This week features a long podcast, as there’s a ton of news to report. Jonah tries air quotes on a pure audio podcast, while Paul refuses to believe The Legend of Zelda: Skyword Sword failed to hit the top 10 in software sales.
In addition, the Gaming Flashback checks out the JRPG Ys.
This week’s news includes:
- Ubisoft polling gamers for next Assassin’s Creed setting
- Electronic Arts bans a user for saying “badass”
- Newell: Piracy is “almost always a service problem” and not price, DRM agitates
- Christwire makes mock petition asking Pres. Obama ban Skyrim
- Holiday shopping madness sees woman pepper spraying for 360
- Microsoft refunds victims of Marketplace phishing scam
All this, and a bunch of reader feedback, as well as the Question of the Week: “Did you buy videogames as holiday gifts for friends and family?” Let us know.
Guitar Hero III hits 
Microsoft Game Studio’s producer Phil Spencer said:
@Ubisoft polling gamers for next Assassin’s Creed setting: I would love it if they used multiple settings for Assassin’s Creed 3.
@Newell: Piracy is “almost always a service problem” and not price, DRM agitates: I agree with him completely, even though I think game prices are a little bit steep for me at my age.
@Christwire makes mock petition asking Pres. Obama ban Skyrim: Trolls will be trolls. This is just silly and it’s sad that it even got any attention.
@Microsoft refunds victims of Marketplace phishing scam: I’m really pleased that they seem to be taking the Valve route, to be nice to the customers instead of treating them like insignificant numbers.
@QOTW: I won’t buy holiday gifts for anyone. Period.
@”Badass”: Are you kidding me? This looks to me like a broken forum filter. And why oh why do they still use a single database for forum band AND account bans?
@Piracy is “almost always a service problem”:
Yes and no. Yes, a bad service will lead to higher piracy rate. Still, 60 USD is too high for Romania , so price-point triggered piracy still exists, at least in my country.
And Newel is not entirely honest there: when launching in Russia, besides doing it at the same time with the rest of the world, they also reduce the price of the games: around 20 USD versus 60 USD in the rest of the world.
@mock petition asking Pres. Obama ban Skyrim:
Paul, they made you read this because the petition is funny.
And the truth is that politicians don’t really give a crap.
@Holiday shopping madness:
Woohaa !! 🙂 Wait … doesn’t this qualify as an assault? Normally she should be charged …
This is pretty sick … you can get discounts at other times, no really need crowd up the shops during one day.
@Microsoft refunds victims of Marketplace phishing scam:
Microsoft went above what was required from them. I mean you cannot blame Microsoft from whatever clicks you made.
@QOTW: … yes. I guess it says a lot about myself 😛