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The Think Tank: Should the government regulate video game content?
While government regulation is welcomed in some corners of our lives, it's not always welcomed everywhere. After recent gun violence has been making headlines more than ever, U.S. President Barack Obama set out to "find the cause" through new funding for 23 executive orders that pertain to the origins of gun violence. Vice President Joe Biden then met with experts in the video game industry to discuss the possibility that video games themselves are the cause. And probably that rock 'n' roll music, too. Darn kids! Certainly we here at Massively have our own opinion on this matter, as video game violence legislation would affect us all. Read on past the cut to see what we have to say about government regulation for our favorite hobby.
The Think Tank: What elements make up your perfect business model?
The topic of the MMO business model is a hot one lately as studios are in the Wild West of experimentation, discovery, and limit-testing. New games are going free-to-play every week it seems, and we, as consumers, are accepting more and more as these business models become standard. But that's certainly not always the case. Among the Massively staff, pricing opinions run the gamut, and we're not afraid to tell you what we think. That's why this week's Think Tank column is all about how we would assemble our own perfect business models from the pieces of others. Who does it right? Who does it wrong? Read along for more on our thoughts for the perfect business model.
The Think Tank: Massively's 2013 MMO predictions
We're spending this edition of The Think Tank to explore our predictions for next year's MMO-scape. Which games will launch? Which games will be postponed or cancelled? Will we see any innovations in the MMO space? Remember, these are our own individual opinions and may not align with yours, so be ready for that. Also be sure to take a look back at the previous year's predictions and see how close or far from reality we were!
The Think Tank: What's your solution to save closing MMOs?
In the spectrum of entertainment, MMOs are still relatively young. When the original MMOs were created in the late '90s, I don't imagine the innovators thought much about what would happen if millions of people got hooked on these games, built solid relationships, put thousands of hours into their characters... and then it all went away. The consequence of that unique situation is a lot more painful than most early developers could have imagined, yet it's happening more frequently. With the closure of popular MMOs like Star Wars Galaxies, City of Heroes and more, some players are a bit irritated at the genre as a whole. Not too many other time-investment hobbies can completely go away as quickly as an MMO. So what does the Massively staff think is the solution? Do we turn to F2P publishers to throw some cash shop Band-Aids on the game and nudge it back into the wild? Do we bypass legal avenues and look at emulators? Is there even such thing as a solution?
The Think Tank: Is Kickstarter a fad or the new standard?
The funny thing about opinions is that everyone has one. While we celebrate that fact on an individual basis with our wildly popular column The Soapbox, often times the rest of the Massively team wants to weigh in on a particularly hot topic as well. Think Tank is a new column that will act as a roundtable of opinions from the Massively staff on today's hottest MMO topics. We're all MMO gamers, and we all love to talk about the genre, so this is our place to do it. And as always, you're welcome to share your own opinion and let us know what you think about the topic each week in the comments. For this inaugural installment, we're going to tackle the question of crowdfunding. Is Kickstarter just a fad, or will it redefine game publishing as we've known it?
Massively staff picks for 2010 and the decade
With the comment section of our Player's Choice Awards still simmering at a low boil, we've decided to unleash our own staff picks for 2010 and the last decade. This one wasn't put to a vote; we each simply named our favorites in a few distinct categories, explaining a few along the way. As with all of our articles marked with the shiny opinion tag, this post consists entirely of our separate opinions on what we did or didn't enjoy. We have a staff made up of a wide variety of MMO gaming styles, and we like to showcase that whenever we can. Your opinions and results may vary. We even had some fun with this year's awards by throwing in five categories that could be considered less-than-serious. Read after the jump for our picks!
Introducing: The Soapbox!
We hear you loud and clear. While many of the Massively readers enjoy us for our news, many others come here for our opinions on hot issues. As a general rule, these opinions are restricted to individual columns that cover either specific games or specific topics by a specific writer. But what if you want to know a staff member's opinion on something outside of his or her game-of-choice? We have a solution. Starting next Tuesday, a new weekly column will emerge. The Soapbox is our chance to speak our minds on what we love or hate about the industry, certain games, current events in the genre, etc. This is our chance to get out what we essentially discuss all day with each other anyway, outside of the site. What bothers or annoys us? What are we excited about? While those opinions aren't appropriate for an informational news post, it's no-holds-barred in The Soapbox. Follow along after the jump for more info on what to expect.
Anti-Aliased: What it's like to sit in the staff chair
So I drove the Aion community up a wall again. I seem to do that a lot when I talk about the game. AionSource was a little miffed at the "disappointment" award the staff and readers gave them, and decided to rip into me. So, in an effort of good faith, I dropped by the flame thread and tried to lighten things up while explaining my position on the game and how it isn't all doom and gloom. Well, after having 9 pages of people not reading what I was writing and electing to call me a nyerking nyerk, I bowed out with a new column topic on my mind: my job. If there was any common theme in all of the screaming, it was how I sucked at my job because I said Aion had a grind, I sucked at my job because I was only level 17 in Aion, everyone on that fansite could do a better job at my job than I could, and I was the reason mainstream reviews were going downhill. (Awesome.) Amazingly enough, I too thought pretty much those exact same things before I got a job here. But writing here for two years has been one heck of an experience, and maybe today I can give you some insight to the things I see on the staff side of the fence.
