This is a rant by your host Dusty, which is lightly inspired by a comment made by one of our readers in response to the “chaos” following Sony’s recent announcement of a November launch, which went somewhat along the same lines as my intro. Not that I necessarily agree with everything this member wrote, but that one comment nailed the situation right on the head, and not just this situation but the current state of the gaming industry/community.

I said this was a rant, but it will be more like a friendly reminder to all our readers, I pledge guilty myself, and so are most of you, that being game industry professionals and gamers alike. By now you are probably thinking who is this Dusty anyway. To give a short answer to that, I am the owner of this site as well as Xbox 360 News, along with several other game related sites. I wouldn’t call myself a game journalist though, my writing is too sloppy, and I don’t do that much writing anyway. Basically I am just some dude who is trying to make a living in the game industry, in the big picture am probably quite insignificant but here are my two cents anyway, and if you don’t care then you can stop reading now.

Now where was I… the current state of the game industry/community. I am not sure if it has always been like this as I am only 25, but I have a feeling the problem is worse now than ever. There are tons of things I could point my finger at regarding people’s reaction to Sony’s November announcement and the whole PS3 vs Xbox 360 situation in general, but I will not as it will do no good.

So what are we guilty of? Most of us are guilty of taking gaming and the game industry way too seriously. It is not about war and peace or world hunger. Have we all forgotten why we started to play games to begin with? The game industry should be about putting a smile on peoples faces, sometimes maybe even a tear (Aris death anyone?). So why do I see so many angry faces around me, game reviews that could have been published in "Scientific American", and developers talking like they were working on the cure to cancer? I am not disrespecting anybody, I just think it is about time we all sit back in our seats, take a deep breath and ask ourselves the question - “why do we play games?”

I think there is no need for me to give away the answer, and when you do get it, the urge to convince people that your console is better than your neighbour’s should stop. What I can tell you though is that neither Sony nor Microsoft is evil, the headless horseman is not real…but tragically we are all going to die.