So I was able to get a 32GB card for around $45 from Gamestop, via trade-ins, coupons and Power-Up discounts. That was below the $50 upper limit I was willing to spend on the card--the maximum price I think it should be at, frankly--so I'm satisfied. I just wish I didn't have to do all that just to get 32 gigs of memory at a sort-of sane price. I only paid around half that for my 32GB flash drive, for instance. But whatever.

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Having read BrokenH's response to my last blog, I want to elaborate further on just why Quiet's shitty design pisses me off so much.

I've been playing video games since I was about 3 or 4. The first game I ever saw growing up was Super Mario Bros. 3 on NES (which my brother never let me play, the jerk). Since then, gaming has changed a lot; we went from the NES, to games like Chrono Trigger and Street Fighter, to the advent of 3D graphics, to the amazing worlds rendered in HD on current and next gen platforms. If you told me that we'd see stuff like The Last Sorcerer running on consoles back in the 90's, I would've laughed at you. Movies couldn't do CGI that looked so good back then, even with supercomputers that consoles will never match in power.

Along with the technical side, the narrative polish of the games themselves has grown as well. Having replayed Bioshock Inifinite--which I didn't even like that much the first time I played--I've been struck by just how much it does right. Though I had my problems with the story, the writing was far above the vast majority of games I've played on any system. Tthe setting was immaculately detailed and easy to lose yourself in. And the game tackles issues of race, religion and class in ways few big AAA titles would dare.

I want more of that.

Fact is, it doesn't just bother me that Quiet's design is lowest common denominator crud meant to sell more shit like this. It bothers me because it fits into a much larger problem I've had with regarding such things--namely, an industry and a fanbase indifferent to the idea of trying to appeal to gamers outside of their traditional young straight male demographic. Or worse, openly hostile to and defensive about the idea.

For a series as venerable and profitable as MGS, why the fuck does Kojima still worry about shit like sexier cosplay and figurine sales? As great as Infinite was, why are Ken Levine and Irrational Games so frightened of turning away "fratboy shooter fans" that they won't put a woman on the cover of their game? Even if she's the main fucking chacter? Why is it that when people criticized the rather groutesque design work for the Sorceress and Amazon in Dragon's Crown, the designer's response was to mockingly accuse the critics of being gay? More generally, why is it that when industry people talk about "broadening the appeal" of their work, it's often code for "making it more like COD/Halo/Gears/God of War"?

Whenever a new generation comes up, the industry loves to talk up all the great new experiences that the new hardware will allow for. That it will let them do things they couldn't even try before, and bring bigger and better experiences to gamers. At the same time, we've been hearing all sorts of commentators and developers talk about how they need to be more inclusive towards women and minorities and so on. Yet when it counts, we see far too many devs unwilling to do even the bare minimum when it counts.

And it bothers me because they not only CAN do it, but they NEED to. The industry is not going to be able to sustain itself by simply going after the same type of gamer that's held it up since the NES days. And with the kind of raw technical power and services available, they really have no excuse not to try with all of the tools available to them. Nor do I see it as a zero-sum game; I'm positive that there's plenty of room for games that appeal to men, women, and both, of all races, religions and sexual preferences.

You can call it white-knighting or self-hating if you want. But the fact is, for all the overbudgeted  AAA bloat in an industry pining for bigger and badder, costs be damned...in other areas, their vision of what gaming is capable of and who it can appeal to still feels really small and unambitious. And as someone who started drifting away from gaming this gen--something I NEVER thought would happen, especially with where the technology is--I don't see any reason why we shouldn't be talking about it more.