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Second Penny Arcade Game Due Out This Week
Hothead Games has announced that the second episode of the Penny Arcade: On the Rain-slick Precipice of Darkness series is coming out this Wednesday, and they've released a trailer showing off some of the gameplay. ACG has an interview with Hothead's Joel DeYoung discussing the series and explaining some of the decision-making that went into its development. The game will launch for Linux, Mac, PC, and Xbox Live, with a PS3 version coming later. Feedback from players of the first game in the series inspired a $5 decrease in price this time around.
That sentence almost makes it sound like you'd pirate if it didn't contain drm. If so, you're doing it wrong.
if it's DRM-free, you'd better fucking BUY it to support people that make proper PC games.
I would imagine it would follow the last release, but I'm not sure anyone really knows.
The last release was available in two forms, that I know of:
- Xbox Live Arcade. The strictest DRM possible (they lock down your entire system and pretend it's an appliance (console) rather than a computer), but it generally works. It's not like you'll be running into "You're not allowed to have this program installed" bullshit with this.
- Greenhouse, their own digital distribution system. Light DRM, somewhat less than Windows XP -- when first installed, or when there's a significant hardware change, it phones home. Unlike XP, this "phoning home" doesn't force you to call someone in India and insist that it's the same computer -- you can install it as many times as you like. But they do reserve the right to notice if you're installing it on a few thousand of your best friends' systems, and disable your key in that event.
So no, not DRM-free, but what I would call an acceptable level of DRM. For example, it's not exactly going to refuse to run because Daemontools is installed.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
You act as if the DRM companies intentionally make it crackable. The fact is that any DRM a company makes is cracked.
This DRM sounds innocuous -- it just tracks how many times you install your key in case you try giving it to 30 of your friends or something. I would call that not restrictive...
You act as if the DRM companies intentionally make it crackable.
Not really, I act as if DRM companies knowingly provide solutions to publishers that are essentially nothing more than than exercises in "investor/board member reassurance" (Rather than truly effective pieces of DRM). Waste of investor money and perpetuation of the time honoured, "board amazement" principle.
I'm not against DRM. I'm against incompetence and time-wasting. Too much of current DRM is nothing more than snakeoil for publishers.
I record my sleeptalking
I don't see light DRM as being acceptable if it is just going to be continuously broken days after it comes out. I'd be fine with DRM IF it remains uncrackable...
Is that really relevant, though?
I have a limit to what I will tolerate, as a customer. Whether or not it's effective is between the developer and the pirates.
But so far, I've had to enter a CD key exactly once -- I think it was even copied and pasted. I'm sorry, but the moral outrage simply isn't worth it when that's all that's at stake.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
DRM is an attempt to hand out usable copies of a binary file to paying customers, while trying to prevent those customers make further usable copies. This is the equivalent of trying to make water not wet.
So let me take your position and follow it to its logical conclusion; All DRM is snakeoil.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
try harder gabe.
I.O.U One Sig.
Actually this is one of the few games I have bought. I felt that after years of producing comics that gave me a good laugh ( though I wish fruit fucker and the divx player would make appearances again), i felt not just a relationship with the authors; and emotional investment if you will, in the characters that are portrayed through Penny Arcade. Playing the game was like reliving the comics
Further to that, the price of the game wasn't too bad either.
The Tao that can be named is not the Tao
What is with EVERY SINGLE THREAD about video games turning into anti-DRM rants. Sorry, DRM is today's copy protection. Copy protection has been in games since they put spin wheels and decoder cards into the game box. This will not be going away. Yes, some of you will refuse to buy games because of it, but you're not gamers. Playing the original Zork over 20 years ago doesn't qualify you as a gamer. CDs were their very own copy protection when they first came out since nobody had the patience to transfer 650 megs over their 9600 baud modem. Then came security keys, and then DVDs. Now it's DRM since people will gladly download 8GB games, and it will take a single night. Enough already. I came in here to read about the game and there isn't a single post about it.
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
I'm just happy that they listened to cystomer feedback. We said $20 was a little steep for 4 episodes and they listened. Most said around $15 would be a fair price point and voila!
I enjoyed the first one and will buy this one.
As for the DRM, come on folks, the PC/Mac/Linux version gets installed pretty quickly. I can't even remember if I needed to input my license key except to download it. I can install it at home like I want and play. No worries. No activation through internet or other crap. No intrusive sending data to the base (Spore).
I think DRM is silly, but having some way of allowing paying customers to download the full version and letting non-paying customers download a demo version is acceptable so long as you don't try to push it further.
Again, thank for listening to feedback. Responding to it means that I will buy this one (in one or two weeks, when my exams are finished)
Well, I kind of liked the first game (it was worth my $20 at the time), but I'm goddamn drowning here in Fable II, Fallout 3, Saint's Row 2, a Dead Space I haven't even opened, the new Castlevania...
Just bad timing, guys. Your amusing writing but mediocre gameplay just can't compete with that. Maybe later?
Nobody's going to include a free blowjob in the box.
Ah, goddamnit. Ripped off again.