A Fallout MMO sounds like a sincerely bad idea. While my experience is limited to the most recent game, the best part about the game is how you as an individual can effect the game world and its inhabitants. I don't see how that can be maintained in an MMO space.

I hope Flight Simulator lives on, at least in terms of quality. My dad is part of a flying club, and every member uses FS to practice when they can't actually be flying. Considering there are clubs like that all over the country, I'm surprised that the games didn't sell better.

Publishers really don't have a leg to stand on here. Once a consumer buys something they can do almost anything they want with it, including trade or sell it for other goods and services. You don't hear Ford complaining about people trading in used cars do you? Besides, physical media will be dead in 10 years and then they can put all the DRM they want in their games.

Pachter's comments about "2 buyers" is right on the money. I work for an electronics retailer and I can say from first hand experience that releasing your game in Q4 is guaranteed to make a publisher more money than at any other time of the year.

Let's say a publisher puts out a big release in March; they have just lost all the extra sales they would have had from parents and relatives buying games as gifts for their family members, and in most cases when it's someone in their 30's to 50's buying the game, they are purchasing a title that the receiver either couldn't afford on his own or purchase because of his age. Not to mention, by the time Christmas rolls around that game that came out in March is not the hot item anymore, and there are other titles people will be more interested in. On top of that, there are the residual sales that filter in throughout January from all the people who received gift cards to major retailers, which they will probably have already spent by March or April.

It may put a strain on people's wallets, but every game that comes out in Q4 sells more than it otherwise would have no matter how crowded the market.

Regardless of how much of a story is actually there, the way it is imparted to the player doesn't do it any favors. Dom is supposed to be the emotional center of the story, yet his voice actor Carlos Ferro is by far the worst in the game, a problem multiplied when combined with the often atrocious dialogue.