Save Point is available exclusively as part of the Spring Getaway Games Bundle through May 13. The pieces collected in the book analyze how games were learning from their past and influencing the future, report on some of gaming's growing and myriad sub-communities, and examine how the business of selling and marketing games was evolving alongside the explosive growth of the Internet. The book looks back on video games as they were between 2003 to 2011, a sometimes-uncomfortable 'awkward adolescence' period where the industry did its best to grow up with the young audience that had grown up with games as their entertainment of choice through the '70s, '80s, and '90s. This report and over a dozen more are collected in Save Point, a new collection from Ars Technica Senior Gaming Editor Kyle Orland.
The most famous example might be the outcry around the conclusion of Mass Effect 3 in 2012, where the developers actually released a downloadable patch changing the conclusion of a franchise-sweeping narrative to placate vocal fans. Flawed as it was, that movement would serve as a precursor to more frequent attempts by organized fan communities trying to bring change in the game industry. The following piece, originally published in late 2009, looks back at that year's somewhat quixotic attempted boycott of Left 4 Dead 2-and how that effort eventually fell apart.
