TheLovablePlutonis posted:

books are for fags

Lumpy the Cook posted:

I guess that makes you a librarian

Wormskull posted:

*Sees image of 10 year old girl half naked* This might be interesting.

Regalingualius posted:

I remember thinking the first, third, and fourth Halo books were pretty interesting for shootymans books.

Then they got way less good before they went and hired Karen Traviss

How bad were the Mass Effect books? I only remember reading the one that came out before the first game, and how it was pretty "meh" when Saren wasn't being a loving sociopath.

Famous TV Dad posted:

i read the baldur's gate novelization(lol) when i was 10yo. dont remember anything about it though.

Lumpy the Cook posted:

this one might be interesting. Capcom's developers have created a lot of interesting characters. If I ever see this book for less than $10 I may buy it.

mabels big day posted:

Discount Viscount posted:

I have this one and it owns.

Abandon posted:

Candy Crush Saga is engineered for addiction, but it won't let you play for long without seemingly turning you away. The game slams on the brakes and asks you to make a choice: pay money to keep trying to solve its addictive puzzles, or stop playing and come back later. You have used up a resource — 'lives' — that can only be replenished by waiting or by paying.

Around 70% of those who have reached the final stage of the game haven't spent any money. For most players, Candy Crush Saga is in part a waiting game. This limitation — known as an 'energy mechanic' — leaves many people feeling aggravated, irritated and even manipulated. It's common for people to make a comparison to drug dealers offering a first taste for free, and then charging money after chemical dependency has set in.

"The game has no shortage of critics in the traditional games world, who claim it's a cynical, manipulative cash-grabber of a product", wrote Stuart Dredge in The Guardian. "Candy Crush Saga's a sweet treat in some ways, but one with a disappointingly bitter aftertaste," concluded a review on Pocketgamer.

This is a story about moderation and excess. It is about fear and security, innocence and ecstasy, money and labour. It is about how we manage our base desires, and what happens when computers start managing them for us.

Different cultures respond well to different mechanics in free-to-play: for example, Americans hate it when players can pay money to gain an unambiguous advantage in a competitive game, but Chinese players accept it as a normal part of life. The success of games that employ energy mechanics in Europe and America could teach us something about our own societies. How does that success relate to broader cultural mores? And why is it so hated by gaming's design literati?

In a brilliant piece of satire about reviewing AAA titles, Leigh Alexander recently wrote that 'games are about feeling powerful, and you getting your way.' This moment of cutting sarcasm is there to reflect that games like Grand Theft Auto V exist within a culture of problematic masculinity, online abuse and consumerist entitlement. This is the culture that overwhelmingly defines what high-budget games are about, how they are made, and what they aspire towards.

What happens outside of the bubble of AAA gaming, if that violence and entitlement are less prominent? What if players don't assume that they can always get what they want? I will argue in this essay that a complicated tension between indulgence and restraint is at work in many casual games.

Kylra posted:

I heard you liked video games and books.

Y-Hat posted:

no lie, i had three of these books as a kid

Bolverkur posted:

Game guides are poo poo but I didn't know that as a kid and the amazing art plus that I sucked way too much to complete this as a kid meant that I read this until it almost fell completely apart.

Y-Hat posted:

no lie, i had three of these books as a kid

DrPaper posted:

Kylra posted:

I heard you liked video games and books.