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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."
I wasn't aware that PC gaming needed saving.
At least, not any more than console gaming needed saving...
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.
They're using their grammar skills there.
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).
Get the annoying f@cktards we call 'publishers' out of the way
Read radical news here
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.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
It's about time business's (and customers) re-established good will over mindless abuse of one another.
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.
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?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
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.
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.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
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.
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!
Nick
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.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
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).
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?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
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.
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.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.