What Would Matt Do

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.

"What’s that you say? Evil used games are on the way? We’re on it!"

There are many ways to approach how the used game market is fast becoming the enemy of the developer/publisher. Truly though, it all boils down to money. More specifically, where are your hard earned dollars going to. Everything else is just flak and silliness.

Wait you say though, the used game market, what does that have to do with developers and publishers of games? If they have their way, a lot. You see, there a lot of dollars involved in the second hand market. Most of those dollars go to Gamestop and their ilk with their often annoying (at best) business practices. Developers and publishers see all of those dollars generated by their games and want to double dip. As a matter of fact, if you believe some of these guys, they want to a cut every single time you touch their game.

You know what I say to that? Fair enough. That’s right. More power to those power hungry, money grabbing, bastards. It’s the way of the land, of capitolism, and of business. Fine, that’s great. I can’t be happy enough for them that they found this whole new market as of yet untapped by them. That’s just awesome.

How are they going to get their dirty little grubbers into it though? They aren’t. They aren’t deciding to take the way of the auto manufactuerer and start selling things to go with the used cars (see toyota certification on used cars as a good example). Nope, that would take smarts and business sense. Instead, they are going to try to fuck you, the person that they want to buy their games. Yeah, that’s right, they have declared war on you:

Michael Capps: I’m not sure how big it is here [in Europe], but 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.

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…

[...]

Michael Capps: I’d hate to say my players are my enemies – that doesn’t make any sense!

No worries if you don’t know who Michael Capps is. He’s your basic idiot company president over at Epic and not many had heard of him until more recently when he started whining about how awful the used game market is. That’s his big claim to fame…you know, other than rolling in money as the president of Epic.

Epic isn’t alone though. They aren’t even really the driving force here. It’s EA, Microsoft, and others. The big boys of the game world. That’s actually some cause for concern. Well maybe not, what if it’s not that big of a deal, as many have claimed. What if this just a simple thing that people are getting too worked up about… Well, lets see what Tom Chick thinks:

But you might have missed the more notable bit from those comments. Without any segue or distinction, Capps conflates renting games with pirating them. He goes straight from "buying used games" to "PC games are dead because of piracy". Amazing.

As a gamers, we’ve lost so many of the battles with publishers. Multiplayer games with a single copy, thinner manuals, strategy guide sales, and copy protection all come to mind. I hate to see the used game market and rentals become another casualty of gamer apathy.

That whole post of his is spot on…but what does Chick know anyway, he’s just a game reviewer (maybe the single most known game reviewer in the industry, but anyway). What about Soren Johnsen? You remember him, the master of all things strategy (or least a really smart guy that works on AI and strategy games). Since he’s in that industry, maybe he sides with them? I think not:

Many factors come into play when a consumer decides if a specific game purchase is worth the money, and one of those factors is the perceived value from selling it back as a used game. In other words, people will pay more for a new game because they know they can get some of that money back when they trade it in at the local Gamestop. Importantly, this perceived value exists whether the consumer actually sells the game or keeps it. Wizards of the Coast has long admitted that the existence of the secondary market for Magic cards has long helped buoy the primary market because buyers perceive that the cards have monetary value.

Again, a great read. Go there, read the whole thing. He brings up a really good point. Value of a game. And that’s really the whole point of this article. The value of a game.

The real problem is that these publishers and developers have no long term vision.

That’s the trick that the idiots at Epic are forgetting and geniuses at Microsoft Games and EA are hoping you don’t realize with their new found war. They are actually devaluing games with their little tricks. Think about it.

If you’re looking at buying Gears of War 2, but aren’t sure if it’s going to great or worth the $60 you’re going to have to shell out for it, what factors into your decision? Worth of mouth for sure, reviews maybe, hype (i.e. – money spent on advertising) almost assuredly, but what about how much you can get for it if you decide to sell it used? Oh yeah. I know I bought GTA4 because I knew even if the game sucked (which it did, sadly enough) I could get $20-30 back for it. What if when considering GTA4 I knew that the game was mine forever or I could sell it for $5 used? That would definitely influence my decision and definitely convince me to buy less games. You can even see above, even Hasbro/WotC know that having a vibrant used market helps prop up the sales of new games.

If these jackasses have their way though, we won’t have a used game market at all anymore. You won’t be able to rent games, you won’t be able to buy cheaper games, you won’t be able to buy used games and you definitely won’t be able to sell games you don’t want anymore. What a bunch of idiots. I wonder if I’ve said it enough yet…idiots! IDIOTS!

Lets be serious for a moment and solve this problem

Ok, so publishers and developers see this big untapped market. What can they do about it? Well, how about digital distribution? I admit I don’t buy everything from Steam, but when it’s a Valve game, I do. Why? Because I trust those guys. They make games I like, the support the games long term, and they don’t dick me around. Worth every single penny. But…what if they sold them for less, as Soren suggests in article above? They’d be helping us out, the customer, and themselves (since they got almost all of that sale price then, instead of percentage they get at retail now).

What else though? Hmmm…what about making games that people want to buy new instead of games people feel they should rent or wait until they can buy it cheaper because the game just isn’t that good. Quality might be a damn good thing at this point.

How about long term support? Burnout Paradise? I didn’t sell it when I sold GTA4 and a couple of other games…because they keep releasing new stuff for it. How can I get rid of it when I’m just going to play it again soon?

So we’ve got, quality games that are worth buying at full retail price, digitial distribution (it’s also a threat to the used game market, but I only use it for things I know I won’t be selling in the future) and long term support. What about sticking it to the actual enemy (Gamestop) and make them either divy up some profits or pay more for games or any one of a hundred different things they could do? What about approaching this from a rational, well thought out point of view that involves working with the current markets and not fucking over customers?

Yeah, I know, I said rational and suggested Epic would have any idea what that means, my bad. The others though, maybe they can pull their heads out of their collective asses and see the light of day. Or maybe they’ll talk to their marketing guys and have branding and customer loyalty explained to them. Or maybe they can call up WotC (or any of the other industries that manage to not fight with their secondary markets) and find out how a good used market is good for them too.

Maybe they’ll even have an ephinony and start treating their customers like people…

What Would Matt Do: You know what I’ll do by this point, support those companies that treat me well. On a somewhat interesting and maybe insightful note, do we notice the solution to both the DRM/piracy matter and this one breaks down to treating people right? Weird, I know.

I’ve played a bit of Far Cry 2 now. Probably 5-10 hours or so. I don’t know if I’m going to be playing again any time soon what with all of the other games out there to try and FC2 not quite making the grade. Here’s why it’s not quite the game they wanted…or least it wasn’t on the regular difficulty level (I hear it plays differently on different difficultly levels?).

The AI

Why knock the AI when I’ve also got them in the good things area? Because they respawn like angry mosquitoes when you leave standing water outside. Literally. See, in FC2 you drive around this huge country side a lot. This huge country side is filled with a bunch of random annoying guys (like the internet) with guns (less like the internet). Ok, well, fine. It’s a warzone, I’m a mercenary, I’ll do what I do. Basically, kill the shit out of things. I do that, take the supplies I need and move on. Pretty straight forward. Except, when I have to drive back by there I find a whole host of new guys there. As if they are cloning them in the back somewhere and as soon as I’m out of sight, the little bastards are popping out of the water, running to the guard post and then nochalantly pretending like they’ve been there the whole time. So, no matter how many times you kill them, you get to do again as soon as you go back. Awesome!

The original design vs. what we got

They, the developers, either originally designed a more hardcore game where saving was only available at safe houses or they altered the difficulty levels post design or something, but a few things just aren’t well done. First, you don’t need save points, so you don’t need safe houses (until later in the game when they have supplies…if you’re a right and true bastard). Second, while some of the game seems based on making it feel more realistic, other things aren’t. Repairing a vehicle for instance…as long as the vehicle hasn’t exploded, you can just get out, open the hood, twist a wrench a few times and it’s back to new! While that might be a better mechanic than having vehicles die and you have to hoof it a lot, there should have been some other way to solve this problem without it feely so gamey. Third, why can I only carry 4 weapons, no matter their size. Great arbitrary way to try to make the game harder…

Story?

Ok, yeah, the game isn’t big on story. Completely understandable since it’s an FPS. They often think deep story lines have cooties. Fair enough. But what about a story line that you’re literally thrown into, and then never hear about again? I’m going to spoil something right now (since it’s in the first 5 minutes of the game)…you’re hunting the Jackal. And you meet him right away. And he doesn’t kill you, even though he knows you’re there to kill him. Ok, fine. But then? You never hear from him or where he is again. And you start doing random jobs for random people for…no reason. Yeah, it’s that esoteric. Then, you make buddies…that aren’t really buddies so much as people that want things from you for very little reward. That are also physic. As soon as you take a job, they know and have a counter or altered job already setup. It’s almost as if this entire country was just waiting for you to appear…

Ok, so, those aren’t great things…but you know what? Far Cry 2 is still pretty fun for awhile, and if modding tools exist, the real Far Cry 2 could appear. If no other game was out right now, I’d probably still be playing it. And I will most definitely go back to it at some point. See, it has these really good things. Stealth works, the AI is fun to play against, when they aren’t spawning constantly, and the graphics are amazing.

Now for some developer comments as seen on Pentadact (right after the author’s comments):

I’m missing something fundamental about the buddy missions. Namely, why? And also, why? Why do they want to hurt the APR/UFLL much more seriously at enormous risk to my health and for no extra reward? And why do they think I will want to? It can’t be that they’re die-hard UFLL or APR supporters, because my next mission will be against that faction and they will again demand that I take enormous, preposterous detours to commit mass murders.

Hmm…I agree completely, but what does the developer say (these are taken from the original blog’s comments)?

Thanks for the (cheeky) comments. I would very much liked to have done a better job of realizing the buddies and making them more present and meangingful in the game. At least you can shoot them and make them go away if you don’t like them. I don’t like Michelle much either and after the third or fourth time I had her as a buddy I secretly painted some sandbags with her brains when no one was looking.

So the best way to deal with your buddies is to kill them…interesting. What about why they ask you create massive destruction for what appears to be (yet again) no real reason?

As for the other ‘why’ why do the buddies want you destroy medicine or defoliate a jungle?… The answer is because they are bad fucking people. They are self-interested, dangerous assholes. Are they really different from the warlords and their goons? It’s completely fine if you don’t want to do that stuff. It’s completely fine that you think they are monsterous. If you don’t want to do that stuff, if you think it’s ‘bad’, you don’t have to. Your reputation will stay low, you’ll have access to medicine for longer, you won’t find the battlefield quite so littered with wounded. But make no mistake – you’re motives here are not to end this conflict. Don’t be so high and mighty, errand boy. You’re a killer. You’ve probably killed and burned and stabbed more people than all of your buddies combined. Why do you think you are the one we hired to kill the Jackal and not one of them :)

So…they ask you to do horribly destructive things with no real logic or reasoning behind them because they are bad people? Are bad people stupid as all get out? Because that might explain things a bit…

I do understand his talk of lack of time and polish. That happens on every single software project known to man. That doesn’t excuse things, but it does give some understanding. Far Cry 2 though…well it could have been an outstanding game instead of just another decent one. If modding exists for it, I think with a bit of work, you could make one of the most amazing single player games to grace our screens.

As it stands, it’s worth a buy from the bargain bin or if you’re out of other games to play.

What Would Matt Do: I’d read the rest of the comments by Clint. They are all insightful and interesting, if not a little bit revisionist and spinnie, but still good. I’d also keep Far Cry 2 and give it another shot when I have more time or when a patch fixes a fair amount of the issues.

(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.

It may be the most unsurprising announcement ever, but I can’t tell you how much joy it brings me. You see, I’m a Star Wars geek. Not a Lucas is god and I care about the Star Wars history and universe geek, but more of a in spite of George’s inability to make good movies without others help I still love light sabers and force powers and that sound that lightsabers make when they clash geek. So with that in mind, I know Bioware is probably going screw it all up, but at least they aren’t Verant and they don’t have the idiot creator of The Vision™, so they are already steps above the last Star Wars game.

At they aren’t doing it in the current Star Wars lore. Doing a game in the past is by far the best way. Or even the future, assuming Jedi’s exist in the future of SW lore. Something where you can break the Jedi universe as we know it in the name of fun…

I’d love to see everyone be able to be Jedi AND since they are having other classes, those other classes be fun to play. I know that’s asking a lot, but hey, I’m like that. Also, I’d like the MMO to be fun in general. That’s asking even more from a first time MMO developer.

What Would Matt Do: I’d make a game where everyone can be a Jedi and let the NPCs be the other classes. That’s really where most Star Wars games fall down, requiring that some people are this or that or whatever. Or even better, I’d make it so everyone can wield the force if they so choose, so maybe if you aren’t a Jedi, you’re still awesome. Break the Star Wars lore in the name of fun. Also, this is pretty funny.