Why Can't I Buy the Game I Want to Play?

I spoke up a lot on this blog with regards to why I don't want to support certain games. It could be a certain form of DRM, or some monetization issue, or a piece of pre-order bonus. Why is this an issue to us gamers? Shouldn't we be thankful to the developers for making such great games for us? Shouldn't we cut them some slack and give them the money they deserve?

Actually, it is understandable when companies choose to use DRM like always-online requirements to fight piracy. Piracy is a problem, and it does eat into sales, and in truth, having a game connect to a server and having parts of the game run server side is a very powerful form of DRM that can be almost impossible to crack, unless the pirates manage to duplicate the server's role somehow. Whether or not having DRM will get people, who would otherwise download the game to actually pay for the game is another matter (there's no reason to believe they would still want the game if it's not free), but we can understand where game developers are coming from. The problem with always-online is obvious, server issues, internet provider issues, companies closing down, or shutting down servers; the fact is, technology is just not good enough yet, whether it's the game company or internet providers. And in many countries, internet is limited by data caps, and subscription is not cheap. Perhaps one day, when speeds can finally be fast and internet, reliable, and accessible anywhere and anytime without latency issues and wiring requirement, perhaps then, can we accept always-online. Now, however, it is just not acceptable, though we tend to be more forgiving if it's free-to-play.

Other issues like pre-order bonus and DLCs are just there to encourage sales, which technically isn't wrong. But it opens up abuse. Pre-order bonuses are content created before the game is released, meaning potentially, it could be something originally in the game, something purposely removed from the game just before release to, 1) encourage people to buy before reviews are out, i.e. trick people into buying a bad game, and 2) get people who didn't order the game to fork out more money for content that should be in there originally, effectively increase the price of the game by $5 to $15. Not a bad deal for the company at all.

These are things gamers don't want, and yet, we still buy games that have all these issues. The message we are sending to companies is that we don't mind their exploitation, as long as we get good games. They can inconvenience us however they want with DRM; they can sell us five minutes of content at a time for $15 dollars each; they can make crappy games full of bugs, log in issues and with server issues and we'll pay for them without waiting for reviews. They can do all these, and we won't mind. If we keep sending out these signals, companies will keep testing the waters, keep exploiting us more and more, trying to see how far they can go before we react, and they will do it with games that people really want to play.

I'm not sure if it's worth fighting anymore. Perhaps gamers don't really care, and people who are complaining are just the vocal minority. Or people are really just stupid fan boys, complaining about every little misstep EA makes but worshipping at the feet of Blizzard that does no wrong. You know, both Sim City and Diablo 3 use server processing always-online DRM but only one of the companies finally made their game playable offline.

Always-On, DRM or Game Feature?

EA has come out and said DRM is a "failed, dead-end strategy" and that always-online for Sim City isn't DRM at all. That's pretty convenient. But I guess piracy is a failed, dead-end strategy for gamers who want more games because companies that don't earn money can't keep making games, however, torrenting isn't piracy either, it's just file sharing so that is fine, right?

 

Is having always-online in a game really beneficial for gamers and the company? Most gamers would scream out "NO", so why do companies still do it? Some reasons have been brought up, like the integrity of the game, especially if money is involved, like Diablo 3, or having a game where people can be interconnected, like SimCity. But why can't this be, say, OPTIONAL? Because if people can choose, companies will make less money? For Diablo, they want you to always consider the auction house, and so keep you online, and in the case of SimCity, because there are people visiting your cities, it would make it desirable for you to own premium buildings just to show it off?

And what if it were DRM? Does it benefit the company in anyway? I guess the pirates might have a harder time getting a free copy, or in the case of Diablo 3, probably not at all, but still, do you really expect the pirates to buy the game, and even if by some miracle, some do, will the money you earn from the 5 of them makeup for the maybe thousands that don't buy the game because they can't play it?

 

Will so many online distribution platforms, games can sell so much longer after they have been released. Sites like GoG are even fixing old games go help them run better on modern systems. But for games with an always online requirement, their lifespan is limited by the servers. These games can't keep selling simply because games cost less the longer it gets. After some time, the amount of money made cannot offset the costs of maintaining the servers, and because EA is famous for shutting down servers, I'm not sure if it's worth getting SimCity later at a discount as you never know when the servers are going down. So by limiting the lifespan of their games, they are doing themselves a disservice. (On that note, have you ever thought of what would happen if Steam were to shut down?)

 

And what of the consumers? Servers cost money to run, maintenance costs money as well, and the servers themselves are an investment, and this is why there are always launch problems. Did you think they really have no idea how it'll sell? There are pre-orders that give them a pretty good idea of how many servers are needed, but in order to save money, they would rather underestimate because launch day or launch week is probably the only time they'll get so many concurrent users. Over time, people stop playing, and the investment on the servers will be wasted. If that's the case, it would be wiser to let the consumers suffer during the launch, and hopefully, the company can get past the rough period with minimal additional costs, and when less people play, the available servers will sort themselves out.

 

Consumers hate DRM, and will bash a game to the ground, and EA has wisely agreed with consumers in order to get into their good books. Yet, in order to justify what they did with SimCity, they are forced to try and say that it is not DRM. I guess that is like claiming pirating games for demo purposes and not buying it even if one likes the games...

 

Oh, and just when I finished my draft, this:

 

 

How to solve this? I don't know... maybe start another separate server just for people who want to play without the auction house? And maybe add in single-player local play while you're at it?

When Using Cheats Became Stealing

Dead Space cheat undermines in-game micro-transactions

 

When Diablo 3 was released, it blurred the line between single-player games and MMOs. Here was a game that is a single-player game with multiplayer options of up to 4 people, yet had elements of MMOs that meant things that were OK in single player and even multiplayer games of the past were no longer acceptable. Let me explain...

 

MMOs have a large player base, numbering up to millions, though technically, the most you might meet or play with number in the hundreds. Because of that, there is a complicated social interaction at play that developers have to pay special attention to when developing g and patching their game. Bugs that can be exploited for better gear or currency had to be fixed and in-game benefits gained from said exploit removed, even disciplinary actions against the offending player, all because of the perception of the other players who will deem it unfair that the offending player could brain an edge over them.

 

Such issues should only be a concern in multiplayer games, or more specifically, competitive games, but recently, and especially because of Diablo 3, we are seeing that even single player games that blatantly have micro-transactions that give the player an advantage. We already had those in the past - cheats and bugs. But now, because of the monetization of cheats, exploiting bugs in even single player games are seen as wrong and even illegal? This is pretty ridiculous if you're like me and have played games before the current generation of consoles.

 

Blizzard took a gamble with Diablo 3 and it paid off. Now EA is following suit and other companies to. Will there come a day when finding and making use of bugs in games is illegal because you are techically by-passing paid dlc cheats to gain an advantage in the game? I shudder to even think of such a possibility...

Edit: Apparently EA says it's ok. So kind of an over-reaction on my part.

Big Name Distributors the death of Gaming?

"Indies are saving gaming. EA is methodically destroying it."

Minecraft creator apparently thinks so.

I've always been impressed with the creativity that independent developers are able to come up with, as compared to games published by EA, Activision and Ubisoft. Most of the big budget games from the later consists of games that are updated versions year after year after year. How many Fifa's and Call of Duty's have we seen? Granted, we do see some new intellectual properties (IPs) once in a while, meaning totally universes and back story, but those that sell well are continually milked while those who do ok, but not well enough get thrown out. Rarely do we see an IP get a second chance, and rarely do we see games that break out of the mould.

Game developers under these companies rarely get to get creative with their games as publishers are fearful that the game will not sell. In comes the indie developers. Without the restrictions set by publishers, indie developers can exercise more creativity over their games. This comes with the cost of not having monetary support, so indie games tend to be developed for handphones, or with lower graphical capabilities. Creativity comes with a risk as well, as some games turn out to be a hit, while others are so weird they are not able to find their audiences. Publishing is a problem as well, but with more and more online publishers, indie games are starting to get popular. The low cost of indie games helps them as well.

There are so many game studios that have been shut down by publishers because of poor sales. Why then do these publishers still exist? Because people like block buster games with amazing graphics and cookie cutter gameplay. People do not want to try new IP, or games with strange ideas. Year after year, people repeated buy the next 'update' for full price. In that sense, EA isn't destroying gaming; after all, they are catering to what gamers want, and they deduce what gamers want from what gamers buy. So who's destroying gaming? Us gamers.