Hello, my name is Andrew Clark, and I’m addicted to Minecraft.

…and before anyone makes a crack about timeliness, I’m going to be “that guy” and mention that I was playing the alpha all the way back in March of last year – I had a blog post planned to talk about how it was the ultimate digital fix. Thing is, that I was just too involved in planning sprawling Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired structures and orchestrating uplifting Chilean miner rescues yet to happen to actually put fingers to keys. And to think, perhaps my blog entry would have been on the front of the wave, just before it blew up and turned one-man developer Markus Persson into a Swedish enabler for addictive personalities everywhere. Oh well, he’s still a millionaire and apparently didn’t need my help getting there.

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It’s been awhile since my last blog post. Some things have happened to me since that time. A lot of games have been played, completed, and put down. I have discovered time travel and used it for selfish reasons. I went back in time to slap my past self in the face with a can of tuna in a sock at the exact time I was in the checkout line purchasing The Sims Online. There’s nothing funnier than your past self’s face after you hit him with a can of tuna in a sock. If you’re wondering how I discovered time travel, it’s a closely guarded secret that only a dog named Charlie and I know.

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While I was growing up, half of the gaming I did was on the family computer. My brothers and I used to share a computer with our parents, and getting to spend any time with it was always a cause for celebration. When it was my turn, I spent it playing games like StarCraft, Diablo 1 & 2, and Warcraft. There were probably some non-Blizzard games in there as well; I just can’t remember any off the top of my head. I used to look forward to my hour or so of PC gaming each week.

Eventually, we got older, and we each got our own computers. After spending countless hours grinding out cows together, we decided to make the leap to MMOs. We each bought a copy of Final Fantasy XI and our PC gaming jumped to the next level. I played all the time. Not to an obsessed level, but I was playing my new PC game a few nights a week. I was playing so much that my console games began to collect dust.

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First, let me be clear. I am not a fan of any publisher/developer, including Activision. I simply do not care. If a game is good, then I will support it. I don’t engage in pointless debates about how Treyarch is inferior to Infinity Ward (or vice versa). However, every once in a while, something happens that enrages me to the point that I will brave the trolls and address the idiot gamers out there. Recently, Activision made some important decisions that impacted the lives and employment of 500 people. At this point a lot of you gamers will spew forth an anti-Activision tirade born of monumental ignorance and immaturity. Let me give you two pieces of advice. One, don’t do that. And two, your life is going to suck until the day you die if you don’t stop playing the victim.

Activision announced that development of Guitar Hero would cease. Many gamers accuse Activision of draining the veins dry of any successful IP it owns, and often cite the Guitar Hero franchise as evidence. This opinion is completely void of common sense and knowledge of business strategy. First off, no product is capable of an infinite life span, which means it will see diminishing profits. Oversaturating the market can decrease any game’s lifespan, but I would argue that Activision knew the music-genre was fading. In addition to trying to profit as much as it could, it was also supplying work to the Guitar Hero developers. Had Guitar Hero 5 and Warriors of Rock never been released, on top of the franchise dying after GH World Tour, the developers would have suffered an earlier fate. Either way, the idiots out there seem determined to fault Activision regardless of the decisions they make.

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If my real life personality reflected my in game characters then I would be adopting the persona of a cold lifeless body most days. Having spent the best part of the last hour nestled behind crates, walls and rocks employing my Red Dead Evans Repeater rifle to good effect on any such opponent that dared blink, I got to ponder the relationship between my real and in-game personalities. Is my real personality really that cautious and disciplined?

If I’m honest, then I must admit that I tend to be more impulsive and rash in many of my day to day decisions. So if I reflect my personality in the virtual world then I should be that cowboy sprinting down main street whooping and firing and dying in a hail of enemy shells. In other first person shooter games of which I have offered myself as cannon fodder I tend to play the same – remaining hidden and waiting for the enemy to make a move. So who am I? Am I the sneaky hidden marksman or the gun totting lunatic? So, perhaps I have a split personality? In fact when I think more on this issue, it’s more likely that I have multiple personalities.

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Tim Schafer is a gaming God.

Bow down to him. And while you’re at it, make sure you say 12 Hail Miyamotos, too.

We’re living in a pivotal time in our hobby’s existence. Video games have never been more popular. Much as the hardcore would hate to admit it, you have your Wiis and Kinect and Farmville to thank for that. The casual crowd has fully embraced gaming as a legitimate pastime, and that’s win-win for everybody. The more money tossed around out there, and the greater demand for gaming, the more we see niche genres getting some love, too. Digital distribution helps towards that end; a thought I’ll get to in a moment.

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My colleague Alaric wrote an excellent blog entry recently entitled Unfree-to-play. In it, he discussed Turbine’s move in Lord of the Rings Online to a free-to-play model with microtransactions. After giving the subject some thought, I felt moved to comment on a tangential, but related topic. And since I have a blog here, I can get on my own soapbox without stealing from Alaric’s thunder.

First of all, let me say something that might seem like it has absolutely nothing to do with free-to-play microtransactions. I hate businesses that illegally sell gold, leveling, or any other in-game services for MMOs. I loathe their activities. I hate the impact these activities have on MMOs, which range from devaluing in-game currency to causing security risks. I hate their use of chat channels to advertise. I detest the damage to game balance caused by this industry. I am even mystified by my fellow gamers who patronize such services, when they should know that gold-selling services exploit a supply of labor in much the same way that sweatshops exploit workers to make cheap products to be sold in countries such as the USA. I also hate players that level their characters using such services and then try to run end-game content. Not only do they not know how to play their character, they also don’t even know what the story is about. And by the time they learn how their character works, they might as well have just leveled up normally anyway. Gold-selling businesses are an unethical blight upon gaming. (Can you tell I don’t like them?)

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There’s not much that compares to the disappointment I experience when I attempt to have a conversation about a great game I’m playing and get nothing but blank stares in return. Too often I find myself with an amazing little gem of a game that no one in creation has heard of. Why? Searching the Internet shows that nearly every game news site simply has no information about them at all. No hype, no previews. If I’m lucky, there’s a name and an inaccurate release date.

This got me wondering. How many amazing games have been lost to obscurity simply because no one bothered to care or get the word out? Too many. With that in mind, I felt the need to share some of the gems I own that the world has never heard of. These games deserve far more than the dismissive, innacurate information pages about them.

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As I sit down to review my facts and write this article, I am once again overcome by feelings of anger, helplessness and indignation. Ladies and gentlemen, I have been robbed. You have been robbed as well, you just don’t know it yet. No, I’m not talking about taxes. This time around, all of us calling ourselves “gamers” have been wronged by a person who probably imagines him or herself to be a mighty pirate, but in reality is nothing but a contemptible thief. I am talking, of course, about the recent theft of Crysis 2 from its developer, Crytek.

So what actually happened? According to certain forums, a near-final build of the game, which included both single-player and multiplayer, was stolen. To make matters worse, a master authentication key is believed to be lost as well. Apparently all of the above is now being made available via torrents, and a lot of dishonest and not particularly intelligent people are both downloading and seeding it. Screenshots and videos of Crysis 2 abound, and publisher Electronic Arts has released a statement condemning the criminals and reminding all of us that “Piracy continues to damage the PC packaged goods market and the PC development community.”

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I never buy protection.

Now, before you go fleeing for the exits thinking you’ve wandered into a Very Special Episode of The Ed Zone – relax; this is purely gaming related.

I’ll leave the pharmacy chat for Dr. Oz. No, I’m speaking specifically about that Game Disc Protection Plan that every counter jockey at your friendly big-box game store has been coerced to offer you each and every time you look to purchase another game. I guess $3 is not that steep a charge to save you from yourself. But if you have even the tiniest bit of self-control and can be counted on to refrain from using that new copy of Dead Space 2 for skeet practice, that’s three more bones that you can place as down payment on the next round of DLC that should have been on the disc in the first place.

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I was going to write an article about why no MMO currently out (or in development) stands a chance at beating World of Warcraft, but then I noticed that Extra Credits already explained it eloquently. As I was watching their video, I found myself in agreement when it came to all things except one. I genuinely do not believe that transition to free-to-play models is the future. It may sound nice in theory, but upon closer examination it becomes evident that games are not magically exempt from the notion of “you get what you pay for.”

There are three types of free games. The first type is genuinely free. It usually includes small, indie offerings, proofs of concept, and student projects. Sometimes the developers ask for donations, but it is always clear that they are not expecting to get paid and not counting on the money. The games in this category can be quite good, excellent at times, yet it is evident at first glance that they have low production values. Indie is a good thing, but they are not in the business of competing with AAA titles, and just as it would be premature to dismiss the value in indie games, so is it immature to dismiss the value of big AAA games.

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I think a getting-to-know-me blog is a little past due on my end, so I hope this helps you understand where I come from as a gamer. My father got an Atari a little after I was born. He and a good friend used to compete in those Asteroids and Galaga tournaments back when arcades actually had substance and the games were impressive. His friend was so good at these games that he could walk outside, have a smoke, and still have more than 50 lives remaining when he returned. Back then he was considered a lazy person who lacked passion, but if he had been born today he’d be considered a “cyberathlete” for his feats of video-game prowess. This brings me to an interesting realization: the world is a random place, and so am I.

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Not all that long ago, I sat down to have a look at the upcoming games of 2011, and I found myself sad to see the inevitable and expected decline of the DS and the PSP. I didn’t see much on the list to excite me, either. Most that looked interesting to me are for systems I don’t yet own, but with a little searching I found some genuinely interesting games that I’m really looking forward to play.

High on my list is Jikandia: The Timeless Land. From the same team that made Half Minute Hero, Jikandia looks like a kind of RPG platformer that features time-based gameplay. The time you set for a dungeon determines what can be found there (enemies, loot and traps), and the more times you play through the game, the more story events are unlocked. I’m looking forward to a lot of replay value.

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Did you know that tomorrow is New Year’s? I too did at some point, but then I forgot because I was playing World of Warcraft. What? No, YOU’RE a nerd! And then I switched to programming this really cool thing that extracts data from the World of Warcraft Armory. Anyway, last night I was gently reminded that it would have been nice to turn in my “Best Games of 2010” article that was due a week ago. You know what I did then? I went and I programmed some more. In fact I was programming until 12:30 AM, which is actually later than I usually stay up playing games. (I hope my editor doesn’t read this. Oh wait…)

In all solemn seriousness, 2010 has been a good year for me gaming-wise. I beat 16 games and played many others that I did not beat. To be honest most of them were actually older ones, such as Psychonauts or The Witcher, but some were quite new. I played and reviewed Supreme Commander 2, Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising, and a bunch of smaller games. Most notably, however, I played Starcraft 2, and World of Warcraft: Cataclysm.

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Growing up, I wasn’t technically a gamer. I owned a Sega Genesis and NES, but I only purchased bargain bin games or rented the occasional video game from a local mom-and-pop rental store. My best friends usually had the newest consoles and the latest titles, and I would get to play the latest titles when we hung out, but I was more into the social aspect of gaming with friends. “Gamer” wasn’t something I was, gaming was something I did when I got together with my buddies.

Now I’m 27 and consider myself a “gamer.” I’ve even developed a reputation around my work as the nerdy gamer. Upon coming in late to work one day, my boss asked me if I “was up all night gaming or something.” A large part of this transformation is due not only to being able to afford to keep up with gaming, but also the embracing of technologies that keep me informed such as podcasts, RSS feeds and updates from Facebook.

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