Video Game Piracy: Counterfeiters are to blame, not piracy!

While it has been a problem in the industry for quite some time, it doesn't seem that piracy or counterfeiting will be going away any time soon. Not only in the realm of video games, but everything from movies, to music, to chocolate, anything with any value has and will continue to be counterfeited and pirated in one way or another. When it comes to video games, people spend ungodly amounts of time, energy, and money into creating these experiences for people to have. Sometimes they're good, sometimes they're shit. Regardless, someone needs to be payed for their work. let's take a look at some reasons why some people may pirate games and how counterfeit versions of video games are making the problem worse.
Going back, let's start with roms. Roms are video games that you can download to play on emulators, or programs that allow you to run the games. You can find all of your favorite classics from back in the day and then some, all free to play. Now, when it comes to roms, I can understand that some people can't find certain games, they don't sell them in stores anymore, and some of the harder to come by games can be priced up into the hundreds of dollars. Also, the makers of the games are going to see any of that money anyways so it's not really hurting the industry so much. So what's an oldschool gamer to do? Play roms. Even though I have a fairly large collection of old video games in their original form, I often play roms myself to record video footage for my own series. I use a combination of both “real” and emulated gameplay footage. There's nothing wrong with that.
Now with newer games people are finding ways to rip, burn, copy, and distribute everything from Xbox 360 games, to DS games, to PC games and everything in between. This is a problem because these games are still in stores, the gaming industry is now actually losing money and fans are having to pay for shit that doesn't even work, sometimes turning them off to gaming all together. People are getting counterfeit game disks, and cartridges, then passing them on when they find out they don't work. Now our hard copies of counterfeit games are getting mixed in with the good well-working games and everyone is having to pay. But then! Then the fan finds that they can download games for free and play them off of his or her computers. Fans and independent programmers get together and crack the games just so they can play one that works. Yes yes, I know that there are also those types that pirate software because they don't have the money to purchase or feel that they shouldn't have to purchase games ($60 for a game?!), but there are these others too that just want a game to work. Plain and simple. So I blame the counterfeiters creating a shoddy products on the rise in pirating. There, I said it.
But Wait, there's more! An alternative thought, and this is going to make me sound completely crazy and like a conspiracy nut or something, but here's another thought; What if the game companies themselves are creating crappier hard copies of games and distributing them themselves as a way to push the digital revolution in gaming. You know, they want everything to be down-loadable, convenience=more $$$ or something like that. People will click and buy, and if they lose the game, oh well, gotta buy it again. This sucks, but I think that it is a possibility. Stick with the hard versions of games. Pay for something that's tangible. I know that a lot of us today are buying our used games online and there's no for-sure way to know if it's going to be a counterfeit or not. The only thing I can think to say to everyone, is just be careful with your purchases. Take your time, shop around, and always ALWAYS ask questions.

Sneak Peek - Mel after work

Here it is! The intro the new series starting January, Mel after work. It's about mixing drinks!

About Mr. Fribbles

Didn't know that my penguin had a name did you? Well, he didn't always have a name. Back in the summer time I had a contest to name my penguin mascot. It was posted on facebook of course, and the prize was a large box of Japanese mochi snacks. It was a tough choice to make as there were a lot of great entries. So then where did Mr. Fribbles come from? Well, he's from the very first episode of my video series. The episode was Pikiinya. Pikiinya was also the main inspiration for the entire series. When I started playing more obscure games, I couldn't find anything at all about the game. I just had to play through the whole thing myself and figure it out. It wasn't until later on when I wanted to know more about the mascot character that I found from a poor translation of a Japanese site that the penguins are the tropical type, they excite easily, and they sleep when they are alone and/or bored. These penguins just want to live in peace, and throughout the story mode in the game they must constantly fight against people that want to capture them including poachers, witch doctors, and mad scientists. So you're probably wondering if any of this is related at all to why I chose it as my mascot..well, there's no special meaning. Mr Fribbles is just a cute penguin, that's all. No seriously, that's all there is to it. Oh look! It's the First Episode of Mel the Office Gamer Girl!

The transition from just Mel to “Mel the office gamer girl”

So many things have happened in the last few years that it's too much to put into a single blog post. Let's start with some general questions then. Where did Mel come from? What does she know about gaming? Why write about video games now?

Well, my name is really Mel, er, Melissa, but everyone calls me Mel. I'm originally from San Diego California. Due to being a broke college student, I chose to move to Phoenix Arizona so that I could have all the comforts of home, with the exception of the beaches which I miss dearly, at an affordable price. Somehow after I moved to Arizona (and went through the obligatory “I need to be in a rock band and drink copious amounts of booze-a-hol” phase. Everyone has one of those, right?) I cleaned up my act and managed to land a cozy little office job. An office job where I had the most awesome boss ever. In between busy work times, when the office was slow, I was allowed to play video games.

Now, I've always been a big fan of video games in general. I can still remember the first time I ever played a console game. I was about 4 years old, and seeing an nes for the first time. I was like, “what's a maw-ee-oh?”. Picked it up and played and the rest was history...well, sort of. Video games and consoles had come and gone throughout various points in my life. Growing up I had the Nes, snes, genesis, sega cd, n64, playstations 1 &2 and too many games to mention here. Sometimes I would play for weeks on end, sometimes I would take month long breaks, just to come back and love games even more than before. It was sometime in elementary school that I got the crazy idea that I would become a journalist for Nintendo Power Magazine. No seriously, that's what I really REALLY wanted to do, I was planning on moving and everything. I had this crazy idea in my head all the way up until the time that I hit high school, I even managed to get into honors English classes...only to be kicked out because I didn't do the homework required over the summer break. Homework? During summer break? Puh-lease, I was busy...playing video games. Sometime between that incident and college, my goals changed. I don't quite remember all the details, but it had something to do with performing arts, but that's a story for another time. I ended up majoring in human psychology which has nothing to do with what I do today (thanks college!).

I think I got off track there for a moment. Back to my job today. Sure, I can play video games where I work, just that should be enough to satisfy most gamers, but not me. No, I got tired of the classics, I decided to start playing a bunch of old obscure games on emulators for different systems. Even that wasn't enough. After a while I started researching some of the games that I was playing, simply out of curiosity. Turns out, not much was known about said games. I was shocked to say the least. Everything from unknown release dates, to development teams that don't even exist anymore. I started playing these particular games more in-depth and went on a writing spree that lasted a good couple of months. Then I had a pile of papers with a bunch of information that no one assumingly gave two shits about. I decided that I would share this information with the internet whether they liked it or not.

I wasn't sure how I was going to make the series, would it just be game play and text? Commentary perhaps? At one point when throwing around ideas, I thought that a sketch comedy series with informational bits thrown in would be a good idea. There was even a meeting with a few other people that were interested in that idea, but it didn't really go anywhere. After a while, I decided to just make the series on my own. I already had previous video and audio editing experience, so that wasn't a big deal. Then there was the stupid stupid hurdle of me not liking the sound of my own voice recorded. Got over that one really fast. After finishing the first few episodes, I set up the facebook, the twitter, the youtube, the other accounts that I can't remember right now, and got to spreading the word. Shortly after, I received the invitation to post my content spacemonkeymafiastudios.com. And a few months later, that's where we are today.

I'd like to end this post with a sort of mission statement. What is the meaning of this series that I work on? Well, I'm not getting payed so that's not it. I do enjoy playing video games, and writing/making videos about video games, but it's more for the games themselves. Many of these games and the people that have put time, energy, and resources into these games, were never heard of and just forgotten about. This is for them, and anyone who has a desire to make something whether it gets noticed or not. If you spend time doing something that you love, just for the love of it, that's awesome, and you deserve a high-five.

Limbo (XboxLive)

First of all I'd like to say that for a puzzle platformer, Limbo is a solid game. It's easy to pick up and play, the controls are simple, the physics are great, and it's not terribly frustrating. It's selling point however is supposedly the atmosphere that the game brings and the mystery behind the meaning of it all. It's decent, not the best, but great for what it is. . .unless you've played other games like it.

There was a video on Youtube where in the comments people were talking about theories for the ending/non existing story for the game. The only thing i had to say was this;
My theory: he found his sister, the end. The only clues given about this game is the title and that this kid has to find his sister. That's about it. sure there are things throughout the various levels that you can speculate about, but games of this style have been done before & better (another world, braid, etc). As much as I would love to pull theories out of thin air, I don't feel there's any reason with this game. it's not THAT engrossing as a whole, & seems kind of lazy comparatively speaking. *end comment*


I guess the reason why I'm NOT ABSOLUTELY LOVING THIS GAME is because games like Another world and Braid were great simply because they were something different (and if you wanted a game shrouded in obscurity and dripping with existentialism, there's always Passage and Yume Nikki) They were stand alone games. This whole "guessing game" within games buried in silent mystery and artsy-ness seems to be a new genre emerging. I'm not sure that I like that idea of that so much. It's not that I don't like these types of games, in fact I love these games and games that make the player think and feel a sense of immersion, but I feel that it would give new developers an excuse to make a poorer product. This game seems to be an example of that. Don't get me wrong, it' still a decent game, and a lot of fun to play, but I feel they could have done more with it. It just doesn't have the same charm as the other games.
Of course, if you haven't played those other games that I mentioned, then yes, this game will be one of the most amazing things you'll ever experience. It's short, worth a play through, and definitely worth checking out.