she's a funny old thing, but her heart's in the right place

While some may be willing to grant that the determinative forces noted in the preceding text―hardware, operating systems, programming languages, industry watchdogs, and so on―are key to computer game development, others may argue that, despite this fact, such forces are only peripheral and mediumic, and not authorial.

Getting information from him is like pulling teeth.

He's as tough as they come.