I was at Staple!: The Independent Media Expo at the weekend. As I browsed the stalls, I wandered into range of a conversation between (I think) a guy from Dreampunk Productions, and someone who mentioned that he was a video game developer. Nothing unusual so far, there are a lot of video game developers around Austin. They were talking about a comic strip I hadn’t heard of, and the artists’ interest in making a video game about it–also not unusual.
I’m currently playing Fallout 3. I finished the actual game months ago, but the extra downloadable content packs were released for PS3 recently, so I bought a couple and returned to the post-apocalyptic wasteland. So I’m not inherently against the idea of paid-for add-on downloadable content packs for games. However, I skipped buying any add-on content for LittleBigPlanet. Frankly, I don’t need tons of outfits or in-game stickers, and dozens of little $1.
I’ve never been a smoker, but I think I understand some of the addiction–because I’ve been a Dungeons & Dragons player. Smokers tell me that the addiction isn’t so much about the taste or the chemical stimulation; it’s the ritual and the social aspects that are harder to shake off. So it is with D&D. I can go for years without playing, but like with smoking, you’re always in recovery. Every time I step in a comic book store, there’s the risk that a group will be playing in a side room.