What Would Matt Do

I don’t normally gush on this site about anything, but if there was a game of D&D I would have wanted to play in, this would be the game:

Last week, I spent an entire day playing Dungeons & Dragons Fourth Edition with some of my friends. Big whoop, you say. So did I. Ah, but I played in Seattle. With Gabe and Tycho from Penny-Arcade. And Scott Kurtz from PVP. And, to really twist the +3 dagger in your back, our DM was Chris Perkins from Wizards of the Coast, who made an adventure specifically for us to play. For the crushed peanuts and maraschino cherry topping on this sundae of HAWESOME, I got to play a class from the unreleased Player’s Handbook 2. We recorded the entire session for a podcast, which will be released early next year.

Yeah, fuck them all for not inviting me. Am I an animal of some sort? A beast to be ignored? I think not! I am…well, I’m just some random guy on the internet full of random guys, but still I am pretty awesome…

I don’t even really have anything to say here, except if you guys need another, I’m free and I will bring supplies for the group. I’ll even say it’s because I care, but really it’s to butter up the DM. I’m sneaky like that.

Wil, call me. /me makes hand phone pantomime.

What Would Matt Do: You know what I’d really like to do? Play some damn D&D 4.0 already. My group wasn’t interested, then there was a fallout and now I’m splintered off playing with another group…who doesn’t have any 4.0 books and really doesn’t want to play it. Woe is me!

Well, I see NPD numbers that Gamasutra saw. Here’s the interesting parts:

To be exact, numbers cross-platform are: Madden NFL 09 sold 3.9 million, Burnout Paradise sold 592,000, Dead Space sold 421,000, and Mirror’s Edge sold 145,000.

Wow. I knew that Dead Space and Mirror’s Edge weren’t successes for EA, but I didn’t realize that the latter was so poorly sold.

Ok, so those are sales numbers for EA. Big whoop. Here’s where I get a little less happy…when people start to think like this:

How sad. These games definitely deserved to sell more.
And I sure hope this won’t result in cancellation of these series or that innovative games are a thing of past.

That’s the first comment on the Gamasutra article. I’m not singling out that guy, but the sentiment. I’ve seen it all over in the debate on Mirror’s Edge and how good it was and how it should be rated and so on. As a matter of fact, some big name journalists recently said the same thing.

That’s just crap. If the games had been better, they might have sold better. I can’t tell you one thing about Dead Space other than it’s apparently very messy and is a horror game. Not really my bag and no one I talked that played it said it was a must play. But Mirror’s Edge… Yeah, they tried, but it was broken. It didn’t flow right, it didn’t feel right and even though some of the stuff was cool, for most people it was just an effort in futility. Plus, it’s a new game in a recession without anything to bring in the Big Guns Big Breasts™ guys.

Whatever the reasons it didn’t sell to well, it doesn’t matter… Because EA has already said they are going to back their old ways. Except well, they never really left them. Spinning your story for less than a year doesn’t count for leaving your old ways behind. Especially when at the first sign of not huge success, you turn around and run the other way.

All of that aside… The next person that says this game or that game deserved better reviews or sales gets a fucking smack. Games don’t deserve shit. They either sell well or they don’t. They earn their way by good design, good marketing and good execution. Usually.

These are my rules for purchasing games:

1) We don’t give charity lays. Really. We don’t buy games because they should have been good or we really like the developer. The game is either worth buying or not.

2) We don’t, at any point, believe anything EA says until they start telling us the truth at least part of the time. Look at John R, the CEO. He says he hates DRM…this from the company that released the most pirated game ever (since people started paying attention), due in at least some part to the draconian DRM measure on it (it being Spore). So when buying an EA game, we need to be doubly sure it isn’t poop.

3) We don’t buy Epic Games. Much like we don’t support Nike because they employ children to work for them (is that still true?), we don’t buy from people who complain about not making enough money off the secondary market on one hand while raking in TENS of MILLIONS with the other. From one game.

Maybe I’m being a jackass here, but I couldn’t give a shit of EA succeeds or fails. They don’t watch out for me, I don’t watch out for them. I hope every single employee at EA is happy or finds another job if they are let go, but EA as a company is waring with me, the customer. How much care should I put into their financial difficulties? Zero.

What Would Matt Do: I’ll buy the games that are good and I won’t buy the ones that suck. Plain and simple. And I won’t buy from Epic. Seems like simple enough rules. For a company that we can have sympathy for, we turn to Troy Goodfellow and his piece on Ensemble. Good read so far.

(Someone want to make me an image I can use for this article every time? Needs to be gaming related and not cost me money. Contact me if you want and I’ll be sure to mention your name to my five readers at least once.)

Just when you thought it was safe to go outside, a new week has appeared and it’s brought more idiocy! Since I can’t, and/or don’t care enough, to cover the entire world, I’ll stick to gaming per the norm. What kind of tales of the weird have a I brought you today?

Today we start with one Robert Bowling. Who is Robert Bowling you ask? Well, I didn’t know either, but apparently he’s the Director of Communications / Community Manager for Infinity Ward. You know, the guys that make the good Call of Duty games (in case you’re wondering, that’s CoD1, CoD2 and CoD4). Here’s hoping he’s pretty secure in his job:

WTF are you talking about?! “in previous Call of Dutys blah blah blah”. First of all, you didn’t work on “previous Call of Dutys”, so don’t talk as if you’re down with how / why things were designed the way they were. Second, you’re completely fucking wrong.

Bolt Action rifles are one hit kills in every Call of Duty we (Infinity Ward) made!!

I won’t compare it to World at War’s Bolt Actions, I can’t speak to that because I don’t work there. Just like you don’t work here, so please stop talking about our games.

A rule of thumb I like to use is…. when promoting your game. Promote YOUR game. Don’t compare it to another game, or reference what OTHER games did in the past, pitch YOUR game. I mean, you have lots of cool things you could talk about… like Nazi Zombies….

He did not just go all Nazi Zombies up in here…ooh, he did. His rant is about one Noah Heller. Sure, I can understand his frustration what with his company being the one that makes the real Call of Duty titles and the other company makes the money grabs in between. Fair enough. But to do it on your blog, in full view of the world, where others, namely your boss, can see? Probably not the brightest move ever. I have missed a good .plan update though, so kudos to one Mr. Bowling for giving us the first good one in a long time. Here’s hoping your job is still good.

Ok, so that wasn’t so bad, right? Maybe the others won’t be so bad, right? Sorry, I’m going best to worst. Tricked ya! Well, maybe not. Either way, what’s more annoying than ‘horse armor’ as a payable update? How about 12 different money grabs all of which are probably already on the disc and just waiting for you to pay for more clothes for your game? Check out the first four:

• Astronaut Pack: Download the Astronaut Suit and Weapon Skin Pack, featuring an amazing Astronaut Suit and new skins for the Plasma Cutter, Pulse Rifle, and Ripper! – $3.00 / 240 MS points
• Big Gun Pack: Download the Steam Punk Force Gun, the ultimate in Necromorph-killing destruction. – $1.00 / 80 MS points
• Heavy Damage Pack: Download the Heavy Damage Weapon pack featuring a cool new look and massive firepower for the Plasma Cutter, Contact Beam, Pulse Rifle, and Ripper. – $3.00 / 240 MS points
• Hot Rod Pack: Download the Hot Rod Weapon Skin Pack, featuring awesome flame graphics for the Flamethrower and Pulse Rifle. – $1.00 / 80 MS points

Hmmm…maybe I’m just over reacting. Maybe those aren’t complete and total money grabs the publisher (stunner, it’s EA) is using to try to get even more money for it 60-fucking-dollar-game. Yep, just selling the original game isn’t enough, now we’re going to include less customizable games where you can pay more to customize your pretties in the game. I can’t tell you how happy this makes me. This is exactly what I thought would happen when DLC was first introduced and thankfully it hasn’t been as bad as I thought it would be, but EA is really looking to push the cash grabbing whores theory, so who knows what the future will bring. Maybe I’ll get to to pay for the end of the game after already buying the main game…

It’s funny I should mention the buying the end of the game in the last article…since that’s exactly what one blabber mouthed idiot over at Epic Games said. You may not know the name, but you’ve most likely played with their engine/game at one point. They make Unreal, Gears of War, sell the mess out of the engine, whine about this or that and oh yeah, have declared war on the second hand market:

“The secondary market is a huge issue in the United States. Our primary retailer makes the majority of its money off of secondary sales, and so you’re starting to see games taking proactive steps toward that by… if you buy the retail version you get the unlock code,” he said.

“I’ve talked to some developers who are saying ‘If you want to fight the final boss you go online and pay USD 20, but if you bought the retail version you got it for free’. We don’t make any money when someone rents it, and we don’t make any money when someone buys it used – way more than twice as many people played Gears than bought it.”

Hmmm…how to approach this. I think I’ll go with putting Epic Games now above EA on my board of douche. Yeah, that’s right, I have a board of douche beside my desk. It had two names on it. EA and Epic. EA was running away with the victory, but it sounds like Epic is really making strides. Lets talk about why…

First, fuck Epic Games. Really. This is complete bullshit. Yeah, there are about 5+ million gamers that played your game without you ever seeing a red cent. That is effing horrible. But how did I come to that number so readily? Well, lets assume Mike Boss isn’t just spewing numbers out of his ass and that twice as many people played Gears as bought it. You know that means? It means that Epic Games sold 5+ million copies. That’s right, the guys whining about the second hand market sold more than five million copies of Gears. And they probably going to sell more of Gears 2. Nothing like putting things in perspective.

Second, what is this issue of the second hand market? Who’s having an issue with this? Is it me? Am I battling day in and out, trying to figure out how to manage against the onslaught of the second hand market? Oh wait… That’s right, I find value in it. I like finding games I don’t want to pay full price for at cheaper prices or renting games I don’t want to own. So it’s not me… Must be big business doesn’t like how the second hand market works. Fair enough, it’s actually a valid beef. See, Gamestop, and their ilk, buys used games at well below half of the original price (for the most part) and then sells the games at…five dollars less than the new versions. So they have a HUGE markup and the way they do it, they are cutting into actual game sales something fierce, I’m sure. So the issue isn’t the second hand market, so much as the way Gamestop deals with it. Ok, well, fine. I don’t like it, you don’t like it. What should we do about it?

Apparently we should start treating our customers like shit. Lets charge them both for original game and for ending. Oh, and lets charge them for multiplayer maps and not allow anyone else but the first buyer to own them. Next up, we take their credit cards and automatically charge any new game releases to their card. Twice. If that doesn’t work, we work up some sort of dealie with lots of guns.

I’ll go into more detail on this later, but for now, lets settle on Epic is stupid, has no idea what the marketing term Branding means nor how to deal with customers. Epic Games…we can out douche EA, just give us time!

What Would Matt Do: Were I Supreme Leader of the World (actually, I am, but not of this one), my first command would be to destroy all cell phone plans that pretend to charge you one thing then charge another with taxes and fees. The second would be to take away all of Epic’s money and make them buy games again. See what it’s like to be a game buyer instead of driving around their supar cars and worrying about the damn secondary market and the huztpah they have to not pay Epic every time a game of their is touched. Really.

If you knew how long it took me to come up with a title for this little piece you’d laugh. Either way though, this most likely a new semi-weekly update on the gaming world and how retarded it is. 

To kick things off, lets start with the king of the crop, EA. You remember them, right? The guys that love DRM on their products and their foot in their mouths. Well, if you were them, and you had made yet another error…what would you do? You’d tell people how to get past copy protection schemes you inadvertently forgot a letter on:

"There is currently a work-around that may allow you to bypass this issue. Since you have the first 19 characters of the code already, you can basically try guessing the last character," said a note on EA’s customer support site.

Yes, they’re serious.

"To do this, simply enter your existing code, and then for the last character, try the letters A-Z, and then the numbers 0-9. You should eventually get the right combination, and be able to play the game."

EA is so far ahead in the idiot gaming company of the year category Sony, last year’s winner, is starting to feel left out.

Next up in the dumb as a box of rocks category, the Christian Children’s Fund. Wait you say, they seem like an organization with their heart in the right place at least… Except, then they decided not to take donations from GenCon, on behalf the recently passed away Gygax, because they are associated with D&D. I kid you the fuck not:

On Saturday, August 15^th, 2008 at 6:00 PM, the Gen Con Live Game Auction hosted their traditional charity auction. This year, the event was in honor of Gary Gygax. Originally the charity chosen for GenCon was Gary’s favorite charity, the Christian Children’s Fund. Unfortunately, when they found out that the money they would get came partially from sales of Dungeons and Dragons they decided not to be the sponsored charity.

Wow. What next, a press release to announce how they won’t be taking anymore money from people that play chess because it’s the devil’s game?

And in the not yet a hot mess, but will most likely end up being so at some point, we have China. What is China doing now, besides going through a major industrial revolution and trying to handle serious growing pains and a changing society by still continuing to silence all that disagree? Well, now they are charging taxes on virtual currencies:

The announcement, which was distributed to local tax bureaus, specifically takes aim at those who buy virtual currency from gamers and surfers and sell it to others at a mark-up. Taxation officials are granted the right to determine the original price of online virtual currency if the individual fails to provide proof of an original price, it says. The policy would cover China’s legions of online gamers, who can use online virtual currency to buy better equipment and new powers for their online warriors.

Yeah, that definitely won’t be wrought with problems. Definitely not. Now just wait until we get similar measures in the US. Or until someone starts trying to buy insurance on their virtual currency. If it’s worth actual money, people will want guarantees on it. I’ve always said that companies aren’t going to be able to get away with not guaranteeing the bits in their system forever. As soon as it’s worth money, people are going to start suing when they lose it all due to a bug or being hacked.

What Would Matt Do: I can’t do much but sadly shake me head about it all. On the plus side, nothing can dampen my mood today after last night’s historic win by Obama. I heard mainstream media talking about how academics and the like will actually want to work for the administration now and how different that would be… We live in crazy land where smart people are shunned…well, at least we did. I hope.

(Alternate title: Never visit EA’s official forums just to be safe)

But here we are days later no anouncement, no apology, no anything. So apparently this policy is real:

Well, its actually going to be a bit nastier for those who get banned.

Your forum account will be directly tied to your Master EA Account, so if we ban you on the forums, you would be banned from the game as well since the login process is the same. And you’d actually be banned from your other EA games as well since its all tied to your account. So if you have SPORE and Red Alert 3 and you get yourself banned on our forums or in-game, well, your SPORE account would be banned to. It’s all one in the same, so I strongly reccommend people play nice and act mature.

All in all, we expect people to come on here and abide by our ToS. We hate banning people, it makes our lives a lot tougher, but its what we have to do.

Those banned will stay banned, but like most other internet services, its not that hard to create a new fake e-mail account. However, its a lot harder to get a new serial key =)

To paraphrase, "We own you, bitches!". I’m kind of stunned that this is actual policy. Still, now almost two weeks later, I can’t believe any company would ban people from any online component of their games because of getting banned from a forum. I want to get all worked up about this, but it’s so ludicrous, I just can’t bring myself to even be surprised. I guess this EA now. Instead, I’ll let Shamus Young do my dirty work:

You are now obliged to obey the Terms of Service and the EULA (legalese-dense documents that can change on a whim) or you will be locked out of every game you’ve legally purchased from them. You can’t see the EULA or the TOS before you buy. You can’t get your money back after opening the product to see those agreements. You can’t get your money back if they change it and you don’t like the new terms. You can’t get your money back if they ban you for breaking rules they can change at a moment’s notice. You can’t appeal if you think you were banned unfairly. And really, they can ban you for whatever reason they like, anytime they like, even if you abide by the rules. What are you gonna do? Sue Electronic Arts?

Explain to me again who the thieves are

Yeah, exactly. EA has to be one of the dumbest companies out there. Really, Sony has called them up and asked how they manage to be so god damned dumb and yet haven’t eaten their feet. It’s that impressive.

So does this mean for their piracy is bad claims when they will happily (notice the smiley) lock people out of games for saying stupid shit (or complaining about DRM) on their forums? I’d say that’s exactly what they are saying. Next they are going to threaten take back the games if we can’t show modicum of restraint? Fuck EA.

What Would Matt Do: Am I really going to have to stop buying games because of a publisher? Am I really going to have to skip Dragon Age because EA distributes it? Should I have skipped Warhammer? Fuckers. I already skipped Spore and Far Cry 2 because of DRM and I was planning on at least giving RA3 another look, but I guess not now. What else can I do but call them assholes and refuse to by their products… Most important question of all, does this mean I have to skip Dragon Age because EA own Bioware now? That’s going to suck something fierce…

Update: So it turns out my initial thoughts were right, but apparently EA is just slow on responding (It took them almost two weeks to respond). The idiot community manager was just flexing his non-existant powers and talking out his ass. So if you get banned, it’s just from the forums. Nothing to see here, move on. Other than that EA has stupid community managers.