DRM: Something’s gotta give
Where do you draw the line on DRM? What Valve did with Half-Life 2 is a widely accepted practise today, even though at the time online activation was met with an unprecedented community backlash. Proper notification
in the system requirements box would have softened the blow for many, especially those that lugged PCs to work or school. But in hindsight this concept proved instrumental in introducing PC gamers to the juggernaut of digitial distribution that is Steam, which is the one positive thing I can take away from that whole debacle.
We’ve been weaned onto DRM in recent years and personally, I can accept limited activations as a part of my PC purchase. Does it bother me that my copy of Bioshock 2 can only be installed 15 times before I have to phone customer services for reactivation? Don’t be so soft. That barely counts, especially in the light of Ubisoft’s all-new, singing and goose-stepping, über-führer DRM, which forces Assassin’s Creed II PC customers to stay online while they’re playing (despite it being a single-player game) and will actually kick you out of the game if your connection drops for any reason. Talk about breaking the fourth wall – I wasn’t a big fan of leaving twelfth century Jerusalem for the world outside the Animus in the first place, but I’d rather be there than get punished for Internet death and hang around in limbo while I wait to reconnect.
So the pirates will become more prolific because of DRM, the publishing execs will continue to implement increasingly draconian measures because of it, everyone will blame eachother and this vicious circle is threatening to spiral out of control. Someone’s going to have to sidestep soon or big-budget PC gaming is heading for a crash.
DRM: Something’s gotta give
Where do you draw the line on DRM? What Valve did with Half-Life 2 is a widely accepted practise today, even though at the time online activation was met with an unprecedented community backlash. Proper notification
in the system requirements box would have softened the blow for many, especially those that lugged PCs to work or school. But in hindsight this concept proved instrumental in introducing PC gamers to the juggernaut of digitial distribution that is Steam, which is the one positive thing I can take away from that whole debacle.
We’ve been weaned onto DRM in recent years and personally, I can accept limited activations as a part of my PC purchase. Does it bother me that my copy of Bioshock 2 can only be installed 15 times before I have to phone customer services for reactivation? Don’t be so soft. That barely counts, especially in the light of Ubisoft’s all-new, singing and goose-stepping, über-führer DRM, which forces Assassin’s Creed II PC customers to stay online while they’re playing (despite it being a single-player game) and will actually kick you out of the game if your connection drops for any reason. Talk about breaking the fourth wall – I wasn’t a big fan of leaving twelfth century Jerusalem for the world outside the Animus in the first place, but I’d rather be there than get punished for Internet death and hang around in limbo while I wait to reconnect.
So the pirates will become more prolific because of DRM, the publishing execs will continue to implement increasingly draconian measures because of it, everyone will blame eachother and this vicious circle is threatening to spiral out of control. Someone’s going to have to sidestep soon or big-budget PC gaming is heading for a crash.
DRM: Something’s gotta give
Where do you draw the line on DRM? What Valve did with Half-Life 2 is a widely accepted practise today, even though at the time online activation was met with an unprecedented community backlash. Proper notification
in the system requirements box would have softened the blow for many, especially those that lugged PCs to work or school. But in hindsight this concept proved instrumental in introducing PC gamers to the juggernaut of digitial distribution that is Steam, which is the one positive thing I can take away from that whole debacle.
We’ve been weaned onto DRM in recent years and personally, I can accept limited activations as a part of my PC purchase. Does it bother me that my copy of Bioshock 2 can only be installed 15 times before I have to phone customer services for reactivation? Don’t be so soft. That barely counts, especially in the light of Ubisoft’s all-new, singing and goose-stepping, über-führer DRM, which forces Assassin’s Creed II PC customers to stay online while they’re playing (despite it being a single-player game) and will actually kick you out of the game if your connection drops for any reason. Talk about breaking the fourth wall – I wasn’t a big fan of leaving twelfth century Jerusalem for the world outside the Animus in the first place, but I’d rather be there than get punished for Internet death and hang around in limbo while I wait to reconnect.
So the pirates will become more prolific because of DRM, the publishing execs will continue to implement increasingly draconian measures because of it, everyone will blame eachother and this vicious circle is threatening to spiral out of control. Someone’s going to have to sidestep soon or big-budget PC gaming is heading for a crash.
Kelly Wand: Check, please
I spend an inordinate amount of time being annoyed, usually on behalf of others. The stakes are lower and more boring when you worry about yourself. What’s the worst that can happen? Dying’s just the rich man’s sleeping in. Some annoyance is good. When properly functioning, it’s man’s natural defense mechanism, keeping him from getting ripped off by the same bear-traps and Ponzi schemes more than once (or, in the case of women, eleven times).
It’s also, paradoxically, the gateway to bliss. When I buy something, I don’t expect it to work. When I lend money, I know I’ll never see it again. Some hater-haters may call that cynicism; I call it being right nine times out of ten, and the tenth’s always a pleasant surprise.
Games are the only art form deliberately designed to annoy you. People don’t smile when they play games; they look fearful and rapt with concentration. If a book’s annoying, you stop reading. If a game’s annoying, you’ll still spend dozens of hours finishing it so you can expunge it from your life and hard drive. The latest, priciest ones are not only unfinishable, but charge monthly fees for the privilege of chatting with others about how annoyed you all are at what you’re doing for hours every day.
When not writing columns in which I bite the hand that sporadically feeds me, I write games for corporations ruled by billionaires with gloved hands that have food in them. (My rates vary, but as a rule of thumb, I feel grossly overpaid for the first week, then grossly underpaid for the subsequent nineteen.) This process involves having more meetings with accountant types than I would otherwise solicit.
By far the weirdest thing about game companies is how they spend money. Disclaimer: I don’t know much about money. Sometimes I have a little, but usually not. I’m aware that some I did have went to prop up banks who repay me by doubling my credit card interest, so maybe I know all I need to.
Whenever I can’t figure something out, like why the streets are running red with blood, odds are excellent that the answer’s money-related (or religion related,which is really just a subset). Just thinking about money makes me feelweary and curiously unclean, as if I’m somehow compromising an assault on human dignity – a principle I’m pretty sure itself was made up by the affluent.
Kelly Wand: Check, please
I spend an inordinate amount of time being annoyed, usually on behalf of others. The stakes are lower and more boring when you worry about yourself. What’s the worst that can happen? Dying’s just the rich man’s sleeping in. Some annoyance is good. When properly functioning, it’s man’s natural defense mechanism, keeping him from getting ripped off by the same bear-traps and Ponzi schemes more than once (or, in the case of women, eleven times).
It’s also, paradoxically, the gateway to bliss. When I buy something, I don’t expect it to work. When I lend money, I know I’ll never see it again. Some hater-haters may call that cynicism; I call it being right nine times out of ten, and the tenth’s always a pleasant surprise.
Games are the only art form deliberately designed to annoy you. People don’t smile when they play games; they look fearful and rapt with concentration. If a book’s annoying, you stop reading. If a game’s annoying, you’ll still spend dozens of hours finishing it so you can expunge it from your life and hard drive. The latest, priciest ones are not only unfinishable, but charge monthly fees for the privilege of chatting with others about how annoyed you all are at what you’re doing for hours every day.
When not writing columns in which I bite the hand that sporadically feeds me, I write games for corporations ruled by billionaires with gloved hands that have food in them. (My rates vary, but as a rule of thumb, I feel grossly overpaid for the first week, then grossly underpaid for the subsequent nineteen.) This process involves having more meetings with accountant types than I would otherwise solicit.
By far the weirdest thing about game companies is how they spend money. Disclaimer: I don’t know much about money. Sometimes I have a little, but usually not. I’m aware that some I did have went to prop up banks who repay me by doubling my credit card interest, so maybe I know all I need to.
Whenever I can’t figure something out, like why the streets are running red with blood, odds are excellent that the answer’s money-related (or religion related,which is really just a subset). Just thinking about money makes me feelweary and curiously unclean, as if I’m somehow compromising an assault on human dignity – a principle I’m pretty sure itself was made up by the affluent.
Kelly Wand: Check, please
I spend an inordinate amount of time being annoyed, usually on behalf of others. The stakes are lower and more boring when you worry about yourself. What’s the worst that can happen? Dying’s just the rich man’s sleeping in. Some annoyance is good. When properly functioning, it’s man’s natural defense mechanism, keeping him from getting ripped off by the same bear-traps and Ponzi schemes more than once (or, in the case of women, eleven times).
It’s also, paradoxically, the gateway to bliss. When I buy something, I don’t expect it to work. When I lend money, I know I’ll never see it again. Some hater-haters may call that cynicism; I call it being right nine times out of ten, and the tenth’s always a pleasant surprise.
Games are the only art form deliberately designed to annoy you. People don’t smile when they play games; they look fearful and rapt with concentration. If a book’s annoying, you stop reading. If a game’s annoying, you’ll still spend dozens of hours finishing it so you can expunge it from your life and hard drive. The latest, priciest ones are not only unfinishable, but charge monthly fees for the privilege of chatting with others about how annoyed you all are at what you’re doing for hours every day.
When not writing columns in which I bite the hand that sporadically feeds me, I write games for corporations ruled by billionaires with gloved hands that have food in them. (My rates vary, but as a rule of thumb, I feel grossly overpaid for the first week, then grossly underpaid for the subsequent nineteen.) This process involves having more meetings with accountant types than I would otherwise solicit.
By far the weirdest thing about game companies is how they spend money. Disclaimer: I don’t know much about money. Sometimes I have a little, but usually not. I’m aware that some I did have went to prop up banks who repay me by doubling my credit card interest, so maybe I know all I need to.
Whenever I can’t figure something out, like why the streets are running red with blood, odds are excellent that the answer’s money-related (or religion related,which is really just a subset). Just thinking about money makes me feelweary and curiously unclean, as if I’m somehow compromising an assault on human dignity – a principle I’m pretty sure itself was made up by the affluent.
Classic PC Game: Carmageddon
PUBLISHER: SCi Interplay
DEVELOPERS: Stainless Games
RELEASED: 1997
GENRE: Racing
Carmageddon was a long time coming, and didn’t intend to be the “sickly, depraved piece of soul poison” (as Stainless Software founders Neil Barnden and Patrick Buckland called it in the manual introduction) it ultimately evolved into. It began life as a destruction derby game; however, when its marketing potential was realised by publisher SCi, the company had grand ideas of re-engineering it into a Mad Max licence. When this franchise fell apart, a new and equally violent premise presented itself in the shape of an intended fi lm sequel to the 1975 post-apocalyptic movie, Death Race 2000, was announced.
This time it was the film that fell through, and SCi finally laid down on the tracks and relinquished control to the software folk – allowing the team an uncharacteristic amount of creative freedom to get this longrunning development finally put to bed. By this point, the sadistic themes of the two intended film licences had made a significant impact on what was once known as 3D Destruction Derby, littering its race tracks with pedestrians, cows and other soft targets for the war-machine cars to assail. By 1997, the family friendly fun and frolics of a stock-car race had mutated intoa vicious, merciless comedy of pointless death for the chemically imbalanced. Simple in its execution, yet intricate in its details, Carmageddon managed to snake its way past the censors by maintaining a face-value emphasis on the racing competition. Although the English and German gamers briefl y saw the pedestrians replaced by zombies and robots, several months of appeal encouraged the censors to pass the game hindered only by a 15 rating, and the full uncut version hit the shelves. Naturally, Carmageddon was a resounding success. While the racing featured blisteringly fast and exciting gameplay, it was the free-roaming capabilities and secondary objectives that really made Carmageddon stand out. Up until this point, racing games had been just that. They hinged almost entirely on lap times and reduced damage to the vehicle. But it encouraged players to fi nd their own way to win the game: destroying competitors’ cars, running down pedestrians and performing ‘cunning stunts’ at the expense of your own well-being; awarding the points necessary to achieve victory – regardless of whether checkpoints had been crossed. Ports were made to the N64, Game Boy Color, Mac and PlayStation, though the PC version is a tough trick to beat. This is still a really enjoyable game that demands very little from you sicko gamers for providing shameless, gratuitous entertainment.
Classic PC Game: Carmageddon
PUBLISHER: SCi Interplay
DEVELOPERS: Stainless Games
RELEASED: 1997
GENRE: Racing
Carmageddon was a long time coming, and didn’t intend to be the “sickly, depraved piece of soul poison” (as Stainless Software founders Neil Barnden and Patrick Buckland called it in the manual introduction) it ultimately evolved into. It began life as a destruction derby game; however, when its marketing potential was realised by publisher SCi, the company had grand ideas of re-engineering it into a Mad Max licence. When this franchise fell apart, a new and equally violent premise presented itself in the shape of an intended fi lm sequel to the 1975 post-apocalyptic movie, Death Race 2000, was announced.
This time it was the film that fell through, and SCi finally laid down on the tracks and relinquished control to the software folk – allowing the team an uncharacteristic amount of creative freedom to get this longrunning development finally put to bed. By this point, the sadistic themes of the two intended film licences had made a significant impact on what was once known as 3D Destruction Derby, littering its race tracks with pedestrians, cows and other soft targets for the war-machine cars to assail. By 1997, the family friendly fun and frolics of a stock-car race had mutated intoa vicious, merciless comedy of pointless death for the chemically imbalanced. Simple in its execution, yet intricate in its details, Carmageddon managed to snake its way past the censors by maintaining a face-value emphasis on the racing competition. Although the English and German gamers briefl y saw the pedestrians replaced by zombies and robots, several months of appeal encouraged the censors to pass the game hindered only by a 15 rating, and the full uncut version hit the shelves. Naturally, Carmageddon was a resounding success. While the racing featured blisteringly fast and exciting gameplay, it was the free-roaming capabilities and secondary objectives that really made Carmageddon stand out. Up until this point, racing games had been just that. They hinged almost entirely on lap times and reduced damage to the vehicle. But it encouraged players to fi nd their own way to win the game: destroying competitors’ cars, running down pedestrians and performing ‘cunning stunts’ at the expense of your own well-being; awarding the points necessary to achieve victory – regardless of whether checkpoints had been crossed. Ports were made to the N64, Game Boy Color, Mac and PlayStation, though the PC version is a tough trick to beat. This is still a really enjoyable game that demands very little from you sicko gamers for providing shameless, gratuitous entertainment.
Classic PC Game: Carmageddon
PUBLISHER: SCi Interplay
DEVELOPERS: Stainless Games
RELEASED: 1997
GENRE: Racing
Carmageddon was a long time coming, and didn’t intend to be the “sickly, depraved piece of soul poison” (as Stainless Software founders Neil Barnden and Patrick Buckland called it in the manual introduction) it ultimately evolved into. It began life as a destruction derby game; however, when its marketing potential was realised by publisher SCi, the company had grand ideas of re-engineering it into a Mad Max licence. When this franchise fell apart, a new and equally violent premise presented itself in the shape of an intended fi lm sequel to the 1975 post-apocalyptic movie, Death Race 2000, was announced.
This time it was the film that fell through, and SCi finally laid down on the tracks and relinquished control to the software folk – allowing the team an uncharacteristic amount of creative freedom to get this longrunning development finally put to bed. By this point, the sadistic themes of the two intended film licences had made a significant impact on what was once known as 3D Destruction Derby, littering its race tracks with pedestrians, cows and other soft targets for the war-machine cars to assail. By 1997, the family friendly fun and frolics of a stock-car race had mutated intoa vicious, merciless comedy of pointless death for the chemically imbalanced. Simple in its execution, yet intricate in its details, Carmageddon managed to snake its way past the censors by maintaining a face-value emphasis on the racing competition. Although the English and German gamers briefl y saw the pedestrians replaced by zombies and robots, several months of appeal encouraged the censors to pass the game hindered only by a 15 rating, and the full uncut version hit the shelves. Naturally, Carmageddon was a resounding success. While the racing featured blisteringly fast and exciting gameplay, it was the free-roaming capabilities and secondary objectives that really made Carmageddon stand out. Up until this point, racing games had been just that. They hinged almost entirely on lap times and reduced damage to the vehicle. But it encouraged players to fi nd their own way to win the game: destroying competitors’ cars, running down pedestrians and performing ‘cunning stunts’ at the expense of your own well-being; awarding the points necessary to achieve victory – regardless of whether checkpoints had been crossed. Ports were made to the N64, Game Boy Color, Mac and PlayStation, though the PC version is a tough trick to beat. This is still a really enjoyable game that demands very little from you sicko gamers for providing shameless, gratuitous entertainment.
Top Three….. Shortest-lived MMOs
It’s never an easy launching and sustaining a new MMO and the genre landscape is sadly littered with the remains of failed games. Here TPCG presents the three shortest lived MMOs to date.
SEED
Developer: Runestone Game Development
Publisher: Runestone Game Development
Runestone Game Development’s innovative combat-free sci-fi MMO ran out of money and was cancelled on 28 September 2006 after 149 days.
Fury
Developer: Auran
Publisher: Codemasters Online Gaming
Aussie developer Auran had pitched Fury as a seriously competitive MMO with real-world prizes. But Fury was canned after 294 days.
Tabula Rasa
Developer: Destination Games
Publisher:NCsoft
Richard Garriott’s MMO just wasn’t as different as it purported to be, and arguably the only reason why it lasted the last few months of its 484 days was that NCsoft made it free to play.
