So, past VGA's have portrayed the gamer lifestyle pretty in an unflattering way. This year was better (but that isn't saying much). Within the first half hour there were plenty of sigh and cringe-worthy moments.

Especially the use of women in the broadcast. Now, I'm a guy and I love my objectification of women, but, c'mon. Can't we pretend to be subtle? "I like games because they're hot like me and I'm hot." I wish that wasn't a sophomoric parody of what was said, but it was said. Yeah, eye candy is fun, but it just reinforces everyone else's idea that gamers are a bunch of adolescent perverts.

And how about the looks on the faces of all the UFC fighters on stage for LL Cool J's triumph, Mama Said Knock You Out? I felt bad for them, and I was at home. Oh, and, y'know, I like Busta Rhymes (even though I miss the dreads), but something tells me he's not that enthusiastic about the realness of the Uncharted trailer.

Maybe one day you can start off a conversation with a girl about what video games you like to play, but, as long as Spike keeps up the shameful, tired cliches of yesterday (which I guess were funny at some point), it's just makin' us look bad.

Well, this post will require you to possess quite a few of my biases to appreciate it, but the title still bears repeating: If you are complaining about DRM on Amazon.com, you're likening yourself to a vegan because you're loud, obnoxious, self-righteous, and ultimately not going to make any impact.

Akin to vegans, many people who are complaining about it think that DRM is the worst possible thing ever to happen. DRM is taking something that person loves, PC games, and thrashing it. If PC gaming dies (who knows!) then both sides of the camp, pro-DRM and anti-DRM are going to think they've won. The DRM proponent saying that piracy killed the medium and the anti-DRM camp claiming that all the DRM made everyone refuse to use the medium. Correlation equals causation only when it's convenient for you.

Just like vegans, not many people care about whether or not DRM is in a game. For full disclosure's sake, I only own one PC and buy all the games I install, so I'm biased. I thought Spore was a pretty sub-standard game for many reasons that don't include DRM. I most certainly wouldn't self-righteously head on over to Amazon.com and thrash it for that reason alone.

Also like vegans, you're wasting a lot of time you could be spending on other, more productive ventures. Piracy isn't going away and neither is DRM. Is DRM the best way of combating it? We don't know, the medium of games is rapidly evolving. There's a right way and a wrong way to go about employing DRM. I, certainly, don't want every game that comes out on the PC to be an MMO 'cause that's the only way the publisher can make money. Giving games that include DRM poor reviews on Amazon.com just disservices your cause by making you look whiny and self-righteous and also disservices all the hard game designers who put their heart, soul, and time into these games just 'cause you need to step up on a nerd-podium.

Some developers (e.g. Stardock) will give you games without DRM and there's nothing wrong with that (those games are like vegan scones). However, some won't. And most people won't care and will probably just roll their eyes when you come a-preachin'.

I don't know if anyone has drawn this comparison before, but it looks like LittleBigPlanet is drawing influence from the Super Smash Bros. school of game popularity.

Originally I thought it was gimmicky to offer a special costume for your sack-dude as a preorder bonus. But today, now that they've dropped the Sephiroth and Old Snake costume, it just kind of makes sense. If you include tertiary items from properties thateveryone loves, then how can you not stir up enthusiasm? I mean, come on, you like Sephiroth (even if you don't like people who like Sephiroth).

Is this a bad thing? I don't think so. Cashing in on your previous love of things makes sense (Smash Bros. made tons of people nostalgic for games they didn't even play). New costumes are so easy to do and surprisingly meaningful. I hope they make a PaRappa, Crash Bandicoot, and Oddworld sackdude.