It should come as no surprise that the god kings of the video game industry have more immediate concerns than how much enjoyment you derive from their products. What does manage to be surprising is the outwardly positive attitude the industry takes towards its quest of manipulation, brainwashing gamers out of their bottom dollar.

Also surprising: Top Tier Tactics receives real life press releases. Yep, the very same ones that go out to the real life press! The fun part about these releases is how certain announcements, like the one I am about to share with you, are given to us like we’re supposed to report them as good news. Maybe if we were IGN and we had some profit margin that was inextricably tied with the success of the game industry (or any profit at all,) we would indeed be excited by all the business of game marketing and encouraged to tell you that everything is good. But no, we are the most jaded (and the poorest) people in the world, and so without further ado here is some very unappealing news about one of the specific ways corporations compete for your money: data mining!

I’m not sure why you’re reading this. By now, you either have an iPad, want one, or despise everything it stands for and think that anyone who owns one is a dark herald of Steve Jobs and his Apple cult of doom. But for those 2 of you who are still on the fence about it, here’s a review of the device for gamers from a man who hates Apple yet bought one on launch day.

With 2011 in view, it’s time to take a long, hard look at the nasty habits you’ve accumulated and take a solemn oath to change for the better, if only for the first two weeks of January. While I could use this space to talk about my own resolutions for the year, I don’t have any personal flaws. However, dear reader, you most certainly do. Let’s look at the top 5 ways you can become a better gamer and a better person as we jump into a brand new decade.

Starcraft 2 patch 1.1.2 is out now and includes a large number of game-changing balance tweaks. Medivacs and Void Rays got hit hard, Roaches got a gigantic boost, and Reapers are now completely unusable. Let’s go through the complete patch notes.

While I’ve certainly learned from experience, experience requires time, effort, and thought. Not particularly willing to dedicate all three of those resources to Starcraft, I discovered two YouTube channels with incredible educational and (dare I say it?) entertainment value.