Z - Z-Boards aren't cool.

Seriously. Whoever thought this idea up... you suck.

How much more of a mess could you make something? Really. I need a keyboard to play games, but I need it to have other functions. I think that it is great that I can make my keys look different and in some cases even have different mapping options... but it's just lame.

If you have ever seen one of these things in action you know just how lame it is. You also know that swapping back and forth is a pain in the ass so all you are getting is a shitty keyboard with a "theme" to it. I guess that's cool, but at least make the keyboard a higher quality, or at least a little more durable. They keys feel a little too flat and a tad bit too small for it to even be considered a proper gaming keyboard, IMO.

Very few places seem to even want to try to make a good gaming keyboard, so we get stuck with this junk. Razer makes a very good attempt and does well, but they are hard to get your hands on... literally. There isn't a place in middle Tennessee where I can go and touch a Razer keyboard. I can't feel it and see if it is capable of gaming with me and with so many different types... how do you decide. We we start talking about sinking more than 100 bucks into a keyboard, I'd like to test drive it a little.

Logitech does have a gaming keyboard line, but the new keyboards (G110 and G19) suck. The old G15 was nice, but they are hard to find these days and I am pretty sure Logitech pulled the plug on them. Saitek makes a decent product, but they suffer the same fat as Razer. About all you can get your hands on where I live in a shitty random line of Logitech and Microsoft office-style keyboards.

I recently went in to ask GameStop why they didn't bother carrying things like that, you know... FOR GAMERS. I was basically told that as PC gamers no one cared about us. The 200 or so bucks that I was looking to drop on a mouse and keyboard wasn't as important as the 30 for that generic PS3 controller. I guess that is a good position to be in. I just wish they'd change their name. Maybe they should stop doing midnight releases for PC games, too. Since we PC gamers don't matter, at least. ConsoleGameMart sounds good. Maybe I could pitch that to the corporate douchebags that seem to call the shots around that place.

That episode and this entire disheartening month has served to reinforce my original assessment of PC gaming just being dead. However... I do have some alarming numbers. World of Warcraft's THIRD expansion (Cataclysm) managed to sell ~3.3 million copies on the first day. FIRST DAY. THIRD EXPANSION. That means you have to own the first two and the original game just to be able to play this on. 3.3 MILLION copies. Surely that kinds of following and lines out the door for stores in the middle of Tennessee could persuade you to carry a little something for us gamers... right?

Really, I wish you'd take my money. =(

Y - You are why games suck.

Yes. You.

Not you, as in the particular person reading it. More like you, meaning the general public.

Far too often the public simply accepts something that is subpar. They let a company feed them this mediocrity and they don't do anything. They just accept it. By the time they realize how kind of so-so it was they fall back into the hole. Doing it with things like the iPhone is one thing, but doing it with gaming... that is a whole different thing.

We don't need every game to conform and make everyone happy. We need good games that someone cared enough about to develop. This sloppy greedy mess of half-hearted games that Activision and EA keep pumping out are ridiculous. I am not even sure the last time I saw a game where Ubisoft actually cared. BUT YOU STILL BUY THEM!

STOP BUYING THIS SHIT. We are never going to get good games when you are so content on just buying the garbage that they have out there. Leave it on the shelf, make your good old games last a little longer and force them to make games that don't suck. If people stop buying garbage, someone will make something good and inspire the others to step it up. Kind of like how the original modern shooters started. Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, the Battlefield series. These games all competed with each other and had good followings. They were all pretty solid games, too. What all of these franchises have turned into is a disappointment.

It is disappointing because we didn't have to buy into the mediocrity of them. Their older counterparts might not look as glorious, but the gameplay was just as good, if not better. It's really kind of sad that you let it get this far. =(

X - XTREME GAMING

You know, with snowboards and shit. Skateboards and rally cars.

No, I'm just kidding, that stuff is pretty fucking stupid, IMO.

I mean, I get why skateboards are cool and why riding one makes you look cool. I understand how some people think that being crazy and dangerous is awesome, but it still isn't me. However, growing up we played the shit out of these games. You had your snowboarding games and your skateboarding games and in later years the bad ass rally car games. Hell, ever Gran Turismo had some rally inspired stuff in it. All of it was super cool and a whole lot of fun, but none of it seems to work as well these days.

Sure they have new versions of some of these games but they all managed to either dumb it down or have some dumbass gimmick that make playing it kind of pointless. I'm sure if I honed my Tony Hawk thumbs again that I'd be a badass, but I could spend my time playing plenty of other games that had a real pay off to them.

I'm not sure when the last time I even saw a snowboarding game was, yet back in my day we had 3 or so of them for the PlayStation that were pretty fun. They worked basically like a skateboarding game.... with snow. Cool tricks and neat landscapes made most of it worthwhile.

Maybe it is because we didn't have all of the Halos and CoDs so widely available to everyone that these games thrived. I don't know. All I know is that it seems like a genre that has seen much better days and doesn't look to be getting much better anytime soon.

W - Worry-free installation

What ever happened to the days when you simply installed something and it worked. You just popped it in and clicked the EXE and BOOM... there it was. Things did used to be that simple, minus the swapping of disks.

Now there is a hassle. You have to wait for your auto-run to fire up and bring up the awkward game menu. You then have to select to install that game. Now if you don't want the game in a random Program Files directory you have to go through an "advanced" set up. It's a shitty process and a pain in the ass. After that you have to go through updates and revisions. Downloading them in the awkward packages that the game has available.

And then....

You cross your fingers and hope that it runs. Is there a driver issue with your video card driver that you have installed right now? What about the one from 2 months ago? Is there an issue with a sound driver? Is it being blocked by the firewall? Is there an awkward DRM that is causing issues?

As you try to figure out the crash, you go over all of these things in your head.

Why aren't we in an age where we have everything streamlined? It feels like after this many years we should have a unified format or at leasts two distinct formats that are used about equally.

V - Virtual Reality

They have the technology to put a "screen" in your eyeball now. How awesome is that? But are we any closer to "virtual reality"? Have we already found it?

When you look at the games of today they are so good and so polished that some might argue they are types of virtual reality. We can dive into another world and assume a role, but we aren't really surrounded by it. It isn't quite like the Tron VR that we were all expected. Less Lawnmower Man, more good imagination.

VR really hasn't made much headway and seems a lot less popular. I can't tell if it is because technology just passed it over because it wasn't going to be affordable enough to market to the masses or if it just sucked. I'd love to think that I could be so into an experience that I'd think it was real. The goggles, the stupid movement suit... I mean, how could that not be cool? Then I think about what Kinect is doing for people. Sensors can read the eyes, you ARE the controller, and you see your actions reflected on screen. Isn't this kind of like what we thought the VR would be like... just with less shit strapped to us.

I don't know what the future holds of it, but I'd like to see VR make a sort of come back. The 80s seem to be making a comeback themselves, maybe this is the perfect time. I'd rather see it move forward that fuck around with 3D TV.

U - Uninspired

Everything in the PC gaming world seems to be very uninspired these days. From the gameplay to the graphics to the character development. Why don't they care anymore?

Yes, there are some gorgeous games out. Games that look absolutely amazing. Games that are awe-inspiring to look at. Games with visuals that I wasn't sure that I'd ever see. Then you realize... it's just a slightly higher pixel count than what came before it and you still see those jagged edges. Crank the graphics as much as you want. Turn your AA and AF up, but you'll still see it... because you care.

The games LOOK fantastic, but it's all stuff we have seen before. Rarely are we given a new and interesting approach. Jungle, desert, spaceship, urban cityscape, creepy underground dungeon area. We've seen them all before. I know there isn't a whole lot out there to explore. Prey really flipped the world upside down. You played in two worlds, the visuals weren't amazing, but they were cool enough that you didn't care. It was an interesting take on conventional gameplay.

The character development has been going downhill for a while. You have this good guy who is kind of walking the line between good and bad, sort of. It's kind of cheap and lame. What about something that is less in the middle or where you complete a game without massive casualties? Look at how well Portal played out. Amazing game with a deep story and the character never had to develop. We still don't know much about the character in the game. We get subtle hints along the way, but nothing substantial. At least they aren't a super psycho laying waste to city streets.

Gameplay has continued to become frighteningly repetitive. Which is probably our fault. We find a formula that works and then we want it everywhere. What CS did for shooters, what WoW has done for MMOs. It just works and it's still good. We still have games where you hit E to get into a Jeep, start it up and start driving. Interaction is completely overlooked. Why can't there be a chance that it doesn't start? It's not that I want realism, but I want variety.

Everything just seems so uninspired. No one is trying to push the envelope or innovate. We simply stagnate. How many Halos or CoDs do we have to go through to get something that is new and inspired? TF2 is probably better than both of those games, but doesn't get near the respect because it isn't a console success. It's sad. Then again, TF2 and their mall is pretty sad these days... but that's a rant for a different day.

T - Television... for gamers

Fuck you G4.

You are terrible. You have almost completely passed over PC gamers. Not to mention you don't have much real content anymore. Your tech driven shows are mostly gone. Cops and Cheaters take up way too much air time and AoTS and X-Play have gone downhill... a lot.

I used to love TechTV. I even liked G4 years ago. I don't know why you struggled so hard to change what made you so good. It may have not been exploding your bank account, but you had solid people that did good work and cared about what it was you were trying to do.

I don't even know how you can call yourself TV for gamers anymore.

I'd like to see a return to the random machina that used to be played. No more dumbass cartoons or shitty Cops and Cheaters marathons. We need awesome shows that don't suck. Come up with an original reality show. Find a good, but lesser known, pro gamer and follow him around. Allow some people to put together documentaries. Give console and PC equal time. Get some more TechTV style segments back on the air. AoTS isn't bringing in an audience, the show sucks and you're just chasing off the people you have left with it.

Basically, you should just hire me to show you how to run it. We will turn that station around and make everyone happy. Promise.

S - Supply and Demand

The thing that fuels this great country. The business model that makes it all go round. The same thing that seems to be ruining PC gaming.

There are plenty of developers out there that they could be making something for PC, but they aren't. We get told it is because there isn't a market or that PC gamers don't contribute as much money into the industry... but, we all know that's crazy. Rocking out with 500 dollar video cards and PCs valuing well over a thousand bucks, when any Joe Tardbucket can get one at Walmart for 350 bucks. I want a keyboard and mouse set that costs more than one of these consoles... I know they aren't seriously passing us over because we don't put money it.

The problem is we aren't DEMANDING the games like the consolers are. We aren't doing much of anything these days. We take the left over and shitty titles, and we just keep taking it. At this rate you'd think that they'd be lowering the price for PC games, not upping them to the price of the console-counterparts.

I would like to see people start DEMANDING a higher quality of game. Sure they won't start shipping immediately, but at least we could start doing something. We have been treated like shit for long enough now. We need to step it up and start muscling our way in on the console crowd. They are dumbing down gaming to a point where pretty soon we might as well be sleeping during a movie. =X

R - Rating system for games.

IT ISN'T WORKING!

When you go out and buy the latest Call of Duty for your 10 year old son, so that he can blow up his buddies on XBox Live... the rating system isn't working. If I put a set of tits on that insurgent you'd notice... wouldn't you?

I'm all for people playing what they want and others not stepping in with insane rules and regulations, but this is a bit overboard. We don't have a solid and hammered out ratings board and no one really knows what makes a game what or how to rate it. I would like to see something happen with this system or I'd like to see them adopt a system like movies. I know the MPAA probably wouldn't want you to adopt the movie rating system, but it is at least easy to understand. We have used it enough that we all know that R means that you probably shouldn't dump your kid in front of it. The word "mature" just isn't as gripping as "restricted".

You assume Junior is all grown up for a 10 year old and can totally handle the desensitization that is going to come from blowing his buddies asses off for years, right? Wrong. When I was growing up we played Mario and Double Dragon. They were fun and cool and contained small doses of pseudo violence. These games are gory and bloody and contain some very detailed ragdoll physics. I am a grown person and understand that this is a game, but some kids... can't. If you were ever worried for your child watching Rambo, this should scare you shitless... because now THEY ARE INTERACTING.

Again, I love freedom and I love gaming, but I think a rating system needs to be put into place so that parents understand what their kids are getting. Stop parking your kids in front of a TV with a violent war game and then not understanding when they ask for an AR-15 for their 13th birthday.

Q - Quit with the social commentary.

I don't need another game trying to tell me how bad the war in Iraq is.

Every form of media is telling me how awful I should feel for the soldiers and how we have no right to be over there. That may be true, but I don't need it shoved in my face on such a regular basis. Shitty things happen and then 10 years go by and the results of that one shitty thing has turned into a 10-year long campaign against reacting to shitty things. No thank you.

It is bad enough that it is in the papers and all over the news instead of, let's say, important shit that should be covered. Now it is in music and movies. Rapper and hard rockers alike telling me all about how Afghanistan is crazy, dawg. How those soldiers need our love and respect. Yawn. Movies covering not just this visit to the desert, but the last one we had, as well. It's just getting so out of control.

And now you, video games. Now you're going to push this shit on me. I know what a shitty fucking wasteland looks like, you can't fool me. I know where I am going and I know who I am fighting. America's Army, Call of Duty, Battlefield, and now MoH. I know what you are doing and I want you to stop. I would love to see various locations, but I'd really much rather skip the wasteland and go back to the jungle. At least Battlefield can be counted on to make it interesting and dump me back in a Vietnam setting... but the social retardation from that era is still there.

Can't we just keeping video games fun? I'd rather not play the news for entertainment.

P - Porn games need a shelf.

We all know why we have PCs... TO LOOK AT PORN. Believe it or not there is actually a niche for porn gaming. I think it is time for it to get it's own "shelf" at the gaming shops.

Porn has helped win many debates and help decide which medium would advance the farthest. I would like to think that porn can help computer gaming if they can make it out into the mainstream or just have one wildly successful game. All we need is a World of Porncraft and they'd forget all about consoles.

In recent news Microsoft has publicly come out and said that they will not allow the release of porn games for the XBox 360. I guess the popularity of the Kinect had the porn game programmers all excited (sans boner) about the capabilities in the new porn games. A few thrust motions later and there are cease and desist orders. Apparently they want to keep a family friendly feeling about them, because realistic shooters are exactly what your 10 year old child should be playing!

As stupid as the statement from Microsoft sounded, it did make me realize that we have lots of hope. PC is home to porn and can help fuel that gaming machine. They have a line of "USB fucktoys" that could easily interface with PC games have create a level of gaming that the console couldn't touch (sans boner).

O - Old games were better

Let's just go ahead and face it. The older games were amazing.

Sure, the graphics weren't as good and some of the stories were mediocre, but the games... they had love. Getting games in a baggy or a set of 5.25 floppies was awesome. Finding the coolest game ever on CD in a weird shaped box that somehow pertained to the title or plot was cool. We don't have that kind of flare, excitement or love surrounding these current games. It's pretty lame.

We used to have a whole lot of fun and take a lot of freedom with the games we had "back in the day". Remember when you could mod stuff? Tribes had a huge modding community. Counter-Strike started out as a mod for Half Life... so did Team Fortress. Unreal Tournament had a ton of custom maps and rulesets. Quake and Doom both had loads of extras and some pretty famous WAD and PK files. Now we have to buy our recycled Modern Warfare 2 maps. Oh how far we have fallen. =(

I don't know if there was a monetizing issue or not, but it really kind of sucks. I miss old games, but at the same time... I'm glad that we have these new gorgeous looking games. It makes me miss the gameplay of the old stuff, but reminds me how hideous the visuals were.

N - New games suck

Some people say that new games suck and I try to argue that Crysis was groundbreaking in more than just the visuals and that WoW has really done a lot for the industry... but just because I say these things, doesn't mean that I actually believe them. I just say it because I want to believe that PC gaming isn't going downhill.

When was the last game that really blew your mind? Mass Effect, which I haven't played, is the normal response for most people. The answer isn't ever the gameplay, but more or less the voiced options and dialog that win. So... you don't want fun or interesting gameplay, you want cool sounding audio chatting? Okay...

While I can't say what I feel about Mass Effect, it just doesn't seem like it is the total package. I loved Dragon Age: Origins, but the game felt a little empty, even though it was pretty epic. I was told that Mass Effect is as epic as DA:O, but with better chat options. Is that suppose to inspire confidence in me? It didn't. It actually made me second guess what people are even looking for in a game.

There have been some very fun and interesting games in the last few years, but how many of them really rival the gaming spirit of Zork? What about The Longest Journey? Hell, what about Daggerfall? These new games just don't seem to have all of the pieces in place to challenge for "best game" status, but they sure do create a bunch of hype over how mediocre the game is. It is kind of sad. =(

M - Mobile gaming.

Mobile gaming is a complete myth. It isn't real, because you can't do it. Sure you can play something your handheld, but it is a lot like a Wii. Just because you're playing a game, doesn't mean you are gaming.

Laptops built for gaming are a whole different beast, but the other mobile solutions are just hilarious. I think it is great that you can play Doom on your iPhone or Android device, but that is a game that is almost two decades old. Not very impressive. The power of the current netbooks is also laughable, when it comes to any sort of real gaming experience. Sure, a Nintendo DS or PSP can give you limited on the game playtime, but it isn't really comparable to the console or desktop PC experience.

I have a few games on my phone, but they aren't amazing or super interactive. Small city builders or sim games that are easily managed and not very "game-y". However the entire gaming and tech revolution seems to be ushering us toward some sort of mobile era. I think we may need to backtrack a bit and remember what is still important in 2011. THE GAMER.

How many of us, console of PC alike, really want something smaller than a controller in our hand trying to "game". I can't pwn n00bz with that. And we all know, that is really what matters. =P

L - Latency

Why is it that over the past 10 years many things have changed, but latency still plays such a large role in the success of most online games. Those with lower pings consistently do better and find themselves at a huge advantage. In several more modern games they are even more unbalanced (because they are hosting the game) and make it impossible to have any sort of real competition via the game.

I thought surely programmers and providers could get past this sort of barrier and allow the game to compensate better (like games did almost 15 years ago) or the servers and providers could hammer out some of the issues to even out pings. The difference between 160 and 60 are insane. The difference between 30 and 60 is pretty big, too. It has been a problem for a long time, but with so many people on high speed internet the gap has closed a little, but not by enough.

Development left behind the thought of packet smoothing, apparently. Years ago, the original FPS games that helped kick off this revolution, had very good ping adjustments. Things updated more quickly. Everyone now and then you'd get some jumpiness, but everything evened out pretty well and the hitboxes worked like a charm. Somehow we have made countless jumps in power and design, but failed to fix this issue? Why? LPBs and HPBs are a thing of the past, yet latency is even more important today. It's sad.

It must have something to do with console gamers, because a lot of the games today are ports. Consoles must handle the packets differently or something, I'm not quite sure. All I know is I am looking forward to a day when everything is so fast that we don't even sweat a ping and everyone is in single-digits.

K - Killing nazis and zombies is really getting boring.

I am sick of these being the two main bad guys of every shooter. Please, for the love of all that is holy, figure out something better.

I don't care if we carry around tampons and throw them at retarded pickle monsters, please get rid of nazis and zombies. Sure, it is fun to kill both, but I'd like to think that in 2011 we have something more fun and interesting to kill. Just because you call them undead or fascists, doesn't mean that they aren't the same thing. Please, push gaming forward and save us all a lot of headaches.

We would love to see a fresh idea that didn't always break down into some sort of crazy tyrannical overlord with a sever case of megalomania or dead / infected people coming back and fucking us all up. We can have new stuff. We can make games that are off the beaten path. People would still play them. I would and I know thousands of others that would breathe a deep sigh of relief. Yes, nazis and zombies are both terrible, but I'd like a change of pace.

J - Justifying your gaming.

Why do we always have to be so defensive? Why does our hobby and form of entertainment always have to be something that most considering childish or immature? I don't understand. Watching some whore from New Jersey make wads of cash off of being a stupid bitch isn't any more justifiable than what I am doing. I am probably having more fun, though.

As a gamer, especially one who plays WoW, I find myself fighting off tons of questions that seem very stupid. Yes, I play WoW. No I don't always breathe through my mouth. Yes, I have a job. No, I don't live in my mom's basement. Yes, I am married and there is a chick who actually has sex with me. No, my face isn't filled with acne and I have seen the sun in the past year.

It is ridiculous that we, as PC gamers, get berated while the console douchebags are unscathed. Like playing the latest version of Modern Warfare doesn't make you a huge fucking nerd. It is still a game and you're still screaming at a box while playing it.

Please understand that for some people gaming is not only social, but also very entertaining. It isn't a second life to escape, it is kind of like TV for us. I'd rather play WoW than watch most TV shows. It is both a hobby and entertainment. Sure, it takes up a chunk of time, but I am having fun and not hurting anyone. I proudly sport my WoW hoodie and I enjoy playing all of the games that I do, they're fun. Once gaming isn't fun anymore, I'll give it up... but for now, it's still a blast.

I - Insane gaming prices.

Why would I pay 60 dollars for a PC game? The game is only going to be "playable" at the level that is acceptable to gamers for about a year. I didn't get a subsidized price on my PC. Why should I have to pay console prices for bad ports to PC? It doesn't make any sense.

For years console games have been higher priced. The reason behind this is because you get the console so cheap. Yes, XBox fans, your precious console is just as expensive as a PC. You, however, get to pay 10-20 bucks more for your games to make up for it. They subsidized the price of your console, just like they do for cell phones, and then tax your ass on the back end with higher game prices of "premium" services. I will talk about XBox Live later, don't worry.

PC games are now starting an alarming trend of going the 60 dollar route. Most notable are the two feuding FPS titles Medal of Honor: Tier 1 and Call of Duty: Black Ops. Both of these carry a steep 60 dollar price tag and don't offer anything special for it. What happened to the days of dedicated servers and modable games? Remember when we could play custom levels? The days of Tribes, Counter-Strike and Unreal Tournament seem to be completely over. We get small boxes and only get solid new maps when we pay for them later. Ugh.

I am very disappointed with the industry and the outrageous prices that they are charging. I hope that people either don't buy the games or opt for a cheaper alternative. Neither game is really outstanding or even feels new and intuitive, it's the same old rehashed shit you've already played. You just spent 60 bucks to play the newest version with your buds. I'd rather spend 40 bucks and get shitfaces with my buddies and then play Counter-Strike, which is like 5 bucks now. It may not be as pretty, but it's probably better than any of the CoD games.

H - Half-Life 3 or Episode 3 needs to come out.

I don't care which one happens, just do it. Come on Valve! You are killing me. I need to play the next chapter of this and you are making it hard for me.

An amazing game, compelling story. We are so close to getting involved in a game to a point that we might actually cry. We might be able to go back and say "yes, a game can make you cry". Please don't just leave us here. Don't forget about us. I know Portal 2 is important, but Half Life has carried your company for a long time.

There isn't much more to really say about it, just get it done. We are all waiting for it and will shell out the cash as soon as it becomes available. Maybe by this summer you'll have it done, so you can take a nice long vacation. Right? =(

G - Garbage in, garbage out.

Gaming studios need to hire higher quality employees and treat them better.

When you get bottom-feeding shitsucks for programmers and then you treat them like shit and pay them next to nothing... you get shit games. That is where we are. So many different places get game designers from shitty places and then put them on projects that they have no right being on and then treating them like crap when they don't come through. They then push the product harder and release a flaming bag of shit and defend it.

WHY?!

Please get quality people. There are quality people all over that do damn fine work. Multiple studios are capable of pushing out great stuff with a huge time gap. Valve and Blizzard always have good stuff and they seem to have happy employees and a higher quality of games. These things to parallel. EA has been slowly slipping down the shitter for years and are known to be some of the most hateful employers in the gaming industry.

I want good games. I am willing to pay for good games. I need you to MAKE good games. I bunch of C students from the shitty graphics arts school aren't going to cut it. The guys that put together the Unreal engine actually care about what they are doing and always do a great a job. They seem inspired to do great work, not because they make a ton of cash, but because they REALLY like it and they believe in what they are doing. What happened to that kind of game crafting?

F - Final Fantasy is now ridiculous.

Come on guys. I think that once we got to the one dozen mark someone should have thought about just making another Chronotrigger.

The latest incarnation of the game is another multi-platform MMO game. I don't know how it is doing or if it is actually picking up speed. All I know is that I am not going to play it and I really hope that the end is drawing near for these games. The shitty emo characters and bad hair of the last half dozen games just doesn't inspire me.

While Final Fantasy 7 really helped push the genre forward, I wasn't a fan of the huge change. I enjoyed the first 6 and hoped for the best with 7. Final Fantasy games since then have failed to really wow me and haven't broken the mold as much as FF7 did. I think it is time for a reboot and a fresh new feel for the franchise. I mean more than adding standard RPG elements (like real time fighting and not fights you randomly stumble into), but something more unique that makes the world feel new and exciting again.

I look forward to seeing huge improvements, especially with as fast as the technology has moved the last few years, but I just hope to see the games keep up. Good Luck.

E - Entertainment

PC gaming is entertainment.

Those guys playing WoW aren't watching movies or reading books. Entertainment to them IS playing a game. Gaming is now a legitimate form of entertainment, just like Risk was years ago, gaming is today. You can get online and play with buddies and have a great time. You can even toss on a headset and SPEAK to REAL LIVE people. I know a lot of you think we are crazy, but we aren't. We are having a good time... virtually. A guy with a huge paintball gun collection isn't a nutjob, he is an enthusiast... that is what we are.

Gone are the days of elitism. Now every single fucking dickhead frat boy has a 360 and thinks that CoD and Madden are cool. I've been playing both games on PC for... about a decade. You aren't cool and you aren't even the first person to be doing it. All you are doing is being a douchebag. People recognize games much more clearly today than they ever have because of the casual explosion and that is great. But you must understand that this is a replacement for ENTERTAINMENT. We aren't nerds or anti-social. We are using a different kind of Facebook, we call it Steam, and it tells us where our buddies are kicking ass.

D - DRM is a waste of time and money.

Just stop, please.

I love games. I love them so much that I actually buy them. After I buy them I get stuck dealing with annoying DRM that installs a rootkit or that refuses to allow me to play the game when I reinstall my OS because I have activated it too many times in a certain period of time... or ever.

WHAT?!

Since when does a game company have the right to tell me that a game that I PAID FOR cannot be played because I updated my PC to play it better or lost a drive suddenly. How retarded is that? How fucking stupid do they really think consumers of PC games are? Obviously, pretty fucking stupid, because we eat this shit up. Some of the most popular games have been riddled with issues caused by DRM. BioShock is my favorite example, because it crushed me.

I got BioShock, pre-order, from Direct2Drive. I downloaded it, activated it, then had several issues with the game, as a result of the DRM rootkit and then the poor performance, partially because of the DRM. So... I do a lot of things and eventually format. Well, turns out that I used up all of my activations. So after I uninstall it and then try later to install it (when a patch finally comes out to fix a lot of the issues in the game) I can't. I had used up my activations and now I have to fill out what seems like an application just to be able to play my game. The whole time I know I can get online, find a torrent and just play the damned game. But NOOOOOO! I paid for the game and I go through the proper channels to get it sorted out. A few days later I get an email telling me that they "will allow me" to play the game again. OH, how sweet of them to let me play the game I bought.

What a shitty experience. That isn't the only game. There has been DRM that was cracked when the game was in beta, not to mention all of the stuff they are trying to stuff into music and videos now. Give it a rest. No one wants that stuff. If I pay a dollar for a SONG, I want the song. I used to pay 12 bucks for a CD, now it's 20 for the same CD and the music isn't any better on it. We are over the old way and have moved on to something else. You can than Napster for infecting a whole new generation of music-listeners. They used to just record stuff on tape, now we just download it off the internet.

No amount of DRM is going to stop someone who wants to steal. All it is doing is harming those who actually paid for you product. Please, stop it. If you want people to buy your product, make one that is worthy of the 50 dollar price tag, or bring it down to 20 bucks or so. If MoH was 30 bucks right now, I'd buy it. I really want to play it, but I refuse to pay 60 bucks for a game that will be dead in a year. It's stupid.

Seriously, fucking stop it.

C - Comcast spells monopoly.

For those of you looking for a high speed gaming connection you have pretty limited options, especially where I am. I have Comcast. AT&T will offer me a slow service for a little less, but just can't compete. Comcast is blazing fast and doesn't seem too keen on letting anyone else in the area where I live.

I'd love to have Charter or even Time Warner. I'd love to have an option. I have recently switched to a package where I use TWO modems and stream most of my TV via a standard (15 mb down / 3 mb up) Comcast cable connection. I use the other connection (50 mb down / 10 mb up) for gaming. I no longer have a need for bloated HD cable TV, because the internet gives me everything I need. However, in the world of gaming... every single megabyte counts. Ping is very important as is the stability of your connection. While I had plenty of spotty service with Comcast in the past, since paying so much for the premium service... not so much as a hiccup.

I don't know why or what keeps other services from coming in, but I have to imagine it is the grip that Comcast already holds. People like my in-laws and my parents will refuse to live without cable, because they don't know how. All the knew is the TV and that remote. Trying to explain how to use Netflix on the Wii is almost exhausting (not to mention the Wii can't show HD with Netflix). We need to push forward and show the cable company that all we need some them is bandwidth now. I think we send two messages by doing that. One, that we know how valuable the internet is and we know how cheap bandwidth is. Second, we are willing to go to another provider for a service that is just as good. Getting a service in that didn't carry broadcasting would be much easier than one that did.

I am stuck with Comcast and it is what I use. It is pretty fast with this fancy new connection, but I think it is just a luxury now. I have a decent job and can afford it, but I am not sure that for the average consumer the pricepoint is there yet.

B - B is for Blizzard's merger

Ahh yes, B. One of my favorite letters.

Today we are going to discuss Blizzard and how they merged with Activision. We covered part of this with A, but I think it deserves a double-dose of anger.

Blizzard, a company who puts out games that go viral, somehow felt the need to further flex their gaming muscle with a merger with Activition. We covered all of the awful and horrible things that Activision managed to do, but not what Blizzard, themselves, had done. Blizzard gave way to this merger, though stood to gain little, while at the same time failing to keep the integrity of the company. From a business standpoint I am sure this is great, from a gaming standpoint... very, very bad.

What happens when a company who makes great games and produces hit after hit merges with a company who is catering to the lowest common denominator of gaming? Shit. Absolute garbage. The abortion that is Starcraft II combined with the uninspired, but almost back on track latest WoW expansion just doesn't give me hope for the future. WoW has been a legendary game to this point and has exceeded most, if not all, expectations for PC gaming, the MMO genre and everything in between.

I wish that Blizzard and Activision had simply formed into a huge company sharing a single name, instead of each trying so desperately to keep their own, yet share profits from each other. It's just a clusterfucker of stupid. I can't even tell who to blame for this. At least there are people still developing for PC, maybe these guys will help fuel the next upswing of PC gaming. Here is to hoping.

A - Activision means Asshole in Gamer.

To start off my month full of anger, I am going to start with... A. Duh. I told you it was A-Z.

Where better to start than what I consider to be part of the downfall of the current PC shooters, Activision. Poor concepts and recycled themes lead to destroying the Call of Duty games just to make a few bucks.

Aside from bastardizing what could have been a front-runner in a tight shooter race years ago, Activision also managed to infuriate gaming fans by shitting on an old franchise. Starcraft. Sure, Starcraft is actually a Blizzard franchise, but since the combination of the two companies, everything is a 50/50. That means the fucking abortion of a game that is Starcraft falls squarely into the lap of Activision as well. Awesome!

Selling us old maps from old games (MW maps for MW2) wasn't bad enough, now they are selling us a 3-part game one part at a time. Sweet! Because I didn't want a finished product after all these years. Right? We watched as the Starcraft shooter fell apart and faded away. We watched as consoles got a taste of Starcraft love... sort of. We finally get the franchise back to PC and in a format that we all knew and loved AND YOU FUCK IT ALL UP?! WHAT IN THE FUCK?! Why?!

Oh yeah... money.

Activision also managed to cash in on a mediocre Transformers game, too. It was so forgettable that I almost forgot to even mention it. Activision did manage to release a new Guitar Hero and DJ Hero game, though. Since we know that ALL gamers really love being ignored. What is sad, is I bet both of those silly time-wasters probably sold better than most of the best PC games released in the last 3 years. Not only were they unable to not give us a decent experience on PC, but they are obviously shifting their focus AWAY from PC.

I don't even want to get started on the shitty port that is Black Ops, or the fact that people couldn't play it online, or even at all, for weeks. Who do you have testing this stuff? Oh yeah... console fucktards. Sometimes, I think that I should just get a console so I can play finished games of a decent quality. Le Sigh.

Fuck you, Activision, you're awful. You managed to further corrupt one franchise you've been whoring out for years, decided to shit on another and the only good thing you put out this year was Blur... Really? A racing game? Ugh! Please die in a fire.

The alphabet of anger.

I'm going to start with an A-Z angerfest to start the year off right and to add an absurd amount of posts to this blog that has sat idle. Not that anyone actually reads it, but maybe I can find my place on the internet, after all.

I'm going to tear open assholes and crush infant skulls. I'm going to give goods, bads, uglies and the in-betweens on shit from A-Z, literally. Going to start on Tuesday/Wednesday. My shift doesn't allow me to have a normal schedule, so I can't really say...

Get ready. Seriously. PC gaming is dead and I'm pretty upset about it. This holiday season has only helped to infuriate me even more of it's passing.