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The 'failure' of Operation Rainfall is significant. When confronted with the interest of fans, Nintendo said, "We don't care." Does that mean fans are then 'forced' into piracy? No. But it means there are a number of people who asked -- directly, with their money on pre-orders -- to be consumers and Nintendo said, "Not worth it, to us." It is in no way illogical to say that creates space for piracy. Nintendo was offered money; they declined. If people go out of their way to acquire content they would have legitimately bought if Nintendo had released it, does this fall into the same category of 'piracy' as torrenting Dragon Age 2? No, it doesn't, and it's an important distinction to make. Painting all 'acquisition' with the same brush fundamentally ignores the possibility that there are 'classes' of piracy, and at least one of them could be eliminated entirely if Nintendo took a different tact -- perhaps the first step of which should be thinking, hey, here we have people asking to be consumers; maybe instead of saying no, we should look into other options. That's the problem with claiming moral outrage in this case -- because moral outrage takes up space that should be occupied by critical thinking.

Nintendo creates "want", but does little to satisfy it. Eliminating 'casual' piracy is doable, but it requires Nintendo -- and everyone else in the game space concerned about this issue -- to look for solutions that emphasize convenience and access. Right now, the most powerful weapon against video game piracy is Steam."

Importantly, with the feature turned off, inFAMOUS 2 is exactly the game I had hoped for, and my personal favourite of the year so far. I don't see how UGC lessens the experience, or why it's important to advocate for the removal of features you don't like but can be avoided completely."

I like the idea of a 'docu-game', but I think it would be a tricky thing to pull off with tact and grace. There was a flash game a few years back, where you played as an American sniper (ostensibly -- on screen you were a reticule), tasked with taking out the 'terrorists' in a crowded Middle Eastern city. Thing was, every time you shot and killed one, more NPCs would turn into terrorists. It was a short, sharp game that made its point very effectively. I don't know if it would count as a 'docu-game', more like an interactive political statement, but I see sympathy with what it accomplished and the idea that video games can educate in unique ways."

Now that it's not competing with Lords of Shadow, and is dirt cheap, I hope more people who were indifferent or on the fence pick it up.

Nice review."

I don't agree with sabotaging sources who were baited into sufficiently scandalous sound bites, but Lawrence and now Lieberman will both think twice about spouting off on subjects without any research because they have a book to sell. No, it's not the high road.

I was working on my own piece about this, and that's the wall I hit: because while I agree with the thrust of this article, it doesn't offer an alternative, just an admonishment for a bit of dirty pool. IGN had a fantastic piece from a Nicholaus Noles, PhD, dissecting the Bulletstorm article -- on IGN. Will the right people read it?"