So another company trying to get into the Call of Duty fray, not realizing that the people who have CoD don't need pale imitations. Seriously, it didn't work for EA and it's not gonna work for Capcom. They need to forge their own brand and audience, because they're not taking Activision's.
@Ayato_Kamina_1 - You know, kids are playing crappy as flash games on their iPhones and on services like Newgrounds and Kongregate. Those kids'll play the classics.
@TheManofTin - Pretty much. Though the PS3 version of ME2 has a ton of the DLC on the disc, so there's that. And if it's on a hard drive, it can be taken out, so I'm fully confident we'll see them floating around when we come to the point where PS3 and 360 emulators are easily playable. Facebook games are really the only ones that are really guaranteed to fade away, mostly because people don't really care about them the way we do about proper games. No one's preserving Farmville when its time is up.
@themanoftin - Fortunately/unfortunately, we're sure to see emulation authors and hackers figure the DLC puzzle out, but yeah, online multiplayer is a huge issue, and one I don't see an answer for. Perhaps server emulators?
@fatee - Dude, games were always about money. Seriously, look at some of the crap that passed for entertainment that we lapped up as kids. Don't let nostalgia fool ya. If anything, games are MORE artistic now. OK, on to the main topic. I find it outright offensive that amateur coders and script kiddies have put more thought into preserving the past of our medium (mainly through emulation projects) than the companies themselves. It's asinine that games like The Guardian Legend, Trailblazer, Lords of Thunder, Lufia and many others would have already been lost to the ether if not for these brave bearers of the torch. This is our childhood, these are our memories, and they deserve more respect than this.
@Rej72380 I'd put it at 0% myself. There's more bipartisan hate than support for the bill. Everyone knows this would end what little chance America has to remain competitive in the global market. @Zloth2 - Unfortunately, the blog culture is obsessed with sensationalism, so rather than an impartial breakdown, we get nonsense like this. I will say this, however: This bill, even if it SOMEHOW passes both houses of Congress and gets a signature from President Obama, has no chance in the courts. The potential for infringement of the 1st Amendment is too obvious for justices not to notice.
@shinspikes The games are often a mix of old and new at events like this. Yes, you see Counter-Strike, but you'll also see Starcraft 2, Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition, Mortal Kombat (2011), League of Legends and Tekken 6, among others. Basically, any game they can find an audience for. The problem with some games is that they don't make as good a spectator sport as others. Battlefield 3, if it has the same SUPER HUGE maps that you saw in previous games, would be a snoozer for someone just watching.
@terrascythe - Well, that's rather why I prefer the term "competitive gaming." It doesn't confer the same linking of gamers and athletes that "esports" does. That said, there's no real practical difference between professional gaming and professional athletics - both are being paid to play games for the entertainment of the masses. Competitive gaming, however, is far less offensive to me because they don't ask for tax breaks or publicly-funded stadiums the way professional sports teams nearly always do. As to the name "Major League Gaming," it's simply a naming convention brought over by other leagues, though perhaps "National Gaming League" would have been less hilarious. The same issue comes with other competitive leagues that aren't the top of their game - see also Major League Soccer.
One thing that will prevent the spread of competitive gaming, beyond the horrible behavior associated with the practice online, is the fact that many of the games aren't fun to watch for people who don't play the games themselves. Okay, fighting games certainly translate well to viewing passively, but what about FPSes? Or strategy games? Unless you're in it, a lot of these games look like watching molasses dry. For people outside to bother looking in, the games themselves need to be good "spectator sports."
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