Finally finished playing Max Payne 3, which is about 75% great and 25% train wreck. Fortunately those percentages occur in sequence so you can just eject the disc after chapter twelve and call it good.

The drum Tim Sweeney is beating here, that freemium is the way of the future, is one that has been apparent to a lot of people since the early days of Nexon’s Kart Rider in South Korea circa 2004-2006. But for Sweeney to beat that drum, and back it up with actual scalable tech and production pipelines in Unreal 4, is a watershed moment for AAA development.

And note his big reveal, which Gamasutra should have led with: Infinity Blade has the best ROI of any title Epic has ever shipped. No wonder Epic is changing gears, and good on them for not being stuck in the past.

Epic's Sweeney: Platform convergence, freemium the inevitable future

In a GDC Taipei keynote, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney discussed how his company is pushing high end graphics, and how western games need to learn from the Asian market and its business models.

My condolences to the family of longtime wargame designer Craig Taylor, veteran of Battleline, Avalon Hill, and other outfits, who passed away this week after a long and storied career. His games Naval War and Wooden Ships & Iron Men were a big influence on my game design work.

One of my projects, Kinect Sesame Street TV, is shipping this September. It’s the lead-in for this great article in Forbes about our strategy for the Xbox.

Microsoft Xbox Is Winning The Living Room War. Here's Why. – Forbes

This story appears in the June 25, 2012 issue of Forbes Magazine. Don Mattrick, chief of Microsoft's interactive entertainment business, home of the Xbox. Photo: John Keatley/Redux for Forbes Cookie Monster wants a snack. Sure, he could have a handful of you-know-whats, but even a Muppet has to watc…

I’m spending next week in NYC at the Games For Change conference, which is devoted to making games with social impact. I’ll be showing our Kinect Sesame Street TV game for Xbox and giving a talk with one of my colleagues on playful learning. Really looking forward to this.

Well played, Rockstar.

Max Payne 3 cheaters forced to play against each other

Rockstar is trialing a new method for dealing with cheaters in the multiplayer modes of Max Payne 3 — rather than banning those players outright, they are made to play against each other.