Guess who's back?

No, I'm not back. I'm just taking off-time to deliberate on our choice for GOTY 2010 (yet!). But SuperViv is back from Australia! We hope she'll resume playing where she left one year ago so we can keep chatting about games.

And big bad EA is also back as a major villain. Last week I played lots and lots of Mirror's Edge and Dead Space (both amazing games) and I was thinking "I definitely liked where EA was going a couple of years ago". Now, I'm not so sure I even like them anymore, after the evident watering-down of Bioware's games (just look at the recycled rush job they did with Dragon Age II), the Call-of-Dutization of their shooters, etc. With Activision completely out of control and Ubisoft acting crazy like a videogame-world Charlie Sheen (why would you want to sell a sexless sex game?), I don't know who can deliver us from video-game evil now. Valve? The indie developers? We will see.

Sony, you won't get my money this time

You've probably heard about Playstation Plus. For 50€/50$ a year, you get very big demos (or "full game trials", but they are still demos, right?) and lots of games:

As a member you can expect to get your hands on at least four games a month at no extra charge. Each month there will be a selection of one PSN game, two minis and one PS one classics available on PlayStation Store for you to download. You also get premium avatars and dynamic themes each month, many of which are exclusive to members.

Whaaat??? I'm sold! No, but wait, because there's a catch... You only have access to all those games as long as you subscribe. The day you stop paying the service, you lose them all (except for special offers like the downloadable version of Little Big Planet)

So your they are not really "free" games, and you are paying to keep them for a limited time. They don't use that word, but you will be renting those games. (So, if during your Playstation Plus subscription there's a special offer to buy them cheap, can you still buy them or you are stuck with this rental?) That is one of the things I hate about this current generation of digital downloads: you don't want to think about it too much, but you know that sooner or later the service will be discontinued and you won't be able to download the stuff you paid good money for anymore. So my beautiful list of games from Steam will be gone, just like that... But at least you accept that as something that will happen in the distant future. In this case, "your" games are like hostages being held by Sony, and if you ever get tired of this service, Sony will say to you "if you ever want to see your loved games alive, you have to pay the ransom!". Are you prepared to give up all the games you've collected during your time as a Playstation Plus subscriber?

I was prepared to be a day-one customer because I thought I would keep all those games. But now I'm not going to join in, even if they promise me a downloadable version of Uncharted 2 with a personalized welcome message from Nolan North... unless they change their mind so I get to keep the games. Maybe if we all rejected this system, Sony would get the message. Otherwise, they will understand that most customers see this rental as an acceptable service, and others will copy it in the same way many publishers are already copying EA's nasty Project $10, including (naturally!) giants like the evil Ubisoft, THQ, and even Sony itself!

Playstation Plus is not that great. The only "big thing" about it would be cross-game chat, and that's not even a launch-day feature (I'm sure they will offer it in the future, though). So my advice is, buy the games you want from the Playstation Store, and forget about paying to have a taste of games you'll still have to buy. Otherwise, you'll be helping to move the games industry in the wrong direction.

Breaking news! Those two guys...

Well, it's not really news, is it? Zampella & West have formed a new company. Yes, with some help from EA. Anybody surprised? No? OK.

Nothing about this is surprising. We knew the guys actually making the Modern Warfare games would leave the rotting carcass of Infinity Ward as soon as possible, and of course that has already started.

Well, maybe I'm too harsh. Infinity Ward it's not dead yet after all. They are pumping out those expensive new maps! Well, not really new, but you know. They may become another Treyarch. But then Activision will realize that they can't afford to have the same developer twice, so they will close down one of them.

Come on! It's not easy to have talented people on your team. And if you have them, you don't force them away. See what happened to now-in-name-only Guns'n Roses. Did Axl Rose really think that he was going to replace Slash and the other guys just like that?

...


UPDATE: From now on, I hope we can forget about this whole mess until Respawn releases their first game (or maybe if there's something really big happening). If you are really interested, I recommend you to follow Kotaku's great coverage.