retrying. I on the other hand would really appreciate standard loot. You kill the boss, you loot it, you are out. It is the actual fight that should be engaging and inviting for a rerun, not the loot.
I really miss the stealth element of AC1. All that careful planning and approaching. The sudden strike and the escape sequence. Ezio felt like Rambo compared to Altair. With a few exception of course like the Dionysus festivities in AC Brotherhood. I am curious whether Conor in AC3 is stealthy at all. Can not figure out from the reviews.
Things do not look good. He is dodging simple questions. Will it have first person view as well? Blah Blah , we want to make a good game, blah blah, mp environment might not be good for 1st person view, blah blah, let me hide in words that I have no idea and I do not want to answer "probably not".
He hasn't leveled the paladin companion NEITHER has he changed the paladin's initial spear with a decent weapon. If I was that NPC I would take that spear commit suicide instead of having to go through all the demons with the starting weapon.
I wish I could believe that more time in development means better games but this is hardly the case anymore. With the economic crisis at its peak usually a delay in the release date doesn't translate into " we want more time to make the game better" but instead in " we want more time to gather money to complete the game".
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