@CLOCKWORKIAN Normally I would say 'that's the US, this kind of sh*t won't fly there', but with the recent 'Brazilianation' of America I prefer not to place any bets. Good luck.

@snaggleoooo I don't believe they really wanted *this*. You'd be surprised how clueless some people can be on companies of that size. I bet a lot of executives on EA, Sony, Microsoft et al simply did not realize that the wording could be used to take video reviews down on YouTube. I know it sounds naive of me to say this, but I've encountered enough big company executives in my life to know that sometimes they're not conspiratorial, but just plain dumb about anything but numbers and witty (or so they believe) Power Point presentations. Companies would never flop if all executives were so machiavellian as people believe them to be. There's an old saying about that goes... 'If you're not interested in politics, that's too bad, 'cause you'll be governed by someone who is'. The same applies to executive jobs and functions. People love to decry them but they don't step in to take those positions. So we'll always be governed by someone who does step in, be they dumb, conspiratorial or whatever. Gotta learn to deal with it.

The selling argument is kinda of a straw man, actually. In all forms of entertainment you can find examples of best-selling acts, works and artists that never really made any real impact on the artistic evolution of their medium (think Spice Girls, Stephanie Mayer and Independence Day, just to name a few). Worse than that, I've read once that Angry Bird had generated about 80 millions in profit. That means it may sell more than all AAA titles combined, but will earn less than MW3, Battlefield 3 or Fifa 12 in their *release week*. Angry Birds and iOS/Android games in general are a popular phenomenon but not necessarily a sign of evolution of the gaming medium; certain games can be judged so by their individual merits, but not Angry Birds, a glorified/less accurate version of Windows 98's Bang Bang. I'm pretty sure the author and many journalists are deeply aware of how overestimated these games are; it's just that right now it's cool to have an iPhone, and therefore they try as hard as they can to justify playing games on it, regardless of each game's merits. The saddest part is that the author does have a point: it's about time dedicated gamers understand that Battlefield or Batman are not the only formula for gaming, and that they took this hobby a little too seriously for their own good. It's just that shifting all the way to the other direction and glorifying Angry Birds is far from the answer. Both attitudes are stupid, shallow, one-sided and unidimensional.

A little off-topic, but I'm glad to see that Catherine made its way into this article. If that game has a flaw, it's that it absolutely ruined* all the other games' narratives and concepts for me - now almost everything in games seems terribly teenage-y and shallow after Catherine. It should be remembered forever as the best example of how games can be really mature and still entertaining. * It's an hyperbole, don't take it too seriously - I'm still enjoying my Mortal Kombat, thank you

Could you people just stop and read OSJ-1987's posts before actually writing anything? 'Cause there's a good chance whatever you have to say has already been trampled by the infinite wisdom on those posts. Can't we just leave the platform war for the trolls and concentrate on the actual issues debated on the article?

"When you make a game called Dragon Age II, people essentially expect the same game with improvements". That's their problem. If they really cared about innovation and ultimately about that IP's position in gaming culture, they wouldn't expect rehashes with mild improvements. And that pretty much summarizes why some fans are pissed off with Dragon Age II: it wasn't made by conformists, for conformists. The real bummer is that all this stupid fanboy whining may drown the real criticisms the game deserves, such as taking place in a single city and reusing dungeons. It was a rushed job in that department. The rest is just fanboys being fanboys.

Wait. It is insulting enough to read that what Hotz did is good because it will let people do whatever they want with a powerful machine (like they did really care to do anything - the Wii has been hacked for years and the most interesting add-on ever added to the console was the ability to play movie DVDs). It is insulting to Bill Budge himself to compare his mild form of plagiarism to spreading industrial secrets illegally, like Hotz did. But assuming people will do something "game-changing" with this? That's just too convoluted a defense. C'mon. That's when you're thinking with your guts - or better yet, with the natural sympathy we're used to feel for the underdog. Your rational side is the one that got the part about piracy. And it doesn't matter if Sony can survive this as much as Microsoft does survive PC piracy. The fact that they make millions doesn't make it right for Hotz or anyone to steal from them and illegally trade their industrial secrets. Anything else is trying to root for the small guy and deep down you know that.

@Archeus47 "ever realized that quite a lot of fans don't like change?" Of course they did. Which is precisely why games should change after some time. Relying on fans alone only goes so far and for so much long. As years pass, fans cease to drive a game's popularity and become a burden, both on sales and on creativity.

Man, these Bethesda guys are getting more stupid by the day. I'm not sure if 3D will ever be big in gaming, but there are only two real reasons why a professional developer/designer would say something blunt like that: - He/she doesn't want to change the way he/she does things in the slighest - He/she didn't even consider the possibilities before stating an opinion It's no wonder then that after Oblivion and Fallout 3, all games Bethesda has churned out were mediocre at best. It's called 'stagnation'. They're too comfortable. If they didn't have a big publisher to back them up, I'd bet they'd be laying people off like there's no tomorrow at this juncture.