Being the freak that I am, I take great joy in watching the ebb and flow of the economy as a whole. But, I enjoy watching the video game industry the most. The most recent trend in gaming is consolidation, and of course the reaction from the community is one of disgust. Especially when taking the current the current takeover by EA of Take-Two. Is this really a bad thing?

The short answer is: No.

In the 1980s the industry as a whole collapsed, this was caused by over saturation of the market and the lack of overall quality. What was happening was that the sub industry of reviewing video game was basically non-existent at the time and no one knew what game were good and what was bad. So most AAA games back then would have sold about the same as a real stinker, for example both Turning Point & Mass Effect sold the same. So what happened was there was a loss of incentive to create quality products and eventually the industry collapsed under the weight of monotony & mediocrity.

Since Nintendo came in and saved the industry we have seen massive growth in gamer population and in game production. We are already feeling the effects of this hitting a critical mass, which AAA games did you not play because you couldn't afford them all last holiday season. The number a good looking games coming out this year is astonishing, I personally know that there is no way I can afford all of them let alone have time to play them all. If something is not done the industry will start to buckle under its own girth, soon smaller 3rd party titles will not have any market at all while the AAA's are struggling for viewership. This may stifle creativity by causing fear of taking a chance and failing in a big way.

So how can this be fixed? Well there are two way that I can think of off the top of my head; The overall gaming population needs to expand drastically to accommodate growth, the industry will have to shrink of slow growth till the population of gamers increase. The latter is what is going to have to happen if we are to avoid a implosion. The consolidation of massive companies such as Take Two/EA and others will hopefully slow the release of big titles allowing the industry to make maximum amount of money on a quality product while still allowing smaller 3rd party titles to make a appearance.

A while back when the first Halo game came out it pretty much blew away every other first person shooter on the market. After the release there were a series of games entitled "Halo Killers" their sole purpose was to beat Halo at its own game. This turned out to be an impossible task for everyone including Bungie itself.

Though for me the one that really stood out from the crowd was Breed. Breed was a PC game developed by a British dev team Brat studios. It fell under the category of Halo killer, as in this game will out Halo well Halo. When the demo first came out I was excited and downloaded it. Sadly it turned out to be a huge steaming pile of crap and went ahead and removed it from my head and my PC. Latter I saw the score of a 4.2 and took that at face value it was a crappy demo tus the game might as well be crappy also.

So why am I writing a blog post on a game that was completely forgotten, well back in 2004 I was reading a rumor control on Half-Life 2. I was wondering if I was going to have a chance to play the damn game any time soon, when I stumbled upon a rather disturbing rumor which stated "The version of Breed CDV shipped to stores was not the same version submitted by Brat Designs."

Now when I saw this my first reaction was that the laze developers were taking their failure out on any one but them selves. Interestingly enough when I checked the bottom of the page to see bogus or not bogus, it was marked as not bogus. I was shocked and hoped that this story would be followed up on. Nothing, I heard nothing about this damn story.

Years dragged on and her was no word on this. What the hell happened this seems like a big story. I know this is a little obscure of a subject, but it seems kind important to know what actually happened. I want some bloody closure!

Currently in New York there is a bill about to be passed that states that it would be completely illegal to sell M rated video games to minors. While yes this is a awful this and a big blow to the 1st amendment, a person can get life imprisonment for selling a violent video game under some conditions. Also it will probably be repealed by the state supreme court for violating first amendment rights of everyone seeking to buy a M rated game and is under the age of 17. Plus for the record I am completely against any such bill and personally wish bad karma for every one who votes such a bill into existence.

Interestingly there is a universal law for what I am about to say, it is called The law of Unintended consequences it states that their is a unintended situation brought out of most actions. Now what I am getting is, would it be a nicer online experience if there were any 13 year old around to...well for a few examples(*Please note the following links contain explicit language...you have been warned* screeching into their microphones, say stupid things in he middle of a match, or just be an all around annoyance) Really you have to ask yourself the question would it be nicer without 10-14 year olds online with microphones on M rated games. Sure this isn't a perfect solution the annoying little buggers could still be found on teen rated game or their parents could buy them the game...and there still is all of that first amendment stuff, and to tell the truth it really isn't that much better with 17-20 year old either. Their annoyances really aren't that much different and the maturity levels really hasn't gone up with the age either...really what I am saying is that I can't stand it when I see a 10-13 year old beat me...this either means one of three things I suck really bad(sometimes the case), this kid is a gaming god(rarely the case) or a the sad and awful truth this kid has no life and has never been outside in his life(which more times true then not)

Do I really care about these kids well being or well he grows up? No, of course not and neither do the politicians who voted in this bill.