2014 worldwide communication network intersects with the primate brain

Because of Phasebook, smart phones, and suchlike, people act very strange in 2014. They pay lots of attention to people they dislike and never talk to. People casually know the goings-on of even distant acquantances they never talk to. They compulsively addictively check their pocket-sized cancer-generation device, devoid of any actual individual personality or ability to think abstractly. They check a user-regulated encyclopedia for factoids they'll forget in 2 minutes, just because it's convenient. They get jealous and hide things from their procreation partners, sowing distruct between both parties, so much that they don't trust each other enough to respect each others' individual privacy. People focus on taking a picture of a moment to reflect on later and add to some collection to show off to others, instead of simply enjoying that moment right now. People are losing themselves to a mass mind. Individual identity is being weeded out. Brains online instead of on-mind. Smart phones instead of smart people.

I'm so glad I don't have a smart phone to make me look stupid.

T

Sitting, reading. Grab tea mug for a sip. Nothing in it.
=[
A few minutes later, still reading. Grab tea mug and sip… oh yeah I forgot.
=[

Ahh, I've had my coffee now and I feel great!

2004:
Develop and polish game for years. A couple bugs crop up post-release, and they become legendary to fans, increasing the value of the original product. Fans play these games over and over. They become legendary, rooted in popular culture and memory.

2014:
Pre-order to get a cheap trinket, even if the game is mediorce! See everything about a game before it even releases! Release it early in order to meet a deadline! Yearly franchise installments! Patch it! No glitches allowed! Play the game once, get "100%" plus all the "achievements". Tweet and Face about it, then forget about it and never play it again, and immediately buy the next 60$ game to impress your friends! Also, buy our DLC since we never actually finished the game, so now you're paying 60+ dollars for a game! Also, include a tutorial for everything - the player is an imbecile, and the artistic vision behind the game is compromisable, and so derivative, faded, and dead! Movies are popular, right? Add a bunch of cutscenes! Oh, focus testing showed that players get frustrated when they can't get past this part the first time? Just turn it into a QTE, press A to win! Players don't need to build skills and familiarity!

• On 100% Complete
• Who Needs Interactivity?
• ‘You Can Sleep Here All Night’: Video Games and Labor
• Marketing, Dumb Luck, and the Popping of the Indie Bubble.
• 30 Years Later, One Man Is Still Trying To Fix Video Games

Indie dev Nirvana syndrome

We're at a really interesting turning point in the history of gaming. Indie developers are becoming famous, and then the gaming press act like starved shark paparazzi any time they say anything. At what point does it become wrong? They just want to have small, normal conversations and be themselves, not have their newest conversation plastered all over gaming news. They want to keep making a hundred silly little crappy prototypes, not feel pressured into making things just because they showed an completely uncertain-future sketch.

Thoughtless Twenty Thirteen Trend

Maybe this isn't new, but it has definitely amped up this past year or so. I'm getting very tired of internet drama over mindless junk that goes nowhere. Game Developer X has an opinion! There's a new word for a new subset of sexual preference! People argue over this stuff incessantly lately, and it even morphs the way they used to do things and damages relationships. For fictional example:

1993: 
2D platformer Super Jump Guy releases to huge acclaim. People have a lot of fun with it, and all discussion is about the game. People love playing it over and over, for years, always finding new fun things. People still adore and play Super Jump Guy 20 years into the future, and still know little to nothing about how it was made.

2013: 
A CrowdFarter campaign gets popular because it mentions Super Jump Guy, and that is really the campaign's only merit. The person behind the CrowdFarter campaign has never made a game and has no actual proof of being able to make fun things. Mostly he just has a neat idea and namedropped Super Jump Guy. But in the end, he gets a million donated dollars anyway, and proceeds to spend only about a year making his first game.
2D platformer Ushanka releases, and to huge popularity. But it is not because of the quality of the game, no! It is a game known to every gamer because the developer, Bob Bear - the person who made it - expressed his personal opinions and people paid too much attention to him. A vocal portion of the buying public publicly disagrees with that opinion, and thereby boycotts the games the person makes. So now, to be clear, people don't even care about games anymore. Games must first pass a filter. Before even trying the game, these people must analyze a developer's opinions and moral choices. Not to mention whether or not the game comes with a cool keychain or Limited Edition box set DLC. For several months afterward, more new DLC is released and people buy it and never play it again. After the DLC stops, people forget about Ushanka, and jump into the next shiny new drama game - never to play Ushanka again.
After release, despite everyone knowing the name of the game, most people don't even know what Ushanka is like as a game. They've only heard of the drama regarding Bob Bear.
Not only does Ushanka have a lot of weird press drama junk, but the entire game's development was documented day by day on blogs after the CrowdFarter campaign ended. From the very first concept art and prototypes, the audience knew exactly what was coming, and even got to play alphas and betas of the game before the actual release. The developer couldn't make a game by himself, so he forces his players to make his game.

There is this shift from
-Sometimes some press a couple months before release. Game Release.

to

-Pre-release, pre-orders, pre-order bonuses. pre-release development documentation, public  alpha/beta testing. Press, speculation, and general hype surrounding the impending release. Game release. Judgement and drama. Public forgets. DLC. Resurgence of the same discussion. Public forgets again, too distracted by the latest version of all this.

A new power is HORIZON

HORIZON is basically an indie games press conference.

Historically, every year, I was very excited about E3. I'd look forward to it for weeks. During the expo, I would keep up with every detail of news. Yesteryear, I felt this enthusiasm measurably wane. This year, I only watched Nintendo's E3 Direct, aftwards saying "Alright. I'm all set." I didn't feel compelled to watch every extra trailer, nor watch every trailer repeatedly, nor refresh game news sites every 15 minutes. I just felt like "Hey, these games look okay, and I look forward to trying them some day."

I think HORIZON has supplanted what used to be E3's place, for I. I honestly don't care about the big console games anymore. The extent of my excitement for larger budget stuff is home on 3DS, and even Vita and PC - which were previously alien worlds for I. Handhelds have really always been my home. It's a comfortable place which I have complete control over, a mobile home with everything I need in one little package. No need to keep up with LCD 3D HDTV surround sound 1080p graphic upgrade 2000 BC v4.0 DX. They just sell me one system, and then it's ready for over half a decade of new game releases. My little mobile home that fits in my pocket, a personal space. Entire worlds existing in my pocket, worlds I can transport myself to any time I want, anywhere I want.

More and more, I'm becoming less interested in boarding the hype train and ingesting the months/years-long, spoon-fed, addictive propaganda drug before a game launch. All I need to do is watch some gameplay footage, or read a developer interview, and from that I can determine whether or not I'll enjoy the game in any capacity, and whether it meets my personal criterias enough to support it with my money. After that, it's simply a matter of waiting until after release. I keep a list of release dates and games to keep an eye on, since not all games have release dates.

Of course, this approach doesn't apply to all games. There are a few where I'll follow every update. For example, I've been keeping an eye on Peter Molyneux's _Godus_ every Sunday, when 22cans releases a new development video update. I think whenever Gaijin Games stops milking Runner2, I'll follow their development closely as well. Alex Neuse is a smart dude and has some awesome ideas.

Since Pokémon Gold and Silver, I spoiled so much of nearly every Pokémon game before it even released. Looking at every latest screenshot, watching every new trailer, reading all the latest news and interviews. Starting with Black and White, though, and continuing this 2013 autumn with X and Y, I am intentionally avoiding all the news, screenshots, and trailers. I can tell you for certain that playing Black and White for the first time, without spoilers, was one of my most thrilling game experiences in recent memory. While I didn't end up totally liking that pair of games, I'm still so happy I chose to keep it spoiler-free, and I'm _really_ looking forward to doing the same with X&Y.

Somehow, now, I can appreciate almost all games. I used to be very critical and picky. In many ways I still am - you must maintain your own tongue and manage your money, time, and effort budgets. But so many quality independent games are special in some way to the people making them, and they offer me something special to experience with them. A memory to build and come back to in 20 years. A thought generated which can germinate into a great oak of change or a new way of approaching some aspect of life. The amount and variety of experiences hiding in the grass for me to encounter are both overwhelming and exciting.