Episode 481: Portal’s Huge Success

This week’s Gaming Flashback has no cake — instead it’s the history of Portal. The guys try to keep the podcast meme-free as they discuss Valve’s first person puzzle platformer.

There’s also non-Portal related news items, too:

  • Chris Avellone may be teasing a new Fallout game
  • Street Fighter 5 will finally get an arcade mode in 2018
  • The SNES Classic has been hacked
  • Telltale patch removes assassinated ambassador from Batman: The Enemy Within

Let us know what you think in the Comments section.

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All this and Listener Feedback.

Star Wars Galaxies Shutdown BacklashStar Wars Galaxies Shutdown Backlash

Despite the announced shutdown of Star Wars: Galaxies and the approaching new Star Wars-based MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic, loyal subscribers don’t want Galaxies to end. They’ve begun a petition to try to convince Sony to let the MMO live on as a free-to-play MMO.

The petition asks Sony to convert the game to a ‘freemium’, microtransaction-based MMO, and that Sony consolidate players onto a smaller number of servers and facilitate character transfer to reduce operational costs in order to keep the game running. The petition has already gotten thousands signatures in a few days.

One of the petition leaders posted:

We are not your typical gamers.

We are not a commodity.

But if you look at the recent decision by Lucasarts to shut down Star Wars Galaxies, you might be inclined to think we are both of those things. Lucasarts thinks that we are a non-perishable commodity that can be shoved into a shipping crate and moved down the road to their next project. That is not the case. Not even close.

We are a vibrant community. We have seen our ups and downs, but we are only stronger because of it. We have endured all manner of broken promises and misleading “improvements” to this game, and throughout all of it, we have continued to build our community, and show support and loyalty to this great game. But we didn’t do it because of a game. We did it because of our community here.

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