What Would Matt Do

That’s an exact quote from this article. The longer version now:

"This information and data is very valuable and it wasn’t free for us," an EA representative explained on Operation Sports. "T-Mobile is paying for it this year for all users who buy the game new. This is a very expensive tool to use, and if you don’t buy it new, then you’ll have to pay for this. It isn’t greed at all."

So it costs money to make games…stunned. It’s a good thing they give them away free, or consumers might be paying for them too. Yeah, that’s obvious sarcasm. What it comes down to is this… EA doesn’t like that you, the consumer, might buy a used game that provides them no money past the initial sale, so they are adding content that only the first guy gets for free.

And they aren’t alone:

New copies of Epic’s Gears of War 2 (360) will include a one-use download code that will rewards with 5 additional multiplayer maps, all pulled from the original Gears of War. According to GamePro, these maps will not be available for purchase through the Xbox Live Marketplace, with Epic claiming they are "special gifts [for] our loyal fans."

So not only will only the first guy get the maps for free, he will be the only one ever. Didn’t buy the game new? That’s fine, we’ll just punish you with less content. I kid you the fuck not.

Gears of War 1 sold something like 5 million copies plus and now they are trying to stick it to us in secondary market because they don’t like how many copies of their game got sold in the after market? They definitely need the money…. If I’m following this,  if you don’t buy the game new, you aren’t a valued customer for them and they don’t want you. They will even go so far as to give you less content because you didn’t hand your hard earned money directly to them.

That’s fucked up. The game consumer is getting punished because people like EA and Microsoft (Gears publisher) don’t like how Gamestop and their ilk do business?

I’ve got a novel idea, make a game I want to pay $60 for. If the game is really good, I won’t be waiting until it comes down in price or buy it used. Oh, and that whole second hand market that actually generates new customers for your next version when someone plays an older game at a cheaper price (i.e. – they bought Gears 1 on the cheap and got so into it, they can’t wait to try the next one and will buy it new), that shit can just go to hell.

What marketing genius thought this was a good idea. Really. I’m sure EA and Microsoft (and others) are patting themselves on the back right now. I’m betting Beer Friday was extra good when they came up with this little gem. I’m also betting they’ve lost all sight of how to build up a customer base. How to respect the people who buy their games and the people who like to sell their old game so they can afford new games.

Listen, if you don’t like the fucking system, change it with the retailer, don’t go all passive aggressive on the consumer because it bothers you that you don’t get every fucking dollar that goes near your game. What a weak, shitty way to deal with your customers.

What Would Matt Do: I’ll probably not buy those games. I was really looking forward to Gears 2, but when the companies start treating me less than decent, I have a harder time shelling out the big bucks for their game. Or in short, DIAF.

Or I could have just titled this article, don’t be dumb. I’m not talking Palin dumb here, I’m just talking making blanket statements like your game must follow these 10 rules or your game sins if it breaks these seven rules. Why do I say it’s silly? Because if you look at either of those lists, I can name great games that break those rules. Yeah, that’s right, even the ever awesome Soren Johnson’s list.

The RPS list for instance does say should in their title, but I still can’t say I agree with everything they’ve posted. Lets take some examples:

2. Use standardised install and savegame folders

Everything goes in Program Files by default, please (and, just as importantly, there needs to be an option to install anywhere the player would rather). Don’t have your game install itself into the root of C:\ or an obscure sub-folder, and when you do put it in Program Files don’t stick it inside [Publisher name]\[Developer name] – just stick a folder directly in there under the game’s name. Gamers want to be able to find their game files easily, not have to Google for everyone involved in its creation just so they can work out what folder it’s in.

This is doubly true of savegames.

 Why do I care? Sure, it might be nice, but I don’t even like where Vista and XP have my saved games if developers followed the rules. You know where I want saved games? In a sub directory of where I chose install the game (I’m OCD about that. Games go to c:\games, demos to c:\gamedemos. That way I can track them down later). That isn’t hard and it should be a simple thing to follow.

The rest of the suggestions aren’t all bad, but they aren’t all necessary either. I have spent of long hours playing games like Company of Heroes and Starcraft that break that escape means pause rule. It took me three seconds to catch on and I didn’t think about it again. I’m not saying games shouldn’t go for that rule, but it’s not really a priority.

On to Soren’s seven sins… On the one hand, I just want to agree with everything Soren says since I’ve liked the game he’s worked on so much. On the other hand, he’s being a bit stubborn in some parts…

1. Too much scripting

Strategy games have a direct lineage from board games, and the fun of playing the latter comes from understanding the rules and mechanics of the game world and then making decisions that have consequence within that world. Computerized strategy games allow a single player to experience this same world on his or her own. At some point, however, strategy developers began to create lengthy, scripted scenarios as the single-player portion of their games. (In fact, the recent World in Conflict shipped without a single-player skirmish mode altogether.) These scenarios have a peculiar feeling – they use some of the same rules as the core game while often violating others.[...]

Yes, too much scripting is bad. But not all scripting is bad. Just like anything, the time and place and moderation matter. Really, I’m in agreement for the most part. But I get the impression Soren wants to get rid of scripting in all games… And I just can’t agree with that. Take a look at things like Alpha Centauri… It was was mostly unscripted, but at certain points, events happened (depending on time or research, etc) and it made the player feel more involved, not less so. I’ll definitely go with his point for games like Company of Heroes. OMG. I played through that single player when I was bored. It was bad. Not even half fun bad, just bad.They just throw out all of the rules of the skirmish or multiplayer games and lock entire missions down until you do X exactly right. Weak.

7. Putting story in the wrong places

Story and games have a checkered history. Too many have suffered from boring cut-scenes, stereotyped characters, and plots that take control away from the player. Especially problematic are games which don’t let the player fast-forwarding through cringe-worthy dialogue. The worst offense, however, is when a story gets stuck somewhere it really doesn’t belong. Like in a strategy game. After all, strategy games are the original games. Humans first discovered gameplay with backgammon and chess and go; it’s a noble tradition. The “story” in a strategy game is the game itself. Picking a specific example, how much better of a game would Rise of Legends have been if Big Huge Games had given up on creating a story-based campaign and instead iterated on the excellent turn-based Conquer the World strategy layer from Rise of Nations?[...]

I agree and disagree. Yes, the story in Rise of Legends (his example) actually got in the way of the gameplay and the fun. Agreed completely. But, what if instead of the story being in the missions and was instead based on what countries you captured and how long it took you to do so? That would have been less invasive and not ruined the fun part of the game, the gameplay. My point being that story can coexist with a good single player campaign. So I think I agree with him here, kind of. Just because people haven’t managed story well in the past is not a reason to throw it out all together.

In Other News:

EA actually does realize that piracy isn’t what they normally claim it is:

"Stepping aside from the whole issue of DRM, people need to recognize that every BitTorrent download doesn’t represent a successful copy of a game, let alone a lost sale," she (Mariam Sughayer of EA’s corporate communication center) tells Gamasutra.

Wait a second… so they put in this annoying DRM bullshit and now they say that bit torrent downloads aren’t actually related to lost sales? So why in the fuck are they putting DRM in the game in the first place? I didn’t purchase Spore, one of the reasons being the game didn’t seem awesome enough to deal with putting the extra bullshit software on my system. If the DRM didn’t exist, I may very well of bought it. I didn’t pirate it either, but that’s because I’m patient and I’ll either play it after it’s really cheap and the DRM is easily stripped out or when EA patches the DRM to not exist.

The overall point being though… Why include it in the first place if it isn’t actually helping sales? It probably has nothing to do with purely business reasons and making themselves and investors feel better about it rather than actual usefulness of it. Nothing at all.

And in absolutely stunning news, Epic still doesn’t want to make PC games:

Do you see the Xbox 360 as the main platform as opposed to the PC? During the whole Unreal time it was very much PC focused.

The PC right now is a fair amount different to what it was back in the day, with all the badly integrated video chips. Here’s the problem right now; the person who is savvy enough to want to have a good PC to upgrade their video card, is a person who is savvy enough to know bit torrent to know all the elements so they can pirate software. Therefore, high-end videogames are suffering very much on the PC.

So piracy was a main point for you…

Right now, it makes sense for us to focus on Xbox 360 for a number of reasons. Not least PCs with multiple configurations and piracy.

But when the dust has settled, is there any possibility of Gears 2 on PC?

No.

Definitely not?

No.

Hmmm… I love that they blamed piracy for their lack of game sales. I absolutely love it. I mean, sure, other games aren’t selling millions of copies on the PC (even Crysis sold over a million world wide). Oh, and the part about the people that know how to configure their systems are also the people that are going to pirate it. Awesome.

I don’t want to get started on PC game piracy again, but long story short, they are partially right and Unreal 3 was not a very good game (good engine, not a great game). If you base your withdrawal from the PC market on that, you’re dumb. That is all.

What Would Matt Do: First, quit making generlizations. Second, quit being dumb. These things alone should help a lot of people.

Update: Looks like either I didn’t read his posts correctly or Soren wasn’t clear. Either way, we are in complete agreement after this post.

updated below

I don’t really have anything to rail against or complain about today, but a couple of things caught my interest.

First, I think I made the right call not playing Age of Conan:

Former Producer and Game Director Gaute Godager has chosen to resign from Funcom after working on Age of Conan since the initial conception, and he leaves the company after 16 years. Godager was one of the original founders of Funcom, and leaves a large legacy, having contributed to making Funcom the largest MMO company in Europe. “I have done my very best making this fabulous game, but I have concluded there are elements which I am dissatisfied with. I have decided to act on this, and as a result I have chosen to leave Funcom.

When your lead producer jumps ship this close to the release of an MMO you know you’ve got problems. Not to mention he, Guate Godager (what a name!), had been with the company 16 years before this and it got so bad with AoC he left the company over it. Funcom is probably not the most fun place to work at this point.

Second, it turns out Lum may be a whiner. I say we examine the facts to determine said grouser status.

Exhibit A:

Well, Warhammer Online makes you do it EVERY TIME YOU CONNECT.

Get knocked off the server for whatever reason? You get to read the EULA again!

Oh, and there’s two. A EULA *AND* a Code of Conduct. So the installing this game means you actually own my computer is in the first dialog, and the forbidding you to have children until you get realm rank 17 is in the second dialog. And you have to scroll down, then click accept *every time you log in*.

That IS really annoying…but lets hear the counter argument just to be fair.

Exhibit B:

The EULA/CoC should require you to hire legal representation to fully understand your rights. I am not kidding. The document is written for courts by lawyers and doesn’t contain much in terms for the layman. In documents such as that, a simple misuse of the word “the” can crumble the legitimacy of it. End users are not supposed to understand it – they are only supposed to sign off on it. Be thankful that you don’t have to check a box at the end of each line. Be thankful that you do not have to hire legal counsel to review it before agreeing to it – because eventually one of these big companies are going to lose a big law suit and then you will have to – or some other drastic, stupid measure. Take the 5 seconds, powerscroll down, click a check box, click accept, and go play.

The argument is…you have no idea what you’re clicking, so shut the fuck up and click it over and over, asshat. That is a compelling argument if you’re really dumb (check the name of the guys site).

I love it. Lum is a malcontent because Warhammer makes you do something completely unnecessary every single time you want to play the game. Beyond logging, checking for a patch, selecting a server (potentially) and selecting a character, you also have to dilly-fucking-dally with their stupid EULA…multiple times. God damn it Lum, why won’t you shush it already!

I could go over the entire diatribe that Chris F goes into, but it really breaks down to justifying stupid decisions. No other MMO requires it, no other MMO has to do it for legal reasons. And suggesting we should consider ourselves lucky because, "Be thankful that you do not have to hire legal counsel to review it before agreeing to it". Wow. Not WoW, Wow. That’s an incredibly ridiculous argument. But I hear Rove’s people are trying to reach Chris F for help with their facade of a campaign for McCain…oh, and how to best present the idiotic policies of the current administration.

Remember, friends, it’s all right to call a spade a spade. Even if you’re fanboi. As a matter of fact, it’s perfectly all right to call out dumb features AND to still like the game. Crazy.

What Would Matt Do: Well, first, I’d probably try to have some level headness about the whole thing. Then again, this is the internet and no one likes sane or rational around these parts.

P.S. – An honorable mention goes to lamethrower’s Bill and his late review of Mass Effect. It’s decently funny, but it has the best little graphic to describe the reality of ME’s conversation trees. And while that might be the truth of the matter, I think they did a pretty good job with the illusion of choice. Even if ME is just a SeXBOX game.

Update:

I may have touched on a button or two (see Update #2) with our good friend over at I Has PC. Other than the name of his site and his apparent tendency to jump overboard on things, I see no reason for us to get into a tif. Why can’t we all just get along?

Also, this is an awesome way to consider the extra clicks. Nice, Zubon.

Apparently the plan to buy up dev houses and keep them internally is becoming unfashionable and Microsoft is letting go one the most successful development houses they own after they ship Halo Wars. Why? Well, because of the bottom line of course. I’ve been told that and I pretty much believe it…and I’m sure it’s related to whatever business plan of the year is for big game companies like Microsoft. They’ll divest now, then in a year or three, they will buy big again. The ebb and flow of life if you will.

The sad part is that Ensemble gets shoved out the door while Microsoft can’t decide what to do with itself. They have made some of the best RTSes ever created. I’d suggest that Age of Mythology was their best (with the expansion), but I think that’s just personal opinion as I have a soft spot for mythology in general.

I hope the new studio forming out of the mess of Microsoft’s dismissal of Ensemble is kick ass and they like having their freedom again:

After the closure, the Ensemble leadership team will form a new studio and has agreed to provide ongoing support for Halo Wars as well as work on other projects with Microsoft Game Studios

Much like Bungie, they are going to be an external resource instead of an internal one now. Whatever. I guess to keep the investors happy, you need to make it look like you’re doing something, even if that something can be qualified as moving the same box back and forth and calling it progress.

What Would Matt Do: If I were Lionhead, I’d be very wary. They are about to release Fable 2 and right after a big game release is when guys like Microsoft and Sony like to cut dev houses.

This is something every game developer that has their game hyped to even near the extent Spore has been hyped should be worried about:

Speaking to Game Informer, the designer, who also developed franchises such as SimCity and The Sims, has stated that he is worried that his new life simulation game will disappoint fans after its long awaited release.

He told Game Informer: "I think it’s too much hype. About a year ago, we were realising how much hype we were getting and we decided we should start to say that it’s going to suck just to de-hype it. That is a certain amount of pressure.

"We’ve gotten to that point any additional hype isn’t serving us well. It’s a concern."

He added that gamers tend to fill in the blanks themselves when they imagine a new game and the concern is that Spore may disappoint gamers as it is not the way they imagined it to be.

He’s absolutely right. I know people that are already sure Spore is going to be the most awesome game ever, sight unseen (beyond the character creator). They go on and on about it, make and release multiple characters on the internet, and they played all of the concept games EA released for Spore. So what happens if Spore is just a good game and not the end all be all? We’re going to see Molyneux levels of backlash when the game arrives. Unless it really is the bestest game ever (since TF2 already has sewn that up, Spore is already d00med!), there are going to be gamers that would have otherwise really liked Spore had they not followed the years of hype by both Wright and EA (all done at EA’s behest? I haven’t seen Wright hype games this much in the past…).

Many games have had this problem. Look at Too Human. If Dyack hadn’t been a dumbass promoting his game as the second coming of games, he wouldn’t have gotten half the flack he did with Too Human. It may even turn out to be a decent game, but no game can live up to the hype that Dyack and company put into Too Human. Lets not even get started on Black and White.

To be fair, it’s not always an easy thing to know how much to hype a game. You’re trying to generate interest in the game, sometimes years before it’s even released. You have to decide how much information to release. I hate to use the darlings of the industry as an example, but check out Valve and Blizzard. They often talk about their games years in advance of release. At the same time, they don’t talk too much. They release a screenshot, or a gameplay video, talk about some features and then…well, that’s it. From time to time they will update us, just to let us know the project is still alive and going. They have it really easy at this point though. Most PC gamers are paying attention to what they do. Most gaming sites are paying attention to what they do. They don’t need to hype their games much because gamers are going to do it for them.

For everyone else, they need to find a healthy balance. You need to pimp your game a bit in advance, but if you aren’t an established player already, or still pretty new, what do you do? Well, as I’ve said, you shouldn’t over hype. But more importantly, you shouldn’t promise things you can’t do or don’t know if you can do or don’t know if they will change. If you game is based around a feature or three that is different than other big players in your genre, talk about those, but don’t be specific unless you’re six months from release and already have it already nailed down. Promising things that you don’t deliver on is a big no no for earning the trust of the serial PC gamer. So you don’t hype to early and don’t hype to often. But, you have to pimp it some, or no one will know it’s even coming out. You have to try to find that healthy balance between Warrior Kings (ever heard of it? Great RTS that hardly anyone played) and Molyneux land. It’s not always easy, but if you find yourself talking about it’s the most innovative game ever or it’s doing things that the big players in your genre have never considered, be REAL sure you’re not over playing your hand.

There is no sure fire bullet, but as a game publisher/developer, you need to be aware of how much people know about your product and if they are getting over hyped or burnt out or whatever. Really, as any type of publisher, not just games, you need to find that happy medium. Or try to anyway and be aware that you can have too much press and too much junk said about your game.

What Would Matt Do: If it were me, I’d keep the game pretty quiet until I had some real stuff to show. If I’m nearing done and have my super cool features done and locked in, say six to nine from your supposed release date, then it’s time to start talking and showint it off a bit. But if I’m just starting, I wouldn’t do more than a press release and maybe some generic talk here there.