The Making of Bioshock

Gamasutra is running a feature from Game Developer magazine in which Bioshock's project leader writes about what went right and what went wrong making last year's award-winning shooter, Bioshock. He talks about what the developers learned from fans and focus groups, how long it took them to firmly define what the game was supposed to be, and how they tried to reconcile their ideas with their capabilities. Quoting: "...just after the first beta, the entire design team plus a contingent of 2K producers headed off to see how a group that knew nothing about our company or BioShock would react to the first level. It was brutal. The first level, they said, was overly dense, confusing, and not particularly engaging. Players would acquire new powers but not know how to use them, so they stuck to using more traditional weapons and became frustrated. They didn't interact with the Big Daddies, and they didn't understand (or care) how to modify their characters. They were so overwhelmed by dialogue and backstory that they missed key information. A few of the players did start to see the possible depth of the game, but even they were frustrated by the difficulty of actually using the systems we had created."

Comments

Market research!?

[teh moges]

Here I thought market research died with the invention of mass-advertising.

Great to see them actually test out a product, and further, fix their product before launching it.

Re:Market research!?

[saleenS281]

Some middle manager finally figured out it might net them a bit more money than "blaming it on piracy". EUREKA!

Re:Market research!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Market research dead? Come on, even for a cynical Slashdottian that's baloney.

Re:Market research!?

[billcopc]

Seeing how Bioshock employs some of the most insulting DRM available today (SecuROM), they can't actually blame it on piracy, at least not without getting lynched by hordes of frustrated game owners.

Re:Market research!?

[nine-times]

I'm under the impression that it's not *that* unusual for game developers to bring testers in. I seem to remember mention of it in the Portal commentary. Getting an audience to test you game seems easy and obvious. It seems like the hard thing would be knowing what to do when your audience tells you the game isn't fun.

Re:Market research!?

[Darundal]

Yeah, but they don't need to blame it on piracy for that to happen anyway, considering how much people love SecuROM.

Re:Market research!?

[Dutch Gun]

I'm under the impression that it's not *that* unusual for game developers to bring testers in. I seem to remember mention of it in the Portal commentary. Getting an audience to test you game seems easy and obvious. It seems like the hard thing would be knowing what to do when your audience tells you the game isn't fun.

You're correct. For most substantially-sized game I've been involved with, testers were brought in to provide feedback near alpha and beta stages of the project, which is when a lot of gameplay balancing occurs. It would be sort of insane not to get outside opinions of your potential customers given the time and effort spent on a modern game. At my current company, we would bring in new groups of testers on a weekly basis, and one of our internal QA folk's full time job was organizing and managing the playtest sessions, as well as reporting the results of the playtests and surveys they were given.

Oddly enough, it's not too unusual to be so busy with your part of the game that you don't really even have a lot of time to play it yourself - most developers (except the designers) don't "play" their own games so much as occasionally test out small, specific features throughout the development cycle, so it's great to have outside opinions that help to fill in the big picture. As a developer, you're unlikely to be able to view anything all that objectively anyhow, being so close to the game.

Still, at that point, it's generally too late to do anything about really fundamental problems with the game. This is why a number of companies also try to complete smaller scoped gameplay demos. Essentially, they try to create a small "vertical slice" of the game as much as possible. This is feasible so long as your schedule is limited more by content creation than programmer time. These sorts of early demos are typically internal, as it is probably too early to risk showing the public anything at that stage (the project may not be even announced at that point).

And yes, it's hard to have someone pick up a controller, spend 15 minutes playing your game, and find out that the feature you've been slaving away on for the last month or two "isn't fun". You just have to step back, try to look at *why* it wasn't fun for the player, and figure out a way to correct the issue while hopefully not throwing away all your work.

that's nice

[gEvil (beta)]

Funny. I recently bought Bioshock on Steam (when they were running their $15 special a month or two ago). I only had a chance to play it for a few hours (not much time for games these days). However, in the past week my system's gone completely crazy. Turned out it was due to SecuROM. I found the uninstaller utility and removed it, and now my system is behaving perfectly normally again. I liked what I managed to play of Bioshock, but unfortunately I'm not going to reinstall it again. It's a shame, really, because it seemed like a good game.

Re:that's nice

[uberjoe]

Granted it more expensive, and not optimal for shooters but you can play this on Xbox 360 or PS3 without any secureROM bullshit.

Re:that's nice

[gEvil (beta)]

Yeah, I found out about the upcoming PS3 version a week or so after I bought the game. I probably would've held off for that. I may still pick it up used at some point, but I'm not paying full price--especially not after nearly hosing my computer.

Re:that's nice

[philspear]

I think DRM has been covered extensively enough about this game, and has little to do with the topic at hand. There's a lot more lessons here for game developers than DRM issues. Sure that seems to have killed it for this crowd, but there's no arguing that the game had a significant impact seperately from that.

So can we get a little less whining about a well-whined about topic and focus on what they did RIGHT?

Re:that's nice

[Ostracus]

It is a nice game but I had to alter a line in the config file to get it running on W2K. Otherwise it causes a hard reset.

Re:that's nice

[gEvil (beta)]

Sorry, I literally got control back of my system about 30 minutes ago, so it's fresh in my mind (why my post starts with 'Funny'). And sorry, but not being able to use my computer thanks to a game I paid for is a serious WRONG in my book. If they remove the protection I'll reinstall it and pick up where I left off, and then maybe I might be able to tell you what they did "right" in the game. I'm sure there're plenty of good things there.

Re:that's nice

[77Punker]

Perhaps the company needs an e-mail reminder to remove the SecuROM.

I thought part of the point of Steam was that Steam itself is the copy protection. Steam happens to be DRM that I can live with.

Re:that's nice

[GigaplexNZ]

So can we get a little less whining about a well-whined about topic and focus on what they did RIGHT?

What about people such as myself that missed out on the whining the first time round, you insensitive clod?!

Re:that's nice

[Fallingcow]

I just pirated the damned thing.

Spent the money I was going to spend on it on STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl instead. Bioshock deserved the money more, but I won't pay to fuck up my machine, ESPECIALLY when the game's already on Steam. I also won't miss an opportunity to play a (reputedly) great game over principles, and paying money for a legit copy while having to pirate it anyway just to make it usable is retarded.. *shrug*

Re:that's nice

[philspear]

You get to whine about not being able to whine :-P

Re:that's nice

[_Sprocket_]

So can we get a little less whining about a well-whined about topic and focus on what they did RIGHT?

Isn't it a pity the DRM fiasco takes center stage when talking about the game instead of.. say... the game itself? Just imagine if the DRM wasn't an issue to begin with.

Re:that's nice

[repapetilto]

How did you know which line to alter?

Re:that's nice

[spire3661]

When i saw the title, the first thing that came to mind was the DRM debacle. Its definately still on people's minds, as evidenced by the comments,and taints an otherwise well done game. Whats even more disappointing is that even the steam version has it. Their DRM is still affecting people and is a hinderance to the experience to this day. So i dont understand how a discussion of the game cannot include how very badly they pissed off ALOT of their base. I will think twice about PAYING for another title from them.

Re:that's nice

[Anonymous Coward]

Is 'completely crazy' a common computer problem?

You guys at Slashdot should hang around some gaming forums and get caught up with the action of what has been going on in PC gaming the last two decades. People complaining about game problems there at least get to where the real problems are in the game like physics design problems and try to work out where the bugs are at to get an accurate report of whats wrong.

Reality is that it is easy to pirate the games and people around here love to turn a blind eye to that. It is hard to compete against free.

Re:that's nice

[Anonymous Coward]

No, actually, DRM is what killed this game. Instead of it being the ground breaking game that it purportedly could have been it will be forever tainted with what it was: a DRM and customer relations nightmare. I hope the spineless devs are happy, they killed all the heart and soul of their own creation.

Re:that's nice

[SanityInAnarchy]

I think DRM has been covered extensively enough about this game,

Has it been removed?

No? Then it hasn't been covered extensively enough.

focus on what they did RIGHT?

Unfortunately, because of the DRM, at least one customer won't be able to see what they did right. I know I would have loved to play the game, but I flat refuse to buy it because of that DRM -- so that's another potential customer, ready to pay full price ($60 even), but I don't know what they did right, because of the DRM.

Hear that, developers? It doesn't matter how hard you work, or how many long hours and weekends you put in. It doesn't matter how much you love your project, or how much of a piece of art it is. None of that matters if people actually avoid playing your game because of the DRM on it.

Life is too short, and there are too many games that don't treat me like a criminal for me to waste my time on yours.

Re:that's nice

[Chris Burke]

So can we get a little less whining about a well-whined about topic and focus on what they did RIGHT?

And how exactly is someone who only played a few hours of the game because the DRM fscked their system up so badly they had to uninstall supposed to do that?

Re:that's nice

[khellendros1984]

He changed the Reboot_on_Win2k=1 option to 0, obviously.

Re:that's nice

[Narpak]

Yeah SecuROM pretty much makes me buy games then find cracks and stuff so I can play without being bothered by intrusive shit. I like my computer working as intended thank you very much. Nothing is worse than the laughable copy protection that were hooked into Mass Effect. If you had several users on the same computer it would lock the game permanently if more than two of them played the game. I don't know what definition of piracy includes family members sharing one copy/computer.

Re:that's nice

[Jesterboy]

I wish I could take credit for this, but it comes from this post on the 2K Froums in the thread about removing the install limits, but not the DRM, and I think it's pretty applicable here:

Is a man not entitled to the game he purchased?
No says the man at 2K, he may be a thief.
No says the man at Sony, he may be a pirate.
No says the pirate, I'll give it to you free...
I rejected all those answers and did what many should do.... .... I ...purchased..... a XBOX 360, and never worried again.

Re:that's nice

[philspear]

Predition: jesterboy is going to be modded down for a post that PC gamer fanboys and anti-MS uh... whatever you would call them, dislike. If "-1: advocates use of MS products" were an option, that would be the one.

I sympathize with PC gamers to some degree. I don't think you should have to choose a gaming platform based on what's available or technical problems faced. It should be about the balance of features, power, and price. I realize that's the description for an ideal world of consoles that will never come to pass.

On the other hand, PC gamers are so arrogant about their graphics on the handful of games and get violent if you suggest that mouse and keyboard is not the solution to the world's problems.

Re:that's nice

[Ostracus]

X:\Program Files\2K Games\BioShock\Builds\Release

[Default.ini]
HighDetailShaders=

Should be set to False. It will not look as good but that's a small price to pay.

You will also need two XP dlls to make it work. I got mine off the internet.

xinput1_3.dll
dbghelp.dll

Placed in the path above.

COD4 was even easier to get running.

Re:that's nice

[Satanboy]

You are not alone bub.

I said it many times. I boycotted this game due to drm, same with orange box and the like. All that drm bullshits gotta go.

Re:that's nice

[Adambomb]

What everyone seems to forget is that consoles are the ultimate in DRM. In fact, controlling both the hardware AND the software is the only time that one can actually consider it to be doing the job DRM is claimed to do.

Sell the hardware for the games, sometimes at a loss,instead of selling the games for the hardware. Getting a console may not be a bad thing in and of itself, but keep in mind that thats where the games publishers want you. Less possible spec differences, less piracy, less risk of some draconian control feature screwing up something third party (IE: the OS or some other applications you're running).

Sure that can be a solution, but in the end who is that a solution for? Granted this isn't saying owning a console is horrible and evil, it's just a good point to keep in mind if you're purchasing a console to play a game that is already available for a platform you have.

Re:that's nice

[Anonymous Coward]

Except to the millions who bought it for console.

Re:that's nice

[Culture20]

If it didn't use Steam, I'd have bought it; same with HL2, HL2Ep1/2, and Portal. Stupid DRM makes them _lose_ sales, and not just from me.

Re:that's nice

[HimajinX]

Hey, at least you can play it DRM-free if you get the pirated version, though, right? :p It's the same old story, DRM only ends up screwing the legitimate users.

Re:that's nice

[tcolberg]

I use Steam for a bunch of games, it works really well. It allows me to have game portability. I can just go over to someone's comp, download steam, log in, download the game, and I'm ready to go. Sure I'm trading the need for having a CD in the drive for needing an internet connection, but it gives me flexibility. Steam is now the provider for a plethora of classic and indie games as well. It's probably the best implementation of DRM I've seen next to Stardock's (no DRM).

The DRM issues that surrounded Bioshock when it came out and as mentioned further up in the comments is related to DRM on top of Steam.

What's more, Steam actually has sales every once in a while, which other digital distribution channels like Xbox Live Marketplace, rarely have. I've picked up a few gems that I never would have under normal circumstances because of Steam discounts, like Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines, Day of Defeat Source, and Defcon.

Re:that's nice

[mjwx]

I just pirated the damned thing.

Well. I bought the damn thing.

for A$2 in a Bangkok market last October. I've installed it more than 5 times since then and I've never had trouble with DRM. I too was going to buy bioshock on its release date no less but after I found out about the overly restrictive DRM I bought a different game instead. I will not download the EXE just to play the game, I should be able to install it straight off the disk and then not see that disk again until I need to re-install.

Re:that's nice

[Anonymous Coward]

Precisely my sentiment. I would have liked to play this game, but because of DRM I also refuse to pay money for a game that treats me like a criminal. The sad fact is, developers still fail to realise that no matter how good their copy protection is, it will get cracked. Then you know what? The only people getting pissed off and bugged about by their dodgy copy protection are the paying customers. What incentive is there for us to buy their games again in future?

The best incentive to avoid piracy is to drop the price. It might be a gamble, but it would work a whole lot better than DRM at improving sales.

Re:that's nice

[Anonymous Coward]

So you bought an expensive dongle?

Re:that's nice

[Anonymous Coward]

"Life is too short, and there are too many games that don't treat me like a criminal for me to waste my time on yours."

Anyone know of a good list, anywhere, of good PC games that don't use some craptastic DRM?

Re:that's nice

[billcopc]

I'll one up you: I'm waiting for Spore to be cracked, because there is no way I'm going to tolerate that ridiculous 10-day reactivation DRM. I'll gladly buy the game, but only if I can play it without being encumbered with SecuROM, which is the most invasive piece of filth ever coded. It is like an executable goatse.cx

Re:that's nice

[billcopc]

Colossal Caves.

Re:that's nice

[Z34107]

None of that matters if people actually avoid playing your game because of the DRM on it.

Thought experiment: What if the DRM was "perfect?" That is, somehow, through magic, completely unobtrusive. The only thing it did (again, through magic) was keep you from installing the game on computers you didn't own.

Would the situation be the same? That is, if this (non-existing), magic type of DRM existed that hindered only pirates and torrent leeches, would people still be against it? If one really has no problems paying $60 for a game, would anyone protest a protection that you never saw upon paying?

Granted, SecuROM is the exact opposite of my magically unobtrusive DRM - it breaks computers, keeps paying customers from playing the game they purchased, and can be circumvented. But, if the perfect DRM existed that (again, magically!) only stopped piracy with no side effects, would anyone care? Could you justify it on moral grounds?

Depending on how you think through the "thought experiment" (I like misuing big words), it could be argued that developers should work on perfecting DRM. Making it infallible stops piracy, and making it completely unobtrusive maximizes the number willing to pay and able to enjoy it.

And, because dichotomies are fun, if you have "perfect" DRM on one end, you have no DRM on the other. Would "no DRM" offer any benefits to the consumer over the "perfect DRM"? And would it offer any benefits to game developers?

Discuss!

Re:that's nice

[normal_guy]

The proper thing to do in this case: buy the game legally to give the developers their due, but install the better pirate version. Something is wrong when Pirate Bay offers a superior experience to Steam.

Re:that's nice

[billcopc]

PC gamers are so arrogant about their graphics on the handful of games and get violent if you suggest that mouse and keyboard is not the solution to the world's problems

Well that's kind of the whole point, no ? I've got this beefy media workstation with gobs of ram, disk and CPUs. I can add a graphics card to it, that costs less than the average console, and reap superior graphics. Seems like a no-brainer to me. Of course, nothing's preventing the console makers from selling/supporting keyboards and mice, for those people who do not need nor want a high-end PC.

Me, I have the consoles, but I still prefer PC games. That's partly because the wife hogs the TV with her gazillion dramas and reality shows, and also partly because I have a bitchin' workstation with a really big LCD that pwns our TV anyway. Plus I can fire up a game in a window, while keeping an eye on a long render or network job, chatting on ICQ and reading a walkthrough/strategy guide (yes, I suck!) - all without moving my hands away from the keyboard and/or mouse.

If I had a simpler life where I could genuinely devote unshared time to gaming, I might be happy with consoles, but seeing how I've been pushing bits around since the early 80s, I don't see how (or why) I'd ever change.

Re:that's nice

[billcopc]

What everyone seems to forget is that consoles are the ultimate in DRM

Yes, but a console doesn't have the annoying habit of mangling your OS and making your work PC slow and unstable.

And I'm pretty damned sure no current console harbors this mindless "10-day activation" scheme. Consoles just check to see if your game disc is legitimate, so you need that disc in the drive. Well I'd much rather put up with needing the disc, than having some slop-fest of a kernel hack phone home every other week to ensure I still have the right to play a stupid game.

Re:that's nice

[jandrese]

You could just pirate it, that way you would avoid the DRM problems.

Re:that's nice

[Anonymous Coward]

At this point I've been burned by bad DRM so many times that I'd need a consumer reports "consumer friendly DRM" tag or something before I'd believe it.

I'm a pragmatist and I don't mind paying for software, but I've wasted countless hours over the last decade dealing with reinstalls, mysterious performance problems and crashes, and getting replacements or refunds caused by copy protection. At this point not buying software with DRM has become a matter of principle - I just don't trust them to even bother to try and get it right. They don't care that their software is damaging to their user's property. That shows a level of contempt for their customers that offends me.

Re:that's nice

[Z34107]

Of course - but would you object to DRM on principle if it actually worked as advertised? As in, through "magic", nobody who paid got burned?

I can see Plato and Socrates arguing this.

Re:that's nice

[Anonymous Coward]

What about the lines in about:config in windows that say:

windows.randomlyreboot = 1
windows.suckage = 1
windows.security = 0 # dont change - it breaks windows!
windows.billgatesismyhero = 1
microsoft.isthebest.company = 1
developers.developers.developers = 111!one11(y=2x-3 when x is 2)
windows... = 1 # i dont know what this is, but it wont boot without it...
windows.shouldaboughtmac = 1
windows.becauseicancalllinuxusers.theifsandinfringers = 1
windows.compatability.xenix = 1 # For some reason, anything dos-based wont work without this

he didnt tell us about the status of those lines!

Re:that's nice

[bigstrat2003]

But, if the perfect DRM existed that (again, magically!) only stopped piracy with no side effects, would anyone care?

No.

Could you justify it on moral grounds?

I don't think anyone tries to do so now, they're just pissed that stuff doesn't work like it should.

it could be argued that developers should work on perfecting DRM. Making it infallible stops piracy...

If that were possible, yes, that's true. The problem is that I don't believe it's possible to do. I hope I'm proven wrong one day, but I doubt it.

Would "no DRM" offer any benefits to the consumer over the "perfect DRM"?

No.

And would it offer any benefits to game developers?

Very much so. But, again, this is something which almost certainly will never exist, so developers shouldn't be concerned with trying to find it.

Re:that's nice

[SanityInAnarchy]

Thought experiment: What if the DRM was "perfect?" That is, somehow, through magic, completely unobtrusive. The only thing it did (again, through magic) was keep you from installing the game on computers you didn't own.

...and thus, not completely unobtrusive.

You see, growing up, I shared a computer with my brother. I would think "perfect" DRM would allow him to buy his own games, and install them on this computer, even though the computer was actually mine. Why shouldn't that be allowed?

And, while using this computer, we only ever bought one copy of any given game, since, after all, only one of us could play it at a time. If the "perfect" DRM were able to magically distinguish which user was using the game, whoever bought the game would own it, and the other couldn't ever play it. Why shouldn't sharing be allowed?

For that matter, we'd often have LAN parties. Some of us would go in the other room and play Halo. We'd hook up four controllers to the Xbox and all play, using the same copy of the game, on the same console. At these same parties, we generally used a legit, Internet-facing Counter-Strike server, which meant that everyone needed to buy Counter-Strike, though it was only some $10 or $20. Why shouldn't partying with a small group of friends be allowed, without buying a copy for each of them?

My point is, unobtrusive DRM is an oxymoron -- not only because it's technically impossible, but because it's philosophically impossible to agree on a set of "perfect" criteria.

We all know that if I was to "share" the game with a thousand of my closest friends from all over the world, that would be piracy. And we all know that if I bought my own copy, for myself, and only ever played it myself, on my own laptop, that would be legit. But between those extremes, there's a lot of gray.

But I get it. You're wondering if there are any objections other than that it's obtrusive:

Would the situation be the same? That is, if this (non-existing), magic type of DRM existed that hindered only pirates and torrent leeches, would people still be against it?

Very likely, yes, unless you add one more component to your magical DRM: There must be no central point of control.

You see, right now, Valve can pretty much remotely disable any of my Steam games. And I'm sure one of those licenses I clicked through gives them the right to do that, and I'm not allowed to complain (or ask for my money back).

Even if there's no malevolence, what if Valve goes out of business? Where's the guarantee that the DRM will still work? Look at recent examples -- one of the music rental/subscription services went tits-up, and there was no way to get your music out of it -- the best they could do is give you some credits with another service. What if this new service doesn't have the same music?

So, let's take an example where perfect DRM exists: World of Warcraft. Or any MMO.

No disk-based protection needed -- in fact, download as many copies as you want, straight from their website. In fact, you can probably borrow a friend's computer, no problem.

But you're still going to pay the $15/mo (or whatever it is now), and you still have to be online, and you still have to connect to their servers.

Turns out, people don't really complain about the copy protection. And while there are a few pirate servers out there, Blizzard generally doesn't complain about them -- people will pay for the privilege to play on the actual Blizzard servers, where all their friends are.

But that's a special case, because all of the benefits of obtrusive (but not sloppy and dangerous) DRM are inherent in the current MMO model. If WoW goes out of business, you stop playing the game, full stop.

it could be argued that developers should work on perfecting DRM. Making it infallible stops piracy, and making it completely unobtrusive maximizes the number willing to pay and able to enjoy it.

Re:that's nice

[SanityInAnarchy]

I said it many times. I boycotted this game due to drm, same with orange box and the like.

I bought Orange Box, mostly because Steam is a known animal, and I know it doesn't fuck up my computer. The only thing it requires from me is an Internet connection, and not even all the time. And on top of that, it provides a feature rare (especially among DRM-free games) -- I can download the game and install it as many times as I want, on as many computers as I want.

SecuROM, on the other hand, has a very good chance of fucking up your computer, and it's even being done on top of Steam (meaning no physical disc), which is already plenty of DRM. When there is a physical disc, it requires that disc to be present -- or so I assume, given the ROM in its name. And it limits the total number of installs to some ridiculously small number.

I can understand why people don't like Steam and its DRM, though, and that's just as sad -- Portal is the best game I've played in years.

Re:that's nice

[SanityInAnarchy]

I might, at some point. But I very rarely do that, partly because of trojans, but mostly because I don't want to give them the satisfaction of proving them right.

See, they like to use their dropping sales as some sort of "proof" that it's all going to piracy -- and there's always plenty of piracy to support that. And they use that as an excuse to add even more DRM.

Of course, I realize they'll do that anyway. If sales go up, they'll say it's because the DRM is working -- so why stop now? If sales go down, they may well be right that it's because of piracy -- but they might be missing how much of the piracy is caused by DRM.

I'm willing to pay. I'm more than able -- I'm single, living cheaply in a small town, which gives me a fair amount of disposable income. If you make it easy -- even Steam has figured this out, mostly -- I'll gladly pay.

Re:that's nice

[TheLink]

Maybe someone should set up a "plain no nonsense" donation site where most of the money can go to various game development teams (including artists etc), and not pay the people involved in the DRM and other bullshit.

Then people who paid the distributors in Bangkok or wherever 2 dollars, can _EASILY_ pay the dev team the rest if they think it's a great game, without having to put up with the DRM crap (and possibly screw up their computer).

I've suggested to the GNU bunch something like that (so that if you feel like just donating to some registered OSS dev, they handle the details of getting the money to that person and take a small cut for the trouble). But so far I don't think it's possible.

Paypal doesn't work in my country (and I've heard lots of complaints about it).

Re:that's nice

[TheLink]

Say someone sets up a genuine and easy to use no bullshit donation site for you to donate to the bioshock team, how much would you really pay for it? A$0? A$5? A$10? What would be a fair cut for the people running the site? 5%?

My brother had a pirate copy of GTA3 before, and he liked it so much that he wanted to buy it, but he couldn't get an original copy - nobody sold it, he even went to a neighbouring country. I think it was banned in both countries - but naturally the "unauthorized distributors" didn't bother about the ban :).

Sometimes it's just so hard to give people money and skip all the crap ;).

Re:that's nice

[cibyr]

Good thing it's already cracked then.

Re:that's nice

[NickFortune]

Thought experiment: What if the DRM was "perfect?" That is, somehow, through magic, completely unobtrusive. The only thing it did (again, through magic) was keep you from installing the game on computers you didn't own.

Yep. I'm in favour of DRM that doesn't spy on me, deliver rental software at purchase prices, corrupt my computer, or insult my morality.

I'm also in favour of cheap free non-polluting energy, a communist system that is both fair and efficient, faster than light travel and Santa Claus.

The trouble is that I don't believe in any of them (although im willing to be proved wrong on FTL) so the discussion seems kind of pointless.

Re:that's nice

[A Pressbutton]

shouldn't that be an XBOX 360

Re:that's nice

[Ihmhi]

Sadly, they already have your money now and don't particularly care whether or not you play it.

Re:that's nice

[linhares]

Discuss!

I like turtles!

Re:that's nice

[stephanruby]

I think DRM has been covered extensively enough about this game, and has little to do with the topic at hand.

Yes apparently, they didn't think to do usability testing of their DRM, that's part of the problem, isn't it? The developers didn't have the DRM on their development machines. QA didn't have the DRM on their machines. And now, we come to find out, not even the users they usability-tested/focus-group-tested had the DRM on the machines that were given to them.

This is because most game designers/executives fail to see their system as a whole. They'll develop, think about, get feedback, and optimize the hell out of their area of "expertise", but then they'll throw most of their efforts away by using some cheap two-bit DRM system that cripples everyone's computer and antagonize their most fanatic customers.

Re:that's nice

[Lonewolf666]

Would the situation be the same? That is, if this (non-existing), magic type of DRM existed that hindered only pirates and torrent leeches, would people still be against it?

Very likely, yes, unless you add one more component to your magical DRM: There must be no central point of control.

Add two more and it would actually become a net benefit for honest customers:
1) Allow the legitimate owner to make backups or re-download the game, so a scratched original disk does not mean the loss of $60. Valve's Steam does that (but fails on "no central point of control").
2) Prevent cheating. As in, disallow aimbots, wallhacks and similar means of gaining unfair advantages.

Of course, at this point we're talking about a truly magic piece of technology ;-)

Re:that's nice

[Sobrique]

I don't pirate stuff any more really. My view has shifted, in that if a game is worth my time playing, it's worth my time paying for. (And in turn, if I don't feel it's worth the purchase price, I ask myself why I'm wasting my time playing).

But to this day I'm offended by the fact that my game collection does annoying things, like REQUIRE me to have a CD in the drive, or to have the SecuRom rootkit messing with my stuff. I can, hand on heart say I've a stack of legitimately bought games on my system. I regularly play several of them still, and I do own the whole lot, fair and square.

But it just rankles somewhat, that I'm the one putting up with 'oh you must have the CD to play Civ4' where if I had actually pirated it, that would be a non issue.

Re:that's nice

[XcepticZP]

And every time someone from a DRM-implementing publisher reads a post like yours they think: "Gee, if he doesn't buy it, he must be pirating it. No one can live without our games! Oh well, let's continue blaming it on piracy! Har har..."

Re:that's nice

[XcepticZP]

We are not arrogant about our graphics and our input methods.

We, PC gamers, actually, pity console gamers. Fellow PC gamers, you are free to join me on this comment :) We pity you because you can't enjoy the game properly without using 'auto-aim'.

And, secondly, I don't think you should sympathize for us. I'm not telling you that in a rude way, but I'd like to point out to you that it is much easier for us to "circumvent" said DRM "features".
I'm not going to go into details or start a PC vs console debate.

Re:that's nice

[Bluebottel]

Mouse and keyboard are not the solution to all problems, but they kick some serious ass in FPS games. Pads just cant compete in precision and speed.
Why limit yourself to your thumbs +/- a finger or two to get inferiour results?

Re:that's nice

[Sj0]

Seriously? 10-day activation?

Well, I guess Will Wright just doesn't want my money then.

Someday, these ignorami will realise that there's no benefit to DRM. Customers aren't going to pay for a product they're going to have to download a cracked torrent for anyway.

Re:that's nice

[Das Modell]

False dilemma. PCs and consoles are not mutually exclusive. I have a fairly high-end PC and a 360. You also seem to be forgetting that a) autoaim is usually optional (I always disable it), and b) not every game is a FPS.

Re:that's nice

[phillous]

Stardock
They made Galactic Civ II and its actually pretty decent.

Re:that's nice

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to play Mr Pedantic, it should be a MICROSOFT Xbox 360.

Re:that's nice

[poot_rootbeer]

I just pirated the damned thing. [...] I also won't miss an opportunity to play a (reputedly) great game over principles

Easy to say when you're so weakly principled.

Re:that's nice

[XcepticZP]

a) The only way they can have a comparable experience (or performance) to a PC in terms of a FPS game is if they have a mouse or use auto-aim. So your point about auto-aim being optional is actually, not relevant.

b) The person I replied to specifically mentioned input methods and input methods directly relate to PFS games. Probably because input method's only come into the spotlight when you require certain FPS-specific actions and speeds.

Your post is a typical example of someone diverting an argument. I never said a person couldn't own a console and a PC, where on earth are you coming up with that?

Re:that's nice

[Das Modell]

Even with autoaim it isn't anywhere near comparable to a mouse and keyboard, but the point is that you don't need autoaim to play console shooters.

I never said a person couldn't own a console and a PC, where on earth are you coming up with that?

You set up a dichotomy between PC and console gamers.

Re:that's nice

[Darundal]

If the DRM in software was perfect, I wouldn't care. I don't care about stuff on Steam because Steam actually, for me, makes the product MORE valuable. The ability to just download my games instead of having to dig through tons of discs and manually install them is great. The Steam chat works nicely for talking to friends while playing a game (unless you try to use the voice chat). The convenience of not having to go to the store and hope that they have the game that I want. All of those things make Steam great, and the fact that it also works as a form of DRM really doesn't bother me, because said DRM never screws my system up. I don't have weird random crashes due to the DRM. I don't have my PC's performance hobbled by it. It just works. Personally, I think that Steams greatest weakness is that it isn't available for other platforms (I have a Linux install for most tasks, and then a Wintendo install). Really, Steam is the closest you are going to find to "perfect" DRM. The only thing is that a lot of DRM schemes are going to be designed in such a way as to make it difficult if not impossible to resell your games.

Re:that's nice

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd object to magic DRM in that I wouldn't trust manufacturers who've used securom and starforce in the past to use the magic DRM correctly. I'd need an objective 3rd party to sign off before I trusted that the magic DRM actually worked as advertised and did nothing more.

I guess I'm a bad example because my principle is based on lack of trust and not so much a philosophical problem with the control aspect of DRM.

Re:that's nice

[FrozenFOXX]

Granted this isn't saying owning a console is horrible and evil, it's just a good point to keep in mind if you're purchasing a console to play a game that is already available for a platform you have.

Good thing (almost) nobody supports Linux, the "platform [I] have" that none of the PC games I have are "already available for." Just to play Dawn of War I need to use Wine.

Besides, a console's DRM I can deal with since it makes sense (and I DESPISE DRM). Let's break it down, why do we hate DRM? Because it restricts what a legitimate user can do with their purchase (including even using it sometimes). Now consider the fact that with a console I'm not limited at all. After all, I can buy a game, I can borrow a game from a friend, I can sell it to a store, or do anything else I want to with it, including pulling it out of a shoebox after ten years and play on a replacement console like my SNES games. I've NEVER had a console kick back to me that I'm not "allowed" to play a game I bought for any reason.

If the console never restricts me from using the games I bought for as long as I wish regardless of the console hardware used (as in I have two 360s and neither one complains if I run the game on either) and lets me do with the game whatever I want (such as sell, give away, or play), then how is it more restrictive? Because I need to use that platform to play it on? Complain to your developer, they do that with Windows all the time.

Re:that's nice

[Fallingcow]

*shrug* life's too short, you know?

I could buy it and have to pirate it anyway, but that might encourage more of this stupidity.

I could not play it at all and spend the money on a game that doesn't hijack my computer.

I could pirate it and play it, while also spending the money on a non-crippled game, which gives all of the benefits of the first two options with none of the drawbacks.

Re:that's nice

[StalinsNotDead]

Nice. Finally a comment that actually references content from the game being discussed.

Re:that's nice

[ultranova]

Is a man not entitled to the game he purchased?

You don't purchase games, you purchase a license which lets you accept the EULA which generously lets you install and run the game despite you being unworthy of such undeserved privileges.

Re:that's nice

[Anonymous Coward]

In all my years of pirating (wrong or not for whatever reasons i have, no matter how i justify it.)

I have NEVER seen a trojan come from a pirated game. Ever. Hundreds of games. Not one trojan from the pirates.

However i've seen plenty of nasty stuff come from the retail versions. rootkits, securrom, starforce, break my cd drive. not allowed to have this or that program installed while playing.. ect..

I trust the pirates and crackers way more than i trust the game companys these days. The pirates and game crackers produce a better quality product at an unbeatable price. You can't lose with piracy.

Re:that's nice

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm just curious, how did it screw up your system? I mean did it make it crash? BioShock is the only PC game I have that uses SecuROM, but I've yet to run into any performance issues a year later and I'm just curious how it DID mess it up? I thought the software only looked at the game too, and doesn't spy on other stuff you do.

I'm not supporting it at all and I refused to get Mass Effect for that very reason since I heard it's installation options were even more limited, but I'm just curious how SecuROM has actually messed up system performance or crashed windows and required a reinstall or anything. Thanks.

Re:that's nice

[philspear]

Well, for one thing FPS are only one genre I play, so the lack of mouse doesn't hurt me none. I also like the thumbsticks. And they just don't offer it on consoles.

Why do I prefer consoles? 1. as the DRM issues illustrate, I have less chores to do with consoles. I put the game in and it works, I don't have to check requirements, software settings, or any of the boring stuff. 2. More games. This shouldn't be the case, but it is.

Re:that's nice

[Guysmiley777]

I dunno, I never had a problem with it. And I suspect the vast majority of people didn't have a problem either. The difference is the people who DID have a problem have much more incentive to scream at the top of their lungs (and rightly so), and so you hear more about the horror stories than the "eh, was an OK game, didn't have any issues".

Re:that's nice

[KZigurs]

I suspect that developers more or less mirror your view. You probably want to talk to thick-scum-like-executives around in the publishers...

Re:that's nice

[Samizdata]

I, ahem, actually own two copies of Bioshock. The retail Collector's Edition, and, ahem, ummmm, the Steam edition, as, errrrrrrrm, the serial, ummmmmm, key from the Collector's Edition was kidnapped by slicers. Besides, Steam makes reinstalls easy.

Re:that's nice

[XcepticZP]

I "set up a dichotomy"? Again, you are being vague. I am not saying you have to be either a PC or console gamer. Nor did I say that those are the only two types of gamers you can have. Sure, I didn't mention the other types of gamers, but I did that because they were irrelevant to what I was discussing.

Re:that's nice

[WNight]

Yes. Absolutely.

If I got trapped in a cabin all winter with a friend I'd really love to be able to copy a game onto their computer so we could play.

If my computer died I'd want to be able to reinstall my software on another one, without having to prove even in the smallest way that I have a right to do so.

This magic DRM you speak of must restrict some things. Why would I want to use software that ties my hands? It's all nice and shiny when I want something simple and it just works, but when I need to do something complex or break a rule for some greater good I can't have a machine that refuses to function.

Re:that's nice

[StikyPad]

Really? I guess I'm just imagining all those 360 and Wii games floating around the net.

Granted, the PS3 has done a good job, but it's to be debated whether that's because the DRM was just that good, or whether the path of least resistance and the greatest reward for the resources simply lay elsewhere. I suspect that number of titles, popularity of the platform, and other factors have played at least as much a role in the PS3 maintaining its security as its implementation of DRM. Sort of the way Linux isn't a large target for virus/malware writers since it comprises less than 1% of the desktop. Why bother attacking a tougher platform with less results when you can attack a weaker one with much more to gain?

Re:that's nice

[Satanboy]

Honestly, I have a set of disks at my house for halflife 2 I cannot play thanks to Steam. You see, I moved, and my old email address doesn't exist anymore.

I contacted Valve, and they won't do anything without a pic of the original receipt. Now I bought the game on release, how am I supposed to provide that? I did mail them the stupid pics of the disks with the code and all that crap.

Anyways, it doesn't matter, suffice it to say, steam can blow as well.

Re:that's nice

[mjwx]

Say someone sets up a genuine and easy to use no bullshit donation site for you to donate to the bioshock team, how much would you really pay for it? A$0? A$5? A$10? What would be a fair cut for the people running the site? 5%?

Tell me what the developers are paid and I will pay it. The fact is that the games developers have already been paid by the games publisher and the publisher is recieving the lions share of the profit with a possible exception for the writers (probably only Ken Levine) and if the Movie and Music industry are anything to go by 2K Games (publisher) are recieving 90%+ of the profits. 2K Boston (formerly Irrational Games, the developers of bioshock) or Ken Levine did not choose to put that level of DRM onto the game, that was the decison of the 2K Games project manager.

Please let me say that I do buy games and do believe in supporting both developers and publisher but only when they do the right thing by me, I also believe that they should be punished when they do the wrong thing. I purchased Bioshock in the manner I did as a demonstration that their most draconian DRM was useless and only served to drive customers away. Back in October when bioshock was released I was planning to buy it on release day but fortunately I found out about the ridiculous DRM restrictions the day before and I bought Crysis instead. At A$90 per game I have certain expectations, DRM should not be intrusive (it shouldn't even be there at all, its not like it can even stop casual pirates), Games should be finished before release (there should never be a need for zero day patching, after sales patching is fine I understand that modern games are complex and bugs happen but with proper testing these should be obscure) and I have a reasonable expectation that a product will be supported for a reasonable amount of time (personally this should be for as long as you want to keep selling it) Crytek and EA I'm looking at you here.

I used to do a lot of piracy back when I was in Uni and didn't have much spare cash but I have tried to purchase the games that I pirated and did enjoy playing (I have paid A$80 for a 4 year old game). However I have been burnt too many times paying full price for crap games, the latest example is Command and Conquer 3 which was in no way worth even half of what I paid for it, the game was buggy, incomplete and not fun at all (it was a tank rushing game, I don't define tank rushing as "strategy") so EA can be damned if I'm spending another A$90 (probably A$99 by now) on RA3. Much of the piracy that the publishers fear is done because they have lost all trust and faith with their audience, piracy is being used to determine weather a game is worth buying. I purchase games from Stardock without reservation because I am yet to be burnt by them, Valve are OK although I have my issues with steam but Ubisoft, 2K and EA are completely untrustworthy and I will not buy their games without some serious research to find out if it's worth it especially after the Bioshock DRM fiasco and EA/Crytek stopping all support for Crysis.

My brother had a pirate copy of GTA3 before, and he liked it so much that he wanted to buy it, but he couldn't get an original copy - nobody sold it, he even went to a neighbouring country.

This used to be a problem for us Australians but now we have parallel import laws that allow me to buy games (movies, music and books) from other nations and have them shipped into Australia. However the OLFC and the retarded South Australian Attorney General (I can't remember his name) keep denying classification to certain games (not just that one idiotic AG, the OLFC is culpable as well, they are far from consistent especially when it comes to drug use which is the reason Fallout 3 was denied classification). Officially the line is that customs can stop "unclasified" games from entering the country but really I think our customs officers have better things to do, like watching out for illicit drugs, weapons, explosives, dangerous insects and parasites. (2 Extacy tabs or African Bee's can do more harm than 100,000 copies of GTA).

Re:that's nice

[SanityInAnarchy]

Honestly, I have a set of disks at my house for halflife 2 I cannot play thanks to Steam. You see, I moved, and my old email address doesn't exist anymore.

I'm confused -- was there no way to tell Steam about the new email address? Was there no way to register a new account with the new email address?

It's not an entirely unsolvable problem, either. Domains are cheap, and Gmail is free.

Now, I will admit, I have almost lost my own account -- due to sheer disuse, I forgot the password. Since I was reinstalling from scratch, I had to go dig up my old installation, restore it to a virtual machine, and extract the password -- hardly something you'd expect to have to do for a game.

But then, when was the last time you lost, say, your bank account number? Some banks will insist on mailing you a new PIN, if you want to reset it -- what if you've moved? Again, not convenient, but not impossible, and not really unreasonable.

So, I see your point, but I find it much easier to keep track of a username, a password, and an email address, than to keep track of the original install media (and keep it in working order).

Re:that's nice

[billcopc]

[rubs eyes] WTF!? It's not even on the shelves yet!

So why does EA even try ?

Re:that's nice

[SanityInAnarchy]

I don't know of a list. In fact, I'd love to create one -- though it's possible someone will read this comment and beat me to it -- preferably with the DRM classified, not just a list of DRM-free versions.

Off the top of my head:

As others have mentioned, Stardock. There's also the non-Steam versions of Introversion games -- I can download the Linux versions a fixed number of times (3, I think), but once downloaded, there's absolutely no DRM I can find, not even a CD key. There's older games, like Duke Nukem 3D (pre-Atomic).

Native Linux versions of everything ID up to and including Doom 3 used no DRM beyond a CD key, and everything up to and including Quake 3 are open source, so even that can be removed. I believe Quake 4 phones home with its CD key, but if it can't phone home, it allows access -- so if id goes out of business, Quake 4 will still work.

In fact, most Linux ports won't include much DRM, mostly because it's hard to port that stuff.

There's other open source games, like Nexuiz, OpenArena, World of Padman, possibly Battle for Wesnoth -- take a look around the Ubuntu repositories to see what's available.

Penny Arcade's "Greenhouse", which seems to be targeting Steam (somewhat), uses DRM somewhat like Windows XP. That is, it phones home once at installation, and insists on phoning home whenever there's a hardware change, and requires an activation code. So, no hardware changes and no reinstalls mean no phoning home (more than once). And their activation server enforces absolutely nothing right now -- I assume they'll start blocking you if they see a few thousand installs, but there's actually nothing in place so far.

Valve's own Steam games use no DRM beyond what Steam does itself. I find Steam to be acceptable. I find SecuROM on top of Steam to be a deal-breaker.

No MMO is going to use DRM. They might use craptastic anti-cheating, but really, most MMOs will simply rely on the fact that you have to play on their servers. Sort of a constant, perfect phone-home, but one that's actually adding value to you, as a consumer.

Re:that's nice

[SanityInAnarchy]

I have NEVER seen a trojan come from a pirated game. Ever.

I have. Mostly from cracks, but also from games.

I trust the pirates and crackers way more than i trust the game companys these days.

I'll agree with that -- partly because I can at least throw the pirated copy through antivirus/antispyware. But I will buy a legitimate game if I know ahead of time that there isn't going to be trouble.

Re:that's nice

[SanityInAnarchy]

Well, given a critical mass of developers who agree with me... hell, I could become the one publisher who gets it right. That's my master plan!

More seriously, there are publishers who get this right, and it's not always the publishers who have the brand recognition. And it's not always brand recognition, anyway.

I doubt I'll ever get through to the major publishers.

What I found odd...

[polyomninym]

I have almost beaten this game on the PC, and I must say that I truly love it. It's creepy, weird and under the ocean, so I've gotta give 2K some props for the concept. Those Big Daddies are horrifying tankers, loved'em to bits! The thing that I find most odd about this game is the text during loading screens. they were supposed to be quotes of various citizens talking about how things of gone down the tubes. I know that they were trying to capture some old-style slangy ways of talkin' , but damn the quoted text was so riddled with bad English that it sort of undermined the whole creepy feel of the game. I didn't let it get to me, but wow, it sure feels nice to share that with ya'll ;) Please reply if you felt the same way about those quotes. Great game IMHO!

Re:What I found odd...

[AmonEzhno]

you have to keep in mind that the game is horror with a strong satirical theme (primarily directed towards Randian Objectivism)

Re:What I found odd...

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

I think you haven't been paying attention. The bad English is likely from the Asian scientist (Dr. Suchong), whose English (as heard from the diary recordings) is pretty bad...

Re:What I found odd...

[tylernt]

It's creepy, weird and under the ocean, so I've gotta give 2K some props for the concept. Those Big Daddies are horrifying tankers, loved'em to bits!

Indeed. The first time I had a Big Daddy come after me, something happened that I had never before experienced by playing a mere computer game: I ran and hid (in the game) not to avoid the annoyance of having my character get killed and having to respawn or reload, but just out of simple raw terror.

I also found it pretty difficult to "game" the AI. You know how you can exploit the computer's tendency to do dumb things so you can wipe out your enemies effortlessly? I didn't find many weaknesses in this game's AI. About the best I could do was set them on fire from afar and then hide until the fire went out, then repeat or do a normal frontal assault after they were weakened enough. Any other cheap tactics were pretty much intended by the game designers, like zap'n'whack or hacking security systems. And the Big Daddy AI was pretty tenacious; even if you ran through multiple doors, no matter where you tried to hide, they would pursue you relentlessly. This actually worked to your advantage if you set traps for them, but otherwise made them pretty tough to beat without lots of med kits and big weapons.

I should also mention that I appreciated the fact that the beginning weapon, the pipe wrench, remained a viable weapon (with upgrades) right up to the final boss.

Exploring was fun too. If you went through each level completing only the necessary objectives, you'd miss about half of the map. Lots of hidey holes with powerups, and many of them nonobvious. I liked the subtlety -- it was refreshing not to have the game designers hit me over the head to show off everything they did, instead I had to go looking.

Aside from the DRM, it's hard to point out where Bioshock went wrong. Yes, the supposed "choices" (rescue or harvest the Little Sisters) were somewhat limited, but the other complexities like gathering scrap for the U-Invent, the variety of widely disparate Plasmids, and the variety of methods for dispatching enemies (brute force, hacking, or sneaky tactics) still made it interesting.

Re:What I found odd...

[forgotten_my_nick]

"I have almost beaten this game on the PC,"

How can you almost beat the game?

One of the biggest flaws with the game is you are basically playing in permanent god mode. I figured this out in the second level, where from then on I killed all the big daddies using a spanner and respawn pod.

The game is totally linear and the end guy is a joke as well.

Re:What I found odd...

[johannesg]

Bioshock was beautiful, but in the end it left me unsatisfied. I was hoping for less linearity (yes, you _can_ travel between levels at will, but why would you want to?), and more distinct levels. Not graphically, that was fine; but every level had the same set of enemies, the same set of power ups, vending machines, etc.

Compare this to System Shock 2 (hey, the developers did!): in SS2 you _have_ to backtrack to earlier levels (and doing so isn't a chore at all thanks to some brilliant level design), and each area has its own level of threat: some are swarming with enemies, some are eerily quiet, some have lots of useful goodies, and in some you have to carefully hoard your possessions.

To me it made a lot of difference: the Von Braun was a real place, but Rapture eventually just blurred out. Yes, it is pretty, but there is no emotion associated with any of the locations. It is all just some place you run past while killing baddies. If you need health, it is always less than a hundred meters away. If you need to change your skills, you can do it at any time - no need to carefully think about what you want before you start.

This is the uncanny valley all over again: the various Bioshock levels are so much alike in terms of what you can do, that in the end they all look the same, and wrong.

Re:What I found odd...

[XcepticZP]

Every one from a foreign country featured in an American game or movie speaks english horribly. I mean they even try to push that with British and Australian people. As if we can't tell they're foreign by their accents!

Anyways, am I the only one getting sick of all this stereotyping in todays entertainment?

Nerds love Star Trek.

Nerds have no life.

Nerds have pimples.

Cheerleaders are not intelligent.

Jocks wear football jackets everywhere.

I could go on forever with these one liners. It's like they pick one of these lines out of a hat when they want to create a character.

Re:What I found odd...

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Indeed. The first time I had a Big Daddy come after me, something happened that I had never before experienced by playing a mere computer game: I ran and hid (in the game) not to avoid the annoyance of having my character get killed and having to respawn or reload, but just out of simple raw terror.

Big Daddies are about as frightening as a rampaging Panda. Yes, you know its dangerous, but terrifying? I don't think my brain ever made that connection. Besides, with the nearest Vita-Chamber only a stones throw away, what's my real cause for concern anyway. It's not like the game will ever actually, you know, become difficult or anything.

If you want terror, pick up Resident Evil 3. If you want a challenge, buy Gears of War.

Re:What I found odd...

[Lisandro]

Compare this to System Shock 2 (hey, the developers did!): in SS2 you _have_ to backtrack to earlier levels (and doing so isn't a chore at all thanks to some brilliant level design), and each area has its own level of threat: some are swarming with enemies, some are eerily quiet, some have lots of useful goodies, and in some you have to carefully hoard your possessions.

One of the things i loved about SS2 was when you were forced to revisit older levels, and find them somewhat modified - flooded, partially destroyed, or that weird blend with virtual reality at the end. It was made in way that made sense, and you kept discovering things you missed on a first glance.

Re:What I found odd...

[Das Modell]

BioShock was too easy. Due to past experience with SS2 and other games where you have to conserve ammo, I rarely used firearms. Then again there was no need to, since zapping and wrenching was enough in most situations. In SS2 I was desperately low on ammo aboard the Rickenbacker, making my way through some dark maintenance corridors and fighting spiders and cyborg assassins. It was really tense.

BioShock was really underwhelming.

Re:What I found odd...

[johannesg]

BioShock was really underwhelming.

The article provides the answer: Bioshock was initially conceived as an RPG, but later turned into an FPS. At that point, my guess is that most of the depth and non-linearity was removed (because it was "too confusing" to their focus group).

So what conclusions will they draw from this? Probably that FPS'es sell better than RPG's, even though Bioshock was trading heavily on the SS2 name. If I had realized it was _only_ an FPS I would have waited with buying until it appeared in the bargain bin...

Re:What I found odd...

[Anonymous Coward]

there's videos online on how to game the AI.

DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

And then the point came where DRM ruined the whole thing?

What went BADLY wrong

[swordgeek]

SecureROM.

I really want this game. I've wanted it since before release, I've played the demo on an old machine, and it reminds me enough of System Shock (I and II both) that I really really want it!

However, it uses SecureROM. I contacted the company to see if this bug had been fixed yet, and they confirmed that no, it hadn't. As such, they're not getting my money. I can live without this game, if they're going to infect my computer in order to let me play it.

It's very simple:
If you're going to harm my computer, you don't get my money.
If you're going to require internet access/activation for a standalone game, you don't get my money.
If you're going to treat me like a criminal, you don't get my money.

Developers, it really is that simple.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[gilgongo]

SecureROM

Agreed - there's no way I'm going to buy this game.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[The End Of Days]

Too bad you aren't as important as you think you are.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[gEvil (beta)]

I thought the horror stories about SecuROM were overblown, like most things online are. Now that I've actually been through them myself (see my post above), I'm sad to say that they're not. I'm fully joining the boycott of any game or game company that utilizes this "protection scheme". The only thing it's protecting them from is my money. Sorry game developers and publishers, but it's the truth.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[thermian]

I agree. I really wanted to play Bioshock, but the DRM prevented me from making the purchase. I was gutted when I learned of the DRM they'd employed, because I enjoyed system shock, and I was really keen to play its successor.

If they relent and release a patch that kills the DRM, or someone releases a crack that kills it, then I'll buy the game in a hot second. If not then forget it, I don't want that secureRom crap on my computer as a 'reward' for paying for the game.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[renegadesx]

Answer = Console
It's been out on the 360 for quite a while and the PS3 version is on it's way. I got it on the 360 and I was blown away, this game was incredible.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[Toonol]

I think the DRM is the major factor that is killing PC gaming. I know, PC gaming has been predicted to die every year for the last ten; but the difference now is that it really seems to be happening.

On my pc now I play emulators, old games (thank you dosbox) and small, independent games. It's sad, but I'm probably going to play only the console version of Fallout III.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[Kell Bengal]

Damn straight.

I'm friends with a designer from the Australian office and I talked with him about the development of Bioshock since it was made public (at least about the bits he could tell me before release). Believe me when I say I wanted this game - I wanted it bad, 'cus it looked cool, I'd followed it since the beginning and I wanted to support my friend's hard work.

However, the moment I heard it had activation/Securerom/crap I refused to touch it. it's a matter of principle.

I used to pay for games back in the day when games were interesting and worthwhile. I could just as easily have pirated them, but I chose to do the right thing. Then, games like HL2 started coming out - games that defacto treated loyal customers like criminals. The only people who were punished were those who actually bought the product.

In the interest of fairness, as my designer friend told me, it's not the developers who want DRM and activation (most hate it) it's the publishers. Developers have to listen to their audience to make marketable games; publishers are completely out of touch.

My friends tell me that publishers aren't going to change no matter what I do, so I may as well not fight it. That's bullshit. I vote with my dollars and urge other people to do the same.

So I didn't buy Bioshock and I didn't buy HL2. I waited until my boyfriend finished playing them, then borrowed his copy. I'm not an impulsive teenager anymore - I can wait a few months for the next shiny new thing.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[soupforare]

The 360 version is the definitive version. Without even mentioning DRM, the PC port is embarrassingly poor.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[Fallingcow]

There are cracked copies out there. If you really must pay them money, just buy one and then download a cracked one anyway.

I, for one, refuse to pay for a product when I'm going to be risking harassment for pirating it anyway. Thanks, I'll still play it, but the money will go to another developer who hasn't put viruses in their software.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. I really wanted to play Bioshock, but the DRM prevented me from making the purchase. I was gutted when I learned of the DRM they'd employed, because I enjoyed system shock, and I was really keen to play its successor.

If they relent and release a patch that kills the DRM, or someone releases a crack that kills it, then I'll buy the game in a hot second. If not then forget it, I don't want that secureRom crap on my computer as a 'reward' for paying for the game.

the Securerom of bioshock has been cracked for ages kemosabe. I had a cracked version running on my machine 2 weeks after the game was released.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[QuantumG]

Yeah, where the DRM is built into the HARDWARE.

Talk about boiling the frog slowly.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[SanityInAnarchy]

In the interest of fairness, as my designer friend told me, it's not the developers who want DRM and activation (most hate it) it's the publishers.

Given that Valve has gone independent, Steam is quite obviously a development shop's idea of what DRM should be.

I actually don't have a problem with Steam, since at least it seems to work, and after playing through single-player, I'm going to mostly want it for Internet-enabled games, like Counter-Strike.

And then there's things like playgreenhouse.com, which seems to need single-activation. I really could care less, then -- I'm going to be online at least once to patch it, adding an activation step is pretty harmless.

No, where I draw the line is adding a layer on top of Steam -- and having that layer actually damage your OS.

I would say, don't boycott all DRM. Instead, boycott the truly damaging DRM in favor of stuff you can live with.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[c0d3g33k]

Fsck you, "The End Of Days"

You have no idea how many sales have been lost due to SecureROM. You have no idea how many more sales could have been obtained by not obsessing over the "hardcore gaming" crowd pirating games and instead focusing on making the "customer experience" as positive as possible.

Count me as one of the "not as important as you think you are" crowd. I've been around since the Pong days and have purchased quite a few games since then. I've not purchased Bioshock due to the DRM, nor any other game from the same publisher. And I haven't (and won't) illegally copied it either.

There seems to be quite a few of us out here. Perhaps not quite as insignificant as you think.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[Colonel Korn]

EA's sales numbers for the last year show PC gaming as their largest market. The same is true at a lot of other publishers. Things are looking up, financially, for PC gaming. The memes are looking down, though.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[c0d3g33k]

Maybe it's time for developers to grow a pair (or two) and stop letting the publishers ruin their work. From what I understand, this is a fine example of "Faustian bargain". I don't give a damn about the publishers, but I WILL support development houses that produce quality games I want to play so they can continue to produce them.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[Narpak]

SecuROM makes me think twice about buying a game. However if the game looks good enough I will either buy it and crack it, or buy it and download another copy from the WEB. Luckily in my country it is legal to do this.

Don't mind paying for games, but I do mind installing maleware on my system. Can't really see why Publishers think it is a good idea to share their earnings with a company like SecuROM; that take a piece of the profit; but gives no working copy protection what so ever.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[renegadesx]

Different teams made each version. The 360 version was made in Boston while the PC port was mostly done in Canberra (Australia). Due to the gaming industry being a 2nd class citizen here (down under) most of the talented developers here end up getting better jobs overseas and your left with the scraps.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

And that's why everyone needs to support Stardock and their titles. Absolutely no encryption at all or CD key whatsoever, I bought one copy of Galactic Civilizations II and installed it on all of my machines and I'm not a lifetime supporter of their products. Its how it *should* be done.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[soupforare]

I've got a family member of a friend who works at irrational, so I wasn't expecting much of either version.
At this point, I'm not sure what's more depressing, how bioshock turned out or the fact that EA is fairly likely to make a SS3.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought my copy from an online store located on the Swedish coast and had no problems. What this 'SecuROM' you speak of? :)

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[swordgeek]

Sure I am! I don't have nearly as high of an opinion of myself as you seem to think I do.

Incidentally, your .sig actually speaks volumes about my stance.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[swordgeek]

"However if the game looks good enough I will either buy it..."

As soon as you say this, you have just rewarded the publisher for trying to screw you over and harm your computer. If there is no harm to companies for harming us, they'll keep doing it.

PUNISH the companies who consider your computer to be their property, and we might get somewhere. REWARD them, and we won't.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[antdude]

Yes, mine did too with C&C3: Kane's Wraith in its last patch! See here for the fix. It took me a few weeks to figure out what was causing. I didn't think a game patch would cause this mess.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[cliffiecee]

Actually, the OP is important to me... I've just been discouraged from purchasing Bioshock. It's a shame because it sounded like an interesting game, from what I've read.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

So what exactly were the symptoms?

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[Narpak]

I agree with the principle. However in the real world I have urges that need to be satisfied. Nothing is better than getting a fix of digital entertainment to keep those barking demons at bay. It's either that or the loony bin for me.

Seriously though. I also dislike Microsoft and Windows, but I still have a installation of XP on my computer just so I can play games. It's a compromise I know; but when it come to how I spend my free time I not going to stand on principle. Between work and sleep I need a few hours of play and if I have to give some coin to people I don't like or agree with so be it. No different than the money I give to major record labels or the movie industry (lots of bastards in those sectors to). The world is not perfect.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[WDot]

You know what I think the major factor that is killing PC gaming is? FUD.

I take that back, I don't think PC gaming is dying at all. Nevertheless, there can't be a single story on any major tech or gaming news website that has anything to do with a PC game without there being comments about why PC games are dying.

You'd be surprised to find that many gamers don't care about DRM. Why? Because it's easily cracked. You can find No-CD cracks, SecuROM cracks, Starforce cracks, cracks that let you play LAN games on one CD key--at worst finding a crack requires perseverance, and at best it's a couple of clicks. There are even guides on how to crack SecuROM yourself, if you're interested. It's pretty easy when you have control over your system, unlike the 360 or PS3. I find it ironic that people bitch about DRM on the PC and decide that a completely closed system is a better idea. REALLY?

I have a 360, a DS, and a PC. I'm not a fanboy of any in particular, but my pet peeve is people who spread FUD about PC gaming.

On my pc now I play emulators, old games (thank you dosbox) and small, independent games. It's sad, but I'm probably going to play only the console version of Fallout III.

Okay.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[swordgeek]

"I would say, don't boycott all DRM. Instead, boycott the truly damaging DRM in favor of stuff you can live with."

Y'know, there was a time when I would have agreed with this statement. But I'm old and bitter, and tired of this crap.

DRM hurts sales. DRM annoys people. DRM treats customers like criminals. DRM usually does NOT prevent anyone from pirating your game, but even if it does, it's only the people who wouldn't have paid for it in the first place.

I remember reading matte red codes on glossy red paper, and entering a random one each time I started a game. I remember floppies with a bad sector, which would only run if the drive returned an error 'sector not found' on that part. (and it usually had to grind for 30-60 seconds to timeout). They're all ways of protecting...something. Not sales, not profit, just...something.

Sell me a game with no DRM, and I'll happily buy it. Insist I'm probably a criminal and have to prove otherwise--ANY way at all--and I won't bother. I don't need your game that badly.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[Miseph]

"PC gaming has been predicted to die every year for the last ten"

And every year for the last ten, somebody has predicted the release of Duke Nukem Forever and Chinese Democracy. The only people who really believed that also think that adding up sales of all console titles and comparing them against PC title sales is a reasonable idea.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[v1]

I remember reading matte red codes on glossy red paper, and entering a random one each time I started a game.

It was actually grey text on dark red paper. Bleach my friend, bleach. Strips the color out of paper dyes but not ink dyes. Leaves you with a creame colored sheet of paper with clearly legible (as in, no insta-migrane) codes to click in.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[v1]

grow a pair (or two)

Depending on where the second pair turn up, that could produce either of at least two interesting variations...

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[enderjsv]

It's not really FUD. Here's an article from early 2008 that I found in five minutes with a google search. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2254019,00.asp.

There's many more articles like that. The good news is that PC gaming will never truly die. There will always be a market for it. The bad news it that as the PC gaming demand dwindles, less AAA titles will be released for it. Why, I just found out today that Gears of War 2 won't be released on the PC. Also, Crytek stated on Joystiq that they won't be making PC exclusive games anymore. I never thought I'd see the day when Valve was releasing console exclusitivities, but the upcoming Portal: Still Alive pack for the xbox 360 is apparently exclusive (though only a small fraction of it wasn't contained in either the original game or the Flash portal map pack).

The "easily cracked" excuse you gave to DRM is a bit far fetched. You know what's easier than having to research how to crack a game? Opening the console disk tray and putting the game in.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[renegadesx]

At this point, I'm not sure what's more depressing, how bioshock turned out or the fact that EA is fairly likely to make a SS3.

Is that any better than making a Bioshock 2? I mean the story was basically complete, no sequals needed and a prequal would just ruin the first games story. A System Shock 3 is do-able however it needs to be done with a 'tread with extreme caution' approach. SS2 has a special place in alot of gamers hearts.

The PC port wasn't all it could have been yes, however the 360 version was quite a spectacular experience on a 42" screen and surround sound and no lights. Sucked me in more than any other game released last year, and thats saying something.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[Samah]

Developers, it really is that simple.

I think you'll find it's the publishers that push the DRM more than the actual developers of the game. Game developers are usually gamers themselves, so I can't see how they'd have any special love for DRM.
Speaking of publishers, EA and Ubisoft are the scum of the Earth to be honest. I'll never forgive EA for destroying Origin and forcing Ultima 9 to be released in a buggy, incomplete state, and I'll never forgive Ubisoft for their lack of support for Dark Messiah.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[swordgeek]

"However in the real world I have urges that need to be satisfied."

Hmm. A friend of mine is trying to teach her daughter the difference between need and want. Personally, I deal with that line by flopping between alcoholism and buddhism. :-)

"...when it come to how I spend my free time I not going to stand on principle."

I am. I won't spend money on ANYTHING from Sony, and that includes all of their record labels and subdivisions (a tough task to track 'em all down, believe me!). BUT, all that means is that you and I have drawn different lines in the sand. I have no problems with that, as long as you're consciously making decisions, instead of acting because, "um...Idunno."

So it's OK if you and I have different points of view--as long as we both have them.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[Mike610544]

I think the DRM is the major factor that is killing PC gaming. I know, PC gaming has been predicted to die every year for the last ten; but the difference now is that it really seems to be happening.

I don't think it's dying, It's evolving. PC games will probably start to move back toward their roots (flight sims, dense RPGs, Civilization) and consoles games will pander more to the LCD. This is a good thing; People who want to play nerdy D&D type games will have the PC and people who want to mindlessly blow shit up will have the consoles. I like to do both, but the current PC/console releases mean I get a half ass version of both (Fallout 3 seems like it will be a perfect example of this.)

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[swordgeek]

Nope. You and I are apparently thinking of different games, because I _definitely_ remember red/red, where the only way to see it was with a strong light at an oblique angle. I think it was on my old Atari 400, but I can't remember what game.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[swordgeek]

Disabled CDROM drives.
Virtual DAEMON fails completely.
Unrequested software installed silently on your computer.

That's three of the symptoms.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm going to pirate Fallout III if it is known to have invasive DRM. I will proceed to play the shit out of it, because it's Fallout III.

If the game is ever released sans invasive DRM, I'll walk over to my local video game dispensary and pick myself up a copy.

Pirated copies will exist, that is a given. Drop the DRM and you gain customers who want to buy your product. I want to give you my money so you can make more games, damnit!

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[christurkel]

If more people did the same, he would be.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

However, it uses SecureROM. I contacted the company to see if this bug had been fixed yet, and they confirmed that no, it hadn't. As such, they're not getting my money. I can live without this game, if they're going to infect my computer in order to let me play it.

You get it. And in an ironic twist, you get it in a way that Rand got (with respect to money), but her followers utterly failed to understand that what works with money doesn't apply to software.

DRM schemes, and the looters that attempt to extract profits from them, are still ultimately reliant, to use Rand's own words, upon the sanction of the victim.

(Yes, Rand utterly failed to grasp that the rules of capitalism that work with atoms simply don't apply in non-scarcity economies. Hardly her fault; the damn book was written in 1958, at least 30 (and arguably 40) years before anyone outside the IT industry really grokked, in its fullness, the difference between economies based atoms and economies based on bits.)

If you're going to harm my computer, you don't get my money.
If you're going to require internet access/activation for a standalone game, you don't get my money.
If you're going to treat me like a criminal, you don't get my money.

As not "Who is John Galt?". You are.

(So am I. I respect IP laws enough not to pirate Bioshock. But if I cannot trade value for value, I don't trade. DRM isn't value, so the publisher doesn't get my dollars, and I don't get to play their game, at least until they release a non-SecuROM version of the software. I'd have lined up at midnight on release night for that.)

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

I would say, don't ban all warrantless wiretapping. Instead, boycatt the repeal of the Fourth for a requirement of a non-legally-binding letter that promises (honest, just trust me!) the wiretap is somehow relevant to an investigation.

And I would say, don't ban all torture. Instead, ban the truly damaging torture in favor of stuff like waterboarding.

I would say, don't boycott all DRM. Instead, boycott the truly damaging DRM in favor of stuff you can live with.

No. No more. No. Fucking. More.

Whether it's politics or software (XP requires a one-time activation, XP requires re-activation after a hardware change, XP will nag you about WGA forever, Vista will shut down after 30 days if it can't phone home), we've seen where this slippery slope leads, and the endgame sucks. We accepted WPA (Windows Product Activation, the original XP "phone home" scheme from 2003), which "mainstreamed" phone-homeware, and DRM schemes like those of Half-Life 2, Bioshock and Spore, as well as Vista's DRM, are now common practice.

We tried it your way. It doesn't just result in the frog being boiled by accident; it's how the frog gets boiled in the first place.

So forgive my rudeness, but as to boycotting "Bad" DRM for "good" DRM? Fuck that.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[Adradis]

From what I remember reading on the Steam forums, the Still Alive expansion is something that will be available to PCs in a different form. Since Microsoft insists on charging for any updates, Valve's trying to get the XBox owners a decent bang for their buck.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[Petrushka]

Even if he is not important (in your eyes, at least), his money is.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[WDot]

The problem with that article (and many like it) is it compares PCs to ALL consoles and ALL portables, as opposed to the 360, PS3, Wii, DS, and PSP. Even when this is done, I doubt it's the biggest and that's fine. But if, as the parent of my first post suggests, that there have been 10 years worth of articles predicting that PC gaming is dying, maybe it isn't? Maybe it's up there with 2008 is the year of the Linux desktop and Apple is dying?

My main point about cracks was that many PC gamers aren't as worried about DRM as you might be led to believe. And sure, popping a disk into a console is easier than troubleshooting the myriad of PC issues. But there's a reason my friends and I are willing to troubleshoot for an hour or so at the beginning of every LAN--because we really enjoy PC games that much. DRM is just another issue to fix. If that's too much trouble for you, fine, today's consoles are pretty fun too.

I'm skeptical about the idea of PC gaming "dwindling." Right now I'm looking forward to Left 4 Dead, Diablo III, Starcraft II, Mirror's Edge, Spore, Dragon Age... If AAA titles really are becoming more scarce I'm not seeing it. Gears of War 2 not coming out for the PC does not pain me too much. Gears of War 1 PC came out long after people moved on. It's their own fault it didn't sell well. If it was going to be the same with Gears of War 2, then maybe they should just save their money instead.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[Hal_Porter]

I don't know why everyone whines about Steam and DRM, neither of which were a problem to me but no one seems at all bothered by Microsoft buying exclusives for the XBox.

It's outrageous - Halo would have been a PC/Mac game until Bungie got paid a load of money to make it an XBox exclusive. So millions of people buy a console they wouldn't otherwise have bought to play a game that should have been available on the hardware they already owned.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but *I* am.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[bigstrat2003]

Since Microsoft insists on charging for any updates...

No they don't, actually. Still Alive was a free download for Rock Band. Similarly, there's been free DLC for Guitar Hero 3. MS probably encourages charging for updates, but they certainly don't require it.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[bigstrat2003]

Are you kidding? First of all, the PC version was a simultaneous release with the 360 version. By definition, that makes it not a port, because the two versions were developed at the same time. Second, I have both versions (I bought the 360 version and pirated the PC version), and they are exactly the same. The only difference, in fact, is in the PC's favor, what with the fact that you have mouse and keyboard support.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[SanityInAnarchy]

And I would say, don't ban all torture. Instead, ban the truly damaging torture in favor of stuff like waterboarding.

So, really, when you buy a game with DRM, and it requires you to enter an activation code, once, while you have an Internet connection...

That's like someone virtually drowning you?!

Whether it's politics or software...we've seen where this slippery slope leads, and the endgame sucks.

Yes, it does. So do blatant fallacies.

But more relevantly, are you saying that the only solution to a slippery slope is to run in the opposite direction? That if you find yourself in a slippery slope towards alcoholism, you've got no recourse but to swear off all sins of the flesh and join a monastery? That since we're on such a slippery slope to torture, we should stop interrogating prisoners altogether, since yelling loudly and asking scary questions is a form of torture?

Hey, it's no more a strawman than you've drawn of me.

So forgive my rudeness, but as to boycotting "Bad" DRM for "good" DRM?

It's a way to push back, while still playing, I don't know, any games at all. Boycotting all DRM means you're either cheating yourself of quite a lot of entertainment, or you're pirating -- and either way, you're also contributing to a statistic by which they convince themselves that they're losing sales to piracy, and so the cycle continues.

Instead, prove to them that people will buy a game with light DRM, or no DRM at all.

Or, if your solution is consoles, allow me to enjoy a long and hearty laugh while you try to justify living the endgame of Trusted Computing.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[enderjsv]

That's partly true. It is somewhat faulty to compare PC game sales to all console game sales and claim it as an accurate portrayal of the PC gaming market strength, but not entirely so. Like it or not, comparing the Xbox 360 to the PS3 is much different than comparing either of those consoles to the PC.

Consoles and PCs represent two unique market groups. While its not unheard of for a PC gamer to have a console or the other way around, the console pool and the PC pool are more distinct than the pools that separate each console system. A console player is far more likely to cross console platforms than he is to take up PC gaming. And PC gamers seem less likely to use a console unless they are forced to. If, for the sake of argument, Microsoft was suddenly to announce that they would no longer be selling or supporting the xbox 360, the 360 owners would probably move to another console. In a sense, the console pool and the PC pool exist independent of each other and that may legitimize comparisons between the two, though I admit the comparisons would always be tricky.

To further my point, consider game types. The types of games released on a 360 compared to the PS3 or even the Wii are more similar than the types of games released for the PC, both because the control schemes are different and because the tastes of the gamers are different. If the console market continues to grow larger than the PC market, it would make financial sense to design games that appeal to the console crowd. Also, because of the similarities between consoles, cross-platform games may work better across consoles rather that tapping into the PC market. And let's not forget, the PC has a LOT of issues that consoles don't have to deal with. Moving from one console to another is much less jarring than moving from a console to a PC.

So I guess my point is that, yes, to a certain degree, saying all consoles have sold X many games and all PCs have sold Y doesn't say much, but it also doesn't say nothing**. PC games and console games will always be somewhat polarized, and should the strength of all console platforms combined ever far outweigh the strength of the PC, it would be detriment to PC gamers regardless of each console's individual performance.

** (see, some double negatives work. Take that 9th grade English teachers everywhere.)

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[Joker1980]

Its not just the DRM IMHO, yesterday i went out at lunchtime with the sole purpose of buying a pc game. I spent nearly an hour in between 3 game shops before leaving empty handed. There was virtually no difference between the console shelf and the pc shelf. There are very very few real pc games made these days (outside of RTS) their either console ports or were developed alongside the console version (which is the primary version and as such dictates the games design).

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe he isn't. But he is not alone. Case in point: my father is a huge fan of submarines. I bought him Silent Hunter III, and had a few stability problem with his machine. I then learned that SH3 uses StarForce, which is an invasive protection scheme.

Those issues may or may not be related to StarForce, but I will not buy any Silent Hunter title again. I've seen SilentHunter IV in stores, and that would have been the natural Christmas present for my father, if not for the fear of copy protection.

I now research any software I buy for copy protection, and won't buy anything with invasive protection.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

I loved the demo of Spore. Really really fun.

But with the same scheme going for Spore, I won't buy it. I'll pirate spore for sure.

Which is a shame.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

I contacted the company to see if this bug had been fixed yet, and they confirmed that no, it hadn't...
...It's very simple:
If you're going to harm my computer, you don't get my money.
If you're going to require internet access/activation for a standalone game, you don't get my money.
If you're going to treat me like a criminal, you don't get my money.

Have you tried using a bolder font?

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[Sobrique]

You seem to have confused 'could care less' with 'couldn't care less'.

I feel the need to point out that "n't" is a "not" operator, which negates the logical meaning of your sentence. It literally changes what you mean to the opposite.

http://incompetech.com/gallimaufry/care_less.html for a lovely png of the 'care continuum'.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

So just download the game for free. Geeze!

You people will just not stop whining. Probably because you're so bitter that there are people out there willing to put up with the DRM, thus making your little "not buying" protest pointless. And who loses out? You do. That is, the one refusing to buy a game because of the DRM and also refusing to download it illegally! Everyone else is doing just fine...

Commit suicide already so I can present you with a Darwin Award!

Seriously though, I understand what you're trying to do. You're making a stand for your rights, which is good. But what you're actually doing is shooting your own foot.

Either buy the game, or acquire it illegally. If you don't do either of those, then you are unworthy of playing games.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[swordgeek]

True enough--the publishers are the ones who generally add the final layer of slime. The developers are somewhat caught in the middle, but maybe it's time they fought a bit harder on the contracts, before starting to write code.

Also, I'm still a bit bitter over EA. I remember when they announced themselves to the world, and were a brave new way of getting great games to market. Games like M.U.L.E., Pinball construction set, Hard Hat Mac, and Seven Cities of Gold were proof that the Electronic Arts name was a gold stamp of quality. Then it all went horribly wrong, and they turned into the craptastic 800kg monster we know and despise today. Sigh.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[gEvil (beta)]

Explorer.exe would crash when I tried to delete (via the delete key) or right click on any executable or shortcut. This was very consistent and horribly obnoxious. This seemed to trigger AVG virus scans that would then cause my hard drive to go into heavy read mode for a few minutes. Also, my USB thumb drive wasn't being recognized by the system some of the times when I put it in. No idea if it affected the DVD drive since I didn't use it during the week this was happening. The thing is that I hadn't fired up Bioshock or Steam at all in the past 3 weeks or so, so it really seems to be SecuROM just choking on itself in some way. A full uninstall using the removal utility fixed all of these problems.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[bugeaterr]

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070826-clearing-the-air-bioshock-does-not-contain-a-rootkit.html

I don't like DRM either.

However, I followed these steps carefully and had one of the best gaming experiences of my life.

Pay attention, it gets tricky:

1) I paid for the game.
2) I installed it on my PC.
3) Was wildly entertained, more than my $ worth.

Too bad your panties are so easily wadded because you missed out.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[Kjella]

I actually don't have a problem with Steam, since at least it seems to work

Yep, actually under WINE it often works better as CD-checks are poorly supported while Steam and whatever checks they do works out of the box. Ok finding a no-CD patch is simple too but it's a plus for non-geek gaming (not that a non-geek should mess with WINE anyway, at least not anything under platinum rating)

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet the multiple thousands of like-minded individuals are.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[swordgeek]

How did you avoid the other step:

2a) Programs and devices stop working as a result of 2).

Seriously, that's what SecureROM has done to my computer in the past, and thousands of other people's systems.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[ultranova]

A friend of mine is trying to teach her daughter the difference between need and want.

There is none. "I need bread to eat so I don't starve to death, which is bad because I want to live" is not really different than "I need 10 euros so I can go to movies, which I want to do". Sure, the desire to live might be more intense than the desire to see Kung-Fu Panda; but they are still both wants.

"Need" is simply intense want, nothing more.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[SteamDot]

I once, in the distant past, was building a bunker for my Terrans. The Zergs attacked with a few individual squiggly fools and were blasted to bits. Individually their pathetic attacks did not count and with great aplomb they were given the smak-dab with no hurt to my side. I proceeded with my production. Minutes later the same type of geeky dork creatures reappeared but this time in great heaps and hordes. Collectively, they were considerably difficult to ignore. I had to concede to their superior ability to cause pain. I resigned. If 20,000 to 200,000 gamers think and react like SwordGeek, 2k will get a potent un- ignorable message.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[brkello]

I bought it. I played it. It was fun. I had no problems with the DRM. Just to give another view on the topic since everyone seems to be so one sided on this.

Re:What went BADLY wrong

[SanityInAnarchy]

You seem to have confused 'could care less' with 'couldn't care less'.

You're right. I usually tend to avoid the term entirely, though -- after all, "couldn't care less" doesn't work, either. Take it in a different context, say: "I love you, Juliet! I couldn't possibly love you any less! I couldn't care less!"

Now, "could care less" is pretty pointless, but neither is what I want to say. What I should be saying is "really don't care" or "really couldn't care".

what they really needed to focus on

[Anonymous Coward]

They forgot the ending! Whoopsie doopsie!

Re:what they really needed to focus on

[GigaplexNZ]

They didn't need an ending. DRM prevents you from getting close.

Re:what they really needed to focus on

[deathcloud33]

I have to say this really has some truth. I've gotten partway through the game at least 4 times, but put it away to finish later. Then I find I want to play it again, and can't find my DVD. Eventually it gets uninstalled for more space. A month later, I find the DVD and think "That was fun, I want to play it again", and repeat. Because of that retarded business of requiring the DVD, I've only ever finished the game once of the several times I've played it.

old? still interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

i feel like i read this article half a year ago.

Bioshock was fantastic

[Anonymous Coward]

I seldom finish games but I've played through Bioshock twice and started a third time.

I played it on console so I didn't have to worry about SecureRom or anything, but can't you guys just download a 3rd party patch to get rid of it? I used to download 3rd party patches for all the PC games I bought so I didn't have to put the disk in to play.

Re:Bioshock was fantastic

[LurkerXXX]

How do you know the 3rd party patch doesn't have malware/virus/etc that's far worse than the SecureRom?

Re:Bioshock was fantastic

[Spatial]

As far as I know the DRM is part of the installer, so a traditional no-cd crack wouldn't work. But there is a cracked version with no protection that you can install with zero hassle. Except the hassle of downloading a 6GB ISO file, of course.

Re:Bioshock was fantastic

[TheLink]

From what I hear you're far more likely to have your computer messed up by SecureRom than by a 3rd party patch.

If you stick to getting the patches from reliable sources, I doubt you'll have trouble.

Even original software makers have shipped viruses and malware.

Heck in many peoples opinion- Dell, HP preload malware onto their computers ;). And don't get me started on Sony.

So far I think the pirates have provided a far safer and better experience than the Big Corps.

Seems to me most of the game crackers are doing it more for reputation than money. Whereas the Big Corps usually have different priorities.

DRM crap

[Anonymous Coward]

Game was fail for copy protection. I payed and got screwd cant even play what I payed for. -.- I hate this game for this one reason.

Re:DRM crap

[Spatial]

If you already bought it and it won't work because of the DRM, just download it. The lolcats proper release has no DRM, and it's even easier to install than the retail version.

I think I found it!

[soupforare]

...what went wrong...focus groups...

Ah, nothing like developing for the lowest common denominator to screw potential!

Re:I think I found it!

[Shadow of Eternity]

Console FPSers will always be around now that the systems are strong enough to handle it, all we can do is try to ignore them.

Re:I think I found it!

[soupforare]

How can we, when flagship FPS games we're getting are just ports of the 360 version?

Re:I think I found it!

[Shadow of Eternity]

The last time I checked aside from mmo's there were more people playing half-life than there were playing the 3 games below it COMBINED.

Great game

[bogie]

One of the few I played and then immediately went back and replayed it again. The "good ending" was quite rewarding after fighting so hard to save all of those girls. It capped the game off nicely. The whole Atlas vs Ryan story was well done and it was rewarding to explore every inch of the game. Graphics, gameplay, atmosphere, weapons, etc were all top notch and this is definitely one of the best FPSers to date. Pick it up if you haven't already.

so they dumbed it down for the idiots?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm... Game with a lot of back story, depth and complex mechanics, tested poorly with the focus group so they toned it right down to the more or less hand holding game that it was.

Don't get me wrong, I loved the game, and found it really accessible, however I would be interested to find out what got cut for the frustrated test group

BioShock

[Anonymous Coward]

What you get when you see Joe Biden on the ticket of a candidate that's supposed to represent change.

Joe Biden - who's been in DC since Nixon was there.

Re:BioShock

[Hal_Porter]

What you get when you see Joe Biden on the ticket of a candidate that's supposed to represent change.

Joe Biden - who's been in DC since Nixon was there.

Though to be fair to Biden he was more a Jack Valenti lackey than a Nixon one.

he?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now now, let's not assume that the project lead must be a "he" . . . Meet Alyssa Finley

Bioshock was way overrated

[pumpkinempanada]

I just finished it last week. It looked cool but even that was overrated. After you've seen the basic lighting/color scheme and art-deco look they're going to use, it doesn't vary a whole lot. All those mods and junk you could do to yourself was just boring, there was never a compelling reason to mess with any of it. Beyond that it was just the same game mechanic over and over again until it's over -- not even a good ending to the story they seemed so proud of! just my opinion, but overall in the year I've had an XBox, gears of war and portal have been the best games.

Re:Bioshock was way overrated

[aurispector]

I think it was overrated. I *liked* it, and the drm didn't cause me any problems, althought I oppose it in principle. The problem was just what you said - the same game mechanic over and over. I had NO desire to replay. Don't think I ever got to the end - it just wasn't interesting enough. Shame because it really was a game with a lot of promise.

Re:Bioshock was way overrated

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Yes, it was overrated, but being overrated is highly underrated these days. With all of negativity of all of the game review sites out there now a days, its tough to be highly rated from whence to be dubbed overrated. It really makes being a contraririan hipster tough these days. Now, we just have to get by with nogistalia over the dream cast, and hoping they've fallen out of memory and possession fast enough to burnish our cred.

Re:Bioshock was way overrated

[mjwx]

I think it was overrated. I *liked* it and the drm didn't cause me any problems, althought I oppose it in principle. The problem was just what you said - the same game mechanic over and over. I had NO desire to replay. Don't think I ever got to the end - it just wasn't interesting enough. Shame because it really was a game with a lot of promise.

I'll avoid DRM for this post (seeing as I bought the game in a Bangkok market and avoided DRM completely) and just focus on the game.

Yes Bioshock was overrated, seriously overrated. It was extremely linear and scripted compared to its "spiritual predecessor" System Shock. Bioshock made Half-life look like an open world. Playing Bioshock was like walking through a movie, albeit a very well directed movie with excellent sets and a great story but there was absoluely no deviation from the path set by the developers. They may as well have made a rail shooter.

Also my favourite parts of System Shock were removed, Inventory management. The game didn't force you to make choices about what weapons and equipment you were going to keep and what to leave behind because you didn't have room for it. This add's an imperial buttload of variety and re-playability into the game. Even the acute linear-ness of the game would have been offset if you needed to make a choice about how you were going to play, so the number of weapons and inventory items was limited, ammo was plentiful, all weapons were available all the time, plasmids were useless (you would either use lightning or freeze unless the story required telekinesis or fire) and above all else you couldn't die. What were they thinking when they made it impossible to die (I know that System Shock had a reincarnation system too but it needed to be activated before use meaning that you had that window of complete vulnerability).

The "choice" to kill or save the little sisters that the game was based around was no real choice what so ever and contributed nothing to the story except for a different cut scene at the end. SPOILERS FOLLOW but if you're worried about that get over it, the game has been out for a almost year now. Even if you brutally murdered every little girl you came across "Tennenbaum" would still help you even if you kept on killing them. The much vaunted "choice" did not contribute to the gameplay one iota as every 3 little sisters you saved you would get 200 extra Adam anyway plus an item (which you couldn't sell/recycle if you didn't want it).

Why did all of this happen, for 1 reason gentlemen, Consolization. Typically First Person Shooters have been limited to Half Life style romps and rainbow 6 style tactical shooters that have been made a bit easier and have a generous aim bot. Most of the advanced features from System Shock like inventory management would be frustrating to use with a consoles controller. Also to ensure that it was never too difficult to beat the game they completely removed the previous SS1 and 2 reincarnation system and replaced it with the "you will never die no matter how stupid or crap you are" chambers. The point of consolization is to make the game available to the widest possible audience, the method of consolization is to dumb down the game to its lowest common denominators so that every single console will have no trouble using it. Consolization not only kills the potential for new and interesting ideas in games it also kills the existing features that PC gamers have been enjoying since 1992 (SS1's release). Now some games are born to be consolized, precisely because they are not new or inventive and dont require complex control scheemes, these games are not inherently bad but they are never revolutionary and that is the impression I received from Bioshock which left me somewhat disappointed as I had expected, from various reviews and interviews with Ken Levine that bioshock would be at the least, a worthy successor to System Shock.

Finally I'll say what I did like about it. Artistry, the game was very

Re:Bioshock was way overrated

[TheLink]

In short, it's a good movie with some audience participation?

Most FPSes are like that though.

In Crysis - I've found you can't jump on to certain rocks (invisible barrier) just to take a different way, and some doors open and close "just because".

I can understand why choice is limited in some cases - it keeps the amount of content required to be created from growing exponentially. But in the other cases I find it annoying.

Re:Bioshock was way overrated

[mjwx]

In short, it's a good movie with some audience participation?

Pretty much.

Most FPSes are like that though.

I disagree, most FPS's require input from the player and on occasion require choices to be made by the player that affect the outcome. Deus Ex is a prime example of this; no movie could effectively portray the games story as it changes based on what the player does.

In Crysis - I've found you can't jump on to certain rocks (invisible barrier) just to take a different way, and some doors open and close "just because".

Games need to have barriers and how they display these barriers is very important. Crysis had few invisible walls (quiet a few visible ones though) and did not contain many unopenable doors. Crysis did pretty well compared to may FPS, it gave you a large open space to play in as opposed to something like Half Life which leads you down a set path. My main problem with Bioshock is not that it was partially scripted to progress the story; my issue was that it was entirely scripted to prevent you from leaving the story, this isn't just a few invisible walls or painted doors.

I can understand why choice is limited in some cases - it keeps the amount of content required to be created from growing exponentially. But in the other cases I find it annoying.

The difference between a good FPS and a bad FPS, in a good FPS you only notice the limitations if you go looking for them; a bad FPS and the limitations are obvious and/or the game couldn't hold your interest long enough that you had to notice them

Re:Bioshock was way overrated

[kklein]

Amen. I liked the game fine, but come on: it's just a regular shooter. It was just System Shock 2 with better hardware available. SS2 was innovative in the day, but now it just kind of felt blah.

Now Mass Effect... That's some good gaming.

Re:Bioshock was way overrated

[thepotoo]

Hit the nail on the head with that post. Bioshock came across (to me) as a simplified version of SS2. If you wanted a real spiritual successor to SS2, try Vampire The Masquerade - Bloodlines. Once you've fought the werewolf (almost final boss), nothing in computer games will ever scare you again.

Bioshock had an incredibly cool opening movie, but if choosing whether or not to kill someone makes a game "art", RPGs were art more than a decade ago.

Re:Bioshock was way overrated

[mirshafie]

I don't agree that the game lacks replayability. If you really did only use Lightning and Frozen Field unless teh story required you to use Telekinesis or Incinerate, then you struggled too much with many enemies.

Different enemies in Bioshock are vulnerable to different attacks - splicers for example are easily killed by throwing a dead body or other heavy object on them. And one thing I've found when reading walkthroughs on Bioshock is that pretty much everyone seemed to miss that you could clear traps by touching the wire with a dead body or similar, using Telekinesis.

I too was very dissapointed by the ending. If you killed the little sisters, Tenenbaum should have become your enemy. Perhaps someone else should have helped you at the end.

What do you expect when you make it a 360 game?

[Anonymous Coward]

Should have been PC only, dumbasses on consoles get confused by more than three colors.

Sigh. Here we go...

[Midnight Voyager]

Blah blah DRM blah blah blah. Gee, it's not like there's cracks out there or anything. Can we please leave the dead horse alone? It's already been completely pulped, bones crushed, etc. It's soup now. Let it go. Stop splashing it. Now: Too dense? Too hard to use powers? Did they play the same level I did or did they dumb it down after this incident? If they dumbed it down after that, they should really stop using focus groups.

Re:Sigh. Here we go...

[Narpak]

....just after the first beta, the entire design team plus a contingent of 2K producers headed off to see how a group that knew nothing about our company or BioShock would react to the first level.

I think it is safe to say that what they played at that point was not the same game that we played after launch.

Re:Sigh. Here we go...

[c0d3g33k]

It's not about whether cracks are available. It's about whether cracks are necessary at all. I will not buy a game with draconian DRM, period. Purchasing the game then applying the crack to make the game playable just validates the habit of releasing defective products. Don't give them money for defective products.

Re:Sigh. Here we go...

[Midnight Voyager]

Doesn't stop the horse from being liquid.

Re:Sigh. Here we go...

[Petrushka]

Gee, it's not like there's cracks out there or anything. Can we please leave the dead horse alone? It's already been completely pulped, bones crushed, etc. It's soup now. Let it go. Stop splashing it.

If it were indeed dead, pulped, and crushed, I'm sure everyone would be happy to let it go. Unfortunately it's still alive and well.

Surely it's a joke (was:Market research!?)

[Lead Butthead]

If they're actually paying attention to market research, they would've known that DRM completely kills it for a lot of (otherwise) PAYING customers.

Re:Surely it's a joke (was:Market research!?)

[laparel]

But which would have netted them more - losing customers who are turned off by their DRM schemes or losing customers who was able to get a copy off a torrent and never bothered to buy it even though she/he thoroughly enjoyed it?

Has anyone ever studied that trade-off/relationship? (Oh and not those who claim that every copy of piracy is a lost sale.)

Re:Surely it's a joke (was:Market research!?)

[walshy007]

or losing customers who was able to get a copy off a torrent and never bothered to buy it even though she/he thoroughly enjoyed it?

It's not to stop the torrents, there will always be torrents as it only takes one skilled person to crack it, it only stops people copying a cd and handing it to a friend really, which in todays land is a lot less common than torrenting.

Re:Surely it's a joke (was:Market research!?)

[nametaken]

While I'm one of those people, I've always suspected that I'm part of a very small percentage of customers.

I'd guess they have done the market research, and have a very good idea of how many (or few) people they alienate entirely by incorporating DRM.

Re:Surely it's a joke (was:Market research!?)

[ultranova]

But which would have netted them more - losing customers who are turned off by their DRM schemes or losing customers who was able to get a copy off a torrent and never bothered to buy it even though she/he thoroughly enjoyed it?

Well, given that the version from the torrent has had DRM disabled, and if it's a real professionally done pirated version doesn't require CD/DVD either, I'd say that including DRM means you just turned some potential customers into pirates.

The more you tighten your grip, the more sales slip through your fingers; that's something various game companies seem unable to learn. You can't stop the game from being copied, and trying anyway just makes pirating more and more attractive.

Re:Surely it's a joke (was:Market research!?)

[Feoh]

You almost make it sound like the PC release is the only platform it shipped for.

Please bear in mind that we console owners are legion, and enjoyed the hell out of the game with no DRM concerns at all.

I know how the DRM got past the beta!

[Anonymous Coward]

They didn't have the testers install or activate it.

True, & sad what other games could have been

[unassimilatible]

I think of some of the gsmes I have paid good money for, some of which I beta tested, and I couldn't get in contact with anyone on the developmenbt team to give my ideas.

One company that just doesn't get it is Novalogic. Their Black Hawk Down franchise was groundbreaking and had some serious potential, but they just never solicited or even listened to feedback. A potentially great game with some easily-fixed flaws, but they just don't listen.

EA is the same way. All the cheating that still goes on with BF2, and they do nothing. Sad.

Claim the galaxy!

[Unnamed Chickenheart]

DOSBox + Master of Orion II + either quakenet #moo2 or RL friends. Aaahh heaven.

Well, if only moo2 was slow real-time, or if I could punch people through internet.

http://dosbox.com/
http://masteroforion2.blogspot.com/2006/05/dosbox-guide.html

whats the fuss about?

[JustNiz]

My qualification to have an opinion: I paid good money for this and played it to the end.

My opinion: from all the hype I was expecting something much much more and was very dissapointed.

I found Bioshock to be a fairly dull semi-on-rails shooter with an unimaginative, awkward and badly scripted plot. There were so many great possibilities plot-wise that they completely missed out on. There were parts of the plot that just made no sense and many annoying and stupidly unrealistic holes in the gameplay like when you kill a big daddy (Which was ludicrously tedious as it took so long and all your ammo but otherwise was easy) then you could walk away and turn around and the same one would be right back. Very cheap and cheesy.

The majority of reviews were ranting about the fantastic graphics but I was suprised at how obviously low-res and fake the views out of the windows were (I mean REALLY blocky scaled up 2D bitmaps instead of 3D rendered objects even though I was playing on highest poss. graphics settings). The developers have no excuse for adopting the same cpu-cheap approach to doing background scenery that they had to do for comupters like the amiga back in the 80's. The interiors were nicely 50's retro-styled, but the graphics themselves were very average and repetetive. Its like they had a library of about 50 objects that they just kept re-using. They certainly did that with the characters. The worst thing is that given the large amount of graphics re-use you could at least expect there to be a lot of levels/playing time, but it was all over after only a few hours of playing.

I guess I must seriously missing something but IMHO this is a really budget-quality game that has nothing at all going for it gameplay-wise, massively too much hype and no repeat playability.

I was amazed at the sheer number of supposedly unbiased games reviewers that gave it top scores. I didn't realise how open to bribery from games producers those guys must be.

Re:whats the fuss about?

[LurkerXXX]

Maybe the reviewers just had a different opinion from yours. Mine is about 180 degrees different from yours. I thought it was a fantastic game.

I just wish all the manufacturers would make demos available for all their games so we could each sort out what game we were probably going to enjoy or not before the purchase. You could have played the demo and known it wasn't the game for you, and I would have known it was well worth my money to go ahead and buy it.

Re:whats the fuss about?

[prestomation]

Mine is about 180 degrees different from yours. I thought it was a fantastic game.

Mine is about 360 degrees different from yours.

Thank you M$!

What?!?!

Re:whats the fuss about?

[Have Blue]

The developers have no excuse for adopting the same cpu-cheap approach to doing background scenery that they had to do for comupters like the amiga back in the 80's.

How about "We spent the majority of the resources on the foreground, you know, the part you can actually get up close and personal to and interact with"? There will always be "shortcuts" taken because you end up with a better performing game if you take them than if you don't.

If you're going to complain about the graphics, point out how the view out the windows should not be visibly wavering. Water doesn't work like that; you'd think with all the effort they put into the game they could have taken the time to see how large underwater windows at the local aquarium behave.

Re:whats the fuss about?

[Rutefoot]

In my opinion, they tried to be too many things and while they did anywhere from a fair to pretty good job at all those things, not one of them was anything spectacular.

Attempting to stitch together a deep story with an 'arcade'-like style of gameplay was a mistake from day one.

Re:whats the fuss about?

[mako1138]

They got the graphics and atmosphere right, but I agree that the motivation behind the gameplay is murky. Why does the player have to kill Big Daddies and harvest/free Little Sisters? Oh, in order to unlock doors. Huh.

Re:whats the fuss about?

[Fantastic Lad]

When you have a ton of money to spend on making a piece of media which needs to sell a lot of copies in a very short time to break even, then you spend a portion of that ton of money making sure everybody is jumping up and down with anticipation about it.

It's not always strictly true, but in general you won't go too far wrong following this rule of thumb: The bigger the hype, the more middling the game/movie/whatever will be, because BIG money doesn't like to take BIG risks, and so it doesn't. It's that simple. And the hype for Bioshock was VERY bought and paid for. You could see that from a mile away. It's too bad, because, as you say, there were some really excellent ideas bubbling in the stew of the marketing which could have been exploited but apparently, from what I've read about it, (I'm not a gamer anymore), were simply not and the few ideas which were followed were nothing particularly special. A middling, safe, high eye-candy game.

The best games I ever played, (back when I still played games), were sleeper hits or Part II's riding on the coat tails of previous sleeper hits. --Or they were not even hits at all, but just games I personally enjoyed. And such is life, and no complaints. People worked and learned and played and another day went by with something interesting to do. Not every experience is going to be stand-out amazing, otherwise nothing would stand out or amaze. Still, it's nice to know that around some future corner, right when you think you've seen it all, there will be another mind-blowing surprise you completely failed to anticipate. Life is infinitely complex and wonderful this way. It's why I love being alive so much!

-FL

Re:whats the fuss about?

[Quiet_Desperation]

There was a demo on the XBox. After I played it six times I realized I should probably get the game. :)

Re:whats the fuss about?

[wildstoo]

The majority of reviews were ranting about the fantastic graphics but I was suprised at how obviously low-res and fake the views out of the windows were (I mean REALLY blocky scaled up 2D bitmaps instead of 3D rendered objects even though I was playing on highest poss. graphics settings). The developers have no excuse for adopting the same cpu-cheap approach to doing background scenery that they had to do for comupters like the amiga back in the 80's.

I'm willing to bet the culprit here is the consoles' limitations.

They've probably used identical art assets on all platforms. Which means that consoles with their limited memory and optical storage have to be catered to at all times. The poor background texture quality is almost certainly part of a trade-off between visual appeal, memory usage and loading time.

It's a trade-off which doesn't really need to exist on the PC. It is unfortunate - though not unsurprising given the effort involved - that most developers don't include higher-resolution assets on platforms that have the speed and capacity to use them (i.e. PC).

Re:whats the fuss about?

[wildstoo]

If you're going to complain about the graphics, point out how the view out the windows should not be visibly wavering. Water doesn't work like that; you'd think with all the effort they put into the game they could have taken the time to see how large underwater windows at the local aquarium behave.

I assumed it was because Rapture was a seriously old and leaky underwater city. The water was actually streaming down the insides of the windows through cracks in the seals?

I might be wrong, It's prolly just in there coz "it looks coooooool".

Re:whats the fuss about?

[Sj0]

The xbox 360 version of Bioshock has twice the optical storage space available to it than the PC version.

They didn't fix the DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

The DRM is the reason I didn't buy it.

Look at System Shock 2

[Spatial]

It's really evident if you've played System Shock 2 beforehand. Bioshock is basically SS2: Simple Underwater Edition With Shit-Hot Graphics.

Every feature they didn't remove is taken straight from it, except easier and with more limited options. The hacking, research, vending machines, character customisation, one-time upgrade points, upgradeable weapons, psychic powers, the ghosts, the logs, the plot... It's all basically the same, but simpler. Even the big plot revelation is the same.

The whole thing stood to gain a lot from a little more sophistication in the gameplay; I think SS2 is the better game despite its dated graphics. I know what you're thinking - I'm some old fogey gamer with rose-tinted glasses - but I only got SS2 about six months before Bioshock.

Re:Look at System Shock 2

[Anonymous Coward]

"The whole thing stood to gain a lot from a little more sophistication in the gameplay; I think SS2 is the better game despite its dated graphics. I know what you're thinking - I'm some old fogey gamer with rose-tinted glasses - but I only got SS2 about six months before Bioshock."

And pay $40 for it too. Shame an old game commands as much as a new game, but then the collection of maniac mansion, monkey island, and lemmings is over a $100 on Ebay.

Re:Look at System Shock 2

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, just like how Bush is the same as a brilliant president, but simpler.

Re:Look at System Shock 2

[wildstoo]

Well, it pretty much spells it out in TFA.

The game was going to be deep and complex, but then they took it to a bunch of drooling retards who promptly cried "IT'S TOO HAAAAARD" before soiling themselves and going back to their fingerpaints.

Ok, maybe that's a bit harsh, but it does seem to be a worrying trend these days. Players seem to be rewarded for being unwilling to put up with even the slightest complication in a game.

Yes, I realise that a lot of people really LIKE the hand-holding way that modern games present themselves.

I realise that a cumbersome UI or byzantine system of "features" and poor controls can alienate new players and mire an otherwise brilliant game. (X3 I'm looking at you)

I realise that "accessibility" = sales and that not every gamer is interested in deep, involving game mechanics.

It just seems to be the way the whole industry is going; take a well-worn concept, focus-group the design down to nothing, then polish the most basic features and sell it as somehow "revolutionary".

With all the meticulous planning and crafting every detail of the "user experience", the magic seems to have become lost.

Or maybe I really am an old fogey gamer with rose-tinted glasses. :P

Re:Look at System Shock 2

[YourExperiment]

I totally agree with you, SS2 and Deus Ex were two of the greatest games ever. I loved the way they combined RPG mechanics with FPS mechanics, in roughly equal amounts. They even let the player choose which of these two aspects to focus on, to some extent. When I first played those games, I thought we were due for a revolution in gaming. Why would anyone want to play a simple FPS or a simple RPG, when they could play this fabulous hybrid?

It seems that the rest of the world disagreed with me. Deus Ex 2 was terribly dumbed down, and Bioshock even more so. Stalker had some similar ideas, but stopped short of incorporating true RPG-esque concepts. All of these were fun games in their own right, but none of them approached the brilliance System Shock 2 or Deus Ex. I wonder if we'll ever see their like again?

Re:Look at System Shock 2

[Anonymous Coward]

Call yourself an old fogey? I remember system shock one - now that was a game...

Re:Look at System Shock 2

[Guysmiley777]

I agree, SS2 was one game where I actually felt terrified when playing it. In my opinion it's still the best single player FPS ever made. So much depth, so much detail, very well done. Pity nothing like it will ever be made again since it would be unplayable with a dumbed down console UI.
Bioshock was OK, but paled in comparison to SS2.

Re:Look at System Shock 2

[Anonymous Coward]

There are a number of fan patches for SS2. Somf of them vastly improve the graphics (pix here).

I found Bioshock to be much like Oblivion. Both are graphically stunning but are much lesser games than their predecessors, SS2 and Morrowind.

Re:Whine

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you whine on WINE?

Re: DRM protecting ... something

[TaoPhoenix]

That's a great line.

Every time I hear about one of these deals, I start to think that they should makethe DRM *a whole separate game*!

"If you want to play this game at the Advanced level, Hack the Mainframe DRM. If you want to play it at Standard, just put the little CD in nice and easy..."

Pay for two hours of Bruce Schneier's consulting time and come up with something truly hideous, like self modifying code living inside a SchrodingerCatBox with a live feed from the NSA's Algorithm Beta Testing program.

The Tommy Gun

[Mike610544]

It's pedantic, but their labeling this as "Machine Gun" kind of bummed me out. It gave me the Hollywood vibe of "any fully automatic weapon is a machine gun."

Machine Gun
Assault Rifle
Submachine Gun

Re:The Tommy Gun

[Kozz]

eh? wtf? Yeah, the name is "Thompson Submachine Gun". And if you look at your own link, submachine guns (full auto, pistol cartridge ammo) are a subset of all machine guns (fully automatic). What are you complaining about?

If you were carping about the differences between "Assault Rifle" and "Assault Weapon", I could have backed you. But you're not makin' sense, boy.

Re:The Tommy Gun

[Mike610544]

Damn it, I didn't read the wiki links I posted. I think you gun people can back me up in that nobody would refer to a Thompson or an Uzi or an MP5 as a "Machine Gun."

Re:The Tommy Gun

[icegreentea]

A SMG is technically a subset of Machine Guns in the sense that they both fire full auto. But in common usage, a machinegun refers to a gun firing a rifle cartridge or larger, while a SMG fires pistol rounds. Huge difference there. So to call a SMG a machine gun would be like calling an assualt rifle a machine gun on the account that an assualt rifle also fires automatic. 'Technically' correct in a horridly incorrect and misleading way.

Re:The Tommy Gun

[RayMarron]

You're right. It IS pedantic.

Re:The Tommy Gun

[TheLink]

I think a more important distinction is the effective range.

e.g. from how far away can they blow my brains out. :).

Re:The Tommy Gun

[Molochi]

Using the term machinegun to describe anything that should probably be called an "automatic firearm" has been common since the 1920's despite efforts to restrict its definition it as a specific class of smallarms. Kinda like how the words Hacker, Rock Music, Sportscar, etc... have their definitions argued about.

Re:The Tommy Gun

[Molochi]

The term machinegun was coined for a weapon intended to fill a support roll. The term gun, military, refered to a weapon intended for support. This is why, when they take an Assault rifle and add a long heavy barrel, bipod, and extended magazine to provide extended automatic fire support they often reclassify it as a Light Machine Gun. It becomes a support weapon. If you tell someone in the military to point to the machinegun and there's a MP5, an M-16, and an M60 in front of them, they aren't going to be confused. If they are ordered to take out a machinegunner, they'll know what you are talking about. However I don't think that most people use the word that way anymore.

Game Magazine Post Mortem

[Anonymous Coward]

Game Magazine's Post Mortem column is freaking BRILLIANT.

I recommend it to anyone who wants to program. It talks about what happens when things go wrong, which is all too rare these days.

Re:True, & sad what other games could have bee

[tcolberg]

I'm surprised by how many developers make games without looking to Valve. From all the articles I've read about how Valve develops games, it seems they have the right philosophy. They playtest their games starting the moment they have something you can play. I think it was a Gamasutra article that told the story of Portal's development where they had the playtesters playing nearly every nightly, always giving the developers feedback on what was working and what wasn't. It sounds to me that that's the way to make a really polished game.

That's not to say that you focus group your game into mediocrity. It's about setting gameplay and story-telling goals and making sure you meet those with direct feedback from gamers.

Shanghai team?

[bVork]

They talked about how they used the Australia team initially for technology and later for more tasks, but what about the Shanghai team mentioned at the end in the data section? I know it's unlikely that anyone here will know, but I'd love to find out how they coordinated with the artists and designers in that studio, and what they worked on.

I'd buy it right now if not for SecuROM...

[Anonymous Coward]

Listening to people talk about the game makes me want to go out and buy it. I hear it's a fun game. But knowing there's SecuROM in there? I won't touch it.

I could be half-tempted to buy it and then pirate it. But I hate rewarding anyone who would use an evil program like SecuROM. I don't like giving up control of my computer to anyone.

SecuROM deters me.

[bronney]

I heard bioshock was quite good and a fantastic game but before I get it from steam, I usually go over to steampowered.com and check out the forums. After a nice read I passed just because of the installation problems.

It's one thing to have a dodgy creative driver, but it's quite another if everyone's having it from the SecuROM. Sowwie, I pass.

From a slightly different perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

My biggest beef with BioShock was the HORRIBLE response time on the Xbox 360. it played well for the first half but then it got so choppy and unresponsive it became unplayable.

THANK YOU

[RyoShin]

This is probably what went wrong with it. The fact that they went to a group with 0 knowledge about them probably meant they also had 0 interest in games. They didn't even develop for LCD, they made up a whole new denomination to develop for!

This is becoming an increasing problem for games and movies. Early 90s when it just cost a few hundred grand to put out a game (if that), you could stick to how you liked it, shoot it through Q&A, and have at it. They didn't put games in front of large groups and ask "How would you make this?" (At least, to my knowledge.) That's exactly why the company is making the game--because these other guys aren't. So you get these awesome games that were awesome because it was just the company, not the masses, making the decision.

I'm not familiar with the authoring process, but if someone writes a book I don't think they send it to some "random" group (and by random, we mean people walking by who were willing to spend 15 minutes in exchange for ten bucks). They'll send it to a few trusted friends, people who's opinion they trust. They'll send it to their publisher, who will ship it between a few people, also in the know. They, people who have a trusted opinion or experience, will help make decisions.

Who here has played Portal? And have you played through in Commentary mode? If not, I highly recommend it. You get a lot of insight as to the development and planning phases. What you also get is a lot of comments about how they took this puzzle or that puzzle to a group and made changes based on that group. Most of these pieces of commentary talk about how they dumbed down the game because of feedback. Now, Portal was an amazing game. I also enjoyed Bioshock, though it had no replayability. But I often wonder how much more fun I would have had in Portal, had I been given the harder challenges.

Rather than ask "What can we cut from this", it should be "How can we better explain/show this". Other Portal comments talked about how the puzzles were changed to draw the player's focus to certain portions in order to make them more aware of how to complete a puzzle. This is what focus groups should be about. They should be with gamers of all ranges (yes, even some without experience), but responses shouldn't cut anything, just change the length, instructions, or other things to make it work.

I remember this big story about how you would physically change depending on choices, plasmids used, and more.

I hope the "hacking" portion was based off of focus groups, at least. Some idiot says "You know, this technobutt stuff is confusing. Can't it be something similar, like plumbing?" Letting focus groups make your decisions can only make a game worse, not better.

Trognz

[Anonymous Coward]

All I can say is that the mouse control was totally f***ed up for many of us, and they NEVER patched it. So the flavour of the game was totally different than from what I hear here...

http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?s=3f2c128a7953838baeb8fe67860a7249&t=7697&page=56

one year after, still not fixed. This is really a pity.

Thriving PC games don't use DRM: see WoW

[patio11]

• Players say its because they hate DRM and won't buy any game that doesn't have it.
• Industry says WoW is thriving because it forces non-piracy -- the content is only usable with an account checked by the server, which costs $15 a month.

Either way the effect is the same -- you'll get your gaming without DRM, because they'll protect the game in an alternative manner, using all sorts of things that also piss you off. Monthly fees, phone home activation, and micropayments sound like great ideas to you? Then please, continue boycotting DRMed games to send a message. The message the industry receives might not be the one you think you're sending, though.

Re:Thriving PC games don't use DRM: see WoW

[ultranova]

Either way the effect is the same -- you'll get your gaming without DRM, because they'll protect the game in an alternative manner, using all sorts of things that also piss you off. Monthly fees, phone home activation, and micropayments sound like great ideas to you? Then please, continue boycotting DRMed games to send a message. The message the industry receives might not be the one you think you're sending, though.

That's okay. I will simply not play any game which pisses me off. There's plenty of alternatives, such as Battle for Westnoth or Nethack. Crash and burn, industry.

Computer games are in the "nice to have" -category. They aren't necessary or essential. If the games industry stubbornly keeps on pissing their customers, said customers will simply find other forms of entertainment, and the industry will go bankrupt. And frankly, if it stubbornly continues in a course for which its customers have spelled out their displeasure, it deserves to.

Still haven't beaten it...

[Anonymous Coward]

I still haven't beaten this game. While it looks good, it's just so much of the same thing over and over again.

"Oh, here's some boss or something blocking you from leaving. Do a bunch of crap so you can fight them and then move on to the next zone and repeat."

It's a good game, but for me at least it just didn't hold my interest.

Yes but...

[Anonymous Coward]

does it run on Linux?

The devolution of man

[Anonymous Coward]

System Shock->System Shock 2->BioShock->monkey

Comments from a PC gamer

[Lonewolf666]

I think the "closed" nature of a console actually has a few advantages, but to me those are not enough to pay something like 300 Euros for an additional gaming platform. Because I have a PC anyway for lots of things that the typical console won't allow me to do. And in terms of capability, I think it is comparable to the current generation of consoles.

Considering the graphics quality, I guess I'd be happy with any modern console that can do resolutions typical for a HDTV set. Because I think HalfLife 1 on the higher resolutions is good enough, anything beyond that is nice to have but not really necessary in a game.
Of course, unless the console plays nice with my existing monitor (a 1600x1200 pixel Samsung with DVI port) this would mean shelling out more money for a matching screen. A quick Google search shows that the PS3, for instance, won't work with the Samsung at all (encrypted HDMI output).

Finally, I play a lot of FPS where mouse + WASD really rules. Call that arrogant if you like, but that's how I see it.
If a console allows me to use mouse and keyboard, fine. But as I understand it, console games are usually not designed to support these.

Re:Comments from a PC gamer

[FrozenFOXX]

It's called a SmartJoy Frag. They've been available for a long time.

It's also called, "lazy developer." There's nothing stopping a developer from supporting a keyboard and mouse in a game (UT3 on PS3 and Final Fantasy XI on 360 as your examples). Maybe instead of bashing a console maker for not forcing you to buy a shitty keyboard and mouse like yesteryear and letting you instead use the keyboard and mouse you already have you should instead be bashing a lazy developer who refuses to put in the slightest bit of effort to support your chosen input. Epic and Square-Enix certainly didn't have that problem.

Re:Comments from a PC gamer

[il_diablo]

A quick Google search shows that the PS3, for instance, won't work with the Samsung at all (encrypted HDMI output).

Perhaps my Google-fu is weak here, but I tried several combinations of Playstation 3, PS3, Samsung television, HDMI, and encrypted, and could find nothing on what you've mentioned. I'm planning on finally breaking down and buying a PS3, and will be hooking it up to a Samsung HD tv. This is concerning information, can you cite your source?

I'm usually fairly Google-riffic, but can't seem to find anything.

Re:Comments from a PC gamer

[Lonewolf666]

Hmm, seems I have to partially retract that:
http://forums.gametrailers.com/showthread.php?t=534717
Obviously there are VGA cables from third parties in the market. But everything I find on short notice says digital is encrypted.

Re:Comments from a PC gamer

[il_diablo]

Hmm, seems I have to partially retract that: http://forums.gametrailers.com/showthread.php?t=534717 Obviously there are VGA cables from third parties in the market. But everything I find on short notice says digital is encrypted.

Strange. What I was able to find indicated that at worst it was a framerate selection issue.

http://www.fixya.com/support/t242728-samsung_lcd_tv_ps3

This guy said he had no problem other than a dodgy cable.

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=719259

Not trying to break your stones, just looking into it since my purchase is pending soonest.

Re:Comments from a PC gamer

[Lonewolf666]

It seems all those guys in your links who have reported success have a Samsung TV set. Unfortunately they did not give any model numbers, but it is plausible that a TV set would support HDMI. Which means it works as intended for them, encrypted signals with decryption in the screen is part of HDMI.

In my case, the Samsung SyncMaster 204B is a PC screen that does not support HDMI. That means no digital input from a PS3 on that screen. So
-Check if your TV supports HDMI before buying the PS3
-if you want to buy a new TV anyway, make sure to get one that can handle HDMI.

Good luck with your buy and have fun!

Even magic DRM has its limits

[DrYak]

Even if a DRM was magically unobtrusive, you'll still have lots of complex corner cases.

What if two different persons own the same computer (the family's computer) should they both be allowed to play (DRM restricts per computer) or should only the owner of the game ? But then how should it function for people with several computers (laptops on the move, desktop at home) ? And what about two kids who pool money to be able to buy together an otherwise too expensive game ? (I've actually done it when I was younger) etc...
And none of the above examples involved someone selling copies burned on DVD in some street black-market (which arguably is a more definite example of pirating).

You see, the question of who is an "evil pirate" and who is not isn't straigh-forward. Once you go in detail you either have to put arbitrary limitations and/or use a byzantine complex licensing scheme.

So even with a magic DRM, the DRM won't satisfy everybody.
And currently we don't have "magic" technology so good DRM are even more difficult to achieve.

Whereas, *not* using DRM doesn't require any skill that we don't posses already.

No, as I've often said before, DRM isn't the magic bullet that solve everything from piracy specially when getting the pirated software is only a torrent away.

Other models have to be found.
- If you manage to create enough dedicated fans some of them will be willing to pay for the game just because they like it.
- If you manage to create an incentive to buy the game maybe more people will do it (with proper packaging for exemple. The games I remember from when I was a kid always came with lots of things like maps, useful books, etc... - currently a game is just a CD/DVD slapped inside a soft plastic case along with a leaflet telling you to read or print the PDF on the disc if you really want some documentation - no added value between a bought game and a CD-R one burns oneself)

Or maybe some other means to get the revenue to the game maker have to be found.
- Ad-sponsored game may indeed have some future-
- Or donation supported development could maybe be feasible for some indie developper.
- Or resurect the shareware model like used by ID software back in the days (episode 1 of the game is free for everyone to share. Only pay it if you like it. And then you can buy the commercial episode 2 and 3 if the game is good and you're hooked to it). ... there's much success to be made if people would start thinking about better scheme to finance development.
Sadly, there are much more ressources dedicated to finding "better" DRMs (and often buying more "snake oil" in fact) than trying to find more efficient ways to get the money to the developers.

About what went wrong and about DRM

[Aceticon]

As a gamer, I agree with most people around here that machine-damaging DRM is what's holding me off from getting this game. I've literally stood on a store, with this game on my hands ready to buy it when I saw the SecuROM symbol and just took it back to the aisle were I got it from: No game is worth the risk of having my machine stop to work properly.

As a developer (not games though), a lot of their problems in their list of what went wrong sound very much a case of not having a really senior techie guy around (I'm thinking senior developer/technical architect type). Things like naming conventions for the scripting language, streamlined build process and adequate logging are very much the kind of thing a senior designer will help get right from the start. My impression up to now is that game development is mostly a (very) young man's game ...

Judging from the amounts I've been offered for game development positions (yes, I can code C/C++ and several variants of Assembly like the best), beyond a certain level of experience game development pays crap and there are plenty of places out there outside that industry which have decent-sized working weeks that are willing to pay a lot more for experience.

msvcr80.dll?

[bpfinn]

I was about halfway through the game a few weeks ago when it crashed on a level change, and told me it faulted on msvcr80.dll. I emailed the support email address in the booklet and got no help at all other than a message from the autoresponder. I can't attach a debugger to it to get a hint of what might be happening, because SecuROM won't launch the game if it detects a debugger. Did this happen to anybody else? If so, how did you fix it?

Re:msvcr80.dll?

[deathcloud33]

Wait, securom seriously puts effort into keeping you from CHEATING? On a SINGLE PLAYER game?!

Re:msvcr80.dll?

[bpfinn]

Yup. If you run WinDbg, or Process Explorer (or anything that has debugging hooks), the game simply refuses to start.

Over-rated? Depends ....

[King_TJ]

I bought Bioshock about a week after it was first released (largely because I found a $10 off sale on it at a local Circuit City, and figured all the hype plus the discount made it worth grabbing).

I have to agree that it could have been more compelling. To this day, I've never finished the game. I enjoyed it for a few hours, but ultimately, I felt like the mechanics made it too similar to many other 3D shooter type games I've played before. The graphics and sound f/x are outstanding. The concepts in the game like the plasmids, the little sisters, and the Big Daddies are great. But I spent too much time walking around the same rooms, trying to get to where I could unlock one lousy opening to see the next set of interesting things.

And honestly? I think the theme itself annoyed me, too. Initially, I was really thrilled that someone was making a game revolving around objectivism and Ayn Rand's beliefs. But then, it became clear it was trying to illustrate why such concepts were "bad" things, and would only lead to utter failure and despair.

I guess somehow, I'm just not buying the idea that all these great scientists *really* just wanted to escape the laws of the land so they could start injecting each other with substances that would cause permanent mutations, but giving them "super powers", etc. etc. Just because you're for progress and minimal government interference doesn't imply you've tossed ethics and morality aside.

All the DRM whining is kinda unrelated.

[Anonymous Coward]

The article is about the process of developing/making the second best console videogame of 2007 (behind Mario Galaxy), not about the porting of aforementioned videogame to the PC and the arbitrary decision to weigh it down with really awful DRM.

But I guess any opportunity to complain is a good opportunity. =)

Re:True, & sad what other games could have bee

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is playtesting is surprisingly expensive. You can't just keep using the same playtesters, because, unless they're brain damaged or something, they're going to get better and better and the game, and/or attached to the way it "used to work" if you change it (even for the better - witness how many people seem to love windows even though both macosx and the most modern linux desktops actually work better, just different). So you need a constant flux of new playtesters. Which is expensive, and potentially a leak liability too.

calling an ugly baby ugly

[JohnnyComeLately]

That's true in almost any business or organization. No one wants to hear their baby is ugly. I think they went too far listening to the focus groups and the constant changes lead to a game I didn't like. I got BioShock due to the "Game of the Year" rants and was really looking forward to playing it. I picked it up and their "dumbed down" first two levels bored me to tears. I put it down after about 2 hours and haven't loaded it in my XBOX360 since. I hate a game that bores me with trivial little tasks and not much is going on. I'll take a complicated game where I'm instantly getting my butt handed to me over a game that takes forever to develop. Now contrast that to GTA4. I played it, it was sorta slow to develop, but you could get into action as fast as you want. Granted, I played that for about four hours before pulling it out and not having put it back in since (the week after release)...but that's only because I can't pry Halo3 out of my console to save my life. Just when I start to get bored, Bungie comes up with new maps, there's new gameplay (e.g. Team SWAT, MLG Pro Games, etc), or something else. I wish I could stop playing Halo3, but I can't.

Re:calling an ugly baby ugly

[cb8100]

Damn, that's an ugly baby...

True, Bioshock's gameplay was slow for the first level or two, but the plot is what drew me in. Well, that and the art deco designs.

The first two Halo games were terribly slow for the first level (or first part of the first level). Hell, in Combat Evolved the player doesn't even get a weapon until he runs half-way across the ship.

And, for the record, you suck at Halo 3. AND my uid is lower than yours ;)