Gamasutra Member Blogs: From Selling Online Play To Prosperous Cheating

In highlights from Gamasutra's Member Blogs, our bloggers write about diverse topics, including economic models, adaptive difficulty, selling online play, and prosperous cheating. Member Blogs can be maintained by any registered Gamasutra user, while invitation-only Expert Blogs -- also highlighted weekly -- are written by selected development professionals. Our favorite blog post of the week will earn its author a lifetime subscription to Gamasutra's sister publication, Game Developer magazine. (All magazine recipients outside of the United States or Canada will receive lifetime electronic subscriptions.) We hope that our blog sections can provide useful and interesting viewpoints on our industry. For more information, check out the official posting guidelines. Here are the top member blogs for the week: This Week's Standout Member Blogs - Economic Models for RPGs (David Hughes) I can't even express how happy I am that somebody is talking about "economic models" in a goddamn video game and not in the context of microtransactions or in-game ads or some other horrible thing. I want to cry. - Levels of Independent Development: does your game match up? (Slade Villena) Nobody knows what the hell "indie" means, and Slade Villena wants to explain it all. Like Clarissa might. Na na, na na. Na na, na na na. ALL RIGHT ALL RIGHT. - Sell Me Local and Online Play Separately (Ephriam Knight) Since some publishers are now adding a $10 surcharge to access certain online content in used copies of their games, Ephriam Knight wants to know why players can't elect to only buy the parts of the game they want in the first place. (Probably because I can't imagine companies choosing to let people not help recoup the money they spent developing those various sections, but it's an interesting thought.) - Cheats Should Be Allowed to Prosper (Xander Markham) iddqd fo' life - DIY Difficulty (Josh Bycer) So what's the deal with progressive and/or adaptive difficulty systems anyway? Josh Bycer explains it all. NA NA, NA NA NA. NA NA NA NA NA NA. HEY, COOL.