Jeremy Parish (1up, Gamespite) has posted an editorial exploring the possible positive impact of Wiiware title Mega Man 9. The upcoming title will adopt the same graphical and design sensibilities that drove the NES era Mega Man games, a multi-generation step backwards for the franchise. While this kind of regression isn’t unheard of (SquareEnix has been mining their retro properties for years), the meeting of new content with old design is a bold step in the often stagnant medium.

Some 20000 gamers have negatively responded to the art direction in the upcoming Diablo III. More than the typical message board complaining, the movement founders have created a series of image mock-ups to communicate what they’d like to see.

While gamers disagreeing with developer design decisions is nothing new (please see the rest of this site –ed), the mock-ups demonstrate that media manipulation tools are common enough in gaming culture to be useful communication tools.

After Blizzard’s earlier announcement of Diablo III, Diablo II and its expansion Lord of Destruction jumped into Amazon.com’s top ten sales rankings.

Blizzard’s games are unique for exceeding the typical three month shelf-life of retail video games by about ten years. Evidently, the mere mention of their franchises (regardless of release dates or specs) is enough to generate consumer frenzy. Though, perhaps gamers are just looking for a little cooperative gaming love to while away the time until the next game comes out.

Good hunting, all.