You only needed to walk into any Best Buy, Toys R Us, or GameStop sometime in the last couple of years to know that the Toys To Life genre was dying. Disney is just the first one to get out. I'd be shocked if they bother to release a second Lego Dimensions. There might be one last Skylanders because Activision always releases a few games after it's clear that their cash cow has died(see the last few Tony Hawk games before HD) but I saw this coming when Skylanders Trap Team didn't sell well. I've gone to a couple of Toys R Us with full walls of full peg hooks of Skylanders figures from the original generation to the latest. Amibos only sold because people wanted to sell them on eBay or they wanted a little Mario figurine.
I'd been doing quite well getting Disney Infinity generation 1 & 2 figures for my daughter at clearance prices. I guess this is going to expand to all of them relatively soon.
What's the general consensus on Beyond Earth? I can't think of anyone I know who really loves the game or plays it. Did it get better after the expansion came out? As much as I love Civ, they're going to have an uphill battle with me considering how much I love Endless Legends.
No, it's "everybody realizes it's a dumb idea to reveal your product on the floor of the trade show" awareness month. Been growing for years. More publishers catching on this year.
What's the general consensus on Beyond Earth? I can't think of anyone I know who really loves the game or plays it. Did it get better after the expansion came out? As much as I love Civ, they're going to have an uphill battle with me considering how much I love Endless Legends.
The consensus is that it's sort of identical to Civ V but without as much variety between Civs and it's In Space.
Beyond Earth with the expansion is so close to being good, but it just falls short. It has too many mechanics that are frustrating that over-simplify the gameplay, or automate things like when civs declare war on you, and it's just not fun to play. While the themes are strong, and there are cool options, the game just pisses me off every time I try it.
The new Doom's out, and apparently the multiplayer is the Quake-style fast twitchiness that all the old fogeys here want. Are Scrym going to play it?
I played the multiplayer alpha/beta. It's a deathmatch, but it's not even as good as Quake Live. I'm actually interested in the single player, but waiting for that Steam sale price.
I wonder what Atari even *is* anymore. At one point I remember the entire company being boxed up and sold off as an IP deal, and it was basically 2 dudes in an office handling licensing requests. "Sure, put my logo on a T-shirt at Target."
The new Nvidia and ATI VR cards are making VR very affordable and accessible. 2017 will probably be the year for the VR consoles (possibly including Nintendo's NX), but the last year for consoles and 'dumb TVs'.
Potentially we'll see TVs/ monitors with built in VR PCs replace consoles forever.
I don't have access to the article so I can't comment on the methods or science in it. That's what everyone should be doing too, not just reading an article that comments on the study (Did they have full access or only look at the abstract? Did they look at the supplementals? Did they understand the methods used).
NAS members can bypass part of the submission process to be published in PNAS. So you write a paper (or just be second/third/fourth/Nth author), have two scientist friends review it from other institutions, claim no conflict of interests and hooray you didn't have to deal with the normal route non-NAS people deal with. Our journal club was always particularly dubious of PNAS papers unless the data was immaculate and the science was very clear.
It is also a super broad journal and can be considered pretty worthless depending on your field.
Comments
Will be quite similar to Civ V.
Rumour: PS4 Neo this year, increased performance for PS VR
Xbox One slim this year, Xbox VR next year (Oculus compatible).
The new Nvidia and ATI VR cards are making VR very affordable and accessible. 2017 will probably be the year for the VR consoles (possibly including Nintendo's NX), but the last year for consoles and 'dumb TVs'.
Potentially we'll see TVs/ monitors with built in VR PCs replace consoles forever.
NAS members can bypass part of the submission process to be published in PNAS. So you write a paper (or just be second/third/fourth/Nth author), have two scientist friends review it from other institutions, claim no conflict of interests and hooray you didn't have to deal with the normal route non-NAS people deal with. Our journal club was always particularly dubious of PNAS papers unless the data was immaculate and the science was very clear.
It is also a super broad journal and can be considered pretty worthless depending on your field.