We all know the PC and Nintendo DS are viable gaming formats full to the brim of fantastic, must-play titles and owned by the hardest of the hardcore.
What's also true is the fact that these formats are blighted by their owners, who all seem to be pirates or idiots that don't actually play real games.
They?re more likely to play Hello Kitty: Big City Dreams than something actually worth more than a millisecond of your time. Like, say, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars.
Rockstar?s latest in the series of massive-selling and really rather bloody good games has suffered the indignity of selling less than 100,000 copies, on a system that has a user base of more than 100 million worldwide.
Hecklerspray paging logic ? come in logic.
This would seem to be a prime example of what happens when people who don't actually play games are conned into buying a games machine ? they get confused and overwhelmed when it comes to buying real games.
What does this lead to? Developers fearing to release anything of real worth on the DS, bar the slew of tactical RPGs and a few puzzle games worth a punt. Instead we get lumbered with reams of shovelware and cash-in nastiness. Ruddy heck.
Let's not just blame those idiots who buy a DS because Fearne Cotton has told them to ? we can (and should) also blame the pirates. Not the violent, drunk rapists who terrorised the high seas and went on to star on so many Topman t-shirts.
No, we mean the evil downloading bastards. From hell. While it may be very easy to pick up a flashcart and download a rom that weighs in at a couple-of-minutes to download, and some people may justify it as being a way of trying before they buy (though they go on to not buy after trying), it is basically wrong.
Which brings us neatly to the fact that Demigod was released early last week: Gamestop put it up for sale early, Stardock shat themselves and were forced to release it early to avoid huge mega-piracy and then it turned out that a load of people had downloaded it anyway, and that the ambitious, imaginative and downright fun game had sold a measly 18,000 copies.
Which, if we're honest, isn't really enough to encourage developers to continue down the route of original titles.
Tim Schafer disagrees with us though, and he made Psychonauts, so we're not going to argue with him. Speaking on the Double Fine blog, the funny little bugger said:
?As long as there are creative people out there willing to fight for ideas they care about, then there is nothing that the market or anyone else can do to stop them.?
So who's right? Schafer? Us? The pirates? The idiots who ruin gaming?
Probably Schafer, if we're honest. Another case solved by hecklerspray!
THIS WEEK: The British weather failed to let us down, meaning we were forced into that most ungodly of acts ? leaving the house. At least it kept us away from Steam for a minute or two. Quick question: is it a Bad Thing to play a PSP in the park? We also ended up scared by this.
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Greek Town CasinoMichigan says
I agree mostly with you, but I think that the guilty here is nintendo. if they have done a bad machine, no one will buy it, then there will no games and that means no pirated games. that is the killing blow to the pirates. yay me!
David says
And this is the reason I sold my DS. At first I thought it may be fun to play ‘different’ games, but all the best games I could play without a touchscreen. Then there was the lack of decent games coming out and I noticed that I could play proper PES and football manager on a psp
LeslieLu says
Regarding the
Ironlung says
since when has nintendo been a hardcore gaming machine?
pirates ftw tbh kkthxbai. look at how good some of the flash games are getting. and they are all free. ok the graphics are nothing compared to xbox, ps3 and the like, but the playability is. i spend longer on Kongregate than i do my xbox.
let the piracy continue, let it stop the production of Harry Potter games, let the real visionaries of gaming get on with it. you dont need a full hollywood cast to make a game. and i dont want a mirror image of life.
In fact all i want is GTA Crackdown. anyone else disappointed when you found out Nico couldnt jump buildings and pick up cars?