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JIM MALAMEN
COMMUNITY WRITER
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St. Cloud, Minnesota
Jim is a father of three who fits in gaming time after the kids' bed time. He is also one of a rare breed who likes the Star Wars prequels and the Clone Wars series along with the original trilogy. He has no aspirations toward writing professionally, but hopes to share some thoughts that others might find interesting.
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COMMENTS BY THIS AUTHOR (67)
On David Graham's  Good writing is the future of gaming
"I think the analogy between video games and pornography is a deeply flawed one.  Pornography is a genre, video games are a medium."
Tuesday, February 07, 2012
On Stephen Crane's  Sexism in portrayals of video-game characters
"Kind of funny that you mention Megan Fox.  I read somewhere that she is a gamer, and she avoids revealing her gender online for exactly the reasons you mentioned."
Wednesday, February 01, 2012
On Sam Alegria's  Is Nathan Drake South American?
"Nate's past is still very much open.  It could be that he changed his name to reflect his ancestry from Francis Drake.  Or that story could be a fantasy from a child who was abandoned by his parents and needs some other way to believe that he is important somehow."
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
On Judson Rose's  Call of Duty and the Stagnation of a Genre
"This problem is much bigger than Call of Duty and FPS's, and is, I think, the biggest roadblock for the medium.  So many gamers have a very clear idea of what games should be and dismiss anything that doesn't fit into those ideas.  I often proselytize about Heavy Rain, but many people dismissed that flawed-but-groundbreaking experience as being "all QTE's" instead of embracing the things that it accomplished.

I don't have a problem with Call of Duty, or with Call of Duty fans, but some of them seem to think that all FPS's should be like CoD (I call those people Cod-pieces)."

Wednesday, November 02, 2011
On Johnny Kilhefner's  How Not To Become A Successful Games Journalist
"Speaking as someone outside of the industry, most interviews I have read seem to be the equivalent of a "booty call" where two people meet up and they both get something they want, but it is an ultimately hollow experience.

An example showing a lack of fact checking, too:  A few weeks ago information came out about the Uncharted 3 Subway promotion.  The site I found the information on cited and linked to another site, they cited another site, and that site linked to the original source... a post on the Naughty Dog forums from a person who claimed that he got the information in response to an e-mail he sent to Subway asking about it.  It did turn out to be accurate, but the journalists who covered it all ran the story as if it was an official announcement when it was actually an unverifiable story from an effectively anonymous source.

To be fair, a lot of "real" journalists fall into the same traps, softball interviews and regurgitated press releases, but there is so much more room for in-depth analysis in video games.  It would help the industry mature, too."

Tuesday, October 18, 2011
On Jeff Heilig's  The Best Fights on Xbox Live (Profanity Warning)
"These are showing as images for me, not videos."
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
On Samir Torres'  Bitmob Giveaway: Dragon Age 2: Mark of the Assassin DLC codes
"I would go with "Campaigning Politician", because what blows more hot air than that?  Or maybe Enjolras, after the character from the book version of Les Miserables.

PS3 version."

Tuesday, October 11, 2011
On Sumo Attuquayefio's  For my daughter, I play Shadow of the Colossus
"Excellent article.  Thank you for sharing and I wish you and your family the best.  I have three kids, one of them a girl about the same age, and I know that the possibility of losing one of them would wreck me.  Live strong."
Friday, September 23, 2011
On Rus McLaughlin's  Games don't have to be fun
"I think the "game" label limits people's expections.  Like Rus said, other media don't have the limitation that everything must be "fun".  Some of my favorite movies are definitely not fun to watch.  Many people would consider the movie "Gandhi" incredibly boring, but it literally changed my life.  "Restrepo" was definitely not fun, but it was a really interesting and enlightening documentary about soldiers in Afghanistan.  I value that experience more than the fun I've had with any military FPS."
Friday, September 23, 2011
On Rus McLaughlin's  Games don't have to be fun
""The Butterfly" trial was one of the most intense experiences I've had in gaming.  So much so that part way through, I had to stand up and take a breath.  The best part was that I didn't have to press pause when I did that because the intensity didn't come the action, but from the pure tension of the situation and the stakes."
Friday, September 23, 2011
On Jason Lomberg's  The industry's war against consumer rights
"I'm not disagreeing with you.  In fact I largely agree with you.  All I am saying is that games that have an online component do cost the publisher money which secondary users do not compensate them for.  I am in favor of the online pass concept for those games and those games only."
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
On Jason Lomberg's  The industry's war against consumer rights
"Very valid points Jason, but publishers deal with millions of users, so they have to look at the statistical stuff, not the outliers and special cases.  (Casinos don't base their odds off of the people with the worst luck, publishers can't base their expenses off of best case scenarios,either.)  The same argument can be turned around by taking a case where that second user plays for hundreds upon hundreds of hours.

I am only referring to online compononets of games, not offline stuff.  Again, I have no problem with the secondary market and agree with you about that, but online services do incur a cost to the publisher that the secondary market increases without compensating them for.  Sega should not have to right to the money if I were to sell my copy of Valkyria Chronicles (which I never ever will), but If I were to sell my copy of Medal of Honor, that secondary user playing online would be adding expense to EA, and I think EA has a right to get some of that money back."

Tuesday, September 20, 2011
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