Published by CrashWire 3 years, 10 months ago
in Gaming.
Watching Azumanga Daioh made me reminiscence about my younger days and how carefree they were. That time, arcades were actually fun.
When I was around five years old or so, I was often brought to the arcades at Parkway Parade (Funworld!), Ang Mo Kio (I believe it was WyWy?) and many other places. Parkway was the most notable, since distance-wise it was the nearest and it provided the most kiddy fun. Perhaps it was only that particular arcade (Hey what do I know? I was like five at that time), but it was one of the few with many kiddy games such as the horse carousel and water-based games. There were also puzzle and timing games that provided the majority of tickets. You could then use the tickets to exchange for a pen, a soft toy or if you are hardcore enough, even some cool electronic gadget.
There were machines which you could toss a token in in an attempt to get more tokens, and there were machines which dished out sweets. And there were machines which gave you the chance to grab a soft toy, which was what started me on the arcade thing in the first place. A few years at the kiddy rides, and arcades went out of my life for a while.
Nowadays, the only place you can find those rides are the rare funfair cum “pasar malam” (where you have to pay to enter, bah) and overseas. Are such rides not popular with young kids anymore, or are they just a victim of the video game generation? The closest thing you can get to physical gratification nowadays are probably your usual Bemani games which actually require a brain to play.
Read more of Those Toy Machines
(330 words, estimated 1.19 mins reading time)
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Published by CrashWire 3 years, 10 months ago
in Gaming.
I’m sure many of you either heard or actually experienced the blackout that hit Singapore just now.
During my usual round of “kaypoh”ing about which areas were affected and which were not, I encountered some interesting stories about people who were playing games when suddenly everything went black. They would then curse at the power supply. What would be even funnier would be people who decided to go on marathon sessions (hence ignoring save points and all) only to have all their progress destroyed by the blackout. Don’t we all feel for them?
Then again, since the blackout didn’t happen to me, I feel rather tempted to take a “not in my backyard” mentality. So let us all just remember that saving games is rather important, even with the autosave functions that many games build in nowadays. If you don’t want to save games, get an uninterruptible power supply. But you’ll have to save anyhow since it only supplies power for a short while.
Popularity: 5% [?]
(167 words, estimated 40 secs reading time)
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Published by KIRBYSIM 3 years, 11 months ago
in Gaming.
Why, hello there, dear blog readers! If you’ve just came in with coffee in hand, I suggest taking some time to scroll a little bit downwards to the next latest entry, by CrashWire. You know what they say: ‘coffee is a drink best served with words.’ Or something like that.
… …
Hey! Welcome back! So, did you have fun responding to CrashWire’s entry? Good. Now let’s get this show started. I’m just waiting to bombard you with words.
Let’s recap: CrashWire noted that game publishers should include some extra junk in order to sway a consumer’s decision between piracy or justice. However, I think he failed to see that if they put in a cloth or a figurine, then the original cost of the game would be higher. Most people, particularly the ones who have no idea what they’re getting themselves into with that 50USD purchase, do not want those nifty pack-ins. What they’re more interested in is a lower price to get their gaming on. And you have to realise that piracy is rampant, but not everywhere. $50 isn’t too far off from the 30 or 40 an average American might spend to look for a pirated games business, drive to it, and purchase the loot.
And for those who actually care about the piece of cloth, which really is just a piece of cloth.. well.. that’s where limited editions come in. And if you want that piece of cloth, you jolly well have the spending ability to get it.
Back to my point: imagine, if a game does not have a standard version, and only comes in the limited edition sort whereby all the extra goodies are packed. And everyone has to pay a heftier price for that only package. You think consumers won’t resort to piracy that way?
Read more of Another Take on Piracy
(763 words, estimated 3.03 mins reading time)
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Published by CrashWire 3 years, 11 months ago
in Gaming.
Addiction withdrawal is easy. I don’t know why, but I’ve been playing a lot less Final Fantasy XI lately. I guess my hots for that game are drawing to an end, with the ending of my vacation soon. Or maybe it’s just the fact that I’m plain broke in game. (If anyone reading this is in Seraph and somewhat well-off in gils, please donate to Kurashiire. Thanks!)
Anyway, I’ve been sorting out lots and lots of thoughts about pirated games lately. The pirated games market exists as people refuse to pay $60 for an original game when they can pay $3 for a pirated one. Even when top-notch games devalue in a few months, they would still pay $3 for a pirated one than $20 for a repackaged or 2nd hand version. And then companies, seeing the rampant piracy, source technology from companies such as Securom to protect their “intellectual property”. Which doesn’t work considering that pirates are real good at cracking such technology.
But hey, there just isn’t any point in collecting Amaray cases with nicely printed covers, a 20 page manual that doesn’t even teach you the slightest thing about game mechanics and um, the game disc itself.
At least put in a cloth map or something, sheesh. Heck, a nice “limited edition” model of one of the game’s protagonists would be good too.
Well, the companies can continue on their raids and everyday copying prevention. Consumers can continue buying their pirated software. I’ll just happily play whatever game I like. Ignorance is bliss.
Popularity: 5% [?]
(259 words, estimated 1.02 mins reading time)
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