I've been dwelling on many ideas regarding unique qualities in games and the developer's goals. I enjoy seeing games developed with an attachment to a purpose ( this could be a particular artistic style, game mechanic, mature and deep story, etc) since it allows a person like me to appreciate it and enjoy its intricacies. While games are a business, in my
mind it's a lot better for a game to have a unique vision that does not end up being scrapped in favor of dull, boring material catering only to greed and larger sales. Obviously, it makes sense to maximize your profit but not at the expense of sacrificing the unique qualities. I'm thinking of Diablo 2 and The Witcher games. Both have particular styles, immersive worlds, and focuses( the latter building on the grey nature of morality and mature themes in the narrative while the former pits a character against demonic hordes in a world that's artistically "gothic" and dark in its approach to Sanctuary.

Ultimately, my thoughts lead me to the conclusion that the most memorable experiences have come from those games that possess a unique framework that becomes their "soul."
I hope my ideas are clear enough for everyone to understand. What are your thoughts everyone? We can also share RPGs and other games for discussion (and for my own entertainment )

Any of you awesome people here play CS:GO? I used to play source and bought this game for $10 and so far it's very fun. I like the matchmaking system and official servers to actually play the objective on. Most server on CSS ended up either with mods or endless deathmatch, so it's nice to see official stuff (along with community servers) on GO.

Thoughts, guys?

I want to compile a list of games to play that are intelligent and challenge the person's beliefs or raises important questions. These can range from RPGs to whatever you guys are familiar with and I really want to explore this aspect of video games. Planescape Torment comes to mind and I've been chipping away at the greatness of this game, so I'd enjoy seeing more of that type of material. What do you guys suggest?

As seen by Diablo 3 and many of Ubisoft's attempts at curbing the "problem" of piracy, it's quite interesting, yet disturbing, to what lengths developers (and publishers, in fact) will go to control the end user's gaming experience. No mods or any form of editing that would allow the end user to enhance experiences hinder the long term value of the product. While it sounds viable in theory, providing a service that is available at any time, the control over the user is quite shameful. While there are hackers and illegitimate exploits that some individuals use, the vast majority of the core audience playing the game probably wouldn't do those particular things. Is this what the future of the industry looks like? Instead of innovating and allowing developers to enhance their game's value, we have many publishers wishing to turn a quick buck and treating their customers as nothing but brain dead consumers of their product.

Is this what the digital age has in store for individuals like you and me?

Hey guys, I picked up this boxed set of novels since I really enjoyed the tv series. Now I was wondering if it's just me that dislikes Martin's pacing? It's hard for me to get back and read voraciously as I used to do a while ago. Does it get better after A Game of Thrones writing wise?