What to Be Excited About

As saturnine and pessimistic as I am about everything, I'll admit: gaming is beautiful. And it has some exciting things going on, which I will discuss below this sentence.

Little Ouya the Console System. I'm putting this on the list because I pledged $99 to the project. I am 50% sure the project will fail in the long run, because it sounds too good. A pro-indie console system, not being funded by billionares, that costs more than $100 to make, yet is sold for $100 dollars, and runs on a micro-transaction, free-to-play business model. It so might not make it. I HOPE IT MAKES IT. NINETY-NINE DOLLARS!

Day Z: Game companies are doing a bad job convincing me that we need new, global warming-boosting, super computer consoles. Unless I consider Bohemia Interactive.

Can you imagine awesome, open-world games with graphics like Arma III's? Yes? And it doesn't really matter? Okay. True. Direct X 9 looks good enough. And there's Arma II, which looks good enough, although moves awkwardly (but really, that's just bad design).

And there's Day Z, which apparently will go a Minecraft business model and won't rely on Arma III? We'll see. For now the alpha version of the mod is Rockpapershotgun's game of the year.

The World Economy Not Collapsing: This of course is hopeful thinking, as everything looks like apocalypse. The average 1st worlder isn't willing to sacrifice comfort and instant gratifications to do the things that would make their lives worth living.

And the governments are out of money. Unemployment is rising. Daily work hours are increasing. The increased pay rate remains below the increased rate of inflation. Too many people still marry not because of friendship, but because of money, "love," and the desperate need to perpetuate their genes no matter the torture and irrelevance it imposes on everyone. The cowardly U.S. legislature hates itself too much to do what must be done. And the presidential candidates suck.

Also, global warming, and the small possibility that the Sun will wipe away our electricity next year in a powerful coronal mass ejection.

Cool Indie Games: Nobody can stress enough the good that is independent artists. So what - that not all their work's good? At least they make original things with the potential of being awesome. As opposed to almost every big game company; although, yes, there are exceptions to the all-big-game-publisher-games-are-crap rule, Xenoblade Chronicles being this year's example.

Valve: Because Valve is Valve.

My humor writing: It is gaming-related. No lie.