Aaron hosts freelance writer Bethany Massimillia, Slide.com community manager Don Francis, and software developer Shanker Srinivasan on this week’s Mobcast.
StarCraft 2 can be intimidating to newcomers like Aaron, so he asks if that intimidation is valid. Shanker doesn’t think the story is that special — but it does train you for the multiplayer, where dwells a host of newbies. They move on to other intimidating games, like World of Warcraft, which Shanker compares to smoking.
As there are so many different gamers with different tastes out there, does it make sense to only have one score at the end of a review? Beth thinks people should read reviews properly, and Don points out that just because someone is a fan of one genre, doesn’t mean they won’t like another.
Beth and Don both work for a social game developer, so they talk about those next. Shanker is very disparaging, which makes for a healthy discussion.
Next, they discuss Blizzard’s recent announcement and retraction of a real-names-only policy for their forums. Despite Bitmob’s similar rules, they don’t completely discount Blizzard’s decision.
Finally, they talk about hoarding games then not playing them, and whether or not that’s a bad thing. Did you know: the USA is home to 7000 tigers?
Covered topics: Intimidating games, review scores, social games, real names on the internet, hoarding games.
This week, freelance writer Bethany Massimilla and Slide.com community manager Don Francis join Bitmob’s Aaron Thomas and his archnemesis Shanker Srinivasan.The crew discusses which titles have the most intimidating learning curves, Blizzard’s divisive attempt to implement its Real ID identity-verification system, social gaming, game-buying gluttony, and whether or not reviews should include multiple scores targeted at distinct subsets of gamers.
