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There has been a lot of talk about the end of single player games and how “games as a service” are what will drive the gaming market in the future. For those that don’t know what the term “games as a service” means, think games like Destiny 2, World of Warcraft, or even mobile games like Marvel Contest of Champions. These games have absolutely nothing in common gameplay wise, but they do have an extremely addicting quality to them. That is thanks to the fact that they are constantly being updated, they have seasonal events or events for special occasions that give different rewards, and probably the most addicting quality, loot boxes. Loot boxes are rewards that are generated through an RNG (random number generator) algorithm to give rewards randomly (or as random a computer can actually be) to a player. The addicting quality of loot boxes can be compared to that of sitting in a casino playing the slot machine, continuously wasting away your spare change and time, praying that the...

If you’ve been to your local GameStop lately you might have noticed something different about the way they have been displaying their merchandise. Walls that used to be lined with used games from last generations consoles have been replaced with Pop figures of popular comic book and TV series character, replica props from video games, and t-shirts sporting this years pop culture icons. I was a little disappointed to see my beloved Xbox 360 games reduced to a tiny shelf in the middle of the store, but I can also understand the shift in merchandise focus. I would imagine that it is not just used game sales that are suffering. New games have to be taking a hit as well. With the ease of downloadable video games it is easy to see that physical disc copy sales would suffer. For the hardcore online gamer it’s much easier to pre-order a game online, pre-download it to your hard drive, and start gaming as soon as the servers go live at midnight. Not to mention that having a bunch of discs ...

I can still remember back in 2007 when Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty Modern Warfare was released. People were going crazy over this game that arguably set the standard for how a multiplayer FPS game should be played (settle down Halo fans, I said “arguably”). Modern Warfare was really the first mainstream, multiplayer FPS to be set in a modern war setting, dealing with modern military weapons and real life special forces teams battling terrorists. It was definitely a relief from the old World War II setting that most military FPS’s were set in before this time. So when Treyarch decided to go back in time again to WWII for their turn at a Call of Duty game, it should be no surprise that Call of Duty World at War was met with some disappointment from fans. If it wasn’t for the now industry standard Zombie mode World at War would not have been met with such positive reviews. It seemed fans were more satisfied with the modern setting, but some eager fans called for something more. I...

On Oct 28, 2017, George St. Pierre posted a picture of himself wearing the new Mario hat, Cappy, and a copy of the newly released Mario odyssey in hand, on Instagram. Normally I would chalk this up to Nintendo just trying to win us over by showing fans that celebrities enjoy their games too, but being such a huge fan of George St. Pierre’s, I couldn’t help but appreciate the fact that he took time out of his busy schedule training for UFC 217 (Michael Bisping, you’re going down!) to promote a game that critics are calling the best Mario game of all time. https://www.instagram.com/p/BawSUksAvWL/ This isn’t GSP’s first time advertising a game for Nintendo.  GSP has also been seen playing Nintendo’s fighting game Arms, which makes a lot more sense for the MMA fighter. I’ve always heard that GSP was a big nerd as a kid, and being a fan of both martial arts and video games myself, that is definitely something I can relate to. It comes as no surprise to me that GSP would be a ...