Game Distribution Platforms Becoming Annoyingly Common

The Escapist's Shamus Young recently posted an article complaining about the proliferation of distribution platforms and social networks for video games. None of the companies who make these are "quite sure how games will be sold and played ten years from now," he writes, "but they all know they want to be the ones running the community or selling the titles." Young continues, "Remember how these systems usually work: The program sets itself up to run when Windows starts, and it must be running if you want to play the game. If you follow this scheme to its logical conclusion, you'll see that the system tray of every gaming PC would eventually end up clogged with loaders, patchers, helpers, and monitors. Every publisher would have a program for serving up content, connecting players, managing digital licenses, performing patches, and (most importantly) selling stuff. Some people don't mind having 'just one more' program running in the background. But what happens when you have programs from Valve, Stardock, Activision, 2k Games, Take-Two, Codemasters, Microsoft, Eidos, and Ubisoft? Sure, you could disable them. But then when you fire the thing up to play a game, it will want to spend fifteen minutes patching itself and the game before it will let you in. And imagine how fun it would be juggling accounts for all of them."

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[DoofusOfDeath]

I think the scenario could play out that way, and it would truly suck for gaming.

But we should keep perspective. Here are some ways you can still have fun even if/when this nightmare scenario occurs:

• Go for a walk / bike ride / swim.
• Grab a beer / coffee / soda with a friend you haven't seen in a while
• Read a good, paper book.
• Learn to cook your favorite food: Thai drunken noodles, some curry dish, a kick-butt chili recipe, chocolate chip cookies, etc.
• Finally learn to play whatever instrument you've always wanted to learn.
• Ask a local soup kitchen if they could use your help, even just once and for just a few hours.
• Visit your parents. If they're getting older, ask if they could use any help with the house, yard, etc.
• Sign up for a college course or some other course that might benefit you later on. Maybe take an introductory course at a trade school for basic plumbing, electrical, welding, etc.
• If you have some nagging question about politics, medicine, religion, or economics: Crystallize the question into something specific, and hunt down an answer.
• If you have a S.O., take him/her out for a date.

All I'm saying is that even if we lose computer gaming from our lives, most of us can still be just as happy, as long as we get off our butts.