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.

iGaming, playDroid

Mobile phones and tablets are all the rage this generation, so it's no surprise that game publishers are putting more and more focus into making games that will reach the masses. EA, Square Enix and Capcom are just a few companies that have produced pretty decent games on the mobile platform. Because free-to-play is so popular on mobile, plus, you can pretty much get away with all sorts of horrible business practices there due to the large amount of horrible games which are pretty much cash-grabs already present, it's pretty attractive. Square Enix has some of the most expensive games on mobile, even if they are horrible ports; EA has free-to-play and one-off purchase games which are doing pretty well; Capcom already has some good games there, and recently, are investing profits from Monster Hunter into mobile gaming development.

Mobile devices are getting more powerful at an alarming rate, driven by competition between the major OS developers and mobile makers and there are increasingly more talented game developers taking more interest in the platform. It is undeniable that there is much money to be made from the large audience. Raising awareness for their games might be an issue for smaller, less well-known developers, but for already established companies, people will still support even if the are 'evil corporations'.

Is this good for gaming then? Well, more games is always good, or is it? The issue with mobile gaming is, well, that they are basically designed for mobile gaming, and not in the way that 3DS and Vita games are. They are meant for very shorts bursts of play, and tend to have 'energy' restrictions or paid boosts.

This is all well and good, because that's how gaming on the go is these days, but the tend to get ported, with all these restrictions carried over, and controls not optimized, plus chances are, suddenly, it's several times more costly. It's the same the other way round too. Games on PC or consoles are getting ported, and again, not optimized for touch controls. However, in this case, devices like controllers for phones and the Nvidia Shield are solving the problem. But do we really need to buy another device...?

Companies need to take more pride in their work and stop doing lazy ports just to make a quick buck. There are companies who do it pretty well within it's limitations like Capcom's Street Fighter. Ultimately, it's still difficult to find good stuff in the mobile space because too many 'non-gamers' will still pick up crap games, and it's practically impossible to review so many games out on the market. Worse, Apple and Google don't seem to mind people ripping off devs and creating clones or already popular games.

Will this ever change? I don't know, but the good thing is as a gaming community, gems do get found and the word is passed around. Also, more gamers is always a good thing, well probably, cause there'll be more pricks too...

Kicking Pains

Kickstarter, how mistaken I was to not have seen the negatives of this particular form of supporting game creation. Or rather, I had missed out some crucial elements when I last posted about this, elements which have now become much more visible as more projects move on to their final phase of completion.

Kickstarter is still A powerful way for people to vote for the games they want created with their wallets, and indeed we have seen how big some of these wallets are, but we are now seeing how some small and new developers (and even some established ones) are unable to properly handle and manage the funds offered to them. There are games that fail to live up to their expectations and promises, and worse, some that are not even completed due to the studio running out of funds.

Understandably, some of these developers lack the experience to plan how much they need, and so set unrealistic goals at the start or as their stretch goals. But even experienced ones like Double Fine have fallen into the trap. Some have resorted to early access or even second a second kicking of Kickstarter campaigns (though most supporters wouldn't be too happy and would really love to give them a kicking). Let's hope they don't promise too much for the second campaign!

This is a risk that people have to take when kick starting games. Some studios are reputable, but as we've seen, that doesn't guarantee anything, though it helps. And what happens when the game is out and it sucks? While some might argue against this point of view, to the consumer, it is much like a pre-purchase, with a risk of not getting anything back. And if we really think this is worth it, it's a risk we should be willing to take before dropping money in. It's helpful to the developer who can see how much people want this, and also for us to get a game which we might otherwise not even get to see.

Hopefully, people can learn to consider such risks, and also do a bit more research before dropping their money in. Also, developers need to be more responsible and hopefully learn from these failed projects. It'll be a shame to see good quality projects failing the funding because people are too weary, and yet, they do need to be aware of where their money is going and who they are supporting.

I'm still looking forward to a completed Planetary Annihilation, War for the Overworld, Worlds of Magic, Godus, Asylum, Star Citizen and other games that I may or may not have supported. Mighty No. 9, I'm waiting!