ourvaluedcustomers:

To his friend…

So is he claiming he’s Marv Wolfman or that he’s George Perez?

sodakick:

hardestcopy:

krudman:

shady-bacon:

krudman:

You tell me a game with ais better than something like Portal or Journey, and I will fight you.

PortalPortal.

I will fight you.

Better story. more character development….

Portalmore interesting because the universe it takes place in is a complete mystery at the time. Once you reach the halfway point you start to see the scary underbelly of this apparently pristine scientific research facility that basically feels like a series of fun basic puzzles until now. The closer you get to the ending, the worse the place looks and then at the very end you see that you and GlaDOS are the only ones left. Every office is empty. The whole place is .

Portal, but the only real excitement in exploration is the whole Cave Johnson thing, which is certainly amusing, and the new toys are fun to play with, but the world itself doesn’t offer anything nearly as interesting once the spectacles are swept aside.

I would argue that Portal 2 is the better game—there’s the exploration of the deteriorating Aperture Science facility, the exploration of Old Aperture, and the discovery of Revived Aperture at the hands of Wheatley. Plus, the more varied mechanics, the more refined puzzle design, and the writing isn’t backloaded like Portal’s was to facilitate their big twist.

Nothing’s going to top the experience of the first Portal, though. Not because it was better-made than Portal 2, but because *you can’t be surprised like that again.* Certainly not by a Portal game—you’re expecting it there—but because any other game that tries it is going to show the influence of Portal too.

Portal had the perfect storm of circumstances to be surprising. For one, it was part of the Orange Box—a package of games that people were pre-ordering in droves for access to Team Fortressof Half-Life. Never before has, and never again will, a game from that big a developer be able to position itself as an unassuming afterthought extra. It was my most-anticipated part of the Orange Box, but only because I’m a crazy person who played Narbacular Drop and loves puzzle games.

There’s no experience better than a genuinely pleasant surprise. But that doesn’t mean an experience presented as a genuinely pleasant surprise is a better experience on its own merits.

chombiechom:

krudman:

thethirdelric:

krudman:

Remember when consoles were about playing games and not advertising or updating twitter?

remember when video games were desperately underfunded and glitchy, when they were so bad that the video game industry as a whole almost went down the shitter until one company (nintendo) started making games, that weren’t so popular for being good games (back then, they’re more popular and seen as “amazing games” now because of nostalgia) but were popular and actually revived the entire video game industry because they had games that TURNED ON AND WORKED. and now that the video game industry is spending millions of dollars to makes games so great (see max paine 3, $108 mil to produce) and the only way they can get the funding for these games that you know and love is by SELLING THEM, and you SELL them by advertising, because people don’t make money off things that don’t sell, and people don’t buy things unless they have that thing shoved violently down their throat plenty of times.

tldr you have good games because of the shitty advertising deal with it

You seem to think you know quite a bit. If your tumblr profile is to be believed, you don’t really remember nearly as much as I do from your well seasoned age of 17.  This is to say when you were 7, you were playing the Playstation 2 at it’s elder years.

Games prior to this were not grossly under budgeted. They were simply budgeted. Now games are grossly over budgeted because corporations have decided we the consumer want soulless, “edgy” brown sequels much like the much critically mixed Max Payne 3 that Rockstar spent way to much money making for a game that was not nearly as compelling as the previous entries in the series. Compared to gears of war, and I will hold my opinion as to the quality of those games, but the budget for those is closer to 15-20 million.

Does “shitty advertising” pay for that? No. Publishers do. But Microsoft has found ways to make sure the console you paid for that belongs to you belongs to them as much as they can. That’s why they update it so often. That’s why you’re bombarded with ads on your dashboard. I’m not exposed to coca-cola or dorito ads when I’m playing Mass Effect. That’s all from turning on my xbox and seeing that advertisers now have a stake in the system I paid for. It would be foolish for anyone to think that any of this money goes into game development.

As per your comment on quality of games only going up, the bigger games get, the amount of bugs only goes up. The more stable games in this day and age do not come from AAA game developers (Elder Scrolls is a prime example). They come from indie developers that microsoft has shunned once again. You have patches today that you did not need over ten years ago because publishers feel that they can shipped unfinished buggy games and fix them later. Why? Because they want their money.

When you turn on a game system, and it’s one gigantic hub for everything with games seemingly as an afterthought, at what point does this benefit games? When that much greed comes into a practice of making art for profit, at what point does it improve what was already good? 

Games were not stable back then? what?

When you turn on a game system, and it’s one gigantic hub for everything including games, that benefits games when the people who bought it for the other things see Spec Ops: The Line in their list of recommendations next to Apocalypse Now and The Wire.

crueland-unusual:

ducksmith:

999999996699666699669999999999699999999996699999999
996666996699666699666666996666666669966666996666666
996669966699666699666666996666666669966666996666666
996699666699666699666666996666666669966666999999999
996666996699666699666666996666666669966666666666699
996666699699666699666666996666666669966666666666699
999999996699999999666666996666666669966666999999999

Press Ctrl and F, type in 99 and then press “Highlight all”.

I am so done with everyone on this site.

mattbors:

They write this stuff just to troll me.

I can only imagine that an editor heard someone saying “Cracked is getting really popular lately” and interpreted it *completely* incorrectly.

kirstinthereckless:

Oded Fahr

Naveen Andrews

Sendhil Ramamurthy

But no, this is the logical choice.

Oded Fahr is Israeli, not Indian… but then, Ricardo Montalbán was Spanish, so that’s not an issue.

I’m kinda OK with the “Historical imperialist monster from India’s past” character being a British-ass British dude. Fitting, if presumably not even remotely deliberate.

secotm:

Being late to use an obvious analogy is one thing. It’s another thing to use one that we’ve already seen doesn’t make any sense. Benghazi’s not covering up something, Benghazi is being covered up.

Benghazi is being covered up? What about Benghazi is being covered up? The Obama administration has answered every question about it that Republicans have been asking for, and Republicans in Congress have been ignoring those answers so they can keep harping on not being given answers.

obshasatumbleriguess:

underscorex:

strugglingtobeheard:

genderbitch:

masksarehot:

gaobibaituo:

awesome-everyday:

shorterexcerpts:

thecallus:

theatlantic:

The Cheapest Generation: Why Aren’t Millennials Buying Cars or Houses?

What if Millennials’ aversion to car-buying isn’t a temporary side effect of the recession, but part of a permanent generational shift in tastes and spending habits? It’s a question that applies not only to cars, but to several other traditional categories of big spending—most notably, housing. And its answer has large implications for the future shape of the economy—and for the speed of recovery.

Read more. [Image: Kagan McLeod]

It’s safe to say that a decent number of Tumblr users are a part of the Millennial generation. So, tell us: Do you own a car or house? If not, why?

IT’S BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO DISPOSABLE INCOME YOU THUNDERING IDIOTS. Fucking preference has nothing to do with it. 50% of college graduates have no job! They all have the most student loan debt ever! What are you asking this question for?!

Also: housing is a good bit more expensive now.

My parents got a 15-year mortgage on a new house in the mid-70s. The house was $32,000. Average home price in that area now? $190,000.

So, home prices went up. Food prices went up. Health care prices went WAY UP. Rent prices went up. Higher education went up so damn high that some of us forgo that all together. Energy prices went up. Car prices went up.

Prices of prices went up.

We also pay cell phone bills, internet bills, data plans, text plans, online subscriptions, cable/satellite tv, netflix, DVR subscriptions — bills that didn’t even exist 30-40 years ago. We also use computers and smartphones and microwaves and other consumer electronics that didn’t exist 20-50 years ago.

We need medications and doctors and contact lenses and tampons and maxi pads and other things that cost money just to be alive and keep us healthy.

Most of us can’t afford to:

1. Get married and have a “Traditional” big wedding
2. Buy a house
3. Buy a new car
4. PLAN to have children
5. Take two, consecutive weeks of vacation.

Jobs that paid 50k in the late 1990s now pay between 30-35. Interest rates that favor consumers have gone down.

So I say, no. We are not choosing not to buy homes. We’re not choosing to take the bus in cities where there’s no good public transit. WE ARE NOT CHOOSING TO LIVE WHAT SOCIETY DEEMS AS AN UNDESIRABLE LIFESTYLE.

Don’t even get me started on the fact that these two people in the picture are young white hipsters. Young black and brown folks have been forgoing homeownership and buying new cars for decades, this shit isn’t new, pal. You’re just acting like this shit is new because it’s hitting white folks.

anyway, my point is: We are fucking broke.

 fuck all these articles written by assholes who actually know nothing about our generation

FUCK THEM

FUCK
THEM

I’m either Gen X or Millennial, depending which dates you use, and so I’m old enough to have been living on my own as a lot of this started spinning out of control. It was like watching a trainwreck. The current state of all of this is ridiculous. I was going to go on a long rant about Boomers refusing to age gracefully, the impact of 9/11, the double-edged sword that is globalization, and our current loan culture and confusion of “needs vs. wants” that has been bred into us by clever marketing, but I’m too angry, and it was getting too long.

So I’ll just say this: the system is seriously out of whack, and we’re in this strange place where we’re both trapped in bubbles and depressions at the same.

I keep waiting for market corrections that just don’t seem to be happening.

And also, I’ll just throw up Crack Shack or Vancouver Mansion for reference. And if you visit it, bear in mind that this is in a city where the AVERAGE HOUSEHOLD INCOME is $46K. FORTY-SIX THOUSAND A YEAR. Oh, yeah, the system isn’t broken at all…damn those cheap fucking Millennials & Gen-X-ers!

Is every dipshit who writes these articles a rich sheltered moron? Cuz if I had fucking money I would buy those things.

I DON’T HAVE FUCKING MONEY.

Lol convicted felons don’t get shit. Home ownership? I can’t even get a job I’m qualified for. And your generation wanted it that way. You paid for your homes and cars by redlining us, by allowing lenders to not give us access to lines of credit for being Black. By making your homes and suburbs “safe” by allowing Nixon and Reagan and Clinton and bush and now Obama to lock us up, to fight a war on drugs against the same people you enslaved and then gave nothing to. My family before me didnt own a home because of you you white fucks. While you drink and get high and abuse your wives and children in your suburbs you also lynched economically tortured and continued genocide via policy and white supremacy. Sent police on us and prevented us from organizing or locking us up for organizing. Us Black American millennials are the children of civil rights activists and parents alive during segregation and busing and all kinds of shit. You didn’t allow them to accrue wealth. Add all the economic shit everyone discussed above and why the fuck would I be buying a home? With what? Even if I earn the money I can get screened and denied. It’s not like the whole housing crash was because white bankers preyed on my people and other people of color with subprime loans. It’s not like we still don’t experience housing discrimination. Redlining and the benefits white soldiers but not Black soldiers got after WW1 and WWII, that never fucking happened.

I love how journals like this can have writers like teju and also dipfucks like this

i will resort to my usual fallback when it comes to MILLENIALS Y U NO CAPITALISM RITE?:

We went to your schools.
We went to your churches.

We went to your institutional learning facilities.
So how can you say we’re the ones who are crazy?

ALL I WANTED WAS A MINIMUM WAGE JOB FOR YUM BRANDS/PEPSICO AND SHE WOULDN’T GIVE IT TO ME!

Gee, in an economy where people are frequently moving back in with their parents so they can make ends meet, WHY AREN’T MORE PEOPLE BUYING HOUSES AND NEW CARS? How baffling.

That’s not to say that the article hasn’t hit on an interesting observation. These economic conditions are clearly creating attitudes and behaviors that will continue even when—if?—the economy picks up, much like it did with people who lived through the Great Depression.

My generation is more likely to see home ownership as a gigantic anchor than as a mark of pride and success. “You mean when something breaks, I have to pay for it out of pocket rather than have someone to yell at, and when I lose my job I’m limited to places within driving distance of here unless I’m willing to go through an auction process that makes eBay look simple? No thank you. No, renting is *not* throwing money away—not any more than what you assholes scammed my parents into with the housing bubble.”

Cars I’m less certain about, but… I think I can explain that one, too. All the toys and convenience features that separated a “luxury” car or a “high-end” model from the “basic” models are either things people aren’t willing to pay extra for when they’re on a budget (eg. leather seats), things that are already in their phones (eg. in-dash GPS, CD changer), or things that have been virtually standard for years (eg. air conditioning, anti-lock breaks, airbags and seatbelts). And with the flashy appeal of the “Latest and Greatest” quickly disappearing… why buy a new car at all, when they’ll lose a huge chunk of money the second they drive off the lot and don’t do anything better than a used car? (I’m more reluctant to attribute it to the rise of Zipcar, because that seems like more of an urban trend than a generational trend… though if it DID turn out that my generation was migrating to urban areas so they could rely on public transit, I’d be pretty happy.)

christinelove:

Introducing the Analogue Deluxe Edition

So I’m really excited about this. For TCAF’s Bit Bazaar, I’m putting together a boxed copy of Analogue, complete with a bunch of physical goodies. It features two posters by the amazing fanartist Muju, papercraft dolls designed by my friend Adam and Raide, two embroidered mission patches¹, a Steam key for the game and OST bundle, plus an exclusive preview of the Hate Plus soundtrack by Isaac Schankler.

Honestly, this is all just stuff that I really wanted an excuse to make. Right now, I’m doing a run of 200 copies; after this, I’ll probably look into seeing if there’s demand for a second print run.

The whole thing will cost you $30. If that’s too much, don’t worry—there’s also going to be postcard versions of the posters available too!

So please, stop by Bit Bazaar this Saturday and check it out! It’s going to be really really awesome!

---

1. Fair warning: due to some timing issues, the patches are not actually going to be ready in time for TCAF. :( But I’ll be taking contact information there, and I will definitely figure out a way to send them out to anyone who buys the box there, I promise! ↩

siphersaysstuff:

atopfourthwall:

kwmurphy:

Good people: My book “A Year at the Movies” will be released as an eBook on May 14th. It’s my chronicle of the modern movie-going experience, in which I pledged to go to a theater and see a movie, every day, for an entire year.

And now, finally, it will be released in…

I’m halfway through the actual book and it’s good stuff, people.  ^_^

Wait til you get to November.

I got the book in paperback a few years ago. I think I’ve read it three times since then. Damn good.