This Blog is intended to be a manifesto on my attempt to become a civilian. For many years I have shamelessly stockpiled ill-gotten booty, blatantly scoffing at the constant corporate blathering about the disappearance of the industry. Now many years later I realize that this, in a different way, is exactly what is happening.While Gaming is not going anywhere, hell it's becoming the pay-per-play model that the movie industry has wanted all along, it is shifting in an important way. PC was the place to be, had the latest hardware advancements and was pushing innovation in capability and visual panache. Now the industry has moved from innovation to cultivation, dumbing down gameplay, removing interactivity in lieu of cinematic gushing and utilizing round, pretty, sparkly shapes so that grandma's pension is no longer outside the tipping of coffers.
This pussifying of the entertainment has lead to the console becoming the forefront of the industry. PC gamers are now subjected to waiting with foreign plastic input devices for delayed releases of console games that barely function on hardware that is so superior, you feel you are comparing calculators to Deep Thought. But don't fool yourself, the bigger culprit in the war of the HID's is simply Piracy.
Stop your "but.. but.. but.." right there and shutup - You are not talking to some civilian-turned-politician who has never even seen a ack request. We both know it's theft, we just didn't care; "screw the fatcats and their greed - they can afford it. Games aren't going anywhere." It's what I thought, it's what you think - spare me. What we have done to the industry is create a Fascist, DRM-ridden rental mentality where we as gamers will never own a single game we buy. Yes I said have - Read your EULA.
I by no means believe that the industry is in any way altruistic, nor do I delude myself that piracy does not have it's place in keeping things honest. I do however realize that given the course, if things don't change we will be stuck 'renting' online services for everything and the PC will be nothing more than a dumb terminal.
My reasoning for this Blog is simple; to contribute to the positive movements, to document my transformation and the pains of doing so. Replacing pirated software with open-source and freeware or, god forbid, buying the software I require on a daily basis. I will link the best freeware and open sourced software I find and use myself, pass on and write reviews and stories on the industry that I feel is relevant and useful, and on occasion fly off on a rant or two about likely unrelated topics.
