In Other News...May 8
 

- The Japanese government rules certain game mechanics illegal. The mechanics, known as "kompu gacha" or "complete gotcha", force the player to constantly grind for random items which could be combined or traded for rare items. The Japanese government has received - and acted upon - numerous complaints and have decided that it's a form of illegal gambling. Japanese social game giants DeNA and Gree each lost about 25% of their stock market value as a result, and even publishers like Capcom and Konami lost significant value when the ruling was handed down.

- All multiplayer map packs for Starhawk will be released for free to try and avoid the player base fracturing that the original Warhawk's three map packs caused.

- The Tartarus update for Tribes Ascend went live today. It adds new maps for CTF (Tartarus) and Arena (Hinterlands) as well as the much requested loadouts for characters.

- Developer Lukewarm Media and publisher Reverb Publishing have released a new video for Primal Carnage, and both promise news on a beta and launch date should be coming soon.

So... basically that yearly Monopoly game at McDonald's would be illegal in Japan?

Also: I think people are trying to make dinosaurs into the new zombies.

Glad to see Starhawk getting free maps. Not just because I like free things, but because maps really do fragment the player base.

DLC shouldn't include multiplayer maps as it takes your online player base and divides them into silos. It is always a bad idea to segregate your community into haves and have-nots who can't play together.

Monopoly might have an out because the pieces are attached to food items. I think most of these are sold independent of any other worthwhile merchandise.

I think the Monopoly also has the 'No Purchase Necessary' rule where you can write-in to request game pieces.

I played Primal Carnage at Pax. It was pretty janky but a lot of fun. I wonder what it will cost at launch?

Well, that gacha thing seems like a stinking moneygrab, so good for them. This kinda shit ruins what games should be about and gives them a bad name.

Yeah, that gacha thing was actually in STO.

I was playing late game, and I bought a few ships, then they released one patch where you could buy keys for lock boxes that opened with a chance for you to get a ship.

I laughed at that and decided to go no where near it. That's some crazy shit and should be outlawed.

Well, this was worse. It's more like you open the box, and you get a token, let's call it token A. If you collect tokens A, B, C, D and E you get a ship. Maybe token C is particularly rare, ensuring that the ships aren't common.

Wow, what a shitty system.

I always feel two ways about such things.

A) That someone made such a shitty sysytem, and
B) That people actually support such systems with their wallets.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the ruling is aimed directly at shit like Perfect World's tactics. They are infamous for that shit, and I agree with the ruling. It's basically gambling by any other name.

As for Dinos being the new zombies, thank fuck for that. Tired of zombies.

I'm tired of both:D

I'm actually not tired of dinosaurs because all of the dinosaur games released lately have been shitty in one way or another. Just pointing out that this seems to be a new trend. I expect that after they've ran dinosaurs into the ground, we'll reset back to aliens.

illegal game mechanics...damn.

I think you guys are missing the obvious next stop.

Zombie Dinosaurs

http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs70/i/20..._VegasMike.jpg

...I know that at some point, I've seen a zombie T-rex. Anyone know where I saw such a thing?

There was a zombie dinosaur in Shinobi 3 (after godzilla got axed) i think.

Maybe it was a robot dinosaur. Those are more common.

Depending on how you define it, there was a zombie T-Rex in one of the Dresden books.

Um...Parasite Eve?

Maybe one of the Dino Crisis games too? I know I've seen it too, but it may have be in another medium