Business

The guys at Extra Credits take a quick look at an idea that has been on the minds of game developers and publishers for years now. It's dubbed "transgaming" and it lets fans of different genres all play and exist within the same game world. There is a lot of potential there, so have a listen.

Despite a strong, well received launch lineup and positive reviews regarding the hardware, the domestic Vita launch disappointed with a first-week estimate of only 300,000 units. Sony is definitely facing an uphill battle stateside, but all is not lost. The hardware is good, the games are there, and major marketing dollars are being put behind the Vita. So how can Sony capitalize upon the Vita's strengths while dragging itself out of its presumed grave? Here are a few ideas.

You've undoubtedly heard it by now: Electronic Arts pulled a big upset in The Consumerist's Worst Company in America tournament for 2012, besting favorites Bank of America by a majority vote of nearly two-thirds. While I think that it's telling that a video game company found its way into the voting to begin with, considering all of the potential candidates out there, the end result will change nothing.

The guys at Extra Credits have jumped into the Mass Effect 3 Day One DLC kerfuffle. What's great is that it is a measured take on the Mass Effect 3 DLC, as well as DLC in general. Worth a look.

And here it is, the final part of Extra Credits' take Western role-playing game vs Japanese role-playing games. Here they look at why the Japanese RPG has fallen behind its Western counterpart and maybe how to reverse its course.

Extra Credits returns with more on the Western role-playing game vs Japanese role-playing games debate. This time they challenge our genre classifications and dare to imply that they are a bit antiquated.

A copious amount of blood, sweat, tears and other bodily fluids have already been spilled over Mass Effect 3′s ending. Several of the first few Google results concern the overwhelmingly negative fan reaction in some way, be it in the form of an online petition or a silly FTC complaint. The laser-like focus on the ending is a damn dirty shame, because outside of those five minutes at the very end of the game and a shaky first hour or so, Mass Effect 3 is about as good a series finale as I could have hoped for.

Among core gamers, Electronic Arts and BioWare's decision to deliver an additional squadmate as day one DLC for Mass Effect 3 continues to rile people who haven't yet finished the game and gotten angry about the ending. Fast-flying accusations and defenses about whether the content was stripped out of the game mostly miss the point.

With such seemingly opposite takes on the genre, the argument usually devolves down to proponents of each genre arguing that theirs is the best example of "role-playing." Extra Credits dares to jump into the fray to see is one group is right, or perhaps if one is more right than the other or maybe even if both are wrong. Clearly it's not an easy task or it wouldn't be broken up into three parts.

The crew at Extra Credits return with the second part of their two-part series on how to become a developer.