@dmadrfe Yes, and as we all know, when you "put food on somebody's table," that entitles you to abuse them in any fashion you please. This is why it's totally legal to rape your own child. (Yes, I went there.) Why don't you just go the next logical step and demand every member of Bioware kiss your (hypothetical) hand, which I can't help but notice has a bunch of rich-looking Henry VIII rings on each of its fingers? 'Sigh' Okay, I'm sorry. This just really drives me nuts. I'm angry about it, about gamer entitlement in general--have been for years--and this just reinforces what I've been saying to deaf ears for a long time. @1000rads I'm sure that if you were in her position, you'd have a VERY different perspective. It's not fun to open up your email and find nothing but spam calling you anti-Semitic, racist, homophobic, and any of a thousand other insulting statements. If Bioware DID pay someone off to get this story out, then GOOD FOR THEM. It's about ****ing time someone dared to call certain gamers spoiled brats, cause it's very much the truth and nobody wants to friggin' face it cause they can't even handle the same crap they dish out.

I think I should reward myself $1000 for seeing this coming from miles away. I don't care if you pay me $5000 for my product; I still own the rights to do what I want to with MY designs. YOU don't get to tell me how to write my ****ing novel! I don't give a **** how frustrated all you gamers are at the "lack of respect" you're getting from Bioware; you don't get to piss and moan THIS loudly to the point where you're making ad hominem attacks at the developer and trying to pass it off as "constructive criticism." Sure, here's another example of "constructive criticism": Bioware fans are all a bunch of Nazis! (What? It's not any worse than the blatant sexism and racism being displayed by these intolerant dickheads here!) I dare anybody on here to say Bioware is NOT the victim here, that they AREN'T a victim of overdemanding gamers after a fiasco like this one. And people wonder why I'm a hardcore gamer who actually hates most gamers.

Typical editorial BS: I love what's being presented, but I'm going to piss and moan endlessly about it anyway. I also love the continuous use of the word "gimmick" and "novelty" by anybody who wants to dismiss innovation. The DS dual-screen DID take off, and there are plenty of other examples HOW it took off. It's like listening to the guy who claimed that the DS was an utter flop because "developers gave up trying to implement the unique touch-screen features." His evidence? "Kirby Canvas Curse, Wario Ware Touched and...well, that's about it because Nintendogs simply is not a game and Phantom Hourglass isn't out yet." Right. When you keep your head that far up your behind, it's hard to see the numerous examples of people using the technology you claim is irrelevant. When "good" isn't good enough anymore, I'd suggest finding a new profession or a new hobby. Rock collecting, perhaps? Or you could just learn to be satisfied with living in a beautiful country like the USA and realize that children starve all over the place without pissing and moaning all the time. Oh wait. I forgot: without pissing and moaning, you wouldn't get paid to be a critic.

Why am I reminded of Senator Jon Kyl, who responds to some arguments that maybe we just don't understand what's best for us but will after Obamacare is implemented by saying, "Exactly. The government wants us to get used to things so we accept them as they gradually take everything over instead of letting liberty determine what happens"? Seriously people, not only is this article incredibly negative, but it has no interest in considering WHY these companies want to do this. By and large, we the gamers have NOT gotten screwed this generation considering how crappy the economy is and how expensive games are. There's a TON of stuff to play if you're willing to keep and open mind and look for it, and all that "DLC on the disc" crap is mostly stuff so miniscule and unnecessary to the overall experience that complaining about it is like complaining about not getting a cherry on top of your milkshake. If this stuff actually becomes a problem, the businesses will start to suffer as we take our money elsewhere, so spend your dough on something else. That's capitalism. None of us need gaming to survive, and if by some strange miracle you DO need them, that's something you see a psychologist for, not a corporation.

I stopped using reviews as a means of determining whether something would be worthwhile many years ago, partially because my standards are lower than most people's, partially because I felt it tried to objectify something that cannot be presented objectively, and partially because I had a falling out with critics in general. I'm so happy to see this article by Tom McShea. Too often I think we assume the critics will know better than WE do, and that's ridiculous and actually insulting to ourselves as individuals. That's why I sometimes get aggravated when I hear people trying to say, "Don't even rent this. It's not even worth the two bucks." Far as I'm concerned, there is no such thing as an unrentable game. No, not even Superman 64 is unrentable. If we can afford to, we should be willing to give as many games a chance as possible and decide for ourselves what we like and don't like. Of course, if you're not well off, it makes more sense to be selective, but if you can, I think you should. Just my opinion.

@billlabowski You laughed at most of my list not being CoD clones? Weird. Cause none of them--except perhaps Portal 2, and that's a stretch--are even remotely LIKE Call of Duty. You didn't say consoles were loaded with nothing but unimaginative garbage; you said it was loaded with nothing but CoD clones. For that to be true, there should be zero games that aren't. And none of the games I listed ARE CoD clones. You wanna say they're not innovative, fine. But most people agree that many of those games are quality titles, and you don't have to be innovative to do something well. Heck, ever heard of SaGa Frontier? It's VERY innovative...and broken and critically despised. I'm curious: how do you define innovative and what indie games are you referring to?

@billlabowski Um...alright. Not sure how that relates to this article at all, but whatever. Come to think of it, what consoles are you playing? Ever heard of Portal 2? How about LA Noire? Red Dead Redemption? Grand Theft Auto IV? Bayonetta? Dragon Age: Origins? Mass Effect 2? Final Fantasy XIII? Super Street Fighter IV? Marvel Vs Capcom 3? Blazblue Continuum Shift? Batman Arkham Asylum/City? I suppose in some really twisted, absurdly illogical alternate universe I can see how those would be "CoD clones." But I just don't see it.

@Gamer_4_Fun Yes, I'd imagine it's easier to just ignore what I'm saying instead of taking two minutes to read it through and actually think about it. How convenient that it allows you to maintain a closed mind on this issue. And it's the gamers who accuse the INDUSTRY of being closed minded. You wanna ignore what I have to say, fine. I write these responses because I enjoy writing them. And generally speaking, it's the people with the larger comments that are doing the more thorough thinking on the topic.

@nate1222 'Sigh' Really? An industry shifts in the direction of putting roughly half it's resources towards casual gaming and you start to feel like it doesn't give a damn about you? Look at one of my earlier comments; I couldn't even list all the games provided for the core gamer in the last few years, let alone this generation, because the list is too damn HUGE. Yeah, it's not as huge as it was last generation--when people were complaining endlessly about sequels DESIGNED for the hardcore gamer--but so what? How do we even know that's not because of the economy and the ever rising standards that double required development time? There's still plenty to play and if you're not satisfied with it, go play one of the 1,000 games made for us LAST generation. It's not like most of us FINISHED those games!

@Gamer_4_Fun (cont.) We may be the ones giving the most money over to the companies making the games, but make no mistake about it: we are NOT keeping the industry afloat. It is the dedicated developers--most putting in 12 hour days, 6 days a week, doing something extremely grueling out of pure passion for the hobby, even if from time to time they miss the mark--that are keeping this industry alive. I assure you, if the armchair developers that give them no respect at all were to take over their jobs--and there are far too many people like this in the consumer base today--the industry would die in two months. Because the developers know how to do their jobs better than the consumers do, else the consumers would actually be MAKING the damn games to begin with. People, I'm as hardcore as anyone on this site, if not moreso than some. (My library exceeds 500.) I'm still able to find plenty of stuff to play in the market. So how is it that so many other players can't? They're either not looking closely enough, have raised their standards so high that even Ocarina of Time is a mediocre mess to them, or they're just unhappy and have to find something to blame it on other than themselves. Sorry if that sounds rude, but it frustrates me to hear such inaccurate garbage polluting the demeanor of gamers. If that absurdly long list of games isn't enough to sustain you, find something else to do with your time.