A few points here:
1. Breakerbox has been working to fix their track record in the last year or so, really more like the last six months. While I don't think all their work is done yet, I think it's worth at least giving them a chance. If nothing else, they have now actually started sending emails out with ways to buy their games directly, instead of continuing to utilize their previous and extremely clunky download method. This means that, if nothing else, if you want one of their games, you can just go snag ie. While I understand a healthy amount of skepticism, I think it bears mentioning that they are improving. That's a start. It may not be enough for everyone to trust them outright, but it's a start.
2. BreakerBox games are really not that expensive on the whole. Let's dispense with that myth right out of the gate. You want expensive audiogames? Look at my previous sentence (the gate, lol), and other titles from that developer. Forty dollars is a whole lot more than fifteen or twenty.
3. I do not mean to criticize by any means, but it would take you eight hours to get to the first gym in Pokémon Ruby? With all respect, I feel that's either a huge glorification to make the service look useless, or it's an indication of your playing speed which means paid services like this are really not for you in the first place...which means perhaps you shouldn't be critiquing their efficacy. To put this in perspective, I can get to the first gym in Pokémon Ruby in about...oh, forty minutes or so. Maybe an hour these days, since I haven't picked up the game in awhile. If you do that whole following-walls trick, it really does let you navigate most areas, especially near the beginning of the game, super easily.
4. My understanding is that you have to own whatever game it is, and you do some sort of skype call which lets the person on the other end be your eyes, and read dialogue, menu options and the like. Broken down, by the way, the cost asked for this service is approximately five dollars an hour, which is just a bit over a third of minimum wage in my own home country and province. There are, however, smaller time blocks. You don't have to buy the maximum eight hours, so mischaracterizing the service this way is something to be careful of going forward.
5. Pursuant to point #4, you obviously don't have to buy into this at all. I'll be honest; I probably won't. But I'm also not going to criticize the idea until or unless I see negative feedback from people who have had hands-on experience with the GamerPal program itself. If one or more of you says that you got ripped off and can demonstrate it somehow, or says that your gamer pal was completely useless or pedantic or kept having technical difficulties for which you were still held responsible...okay, I'll sit up and take notice. Anything else at this point is just grousing because of Breakerbox's admittedly checkered history.
6. Not all of us have friends or family who are willing to either play games with us, or read games out for us. As such, there are people - who live alone but still like to game, for instance - who might want to try giving this service a spin. I think it's a neat idea, and given the commentary about Aira - which I know next to nothing about, by the way - it sounds considerably cheaper. That said, BreakerBox deserves at least a little credit here, for trying to corner a niche market and offer a service. The only way we are going to know if it's actually worth it is for someone to try it and see. I'm pretty sure a two-hour window is ten dollars, and while I know people don't always have ten bucks lying around, it might be noble for one or more folks in the community with games on their PC they can't play alone to step up, lose ten bucks and actually tell us how the service works and how well it does or doesn't function. Worst case, you're out ten bucks, and you satisfy your skepticism. Best case, you realize that BreakerBox is onto something here.
The sheer amount of snark and negativity and assumption I've seen in this thread is actually pretty sad. Maybe tone it back a little.
Check out my Manamon text walkthrough at the following link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z8ls3rc3f4mkb … n.txt?dl=1