I straight up quit Demon Souls and have not returned to it since. It was not the difficulty by itself that made me quit, but the combination of the difficulty and the depressing atmosphere. However, I am playing Dark Souls right now and the difficulty does not bother me at all thanks to the more approachable atmosphere.

I have been a Batman nerd since I was young. I thought the other games were pretty fun for the action and the strategy, but the stories were a bit goofy and the games were a bit too linear (I thought the side quests were boring so I could never be bothered to do them) for my tastes. If the sequel had more of an open world like Spiderman 2 and 3 then I'll be far more likely to get them at launch. As it stands now it is looking like one of those games that I wait until it is cheaper before I make the purchase. In my opinion, the others were fun, but they certainly are not worth $60.

Super Mario Sunshine had one of the happiest, most relaxing atmospheres of any game I have ever played. Not many people are willing to call out Super Mario 64 because it's a classic. Personally, I agree with you, sir.

Baseketball - These two guys can do no wrong.

If Millions of people keep buying the same crap, Activision will continue to ship the same crap.

Can't blame them, they are making tons of money.

Mrmedia01

Quoted for truth.

I read that there are around 11 million active accounts. That's a boatload of cash. It also goes to show that a lot of people aren't aware of "it's crappyness" as you put it and find it to be good fun.

If a game looks interesting to me, I don't care who the publisher is, and I just got Crysis 3 a few days ago. Stinger78

Amen, brother.

...and for the record, I thought Dead Space 1-3 and Mass Effect 1-3 were awesome. Different doesn't necessarily mean bad.

It's the nature of the beast. Large companies like Microsoft and Sony want to produce games like Call of Duty because they have mass market appeal. In my limited experience I have noticed that college students and other "young adults" make up a large portion of the gaming market, but a lot of them do not want to play a game that is as challenging as Dark Souls or as unique as Journey. They want to play a game that is exciting and action-packed. The developers of Dead Space 3 explicitly came out and said that the game was more action-focused because of they wanted to attract more gamers. It's a mass market strategy that is unfortunate to "OG gamers" who have been gaming since Super Mario Bros (or Pong if you're hardcore), but is inevitable in a capitalist world.

It's not all bad, though! I have found that there are plenty of good games on Steam. Mark of the Ninja and Hotline Miami are cheap, creative, and very fun. League of Legends is pretty good, too (if you prefer competitive, but strategic games) If you keep looking you'll find some real gems.