Yeah, I think lack of interest is the biggest reason, but there are plenty of sexism horror stories out there. Besides the real jerks, you throw a mildly attractive woman in a room with a bunch of geeks, and some stupid stuff can happen. It's good to have successful women in the industry speak out like this and encourage others to join. Women bring a different perspective, which can result in better games.
Long term, I can see why Valve would go this route, but for now only a small percentage of my Steam games will run on Linux... unless they do something with WINE, but I doubt that. If this is true, it kinda kills it for me, along with my thoughts that this could be the next big console. Still, I think Valve is great and wish them success. We'll see what happens, but for now, I'll continue to drag my PC into the living room when I occasionally want to play a Steam game on the TV.
@Rat_King No, I always assumed there would be a controller, but personally I'd like access to my full Steam collection (not just controller-based games), so maybe a keyboard and mouse in addition to that, either at initial console release or later. It's all hypotheticals at this point, and eventually I think they will something more innovative, but step one I think is to make it easy to play PC games in the living room.
@Rat_King Most of that was tongue-in-cheek, but don't misunderstand... I love Steam and I think Valve is great. I hope they can continue to be independent for many years to come. They just can't do a $1,000 console, and there is only so much power you can pack in at a low price point. Also, if there is a "SteamBoard", I think it will be done right, making keyboard/mouse usable in the living room instead of unwieldy. I just think that would make it expensive. Here's hoping it comes with the original console.
I picked up AOE3 complete for 10 cents (yes really!) a couple of years ago during a one-day sale at gamesforwindows.com. I haven't played it much (it's still in my queue), but that's close enough to F2P that I never bothered with AOEO.
I like the art style and music. F2P makes this one a tough sell. The business model looks ok, but unlike other Kickstarter campaigns, it doesn't feel like you get a lot of value for your contribution. You truly are contributing to see the game finished. I'll pass on this one, but I do hope they meet their goal.
My predictions: XBox will indeed be called "XBox", since they are already renaming everything to do with gaming that, including PC gaming. It will unfortunately be underpowered, basically running Windows 8, and bringing more of the mobile experience to the living room, because the suits think Angry Birds is more important than Halo.
Meanwhile, SteamBox will gain traction in the console space, although it too will be hammered on by PC gamers for not being as powerful or open as a "real" PC and only running Steam games, first those that support controllers. Valve will alleviate this somewhat by releasing the "SteamBoard", a keyboard and mouse combination for the couch, which at $150+ will be hard to stomach. Valve will subsequently make this all obsolete by releasing VR glasses and gloves that actually work in 2014-15... but I'm getting ahead of myself. :)
Crap. I've been watching all the Bond movies, and I wanted to pick these up when they got cheap. This is the problem with IP-based games. They just disappear one day with no warning when the publisher decides to no longer pay for the license. Poor timing if you ask me. With the recent release of the new movie and all the old movies on Blu-ray, demand might have went up.
A fine choice. I picked it up about a week ago after IGN named it Game of the Year. Honestly, I didn't expect it to win here, but I'm happy with that. Instead of playing myself, I invited my wife (a non-gamer) to play through while I watched and helped from time to time. Once she got the hang of the PS3 controls, she did well and we enjoyed the play through. We couldn't have that experience with the other nominees, but beyond that, the judges are right. This is a beautiful game, there were lots of "oohs" and "aahs" while we played. Plus it feels great and draws you in to the environment (we had to get blankets during the winter level). Overall, this idea of feeling triumphant without killing anything makes it different than other games. It truly is a special game, and if you get the chance to play it, you should
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