Square Enix need to do a review like this because they are losing money hand over fist. The games by studios they bought, like Tomb Raider, Sleeping Dogs and Hitman Absolution all did well, both critically and in terms of sales, but were not enough to make up for the huge losses incurred by their internal development studios.

Not sure why they need 2 ratings only 1 year apart - M 17+ and AO 18+

Having an optical drive is very handy as it lets me watch my DVDs and Blurays

@Ladiesman17 @BlackaliciousX

I think that the point BlackaliciousX was trying to make is that there is a distinction between those that use Kickstarter to genuinely kick-start their project, and those large companies that view it as an easy source of quick cash from fans.

Small independent devs working on their 1st / 2nd game fit the idea of what Kickstarter was intended for - without that funding they would have no alternative means to get their ideas turned into reality.

But when for instance Elite came back asking for crowd-funding - a long established company employing hundreds of staff already, making games across multiple platforms - comes onto Kickstarter, it is all too easy to see it is a cynical cash grab on the goodwill people have towards their past games. They already have all the industry contacts they need to secure funding for a game - a failed Kickstarter drive doesn't mean the game won't get made for them.

Kickstarter and crowd-funding is still in its infancy - everyone still sees the potential, but has yet to really get burned by it.

In the build up to the launch of Too Human Dyack was doing interviews with everyone talking up the game, the potential it had, what the plans were for the future, expansions, sequels, the whole TH universe.

The it released, got bashed by the critics, and Dyack disappeared - you couldn't get a comment out of him or Silicon Knights, and ultimately TH was abandoned by them - getting no updates, no DLC, no expansions and no sequels.

Dyack proved to be someone that can talk up a game prior to launch, but when it fails to deliver doesn't want anything to do with it. The Kotaku article that criticised how SK was run - that it needed MORE control over how it made its games, is precisely the opposite of the freedom that uncontrolled crowd-funding provides.

@Divisionbell

Each Kickstarter has multiple tiers of funding options, but for the vast majority your donation gets you a copy of the game when (some would say if) it gets completed.

The idea is that the game wouldn't exist without fans putting up money upfront to fund the development of it. If the Kickstarter failed to reach it's target goal it gets NO funding, and potentially the game doesn't get made.

I wonder if they are going for a 6 degrees of separation type thing?

You are connected to every other PS account through a chain of 6 friends :)

Wonder if they've thought of a good way to sort through them as having even 100 is a pain to manage

@Don_Mattrick

I thought there was something fishy about your comment but codn't quite plaice my fin-ger on it. Probably just another red herring.

Should used games stores have to pay a % to the game maker - NO - absolutely NO.

It's just the same arguments over and over but with the devs not wanting to listen to common sense. It's perfectly acceptable for every other industry to allow second hand or used sales, but somehow they think that games, and games alone should be a special case.

If you want to make more money:

Make better games so they sell more

Lower the price so they sell more

Make more content so people that have bought the game don't want to sell / trade it in.

THOSE are things he can control, and should put his effort into.