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EA Editor Criticizes Command & Conquer 4 DRM
Command & Conquer 4's DRM hasn't garnered Electronic Arts as much bad press and fan outrage as Ubisoft's scheme, despite being very similar. Nevertheless, it's been causing problems and frustrations for some users, including EA.com's own editor-in-chief, Jeff Green. An anonymous reader points this out:
"Green wrote on his Twitter account late last week: 'Booted twice — and progress lost — on my single-player C&C4 game because my DSL connection blinked. DRM fail. We need new solutions.' He continued later, 'Well. I've tried to be open-minded. But my 'net connection is finicky — and the constant disruption of my C&C4 SP game makes this unplayable. The story is fun, the gameplay is interesting and different at least — but if you suffer from shaky/unreliable DSL — you've been warned.'"
Because A) he is surprisingly honest and B) he will be needing one.
Hey Mr. Green, the solution is quite simple and at your fingertips
That patch will fix your broken version of C&C4 ;-)
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Some people can just pay for a better connection; living in the middle of the desert in a Marine Corps barracks leaves me with fewer options.
While I'm more than willing to shell out the cash for a game like C&C4, my internet is horrible (one of the main reasons I like playing SP games so much now) and to make SP games reliant on a constant internet connection means one less sale for them. Ubisoft has already lost my sale on AC2 and now it looks like EA is going to follow in their footsteps.
A shame too because I loved AC and the C&C series.
"Dictator Flakes. They WILL be delicious."
..its likely a planned statement. The guy is supposed to be a "mouthpeice" for the company. I highly doubt he would just up and "go rogue" on EA since its a really good way to lose his job in the long run. More than likely the intent is a bit more subtle. Perhaps to throw the (slow selling) game under the bus for awhile only to result in either a patch after the story is run awhile to ramp up news reaction to the break. Giving them quite a bit of press for having to "listened to the fans" or just allow them to retain cred by trashing a game thats not going anywhere anyway cutting thier losses and putting a good spin on a bad move "hey, it sucks, but we admitted it sucks. So, we're cool and can keep the money you paid us right?" or something along those lines.
Assuming, that is, your goal was to destroy the PC as a gaming platform.
How we know is more important than what we know.
...why i am losing interest in games rapidly.
While i can still play games i bought 15 years ago, there is no guarantee whatsoever that i can play today's games in 15 years. In the past, i got the feeling of really 'owning' a game (well, a non-revokable license to play it, you know what i mean), but now, i can only play it if the publisher is still in business *and* allows me to activate the game, so essentially holding hostage a game i paid good bucks for.
Another reason is that intolerable dlc business, which i still suspect is a mechanism for publishers to hinder the secondhand market, and/or generate 50% more revenue of a game by selling content that (in most cases) might as well have been included in the release.
Then again, maybe it is just me getting older, having kids, etc.
The PC as a gaming platform is done.[...]PS3 offering unparalleled processing power[...]
Can I play every PS3 game in 1080p, 8xAA ? Didn't think so. On my gaming PC, I can. With an Xbox Controller and HDMI output, I can play Batman, GTA, etc. on my HDTV, sitting on my couch, with (far) better graphics than on any so-called Next-gen console. And with the same machine, I can play FPS, CRPGs, and strategy games with proper controllers (mouse/keyboard). Oh, and thanks to Steam's constant stream of special deals, I don't have to pay 50-70€ for each game.
Each time a console's price drops, I've had the temptation to buy one. But each time I quickly remember that I would hardly use it, except for playing the odd exclusive title.
Ironically, the first time I played C&C (Tib Sun) was on a friend's LAN, he had one official copy but also had it pirated specifically to have LAN games. I enjoyed it so much I went out and bought myself a copy to play online. I've also bought pretty much every one since then, all on the back of that first play, and now the thing that will likely stop me buying any more is their anti-piracy DRM, despite the fact that if piracy didn't exist I'd have likely never bought/played any of these games in the first place.
these DRM failures have scared me away from buying games, life is too short.
Much like Sony demonstrated that CDs are fair game for malware deployment, I'm never buying another CD or game again.
My gaming is pretty retro by now, so I can live with it, and the occasional pirated/cracked game.
It's kinda funny that I have more faith in crackers to give me a "clean" product, than i do in the publishers.
I have the money for the odd game i want, but I have exactly zero patience with DRM. Oh and my original Quake and Diablo install discs don't require any kind of activation from a remote server, and should work just fine in another 20 years.
The annoying part is that it knows a patch is available, but doesn't download it or do anything with it, it just notes the fact, and then refuses to run if the internet goes down before it gets patched. This is a Really Bad Design for a service that supplies single player games. Not quite as bad as the DRM fiascos people are reporting, but it's been an extant issue with Steam (with people complaining about it) for years.
You say that Steam requires and internet connection. But then your example is a rare edge-case involving a half-way downloaded patch. It sounds like a bug, and it sounds annoying, but it isn't the same as saying that steam requires an internet connection.
Here's a nifty statistic for you:
Command and Conquer style games I've bought (first sale):
- Command and Conquer
- Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun
- Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun - Firestorm expansion pack
- Command and Conquer: Renegade
- Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars
- Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars - Kane's Wrath expansion pack
- Command and Conquer: Red Alert
- Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2
- Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2 - Yuri's Revenge expansion pack
- Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3
- Command and Conquer: Generals
- Command and Conquer: Generals - Zero Hour expansion pack
Command and Conquer style games I won't be buying because of DRM restrictions on single-player gameplay:
- Command and Conquer 4: Tiberium Twilight
So, there you have it. One guaranteed, demonstrable lost sale because of your choice to implement a ridiculous restriction on single player gameplay. Thanks for reading.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
That is the typical scaremongering of the BSA. Although some of the patches have trojans, the idea of using sites like PirateBay and the like where releases are PEER REVIEWED pretty much renders that point moot.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
While the CPU power and abundance of input devices make it an attractive target platform, there are simply too many problems related to software piracy to sustain the PC as a viable platform for much longer.
Why would there be more problems now than any other time in computer gaming history? There has always been piracy; it was sneakernet and BBSes before the internet came along. The difference is, back in the days of the floppy when Duke Nukem was a squeaky little side scroller, gamers revolted and stopped buying games with any sort of DRM, and DRM went away -- for a decade or two.
Piracy does not cost anybody and actually can cause a company to make even more money, by getting the word out that it's a kickass game. The only people who pirate are those who just want to try it out, and they'll buy it if it's good, and the rest of the pirates aren't going to buy the game anyway and wouldn't even if it was impossible to pirate it, so there aren't any lost sales to pirates. But pirates help sales when their non-pirate friends see the game.
The kicker is, for piracy to help sales of a game, the game has to be good, as opposed to being a piece of shit that the publisher bribes gaming magazines to lie about. Bad games that shouldn't even be on the market are the only ones that piracy will hurt, because the pirates will let everyone know that the game is shit.
If you believe the bullshit the RIAA, MPAA, and BSA spew, I have a nice bridge in Brooklyn you might be interested in buying. DRM only helps games, movies, and music that suck anyway; good media will sell regardless.
Free Martian Whores!
I'm not in full agreement with this, I think that DRM can be a good business strategy if done well. Steam has become a fantastic example of this after its troubled early days, the trick is simply to be honest about what it is and offer some benefit to the system to balance the irritation and the risk.
What I really wanted to say though is that the problem of spending millions on a game isn't that the game is crap, just that it isn't worth millions. Cheap indie games that were developed on practically a budget of zero and sell for trivial amounts if they aren't free can do pretty much the same gameplay concepts as any major game. Trying to compete on graphics is an uphill struggle too, and with poorer returns ever since games stopped looking shit.
I honestly think that most large publishers should turn into nothing more than advertising consultants. Sign deals with games studios to generate customers in return for a percentage, and keep all dealings on a per-game basis. No ownership -> no incentive for ridiculous chains of sequels.
Fuck that. The better choice is not using the product at all. When users are driven to piracy it proves there's still demand for the product, which creates incentive to forcibly convert the pirates into paying customers. When users don't want anything to do with their product, that's when companies see the real problem.
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
Because it's pretty terrible. Well, let me clarify that. If it was some other combat game set in any other universe released for cheap on Steam it would be OK. For a Command and Conquer game it blows.
No base building?
No resource gathering?
No continuity with the previous story?
Did anybody in EA management play any of the other C&C games? Or even know of their existence?
C&C 4 is the Indiana Jones 4 of the gaming world. What is it with 4s?
I can't emphasise this enough.
If you fire up Dawn of War 2, you are only ever controlling a small number of units at once. However, each of these units is highly sophisticated. They can be tweaked extensively between missions and, depending on the tweaks you make, have access to a wide variety of special abilities and powers during missions. They have more in common with a character from a party-based role-playing game like Baldur's Gate than with a traditional RTS unit. When you're actually deployed in the mission, the terrain is highly complicated and the environment has many interactive elements. Securing an area (provided you aren't on the easiest difficulty) will involve careful micromanagement, use of cover, and co-ordination between individual units. Thus the game compensates for the depth it loses by stripping out the traditional base-building and resource management elements of the RTS genre.
If you fire up Supreme Commander 2, you are faced with fairly generic units, most of whom have no special abilities or powers, and which are normally only capable of moving and attacking (though exceptions exist). However, you are managing hundreds of units at once, often fighting on multiple fronts (one set of units defending your base, while an expeditionary force goes on the offensive, with both teams containing hundreds of vehicles). You have little capacity to micromanage individual units without losing control of the wider battlefield, but the depth here comes from managing your economy, building up your base, and controlling a large combined-arms force.
Both of those approaches to the RTS genre are entirely valid and I would have no qualms about recommending either of the above games. They inhabit different ends of the RTS spectrum, but ultimately, the genre is richer for containing both of them. Some will prefer one approach, some the other, and some, like me, are happy with either.
Then we get C&C4. You are only controlling a small force at any one time (slightly larger than in Dawn of War 2, but not by a huge margin). However, the units within it are generic, cookie-cutter stuff. Only a few have any kind of special abilities to micromanage. For the most part, they just move and attack. At the same time, there is no economy to manage. You have a mobile base that can deploy, quickly build a full force of units (with no resource cost) and then pack itself up and move around again. You can slightly influence the course of battle through micromanagement, but with your small army being so easy and fast to replenish, there's relatively little point. It's better just to wheel up near your target and keep pumping out a combination of two or three unit types until you win. That's all there is to it really; no depth, no strategy, no fun.
Lol such a low UID for such a stupid college kid-esque attitude. There are no PS3 modchips. Thanks for playing.