It is a fairly common feature on ps3 games, actually, if they use the unreal engine - as an above poster noted. It's not common on 360 games because of the proprietary USB format MS uses on their controller cables.
If Castle Crashers is trying to patch anything else besides these bugs, they may be trying to roll those all into one. Also, the approval process for XBLA games might be slower - since they're lower demand/lower userbase.
The way xbox patches work in general is that the developer only gets one patch for free. After the first patch, you have to pay MS a fee if you want to patch the game again, as a disincentive to release sloppily coded games on consoles. Thus, Castle Crashers' producers may have decided to wait and use their one free patch when they have substantive content to update as well as the bug fix, whereas valve probably figured this issue was glaring enough that it needed to be fixed right away.
Windows XP game development and xbox 360 game development are virtually identical, if you go from console to PC. If the PC is your primary platform, you have to be careful that nothing you did on the game is above the capabilities of the console.
Yeah, it's pretty ridiculous that DoD is only now banning external media on their premises, when that's been standard operating procedure in the video game industry for years. Let's see, what matters more... the next year's copy of Madden, or the next Patriot missile specs?
Make the rewards for player-generated content still present, but somewhere between 1/2 and 2/3s as fast as dev-generated content. Remove this penalty if the mission/arc gets selected as one of the "best of the best", per the developers.
Re: His exaggeration - it's quite possible, I didn't know anyone there personally, but I did hear it more like fifthhand and not just from his press release. Even if the piracy rate was much lower than 90%, that they cited it as the reason for shuttering the whole company after making a pretty decent game (the best diablo clone since diablo 2) sort of is indicative of a problem, in my opinion.
Re: AC and Bioshock - because they were console games as well (primarily), and it's much more expensive and difficult to pirate console games than it is to pirate PC games.
To the mod that modded me Troll - please post AC and explain why you did so. I'm sharing my personal experiences of working in the game industry and dealing with piracy as a creator as well as in the role of consumer. How is this post a troll in any way?
Heh. I should have looked up the Stardock bit before posting. My recollection of it came from a Gamasutra article in which Wardell talked about how their main concern was really Windows apps, and this PC Gaming thing evolved from a side business into something just as valuable for them. Or something to that effect. Mea Culpa on that.
Also, do you work in the game industry? Do you know people who do? Do you have experience with publishers not greenlighting PC titles due to piracy concerns?
If you do, I'll eat my crow, but pre-emptively - I thought not.
Sigh. I'm not an astroturfer. I'd tell you who I was if I wasn't worried about this thread coming up in a googling of my name when I apply at a company, and upper management not looking well upon my candidness.
I get it - it's a horrible idea to make a for-pay product with more drawbacks than a free (pirated) product. But you can look at my comment history and see that I participate in plenty of discussions here on Slashdot and am, in fact, a real person.
Agreed, DRM sucks. It seriously harms real, legitimate consumers. I'm not trying to say DRM is good, just trying to demonstrate to at least some readers that piracy has real world negative consequences as well.
I meant more that I have friends in the industry whose teams have had cuts after revenue for their PC game wasn't high enough, and that there was high piracy on that particular game. It was a couple years back. I'm not underpaid, and I wouldn't stand for being swindled into getting underpaid either.;)
And you're totally right, it is just a guess - and maybe being inside the industry instead of outside skews my perception. I'd love if an academic institution could run studies on it that were unbiased so we could all geek out at them in excel.
Out of curiosity though, what do you think of my second supposition, that if games could not be pirated they would be bought more? I know you said you feel it'd be closer to 1%, but why do you feel that people would not pay to play most of the games that are being put out today? And what games WOULD you pay to play, and why?
If the internet did not exist and you could not pirate any given game, would you
A.) Not buy a game you were fairly interested in but not positive about?
or
B.) Buy a game you were fairly interested in but not positive about?
If you're like most people, I'm guessing the answer is that sometimes you would do A, sometimes B. I know this is how I buy my games - If it's made by BioWare, Obsidian, or Blizzard it's pretty much a must-have, and if it's made by someone else but looks like it might be pretty good, it's a coin toss.
The point is, though, that if one could not steal games, one would probably buy them more often.
Not every person who pirates a given game would buy it if they could not get it for free.
A fair number of casual pirates would, in fact, buy a game they wanted to play if they could not steal it.
Piracy adversely affects the PC Game industry by providing a disincentive to publishers to publish on the PC platform, and indirectly affects the lives of game company employees whose companies receive lower revenues due to pirated copies.
My personal guess is that 30-40% of pirated copies are lost sales, and the rest either eventually buy if they like the game or wouldn't have the means/convenience to purchase it if they could not steal it. But I'd need good, real methodical data on that (which frankly doesn't exist) to speak more authoritatively.
It's actually a third-person shooter, not a first person shooter - but you're right, it's definitively not Freelancer or Descent or X-wing vs. Tie Fighter or any of those other such awesome games. Though I've played Dead Space and it is a very cool game in its own right.
No, what bothers me is that I intimately understand the direct connection between piracy of a PC title en masse and the ensuing lack of employment of people who worked on said title if it underperforms "as a result". I'm not saying I agree with that proposed causal relationship, and I certainly understand that not every stolen copy is a lost sale - actually, almost everyone I've talked to in the business agrees - but piracy does hurt real people who make games, and therefore also dampens the quality of PC titles and the enthusiasm for the platform across the board.
There's a significant lack of respect for my work inherent in the statement they make by stealing a game I've worked on. The way it comes across to me is, "I know you spent hours of your life working on the thing that's entertaining me right now, and I think those hours were worth a total of zero dollars."
There's also what I say below, that it's a more compelling argument against game piracy when you have to talk to someone whom your actions are directly affecting.
It doesn't bother me more if I worked on it, I just think it provides me with a more compelling, more personal argument for why they shouldn't download them. My friends who have modded PS2s with probably hundreds of dollars of stolen games on them - that bothers me, but I know nothing I say to them will change their minds. But if they have to stand in front of me and tell me why they didn't value my work on their enjoyment, I think that at least makes them think, which makes it worth bringing up.
Stardock started not as a game publisher but as a Windows Application publisher. They have some desktop productivity products or something... but have become more famous for their consumer-friendly approach to PC gaming. Brad Wardell is taking advantage of the anti-DRM hype going on post-spore to build up a lot of respect for himself in the hardcore gamer community.
I suspect that this heiritage of developing for Windows only, as well as their relatively small scale as a publisher, leads them to a.) keep the people they have hired already and b.) not want to hire more people if at all possible. These two concerns definitely lead to publishing only for Windows in the foreseeable future.
Though I would argue that it's getting sillier and sillier to stick to one platform, especially with the addition of discrete graphics cards to entry level Macbooks as well as the Pros and the proliferation of Apple marketshare. Put simply, people who are writing apps from the ground up should be doing it in an environment where porting between Mac, PC, and Linux is easy, or they're not being responsible to their duty to maximize returns on their investment, especially given the relative dirth of good game titles on Mac and native Linux.
We'll have to see how their GPG release goes, though. Stardock has real integrity to date, such that I see genuine word-of-mouth support for them on all manner of forums, pushing Sins and Gal Civ and The Witcher: Enhanced Edition (through impulse) instead of DRM laden titles.
I think they know they have real money value in these values if they stick to them, and they'd be foolish to throw away that money value, especially since they limit themselves to the PC market only (where piracy is much more rampant).
Unless you work for a game company whose revenues are down, copies pirated on the main torrent sites are way up, and is a publicly traded company so may legally be required to lay off employees to shore up their balance sheet...
No, people don't pirate to save themselves 60 $us that they could pay, they pirate because they simply wouldn't be able to pay for it, or maybe because the game has been so horribly ruined by DRM that you need to pirate it in order to actually play it.
Categorically untrue. I'm sure many people do pirate a game because they wouldn't be able to afford it otherwise, and I know I've used no-cd patches to make my media last longer, but I'm JUST as sure that people do pirate games just to avoid spending money on them, even if their budgets could easily afford the 30 to 60 dollars it would cost them.
THE COMPANY IS NOT LOSING SALES it is earning players...
The company doesn't want non-paying players - that's just people who incur support costs without paying for them at all. The company wants you to buy the game, if you want it badly enough to play it.
Slashdot Mirror
It is a fairly common feature on ps3 games, actually, if they use the unreal engine - as an above poster noted. It's not common on 360 games because of the proprietary USB format MS uses on their controller cables.
If Castle Crashers is trying to patch anything else besides these bugs, they may be trying to roll those all into one. Also, the approval process for XBLA games might be slower - since they're lower demand/lower userbase.
The way xbox patches work in general is that the developer only gets one patch for free. After the first patch, you have to pay MS a fee if you want to patch the game again, as a disincentive to release sloppily coded games on consoles. Thus, Castle Crashers' producers may have decided to wait and use their one free patch when they have substantive content to update as well as the bug fix, whereas valve probably figured this issue was glaring enough that it needed to be fixed right away.
Windows XP game development and xbox 360 game development are virtually identical, if you go from console to PC. If the PC is your primary platform, you have to be careful that nothing you did on the game is above the capabilities of the console.
Yeah, it's pretty ridiculous that DoD is only now banning external media on their premises, when that's been standard operating procedure in the video game industry for years. Let's see, what matters more... the next year's copy of Madden, or the next Patriot missile specs?
*facepalm*
The achievement for 100% on expert on bass in Rock Band 1 requires that all your strums be upwards to get it. Maybe that's what you're thinking of?
Make the rewards for player-generated content still present, but somewhere between 1/2 and 2/3s as fast as dev-generated content. Remove this penalty if the mission/arc gets selected as one of the "best of the best", per the developers.
Re: His exaggeration - it's quite possible, I didn't know anyone there personally, but I did hear it more like fifthhand and not just from his press release. Even if the piracy rate was much lower than 90%, that they cited it as the reason for shuttering the whole company after making a pretty decent game (the best diablo clone since diablo 2) sort of is indicative of a problem, in my opinion.
Re: AC and Bioshock - because they were console games as well (primarily), and it's much more expensive and difficult to pirate console games than it is to pirate PC games.
To the mod that modded me Troll - please post AC and explain why you did so. I'm sharing my personal experiences of working in the game industry and dealing with piracy as a creator as well as in the role of consumer. How is this post a troll in any way?
Titan Quest and its expansion come to mind most immediately. Anything else I know I can't tell you because of NDA.
Heh. I should have looked up the Stardock bit before posting. My recollection of it came from a Gamasutra article in which Wardell talked about how their main concern was really Windows apps, and this PC Gaming thing evolved from a side business into something just as valuable for them. Or something to that effect. Mea Culpa on that.
Also, do you work in the game industry? Do you know people who do? Do you have experience with publishers not greenlighting PC titles due to piracy concerns?
If you do, I'll eat my crow, but pre-emptively - I thought not.
Sigh. I'm not an astroturfer. I'd tell you who I was if I wasn't worried about this thread coming up in a googling of my name when I apply at a company, and upper management not looking well upon my candidness.
I get it - it's a horrible idea to make a for-pay product with more drawbacks than a free (pirated) product. But you can look at my comment history and see that I participate in plenty of discussions here on Slashdot and am, in fact, a real person.
Agreed, DRM sucks. It seriously harms real, legitimate consumers. I'm not trying to say DRM is good, just trying to demonstrate to at least some readers that piracy has real world negative consequences as well.
I appreciate your response - I'll remember to always publish demos of my independently produced titles in the future.
I meant more that I have friends in the industry whose teams have had cuts after revenue for their PC game wasn't high enough, and that there was high piracy on that particular game. It was a couple years back. I'm not underpaid, and I wouldn't stand for being swindled into getting underpaid either. ;)
And you're totally right, it is just a guess - and maybe being inside the industry instead of outside skews my perception. I'd love if an academic institution could run studies on it that were unbiased so we could all geek out at them in excel.
Out of curiosity though, what do you think of my second supposition, that if games could not be pirated they would be bought more? I know you said you feel it'd be closer to 1%, but why do you feel that people would not pay to play most of the games that are being put out today? And what games WOULD you pay to play, and why?
Thought exercise:
If the internet did not exist and you could not pirate any given game, would you
A.) Not buy a game you were fairly interested in but not positive about?
or
B.) Buy a game you were fairly interested in but not positive about?
If you're like most people, I'm guessing the answer is that sometimes you would do A, sometimes B. I know this is how I buy my games - If it's made by BioWare, Obsidian, or Blizzard it's pretty much a must-have, and if it's made by someone else but looks like it might be pretty good, it's a coin toss.
The point is, though, that if one could not steal games, one would probably buy them more often.
Not every person who pirates a given game would buy it if they could not get it for free.
A fair number of casual pirates would, in fact, buy a game they wanted to play if they could not steal it.
Piracy adversely affects the PC Game industry by providing a disincentive to publishers to publish on the PC platform, and indirectly affects the lives of game company employees whose companies receive lower revenues due to pirated copies.
My personal guess is that 30-40% of pirated copies are lost sales, and the rest either eventually buy if they like the game or wouldn't have the means/convenience to purchase it if they could not steal it. But I'd need good, real methodical data on that (which frankly doesn't exist) to speak more authoritatively.
It's actually a third-person shooter, not a first person shooter - but you're right, it's definitively not Freelancer or Descent or X-wing vs. Tie Fighter or any of those other such awesome games. Though I've played Dead Space and it is a very cool game in its own right.
They've patched in the ability to play without the tubes. That makes the game a much scarier deal.
No, what bothers me is that I intimately understand the direct connection between piracy of a PC title en masse and the ensuing lack of employment of people who worked on said title if it underperforms "as a result". I'm not saying I agree with that proposed causal relationship, and I certainly understand that not every stolen copy is a lost sale - actually, almost everyone I've talked to in the business agrees - but piracy does hurt real people who make games, and therefore also dampens the quality of PC titles and the enthusiasm for the platform across the board.
It's a real problem out there.
There's a significant lack of respect for my work inherent in the statement they make by stealing a game I've worked on. The way it comes across to me is, "I know you spent hours of your life working on the thing that's entertaining me right now, and I think those hours were worth a total of zero dollars."
There's also what I say below, that it's a more compelling argument against game piracy when you have to talk to someone whom your actions are directly affecting.
It doesn't bother me more if I worked on it, I just think it provides me with a more compelling, more personal argument for why they shouldn't download them. My friends who have modded PS2s with probably hundreds of dollars of stolen games on them - that bothers me, but I know nothing I say to them will change their minds. But if they have to stand in front of me and tell me why they didn't value my work on their enjoyment, I think that at least makes them think, which makes it worth bringing up.
Stardock started not as a game publisher but as a Windows Application publisher. They have some desktop productivity products or something... but have become more famous for their consumer-friendly approach to PC gaming. Brad Wardell is taking advantage of the anti-DRM hype going on post-spore to build up a lot of respect for himself in the hardcore gamer community.
I suspect that this heiritage of developing for Windows only, as well as their relatively small scale as a publisher, leads them to a.) keep the people they have hired already and b.) not want to hire more people if at all possible. These two concerns definitely lead to publishing only for Windows in the foreseeable future.
Though I would argue that it's getting sillier and sillier to stick to one platform, especially with the addition of discrete graphics cards to entry level Macbooks as well as the Pros and the proliferation of Apple marketshare. Put simply, people who are writing apps from the ground up should be doing it in an environment where porting between Mac, PC, and Linux is easy, or they're not being responsible to their duty to maximize returns on their investment, especially given the relative dirth of good game titles on Mac and native Linux.
We'll have to see how their GPG release goes, though. Stardock has real integrity to date, such that I see genuine word-of-mouth support for them on all manner of forums, pushing Sins and Gal Civ and The Witcher: Enhanced Edition (through impulse) instead of DRM laden titles.
I think they know they have real money value in these values if they stick to them, and they'd be foolish to throw away that money value, especially since they limit themselves to the PC market only (where piracy is much more rampant).
Piracy, unlike throwing garbage doesn't really harm anyone!
Unless you work for a game company whose revenues are down, copies pirated on the main torrent sites are way up, and is a publicly traded company so may legally be required to lay off employees to shore up their balance sheet...
No, people don't pirate to save themselves 60 $us that they could pay, they pirate because they simply wouldn't be able to pay for it, or maybe because the game has been so horribly ruined by DRM that you need to pirate it in order to actually play it.
Categorically untrue. I'm sure many people do pirate a game because they wouldn't be able to afford it otherwise, and I know I've used no-cd patches to make my media last longer, but I'm JUST as sure that people do pirate games just to avoid spending money on them, even if their budgets could easily afford the 30 to 60 dollars it would cost them.
THE COMPANY IS NOT LOSING SALES it is earning players...
The company doesn't want non-paying players - that's just people who incur support costs without paying for them at all. The company wants you to buy the game, if you want it badly enough to play it.