Brad Wardell's Plan To Save PC Gaming

A few weeks ago, we discussed Stardock CEO Brad Wardell's "Gamer's Bill of Rights," a proposal for removing some of the PC gaming industry's more obnoxious characteristics, such as annoying DRM and no-return policies. Shacknews sat down with Wardell for a lengthy interview in which he discussed his reasons for starting the project, how it's being received by game companies, and how he wants the gaming community to help. Quoting: "I've already gotten calls from Microsoft, from Take 2, and other publishers who are interested in moving forward on this. Obviously the first step is we have to really define these items. And I've had other developers and publishers who have come back and said, 'No, because it's not flexible enough.' For example, what happens if someone wants to do a policy where there's CD copy protection, but after the first month [consumers] can download a patch that gets rid of it. So obviously that's a perfectly good solution too, but our thing eliminates the ability to do that."

Comments

Great idea, and all..

[PC and Sony Fanboy]

I wasn't aware that PC gaming needed saving.

At least, not any more than console gaming needed saving...

Re:Great idea, and all..

[DanWS6]

Haven't you been listening to console zealots for the past 10 years? With every new generation they proclaim that PC gaming will soon be dead.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[Darkness404]

...And it isn't? Granted, people still buy PC games, but not as much as console games. PC gaming still has a lot of enthusiasts, but for the casual market PC games are as good as dead (unless you count freeware/free software/games priced at $3).

Re:Great idea, and all..

[DragonTHC]

I think you're a bit confused.

PC gaming is very much alive. Casual gamers number in the tens of millions for PC. Ever play a flash game on the web?

Even the hardcore gamer who upgrades his rig once a year or more is still very much alive. Hardware manufacturers wouldn't exist if we weren't buying their stuff.

That being said, I think large publishers like EA and Ubisoft are trying to kill PC gaming. It's not really as big a revenue stream for them as console games.

It is, however, the place for innovation. Ubisoft wouldn't exist if not for Cliff Blezinski and Tim Sweeney. And, Epic is continuing to innovate, though not as much as some other developers. Their revenue stream has shifted to something way more sustainable, engine licensing.

You still have plenty of developers continuing to innovate. Steam, ID, Crytek to name a few.

Though I agree with a few others here, that the large publishers are bad for the vitality of the gaming industry on a whole, it stands to reason that just as shit floats to the top, the industry will continue to consolitdate as long as their is money to be made. And, as long as there is money to be made, publishers will try and take as much of the pot as they can through consolidation and other anti-competitive practices.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[Danse]

That being said, I think large publishers like EA and Ubisoft are trying to kill PC gaming. It's not really as big a revenue stream for them as console games.

Don't forget about Microsoft! Games for Windows is a cruel joke. It seems to be primarily about them padding profits by giving the PC sloppy seconds on games that get shoveled out for the 360. They tend to look like ass and play even worse because nobody bothers to make the games actually play like PC games and take advantage of the strengths of the platform. Seems like Microsoft is more determined than anyone to kill PC gaming.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[NoobixCube]

That's the thing about scum and cream; they both end up on top eventually. I'd rather my cream not be tainted by scum, but I've bought so many crap games for my consoles in the past that I almost religiously pirate them on PC first. I buy what's worth playing, and everybody in the gaming community wins. The only people harmed by my piracy are the ones foisting shit on us for a quick buck; and we'd all be better off without them.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[aliquis]

They would have been more correct if the fucking console and games let me use a MOUSE!

I'd have no problem playing optimized games on a "no upgrades for years"-platform if the titles I wanted to play was available on the platform.. But well, without a mouse I doubt Starcraft 2 come to playstation 3.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[tibman]

I remember something about Halo originally being designed for the PC then msft bought it and had it ported to console, which was later changed into a PC game again?

I did enjoy the Dungeon Siege games though.. probably more because of Gas Powered Games than by Microsoft.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[CronoCloud]

Complain to the developers, not about the console. It supports mice just fine, I always have a mouse attached to the PS3 (and the PS2 before it). The PS1 had a mouse as well, you could even play Warcraft II with it, which surprised me when Starcraft was released for the N64 and not the PS1 (where all the other RTS's ported to console had gone)

Re:Great idea, and all..

[varcher]

I remember something about Halo originally being designed for the PC then msft bought it and had it ported to console,...

Don't let any rabid Apple Fan hear you. Halo was originally a full OpenGL Mac game. Fans still remember the Jobs keynote "Great games are coming back to the Mac", with Jason Jones showing a cinematic with "all this is rendered real time, in OpenGL"... Bungee was a Mac-only outfit, until Microsoft, sniffing out a potential flagship game for its new XBOX system, bought them out in 2000, sank the whole Mac/OpenGL part, and... the rest is history.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[rk]

It was worse than that. Halo was originally going to be a Mac game with the Windows version coming out the same day. Bungie made their rep as game developers for the Mac, most notably the Marathon franchise.

Halo got revealed at Macworld in 1999 I believe. Then MS bought Bungie and then there was no Mac version at all. It got immortalized in a PA strip.

The GP has a point, but games is about the only thing I use Windows for these days. Without 'em, I have even fewer reasons to hop on the Windows upgrade mill.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[MarkKB]

Don't forget about Microsoft! Games for Windows is a cruel joke. It seems to be primarily about them padding profits by giving the PC sloppy seconds on games that get shoveled out for the 360. They tend to look like ass and play even worse because nobody bothers to make the games actually play like PC games and take advantage of the strengths of the platform. Seems like Microsoft is more determined than anyone to kill PC gaming.

GFW is only a branding program - the idea being that games designed for Windows will stand out better, rather than look like a jumbled mess - and therefore, it has no effect on the quality of games. Perhaps they've alway been that way and you haven't noticed?

Poor ports of console games have been around since the dawn of gaming. It is, therefore, no surprise that a great deal of shelf space is dedicated to these games. This would happen with or without GFW.

Besides, the idea that Microsoft is trying to kill off gaming is pretty laughable - many of the studios under Microsoft's umbrella are pretty much PC-exclusive. (And, for what it's worth, all those that are release under the GFW banner.)

Re:Great idea, and all..

[Ostracus]

"Don't forget about Microsoft! Games for Windows is a cruel joke. It seems to be primarily about them padding profits by giving the PC sloppy seconds on games that get shoveled out for the 360."

*Looks at the Sins of Solar Empire box he just purchased*

Wow! Danse's right. Just look at the sloppy seconds, games for Windows tagged box I just got. Whatever will I do?

Re:Great idea, and all..

[eht]

Bungie hadn't been Mac only for years, check out later versions of Marathon, and Myth was released Windows and Mac simultaneously.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[Danse]

"Don't forget about Microsoft! Games for Windows is a cruel joke. It seems to be primarily about them padding profits by giving the PC sloppy seconds on games that get shoveled out for the 360."

*Looks at the Sins of Solar Empire box he just purchased*

Wow! Danse's right. Just look at the sloppy seconds, games for Windows tagged box I just got. Whatever will I do?

Fair enough. I got Sins too. But, let's consider the rest of the games released this year. How many are not console games as well? You can count them on one hand I bet. It's just encouraging publishers to release on both platforms and cater to the lowest common denominator, which means that the strengths of the PC are ignored most of the time.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[Danse]

Besides, the idea that Microsoft is trying to kill off gaming is pretty laughable - many of the studios under Microsoft's umbrella are pretty much PC-exclusive. (And, for what it's worth, all those that are release under the GFW banner.)

Are you kidding? Name a PC game studio that they've acquired that hasn't turned into an XBox studio? Bungie? Lionhead? FASA Interactive? Digital Anvil? Ensemble? Nope. I can't think of a single one.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[Domint]

You still have plenty of developers continuing to innovate. Steam, ID, Crytek to name a few.

Steam is just software. Valve is the developer.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[skeeto]

Ubisoft wouldn't exist if not for Cliff Blezinski and Tim Sweeney.

And Tom Clancy! Don't forget about him. :-P

Re:Great idea, and all..

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Two things:

1. Consoles have always been highly developed for compared to PCs. It's just a little different now because consoles have more or less caught up in power -- keep in mind they have to produce 3D for a much smaller screen resolution (what is the worst case, 1080p? Bah. That's so 1997) so they'll always have higher quality in some aspects (smooth motion, mirroring, etc.) while PC games are always trying to jam that into a much higher resolution, which they can't without having 1 fps. Thus the PC lags in the latest and greatest visual tricks beyond pure resolution.

Quite frankly, you need something on the order of 60-70 fps to truly get a "looking through a window" feel due to smoothness of motion. Worse, many PC games have loading glitches where the picture freezes for half a second when you start to move or turn fast, which also costs in immersion.

In any case, there've been tons of games only on consoles, it's just that you expect to see them on the PC now because of the roughly comparable quality of the visuals and depths of the game.

2. "Gaming is dead" - Or maybe it's just in a draught. In music, we can go for months, if not years, between huge hits with a catchy tune, with the #1's being some mildly catchy thing that wouldn't even make it into the Beatles' top 50 hits.

Halo, World of Warcraft, sorry, I know they're huge, but I've been playing video games since the mid '70's. I've seen 'em come, and I've seen 'em go. These are just the latest that managed to suck in a new generation of players.

Something else will come along and dwarf them in turn. Then you can join me in waxing nostalgic about the good old days.

By the way, Microsoft is sticking in the console market until the bitter end because they see that, eventually, TV, PC, TiVo, console game, web surfing, and so on are all gonna merge eventually as the whole family sits there in front of a giant screen divided up into 9 pictures ALA Back to the Future.

Oh, by the way. Monkey wrenches are always on the way. Supposedly NVidia is going to introduce 3D goggles that, combined with their 3D cards pumping out 120fps, will give you 3D, assuming you have a monitor that can handle 120fps as it swaps the left and right views back and forth. Maybe true 3D gaming will finally stick this time.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[Danse]

Consoles have always been highly developed for compared to PCs. It's just a little different now because consoles have more or less caught up in power -- keep in mind they have to produce 3D for a much smaller screen resolution (what is the worst case, 1080p? Bah. That's so 1997) so they'll always have higher quality in some aspects (smooth motion, mirroring, etc.)

Consoles always catch up and seem like they're almost right there with the PC, and then they get released and the PC is already a generation ahead in video and CPU processing power, with about 2-4 times the RAM and infinitely more storage. It's never even a contest for very long, and by the time the console is halfway through its lifespan, it has long been surpassed by the PC. It retains the benefit of being a stable hardware platform though, so that can help too, but not enough to matter all that much.

That's so 1997) so they'll always have higher quality in some aspects (smooth motion, mirroring, etc.) while PC games are always trying to jam that into a much higher resolution, which they can't without having 1 fps. Thus the PC lags in the latest and greatest visual tricks beyond pure resolution.

Only if you ignore the fact that you can easily turn down the resolution and settings to be a bit closer to the console and get great performance at a resolution that's still higher than any console can manage. Then there's also the fact that more and more often it seems, console games have some real issues with framerates as well, so that's not a problem isolated to PC games.

The real issue isn't graphics though. Graphics have been good enough for a while now to do pretty much anything a developer wants to do. The issue is gameplay, which has suffered a lot due to the focus on console development. Designing every game to be played with a gamepad is just very limiting. It's not the optimal controller for most games, and has be shoehorned in, and all sorts of "simplifications" must be made in order to get it to work well enough. PC gamers have much more flexibility in control schemes and developers don't have to oversimplify everything because of that.

On the rest of the stuff I mostly agree. We've seen consoles become more and more PC-like with each generation. I expect that to continue. What I think they're going to have a hard time reconciling is the open-ness of the PC that allows us to have things like the huge mod communities and all the innovation that that generates, as well as the vast variety of control options that make pretty much any kind of game possible.

As long as there's a gatekeeper for the console, it will not supplant the PC. The PC will become the central media device, not the console. Nobody wants to have Microsoft or Sony controlling everything. There has to be open standards.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[Blakey Rat]

At least Games for Windows games actually *work*. Unlike, for example, Battlefield: 2142 and Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, two games I bought recently that did not, in fact, work.

The real point here is that PC games have terrible, awful, quality control. Why does Battlefield: 2142 require administrative access? Why does Dark Messiah take more than 4 seconds to integrate itself with Steam? Because PC games companies just Don't. Fucking. Care. about the quality of their product. Part of the reason is that they know the hardcore gamers also don't fucking care about the quality of the product; how many of them bought Battlefield: 2142 and will tell you, with a straight face, that it's a good game?

Have you ever asked yourself why the PC version of Oblivion needs to suck up gigabytes of HD space when the Xbox 360 version, which is virtually identical, takes no more than needed for virtual memory? Have you ever wondered why you have to type in a 25-digit annoying product key to play Dark Messiah on PC online, when you can play Dark Messiah over Xbox Live with nothing more than the disk?

I'm all for these "Gamer's Rights," and I'm all for "Games for Windows" because when you come down to it, they both have one goal: upping the quality of PC games to that of console games.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[TriezGamer]

Your comment implies you think 1080p is horizontal resolution, and approximately comparable to 1024x768. I think you fail to realize how large of a resolution 1080p actually is.

1080p refers to the VERTICAL resolution -- and the full screen size is 1920×1080 -- Not even CLOSE to 1997 standards, and barely smaller than the max resolution most high-end gaming PCs are using.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[Danse]

At least Games for Windows games actually *work*. Unlike, for example, Battlefield: 2142 and Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, two games I bought recently that did not, in fact, work.

First of all, if you bought Dark Messiah recently, you need serious help. The Battlefield series has always had issues, which is why I've never played it. How many console games require patches these days? Do you guess that that number is higher or lower than last year? For every example you point out of buggy PC game, I can point out one that works great, or a console game that is buggy as well.

Yes, the console games tend to get more scrutiny, but they also have the advantage of a single hardware spec to test on. Infinite hardware combination possibilities are part of the reason PC games will always require patching. It's just the way it is, and the way it will be for the foreseeable future. It's never really been a problem for me since I'm rarely one of those people waiting in line on release day for a game. I pick it up a couple weeks later after I've had time to hear about it and see if it has any major issues. It does make the recent increase in console bugginess seem a bit less acceptable though, when you think about it, especially factoring in the extra 10 bucks that most console games cost over a PC game.

Have you ever asked yourself why the PC version of Oblivion needs to suck up gigabytes of HD space when the Xbox 360 version, which is virtually identical, takes no more than needed for virtual memory?

Because it doesn't get stream-loaded from the DVD? Because I have a close to 1TB of dirt-cheap hard drive space and can't be bothered to care? Because I don't know how much space it actually takes up because I have about 100 mods loaded up as well which have turned it into a completely different and VASTLY better game experience that I'm still playing to this day even though I gave up on the original game by the time I reached level 14? *gasp* I don't know. Take your pick.

Have you ever wondered why you have to type in a 25-digit annoying product key to play Dark Messiah on PC online, when you can play Dark Messiah over Xbox Live with nothing more than the disk?

Nope. It's a crap game that I've never played, aside from the demo. The online games that I play almost all use Steam, which is no trouble at all.

I'm all for these "Gamer's Rights," and I'm all for "Games for Windows" because when you come down to it, they both have one goal: upping the quality of PC games to that of console games.

Whatever the goal may have been, the effect has been to dumb-down the games that are released on the PC.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[TheRaven64]

they have to produce 3D for a much smaller screen resolution (what is the worst case, 1080p? Bah. That's so 1997

1080p is 1920x1080. Definitely not 1997 resolution. My CRT in 1997 only did 1024x768 at a sensible refresh rate, and wasn't particularly cheap. The VooDoo 2 I got around then (1998) could only handle 800x600 and was top of the line for gaming - the VooDoo 1 people were using in 1997 could only handle 640x480. I think the Radeon 8500 was the first video card I owned that was capable of running any games at 1600x1200 (I played BZFlag at that resolution with it!) and that was based on a chip released in 2001. The largest monitor I use at the moment does 1920x1200, which is slightly higher than 1080p, but only by 120 vertical pixels. Hardly a massive difference.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[Danse]

Complain to the developers, not about the console. It supports mice just fine, I always have a mouse attached to the PS3 (and the PS2 before it). The PS1 had a mouse as well, you could even play Warcraft II with it, which surprised me when Starcraft was released for the N64 and not the PS1 (where all the other RTS's ported to console had gone)

Yeah, but who cares if they let you use a mouse if they've already stripped out and "simplified" enough stuff to make it playable with a gamepad?

Re:Great idea, and all..

[apoc06]

oni was also released on the pc and the ps2 as well.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[Ang31us]

I'm a PC gamer and I still have not forgiven Microsoft or Bungie for what they did with Halo. It was going to be the first FPS with vehicles on the PC platform. In the end, many of those gamers clamoring for vehicles in their FPSes ended up buying Tribes 2 at that time (GREAT GAME!).

Re:Great idea, and all..

[cbreaker]

My CRT in 1997 did 1600x1200. If you had a 17" or higher screen, you were using high resolution.

Not to mention - almost no games on consoles run at full 1080. Most of them run at 720, which is nothing spectacular.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[cbreaker]

Indeed - this argument is very old and very repeated. Yes, Consoles are as good as a PC when they are released. No, they don't stay that way for very long. Right now, you can get a mid/high-end video card (Meaning: a single video card, nothing crazy like a dual SLI for $1200) and it will be twice as fast as the GPU in the PS3 and 360. You can get a quad-core CPU for your desktop for cheap. RAM is so cheap it's unbelievable.

But don't worry, it'll keep getting repeated. While I do see more of a shift towards console gaming lately, PC games will always be around - they will always be popular, always be cutting edge, always be present. nVidia and ATI didn't build their giant companies because PC gaming is dead.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[Jorophose]

Crytek isn't innovation.

Crytek is failing on your promises.

Look at the demo shots for Crysis. You could see the light falling onto leaves and the ground in front of you, casting rays from the holes in the canopy way up high, and the guns were realistic. The actual game was a disappointment. CoD4 looked much better and ran on lower hardware.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[DragonTHC]

that was in the game if you ran a hack to turn on dx10 lighting in XP on dx9.

sorry you didn't get to see it.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[MarkKB]

Name a PC game studio that they've acquired that hasn't turned into an XBox studio?

Who said anything about acquired? I certainly didn't. (I also didn't mention anything about them being in-house either.)

However, I shall play your little game.

Name a PC game studio...

ACES Studios is a nice example of an in-house one. Have you seen Flight Simulator on the Xbox? No? Didn't think so.

Ensemble Studios is also an in-house developer for the PC, Halo Wars excluding.

FASA Studios is a good example, as only one of their five games under Microsoft have been Xbox exclusive, and Shadowrun was released for both.

The independent studios Big Huge Games, Blue Fang, and Gas Powered Games have all previously released titles with MSG, primarily PC games.

Bungie?

Bungie was never a PC studio. They started out on the Mac, and then switched to Xbox-exclusive games when they were acquired.

Lionhead?

Conceded.

Digital Anvil?

Between the time they were acquired and the time they were dissolved, they made two games - one for Windows and one for the Xbox. If you consider that "turning" into an Xbox developer, sure.

FASA Interactive? Ensemble?

One or two games does not make a developer. When the majority of their output is on the Xbox, that's when I consider them to have "turned into an Xbox studio".

Of course, all this completely misses the original point, which was that Games for Windows isn't killing PC gaming. Oh well.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[CronoCloud]

If it's playable with a gamepad then what's the problem. I've played C&C Red Alert both with and without the PS1 mouse, all the mouse does is make things a touch quicker, but the game is very much playable without it.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[CronoCloud]

If you had a 1600x1200 display in 1997 how much did you pay for that?

720p is 1280x720. Just got a new laptop this year, guess what resolution it is. 1280x800. Guess what the old lappie from 2003 had: 1024x768. I'd wager that 1024x768 is still the most common resolution for the average computer user.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[CronoCloud]

Consoles always catch up and seem like they're almost right there with the PC, and then they get released and the PC is already a generation ahead in video and CPU processing power, with about 2-4 times the RAM and infinitely more storage. It's never even a contest for very long, and by the time the console is halfway through its lifespan, it has long been surpassed by the PC. It retains the benefit of being a stable hardware platform though, so that can help too, but not enough to matter all that much.

But it doesn't matter that you can upgrade the PC, because for the lifetime of the console all the games made for that console will play on it. There's new PS2 games released this year. Try running a 2008 PC game on a non-upgraded PC from 2000. Yes, you can upgrade you CPU and GPU...how much did it cost you? Wouldn't you rather not have to deal with upgrades and spend more money on games or would you rather "play" benchmarks for bragging rights for your e-penis.

Designing every game to be played with a gamepad is just very limiting. It's not the optimal controller for most games, and has be shoehorned in, and all sorts of "simplifications" must be made in order to get it to work well enough. PC gamers have much more flexibility in control schemes and developers don't have to oversimplify everything because of that.

The keyboard isn't optimal either, it's not analog. Analog movement is much more intuitive than WASD. Also try playing Diablo on your PC. How long can you play before your hands tell you to quit. Now try the PS1 version. You'll be able to play a lot longer with more comfort.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[grumbel]

PC games will always be around - they will always be popular, always be cutting edge, always be present. nVidia and ATI didn't build their giant companies because PC gaming is dead.

PC games will always be around, since it is after all the only open platform and developers have to start somewhere. However I wouldn't count on the cutting edge. Crytrek wasn't all that pleased with the sales of Crysis, while non-cutting edge games like World of Warcraft or Sins of the Solar Empire sell great, Starcraft and CounterStrike also continue to be popular far beyond the point where they could be called "cutting edge". And a lot of other games come out on consoles first and PC then somewhat later, ofter badly ported, so nothing cutting-edge from that area either.

The 'cutting edge' simply doesn't seem to be an area where there is much money to be made and without money, developers will move elsewhere.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[Uberbah]

Infinite hardware combination possibilities are part of the reason PC games will always require patching.

Red herring. Developers don't have to worry about infinite combinations, they have to worry about DirectX. And even if tweaking is required, they only have to worry about ATI and Nvidia. Sloppy PC games aren't the fault of PC hardware, they're the fault of publishers who ignore serious bugs to make a release date. While consoles do have an advantage of a single hardware spec and API's, console games can't (for the most part) be patched after the fact, so serious bugs that would be shipped for a PC release are actually fixed for the console.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[Danse]

Who said anything about acquired? I certainly didn't. (I also didn't mention anything about them being in-house either.)

"Under their umbrella" is pretty vague. Seems like the studios that they acquire would best represent their goals and intentions, which is what this was about.

ACES Studios is a nice example of an in-house one. Have you seen Flight Simulator on the Xbox? No? Didn't think so.

True. Flight sims are definitely a PC niche. It could never work on the XBox. It just has a very dedicated audience.

Ensemble Studios is also an in-house developer for the PC, Halo Wars excluding.

Ensemble and FASA Interactive are both defunct now. And I realize that they were PC developers, but Microsoft was turning them into XBox developers. XBox 360 was the lead platform for them on their final games.

Bungie was never a PC studio. They started out on the Mac, and then switched to Xbox-exclusive games when they were acquired.

Traditionally, no, but Halo was originally slated for simultaneous release for Mac and Windows.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[Danse]

If by "cutting edge" we're only referring to graphics, then you may have a point. I think that part of the problem is that there's too much attention being paid to graphics and not nearly enough to actual gameplay. So we end up with a lot of pretty but very shallow games, like Bioshock. At least games like Sins try to do something different. The PC is the last bastion of innovation in gaming. Console publishers feel that every game needs to appeal to the widest possible audience, and that usually makes for lousy games.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[Danse]

But it doesn't matter that you can upgrade the PC, because for the lifetime of the console all the games made for that console will play on it.

I can play practically anything too if I don't crank up all the settings. Only if there's a very major jump in graphics quality would I likely have to upgrade in order to play a new game.

The difference between console games and PC games is that while console game graphics might improve a little over its lifespan, PC game graphics improve a lot, but you may need a hardware upgrade to take advantage of it. Or you can turn down the settings and get the same visual quality you had from the start. It's just a more flexible system.

Yes, you can upgrade you CPU and GPU...how much did it cost you? Wouldn't you rather not have to deal with upgrades and spend more money on games or would you rather "play" benchmarks for bragging rights for your e-penis.

I don't do it for bragging rights. Hell, I don't have a lot of gamer friends, so there's not really anyone to brag to. I upgrade when I want to because it will improve my gaming experience for the types of games I like. Primarily RPG or FPS, and some RTS games. Those just tend to completely suck to play with a gamepad, and RPG and FPS games especially tend to have interesting mods for them, so I prefer the PC versions anyway. Wouldn't play Oblivion without mods, ever.

The keyboard isn't optimal either, it's not analog. Analog movement is much more intuitive than WASD. Also try playing Diablo on your PC. How long can you play before your hands tell you to quit. Now try the PS1 version. You'll be able to play a lot longer with more comfort.

I played Diablo and Diablo 2 for a long time. No problems for me. As for analog movement, I have the mouse, which makes movement very smooth and intuitive, so I don't need an analog controller. It would be less precise and therefore a disadvantage. You can't tell me that all the FPS players out there would benefit from an analog controller over the current setup. When it comes to moving and aiming in those games, precision is everything.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[Danse]

Why would I want to use a finicky, imprecise controller for an RTS game? Not to mention having to play it at a lower resolution. Gamepads are fine for some types of games. RTS, FPS, and western RPGs are NOT meant to be played with gamepads. The experience sucks compared to the PC. I've tried it and I can't stand to play them with a gamepad. I spend more time compensating for the crappy controls than I do playing the game.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[Danse]

Apologies for the double-reply, but I realized that you probably didn't get my meaning about the "simplified" aspect. With that I was referring to the fact that developers tend to cut out anything that they can't make work well with a gamepad. It's why we got things like the unified ammo in DX2, and why the inventory systems tend to suck in comparison with PC games. Then there's the problem of all the stuff that they make automatic in console games. We go from Tomb-raider-esque jumping and climbing to something like Assassin's Creed where all the skill is taken out of it and you just hold down a button and point him in the right direction. If I just wanted to watch something, I'd put in a movie.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[Uberbah]

There's new PS2 games released this year.

Yeah, because there's over a hundred million PS2 systems out there.

Try running a 2008 PC game on a non-upgraded PC from 2000.

You'll get a lot farther than you will trying to run a PS3 game on a PS2. Apples to apples, please.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

You are half-correct.

I knew it was vertical resolution, but neglected to consider the wider screen ratio would imply a much larger horizontal resolution. Oops :)

Still, it also depends on how much is jammed into the game. I could run Kingpin when it first came out at 1600x1200 at around that magical 60-70 fps I talked about, and it looked wonderful.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

I had had a 19" monitor that could handle 1600x1200 before EverQuest came out. IIRC, it was about a $500 upgrade, total package about $1500.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[cbreaker]

"If you had a 1600x1200 display in 1997 how much did you pay for that?"

I think it was around $500.

"720p is 1280x720."

No shit.

"Just got a new laptop this year, guess what resolution it is. 1280x800."

I got my current notebook in March. 1920x1200.

My last notebook, from 2004: 1920x1200.

Besides, you don't go by notebook resolutions. They usually have compact, small screens. Not many LCD screens, except for the first year or so when they finally got low enough in price, were only 1024x768.

I wouldn't wager on 1024.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[CronoCloud]

I've tried it and I can't stand to play them with a gamepad. I spend more time compensating for the crappy controls than I do playing the game.

Could be you and not the controls. Takes time to develop the fine manipulation skills. PC gamers are not used to doing such tiny movements with their thumbs.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[CronoCloud]

With that I was referring to the fact that developers tend to cut out anything that they can't make work well with a gamepad. It's why we got things like the unified ammo in DX2, and why the inventory systems tend to suck in comparison with PC games.

Then why not blame the developer and not the console itself. Because there are devs who CAN make it work well. DX1 for the PS2 uses separate ammo so I don't know why the DX2 developers did what they did. They underestimate the console audience, probably like some PC gamers do.

We go from Tomb-raider-esque jumping and climbing to something like Assassin's Creed where all the skill is taken out of it and you just hold down a button and point him in the right direction. If I just wanted to watch something, I'd put in a movie.

I'll tell you why it changed...because jumping in Tomb Raider was not fun. It's difficult to judge a distances on a 2D screen which makes jumping puzzles frustrating.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[CronoCloud]

I got my current notebook in March. 1920x1200.

My last notebook, from 2004: 1920x1200.

And how much did you pay for those?

I wouldn't wager on 1024.

I would, because I checked before making the statement. 1024x768 is at 48% according to the w3. There are a LOT of people out there with older machines.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[CronoCloud]

I played Diablo and Diablo 2 for a long time. No problems for me. As for analog movement, I have the mouse, which makes movement very smooth and intuitive, so I don't need an analog controller. It would be less precise and therefore a disadvantage. You can't tell me that all the FPS players out there would benefit from an analog controller over the current setup. When it comes to moving and aiming in those games, precision is everything.

Yes, I think FPS players would benefit from analog movement replacing WASD, because analog movement is more precise. I will grant that the mouse might be easier to use for aiming for some people without the learned ability to make fine movements with their right thumbs.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[CronoCloud]

I am comparing apples to apples, because there are games that simply will not run on my old computer from 2003, let alone one from 2000. Computers from 2000, 2003, and 2008 are not a unified platform but many different ones.

You got the folks that got machines that are good enough for flash games

The folks who might be able to a current game if they turn things down

And then you got the folks like the stereotypical PC gamer with two cards that eat up two slots each, and a half a dozen loud fans who spends more time playing benchmarks for bragging points on his e-penis than playing games.

All separate platforms, just like the PS2 and PS3 are.

If the games are the most important thing, then why the big fuss over "in one year my PC will have a better GPU than the PS3"? Because too many PC gamers care more about the hardware behind games than games themselves. Sure you can turn down setting to play new games on your old hardware, but then some forum guy will say, "you're not playing the game it was meant to be played at such low settings, why play it at all. You should buy 4 Freedonia F-force f00thousand cards and put them in a SLI setup."

I don't even have to think about that. I can just pick up the game and know I'll be playing it as it's meant to be played. No muss, no fuss.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[cbreaker]

Yea, and since when were we talking about modern gaming on old machines?

Re:Great idea, and all..

[Danse]

Yes, I think FPS players would benefit from analog movement replacing WASD, because analog movement is more precise. I will grant that the mouse might be easier to use for aiming for some people without the learned ability to make fine movements with their right thumbs.

It's only more precise if the controller is set up to allow for a range of motion that facilitates that precision. Thumb knobbies just aren't designed for that. You can't make nearly as fine movements with those little sticks as you can using your fingers and the mouse.

Look at Shadowrun for example. The developers had to add auto-aim for console players, and nerf the mouse controls by throwing off aim if you make quick movements just to try to balance things between console players and PC players.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[Danse]

I'm sure I could improve with practice, but it's still an inferior control mechanism to the mouse. I think Shadowrun pretty much settled the argument. They had to give console gamers auto-aim and handicap the PC players by throwing off the accuracy of the weapons if you make quick movements. If that's what they had to do to balance things, even though they had some excellent console players, then it clearly shows that the mouse-users had a distinct advantage.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[Danse]

I'll tell you why it changed...because jumping in Tomb Raider was not fun. It's difficult to judge a distances on a 2D screen which makes jumping puzzles frustrating.

Graphics have gotten to the point where you can judge distance pretty easily. The game mechanics are already there. Just look at Tomb Raider: Legend. It has a good control scheme and you can pull off lots of cool moves. The AC devs just punted and decided to make the game do everything for you. That's what made AC so boring that I couldn't even play through the second city. It was just the same thing over and over. I kinda liked the story too, but I just couldn't bear to keep playing.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[CronoCloud]

We're not, in this subthread, you were bragging about your resolution based e-penis. And I was trying to get it through your skull that even if you had 1600x1200 in 1997 that the majority did not, and still don't. And that the most common resolution today is still 1024x768, which consoles can match or beat.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[cbreaker]

Ohh go fuck yourself and your poor sport for losing an argument.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[CronoCloud]

I'm talking about analog movement on the left stick replacing WASD. God I don't get PC gamers obsession with using the keyboard for action games and how "superior" it is. It sucked in 1983 and it sucks now. As I've said before, I'll grant you the mouse as an excellent aiming device, but never the keyboard.

How to reconcile the two? Dual shock in left hand, mouse in right. Try playing the PS2 ports of Half Life and Deus Ex that way, you'll see.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[Danse]

WASD took a while to get used to. One of the benefits is that it also frees up the thumb and little finger to do things like jump and crouch or run, which is helpful. With so many keys in close proximity, I can do all sorts of things quickly, like reloading or throwing a grenade, etc. It may not quite have the smoothness of analog, but it brings other benefits that more than compensate, IMHO. With a gamepad, I have to hold the damn pad, so I can only use two fingers and two thumbs. That's pretty limiting.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[CronoCloud]

You're forgetting the fact that with analog movement, you don't need keys for "walk slow" or "run". You also have L1, L2, L3 (when you press in the stick) and the d-pad itself (which can be used as buttons since you're not using it for movement). Look, it's hard to explain unless you've played the PS1 port of QuakeII or the PS1 game Alien Resurrection or the PS2 ports of Half Life and Deux Ex. It's a hybrid setup hold the pad just with your left hand, not with your right at all. Your right is on the PS1 mouse (or a USB mouse attached to the PS2/PS3)

Your little finger is the weakest and slowest finger on your hand, you shouldn't want to use them much. Your thumb is your strongest and most dexterous finger, you should want to use it as much as possible.

Re:Great idea, and all..

[MarkKB]

"Under their umbrella" is pretty vague. Seems like the studios that they acquire would best represent their goals and intentions, which is what this was about.

True about the vagueness. Personally, I would think that the developers MGS publishes for shows where their thinking lies. Perhaps I shoulda made that more clear.

ACES Studios is a nice example of an in-house one. Have you seen Flight Simulator on the Xbox? No? Didn't think so.

True. Flight sims are definitely a PC niche. It could never work on the XBox. It just has a very dedicated audience.

Don't think there's any technical stuff preventing it, but yes, their customers are very much entrenched on the PC.

Ensemble and FASA Interactive are both defunct now.

Ensemble is closing (read: hasn't closed yet) because of resource issues, AFAIK. Most of the core staff will form a spin-off studio which will keep ties with Microsoft, while the rest Microsoft hopes to retain at MGS.

And anyway, Digital Anvil is defunct too. You brought them up, not me.

And I realize that they were PC developers, but Microsoft was turning them into XBox developers. XBox 360 was the lead platform for them on their final games.

Was Microsoft? Bungie approached Ensemble, not MGS. Ensemble said they wanted to do it. They were the ones that pitched the idea to Microsoft. They developed the controls half a year before pitching it, specifically because console RTS games have traditionally had sucky controls. It seems that all indications are that Ensemble wanted to do this on the Xbox.

Again, one game doesn't mean they were abandoning the PC, or supporting it in a limited fashion. Maybe they would of ported AoEIV to Xbox.Next, now that they had some experience. I suspect that their main thrust would still have been on the PC.

Perhaps we should watch the new studio, see what it comes up with.

FASA Studios? I have no idea. I know Shadowrun prototypes were developed with the Halo engine, but does that indicate primarily a console focus?

Bungie was never a PC studio. They started out on the Mac, and then switched to Xbox-exclusive games when they were acquired.

Traditionally, no, but Halo was originally slated for simultaneous release for Mac and Windows.

True, but it sounds more like they were going to develop it for the Mac first, and then port it to Windows.

In any case, since they would have focused at least some of their time on making it a great experience on the Mac, it would have certainly have boosted gaming on the platform. Perhaps Microsoft was trying to kill gaming on the Mac?

Re:Great idea, and all..

[Uberbah]

I am comparing apples to apples, because there are games that simply will not run on my old computer from 2003, let alone one from 2000.

Ah, so it's double standards then. That DX10 games will not run on hardware from 2000 counts against PC's, but the fact that PS3 games wont run on a PS2 from 2000 doesn't count against the PS2.

And then you got the folks like the stereotypical PC gamer with two cards that eat up two slots each, and a half a dozen loud fans who spends more time playing benchmarks for bragging points on his e-penis than playing games.

As opposed to the Playstation fanboy with a $1000 stereo system and a 73" TV?

If the games are the most important thing, then why the big fuss over "in one year my PC will have a better GPU than the PS3"? Because too many PC gamers care more about the hardware behind games than games themselves.

No, because console fanboys always brag about how the next console will wipe PC's off the face of the map, while they're comparing current PC hardware to future console hardware, i.e. vaporware.

I can just pick up the game and know I'll be playing it as it's meant to be played. No muss, no fuss.

No fuss, no muss, and no expansion. Mods can add hundreds or even thousands of hours to a game. See: Counter-Strike, Team Fortress.

When will they learn?

[DragonTHC]

what happens if someone wants to do a policy where there's CD copy protection, but after the first month [consumers] can download a patch that gets rid of it. So obviously that's a perfectly good solution too, but our thing eliminates the ability to do that."

That CD copy protection doesn't even work. The game gets pirated before it's released!

These companies are just fucking stupid. SOMEONE IN YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN IS STEALING FROM YOU! Why punish us?

Where do games go after they get mastered? Keep a closer eye on that.

Re:When will they learn?

[MaineCoon]

There was a study done by a major publisher that tracked sales vs when a functional crack was released.

The first week is key; after first week/two weeks of sales, they drop off in general. Additionally, it was proven that when a crack is released, sales will drop off right away.

Games that did not have working cracked versions in the first week or so, saw more overall sales than those that got cracked quickly.

The prevalance of the cracked version on torrents would also correspond to drops in sales - the more quickly a a game became widesread torrented, the quicker the sales dropped off.

Re:When will they learn?

[mikenator.L]

I'll agree there. Also, even if the supply chain is safe from pirating, still there's plenty out there who are just itching to crack these games and develop generators. No ones gonna be able to stop pirating, more security = more challenges. Sadly alot of legitimate gamers are gonna take hits from retaliation.

Re:When will they learn?

[weirdcrashingnoises]

There is more to it than that though... take Bioshock for instance, that game got slammed again and again, especially here on slashdot, i can't even count the number of people who said "i won't buy it because makes you connect online when you install and keeps track of your installs" but then at the same time it really did take weeks for a *WORKING* crack to appear for the game. well the game was up right away but a real crack to you know, actually play the game took at least a full week if not longer, and even then it got proper'd like 3x till some group final got it right.

now bioshock did have strong sales (along with high ratings) but could it have been better, if they hadn't included an online-connect-at-install part?

i dunno, i bought the game and later on i torrented it also so that i could have an "easy install" version just in case.. never really needed it tho.

opinions?

Re:When will they learn?

[Anonymous Coward]

i'd bet 10$ that SPORE outsells Bioshock, even with all it's even-more-omg-drm-sucks messages and despite it being cracked a full 4 days before it was released.

Re:When will they learn?

[MaineCoon]

And they raised, and eventually eliminated the install limits (though apparently not for a year, since it was a strong seller for a while).

Re:When will they learn?

[Jorophose]

Because Sims was good, and so is Spore.

It's just some people don't like some kinds of good.

Personally, if there is a patch that will disable DRM, I will buy the game, if not, I will likely download or get it from a friend and then later buy it. If only because EA are maggots. It's too bad you can't just send 30$ addressed to Will Wright and say thanks for the game.

Re:When will they learn?

[CronoCloud]

Don't use mods! It encourages PC developers to slack off! There's no incentive for them to actually "finish" the game or design good UI if they know that some modder out there will do the job for them that they should be doing themselves.

My suggestion

[FoolsGold]

Ideally? Get rid of DRM. It NEVER benefits the consumer, and the pirate copies have it removed anyway.

If you HAVE to use DRM because the old farts who run these companies insist on it, have the game hosted on something like Steam or GameTap.

If you do decide to go the Steam route, don't incorporate further DRM on top of the Steam version of the game (I'm looking at you, BioShock).

Re:My suggestion

[Anonymous Coward]

What happens when Steam or GameTap go out of business?

Re:My suggestion

[Atriqus]

Well, Valve has already announced their contingency plan: if they're on the way out, they'll release a final patch to steam that disables the phoning home.

Re:My suggestion

[Anonymous Coward]

If you do decide to go the Steam route

That's exactly the route Stardock is taking.

Which is why I wont be buying any more Stardock games.

They pulled a nice bait-and-switch with Sins. If you want the latest patches, they make you install Impulse.

Re:My suggestion

[Minozake]

No, no, no! Fuck Steam.

I'd RATHER have some annoying DRM short of malware that allows me to do what I
want with the software I have on my hard drives. I've had nothing but bad
experiences with Steam, and I don't want to continue them ever again.

Re:My suggestion

[Jafafa Hots]

Well, Valve has already announced their contingency plan: if they're on the way out, they'll release a final patch to steam that disables the phoning home.

Yeah, and companies that are going out of business are always able to see it ahead of time, wrap things up neatly and wind the business down gracefully. They're always able to implement their "going out of business scenario."

It never happens that things just spiral out of control and one day they find that their creditors have locked the doors.

Re:My suggestion

[SanityInAnarchy]

I'd feel a lot better if that patch existed, somewhere in escrow, in case that happened.

But honestly, it's a compromise I can live with. Steam doesn't force me to keep track of a CD, doesn't fuck up my computer, and does let me re-download the game as often as I like, on as many computers as I like.

Re:My suggestion

[SWCommand]

And yet you don't have to have it installed to play the game it doesn't need to be running to play the game all it does it update your game. Now it can do a lot more then that but it isn't going to try to force you to use it. Your game/app is updated, you install impulse update and then uninstall it. It is as simple as that. But if you lose the disk you can always install it and download your game, as long as you registered it with them you can download it from them.

Truth be told it was never meant to be a "bait-and-switch" impulse just was not ready at the time. When it was ready they tried to move everyone over to it. Was it a smooth roll out? Not exactly but from what they have told us it was a lot smoother then StarDock Central's roll out.

Re:My suggestion

[jaxtherat]

What about Troika? Even after they went out of business the developers kept releasing patches for VTM.

It's very easy to beat the drum of 'ZOMFG we're all fucked', but there have been examples where even in dire circumstances a company (or rather, it's staff) did the honourable thing.

Re:My suggestion

[0123456]

"Lets face it, the reason the companies are employing DRM is because (most, not all) gamers fucked them over and forced their hand by just greedily pirating everything we could get out hands on."

When I was a kid in the 80s, pretty much everyone in my school who owned a computer pirated games, and all the fancy DRM scams they used were broken by ten-year-olds in their bedrooms; after trying more and more intrusive DRM scams, eventually the distributors gave up because it simply did not work, and games were released for years with no DRM at all.

DRM is 'sowed' by retarded control-freak publishers who have no clue about technology and don't care how much they screw their customers; piracy has little to do with it. Which is fortunate, because the ten-year-olds are still cracking DRM scams almost as soon as they're released.

Re:My suggestion

[CronoCloud]

Back in the 80's they also stopped developing on platforms that high percentage of pirating. I remember reading interviews at the time with devs that said they dropped Amiga/ST/C64 support and went entirely DOS/X86 because of the massive piracy in the cheaper platforms.

Re:My suggestion

[tibman]

I'm a fan of Valve in general. I bought Half-Life when it was under the Sierra flag and everyone knew it was basically ID's Quake engine. Look how far Valve has come. Steam was a terrible mess in the beginning but they didn't lie about that, they explained why things were broken and told the community what they were fixing/improving. They said they would make TeamFortress 2, which at the time was unbelievable. It took them forever but damn did they do a great job. They honestly seem like a good gaming company.

But you could certainly be right.. it's possible that Valve would collapse before releasing a patch that disables the need to Auth and so forth. But i'd like to think someone would strike up the band as the ship is sinking for one final song.

Re:My suggestion

[jaxtherat]

I'm not saying DRM is a successful method of preventing piracy, but instead that it is a typical knee jerk reaction of (as you quite accurately, if cynically called them) retarded control-freak publishers who are freaking out and losing revenue through piracy.

On the other hand, how do you go about convincing dumbass board members and investors (who often only care about the bottom line) that you're not going to do anything about piracy, and that it won't hurt the bottom line to do so?

I can understand how piracy helps companies like microsoft, as all you're doing by pirating windows is increasing their market penetration, but how about small/medium sized developers who don't have the market power of say EA? How do they remain competitive if their already meagre sales (Troika or Majesco anyone?) are hammered by piracy?

I'm not saying the situation is awesome, but neither am I agreeing that this is something that we're not responsible for (as gamers who pirated).

Re:My suggestion

[tibman]

When Steam first came out it was horrible, hah. I say that with love though. I remember going to a 200+ person lan party a little after converting to Steam. The host didn't think of needing an external connection for Steam auth, let alone Steam downloading updates. Charlie Fox right there.

Also the internet back then wasn't what it is now. Downloading a Gig took forever. So Steam would convert your existing Half-Life install and then patch/update from there.

The Friends thing didn't work.. at all.. ever.

VAC sucked balls at first too. Cheaters everywhere.

But like most things Valve makes.. they fixed their mistakes and listened to customer complaints.

Re:My suggestion

[jaxtherat]

But you can't refund retail PC games either (at EB or Game in Australia, where I shop), so for me the inability to refund is unavoidable either way.

Do you know the reason they don't let you refund PC games? You guessed it: piracy.

Console games on the other hand, are fine O_o.

Re:My suggestion

[mcvos]

What about Troika? Even after they went out of business the developers kept releasing patches for VTM.

They did? I'm aware of only one official patch, and tons of fan-made bugfix patches.

Re:My suggestion

[mcvos]

That's exactly the route Stardock is taking.

I can't find anything about a change in direction with Impulse. As far as I can tell, it's just their old Stardock Central under a new name, which means it's only needed to install updates, not to actually run the game. Basically it does stuff for you without getting in your way. At least, that's what it sounds like to me. I've never used Impulse, only Stardock Central.

They pulled a nice bait-and-switch with Sins. If you want the latest patches, they make you install Impulse.

If you want patches, yes. Not to play the game itself. How exactly is that a problem?

Re:My suggestion

[makomk]

And in a few years time, when Stardock have gone out of business, Impulse have shut down, and there's no way to get the patches required to make the games actually playable/run on modern hardware/whatever anymore because they were never released as standalone patches? Basically, people who'd paid real money for the game won't be able to play the latest patched version, because the patches don't exist anymore since there was no way to save a copy of them.

Re:My suggestion

[Grym]

I can understand how piracy helps companies like microsoft, as all you're doing by pirating windows is increasing their market penetration, but how about small/medium sized developers who don't have the market power of say EA? How do they remain competitive if their already meagre sales (Troika or Majesco anyone?) are hammered by piracy?

May I direct your attention to Tribes? Tribes 1 was created by Dynamix (now known as Sierra) a medium/small development house which found themselves in exactly the situation you describe. Tribes 1 was pirated left and right and the end result was that a relatively unknown game eventually had a very large dynamic, thriving community of players and player-created content. So, what did they do? They followed Tribes 1 up with with a Triple-A title, Tribes 2 and made a chunk of change.

-Grym

Re:My suggestion

[crossmr]

It does, gamecopyworld...

Re:My suggestion

[Half-pint HAL]

That's a bit short-sighted because Amiga & PC 3.5" disks were functionally identical, as were early CD-ROMs. How was piracy less likely on a PC than an Amiga? I can only think of one reason: smaller market to start off with.

Madness.

HAL.

Re:My suggestion

[Kattspya]

It's possible to download all current patches to SOASE from BT. They seem to be ordinary .exe's.

Re:My suggestion

[Sj0]

It's just like consoles though; The Xbox and Xbox 360 are ridiculously easy to hack. It's an order of magnitude easier than hacking even the most basic CD check protection on the PC.

Re:My suggestion

[g0bshiTe]

Ever stop to think that Valve may already have this patch ready?

Re:My suggestion

[ucblockhead]

If Loki Games can still have a patch page up, I'm sure Valve can manage.

Re:My suggestion

[GleeBot]

I'd feel a lot better if that patch existed, somewhere in escrow, in case that happened.

I'm pretty sure game developers don't need to have the CD in the drive in order to develop the game. Adding DRM to the binary is something that happens after, not before, the build is complete.

Re:My suggestion

[Kalriath]

You obviously missed the fiasco where Valve actually retroactively revoked a particular game on some buyers because it was purchased in the wrong territory (which is to say, people objected to paying 4X the price, and brought from a cheaper region, so Valve revoked the game and they paid for a coaster).

Fuck Steam.

Re:My suggestion

[mcvos]

If you want to play against anyone else you must have the same patch version.

Stardock effectively disabled the online portion of the game for anyone unable/unwilling to install Impulse.

Why exactly is that a problem? What does Impulse do that's so terrible? Would it have been less bad when it's the game itself that checks for updates, rather than relying on a seperate program for that?

Re:My suggestion

[SanityInAnarchy]

What part of that counters my suggestion?

Fine, we can be technical -- I'd feel better if they put their source code in escrow. Or a compiled version that's not encumbered.

Solution is simple :

[unity100]

Get the annoying f@cktards we call 'publishers' out of the way

Re:Solution is simple :

[tygt]

Get the annoying f@cktards we call 'publishers' out of the way

Facktards?

Hmmm... I'm just not keeping up any more..... almost sounds like someone too retarded to use a faq but still......

Whatever.

[Creepy Crawler]

1. Gamers shall have the right to return games that don't work with their computers for a full refund.

Try taking the box store to court for not providing basic fitness. Guess what? The business is willing to "deal with you".

      2. Gamers shall have the right to demand that games be released in a finished state.

Definition of finished? Perhaps they want mathematically proven code? I'd rather have a continual ladder of bugfixes and more content.

      3. Gamers shall have the right to expect meaningful updates after a game's release.

Conflicts with #2.

      4. Gamers shall have the right to demand that download managers and updaters not force themselves to run or be forced to load in order to play a game.

How about: Dont include updates that remove features.

      5. Gamers shall have the right to expect that the minimum requirements for a game will mean that the game will adequately play on that computer.

If people had the balls to sue, they could do so under truth in advertising clauses.

      6. Gamers shall have the right to expect that games won't install hidden drivers or other potentially harmful software without their express consent.

Companies that do so should be prosecuted under the fullest extent of the law.

      7. Gamers shall have the right to re-download the latest versions of the games they own at any time.
      8. Gamers shall have the right to not be treated as potential criminals by developers or publishers.
      9. Gamers shall have the right to demand that a single-player game not force them to be connected to the Internet every time they wish to play.
    10. Gamers shall have the right that games which are installed to the hard drive shall not require a CD/DVD to remain in the drive to play.

All fixed by using the ThePirateBay images backed up with the appropriate cracks and servers. The crackers crack the software so you have no hassle. Why pay fo it when you are treated ike a criminal anyway. Might as well live up to the ideal.

Re:Whatever.

[Darkness404]

The main problem I see is with companies advertising software for the "PC" or just plain "Home computer"

And by PC they don't mean the standard definition of PC such as

A) Uses an x86 CPU
B) Is an IBM compatible computer that runs DOS
or even C) A computer used by 1 person at a time.

But rather it becomes A computer running Windows XP or higher with 512 MB of RAM, and a good graphics card.

Re:Whatever.

[SanityInAnarchy]

Try taking the box store to court for not providing basic fitness.

Isn't that in the shrink-wrap license, though? I know just about every piece of software I've ever used disclaims itself from fitness for a purpose.

Definition of finished?

Might be better to give an example of "not finished" -- I believe the Unreal Tournament 2003 Linux installer had a blatant bug where it would ask for the wrong disc.

So, maybe "finished" as in "at least one actual test by an actual person". Or "contains no game-breaking bugs" -- nothing sucks more than a game which autosaves yours in an unwinnable state. (Jak II on the PS2 did this, I think -- somewhat worse, for a console game.)

Conflicts with #2.

Not really. A game can be playable, and reasonably solid and complete, yet still have bugs which will only be discovered when millions of people hammer it, and still have things to add.

Example: Half-Life 2 was complete. Maybe not at release, but certainly before my example -- Lost Coast. Major engine upgrade (HDR), and a whole level which was cut from the original game (think "deleted scene"). And more recently, various Counter-Strike levels (and probably a fair amount of HL2 itself) have gotten the HDR treatment.

Now, that's more than I think gamers should demand, but I certainly wouldn't expect to have to pay for that upgrade.

A more extreme example: Support new OSes, or open source it. Quake got ported to Windows, at least (as glQuake, if I remember). Doom was never ported by id, but it got old enough that we got the source, and fans have ported it to everything.

I'm not saying it has to be Certified for Vista or whatever, but it shouldn't become abandonware, and I shouldn't have to fire up a 10-year-old computer in order to play it.

How about: Dont include updates that remove features.

Not going to happen. Maybe don't include updates that break features, though...

All fixed by using the ThePirateBay images backed up with the appropriate cracks and servers.

Or by finding companies which actually follow these rules. Stardock is one.

Re:Whatever.

[spf]

3. Gamers shall have the right to expect meaningful updates after a game's release.

Conflicts with #2.

How so? Games in a "finished state" can still receive patches with minor bug fixes and new levels/features. For example, take a look at some of the Diablo II patches http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?articleId=21358. I don't remember any major issues with the unpatched version, but some of the patches seem to add interesting new functionality. For sports games this may mean roster updates for x number of years after the release, though I doubt companies would really put much effort into that.

7. Gamers shall have the right to re-download the latest versions of the games they own at any time.

8. Gamers shall have the right to not be treated as potential criminals by developers or publishers.

9. Gamers shall have the right to demand that a single-player game not force them to be connected to the Internet every time they wish to play.

10. Gamers shall have the right that games which are installed to the hard drive shall not require a CD/DVD to remain in the drive to play.

All fixed by using the ThePirateBay images backed up with the appropriate cracks and servers. The crackers crack the software so you have no hassle. Why pay fo it when you are treated ike a criminal anyway. Might as well live up to the ideal.

The whole point of the Gamer's Bill of Rights is so that you DON'T have to illegally download and crack a game to enjoy it without the negative effects of copy protection. It sounds like you'd rather break the law than shell out $50 for a game anyway. The reason you should pay for it is because it's being sold, not given away for free by the company.

Re:Whatever.

[Creepy Crawler]

---Isn't that in the shrink-wrap license, though? I know just about every piece of software I've ever used disclaims itself from fitness for a purpose.

I dont care what some stuffy license says. Try telling a judge that.

User: "Yer honor, I bought this game, and it wont even run right. I took it to Geek Squad and they said it put some spyware called Secure Rom on it. I want my money back, my time, and court fees."

Game Company: "Judge, our contract stipulates that our software is not guaranteed fitness"

Judge: "So why's it 50$ if you say its worthless? It evidently has worth, and has fitness. After all, you set the price, and claim it is a game. Judgment for Plantiff."

Re:Whatever.

[hedwards]

Umm, that's been a reasonable expectation for quite a while now. My current rig is capable of running Win XP and has 2gb of ram. If I were to add the DVD burner, hard disk cost and license for Win XP, I'd still have spent less than $400 on the whole thing.

And it's going to be more than enough for any game with that level of requirements. You're not going to have too much trouble doing the same thing with an out of the box name brand PC either.

Re:Whatever.

[Sycraft-fu]

Shrink wrap licenses don't hold any weight. They fail at pretty much everything required of a contract (ex post facto, no exchange, no negotiation, etc). What's more, even if they are considered to be contracts, they still can have unenforceable sections. There are plenty of things that a contract can't do. You can't sign yourself in to slavery, for example. Well, you'll find that in basically all countries, you can't disclaim basic fitness of a product. If you sell something as, say, a flashlight and it then turns out the device will provide no light, well you have to repair/replace/refund it. You can't say "Sorry, there was a shrink wrap license that said this thing isn't guaranteed to to anything at all so you are SOL." No, you presented it as a light, it needs to make light.

Same deal with software. They cannot, of course, guarantee that it'll work on a given system, in a given environment or for a given purpose. However, if it indeed doesn't work, they really don't have an option but to issue a refund. Consumers are not without substantial rights. While stores/publishers try to say "No, you can't do it," if push came to shove, you'd find a court would almost certainly side with the consumer. A consumer demanding that a company be forced to make their product work on the consumer's computer would be told to get lost, there is no guarantee that says it will. However a consumer trying to just get their money back for a product that doesn't is going to get their money back.

Re:Whatever.

[Creepy Crawler]

OK. Here's my rule I follow.

If you TREAT me like a criminal, and the criminal gets better service than the paying customer, I will be the criminal. If you can give me a good reason why I should deal with sub-standard service whilst paying for it, I will buy it.

If you treat me equally as good as the pirates do, and do not burden me with anti-user technologies, I will buy and recommend it to others.

Also in lan parties: I WILL share it, regardless of cracks, protections, serials, or any other matter. We will play YOUR game. Now, you can win us over by allowing a multiplayer-spawn like Total Annihilation did. 1 legit could "host" 3 machines.

Multiplayer spawn means I dont need to share CD images over SMB.
No multiplayer-spawn means everybody gets a "free copy".

Go ahead. Stop us.
Thing is.. We're your customer.

Re:Whatever.

[Daetrin]

"OK. Here's my rule I follow.

If you TREAT me like a criminal, and the criminal gets better service than the paying customer, I will be the criminal. If you can give me a good reason why I should deal with sub-standard service whilst paying for it, I will buy it.

If you treat me equally as good as the pirates do, and do not burden me with anti-user technologies, I will buy and recommend it to others."

Okay fine, now stop complaining about the guy who's trying to convince the other publishers to stop treating you/us like criminals and provide a decent service. He's trying to accomplish what you claim you want.

Lets see...

[Darkness404]

Develop

A) Cross-platform games
B) Get rid of the insane DRM, if you want a CD serial key thats fine as they are easily cracked later in its lifetime, but don't activate it online (with the exception of say, a MMORPG)
C) Develop for a generation before, don't develop a game for quad-core CPUs and dual video cards, develop for a generation before the current generation. Optimize for multiple CPUs and video cards all you want, but I won't upgrade my graphics card/RAM just to play a game.

Re:Lets see...

[SanityInAnarchy]

Cross-platform games

Yes, please. Double-win for the gamer -- I can play it on Linux, and more platforms means more ways for it to break, so it should have fewer bugs even on its main platform by release. With the state of the industry now, just about any reduction in bugs is a win.

if you want a CD serial key thats fine as they are easily cracked later in its lifetime, but don't activate it online

I can live with activation online, as long as it's not constant. I'm going to be online when I install, since I need patches then, and since I'm probably downloading it anyway. I'm not going to be online every time I play.

Develop for a generation before,

No, no, a thousand times no. In fact, if you want your game to last, develop for a generation from now. But to do that with any measure of sanity, it needs to be scalable -- and if you've done a half-decent job of that, it should scale back to a generation ago.

See:
  - Half-Life 2 (plays on ludicrously cheap hardware, but Valve keeps patching it with new stuff like HDR)
  - Doom 3 (required damned good hardware for the time to even play, but you could tweak it to run on a Voodoo3 -- and came with modes which crawled, due to sheer lack of video RAM, even on the biggest card at the time.)

Counterexample:
  - Crysis (need I say more? Barely ran on top-of-the-line hardware at the time. Didn't scale down well at all.)
  - Introversion games (ok, Darwinia does look cool, so I'm not saying they shouldn't do that -- worth mentioning that it won't ever look better than it does now, though.)
  - Starcraft (deliberately low-res for the time, and with almost entirely raster graphics, no way for it to look better until Starcraft II)

Re:Lets see...

[hedwards]

Yes, please. Double-win for the gamer -- I can play it on Linux, and more platforms means more ways for it to break, so it should have fewer bugs even on its main platform by release. With the state of the industry now, just about any reduction in bugs is a win.

Unlikely, the most likely way to do that would be to develop a set of cross platform libraries and then just use those to develop the games in.

While, it's not an easy task to write libraries that work properly and efficiently across multiple platforms it's a hell of a lot easier than doing it a huge number of times for each new game that comes along.

It would probably end up being something like either the JavaVM or possibly Winelib. Definitely not going to find more bugs by doing it, just add cost to the project. The only additional problems would be from the local implementation being buggy.

Re:Lets see...

[SanityInAnarchy]

Unlikely, the most likely way to do that would be to develop a set of cross platform libraries and then just use those to develop the games in.

Which promotes proper abstraction in the game engine, and still has a chance to expose assumptions you've made (unknowingly) about the way a certain compiler, OS, or CPU architecture operates -- assumptions that might change.

And those are just the obvious ones. Sometimes, there's a real bug which simply occurs more often on another platform.

It would probably end up being something like either the JavaVM or possibly Winelib.

Already exists, somewhat, in the form of OpenGL and SDL -- and that's a hell of a lot better than Winelib, at least.

Of course, the JVM would be a more thorough approach...

Re:Lets see...

[SirSlud]

Saying Starcraft is a counter example is silly. People *still* play it in droves, and it still looks good. With the DS still trucking on with tons of essentially 2d games and even consoles having some (Metal Slug 7, Megaman), the game may not get better looking with newer hardware, but if it looks good to start with, who cares?

And Crysis didn't scale that poorly. Introversion games may never look better but still looks awesome .. now that is a great example of art direction working with limited work resources to create something truly awesome looking.

To make up for those disagreements, I can't agree more with you on Valve's Source engine - it does scale very very nicely, and while its never accused of being the best looking engine, it can look really nice and they do manage to update older games with newer asset-independent rendering features.

As for cross platform, Linux is still going to be last on the list for reasonable reasons. One major problem is that as much as people (and even developers like myself) love to bitch about Microsoft, DirectX stomps OpenGL in current day form, and that buys you 90% of the cross-platform that is PC and XBox, keeping in mind that they are two different platforms unless you wanna get religious about it. Developing games for the PS3 (or PSP) and the Wii, you are pretty much forced into CodeWarrior .. its the kind of IDE that makes you want to stick forks in your eyes.

I think its telling that developers realize doing a game thats cross platform for the 360 (and lets say PC as well) and the PS3 is hard enough, the Wii would be your next target, and then OSX and then Linux. Maybe you think its unfair to bring in consoles to what appears to be a PC gaming discussion, but saving PC gaming involves saving PC gaming - it does not imply that you don't release on consoles as well because the business decision is why release on Linux if you've already got a DirectX-friendly abstraction layer that can get you on the 360 as well?

Lastly, I was a former FreeBSD programmer myself, so please don't assume I don't realize how kickass Linux and *BSDs are. Linux kicks serious ass, but in so far as gaming developer support, MS holds all the cards - Visual Studio and DirectX arn't quite the utter pieces of shit that the OS is, and if you wanna program a generation into the future, OpenGL is trailing developer expectations while MS has been much more consistent with regards to their announcements of whats coming up. If you wanna game on a PC, as much as I am loathe to say it, I don't see Windows being threatened anytime soon in the gaming market. And I don't think that's a function of the buyers, I think it's more of a function of the creators.

Re:Lets see...

[SanityInAnarchy]

Saying Starcraft is a counter example is silly. People *still* play it in droves,

Yes. People also play Doom, Pong, and Solitaire, in droves. What's your point?

and it still looks good.

Respectfully, no it doesn't. It looks no better than it did at the time.

the game may not get better looking with newer hardware, but if it looks good to start with, who cares?

Well, you're right -- it looks exactly as good as it did to start with.

I cite it as a counterexample, because you know what? No game can look worse now than when it started. But because Starcraft looks exactly the same, it also means that other games look better.

As for cross platform, Linux is still going to be last on the list for reasonable reasons.

Fair enough -- yet for most games which would bother to make a Mac port, I don't see Linux as a major hurdle. They already had to make it OpenGL to make it play well on the Mac -- that's most of the work right there. Unless they somehow made it stupidly dependent on Cocoa, Linux would barely be a recompile from that.

DirectX stomps OpenGL in current day form, and that buys you 90% of the cross-platform that is PC and XBox

It doesn't buy you the 360, not entirely. If it does, I count the PS3 and the Wii for OpenGL.

And you're not comparing apples to apples. I don't think Direct3D is any better than OpenGL. DirectX is better, because it does more than just graphics -- so the fair comparison would be DirectX vs SDL.

And given how well UT2004 does, I think a good game engine should be able to switch between the two, without too much trouble.

Visual Studio and DirectX arn't quite the utter pieces of shit that the OS is,

True enough. But having used both Visual Studio and Eclipse, I'm not sure I would want Visual Studio back.

I don't see Windows being threatened anytime soon in the gaming market.

True. But it doesn't make a Linux/BSD port any less cool. (That's most of the reason I impulse-bought the Penny Arcade game.)

And remember Doom 3? Pushed GL ahead by at least a year from where it was, I imagine. Most developers insist on DirectX, true, but it only takes one big game to make the manufacturers start to get their shit together.

Lastly:

if you wanna program a generation into the future, OpenGL is trailing developer expectations while MS has been much more consistent with regards to their announcements of whats coming up.

If you wanna program a generation into the future, it doesn't matter -- you need both, and more. You need your engine to be so rock solid and agile that if Intel suddenly makes a cheap 500-core card that speaks x86, you'll be able to render on it before GL or DirectX.

Granted, that's a bit aggressive, but I know how poorly game engines have done, traditionally -- game development in particular tends to lag years behind the rest of the world, mostly because of performance hacks to squeeze out another couple frames per second.

I'm not entirely sure if the modern GL ports of Doom even use less CPU than the purely-software renderer Doom came with. But that kind of shows the endgame of an overly-optimized engine -- how many modern features could we actually add to the original Doom? Ramps, even? We have enough CPU now to run probably hundreds of instances of Doom on a single machine, so the optimizations no longer matter, but the lack of features and portability does -- I imagine much of the "porting" is taking old assembly routines and rewriting them in C.

Blech. I'm rambling, and it's 4 AM. Sorry to be so abrupt... Let me know what you think.

Re:Lets see...

[Aladrin]

I think Introversion is a bad counterexample. The graphics were never the draw of their games, the gameplay was. They all scale as much as they need to: Not at all.

The rest is not as simple as you make it sound. The limits for graphics quality aren't just set by what the hardware can handle. Most people know a game from 2000 (or before) won't look great (compared to today's games) because of the hardware upgrades. But you also have to take other things into consideration, such as the size of the media. It was not acceptable to have 4GB of graphics and video back then any more than it would be acceptable to have 40GB now. Having to install 10 DVDs to play a game is just not an option. The best you can hope for is to add new 'stuff like HDR', which applies to everything.

In addition, new 'stuff like HDR' is being invented all the time. Scaling for the future is almost impossible... Scaling for the past is pretty much all you can hope for. Scaling for more than a couple years in the future is impossible to predict, and it takes at least that long to make the game. They're lucky to have it scaled to the present.

Personally, I think it's a waste of time and they'd be better off concentrating on new products instead.

Re:Lets see...

[Tim C]

Doom 3 (required damned good hardware for the time to even play, but you could tweak it to run on a Voodoo3 -- and came with modes which crawled, due to sheer lack of video RAM, even on the biggest card at the time.)
Crysis (need I say more? Barely ran on top-of-the-line hardware at the time. Didn't scale down well at all.)

Both of those games - and especially Crysis - are essentially tech demos for the engine. Same goes for UT3; they're designed to get people licencing the engine. Given that games take time to develop even with an off the shelf engine, you need something that will look good when you finally release in 12-18months time.

Re:Lets see...

[geminidomino]

I cite it as a counterexample, because you know what? No game can look worse now than when it started.

Not true, actually. See Final Fantasy VIII PC port on Nvidia GPUs. Apparently at released, it used an "undocumented feature" of the GPUs which was fixed in later versions of the drivers, including the current set for current cards (that the old drivers do not support and cannot be used for).

Completely unplayable now. :(

Re:Lets see...

[SanityInAnarchy]

The graphics were never the draw of their games, the gameplay was.

The same is true of Portal, but it will scale (somewhat) with the hardware.

They all scale as much as they need to: Not at all.

To be fair, Introversion scales more than Starcraft.

But you also have to take other things into consideration, such as the size of the media. It was not acceptable to have 4GB of graphics and video back then any more than it would be acceptable to have 40GB now. Having to install 10 DVDs to play a game is just not an option.

Procedural generation solves much of that problem -- if it's actually a problem.

Because there are games now that take 40 gigs.

In addition, new 'stuff like HDR' is being invented all the time. Scaling for the future is almost impossible...

Not really.

Granted, HDR would've been very difficult to do, if you hadn't known about it ahead of time -- you wouldn't know that you needed to get a special camera, or design the textures a certain way, so as to preserve all of the information beyond the visible spectrum.

However, what you can do is, always keep full-resolution original copies of everything, including models. Model things with insanely more detail than you need -- I would even say, use curves for everything, don't touch triangles -- then let a machine scale it back to match current hardware. (That is: Don't have someone paint your box art. Make it an actual in-game render, just one that won't be possible to do in real time for ten years or so.)

And you can make your engine modular enough that when something new like that does come along, you can add it. Half-Life 2 is pretty much continued development from Half-Life, which includes code from Quake (or was it QuakeWorld or something?), yet it has modern things like HDR. Over ten years of development, and they don't have to do a complete rewrite to add it.

(Educated guess -- it's possible they ditched the entire thing and started over, five years in, but I doubt it. I suspect it was done incrementally -- over time, individual pieces may have been rewritten so that little of the original Quake code remains, but if so, that only proves my point.)

Thank god for brad wardell...

[blahplusplus]

It's about time business's (and customers) re-established good will over mindless abuse of one another.

The "/." Solution is simple :

[Ostracus]

"Get the annoying f@cktards we call 'publishers' out of the way"

You mean the people who pay the bills? How's that suppose to work?

Re:The "/." Solution is simple :

[0123456]

"You mean the people who pay the bills? How's that suppose to work?"

Publishers don't pay the bills; game players do. Publishers may fund development, but at the end of the day the people who pay for it are the ones who buy the games.... the people who the publishers are screwing over by shipping buggy beta-quality games with intrusive DRM, to the point where at least some of us have simply stopped buying the games whose development they're funding.

Obviously many companies would struggle to raise funding without publishers, but there has to be a better business model than having developers funded by people who hate games and gamers and just want to rush some overhyped crap out the door.

Re:The "/." Solution is simple :

[SanityInAnarchy]

Get some investors who have balls, then. Or find a better publisher.

The publisher ultimately doesn't pay the bills. They put money down initially, which they expect to make back when the gamers pay the bills.

Which means, ultimately, the least replaceable part of their job is essentially either a loan or an investment.

I don't think the games themselves really need much help, once they're made. In fact, if a game was made using this system -- a full-on, triple-A production (or whatever you call it) -- but without all the traditional advertising channels... Don't you think Slashdot would pick it up right away?

Eat your own dogfood, Brad.

[Awptimus Prime]

If anyone wander's on over to Stardock's website, you will find they have a return policy, but it's got all kinds of ugly exceptions.

I think they should really consider having the same policies as he is demanding of the gaming industry.

Pot.. Kettle.. Black..

Honestly, I really do not like to say it, but I am thinking if any anti-DRM movement sprung up effective enough to get traction, companies would likely consider console-only release, rather than face the "risk" associated with releasing for a PC-- no matter the real costs vs unreasonable fear.. Regardless of who says they are "interested" in front of the press.

Re:Eat your own dogfood, Brad.

[kfx]

Where are you getting that from?

We've offered to buy back *retail* copies of Political Machine 2008 if it didn't run on someone's machine, since it was released early this summer.

Got an issue with a direct-download game that's keeping you from playing it and support can't get you fixed up? Full refund. Yes, that's right, a refund on a download, and you've got three months to figure out if you need one. That part's not a new policy at all.

That there is right #1, already in action well before the gamer's bill of rights was announced.

Dangerous.

[SanityInAnarchy]

I think that policy is a fine policy, assuming that the copy protection was at least risk-free -- that is, assuming that if you bought the game legitimately, if it didn't work, you could just upgrade with a patch in a month, and the protection is gone.

Well, it's not risk-free.

Some of these CD schemes, in particular, have actually installed drivers which screw up things like DVD burning. Some have installed rootkits. There's really no way for a gamer to know that it's completely gone -- and if there was a bug in it, there's no way to know that we could completely remove it.

Parent has a point, though:

The reason you should remove CD copy protection from your game is that it doesn't work -- at all, ever, the game's cracked before release, and people can make perfect copies.

The second reason is that CD copy protection can be so intrusive as to drive legitimate customers to piracy -- which means that it has to have a significant benefit to justify that risk. It doesn't.

So, if CD copy protection is such a clear net loss, what's the point? Why would you want to only shoot yourself in the foot for a month, instead of, say, not shooting yourself in the fucking foot?

Re:Dangerous.

[KGIII]

I guess I'm the oddball here but the thinking that I had was that they'd have to maintain some sort of CD copy protection. If they did that then they *might* be able to justify getting rid of the no return policy. The percentage of people who would buy a game, copy it, and then return it for a refund or an exchange is probably so high that they are afraid to do these things.

The reality is that there are plenty of tools out there that will enable you to copy most any disc on the market. Easily.

So I see both sides. Legit users are buying and maybe even making a backup copy. Illegal uses are easy, sometimes easier, and sometimes have greater benefits even to those who purchased the game.

These statutes don't seem likely to save anything. Unlike small companies the major releases are owned by corporations who are beholden to the almighty dollar. But, well, I digress...

I'm thinking a compromise would be in order... Maybe no DRM other than copy protection (one type of DRM) and a return policy. Maybe a return -33% restocking fee, no return on bargain prices.

Re:Dangerous.

[SanityInAnarchy]

The percentage of people who would buy a game, copy it, and then return it for a refund or an exchange is probably so high that they are afraid to do these things.

RTFA. Bascially: Stardock measured an increase in sales when they added refunds, and not that many people bothered to return it.

I suppose there would have to be a point at which you start dealing with abuse, but keep in mind -- most people who want to pirate the game know about BitTorrent. The people who actually bought the game are, mostly, legitimate customers.

I'm thinking a compromise would be in order...

Well, I believe it does allow for the scheme Greenhouse (Penny Arcade) uses -- interestingly, also the scheme Windows XP uses, which was so controversial at the time -- where it phones home once at install, and once on significant hardware changes.

It doesn't do anything with that, yet -- no retarded limits like 3 reinstalls -- I assume it's to serve more as a watermark. If you're sharing it with a thousand of your closest friends via BitTorrent, they'll notice.

That does still bother some people, but honestly, I'm fine with it -- I wouldn't dare reinstall anything without access to the Internet these days. Of course, I'd feel significantly better if there was a crack in escrow somewhere, so that if Greenhouse fails, I can still reinstall.

Re:Dangerous.

[KGIII]

Just for the record, I always RTFA. ;) I know, I know... You cite one example that doesn't counter the perception of the people who drive the larger companies. To me, really, I think it is going to take a compromise - a lot like the latter portion of your post. Sort of, "Well, I'm okay with this much DRM but no more and it had better be easy to deal with."

Re:Dangerous.

[SanityInAnarchy]

Ok, I don't mean it was exactly the same. I mean that it's roughly the same mechanism.

That is, once XP determines that you're "genuine", it won't check again until you have some "serious" hardware upgrade, on the order of new hard drive, or new motherboard. Same with this.

Only difference is, XP is a lot more trigger-happy about when they make you make that phone call -- Greenhouse hasn't actually done more than gather statistics, so far.

Re:Dangerous.

[SanityInAnarchy]

Now, that's a bit confusing to me, as I never had problems with WGA. I did, however, have plenty of problems getting torrented ISOs to update properly.

I suppose the main reason I'm so tolerant is that I don't use XP for much. I boot it a few times a month to play games that won't play well on Linux yet (or ever). Because of this, I almost never get hit by transient Windows Update problems, or by malware.

Re:Dangerous.

[Danse]

You cite one example that doesn't counter the perception of the people who drive the larger companies.

Maybe because nobody but Stardock has bothered to even consider the issue? Therefore they have nothing other than their preconceived notions to counter it with. People don't like getting ripped off. They don't like to buy something that they can't return if it doesn't work. Can the other publishers out there really be so dim that they can't grasp that concept? I guess they must be so rich they just don't understand the little people anymore, huh?

Re:Dangerous.

[KGIII]

Yes, yes they can be that dim. It might be a bit of work but some well crafted letters (via snail mail) to the CEOs of the various companies may actually help. It may not have an immediate effect but if there's enough interest generated the stock holders may take notice and this may result in changes. Slow changes, surely, but there's a slim hope.

Re:Dangerous.

[Danse]

It might be a bit of work but some well crafted letters (via snail mail) to the CEOs of the various companies may actually help. It may not have an immediate effect but if there's enough interest generated the stock holders may take notice and this may result in changes. Slow changes, surely, but there's a slim hope.

That assumes that the CEOs actually read random letters sent to them by people they don't know. I'm sure they're screened, and probably filed as complaints, and maybe the total number of them makes it into a bullet-point on some quarterly status report. Shareholders will never hear of the specific arguments, and the CEO probably won't either.

Re:Dangerous.

[KGIII]

Get a site, invite people to it, pre-type letters and get addresses, notify local press first (with an information kit), and let the campaign begin. It may well not work but it is better than doing nothing.

hmm

[nomadic]

While I applaud every item on the list, I don't really think those things will "save" PC gaming simply because they're not the reason PC gaming was weakened so much.

The problem with PC gaming is that a lot of the smaller companies were driven out of business, while the bigger companies obsessively followed each other. How many WW2 FPSes have we had to endure over the past decade? How many futuristic and ancient world RTSes? At first that works. If someone loved starcraft, then there's a good chance they'll buy the next two clones, but after a while it just gets tedious.

I mean, look at CRPGs; the neverending AD&D gold box RPGs killed the CRPG market until Baldur's Gate. Doom was a great game, but we had to spend the next several years getting forcefed Doom clones (half of them produced by Id themselves). Starcraft cloned countless futuristic FPSes, and Starcraft itself originally copied off of Dune (via Warcraft maybe). I lost track of all the Age of Empire (itself not an especially original game) clones.

Re:hmm

[SanityInAnarchy]

And this is different than consoles, how?

Re:hmm

[Aladrin]

Hm, sounds like everything else in the world. That's how it works: Someone produces something really great, and a bunch of copycats make things almost like them in order to make some money on someone else's idea. I don't know if you've tried, but coming up with original -good- ideas for video games is -not- easy.

There's nothing stopping small companies from making good games except their own skill. Most innovation right now is in the 'casual' gaming market because that's where the money is. There are a TON of clones in that market, but new things do appear every so often.

Maybe if the 'core' gamer market was better, companies would start producing new games for it as well. But their insistence on invasive and interfering DRM is killing them. I refuse to install any game that requires me to remove some of my hardware or other software to make it work, and that's most DRM schemes now. (Can't have Alcohol 120% or Daemon Tools installed, for example.) Those tools have legitimate uses for me, and they have no right to make me remove them to play a game I actually purchased. (Note that pirates don't need to remove the other software, only legit customers.)

Spore's DRM only allows you to install the game 3 times. Ever. How is that fair? I format my Windows computer about every 6 months. That means the game has a max lifetime of 18 months for me. Chances are I won't still be playing it at that time, but some people play a single game for years. (TheSims comes to mind, from the SAME COMPANY.) (Again, note that pirates don't have this limitation.)

Most games stop working if you lose your original disc, as well. Why? It doesn't -use- the disc any more. (Again, pirates don't have this limitation!)

No, the market is dying because it is pissing its customers off. They're simply going elsewhere. I'm mostly a console gamer now. No limit on the number of installs there! I never have to unplug equipment or delete anything from my consoles!

Re:hmm

[WDot]

An acquaintance gave me his stack of old Xbox 360 games. So downstairs, I have a stack of six modern-day military squad-based tactical shooters. PC is hardly the only platform that has clones. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, to a point.

Re:hmm

[nomadic]

And this is different than consoles, how?

It's not, really. Consoles will hit the same problem eventually. Might take a little longer because console gamers tend to be a little less sophisticated than computer gamers.

Re:hmm

[SanityInAnarchy]

I doubt it.

I think to understand why PC gaming is going downhill, you have to understand why people actually leave the PC for a console. It's not for innovative games -- why do people leave Counter-Strike for Halo?

Re:hmm

[nomadic]

It's not for innovative games -- why do people leave Counter-Strike for Halo?

Because Halo's a better game I think.

How about some local multiplayer games?

[HockeyPuck]

What's the difference in gaming between consoles and PCs for multi-player games?

For the PC, one person per computer. Want to play with another person, they need another computer. The Wii has 1/2 the power of the typical home computer yet you can have multiplayer games with the people in the same room. PC gaming is individuals sitting at individual computers, looking at tiny monitors (not your 60" TV) Multiplayer on the PC shouldn't be two people sharing the same keyboard.

Consoles while inflexible serve a great purpose, to play games. Why can't the game companies, say "Here, buy this PCI card so you can hook up standard controllers and use the power of the home computer to act more like a console." Why not have two keyboards/mice? Surely it can't be that much more (if any) power than two game controllers so you can play splitscreen while the PC is connected up to the TV..

My computer can do more than the console, I should be able to configure it to act as an appliance (ala a console), and when I'm done go back to doing computer only functions (word processing, email, etc..).

Re:How about some local multiplayer games?

[CSMatt]

Which brings up another difference: PC games are inherently antisocial. Is the Wii popular because the games are unique? No. It's because you can have parties with your friends. PC gaming? Usually played with strangers, or at the very least people you don't necessarily know in the real world. Even if you did, the gameplay isn't the same because everybody is in different rooms in different places on the planet. Even with voice chat features it isn't the same as needing the person in the room with you to play with them.

The genres have morphed into two different demographics serving completely different types of players. The kind of person who enjoys WoW and Quake is completely different from the person who enjoys Mario Kart and Guitar Hero.

Re:How about some local multiplayer games?

[SanityInAnarchy]

PC gaming is individuals sitting at individual computers, looking at tiny monitors (not your 60" TV)

The smallest monitor I have anymore is a 17" laptop monitor. Mostly, I use a 20" desktop monitor -- or both, at work.

Given that it's a diagonal measurement, that's a third the size of that 60" TV. (Not that it would stop me from using that TV anyway -- I have a DVI->HDMI adapter, and my laptop has DVI out.) But it's difficult to split it into thirds -- mostly, it's split into halves or fourths.

Not all games use split-screen, and for those that don't, the console makes sense. But for those that do, suddenly, you've got a 15" chunk of a monitor that's quite a bit farther away, and everyone can see everyone else's screen. With a PC game, I get a larger chunk of real estate, only a couple feet away, with a reasonable assurance that no one else can see my screen.

Why not have two keyboards/mice?

Depends on the game.

I know that with StepMania, even on Linux, I can, in fact, plug in a real CobaltFlux pad. If I remember, I could actually plug two in, and have them correspond to different players -- or have one person use the keyboard, if I wanted to make it completely unfair.

Most games don't support that, though, and while there have been some experiments, most desktop apps really aren't equipped to deal with two cursors.

If you want to, you can configure one computer to power two complete terminals -- two monitors, two keyboards, two mice. It's not going to be easy, and I don't know if Windows can do it (I know how I'd do it on Linux), but it can be done.

Re:How about some local multiplayer games?

[Zardus]

This generation we're seeing more and more games on consoles that are multiplayer only. Want a good split-screen shooter on the Wii? You're fucked. Closest thing is online-only Metal of Honor Heroes 2. Want to play Halo 3 co-op with three friends? I hope you have another console somewhere. Found that one out after buying two controllers. I bought Battalion Wars 2 a while back to play with my wife and to my great shock found out that multiplayer was online-only. Hadn't even bothered to check the box because it never even occurred to me that this shit could start happening on consoles.

There's loads of other examples. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that consoles are headed that way too. It seems like everything is adjusting for a more spread-out world (see Diablo III not supporting LAN games) and it's shitty and depressing for those of us who prefer to get together with friends to play games. I'm not saying there shouldn't be online play, I'm just saying that it shouldn't come at the cost of split-screen or LAN.

no

[unity100]

more importantly, publishers are forcing game developers to rehash old, proven game titles for making assured bucks. this prevents innovation, but more importantly, fun, in gaming. the spiral downward started in 1995, with the introduction of cd, and gaming going big with this distributable medium - publishers stepped in big time. if you do a follow up, youll find that game titles started repeating and looking like manufactured out of a mold, after that date.

publishers are the enemy.

If you want to save PC gaming...

[DesScorp]

... then start by making games that can run on the vast majority of hardware that's sold... boxes off the shelf from a Wal Mart or Target that have a Celeron or Sempron, and low-end onboard video.

That means sacrificing graphics, but so what? Games like Wolfenstien: Enemy Territory, will play fine with newer off the shelf boxes. And that standard of graphics is good enough for a lot of people. Many people would take an ET-caliber graphics game with superior gameplay and story over a Gee-Wiz supergraphical art wonder that sucks to play.

With the economics of making and selling PC's, you're just not going to get a lot of boxes out there off the shelf with a 512 mb Nvidia card in it. Either compromise for the PC platform, or look forward to most of your sales being on console platforms.

Re:If you want to save PC gaming...

[Zardus]

For the most part, I agree with you. I used to preach the whole graphics-are-irrelevant thing as well until I found Dwarf Fortress. While it's a great game and I personally love the graphics, NONE of my friends will give it so much as a chance because of them. They all concede that it's probably an amazing game but all of them pass it off with "the graphics aren't for me". I'd normally just figure they're all retarded, but this is a lot of people, most of whom are also bored with the status quo in gaming, rejecting a very new and very unique game because the Dwarves look like Qs and the cats are 'c's.

I guess what I'm getting at is that graphics matter to some extent. For me personally, SNES-level (or early-mid-90s level DOS) graphics are perfect. I can like pretty much anything if it's a stylistic choice (which I kinda see DF as being), but I guess people's standards vary.

Link, please?

[SanityInAnarchy]

The policy in question:

Please note that most Stardock programs have demo versions available for preview prior to buying... full refunds will not be issued for functional software that doesnâ(TM)t live up to your expectations.

Makes sense, doesn't it? And it fits that bill of rights -- that's specifically about games that don't work with your computer.

We do not give refunds on beta software.

Kind of a "duh" moment there.

We do not give full or partial refunds for any subscription renewals.

Might help if they allowed it for a single renewal, but consider the asshat who subscribes for a year, then it stops working, or he wants to stop playing -- so he tries to get his entire year's subscription payments back.

If you are not willing to work with technical support on any problems you are having, or request a refund even if you are not having problems using the software, we will issue a partial refund only.

Also makes sense, given that the refund is for actual problems, not just because you didn't like it. You'll find similar conditions with just about any warranty.

And consider that there really aren't any other publishers offering any kind of return policy. You'd think Steam could afford that -- just disable the game on that account, then you know they're actually no longer playing it.

Note also that there's no limit on it. I've bought laptops with no more than a few months to a year warranty -- that's on a multi-thousand-dollar purchase. So if I can swallow a purchase of thousands of dollars that I might not be able to return, I think I can manage the same for a purchase of, oh, $50 that I might not be able to return.

But in either case, it helps to know that if it's completely DOA, I can return it.

Re:Link, please?

[thermian]

You'd think Steam could afford that -- just disable the game on that account, then you know they're actually no longer playing it.

Eh? That's retarded. By that logic you could buy a steam game, play it through then ask for your money back because you've played it now.

Re:Link, please?

[crossmr]

if I don't like my toaster I can take it back..

Re:Link, please?

[Aladrin]

If you don't like your toaster and take it back, you don't end up with a copy of the toaster.

Combined with his 'no drm' policy, there's no way for him to guarantee you didn't just steal the game via this method.

I think he should offer refunds if you "don't like it", but your logic doesn't support anything. Personally, I would be more willing to buy games if I knew I could get my money back for the bad ones. If I get bad food at a restaurant, I can get my money back. Even if I've eaten part of it! (Well, the decent ones. The rest aren't worth eating at anyhow.)

Re:Link, please?

[Awptimus Prime]

Kind of a "duh" moment there.

I disagree. See, I've worked at a company which often sold their "retail" product, then would offer enrollment into a "beta" plan if the retail package was giving them trouble. We intentionally kept "beta" status on a particular project to ensure nobody would ever be able to hold us responsible for the package, but had glorious websites, heavy pressure from sales people, etc all urging paying clients this direction.

I find it more "duh" for people to actively market and sell "beta" status software.

But in either case, it helps to know that if it's completely DOA, I can return it.

But only if you've sat there working with technical support until the company is satisfied they've done all they can to get the software working. What if I don't have hours to waste and would simply like a refund? Then I have to pay an unknown return fee.

This is also only stating what many software companies state internally. I've even gotten money back on Xbox Live Arcade games due to bugs by simply pestering Microsoft. This is after pressing 'A' through many screens telling me how there are no refunds.

Re:Link, please?

[Awptimus Prime]

I think he should offer refunds if you "don't like it", but your logic doesn't support anything. Personally, I would be more willing to buy games if I knew I could get my money back for the bad ones. If I get bad food at a restaurant, I can get my money back. Even if I've eaten part of it! (Well, the decent ones. The rest aren't worth eating at anyhow.)

Bingo. Clothing stores take 'no questions asked' returns knowing a percentage of people bought an outfit simply to wear it once and return it.

Books sometimes (depending on retailer) get read, then returned.

And let's face it, anyone who wants to burn a non-DRM company can do it simply by posting a copy of their software on usenet or seeding a torrent.

Re:Link, please?

[kfx]

I think he should offer refunds if you "don't like it", but your logic doesn't support anything.

We do. It's just that in that case, since it's your fault for not playing the demo first, etc., rather than any fault of ours, you're only going to get 75% back. Still, that's a heck of a lot better than the 0% you'll get elsewhere.

And yeah, even without DRM. If someone wanted pirated the stuff, they'd just download it anyway. Allowing refunds or not isn't going to make a difference with those people, but it does give the honest folks some peace of mind, and make them more willing to buy.

Re:Link, please?

[SanityInAnarchy]

Even there, there's a limit.

As I said, if I don't like my laptop (or if I have significant problems with it), there's still a limit of a few months to a year during which I can send it back.

I would imagine toasters are similar -- I can't wait ten years, then return it to Wal-Mart once it's well and truly broken, claiming I don't like it.

Also, toasters don't offer "trial versions" -- I can't necessarily take my favorite bagel to the store to toast it in their toaster, and make sure it toasts properly. And I can't take half a toaster home, with a promise I'll get the other half when I pay. Trial versions are intended to mitigate the "I didn't like it" factor, when legitimate.

Re:Link, please?

[SanityInAnarchy]

See, I've worked at a company which often sold their "retail" product, then would offer enrollment into a "beta" plan if the retail package was giving them trouble.

That sounds like what's being described here. I don't see them marketing or selling beta software, only disclaiming themselves from having to refund people for problems with beta software.

Re:Link, please?

[kfx]

It's not. The beta policy is in reference to our preorder betas; preorder a major product (games generally) and you get beta access and the opportunity to give feedback to steer development.

Outside of a preorder, that exception is moot. If you bought a released product, then the standard policy applies, period. No "oh hey, try this beta patch, but if you do can't get a refund" bull as at AP's former employer. We don't like stupid gimmicks like that any more than you do.

Re:Link, please?

[SanityInAnarchy]

If you bought a released product, then the standard policy applies, period.

I assume, then, that if you preordered (and thus have beta access), then once you upgrade to the released product, the standard policy starts to apply?

All around, I'm actually glad that this policy exists. It's simple, and explicit, and it sets an example.

Oh, for the good old days . . .

[MarkvW]

Back in the '80s when things were fresh and new, I remember the eagerness with which I went to Egghead/Babbage's to look at the computer games.

There was so much variety in the games. People were trying all sorts of different things. These games were not hundred-megabyte heavyweight games, they were much lighter--but they were more interesting.

Now everything is so similar. The gaming mags freak out over frame rate and animation quality. I could care less. I value freshness and cleverness much more.

My wife plays, and loves, the popcap kind of games on the internet. They are nothing special at all, but she likes them because they are novel and fun.

I think I had more fun playing the original ASCII empire game and CIV II than I get playing later, overwrought, Sid Meier games (and he designs among the best).

The massive multiplayer games could be tons of fun, but there's no way I'm putting down a subscription to play.

All the damn game publishers are trying to hit home runs all the time, like the movie industry. That sucks. I'd rather see a lot more variety out there, like in the '80s.

Anyway--that's my gripe.

Re:Oh, for the good old days . . .

[WDot]

Have you ever considered that back in the 80's, people simply didn't have the technology to make affordable systems for handling today's 3d games? I'm willing to bet that if today's hardware was affordable commodity hardware in the 80's, you wouldn't be seeing ASCII. Good graphics have always been a selling point. It made the NES superior to Atari's consoles. It's what made Doom so popular (for the time, it was considered realistic), and the reason Myst devastated the adventure gaming genre.

Despite what you may think, we are not stuck in a world devoid of "clever" video games. Despite it's DRM, Spore certainly fits the bill. Mirror's Edge looks to be interesting, being a first person "runner" that makes you depend on your agility, not guns, to survive. Stardock's own Sins of a Solar Empire runs on modest hardware and provides an intriguing mix of RTS and Civilization in space. TellTale games has been reviving the adventure game genre with several of its own episodic series.

Heck, who said you had to stick with AAA titles? Try the shareware title "Hacker Evolution," a hacking sim that has you typing on a command line to steal money and gain unauthorized access to computers worldwide. There's stuff out there if you actually look.

Re:Oh, for the good old days . . .

[jollyreaper]

Back in the '80s when things were fresh and new, I remember the eagerness with which I went to Egghead/Babbage's to look at the computer games.

There was so much variety in the games. People were trying all sorts of different things. These games were not hundred-megabyte heavyweight games, they were much lighter--but they were more interesting.

The thing is, games take a metric shit-ton of resources to make these days. The casual game market has shown a handful of super-winners that could be produced by a guerrilla development team. Your Call of Duty games require massive investments of time and capital. Same goes for stuff like Oblivion, Final Fantasy, etc. A triple-A title for the current generation will run you anywhere between $20 and $40 million.

The thing you have to remember about those old games, the graphics were primitive as hell. Sure, they were good for the time because we didn't know any better but I doubt you'd ever be able to go back to that. We've been spoiled by just how good things can look today. Of course, because there's so much effort going into so many areas aside from gameplay, it's easy to overlook that. The older games had nothing to offer but gameplay, they certainly weren't offering much in terms of graphics, soundtrack, etc.

What I do like is that the Xbox Marketplace lets casual games get a foot in the door. There are modernized remakes of the old arcade classics like Pac-Man and Joust. There are simplistic arcade games, there are puzzle games, reissues of old console classics, etc. You would have been hard-pressed to find these shorts of titles in regular stores, nobody would have taken the risk involved with all those physical costs.

The real divide in the future will be that consoles are closed-architecture while PC's are open. Anyone can write a game for the PC, anyone can distribute it, and anyone can play it. The consoles are a closed shop. A PC game might have a crossover and become a console hit but that's only if the console owners decide to let them in the door.

Re:Oh, for the good old days . . .

[Lord Ender]

How much less could you care?

Re:Oh, for the good old days . . .

[tpz]

"There's stuff out there if you actually look."

Yes, but the point he made was that you used to be able to find interesting, novel games just by _going to the store_. You can't do that anymore, and haven't been able to for a very long time, primarily on account of the constant barrage of WW2-shooter-of-the-week, sports-roster-update-'09, etc. games that litter the shelves. Paid for their placement by the game distributors, of course.

There's being able to find things and then there's being able to find things. The GP was right in that you can't readily find much these days.

So as not to completely go against your post, however, I will be buying Mirror's Edge on day 1, so it isn't as if there isn't _anything_ interesting hitting retail. There's just relatively little compared to the golden days.

Re:Oh, for the good old days . . .

[WDot]

I think there's some rose-colored glasses being donned, however. Even when I was a kid (very early 90's) I remember seeing plenty of Disney and movie tie-in games, sidescrolling beat-em ups, platformer mascot wannabes, tournament fighters, etc. Just because the genres have changed, the general idea has stayed the same: Successful genres will lead to clones and copycats. There used to be a lot of sci-fi and future-gladiator type shooters. That military style and squad-based shooters have become more popular only suggests a change in fashion, rather than a decline in innovation.

Re:Oh, for the good old days . . .

[Blakey Rat]

Yeah, and a hamburger cost a nickel and you could park anywhere for free! And we had to walk to school, we didn't have these fancy buses!!!

Seriously, the gaming market is healthier than its ever been. You're just growing older, and this is what happens when you grow older: nostalgia invades your game, and you start yelling "you damned kids, get off my lawn!"

Re:Oh, for the good old days . . .

[tpz]

While I don't disagree with you in that there has always been crap on the shelves, and while I am ready to admit that a certain degree of nostalgia affects my posts on this subject and those of everyone else who feels similarly, it must be said that at least back in those days there was more room left on the shelves for more innovative products.

Re:Oh, for the good old days . . .

[CronoCloud]

You memory must not be good, you don't remember the hordes of hexagon WWII wargames designed by hordes of retired colonels. Or the hordes of D&D inspired RPG's designed by hordes of Gary Gygax wannabe's.

Re:Oh, for the good old days . . .

[LarsWestergren]

The massive multiplayer games could be tons of fun, but there's no way I'm putting down a subscription to play.

I haven't played it, but Guild Wars is subscription free and I'm sure there are others.

All the damn game publishers are trying to hit home runs all the time, like the movie industry. That sucks. I'd rather see a lot more variety out there, like in the '80s.

But there are plenty of PC indie developers out there who value innovation and gameplay ahead of OMGGRAPHICS!.
These are some of the games I'm currently waiting with anticipation for:
Ron Gilbert's (Monkey Islands etc) Deathspank. World of Goo by 2D Boy (puzzle game), Guitar Rising by Gametank (like Guitar Hero but you plug in a real electric guitar and learn to play for real!), Braid on the PC, Machinarium

And by more mainstream developers - bigger budgets and hotter graphics, but hopefully still great gameplay:
Neverwinter Nights 2 - Storm of Zehir expansion (Obsidian), Alpha Protocol (Obsidian), Aliens RPG (you guessed it.... Obsidian. I'm a fanboy), Dragon Age (Bioware), Bioshock 2, Demigod, Mirror's Edge, Fear Origins, Wallace and Gromit adventure games (Telltale games, same gang that makes Sam and Max), Divine Divinity 2...

Re:Oh, for the good old days . . .

[tpz]

Again, I do remember shovelware, and I believe I said so back when I first posted. The difference today is not how much copycat garbage there is. The difference today is how little shelf space there is for unique titles when compared to the shelves of yesteryear. Which I said before. Twice. At least.

Re:Microsoft's Xbox Fiasco

[Locutus]

in the last thread on Xbox stuff, someone mentioned Microsoft was poised to get back into the PC gaming market and with the obvious failure of the Xbox at stopping the PlayStation market growth, it would seem the logical thing for them to do. If they don't, they would have destroyed their own user base with the Xbox since the whole purpose of the Xbox was to protect the Windows marketshare. By moving people from the PC for games to the console, they've probably moved them to the PS and off of Windows and they'll probably stay on the console. IMO.

LoB

Re:Microsoft's Xbox Fiasco

[0123456]

"I can't remember the last time I actually saw someone browsing in the PC games section in the last year."

Who actually buys PC games in a retail store anymore?

They're much easier to buy online, either by ordering the box from an online store which actually has the game you want in stock, or paying to download through Steam or one of the numerous MMOGs that make up the vast majority of the billions of dollars a year of PC game revenues these days.

But I agree, the Xbox was a colossal screwup on Microsoft's part; they largely depend on gaming to drive consumer Windows upgrades and sales (what home user needs a new quad-core 5GHz CPU with 8GB of RAM running Windows if they're not playing new games?) and the morons went and tried to kill PC gaming with a new console. What the hell were they smoking?

Read the ToS!!!

[Nick Ives]

The Steam Terms of Service say no such thing. You buy a one off payment subscription to games on Steam, you don't own them. I'd link but I'm late for work so just google for the Steam ToS.

If Valve went into receivership them I doubt the bankruptcy courts would look favourably on their directors nuking their most important asset!

Re:Read the ToS!!!

[Danse]

If Valve went into receivership them I doubt the bankruptcy courts would look favourably on their directors nuking their most important asset!

If they're to remain assets, then the auth servers would need to remain up. If they aren't up, then you are nuking the value of the company and all its properties by royally screwing its customers.

Crippled for a month?

[Adrian Lopez]

"... if someone wants to do a policy where there's CD copy protection, but after the first month [consumers] can download a patch that gets rid of it [...] that's a perfectly good solution too."

No, it's not. You're selling me a crippled game on the promise that you'll fix it in the future. A month may as well turn into a century for all a promise is worth.

Re:Crippled for a month?

[mcvos]

"... if someone wants to do a policy where there's CD copy protection, but after the first month [consumers] can download a patch that gets rid of it [...] that's a perfectly good solution too."

No, it's not. You're selling me a crippled game on the promise that you'll fix it in the future. A month may as well turn into a century for all a promise is worth.

The solution is easy: Wait a month before buying the game. If the patch isn't availlable, wait another month. There are plenty of other games to play in the mean time.

I don't think they're trying to kill it

[Moraelin]

I don't think anyone is trying to kill the PC market as long as:

A) they're still publishing games for it, and

B) the one biggest money-printing license is PC-only. Seriously, WoW rakes in yearly income equal to some small countries GDP. And I don't mean that as just a figure of speech. _Literally_.

C) some of EA's own most lucrative franchises are on the PC. It's the likes of The Sims and EA Sports that end up subsidizing some of their games (which fail to break even), not the other way around.

Now if you're about to point out that their sports games are all ported to consoles too, and they've been trying hard to make The Sims themed games for the consoles too, you'd be correct. The days of PC _exclusive_ games, and for that matter of catering to small groups of insecure willy-wavers who need to feel tougher than the casual gamers, are gradually coming to an end. But that hardly equals killing PC gaming.

it still missed the point

[tatermonkey]

$60 for a new game is too much and then there are of course the sucktastic titles not even worth buying.

DRM not *that* big a deal

[clickclickdrone]

I know an fair few PC gamers - a dozen or so. All but 1 wouldn't even know what DRM is. They don't hang out on slashdot, gamer sites etc or get involved in the Internet Zeitgeist of people wrining their hands about how terrible the DRM in game x is. They but their PC 'What PC Game' magazine, go to their fav. bricks and morter shops and buy the game - sometimes they'll use Amazon.
Maybe I know a very skewed demographic but I'd suggest that the % of gamers who care about such things as DRM is actually quite small.

Re:Microsoft's Xbox Fiasco

[mcvos]

"I can't remember the last time I actually saw someone browsing in the PC games section in the last year."

Who actually buys PC games in a retail store anymore?

I don't. They rarely have the games I want. Instead, they carry all sorts of terrible crap I wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole.

Solution for what?

[argent]

What's the point of "For example, what happens if someone wants to do a policy where there's CD copy protection, but after the first month [consumers] can download a patch that gets rid of it."?

I don't understand what the company would imagine they would get out of that. The logic would be "If you can disable the copy protection, then as soon as the first consumer can do so, what's to stop that person from sharing the patch, or the patched copy." The only way that would work would be if they're not actually "removing the DRM", they're just changing what it's locked to. Why would he see that as "legitimate"?

Re:Solution for what?

[maxume]

I read it as being the first month of the retail release, not 30 days after a particular purchase (with the copy protection giving them some period where the easiest way to run the game is to go and buy it).

Re:Solution for what?

[Tinyn]

I think the point is most of their sales come in the first month. So they want to encourage sales during that time, with DRM. And then after that first month remove all the hassles of DRM from the good customers that bought it. And if some people pirate it after that first months its not as big a deal as piracy on release day is.

Free Software gaming

[kipman725]

Still plenty of inovation in GPL land: http://wz2100.net/ a stratagey game where you design your own units. low system requirments; opengl 1.5, mac, linux, windows.

"Save" PC Gaming

[L4t3r4lu5]

Stop coding exclusively for Windows.

Re:"Save" PC Gaming

[Half-pint HAL]

How about Live CD game distros for the ultimate optimised console-like gaming experience?

Insert and boot

Quick loading (X/graphical libraries trimmed to requirements

No conflicts with installed software.

Linux live gaming CDs FTW!

Stardock IS DRM

[nschubach]

Wait a second... I've argued this MANY MANY times. If you buy a Stardock game, you NEED Stardock to run it. They keep telling people that that's not DRM, but it won't run without it. You can ask for a CD copy of the game without this restriction, but I was told you had to pay more for it. In my case it was Galactic Civ 4. I don't remember the exact details, but I remember if you didn't have a specific license file generated from the hardware of your machine, it had to contact Stardock to create a new key from your hardware in order to run.

How can Stardock still have the balls to berate DRM when they use it themselves?

Stardock IS DRM.

Re:Stardock IS DRM

[Sj0]

There's no such software program as 'stardock'. There's no such game as 'galactic civilizations 4'.

So you've used a product that doesn't exist to activate your product that doesn't exist?

Last weekend, I installed Galactic Civilizations 2 with the expansion packs using Stardock's Impulse.

With the exception of some problems caused by Internet Explorer 7 (updated to Internet Explorer 8 and the problems were fixed, it worked well, and I didn't see any DRM crap. If I reformat, I can re-download the game right away.

Re:Stardock IS DRM

[nschubach]

Sorry, yes. Gal Civ 2. For some reason I thought it was 4 (thinking of Space Empires probably).

To test if it's DRM take the files from your game folder, copy them to another computer and try to run it. You can't without installing it from the Stardock software (whatever it's called.) It generates a file in the root of the game install that IS hardware dependent. If you copy the files to another computer without the Stardock software, it WILL NOT run.

Re:Stardock IS DRM

[nschubach]

If you take your game and copy it to your laptop or another PC it will not run without reconnecting to the service to generate a new key. Unless they changed it recently, that still holds true.

Also, If I remember right, you cannot update/patch your game unless you use the Stardock service. If you buy the Disc version of the game, there were no patches available for download without Stardock (when I played it last.)

Re:Stardock IS DRM

[Sj0]

Unlike actual DRM, I don't really see the problem, since I know I can just download and install another copy.

Re:Stardock IS DRM

[nschubach]

"(Digital Rights Management) Software encryption/security that prevents the unauthorised copying and distribution of digital information, most popularly used in connection with digital music (MP-3 formats, etc.)"

It IS DRM because you cannot play the game without first acquiring the software to download and unlock the software. If you do not have the Stardock software, you CANNOT play the game unless you want an unpatched CD copy. IF you want a bug free version of the game, you MUST have the Stardock software in order to use/install the game.

How is that NOT "actual" DRM?

Re:Stardock IS DRM

[Sj0]

You're right. If it behaves that way, it's DRM. My mistake.

At that point, though, it becomes a moot point for me, because the only real issue I have with DRM is the fact that it locks me out of software I've bought and paid for, or it's overly intrusive, or it hacks my computer because I'm a thief by default. In this case, Impulse actually increases the product's value for me, because I can always download a new copy whether I've got my CD or not, I don't have to ever keep track of another stupid piece of paper with a serial number on it, I don't need to keep my CD in pristine condition because the game demands it every time I play.

Re:Stardock IS DRM

[SuiteSisterMary]

What if Stardock shuts down tomorrow?

Re:Stardock IS DRM

[Sj0]

Then my game is installed so I'll just be a bit upset. If need be, I'll crack it to ensure I continue to have it.

Well it isn't dead like some claim

[Sycraft-fu]

But I think it is heading in a dangerous direction. No big deal yet, but if it continues it could be headed down a bad path.

Basically there are three somewhat related problems right now:

1) Console first releases. Many games are coming out for consoles first, and then only later being ported to PC. Now while there are PC gamers who only own a PC (I'm one of them) there are people who own consoles and PCs. This leads to artificially lower PC sales on a given title. Someone may prefer playing a given kind of game on their PC, but if they have to wait, they may elect not to and get the console version instead. They are then unlikely to buy the PC version as well. For example I have a friend who owns a 360, a PS3 and a gaming PC (yes he has too much money). When Mass Effect came out, he wanted it right away and got the 360 version. He'd rather have the PC version, PC controls are nicer for a game like that not to mention the ability to hack around with it for more replayability, however he isn't going to buy it twice. Thus the PC version sees lower sales than it might otherwise.

2) Poor PC ports. Consoles and PCs work real different in terms of controls, as anyone who's messed with both can tell you. So if you want to do a game for both, and do it right, you have to spend time making two versions. You need to customize it to work well on it's various platforms. Same deal with multiple consoles, actually. However, there are an increasing number of games developed for the console, and then kinda half-ass ported to the PC. They don't play well, they don't feel like a PC game, and they often don't work very well. Leads to a situation where you are getting an inferior experience playing on the PC. This again leads to lower PC game sales. If a game comes out for PC and 360 and you've got both, you'll get the 360 version if the PC version sucks, even if you much prefer PC gaming.

3) DRM/copyprotection problems. The DRM on PC games is getting more and more problematic. Time was, you really had next to zero problems with it. All that it was is some areas of the disc not normally used (like subchannels and stuff) messed with and a little wrapper around the executable. Worked on essentially every system since everything was within the CD standards, and there wasn't any system level trickery. Now this was, of course, easy for pros to defeat. Well the DRM companies can't seem to understand that his is a fight you can't win, you can't give someone an encrypted file, the decryption key, and expect that they can't use that to their own ends, so they keep upping the ante to counter new tools. Thus now we have extremely complicated DRM that causes lots of problems on lots of systems. It is quite possible to buy a retail game and have it say your disc isn't valid (happened to be with Civ 4 BTS). Hell in some cases the DRM can even fuck up your system. Well this also leads to lower sales.

So what is happening is that various publishers are seeing lower PC sales, especially as compared to the console market. So they then get this "Well fuck the PC, let's do console only," idea, especially since they incorrectly seem to believe consoles are immune from game copying (someone should point them to the Games > XBOX360 category on TPB). Now that could spell a problem for PC gaming, since it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. They do stupid things that reduce PC sales, so they see lower sales, so they don't want to work at making PC games, which leads to lower PC sales, etc.

So no, PC gaming isn't in dire straits or anything, and hell it'll be alive and well in some form so long as casual games and MMOs continue to find their stronghold on the PC market. However, the direction it is heading isn't a good one. Better to notice this and deal with it while things are still healthy, than to wait until it's a crisis (see the current mortgage problems).

Re:Well it isn't dead like some claim

[apoc.famine]

Well said. The biggest issue really is the self-fulfilling prophecy of low PC game sales. A bunch of us waited anxiously for the next UT version from Epic. When it came out, it was riddled with bugs which had been well reported in the beta, the menus were still coded for console use only, and the it lacked a non-windows port, even though leading up to it there had been good talk about both a Mac port and a Linux port. And there was no Linux server port, meaning almost no good servers for the first few months.

Now Epic is talking about potentially getting out of the PC market due to the low sales. I'd be angry, but as a collective we've decided that the UT franchise which we've always loved for the modding is dead to us.

So yes, the PC market is dying. Because the publishers kicked it into a dark hole to wither and die.

Re:Microsoft's Xbox Fiasco

[PingSpike]

Agreed. Lets face it...who gives a shit about windows if it isn't for games? Microsoft has been shitting on PC Gaming for the last 5 or so years, then turned up the heat by scisming the market with the market with the arbitrary D3d-10 vista only requirement. What exactly has microsoft done for PC Gaming lately? Besides shit on it I mean. It seems they've been content to bleed out its game offerings by using cash piles to create console exclusives, abuse its position as leading 3D API steward in favor of pushing their new OS and shove out some craptastic ports that show up years later then their console version and run like ass on top notch hardware, often with crummier multiplayer components. (Why is co-op a console exclusive featuer now? The original Doom had it out of the box.)

Microsoft has talked a lot lately about PC Gaming and how important it is to them. But their actions for the last half a decade have told a very different story: We will ignore PC Gaming as an unwanted child, only turning to it when we need to either raid its resources to bolster our beloved console offering or to add a feature bullet point to marketing materials for our new operating system.

Re:Microsoft's Xbox Fiasco

[Sj0]

Come on! You know you want to pay 30 dollars for "18 wheels of steel"! Who wouldn't?

Elitist attitudes limit PC gaming

[tetsu96]

Don't forget about Microsoft! Games for Windows is a cruel joke. It seems to be primarily about them padding profits by giving the PC sloppy seconds on games that get shoveled out for the 360. They tend to look like ass and play even worse because nobody bothers to make the games actually play like PC games and take advantage of the strengths of the platform. Seems like Microsoft is more determined than anyone to kill PC gaming.

First off - playing with a gamepad can be a lot easier and more relaxing than playing with mouse / keyboard combo. For C&C3, you should be using mouse / keyboard. For GoW, Bioshock, Assasin's Creed, you're better off with the gamepad.

Secondly - have you played a lot of the 360 ports? The 3 above are pretty good games. Viva Pinata, Grid, DMC4... these games are all better on the PC assuming you've got the hardware to support them. Higher (selectable) resolutions / more detailed textures / smoother gameplay / etc.

Not only that, but many are different than the typical FPS / RTS / TBS / MMO / etc that are on PCs. They're not $3 casual games, but they're not as hardcore as typical PC titles tend to be. Wider audience and all that. Outrun 2 is a fantastic example - looks way better than arcade or console ports, and finishes very fast, but it's a fun relaxing ride which most PC games are not (also conrols with 360 gamepad).

Don't get me wrong - I'm just as sick of waiting 6-12 months for the *possibility* of PC ports of 360 games, having to wait several months for patches to make them playable sucks even more, and I refuse to double dip if I picked up the 360 version - but the porting of games to PC is a good thing overall.

Re:Elitist attitudes limit PC gaming

[Danse]

First off - playing with a gamepad can be a lot easier and more relaxing than playing with mouse / keyboard combo. For C&C3, you should be using mouse / keyboard. For GoW, Bioshock, Assasin's Creed, you're better off with the gamepad.

AC maybe. The others, not a chance. Do we need to revisit the mouse/kb vs. gamepad precision argument again? When it comes to aiming, mouse/kb wins hands-down every time, no exceptions. So if a game requires aiming, thumb-knobbies just don't cut it. That's why they have add in all that auto-aiming crap for console shooters, as well as slowing down AI reactions and retarding their aiming abilities as well.

Secondly - have you played a lot of the 360 ports? The 3 above are pretty good games.

I've played Bioshock and AC. Didn't finish either of them. They got very repetitive and boring. AC combat is the same thing over and over again, and there's little skill involved in most of the running around. You just hold down the button and the game does most everything for you. Pretty lame.

Bioshock had great visuals and a pretty good story, but there wasn't a single meaningful choice to be made in the entire game as far as I could tell. The weapons and plasmids are all basically interchangeable, and you can use any or all of them as you please, so there's no meaningful choices or real tailoring of the character. They should have stuck closer to System Shock 2 in their design.

Not only that, but many are different than the typical FPS / RTS / TBS / MMO / etc that are on PCs. They're not $3 casual games, but they're not as hardcore as typical PC titles tend to be.

PC gamers like the hardcore games. It's not that we don't like more casual games as well, it's just that with consoles there isn't really a choice. All you get is casual or hard-core-lite type games. They want to claim that they have deep gameplay and awesome graphics like PC games, but they have to deal with hardware limitations and the fact that publishers want to market every single game to everyone with a pulse. This pretty much distills them down to the lowest-common-denominator features that have to be so simple that a retarded monkey could play it to completion. Otherwise it must be too difficult and we wouldn't want to have a game out there that required any real though or effort to master, would we?

Re:Elitist attitudes limit PC gaming

[Damvan]

Try any version of Ninja Gaiden on the Xbox or 360, and then come back and honestly say that "All you get is casual or hard-core-lite type games."

Re:Elitist attitudes limit PC gaming

[Danse]

One example is a counter-argument? Not that I'm disputing the example, as I haven't played it. But is this a lone example, or is there some secret stash of hard-core style games on the console that I'm not aware of, or games like that just the exception that proves the rule?

The only games I tend to play on consoles are driving games and fighting games. I'm not really interested in sports games, even though I would prefer them on the console as well. I picked up Soul Calibur IV last week, but other than that I haven't found much else that seemed interesting.

Re:Elitist attitudes limit PC gaming

[CronoCloud]

If all you play on consoles is Racing and Fighting then you're not an accurate judge of what's "hard-core" now are you? Go rent a few. Head to the local game shop and look at what's available. Check out older games too. Play some Strategy RPG's or something. Try out some of the Third Person shooters. Play some of the Adventure games and Diablo clones.

Re:Elitist attitudes limit PC gaming

[Danse]

I'm not saying that racing and fighting games are all I've tried. I've been playing on consoles since the Atari 2600. I've tried all kinds of games. It's just that they're about the only ones that I enjoy playing on a console. Most of the other stuff is either very shallow gameplay-wise, or the control scheme sucks and I can't help but think how much better it would be to play on the PC.

Mod parent +1

[argent]

OK, that makes more sense. Thanks.

They probably call it "copy protection"...

[argent]

What "DRM" in games means is what we used to call "copy protection". And players do care about it, when they get a scratched CD, or steam screws up, or anything else that results from them not being able to make a backup of their games whacks them upside the head.

They're just used to it. It's "that sucks, but what can you do about it".

And for game companies, the attitude is generally "it sucks, but what can you do about it" too.

I've been whacked upside the head by copy protection from both sides. As a player, the first pirated game I ever got was a cracked copy of Wizardry that I had the local pirate write over the original Wizardry gold-foil-labelled CD because their copy protection was so broken the game became unplayable (except on one particular computer) after a couple of months. And as an author, the copy protection (required by the publisher) we put on Tracers led to us missing the Christmas release because the first run of disks had to be recalled because the publisher had screwed up the production.

But stardock never used CD copy protection!

[Prien715]

That CD copy protection doesn't even work. The game gets pirated before it's released!

That's exactly why stardock doesn't use this approach;)

Stardock's games don't require the CD in the drive, have a one-time serial number to enter, and, like steam, if you want to log into your account, you can download any game you've ever bought -- but unlike steam, you don't have to be online to play or even have the online component installed if you don't want. And you can just copy any CD they've ever released with the most generic CD copier. There's none of this secureROM BS where there's a bad sector on the CD.

More than any other company I can that exists, I think Brad's company embodies the ethics reforms we hear here on slashdot all the time. But unlike these arm-chair philosophers, they're out there creating multi-million dollar selling games.

He's right.

[seebs]

I bought GalCiv II on the release day. I also bought Oblivion on release when I heard it had no copy protection.

I want Spore enough that, if it had no copy protection, I would be willing to buy an upgraded computer to play it. I'm not willing to buy SecuROM.

A couple patches into NWN2, suddenly many AMD64 users couldn't play the game. Atari researched it and confirmed that it was a SecuROM bug -- and other games using SecuROM had the same problem that week. Atari couldn't do anything to make the game playable again, because they had no control over the code.

I've had SecuROM "fail to authenticate" games many times, I've had drives fail mysteriously... It's over.

Brad Wardell is the guy who has a viable plan for making me willing to buy PC games again. If he loses, I will just stick with the Wii. I would rather play fewer games than be treated like crap by companies I'm supposedly paying.

Paper-based DRM?

[GleeBot]

Perhaps the best form of DRM would be to offer digital downloads, then mail people a paper manual when they buy the game. You get something tangible, and the developer is offering something you can't copy with a single command.

80s were great... but PC gaming is far from dying.

[traffichazard]

I've gotta agree that the 80s and early 90s saw some fantastic innovation and variation in the desktop gaming scene...

I think a lot of that has evaporated because the success of Windows and the Internet has put a buttload more PCs into the hands of the public and the audience for PC gaming has changed greatly. You don't have to be a nerd or a techie to own a PC at home these days, and the publishers want to sell the maximum amount of games to the average joes.

Back when development was carried out with more creative independence, the game designers designed games that they wanted to play... games for people similar to themselves. Now the publishers have them designing games for the everyman/woman/person. They're in the industry for money, not passion, and they want to sell the least expensive game to the most people with the least risk, hence all the numbers tacked on the end of game titles these days. They tend to stick to the formula. The success of consumer level 3D hardware also contributed to this somewhat, as it added another dimension to the consumer upgrade treadmill and made it more tempting to publish essentially the same gameplay over and over, utilizing the increased visual detail provided by the new hardware as the main attraction.

So, why do fools keep going on about PC gaming dying? Here's why... What we are seeing in the latest few generations is consoles approaching PCs in terms of visual quality and adding other PC-like features such as networking and HDD access. At the same time, game budgets are swelling to epic proportions, and the publisher's willingness to take risks with their money decreases proportionately. The hardware-requirements dick-swinging contest continues, and developers continue to churn out titles that only run comfortably on the top 5% of PCs. Then they're mystified that they don't sell as well as they'd hoped. This just makes it more tempting for big publishers to produce multi-platform games.. designed for the consoles and ported to the PC, rather than games designed to play to a PCs strengths. Add the piracy dimension into this (publishers erroneously believe that consoles are significantly safer from piracy than PCs), and it seems the large publishers, with the marketing dollars and the big titles shy away from the PC and favour the consoles. Everyone who got into PC gaming when the PC > consoles suddenly sees that they're playing the same game that's on the consoles and often having an inferior experience due to technical issues and portability compromises. People playing the PC exclusives are often frustrated by poor performance and repetitive gameplay.

Of course, there's always Microsoft in there, who seem to be deliberately shitting things up with DirectX 9/10 and Vista and Games For Windows.. trying to make PC game development harder and more expensive, while making it easier to port your efforts to their darling 360. Can't blame 'em for having conflicted interests... can we?

PC gaming will never die.. as long as there are PCs, people will want something to do on them when they're not working, and companies will develop it and sell it to them. The only thing dying is the feasibility of publishing multi-bazillion dollar multimedia graphics extravaganzas that can only be experienced as intended on a tiny fraction of the installed hardware, directed at an audience who with limited income on a platform that makes playing the game without paying relatively easy. I reckon that possibly the best thing that could happen to PC gaming is for the AAA publishers to sod off to the consoles and leave the big fat juicy PC market to dedicated PC developers.

tl;dr: 80s/90s rocked, publishers ruined everything with greed and can go to hell. PC gaming will live on.