This is my least favorite part of the PC Gamer interview: Basically he is saying join the social networking revolution or else. Basically he is saying that is the target market and everyone else is unimportant. Gabe has said similar things about Steam before, though obviously Steam allows you to shut that stuff off at least.

All I want is a list of exes on a web page dammit! I don't want social networking! Arg!

I could tell you how to get that, but it is illegal.

I find it's the same deal with EA and Riccitiello, Bobby's BFF. Specifically with Bioware. When Bioware do something good it's because of Bioware but when they do something bad it's because of EA. Biowhores tend to forget that part of the EA/Bioware merger involved the two good Doctors Ray and Greg becoming Junior Vice Presidents of EA which gives them considerable clout in Los Angeles and pretty much put's them in charge of all EA's RPG & MMO development. EA didn't force Bioware to dumb down their RPG's for the mass market they have been doing it for years and you can see the clear progression from KOTOR to Jade Empire to Mass Effect.

Similarly when Blizzard do something good it's because of Blizzard but when they do something bad it's always Activision's fault, specifically Kotick's.
No wonder he earned $6Million in bonuses last year.

lol, too late, resistance is futile. Bend over son, we'll have you hooked up in a jiffy, a wire here, a wire there, a special eyeball so you see things the way you should, there ya go, enjoy . . . =)

That picture is perfect. I want to frame it.

I need to add several more cubes to it first . . don't ya think? . . ; )

EA Origin, Steam, Google+, 4Square, Raptr, XFire, Battle.Net... yeah a whole Armada is needed.

Clunkiness isn't intelligence. In fact it's more often due to dumb design decisions and technical inability / incompetence than it is intelligence. You can call something like X-Com Apocalypse intelligent as, behind the clunky interface, there is a great deal of depth and purpose to it all. But even there the interface is the product of ignorance and ineptitude.

Clunkiness is all that Bioware have been removing since KOTOR. It's just taken them a long while to this point - a point you rightly say they want to be at. One where the games they make are as action driven as they are character driven. Stats and dice rolls were never their thing. They just used to let traditionalism get in the way in the past.

I think that NWN was perhaps the best example of Bioware's intentions simply because of what a failure it was in design. Clearly they wanted to make an action RPG but were lumbered with the kind of character creation that better lent itself to the pen and paper game where being a bard and never expecting to see combat might actually be a good choice.

I hated this in Starcraft 2 so I sold it, Kotick won't get my money, screw Diablo 3 I have Neverwinter Nights.


*grabs non-DRM copy from GoG and and runs into his room and cries*

Blizzard why did you do this, WHY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Blizzard: We care about the player's interest at heart, we will give our customers the best satisfaction ever given!

I find it interesting that people are focusing on the symptoms, and not the cause.

If you:
1) Don't have single player
2) Don't have a LAN mode

then it stands to reason that you need to have an Internet connection to play. I find it odd that people aren't lamenting the lack of single player mode, but instead that for a multiplayer game without LAN support, you need an Internet connection.

It doesn't have Single or LAN modes, BLIZZARD SHALL BE PURGED *grabs Space Marine Armor* FOR THE EMPEROR

I didn't mean to imply that dumbing down meant the game wasn't deep I was using the term as people refer to streamlining. There are still stats and dice rolls hidden away under all the HDR gloss in ME2 but it's hidden away so well that the casual CoD/GoW player would never know it. The interface has been simplified so much that anyone can understand point spent here = new ability. Old Bioware fans who talk about NWN and BG often cry that this simplification is due to meddling by EA but it's what Bioware have been doing long before the EA purchase. Hell strip away all the HDR gloss and conversation wheel and ME2 practically is KOTOR just without lightsabers.

Of course Bioware also applied this streamlining to Dragon Age 2 and that game is a fucking abomination. I'm just saying Dragon Age 2 isn't EA's fault, it's Bioware's. It's the direction they wanted to go in and they repreated that in multiple interviews.

It's not like Diablo 3 is a loss, we have Torchlight 2, and NoX, and three billion other dungeon crawlers...

Obviously the big brewhaha here is the always on DRM but, quite frankly, I can live with that. What concerns me more is the cash shop (which basically enables gold sellers with Blizzard cutting themselves in on the profits) and this: Astonishing. The question of DRM is secondary to me when the game itself isn't worth playing at all. But, this has never been a fora where quality of modern games was an important topic so long as you can own it. I, for one, couldn't care less if own shit because shit is still shit.

I agree, blaming Blizzard's bad behavior on Kotick is just more irrational fanboyism, this garbage has been becoming ever more putrescent for some time now.