Hi, guys, this week Jay and I chat about the sales of Frayed Knights and the apparent effect that massive piracy has had on their rapid decline. While Jay acknowledges that DRM has its problems--especially when it makes a pirated product superior to a legal one--it's hard to deny that some kind of protection is essential to maximize sales. Watch the video and let us know YOUR opinion on DRM.

Download the mp4 here.

Get ready for several hours of great video viewing at GDC Vault. The big feature for most of us will be the postmortems, which include Doom with John Romero and Tom Hall, Maniac Mansion with Ron Gilbert, Pac-Man with Toru Iwatani, and much, much more. There's even Raid on Bungeling Bay with Will Wright, Elite with David Braben, and Populous with Peter Molyneux! I suspect you'll want to head over there immediately and start watching these, so get to it. Let us know which ones are your favorites.

Hi, guys. Well. I don't know what to say. Here's The Ballad of the Dungeon Master. I'll post the lyrics below.

Download the mp3 here.

Lyrics:

Yeah, that's right

A short sequence from disc 1 of Cosmos: The Complete Collection, The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean (1980). Carl Sagan demonstrates a vision of a futuristic interface that involves simple hand motions, much like today's Microsoft Kinect. Just like the Apple iPad from 1986, it's just a matter of how long - not if - to make what seems futuristic or even impossible today a reality tomorrow.

Becky's back this week to talk about Michael Cranford and The Bard's Tale, or, more correctly, Tales of the Unknown: Volume I (yeah, glad they didn't stick with that title). She also talks about Dragon Wars, one of the most unfairly obscure CRPGs in history. Note: Although I say this is the final segment, I was incorrect--I had misplaced 26 minutes of additional footage! Download the audio here (also available on iTunes).

Wow! I just saw this on Gamesetwatch and had to share. Some clever folks have remixed the original George Romero zombie classic into a playable YouTube "choose your own adventure" style game. It's really creative and fun to boot. It's a good thing the movie is in the public domain! Be sure to check it out.

A few days ago I posted about the music that you remember from back in arcades "Golden Age" and I got to talking about it with a friend. He immediately started jotting down a list of music that he remembers blaring out in the arcades back in the day. I was interested to see what he was going to come up with because the few songs he mentioned (which were great songs) I didn't have on my list.. and that's basically why I did the post in the first place.. to create the ultimate arcade era play list.

While he was recalling songs to add to his top 10 list he said, "Hey, remember the video to Tom Petty's: You Got Lucky?". It had been so long ago that I'd forgotten about it.. but now, thanks to the wonders of YouTube, we can all view Tom Petty's vision of a post-apocalyptic world that has discarded the technologies of yesteryear.

It's a great song and a great video, dating all the way back to 1982 (28 years ago on Oct 22nd). It's just a shame that Tom took some vengeance out on a Stern Electronic's Astro Invader cabinet which, at the time, was a mere two years old.

My, how time flies..

Embedding is disabled on the video, so just watch the video on YouTube.

-Gandalf42

This week, I look at the cult classic Deus Ex, one of the best first-person shooter hybrids. Designed by Warren Spector and funded by John Romero's Ion Storm, Deus Ex remains the top choice of countless enthusiasts of the franchise.

A brief video look at the major Armchair Arcade happenings for the "week". Filmed on location at a hotel room in downtown San Diego (Little Italy section). Yes, those are trains you hear in the background. They run regularly well into the evening here.