Many people have recently learned to trust the force to become a Jedi while others have harnessed its power to crush their opposition. Others still have learned that crying in a corner will not bring them any closer to playing the new force inspired MMO.

            While I would love to play the new and amazing game I cannot bring myself to pay the initial $60 to “try” it then, when I fall in love with it, an additional $12.99 per month to subside the addiction. I know there are others out there that feel the same way and we have to suffer as a lot of our friends play the game and tell us how awesome it is. Cue the sad panda…

            However, while falling in love with the Starcraft 2 community I have found a way to satisfy my addiction to it when I can't play. I do so by watching Day[9], Husky, and various livestreams of pro players. While it is not the same as playing the game it does allow me and others to better understand the game and inspires us to try new builds.

            A wonderful side effect of watching them is that the casters will talk about other new and interesting things as well as occasionally stream themselves playing other games. Thus, I watched my first SWTOR stream.

            Husky started playing the game one day, and being curious of it I decided to watch him play. Instantly I felt connected with the character that he was rolling. I watched him go from level 1 to 12 in one sitting. And after he called it a day I no longer felt like I needed to play as much.

            The feeling was not one of the game being spoiled, instead it was as if I had played it myself. I wanted to continue watching him play ‘our’ character.

            This shared communion of gaming is not something that is new to me. As a child I can remember watching my dad play Warcraft, Starcraft, Doom, Duke Nukem, and many others. When ‘we’ would play I would help him out by watching the mini map and telling him if he was under attack or if the enemies were behind him. In a way we made playing games a father and son activity where I would want him to continue playing so I could help him out.

            The web has reached a point in it's life where people are starting to livestream their games so anyone watching can interact with the player from their homes. Day[9] can tell you that finding the rope is not as fun unless you play with friends (When he became stuck in Amnesia he looked for answers in the chat who promptly told him to find a nonexistent rope, which he spent a while looking for).

            Onlive is another way in which players can test new games and subside their addiction through watching. As anyone who knows me knows that I like a lot, not all, of what Onlive is doing for the gaming industry. One of the bonuses of Onlive’s streaming feature is the ability for people to view games being played. The viewers can chat with the player both verbally and/or through text which can add another level of connection to the voyeurism that is streaming games.

            I do plan to play SWTOR in the future when I have enough funds to do so, but until then I will continue sit in the corner and watch random players and friends alike play to get my second hand addiction fix. How about you? Do you currently play the game, watch someone else play, or just avoid it all together? Tell us in the comments below!

With all the talks of games starting to go "free to play" I feel a need to take a look back at the previous argument on the Internet and look at the "plague", insert eye roll here, of resold games.

In the past, and technically still in Japan (Starfox 3DS), video games with multiplayer aspects were amazing in the fact that you and a couple of your buddies could play death match, race, or just Mario party for hours on end in the same room. I still have fond memories of playing Smash Bros and Phantasy Star Online GCN in the same room as my friends. I also remember borrowing, swapping, and bringing games over to play with my friends because we wanted to try them out.

Now, with such services as GameStop, GameFly, Glyde, and others like them a game can easily be bought, sold, and traded. Yet, some game studios complain about this. There are only a couple differences between then and now.

One being that another company profits from the game the studio made. However, everyone who plays the game, even if they resell it, now has become a fan or at least exposed to the game. This will then give the next game made by the company a bigger fan base than before. Also, if you look at the 64/PlayStation era and GCN/PS2/Xbox era only one friend normally had the game. If this is the case, as it was for me and my friends, now those 1-3 other friends have to purchase the game as well to play it with me online. This actually works in their favor from then to now especially with the prospect of a gamer buying DLC.

The second difference I can see, though there may be more and if so please let me know, is the cost of the game being made. GTA IV cost 100 million to make back in 2008, yet they made their money back and then some since its release. While the price of making games is still increasing from then another thing has also increased. Games companies have more ways to get money from their patrons.

Games such as Halo, Call of Duty, GTA IV and Uncharted 2 all have had DLC. This kind of content is a gold mine for the developers. The engine is already created, the story is present, and minimal resources are required to make some cheep DLC, I'm talking gun packs, poopy maps, and costumes/avatar items here, which will be bought up by die-hard fans. If the developer wants to try a little harder they just have to make some actual story elements, a new level/chapter for single player, or add some new modes or good maps to multiplayer.

This will immediately ensure an increase in profit by creating a renewed desire to play the game for its DLC. A modest ammount of gamers will buy the DLC or a Game of The Year edition that includes the DLC (Think Borderlands). Not only that but the idea of game passes, like Gears of War has, will allow players to preorder the DLC content for cheaper. This will not only make the player think they are getting a deal, it will also give the developer some initial money to make decent DLC.

One more amazing way to make a game increase its profits is by making it free to play. The idea of this is the player doesn't have to pay for anything, and because of that the player will be more likely to pay for in game items that can quicken or customize the player's experience.

This idea of free to play games seems to be hit or miss. Some people claim that players will be leaches and just play the game for free forever. While others say that it doesn't matter if there are leaches the people who pay make it worth wile.

As for me I feel like it all depends on how the game implements the free to play system. Some games do it well and succeed while others do it horribly and fail, however that's another topic for another time. Yet, after looking at the top grossing games on the Android market and seeing that as of today 40 out of the top 50 are free as well as the top 9 are also all free speaks volumes to me.

I don’t want people to think one way is better than another. Some games are still $60-$50 single player games which sell very well, while others are $0.99 apps. Each game has it’s own market, but every game has a way of prolonging its lifespan and continuing to make money. In the end its all about making the customer happy and want to spend their time and money on the game. If a studio generates a fan instead of a retail sale they still gained something and they still can sell DLC to that fan. There should be no reason to cry over it, people want to play your game and that above all else should make you happy.

  It's been a while since I have been active on this site, mainly because it has been under reconstruction; however in that time I have made a couple of different advancements in projects. One such advancement is learning how to program. I'm currently about 70% done with my Starcraft 2 App for the Android OS. With this project of mine I have come to learn many different things like, AI is difficult to make, App Inventor sucks, and developers like the apple App Store because "those people" are free with their money.

  Yet, I had some roadblocks making the app. One of them was how the Android Market works. To learn of the mysterious beast I came up with a small app that clearly reflects my personality. "Barrel Roll". In this app I just wanted to learn how to put an app, with ads, online. The ads don't really "work", they don't generate income because the ad service sucks, but now I know how to do everything. If you would like to download the app you can do it here. Basically it's a stupid fun app that took me 5 minutes to make, so enjoy and please comment/rate! <(-.-<) <(-.-)> (>-.-)>