"Well, if anyone previously doubted my motivations, this should clear things right up..."

But yeah, that’s what’s about to happen. Call it Fanboi rage or something.

Last night, my long wait for Mass Effect 3 finally came to an end. I’ve spent the last month or so playing and re-playing the ME3 demo and wrangled three friends into getting online and playing the multiplayer portion of the demo with me. I went back and played ME and ME2 just to try to get in a fix while I waited.

I’m not against waiting. I actually like when the anticipation builds to a fever pitch and most of the best things in life are worth waiting for. Maybe not all of them but most of them.

What does set my Rage Level to 11, however, is arriving to pick up my game, which, I might note, has been paid for in full since the first day the game was available for pre-order, and discovering there is already DLC being sold the night of the launch.

I have no idea what Electronic Arts was thinking. We’re not talking about some Day One patch that has to be downloaded before I can play but a DLC package that requires me to pay extra to have all of the content on the night of its launch. PAID DLC ON DAY ONE. Let that sink in for a second.

This is like going to the movies and shelling out the cash for your tickets, sitting through a movie you’ve been waiting to see, only to have the lights come on before the climatic ending, and being told that to see the end of the movie, it will be an extra five bucks.

Dirty pool, EA.

It gets better. A little research and Crutchboy discovers that the DLC we’re shelling out an extra $10 for is actually the extra content available with the Collector’s Edition. So now you’ve not just slapped the general gaming populace in the face by providing paid DLC on launch but you’ve also pretty much invalidated the extra content the Collector’s Edition folks were looking forward to enjoying while the rest of us waited for the day when the DLC was made available.

Sure, those who shelled out the extra cash for the CE probably get some physical goodies. Though based on my own lackluster experience with the CE of SWTOR, I can’t say the extra 20 bucks was worth an ME coffee mug or whatever EA packaged into the game since you’ve gone and made the extra content, the actual meat of what you were pitching to those interested in the Collector’s Edition, available to any poor schmuck who feels obligated to give you an extra ten bucks on launch day to make sure they’re not missing out on anything.

This is the end of “us”, EA. I’ve shelled out money for your titles and I’ve been a loyal fan of some of your games for years. You disappointed me when I found my last purchase of Madden to be the version I got the year before with an updated roster and a new coat of paint. You disappointed me when you started tying all of your in-game content to pre-orders of titles I had no interest in or on playing demos of games I really didn’t care to play.

You’ve made some good decisions in the past few years, namely the purchase of BioWare and all of the intellectual property that entailed, but you’ve made some glaring mistakes that I’m finding harder and harder to ignore. Offering me paid DLC on the night of the launch of one of the most anticipated titles on my very short list is the final straw.

You’re not getting any more money from me. Oh, I’ll continue to play the titles I’ve already purchased but I won’t be purchasing any new games or any further DLC from you. I won’t be pre-ordering any more games, giving you the excuse to artificially inflate your sales numbers by counting pre-orders as full sales in the present fiscal quarter.

More importantly to me, though I doubt you’ll notice, will be my silence in regards to any of your new titles. I won’t talk about them, write about them, or recommend them to friends.

And sadly, that means I won’t be purchasing anything else your genius step-child, BioWare, produces in the future because you’ve taken a brilliant product line and applied your ever shadier business model to it.

Gritskrieg – End of Line

I was racking my brain trying to think of a good way to segue this entry. But instead of telling you a good anecdote or story or something wise and relevant, I think we should just dive into this…

Last month was our Annual Gamette Of The Year Contest. The contest is done for the past two years that we have been in existence to support and celebrate our models who represent the site. The first year we did it. It was mostly harmless fun. The girls promoted themselves, blogged, sent bulletins and emails, got their social circles involved… What some people call a popularity contest, turned into a good clean competition which ended in a big party and cash prize.

This year… the ladies as usual were still pictures of grace, good manners, and fun (which is why they are gamettes in the first place). The problem seems to stem from people who weren’t even IN the contest to begin with.

This past month… the site and our ladies have been targeted for all sorts of things gender based including being charged with “exploiting women??? bringing on models who weren’t “true??? gamers and we even had one person that blamed us for her eating disorder.

They say there is no such thing as “bad publicity???. I don’t know if I agree with that, but there comes a time when you have to address this and move on… So here we go.

First… you can call us a lot of things. Drunks, jerks, and idiots. This is all true. We have never claimed to be Politically Correct. It was never our intention to come across that way and please everyone. We are a site that writes for people like… well… like US. We don’t game a billion hours a day (BUSYGAMER remember?) We play in bands, do radio shows, do IT work, and webpage design when we aren’t taking over the world with BG. When we write our stories, we put up things that WE would like to see. The same goes with our models. (Trust me this is going somewhere) Our Gamettes are a celebration of these girls. We are intent on showing that our subculture is NOT male dominated to women and also show other guys that even though they may like to have a Star Wars marathon in their home now and again, there are girls who will not only watch it with you, but also school you on the logistics of lightsaber construction. This can go on all day so let me just address my main concerns…

Second… One person said we “exploit??? these girls. Are you kidding me? To “exploit??? means to use selfishly for one’s own needs. So let’s get some things straight… We don’t make money off of these girls. We don’t show any nudity on our site (We’ve had to turn down offers for that). We try our hardest to help our gamettes make appearances in cons, push their own websites, blogs, businesses and portfolios. We offer them the chance to write and publish their stuff on our website which is read by hundreds if not thousands of people a day (just like you). In short whatever their prospective field is we promote them just as hard as they promote us. If you don’t believe that… why don’t you try to contact one of our girls yourself and ask them what awful flesh peddlers we must be.

Third… is the charge that not all of our girls are “true hardcore gamers???. This is true by God, and we like it that way. Our requirements for the Gamettes is to be involved or interested in the nerd community or industry in some way. While we love having pro gamers on our site… we also love a gal who reads comics, likes tech stuff, hosts radio or internet TV shows and has other interests. I’m not sure if you noticed, but the name of the site kinda tells you that we are a site for the “busy??? gamer. There are other sites that promote strictly pro gamers and while we love and appreciate ALL the sites in our industry, we find this works best for us.

Yes, most of our girls are models. Most of them have been doing it long before they met us and will continue to do so. It makes sense for a model to see the other girls and be interested in being a feature so she can further her work and be seen by thousands of people who wouldn’t ordinarily. Being a model in not a requirement, but one of our requirements is to be very self confident and we wouldn’t pick a girl who wasn’t.

Fourth. Wow. You’re really going to blame us for your eating disorder? As I type this, the bachelor is on right now. Guess what… no fat chicks. Magazines like KING, MAXIM, GQ have been featuring impossible looking women for years. Our website is completely applicant based. Which means, these are real girls, I am sorry that you have found us to be the target of your problem.

I’m going to let you in on a shocker. I’m a big man. I’ve lost weight at a hundred pounds at a time, then I’ve gained it back. I am comfortable in this size I guess because I know that if I really want to, I will go and work to lose it. As it is, I have had moderate success in society by the merits of my profession and succeeding in life. My luck in affairs of the heart is also moderate because of my confidence in this world. Yes, the nerd/geek community accepts me because of my contribution to it, but I am also aware that at ComicCon there is not a line of girls waiting to meet me like those dreamy Twilight boys. And in the end, I’m not going to compare myself to them. Just like you shouldn’t compare yourself to anyone else but you. If you feel threatened by our girls (and for the life of me I can’t think of any other reason why people would make these claims) then maybe the problem isn’t with us, but with you. Here’s the deal, we have before and will continue to feature full figured models IF they apply and meet the criteria and beat out the other girls to do so. This is possible and has happened a few times. The fact is we don’t get a lot of applicants to do so. Maybe it’s because they don’t think they are good enough… but if they never apply, then we can never know.

In the end of the day… we aren’t smut peddlers. This ain’t that cool of a job. We are not women hating jerks, if anything we love ‘em more than our games. We are just a few simple guys who started a site on our own in our spare time writing and featuring things we want to see. If I wanted to feature a plate of eggs as our next model, I would do it. (probably get vetoed by the staff but oh well) I guess what I’m trying to say, is that we will continue to write what we want, review what we want, give you our honest opinions on comics, movies, tech and games… and we will continue to feature the girls we want. If you don’t like it, well like I said, we have never been PC and I’m not going to beg you. I’m not going to argue this anymore. Everyone has an opinion, and I’m not here to change anyone’s mind, but I wasn’t going to close the book on this without addressing it either.