The Price Is Shite (Starring Gillen, Taurus, Porter & Mott)

Well over a year ago, we were asked to write a piece on how much reviewers should take game prices into account when reviewing and scoring in light of EA taking the piss out the entire country with its pricing for the original Rock Band set. The mag it was going to appear in folded shortly before it was due to publish (they usually have the decency to go tits up after we’ve administered our kiss of death). It seems a shame to see it go to waste before we disappear again, as it had some excellent contributions from Rick Porter (Editor of gamesTM), Dave McCarthy / Taurus (ex-Editor of Edge and current Triforce slacker), and Kieron Gillen (RR Award-winner).

We also asked current Edge Chief-Editor-In-Chief-Editor-In-Chief Tony Mott for comment, and received some of the finest prose to escape his fingertips:

“I've just had a look at your web site and you don't seem to have changed your stance on Edge (you still believe it to be a piece of shit, as far as I can tell).”


Although the focus of the piece was originally concerned with stuff that nobody cares about anymore such as the Rock Band pricing, the original iPhone, Gerstmann-gate and EA being cunts, it now seems relevant again thanks to Activision openly taking the piss out of you with their pricing for Modern Warfare 2, Tony Hawk RIDE and DJ Hero. So here, without the vast majority of our own wittering commentary, is the piece presented in more of an interview style so you can enjoy it even if you hate everything we stand for.

***

Every editor has their own idea about how much price should affect the scores given to games when reviewed. I've had my fair share of arguments with editors who think prices should play no part in the review, as I couldn't disagree more. Our jobs are to tell our readers whether they should part with their hard-earned money for the privilege of playing a game. Some editors get so totally lost somewhere in the yards of intestinal tract they spend most of their adult lives inspecting that they forget this simple fact. They become utterly blind to the notion that just because they get sent everything for free, along with assorted bribes and freebies, and of course the free parties where they play with all their little chums and have a jolly good time, all of their readership will have to pay out to enjoy the same experience.

Fortunately I'm describing a minority here, as most editors and review outlets do adopt a policy in their style guides that prices should be considered when awarding a score. Fifty quid for Audiosurf? Fuck off – 2/10. Five quid for Audiosurf? Yes please – 8/10.

But hey, I'm not always right, so I asked some of the mags and review outlets what they have to say about all this.

Rick Porter (Editor, GamesTM): “How to score titles when the price-tag strays away from the norm? It's something that myself and the team have struggled with plenty over the last 18 months. When a game is more or less free, it is very easy to justify treating the price as a distinctly separate issue. Besides, if pricing were allowed to be a contributing factor to scores then any flash game or title that's made available for free should almost certainly be awarded a perfect ten. Therefore, when reviewing games, the only way is to have a policy that disregards external factors such as pricing.”

David McCarthy (Former Editor, Edge): “I remember when I was working on Edge, the reviewing policy was to simply assume that Edge readers, being the early-adopting technophiles that we all imagined them to be, would assume that price was no object, and we reviewed games accordingly. And actually, that was fairly easy for me, because, impoverished though I was, price was no object for me when I bought Samba de Amigo, or when, for example, I bought an import GameCube with the money my mum had given me one Christmas to buy a bed. I'd rather play Super Monkey Ball than sleep comfortably.”

RAM Raider: “Now that's an interesting viewpoint – if your readership are so hardcore that they've learnt Japanese so they can play Final Fantasy "the way it's meant to be played", and think nothing of crashing the Tokyo Game Show whilst keeping a copy of their Scandinavian Game Development supplement with them for the plane journey, then it would be senseless to punish the quality of gameplay through a review just because of its associated RRP. In a way, it's moving away from critiquing the pure quality of the game. Nevertheless, £180 is still taking the piss.”

Porter: “When something is horrendously overpriced, the conscience begins to nag a little harder. When you're advising a largely young audience to part with hundreds rather than tens of pounds, you feel obliged to take things such as value for money into consideration. Fortunately, being one of the more mature videogame magazines on the market, I choose to assume that anyone reading gamesTM knows the worth of £180, is aware of the risks involved in spending it on a videogame and are, ultimately, sure that they can afford to spend the amount without too much consequence.”

RR: “So it seems that both Edge and gamesTM are familiar enough with their readership to know what the majority of them want – reviews of the games, rather than their price tags. But this brings us around to the question of whether particular audiences are that demarcated from Mr Average Gamer. If someone outside of the demographic picked up a copy of either mag hoping to see whether the game is worth mortgaging their house for, would it be reasonable for them to expect the reviewer to have considered the price?”

Kieron Gillen (RR Award-winning journo): “There's some very well meaning people, including several of my friends, who believe that the price shouldn't influence a review. I think they're about as wrong as you can get. A review in a consumer magazine is primarily a consumer guide, and the mark a shorthand for 'Should I get this or not?'. If a game is drastically overpriced – that is, giving an amount of entertainment beneath what a consumer would expect – I think it should affect the mark. It's part of the consumer protection part of the gig, and punishing developers who try to gouge consumers. You deal with everything in the body copy, allowing people to make up their own mind. But you can't give a 10/10 for a game that's ludicrously overpriced, because then people will think you mean 'It's worth it'. And you *don't* think it's worth it.”

RR: “Three reviewers, three different perspectives. On one extreme, we've got Gillen who thinks reviewers should take pricing into consideration. On the other, we've got McCarthy who thinks the dead opposite. Somewhere in between the two, albeit closer to McCarthy's camp, Porter thinks pricing should only minimally influence the reviewer when it's extraordinarily high. Are you following all this?”

Porter: “Could there be confusion? Almost definitely. When we gave Wii Play a fairly low score, there was a cry from many forums claiming that we were wrong to score a game that essentially cost five pounds in such a harsh way. It was agreed that it wasn't a great title, but all were willing to pay the asking price due to the Remote they received in the package. A shrewd piece of marketing by Nintendo who were obviously aware that all who purchased a Wii also owned Wii Sports – a title that near demanded a second Remote to be fully enjoyed. In the case of Rock Band, we awarded a high score. The game is excellent. Would we have come under fire from the same people who didn't agree with the Wii Play score had we marked it down to a four simply because of its high price? Definitely.”

RR: “So what about import reviews – can mags really be blamed for reviewing foreign code for the sake of an early review?”

Gillen: “Imports isn't really relevant to what I mainly do – a lot of mags re-review when it gets a UK release, like the lovely NGamer. What may be relevant is when I get sent a boxed copy of a game which is available much cheaper online, like many casual games. In that case, yeah, it affects the mark – as I'm reviewing the package I was sent and I'll actively point people in the direction of where they should get it from in the text.”

RR: “There's a lot of sense in that argument. To describe the job of the reviewer as being to review the game purely on its merits to the exclusion of all else would be misleading semantics. The real reason reviewers exist is to allow the reader to vicariously experience the game through them so they know if it's something they need to buy. In this sense, wouldn't ignoring the price be effectively ignoring the fact that in the real world, people have to pay for stuff?”

McCarthy: “I don't have a massive amount of sympathy for people complaining about the price of Rock Band. If you don't like the price, don't buy the game. Or move somewhere better than Britain. I mean, it's not just games, is it? As for the general point: if reviewers want to review a game based on its price, that's up to them, as long as they make it clear that's what they're doing. I'm basically in favour of reviewers reviewing a game however they want, as long as they make clear the basis upon which they form their judgements.”

Porter: “Wherever there is room for confusion and complaint, you can be sure that some will be confused and complain about it. I doubt there's any real solution to the problem. All that can be asked is that each magazine team is aware of the readership it has and points out issues where they see fit.”

RR: “The most important point underpinning McCarthy and Porter's argument is that there has to be clarity when it comes to the magazine, or the reviewer, getting the approach they're taking in the review across to the reader. But in an age where people will log on to MetaCritic to view a list of scores, or will happily just flick through to the last paragraph of a mag's review in WHSmith, what are the readers expecting?”

Gillen: “I suppose it's a natural conclusion of 'Some People Just Read The Mark'. If that's all they read, you need to actually carry the message, 'Not Worth It', in there. People who read the review will make up their own mind. And – frankly – publishers should be punished for trying it on.”

RR: “As compelling as the well considered and largely well-meaning viewpoints of fine journalists such as McCarthy and Porter are, particularly the attitude of reviewing the “game” rather than the “product”, it's hard not to ultimately agree with Gillen on this one. At the end of the day, we're not just here to tell the readers what's worth investing their time, and nothing more, in. Some other reviewers really do need reminding occasionally that their readers, those people they write for (remember them… anyone?), don't generally get sent stuff for free.

Gillen: “I suppose the central point is, 'I think that games journalists should remember when they spent thirty quid on a game and felt ripped off'. It's a good general rule.”

Q&A With Mr. Biffo / Paul Rose! (Plugging His Book, But Being Funny Too)

Readers of the funnier-than-this-blog (not hard) and updated-more-than-this-blog (really not hard) Mr. Biffo’s Blog (formerly Biffovision) might have noticed one or two references to the new book Confessions Of A Chatroom Freak by the former Digitiser and only-readable-page-in-Edge guy. In the interests of good old-fashioned promotion, he agreed to grant us a Q&A about his sexual interests and darkest perversions. And a bit about the book.


You've written a book. Tell us all about it. Does it have some nice, smooth varnish on the front?

The entire cover is very smooth, and the overall dimensions are slightly larger than you – or indeed I – would perhaps expect them to be for a book of this sort. Tie it to a broom handle, and it makes for a very effective cudgel. And I should know: I’ve just used it to pressgang four or five people! The book is a series of genuine transcripts of conversations between my feminine alter-ego, LoopyLisa21f, and a series of unwitting online suitors. It’s probably slightly longer than it should’ve been, but at least you get your money’s worth. And hey – it’s not a novel, and therefore not meant to be read all in one go. Idiots. Depending on who you are, you’ll either find it the funniest thing you ever read, or get halfway through and decide that’s more than enough to write a negative review on Amazon. Not that I ever did that when I used to review video games for a living, of course. I played them all through to the end. Ahem.

Pretending to be someone you're not's a bit weird, isn't it? All this hiding behind personas who aren't really you, like a washed-up games journo who slags off everyone because HE HATES THE WORLD AND… ahem, sorry… so why did you go with "LoopyLisa" and her surreal personality?

I dunno, really. I didn’t think about it a great deal. Lisa just sort of happened. She was always 21, always a school teacher, and always had a father who abused her in a variety of amusing ways. Actually, there are elements of her personality that are based upon someone I used to know, but that’s all I’m saying on that (and with that every single person who ever met me feels a sudden pang of paranoia…). Yes, it was probably a weird thing to start doing initially, but hey – it was for a book, guy! If I did it for fun you’d have cause to get concerned. Anyway, hasn’t everyone pretended to be someone they’re not at some point? And when I say “pretended to be someone they’re not” I specifically mean “inverted their genitals to pretend to be someone of the opposite sex, and inexplicably started crawling around in their front garden”.

Even if you go out and win the Nobel Peace Prize, you'll always be remembered as "that guy what used to do Digitiser". One of our personal favourite bits of Digi was Phoning Honey, where you would ring up games shops and firms and prank them up good. Is LoopyLisa the new digital frontier version of Phoning Honey?

Yes. Spot on. That was part of the idea behind it: I needed to find a way to get all that pent-up Digi nonsense out of my system. Digitiser was always a stream-of-consciousness – written in an hour every morning, before I went off and did something more productive, such as give myself the runs, or suckle a horse – and for Confessions of a Chatroom Freak I took exactly that approach. It’s all quite liberating, really, especially now that I work in TV, where I’ve constantly got 45 people breathing down my neck, telling me what and how I should be writing. It also means I can go back and read bits, and find them funny because I don’t remember writing them.

Going back to the chatting up of a plethora of chat room weirdos you've done for your book: Now that the conversations they've had with you have been published for the world to see, what are you going to do when one tracks you down and demands you make good on any promises you might have made?

Take him up on it. I am nothing if not dedicated to my art. Actually, I’m not sure I ever promised anything. Part of the book was me talking a load of surreal arse, and seeing how long they’d continue to talk to me.

The TriForce wrote a book. No, really, and Teletext's GameCentral said it was shit. We found a dog-eared copy in Waterstones and thought it was alright. The kind of "alright" where we didn't regret standing there reading it for 10 minutes, but not the kind of "alright" where we were reaching for our wallets afterwards. Do you think your book will break the speed record set by the TriForce's book, and hit bargain bins even sooner (even if that would mean hitting the bargain bins literally before its release)? And do you think Teletext will say your book's shit too?

I can’t see the book being reviewed on GameCentral. Firstly, it has absolutely nothing to do with video games. Secondly, it’s absolutely filthy, and I know from bitter experience that Teletext doesn’t like any hint of filth unless you’ve found some way to sneak it onto their pages. Lastly, Teletext’s senior management hate me, so I wouldn’t for a second imagine that they’d want to publicise my guff. Will it hit the bargain bins quicker than The TriForce book? I hope so: I need to top up my promo copies library.

How does it feel not only being an Official Top 10 "Celebrity" Games Journalist BUT ALSO the sixth least hideous games journalist?

It feels to me like you could’ve chosen a better photo. I absolutely fucking hate that one. ‘Scuse my French.

Who's more attractive – you, or LoopyLisa?

Lisa, by far. She has smoother legs, and a nicer bottom. Mine is all damp, and covered in leaves.

Incredibly, the first few voters when we checked on Paul's picture agreed:

And on that note, is LoopyLisa's resemblance to Russell Brand intentional?

Does she look like Russell Brand? That’s the first I’ve heard of it. That probably means that Russell Brand looks a bit like my mother. Perhaps we’re related. Which would be embarrassing, seeing as we recently had sex with one another (you know: “for television”).

Were there any chats too saucy for the book? TELL ME NOW. IN DETAIL.

I’m not sure. There were some that were too unfunny for the book, and a couple that we edited out because some guy went off on a racist rant that sat uncomfortably alongside the rest of it. I think the sauciest ones are all in there. Some of those chaps really do get quite steamy. And, indeed, seamy.

You look very comfortable in your photographs. Your idea, perchance?

Actually, no. I tried to convince my publisher that we could get a model to pose for the pictures, but the budget wouldn’t stretch to it. My default reaction in any crisis is to reach for the mascara. The original photos I sent to the victims were actually slightly more masculine. The ones in the book are probably slightly too girly. I’d certainly do me. And I have done.

It's an undisputed fact which has been scientifically proven on more than one occasion that 93.7% of people surf the net in their underwear at all times. As you obviously statistically lie within this percentile, did you have your online chats in your underpants, or did you crack out the negligee?

As the photos prove, all my chats took place while I was wearing an all-in-one black body sheath, and white Stormtrooper boots. Indeed, everything I do occurs while wearing an all-in-one black body sheath, and white Stormtrooper boots.

Chatting up perverts and possible paedophiles is undoubtedly one of the best jobs in the world (it is, isn't it? Hmm?), so are you working on a sequel?

My publisher hasn’t asked me to think about a sequel, but I’d very much like to do one. I guess it all depends on how well it sells. I don’t think it’s doing too badly at the moment, but who knows? I think I learned a few lessons, and I’d like to develop the idea in a few different ways, while not losing sight of what makes it good. As I previously mentioned, I do find the process quite liberating. The book won’t be to everyone’s taste, but this sort of abject nonsense never will be. After all, Digitiser was always very divisive. I’d be surprised if anyone who liked Digitiser doesn’t finds Confessions funny. Also: anyone who doesn’t like the book is obviously an Internet pervert himself, and merely looking out for his own.

Did you ever feel yourself getting dragged (hah – "dragged" – you see?) a little too far towards the dark side when you were dedicating so much time towards chatting up freaks? Were you ever, say, halfway through a conversation before realising you had your hand on a nipple?

You mean, did I ever get turned on? Christ, no. There’s nothing quite as sobering – or less arousing – as knowing that the man you’re talking to is masturbating while fantasising about having sex with a female version of yourself. Towards the end I certainly found the whole thing clouding my mood. The first half of the book was written over the space of a couple of years, but making up the remainder of the chats only took a couple of months. That much concentrated exposure to the dank underbelly of the Internet was almost too much to handle. There’s only so much of that a man can stomach before losing all faith in the rest of his gender: it’s like being able to read people’s minds, and I did start to realise that – contrary to popular thinking – people don’t try and pretend to be someone else online. That’s who they really are.

You're a proper, real life TV writer. Do you think there's some way you can bring Confessions Of A Chatroom Freak to TV land?

I don’t know how it’d work on telly. My publisher and I did briefly toy with the possibility of doing some sort of live event – just to prove that I really do these things for real – but I can’t see any way of that happening without entering a legal minefield. I’d be happy to sell the film rights to anyone with a spare million quid to hand. Oh, go on then – fifty quid.

Did you ever have any chats with blokes who were actually Pat Butcher lesbians just pretending to be mentally disturbed wank monkeys?

No, but the opposite did happen. I chatted to one “bi-fem” who I sussed pretty early on was a bloke. Which was quite a surreal situation, when you think about it.

Your hatred of Terry Pratchett is legendary (interesting trivia fact: several games journos who work with his daughter love slagging her off when she's not there). Had you thought of inviting him to a chat with LoopyLisa? Do you think he'd try and work his moves, or huffily whine something about Ankh-Morpork (or whatever) and disconnect?

I don’t hate Terry Pratchett. He was just astonishingly rude to me one time, and I don’t like his stupid books. Admittedly, that’s probably as a consequence of him being rude to me. I’m not sure I’d want to chat with him as LoopyLisa. In fact, I couldn’t think of anything more distressing. Try and picture that: Terry Pratchett tugging himself off during a cybersex session. Ugh. No. I’d never go online again.

If you could chat with any person in the world as LoopyLisa, who would it be?

You, Ramraider. It has always been you…

Q&A (Guest Starring… Kieron Gillen!)

On our second Birthday, we made a promise to answer your questions. Actually, we promised to answer your questions if they arrived within an hour of posting with the obvious intention that nobody would notice until it was too late. Several of you asked questions, but missed the deadline. We’ll answer some of them anyway. However, one person managed to squeeze in an email full of questions within the hour, meaning we have to answer them. That man was Gillen.


KG: What's the purpose of your blog?

RR: There isn’t really any one purpose when it comes to what goes up on here now. When I first started over two years ago, I was pissed off. Pissed off with the games industry. Pissed off with how it all works. Pissed off that the mags lie to their readers and treat them with contempt. Pissed off that I would get bollocked if I made anything vaguely resembling a humorous or true comment that wasn’t in step with the company line (which means the advertisers’ line too). Just pissed off that the games industry has become this ridiculous joke constantly begging anyone who’ll listen to be taken seriously whilst carrying on like a corrupt, amateurish sixth-form project. Money money money.

KG: Why do you do it?

RR: That fateful night I started the blog, I thought there was very little chance that I could make a difference. I just wanted to get it out there how the magazines are put together, how we’re told to lie, how we get less than 24 hours to turn around preview code and call it a review, and how we get censored unless we’re rewriting press releases. I thought I might get a handful of readers, maybe 50 or so, who read the games mags and would be interested to hear what really goes on behind the scenes.

I never really thought I could make a difference until word got out and I started getting four-figure daily hits. Then I thought maybe I could. The weird thing is, despite blogging about the lies and bullshit, the majority of mag readers don’t know the blog exists because my main audience is games journos and industry workers who know it all anyway. Even the only place that’s had the guts to print my rants as the RAM Raider is the industry’s trade mag, MCV. I did get a mention in PC Zone though, in a roundabout way...

KG: What drives you?

RR: The purpose is just to have fun. If I want to slag something or someone off and Future Publishing (or even smalltime Nazis like the RLLMUK mods) won’t let me because they’re so fucking pathetic about censorship, I can just bung it on here and people get to read it if they want. The purpose now is just to talk about the games industry, get views from the people inside and outside of it, and to let the mags know that they can’t expect to lie without people finding out about it.

KG: What do you hope to accomplish with it?

RR: One of the things that makes me snigger when I’m being lambasted for being cowardly, and hiding behind my cloak of anonymity and all that bollocks is that the journos who are doing it aren’t criticising me for telling the truth. They’re criticising me because I’m talking about them and their buddies, and they don’t like it. They like criticising games (as long as the publisher hasn’t paid for advertising in the mag, natch) perched up in their magazines and on their little websites, and so they should. As games journalists, it’s our right and our duty to criticise bad games. I know for a fact that you feel no guilt when you’re really sticking it to a bad game, and rightly so.

What the games journos really hate though is the thought that someone’s criticising them. The reviewers are being reviewed. When I’m being called a hypocrite for working in an industry I’ve come to hate as much as I love over the years, that makes me laugh hard. So there’s the purpose: it keeps the mags on their toes, it keeps the readers of the mags informed about what goes on, and it entertains me as well as my Anonymous Knights.

KG: *Is* there anything you can accomplish with it?

RR: When it comes to accomplishments, I think I’ve achieved everything I set out to do and then some. Anything else is a bonus. As long as people enjoy reading the blog and the right questions are there to be asked, I’ll carry on popping up from time to time to ask them. And you’ve got to admit – that Top 10 Least Hideous Games Journos thing was a genius idea…


That’s enough for you, Gillen. And for the record, I don’t dislike you or your work. I just dislike some of your work, and the way it’s treated like lost sections of the Bible by certain people. Now, other questions from other readers:

lips said...
Happy Birthday Rammy! My question - why bother?

RR: Kinda answered that above. Thought I could make a difference, but now I’m just pleased to have a conduit to comment without corporate interests taking precedent.


Neil said...
When did you first see corruption in the games industry?

RR: Very good question. A lot of the very early stuff is well documented already, but the first time I personally felt the baseball bat of corruption was when I had an entire article plagiarised from an Amiga mag by a freelance guy like I wouldn’t fucking notice. I won’t name the guy who did it because I don’t know what he does now, and it was a long time ago. And yes, I do regret not suing.


Bonjela said...
Happy Birthday Ram. Answer this please: there are only two magazines for PC games players, so which is better. Pc Zone or Pc Gamer?

RR: PC Gamer, without a shadow of a doubt. I’ve swung between the two a lot over the years. PC Gamer lost my vote when they redesigned a few years back and got all wanky, but then PC Zone was bought out by Future, and was transformed from an edgy adult games mag into a more sterile version of The Beano, and PC Gamer have reeled in their wankiness a bit. Both mags have their faults. PC Zone’s days are numbered the way its ABC’s are going, but they have some genuinely good writers on board which means it’s a shame. Jon Blyth is superb, and weird Irish kid also has his moments when he’s not hung over, but the combination of Future’s dictatorship and the worst editorial partnership in the mag’s history (Sefton/Porter) has sealed its fate. PC Gamer has a more consistent bunch of writers when it comes to quality, with Gillen (when he’s not being silly) and Walker (when he’s not being wrong) standing out. They’ve also got a good solid editor with Ross Atherton, although he needs to reel in the World Of Warcraft features, and stop Tim Chubby Edwards from being so smug.


Anonymous Knight said...
how long have you been in the games business

RR: I won’t give an exact date, but my first published games mag appearance was in the 80’s.


Richard said...
why don't you actually post anything about people taking bribes and that anymore. More rumours of PR intervention, please!

RR: Two answers to this, really. First, despite how much Future and its bitches made out they didn’t care about the blog, they got in an enormous flap. Hatches were battened down, rumours flew, and management wanted to track down their little leak. The problem is, and I hate to admit this, it kinda worked. The way this info works its way around the office means that when stuff does reach me, it would narrow down the field too much if I revealed it. About 10 people know for certain who I am (not including the ones who have guessed) and that's the way I want to keep it for now. The second reason is that it really, genuinely upsets people when I talk about them, so I hold back unless there’s something I really want to get off my chest. Anonymous Knights even write to me with info, but ask me not to reveal it for what I guess are the same reasons, which I always respect. Surreal, but true.


Anonymous Knight said...
How many games industry staff were in the PS3 get-a-free-TV line?

RR: It was quicker to count the genuine customers, and that was after they had to be bribed to appear in the publicity shots.


That’s it folks – the RAM Raider salutes you.

“Celebrity” Reaction: Dave Perry

Dave was the last of our nation’s “celebrity” journalists to give us a response to his Top 10 entry (the shameful four who ignored us are Curran, Cutlack, Diamond and Krotoski – if anyone wants to send in responses on their behalf, good or bad, we’ll post the best as punishment). On a more positive note, Dave’s response was very good.


“There's no disgrace in coming second to Mr Campbell, who is certainly one of my own favourite games writers of all-time. I'd like to thank everyone who voted for me... and so on, and so on, and everybody who has enjoyed my mags or watched the TV shows I've appeared on through the years!”

We couldn’t agree more – coming second to Campbell is nothing to be ashamed of. Dave answered his personal question next.


“As for the question as to whether I have any plans to return to the industry... the answer is a simple one... yes I do.

Apart from interacting with members and fans over at my website, I have deliberately stayed away from gaming on a professional level for the past five years or so. I think everybody needed a rest from me, and I needed a rest from 'having' to play games, rather than playing them because I wanted to. During my time away I've been able to play just for fun again and it has been good for me and for my love of gaming. Now I feel ready to immerse myself in the industry again and hopefully put a bit of 'colour' back into its cheeks. Older, wiser... just as big headed. Should be interesting.”

Dave makes a good point there. Not many people realise how different the experience of playing games as a job is compared with playing for fun. We’d definitely agree that it’s time he made a comeback too, before all those half-arsed “mainstream” journalists and company bitches make us forget what gaming’s really all about.


“Thanks for the praise. You're all very brave. Ram Raider Rules!”

Aww, thanks Dave. The RAM Raider salutes you.


(PS – Thanks to Board of Biffo’s Ming for the picture of Dave making his presence felt)