DRM

Digital Rights Media is kind of a touchy subject to gamers. Many of us have been inconvenienced by DRM that makes it difficult, or downright impossible to play the games we legitimately purchased. There are systems that have been used that installed programs that compromise our system, online authentication that affected our ability to play the game when it was down or when we are travelling, or having to download another program to run games from. Personally, I have bought The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Game of the Year Edition which refused to run on my PC, stating that I had a pirated copy. I had tried multiple ways to get it to work but to no avail. A search on the internet revealed the culprit: this is due to Securom DRM and I have tried not to purchase another game from Bethesda for the PC and have been more aware and weary of the types of DRM used in games.

Being a gamer, the natural inclination is to stand against DRM. However, piracy is a problem and has always been a threat to intellectual property, and games are definitely not the only victims. Pirated VCDs and DVDs used to be a problem for the movie industry, but now online streaming has become more rampant. I'm not sure about books, but they can probably be downloaded if we search hard enough. Companies do indeed need to be concerned. Games cost a ton of money and lots of time to produce and the efforts of the developers should be rewarded. Piracy eat into sales (so they claim, because who knows if they'll still play the game if they have to pay for it?), and publishers like EA and Activision have been known to close down developing teams, or fire people for games that don't sell well (but which could very well be because the game was BAD).

Each industry have tried different ways of combating piracy, to varying successes. For a while, music lovers had to face hard hitting measures that hurt those who bought their music legally - CDs that refused to play on computers, MP3's that were limited to play on certain devices. Gamers too faced inconveniences starting from passwords in game manuals, requiring CDs/DVDs to be in the drive to run games, and slowly, measures that make use of the internet have come into play.

DRM has brought about a few issues. Does it really stop piracy? I have yet to see an anti-piracy measure that works. Games get cracked shortly after release, no matter which method companies use to secure it. Curiously, some people who crack games are the ones who probably bought the game to crack them, and new DRM measures are things they look forward to as a challenge. I'm sure the hacker community is always looking for challenges and companies provide these on a regular basis. There's a pro-argument for DRM, and that's that people who bought the game legitimately will get to enjoy the game first. Total Biscuit from http://www.cynicalbrit.com/ (his youtube channel was listed in a previous post on dlc) mentioned that, if that's the case, DRM could be patched out after a pirated copy came out. This argument has it's flaws too, as the Ubisoft case mentioned below.

Who then suffers from DRM? Ubisoft's always online DRM upset gamers when servers went down shortly after Assassin's Creed was released resulted in pirates getting a better gaming experience than those who bought the game. My experience with Securom made me more cautious and also more critical of companies which use intrusive DRM. I 100% support their need to protect their intellectual property, but what blows my mind is that they can't see the problems these methods are causing to their consumers. It's hard to brush it aside when we see a gaming company like CD Projekt flat out refuse to use DRM because "the DRM itself is a pain for your legal gamers – this group of honest people, who decided that your game was worth the 50 USD or Euro and went and bought it. Why would you want to make their lives more difficult?" (Read their interview on pcgamerhttp://www.pcgamer.com/2011/11/29/interview-cd-projekts-ceo-on-witcher-2-piracy-why-drms-still-not-worth-it/) Yet, the sad truth is piracy will always exist.

Being in Singapore, we have a relatively good and affordable internet infrastructure, so always-on DRM doesn't hurt us as much, and I have seen many comments in forums stating that they don't mind DRM because it doesn't hurt them. It's sad to see people only caring about themselves and not think about people who do not have access to proper internet connection. And they are missing the fact that one day, DRM is going to evolve into something that will affect them. Perhaps companies will require you to key in private information like your social security number (or IC number for us in Sg), or having you to report your address and full name to log in. Perhaps you have to pay to play every single game. Things will get worse, and by then, most players lose even the right to complain because they would have played a major role in letting things get out of hand. And the worse thing is, people will still buy those games.

Standing up against such practices isn't about doing so for our own sakes, nor is it about being greedy (I could very well go and pirate the game if that were the case), it's about protecting the future of gamers. And if you're pirating, please don't - developers and honest gamers are suffering cause of piracy.

Sales this weekend

Some sales this weekend:

"What’s in store for you? Just some of the best gun-totin’, spell-slingin’ action that you can get from EA. Syndicate, Crusader: No Remorse, Crusader: No Regret, Nox, Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos and Lands of Lore 2: Guardians of Destiny, and Magic Carpet are all on sale in this promo, so if you’ve been thinking about picking any of these games up, now’s the time to hop in and see some of the best classics in our catalog!"
http://www.gog.com/

And from Steam (only discounts of 50% or more will be listed here)

Serious Sam 3: BFE (66% discount)
http://store.steampowered.com/app/41070/

Sniper Elite (75% discount)
http://store.steampowered.com/app/3700/?snr=1_4_4__106_1

Good Old Games

If you're like me and wish to play those games of old, get them here remastered for the modern windows operating systems. http://www.gog.com/

DLC

The advent of accessible internet and online purchasing power brought about a new way for gaming companies to add content to games and has gradually replaced the expansion packs of yesteryears. I remember awaiting expansion packs to my favourite games so I could get more levels, new units, and great story, basically, an excuse for me to spend more time with those games. Expansion packs cost less than the original games, and of course, depending on the company, could be a great add-on or a total waste of money made just to milk their customers of their hard-earned cash. When 56k internet came along, games could now be patched. Companies like Blizzard provided constant updating to their RTS titles to keep the balance, and add downloadable maps for their supporters. Other companies provided patches to keep their games stable.

With reliable systems to make purchases online set in place, now content that would previously be in expansion packs can now reach consumers without the need for a disk purchase. Gamers can pick which part of the 'expansion pack' they want and buy those only, as well as possibly getting the content they want earlier (assuming what they want is the first piece of DLC distributed) as compared to buying an expansion pack.

But, as with expansion packs, companies tried to use this new system to abuse fans of their more popular franchises. Issues like day-one dlc, 'disk-locked-content', over-priced content like colours for fighting game characters, endings that have to be purchased started to pop up. Capcom took it to the extreme, first releasing full new versions of games (super street fighter iv and ultimate marvel vs capcom 3) and dropping support for the older ones and breaking promises of fixing issues in those games (expansion pack abuse) and then locking up a large number of characters in their game that could only be unlocked with a future purchase (dlc abuse). Mass Effect 3 from Bioware had the same issue and together with its ending fiasco, caused a major uproar in the gaming community. These were things I was afraid of ever since dlc became rampant.

Brendan Sinclair hit the nail on the head in his article "On-Disc DLC Outrage Is Off the Mark" (http://asia.gamespot.com/features/on-disc-dlc-outrage-is-off-the-mark-6366340/). Whether they package it as on-disk dlc or dlc that comes out day 1, it seems to me that, being developed and completed in the time before the game is released, it should be included in the purchase when consumers pay for the game; being on the disk makes it more obvious that it was ready when the disk was produced. Gamers are paying full-price for an 'incomplete' package. Total Biscuit (http://www.youtube.com/user/TotalHalibut) put his foot down and completely boycotted Mass Effect 3 even though he loved the first two games (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ri0vrJ-y2zM [a bit of a rant, but here's his take on the issue]). Not only this, but game publishers (those who package and sell the games, not those who developed them) are using dlc to lure people to pre-purchase a game before they have a chance to read reviews.

Is this wrong? Well, companies have to make money, and they will do whatever they away with to make more money. If gamers will still buy games that they deliberately removed stuff out to sell it back to you later, then they will do it. The thing about companies is that they will keep trying until gamers give in, and they will deliberately do such things with games that people desperately want to play. Look at the costs of dlc for Street Fighter IV and Asura's Wrath, both Capcom games. US$3.99 for costumes while it's US$2 for more episodes. Why? Because more people will pay for Street Fighter stuff than Asura's Wrath. Ubisoft puts their always-on DRM where players had to be always online on popular games like Assassin's Creed 2 and not Rayman Origins. See the pattern here? And once gamers are used to it, they will accept it on other games. When people complained about Diablo 3 requiring always-on internet connection, Force and Sixen (http://www.youtube.com/user/ForceSC2strategy) said in one of their Diablo 3 podcast it's ok, because every game's doing that. And that's the scaring thing, people like them START TO ACCEPT IT AS NORMAL.

The best way to stand up against such practices is to boycott the game. It has worked in the past (like Battlefield 3) and will work again. But that is if only gamers will stand together and make it a point to do it. Unfortunately, a lot of people do not read up thoroughly on a game before making a purchase, and issues like these slip their knowledge. Still, I not buy games like these and will instead support indie developers, many of which truly deserve our support.

Hi Gamers

Hi all!

I'm a gamer who recently became more aware of the happenings in the gaming industry. I started this blog to post about my thoughts about how things are going for us gamers. Gaming time has become a limited commodity since I got married, and even though I've started earning my keep, increased my spending power and bought a lot more games than I was able to, I'm gradually realising that blindly buying games just because they are 'good' (as rated on review sites) actually hurts us gamers in the long run. This is a shame because I really love games and would like to reward developers for their hard work in producing quality games. Note that I'm not a cheap-skate. I've supported companies with good business practices; I bought 2 copies of The Witcher [normal and digital Director's Cut edition] and plan to obtain a collector's edition of The Witcher 2 though I already have a copy because of the normal one just because of their stand against DRM and the fact that a normal copy of their game has more stuff in it than a collector's edition of other games, priced at that of a normal game. Just look at where DRM and DLC is going and you'll see why I say it'll hurt us gamers.

That's it for now. Will post more about the issues mentioned. Meantime, support CD Projekt (Witcher 1 and 2) and Humble Bundle (pay-what-you-want to play indie games and support charity, so don't be an idiot and pay 1 cent cause you're costing them money in bank fees http://www.humblebundle.com/).