This week, Stephen finally gets a theme song, Mark plays devil's advocate, and Martha gets dangerously close to a topic your nice hosts swore to never talk about on the show.

[0:02:40] DLC and Expansions

When Mark was young, he bought unofficial Quake mods on CD-ROM.

Turns out, Electronics Boutique and EB Games are the same thing.

“Day-One DLC Isn’t Always Evil, Says Borderlands 2 Guy” - Tina Amini, Kotaku

“Patch The Process” - Rami Ismail

“Street Fighter V is a Barebones Game That’s a Sign of the Times” - Paul Tamburro, Crave

“Code analysis of No Man's Sky praises engine, criticises "unfinished" game” - Andy Chalk, PCGamer

“It turns out Sony won’t be charging PS4 Pro players for 4K upgrade patches” - Danny Cowan, Digital Trends

“Mario Party 2: Luigi wins by doing absolutely nothing” - KlydeStrom, YouTube

Turns out, Dungeons & Dragons does use software-style versioning for their “patch notes.”

After recording this episode, Mark had an idea for how to price DLC in Metro Nexus.

“Nier Automata Lets Players Buy PSN Trophies With In-Game Money” - Heather Alexandra, Kotaku

“Payday 2 rolls back microtransactions after fan outrage” - Kyle Orland, Ars Technica

“5G - Press START to Play” - YouTube

“I Am Rich: The Story of the World's Strangest Mobile App” - Antoni Zolciak, In’saneLab

[0:38:34 ] Genre in Games

Wikipedia says “Genres are not usually defined by the actual content of the game.”

“List of accolades received by Grand Theft Auto V”  - Wikipedia

Turns out, Call of Duty games have been nominated for a lot of BAFTAs over the years.

“What makes an RPG an RPG: a universal definition” - Craig Stern

“Mass Effect - Don’t Touch That” - YouTube

“Mass Effect - Blasto! (hilarious)” - YouTube

“Ludonarrative Dissonance in Bioshock” - Clint Hocking

(you’ve probably read this one already)

“Naughy Dog Doesn’t Get Ludonarrative Dissonance” - Alessio Palumbo, Wccftech

A good critical review of Jason Schreier’s book “Blood, Sweat, And Pixels,” which Mark read recently and really liked.