Gamasutra Member Blogs: From skipping everything to Game of Thrones

[In highlights from Gamasutra's Member Blogs, our bloggers write about diverse topics, such as having options to skip everything in games, why the Game of Thrones setting doesn't work as a game, and more.] Member Blogs can be maintained by any registered Gamasutra user, while invitation-only Expert Blogs -- also highlighted weekly -- are written by selected development professionals. We hope that our blog sections can provide useful and interesting viewpoints on our industry. For more information, check out the official posting guidelines. This Week's Standout Member Blogs Of shadow and light: Thief (Eric Schwarz) Thief remains one of the greatest titles of all time. In this retrospective analysis, Eric Schwarz examines some of the design elements that still make it a phenomenal game to this day. Cable TV of thrones: Why Game of Thrones doesn't work as a game (Mark Filipowich) From a marketing standpoint, basing a game off Game of Thrones seems intuitive. Mark Filipowich says the problem that nobody seems to have considered is that the kingdom of Westeros is a miserable place that nobody should want to be in. Fandom and entitlement: A threat to creativity? (Tom Battey) Fan entitlement is an issue for more than just those tired of seeing comments threads descend into irrational vitriol. Tom Battey says there's a danger that so-called "die-hard" fandom encourages an industry of incremental sequels and cynical HD re-releases. The secrets of localization production (Gabriel Swan) Gabriel Swan presents a primer establishing a new "best-practice" in localization QA that he says should be required reading for every localization producer and manager. Option D: Skip everything (Leanne Taylor) Leanne Taylor offers a brief discussion on why we can skip story, but not gameplay. Though she also argues that players should just be able to skip everything.