These are the things I don't like about this gaming generation -- in order!

1. DLC: Day-one DLC? O RLY? The last six months of a game cycle is Q&A testing, so it isn't like there is going to magically be "new" DLC on the day the game comes out! Could it be because those parts of the game were already completed, but then locked-out just so you could double-dip the paying public? Maybe? Yes...yes it is. Fuck you, DLC!!shiftkey∞
2. DRM: Digital Rights Management is not a way to reduce piracy -- it is a way to reduce second-hand sales of used games. DRM only punishes the legitimate buyer, not the pirate. Any developer who says DRM is used to stop piracy is outright lying, and those products they make should be boycotted.
3. Homogenized games / Risk-adverse game development: Oh, look! Another hard-core game that was watered down to make it as broadly appealing as possible. Oh, look! Another broadly-appealing party-based family game! Great... *breaks out the Super Nintendo to play a hard-core game* On a related note: FFS, how many first-person shooters or sand-box games can there really be? This is not a rhetorical question!
4. Ads in games: Oh, FFS, this is just bad news. The second ads appear in any medium, is when that medium becomes beholden to advertisers. Advertisers are just as bad as publishers when it comes to plunging an awesome game into mediocrity.
5. Shoe-horned motion control schemes for games that would be better with conventional controls: I'm looking at you, Super Mario Galaxy.
6. Cheap hardware: If a Super Nintendo can work like the day it was bought twenty years later, why can't a PlayStation 3, or XBox360? Anyone who thinks their current systems will work X years from now is sadly mistaken. System updates and cheap components virtually assure this current generation of systems won't work when the next generation hits the gaming public. There is also no guarantee "the big three" will support this generation of hardware when the next generation comes out. There is no guarantee the next generation of systems will be backwards compatible with this generation of games. Hell, there is no guarantee a current system update will allow you to play your current library. I'm looking at you, Wii and PS3.
7. Game budgets are too damn big: Games in the past only needed a compliment of 20 to 50 people to create them. Today a game can have hundreds of artists, programmers, and Q&A testers, and those games are still mediocre shit. Bigger doesn't mean better, assholes.
8. Video gamers:
   1. Oh yeah, verbally abusive, homophobic, racist, sexist, little children screaming over a head-set really make this medium seem grown-up.
   2. Gamers don't take any chances with the games they buy. Because of this, game developers only make the types of games gamers only buy! I'm looking at you, FPS genre!

Things I would do to fix these problems:

1. Completely change how DLC is implemented: OK, I believe capitalism is a good thing, but I also believe bilking people out of their money by making them constantly buy DLC is wrong. I also believe stripping a game of content before it is released just so a company can charge again for it is also very wrong. So, how do game companies ensure they will continue to reap profits on a game? Franchise it. Since a huge percentage of games are franchised anyway, why not have the first part of the franchise on a disk, but then have all sequels as exclusively DLC? Since games usually get cheaper as time goes on, late adopters of a franchised game are virtually getting the first game for free if the sequel DRM is full priced. Early adopters of a franchised game should get steep price reductions for future DRM (full sequels) of that franchise, so early adopters would almost get the same money-saving perks as late adopters. There, problem solved! Gamers get completely new DRM in the form of true sequels, while game developers get to control their content.
2. Get rid of DRM: PEOPLE WILL ALWAYS FIND A WAY TO CIRCUMVENT DRM Just get rid of it. Get rid of it NOW.
3. Make better games, and take a chance!: Please, stop watering down games to make them as broadly appealing as possible. If you, the game company, are going to update a retro title, please keep it as difficult as it was, but also please update the way the game is presented. As the medium becomes more advanced, control schemes become more efficient. It is OK to update how a game takes button commands. From what I've been reading about the Nintendo 3DS version of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the menu system is going to given an overhaul to make that game more efficient and more user-friendly. That is OK! But while you are updating a game, please keep the same "flavor" of that game, too. Don't do a bunch of crazy -- and unwarranted -- shit to a game to make is as appealing as possible to the largest possible audience. To me there is a world of difference between Super Mario Bros. 3 and The New Super Mario Bros. I don't know, there is just something missing from the latter game. Now that is out of the way, time for part two is this rant: Please take a chance with a new I.P. If you build it, they will come. If you make a smart game with interesting and new game mechanics, gamers will buy it in droves!
4. No ads: Ads suck. They are detrimental to the medium, and to each respective game they appear in.
5. Motion-control does not mean that is the only way: Going back to the SMG example, there should have been two ways to control that game: The motion controller and a conventional controller; Gamecube perhaps? Just because a game can have motion control, does not mean it is required. When I play video games, I want to veg out, not waggle like an idiot. Since all the future systems will have some sort of alternate control scheme, implement the motion control sparingly.
6. Make better hardware: If the XBox360 has a defect rate of 35% after two years (!!), and if the PS3 has a defect rate of 10% after two years, there isn't good enough hardware in those systems. Stop being cheap and use high-quality hardware for your systems. I seriously doubt the defect rates of the SNES and Sega Genesis were that high after two years. This is a department in which the big three are going to have to take a chance that people will circumvent the internal hardware in favor of longer system lives. There has to be a line between wanting to control piracy, which is a legitimate concern, and having systems with sky-high defect rates.
7. Control game development costs: OK, gamers didn't directly ask the game developers to exponentially increase the cost of producing a game. Yes...new hardware requires more expertise, and more manpower to exploit, but if you need 200+ people to make a game that will end up in the bargain bin two months after it is released, a)you aren't good enough to produce games, and b)you need to split the costs of making games and spread risk. Instead of having 200+ people on one game, have 66+ people per team and have those teams pursue their own interest within a certain time frame (2.5 years?). Allow one team to make a J-RPG while you allow an other team to make a FPS. I don't know, but allow them to be creative! It will pay off!
8. Gamers, grow up!: Hey gamers, take a fucking chance and play a game you normally wouldn't play. Please, please, pretty please. You might be pleasantly surprised to like a game that a)is not a FPS, and b)does not involve shooting people. Also: do you talk to your mother that way? Yeah, you probably do. Get a life, you bunch of losers.

Will this list happen? I wish it would. It is the only way the medium will save itself from itself.

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Problems with problems.

I've been incredibly pensive and worried about my summer math course I am taking at Parkland College. Since the beginning of this class (a week ago), I've been assigned about two chapters of math homework every day. The first quarter of this class is "review," and then new mathematical concepts are presented the last six weeks. Well, last week was one of the review weeks, so I get a metric tonne of problems I'm supposed to be able to do. Barring the really easy problems, I was getting log-jammed on the math problems that were only moderately challenging! On Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and last weekend, I was literally fighting with these problems trying to figure them out. During the weekend I had to take a brake from the homework and go upstairs to shed a single salty tear. I was heart-broken. After that subdued emotional outburst, I went back to continue to attempt to solve those problems. I did my best. I tried my best, but I did not want to give up.

Monday rolls around and my math instructor hands out the practice test. Much to my surprise, and relief, those problems weren't too difficult. I took the test on Tuesday, and I was hoping for an 80. I tend to nickel-and-dime myself due to small mistakes, but for the most part I knew what I had to do if, and when, I looked at a problem. I got back the test today and I got a 72. *groan* Just as I predicted, I nickel-and-dimed myself to that score. Basically, I was close to getting the correct answers for the test questions, but I was still partially wrong. So while my grade wasn't spectacular, I at least know what I have to do to get a correct answer. There is some good news with that score: I have an opportunity to improve it by Monday by re-doing the problems I got wrong.

Compared to how I was last week, I am at least hopeful this week. Compared to how I was last week, I am at least not completely shitting my pants in fear I might fail this class. I don't want to fail this class, but yet there are so many variables that can derail me. I don't like hoping for something only to have it not come to fruition. I hope I pass this class but flipping through the chapters there are concepts that are incomprehensible.

On a side-note: I still may have received a 72 on that test, but I still got the third highest score in the class. I guess I'm not the only one in my boat regarding my doubts about my abilities. I just need to grind away at the math and hope it comes to me.

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The Bad Touch

I often wonder if my touch is cursed to break anything and everything. No really. It seems to me that everything that comes into my possession is either already broken, or will break in an unreasonably short time frame. Again it seems this curse has struck again, not once in the immediate past, but twice.

The first thing that broke was my expensive graphing calculator I bought four years ago. I bought the calculator from the Parkland College bookstore, so naturally I got price-gouged -- I spent $140 for that calculator. I knew they were expensive, but I didn't think they would set me back that much. Hell, for another $200 I could have had a cheap PC built for me. Anyway, I was sufficiently miffed I spent that much on a calculator, but what really grabbed my goat was that one month later I saw the exact same model in the discount bin for $70. I got burned. During the time I owned the calculator I barely used it. I only took three math courses at the college so it isn't like there is that much mileage on the thing. I also use it to help me balance my check book. Well, somehow the goddamn thing broke. A week ago the calculator would blink on and off. So I changed out all the batteries, but that remedy didn't help the situation. To make a long story short: I brought the calculator to the math instructors at the college to have them try to trouble-shoot the problem. Today I learned by one of the instructors that the malfunction is probably a hardware issue; there is probably a loose wire or microchip somewhere inside the calculator. This vexes me because I took care of it: I didn't drop it or anything like that. What gives?

The other thing that broke was my shiny new 12.2MP digital camera that I only bought seven months ago! Yesterday I took some pictures, and then put it away. Literally one minute later I turn it back on, and there are two lines of dead pixels on the view-screen. Just like with the TI-83+ Graphing Calculator, I didn't drop or abuse the camera. What gives? My only saving grace regarding my camera is that there might be a one-year manufacturer's warranty against defects or malfunctions. I'll have to research this very soon.

My expen$ive graphing calculator, and an out-of-manufacture digital camera both shit the bed. The bad touch has struck. Twice. In the same week. URGH! You know, since I have a knack for acquiring broken things, I wonder what expensive piece of hardware will break next: my new PS3? my new Toshiba? my bicycle? Maybe all three? I'm not made of money. I cannot replace everything that breaks, or gets stolen, or gets lost.

Blah.

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Many Fears

Today was the first day of my summer math course -- College Algebra -- and I feel cautiously optimistic about it. For the past few months, my academic adviser kept telling me that even though this math course is required for my (new) major, it still has a rather large drop-out rate. Even during a regular semester, the course moves at a brisk pace, but since this summer course is condensed into eight weeks, I'm freaking out. I'm freaking out about the content, and the pace, of the course. That is just the tip of the iceberg of my worry: If I pass this course I still have two more after this!

I am fearing many things right now. I am fearing that I'll have to drop out of this math course after the add-drop date, which would mean I would get a "W" for a grade. I'm fearing that I'll do sufficiently well in this class, but I'll bomb the final. I'm fearing the subsequent math courses I'll have to take (assuming I pass this math course) are even more meticulous and challenging than the last courses.

Everyone keeps telling me, "Don't worry, you'll be just fine," but I really don't know for sure. I have many fears of failure. I've let myself down in the past, and I really want to change that. I really want to be successful for Kevin because I know he won't tolerate any more failure from me -- or any other lackadaisical behavior. I'm just worrying that this current endeavor will end up costing me time, money, and effort, all for naught -- a "W" grade.

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