Seeing that a publisher makes 0$ from a game being sold used, I don't really think they will care all that much.
The bad-rep impact will possibly make a small dent in games sold, but, i'm guessing that the upsurge in people who bought used games before, but will have to buy new now, will offset that nicely.
Question....when you get a game from Playstation Network do they enable you to download a trial and then buy if you like it, or do you have to buy before you can play any of the game?
This is, unfortunately, one of the let-downs of PSN, many games have no demos available, and its buy-and-try.
Sony really should enforce demos on all PSN games, like MS does on XBLA (At least, I am yet to find a game that doesn't have a demo there)
Some of the most creative games on the PS3 are only available for download from the Playstation Network.
That is also true for XBLA.. It seems that PSN/XBLA is more or less a return to the older days, where a couple of guys (or girls) could make a game in their basement, and get it published.
Which translates to "No, EA does not have any say in this, and I can make the game mechanics work any damn way I please"
I have bought a lot of games on both PSN/XBLA, and I find them a lot more enjoyable than full-priced showcase games like eg. GTAIV.
And also remember, its not Valve / Steam that sets the pricing for the different regions, its the publisher.
Steam just makes it possible to price products differentely in different regions. (Sometimes, making no sense at all, I could buy COD4 from a brick and mortar shop for 20$ lower, incl shipping, than if I bought it from Steam)
Write to the publishers and complain about the pricing.
hey give you the right NOT to complain if a publisher charges too much (eg, Call of Duty 4 for Aussies )
Why in the world would you complain to Valve about this? The price in EU is also priced about 18$ above store-price, but this is in not part Valves fault (or, problem for that matter)
If Activision decides that the price point should be this and that, then Valve, as a distributor, really can't (and shouldn't, imho) begin to, its wholly up to the publisher to decide.
If you want, send an e-mail to Activisions offices in your country (I did), and let them know what a boneheaded move it is, but please, don't blame Valve for Activions less-than-sane decision.
In all likelihood the decision to NOT support Games for Windows Live came from the fact that they would have had many many more rabbit fanboys complaining about having to use Vista and Live than they got complaints of not being able to play between PC and 360 users.
While VO is pretty impressive as a project, mainly due to its low developer-count, it lacks sorely as a game, and even more as an MMO.
I tried playing, and after 4 of my 8 hours of trial, I felt like I had seen it all (Mining, mission running, transporting), except for PvP, because I hadn't had a single encounter with another player.
And, as far as I could see on their webpage, there was a staggering 27 people logged on when the server was at its max.. I've been in Team Fortress 2 games with more players than that.
Eve, on the other hand, held me as a captive for 2 years, and I probably still would play it, if it wasn't for the fact that the developer has some serious internal issues when it comes to "playing" their own game.
But, in my experience, having played and researched on a LOT of MMORPGs outthere, both existing and upcoming, then, Eve is the only game that really offers a different experience from WoW and its ilk.
The aim-yourself gimmick doesn't really add anything to the game (imho), other than making it harder for you to hit mobs.
Dodging, weaving, jumping and/or running around doesn't affects mobs hitting you, but they can dodge your shots, summing up to just making it harder and more demanding for you to grind, which really didn't work for me at all.
The major difference (I did the beta for a while) is that shooting and tactical skill is actually a factor. There's some "fudge" in the mechanics to account for lag, but there's no "start combat"/"end combat" keystroke that puts you on auto-fight.
And while this seems interesting at first, the only thing it really does for the game is making it harder for you, as a player, to hit mobs, as you will have to do the aiming and shooting.
Mobs shots "automagically" homes in on you, and all the weaving and dodging you try, doesn't do squat (at least, I couldn't get it to do anything substantially damage-decreasing for the 4-5 hours I played the game)
Combined with the fact that the graphics arent't very interesting, the world is boring, and I found absolutely no new or interesting features, this game got uninstalled after the first playsession, and I won't be buying it on release.
Actually I think he meant that its easier for us europeans to purchase the game in a different country, with different laws (and, that we are much more used to doing just that), not that Europe is not a market worth selling to.
I believe he means denying at SMTP time, so the sender will try again after X minutes.
Which is kind of like greylisting. The FIRST problem is that the spammers have adapted to this and retry.
Huh? When I take a look at how many mails are bounced on all my domains, thanks to greylisting, each day, and hold it against how much spam actually enters my mailbox, i'd say they haven't adapted at all.
When you are sending millions of mails, retrying is far, far more expensive than just ignoring it.
Saying 200k and 9mil as regards to Eve and WoW is not at all interesting, this is paying subscribers, not concurrently active players.
As far as I know, a single server in WoW holds about 2-3000 players when it peaks (haven't played in a while), while Eves peak record is somewhere in the regions of 35000 players, in the same world.
Sure, WoW has way more active players at any given time, but they are spread over countless Shards, not being able to interact or communicate with more than the 2-3000 people on their own server.
If you wanted to, you could fly round and say hello to all 35000 players in Eve.
I'm guessing you didn't read what I wrote at all, if three pieces of software are installed independently, and they all use the same licensing service on the PC, which again is installed and/or upgraded with each new piece of software, if you uninstall the first, and it then removes the licensing "engine", the two programs installed later will break.
So, in effect it will have to leave the licensing engine on your system, but, if it WAS the only program installed that used it, you will effectively have a garbage process running, for a program you no longer have installed on your system, and I think we can all agree that this benefits absolutely no one.
While a good idea on paper, you place a lot of faith in your customers, and give them a constant hassle when they want to upgrade the software.
Should they upgrade the key themselves, maybe as part of the download process, should they get it via email, or maybe via a forum?
I know I would be pretty annoyed having to enter a new key every time I upgraded a piece of software, even though the update cycle would be a month or two apart.
So, in short you recommend using a piece of software, that installs another piece of software, that stays on the system after uninstalling the first piece of software (How else could it work, if you have multiple pieces of software that uses it?), and, as you say service, I assume it runs while the original piece of software is not.
Even though you say that you have never had any problems with it, I would absolutely HATE using anything of the kind, and would actively avoid using any piece of software that uses that kind of activation.
I can tell you this much, I was really looking forward to getting BF2142, actually having pre-ordered it and everything, but the second I found out, and got confirmation that ads were going to be in-game, I cancelled my pre-order.
If ads really makes games "cooler" (left undefined), then why didn't they advertise it before the BF2142 release, and we had to find out from some little slip of paper included in the box?
I think if a game were on the shelves of an EB, with a large sticker saying "NOW WITH MORE IN-GAME ADS", sales would plummet.
Slashdot Mirror
Seeing that a publisher makes 0$ from a game being sold used, I don't really think they will care all that much.
The bad-rep impact will possibly make a small dent in games sold, but, i'm guessing that the upsurge in people who bought used games before, but will have to buy new now, will offset that nicely.
I was going to pick this up as I assumed as an MP only game
There is a single-player campaign also.
I couldn't agree more, extensions are needed in Chrome before I will even consider a switch.
Question....when you get a game from Playstation Network do they enable you to download a trial and then buy if you like it, or do you have to buy before you can play any of the game?
This is, unfortunately, one of the let-downs of PSN, many games have no demos available, and its buy-and-try.
Sony really should enforce demos on all PSN games, like MS does on XBLA (At least, I am yet to find a game that doesn't have a demo there)
Some of the most creative games on the PS3 are only available for download from the Playstation Network.
That is also true for XBLA .. It seems that PSN/XBLA is more or less a return to the older days, where a couple of guys (or girls) could make a game in their basement, and get it published.
Which translates to "No, EA does not have any say in this, and I can make the game mechanics work any damn way I please"
I have bought a lot of games on both PSN/XBLA, and I find them a lot more enjoyable than full-priced showcase games like eg. GTAIV.
And also remember, its not Valve / Steam that sets the pricing for the different regions, its the publisher.
Steam just makes it possible to price products differentely in different regions. (Sometimes, making no sense at all, I could buy COD4 from a brick and mortar shop for 20$ lower, incl shipping, than if I bought it from Steam)
Write to the publishers and complain about the pricing.
You could use the excellent PasswordMaker extension, that does just that, with added bells and whistles. (Individual site rules, character-set etc)
http://passwordmaker.org/
Btw, I have nothing to do with the project, just a very happy user.
Why in the world would you complain to Valve about this? The price in EU is also priced about 18$ above store-price, but this is in not part Valves fault (or, problem for that matter)
If Activision decides that the price point should be this and that, then Valve, as a distributor, really can't (and shouldn't, imho) begin to, its wholly up to the publisher to decide.
If you want, send an e-mail to Activisions offices in your country (I did), and let them know what a boneheaded move it is, but please, don't blame Valve for Activions less-than-sane decision.
I'd have to say that, yes, sex, if you look at it from a purely mechanical point of view, actually is nothing more than grinding.
While VO is pretty impressive as a project, mainly due to its low developer-count, it lacks sorely as a game, and even more as an MMO.
.. I've been in Team Fortress 2 games with more players than that.
I tried playing, and after 4 of my 8 hours of trial, I felt like I had seen it all (Mining, mission running, transporting), except for PvP, because I hadn't had a single encounter with another player.
And, as far as I could see on their webpage, there was a staggering 27 people logged on when the server was at its max
Eve, on the other hand, held me as a captive for 2 years, and I probably still would play it, if it wasn't for the fact that the developer has some serious internal issues when it comes to "playing" their own game.
I didn't, you did
But, in my experience, having played and researched on a LOT of MMORPGs outthere, both existing and upcoming, then, Eve is the only game that really offers a different experience from WoW and its ilk.
Sounds like my experience, except I got to 5
The aim-yourself gimmick doesn't really add anything to the game (imho), other than making it harder for you to hit mobs.
Dodging, weaving, jumping and/or running around doesn't affects mobs hitting you, but they can dodge your shots, summing up to just making it harder and more demanding for you to grind, which really didn't work for me at all.
Saying that Eve has PvP is like stating that water is wet ;)
PvP in Eve is RUTHLESS, you can loose a brand-new ship, worth 2 weeks playtime, 2 seconds after your first undocking.
Some like it, some don't, but I have never played a game which can make my heartrate go through the roof again and again.
And while this seems interesting at first, the only thing it really does for the game is making it harder for you, as a player, to hit mobs, as you will have to do the aiming and shooting.
Mobs shots "automagically" homes in on you, and all the weaving and dodging you try, doesn't do squat (at least, I couldn't get it to do anything substantially damage-decreasing for the 4-5 hours I played the game)
Combined with the fact that the graphics arent't very interesting, the world is boring, and I found absolutely no new or interesting features, this game got uninstalled after the first playsession, and I won't be buying it on release.
Actually I think he meant that its easier for us europeans to purchase the game in a different country, with different laws (and, that we are much more used to doing just that), not that Europe is not a market worth selling to.
At least, thats how I read it.
Huh? When I take a look at how many mails are bounced on all my domains, thanks to greylisting, each day, and hold it against how much spam actually enters my mailbox, i'd say they haven't adapted at all.
When you are sending millions of mails, retrying is far, far more expensive than just ignoring it.
Saying 200k and 9mil as regards to Eve and WoW is not at all interesting, this is paying subscribers, not concurrently active players.
As far as I know, a single server in WoW holds about 2-3000 players when it peaks (haven't played in a while), while Eves peak record is somewhere in the regions of 35000 players, in the same world.
Sure, WoW has way more active players at any given time, but they are spread over countless Shards, not being able to interact or communicate with more than the 2-3000 people on their own server.
If you wanted to, you could fly round and say hello to all 35000 players in Eve.
I'm guessing you didn't read what I wrote at all, if three pieces of software are installed independently, and they all use the same licensing service on the PC, which again is installed and/or upgraded with each new piece of software, if you uninstall the first, and it then removes the licensing "engine", the two programs installed later will break.
So, in effect it will have to leave the licensing engine on your system, but, if it WAS the only program installed that used it, you will effectively have a garbage process running, for a program you no longer have installed on your system, and I think we can all agree that this benefits absolutely no one.
While a good idea on paper, you place a lot of faith in your customers, and give them a constant hassle when they want to upgrade the software.
Should they upgrade the key themselves, maybe as part of the download process, should they get it via email, or maybe via a forum?
I know I would be pretty annoyed having to enter a new key every time I upgraded a piece of software, even though the update cycle would be a month or two apart.
So, in short you recommend using a piece of software, that installs another piece of software, that stays on the system after uninstalling the first piece of software (How else could it work, if you have multiple pieces of software that uses it?), and, as you say service, I assume it runs while the original piece of software is not.
Even though you say that you have never had any problems with it, I would absolutely HATE using anything of the kind, and would actively avoid using any piece of software that uses that kind of activation.
Most probably because it was expected that there was a slowdown, just not this big.
As stated in other comments, the DRM secure-audio-path might very well be the main cause for this.
AMEN!!!
I can tell you this much, I was really looking forward to getting BF2142, actually having pre-ordered it and everything, but the second I found out, and got confirmation that ads were going to be in-game, I cancelled my pre-order.
If ads really makes games "cooler" (left undefined), then why didn't they advertise it before the BF2142 release, and we had to find out from some little slip of paper included in the box?
I think if a game were on the shelves of an EB, with a large sticker saying "NOW WITH MORE IN-GAME ADS", sales would plummet.