IF EA launches a version of the new SimCity that can save games in my computer AND does not need to be online all the time, THEN I'll believe they've learned something. I could even buy a copy.
EA started giving refunds after this went around the 'net, but what bothers me most is the casual threat of banning his account just for wanting a refund. Even if SimCity is patched not to require a connection all the time, it'll likely still require Origin. As much as I loved the franchise, I won't support games that can be rendered unplayable by the company's disapproval of you any time after you "purchase" it.
Hah, you know nothing yet. There have been people who got banned from their Origin account for more futile things than this. And getting banned from your account means you can't access ANY of your games anymore. Horrible, just horrible. I'm glad I never installed Origin on my PC. I'm not happy with Steam either, btw. It loads like crap on my PC and is extremely slow, even after I uninstalled more than half of the games in my library. I just wish games didn't need any of this DRM bullcrap to be able to play. If I want to buy a game, I'd much rather buy it in a store anyway, to have an actual physical copy of the game. Not it seems as if you can only 'borrow' games from the devs anymore. I read a comment on a Simcity forum the other day. It was about a guy complaining how gaming got ruined by making it more of a casual industry focusing on a broadezr audience instead of being a thing for geeks and nerds. I agree with him. Most games from big companies get streamlined so much nowadays to even include the casual Angry Birds gamer, that real gamers just can't find any real good games anymore. It's a bit sad. Also, no offense to people who love Angry Birds. I love the franchise myself. It was just an example of a popular game accessible to more casual players.
Personally I'm okay with Steam, since my computer is always on the Internet anyway and it all seems to work pretty quick and nearly flawlessly, but I suppose I can understand where you're coming from. It seems to be the way of the future, regardless, and Steam does it lightyears better than Origin.
@Kitteh_On_A_Cloud: And therein lays the ultimate problem with this whole disgusting mess. Should the servers for these games go down (and they inevitably will), you have effectively had your money AND product stolen from you. That is, of course, assuming you could ever call it your product to begin with.
I just love how these people hide behind claims of digital rights, while simultaneously violating yours as a customer. The average consumer pays money for a legitimate copy of a computer/video game - a product which, whilst comprised of digital data, often exists on a physical medium - in good faith, and places their trust in the publishers to respect their rights as a customer and a supporter of their trade. At least, that's how it is supposed to be...
Instead, companies like EA, using the done-to-death excuse of protecting against piracy (piracy counts for around 5% of losses at most), subvert and twist that contract in every way possible, relying on people's ignorance of the fact to get away with it. You may have seen and heard the many ludicrous claims of piracy funding things like terrorism and organised crime. It's nonsense. Drugs and diamonds, among other high-value goods, are far more valuable to such groups than games.
@Magnus_Grelich: I completely agree. The whole piracy claim gets blown out of proportion. Besides, companies like EA only ENCOURAGE piracy by acting like amateurs and messing up their own products and services. In the end, it's always the honest paying customer who gets punished. That's also why I have stopped buying EA games and games in general. Because of this poor state the industry is in right now. As a student, I just can't afford to waste 60 euros on a broken game. I can't. That money is valuable to me and it still is a LOT of money for a game, no matter what game developers might say. It is more than half of my monthly pocket money. So yeah, I expect my game to work if I decide to spend so much money on it. It's incredible how the gaming industry just can get away with things like this. In other fields, it would be impossble. To give a silly example: if I unknowingly buy a broken waffle machine, I as a customer have a right to return it to the shop and get a refund and eventually also a new waffle machine. If I buy the new Simcity and notice it's broken, I'm sure EA would laugh in my face while carressing my money in their fat little hands. I've even read how people wanting a refund get threatened with a ban on their Origin account. And this is what we call normal? We just accept this? It boggles my mind. It truly does.
@Kitteh_On_A_Cloud: You and me both, friend. As a kid, I remember going to an outdoor market most saturdays with my family, running to the games stall and buying ZX Spectrum games for £2.99 each. Even as prices went up over the years, I always felt secure in the knowledge that this copy was mine. That all started changing in the early 2000's. And now EA blatantly threaten to steal from you if you even contest their greed? Time for molotov cocktails at EA headquarters, methinks...
I've enough faith in mankind that they won't take much more of stuff such as this. A few more fiascos of this caliber, and things will hopefully work out for the better.
They were already forced to change the Mass Effect 3 ending, after all.
I'd like to believe that, but I think it's up to us to keep the pressure on. These seem like the kind of people who will go right back to shafting you when your back's turned.
I may have my doubts about AAA titles, I have to admit that this is no different for the so-called Kickstarter projects which are currently another trend in the gaming industry. Afterall, you're donating for a concept, a game that isn't even in production yet, and I'm not sure whether you get your money back if a project gets cancelled. Many such a project could get funded out of pure nostalgia, but what about the final product? Sometimes it doesn't even see the light of day. I'm not really a fan for supporting a mere concept. I am more of a person who, if they like a game, will continue to support it by buying quality content and sequels afterwards. It's just too risky otherwise.
The usual problem with video games is that the high hopes and great plans of the developers are gradually shot down and crushed by the publishers: even if they allowed a developer to pitch an idea of their own, they would stick their spoon to the soup pretty much constantly and try to ruin everything, or at the very least rush it out to the market early. That is usually the reason there is such a thing called Unfinished Business in Baldur's Gate, Throne of Bhaal, Planescape Torment, or many others.
I support Kickstarter largely because it gets the producers entirely out of the equation, an unneeded parasitic middlehand as they are. It allows some of the greatest game developers we have seen to finally fulfill their dream projects, without anyone getting on the way. And while I admit there is a possibility of it turning up like Star Wars Episode I, the power going to their heads and them tossing through all sorts of crazy stuff, the first Shadowrun gameplay video at least looks pretty amazing.
And yeah, I'm not saying I would throw my money at absolutely everything, but there are four particularly promising games I've given a bit of money for so far, not much even in that case. But if you have allowed the gaming industry to crush your spirit enough to not even allow yourself that, then I guess there's not much I could do to convince you otherwise.
The main problems are greed and corruption. It's getting worse than in the field of politics. I think it's sad how gaming journalists just can't be honest anymore out of fear they'll bite the hand that feeds them. It must be horrible to live with that hypocrisy in mind. I've read a blog about a honest gaming journalist telling about all of the tempting offers he has gotten from companies just to give the game a high rating. Examples were expensive trips and even free trips to stripclubs. It's terrible. As for the Kickstarter thing, I know there are risks involved. But if I decide to fund something, I also want to actually see the devs do something with it. I expect some result. I'm sorry, but I'm past the period of naive idealism. Dreaming of making your own game without the involvement of any big parasitic company is nice, but eventually the money has to come from somewhere, right. And if you do get the money from the fans, don't retrace your steps, but actually DO something with it. I've seen projects get cancelled while they got the funding they needed. It's such a pity, don't you think? Well, I think it is.
We'll see. All of the games I've put money on should come out on this year or soon after, so that we can soon see for ourselves. And although I try to remain aware of the risks and the possibility that it all sucks or doesn't come out at all, I just can't not feel really bloody hopeful about this.
These people are not motivated by greed: if they were, they'd just make another stupid Call of Duty clone, because those clearly sell a lot these days. No, these guys just want to do something they really want to. They understand that video games can be art, instead of a way to print money with rushed badly-made games people buy anyway, and there's no way I'm not going to support something like that.
I also realize you don't have enough money to do what I do, though. Hopefully that too changes one day.
Has anyone actually heard of many examples of Kickstarter games not being released, but not giving backers their money back either? I've only heard of one such case myself, and it sounded like it came down to bad luck as much as anything. And I believe the guy behind the project was still determined to get the game out, and I think he was even spending money out of his own pocket to get it done. I never heard what became of it though.
@Chow: Well, I hope to have a good job myself soon enough, but I'm currently still studying, so it will have to wait for a few more years. It's not easy to find the right studies after high school. I tried a lot of things, but only now do I feel comfortable with what I am studying. You could call it a waste of years, but I think I also learned a lot in my other studies. I first started on an art course, which was fun, but I lacked creativity and got criticised a LOT. I'm not used to thinking 'out of the box', as my high school studies simply never promoted that. So yeah, bad idea. Then came a few years of university, but it was only after three years that I gave up, as I realised the amount of theory simply was too much and too abstract for me. Now I'm going to college, which is focused on being more practical, and I feel like I've finally found my place. I'll be 25 when I graduate, yes, but it's still not too old, and for the studies I'm having right now, I know there are quite some job opportunities. So yeah, that's the only reason I like Steam, namely, for the sales of games a poor student like me couldn't afford otherwise.
They say you don't get good with cheap, but funnily enough, all the ridiculously cheap indie game stuff you find from Steam really is much better than the expensive AAA games. I think video games in this regard are basically the first thing ever to subvert the old proverb?
Anyway, this video of Shadowrun I posted, along with anything I know of Torment: Tides of Numenera, all the numerous emails I get about how Project Eternity is progressing, the mere pictures and general idea of the Delver's Drop, and just the simple premise of Homestuck and knowing what kind of an insane person is behind it (completely unhindered by the producers or other sort of shadies, at that), is enough to lift my expectations to them higher than a lot of games could have done for me for many years, especially if you count only non-indies. And even if they won't meet my expectations, I don't really think there could be any conceivable way all of them will suck.
@Chow: Well, can't disagree with that. Let's hope the big companies learn something from independent small companies. The main factor is and stays the customer, afterall.
In my opinion, one of the problems with the kickstarter games is that it costs a lot of money to make a modern game. Something like US$20m is the average for new games today. I haven't seen any kickstarter games get anything like that much funding.
And even if you do get the funding, it's not always easy to spend the money properly. If you have planned on making a game with a dozen people but get a lot more budget than you were expecting, how do you spend the extra money? Increasing developer salaries helps the developers, but doesn't improve the game. Hiring more staff is a fairly time consuming process, both to identify the correct people and then appropriately fit them into the team.
Most of that funding goes to cutting-edge graphics, voice acting, console translations, licenses, advertising, and other such pointless matters. Removing those will mean you'll only need the fraction of money that you normally would, yet in my opinion the game ends up just about as good as it otherwise would have.
I mean, these days you could easily program something like Baldur's Gate in your backyard garage. Does that mean it's a pointless and outdated game, the sort people should not do these days anymore? Is a good game all about graphics?
Comments
EA started giving refunds after this went around the 'net, but what bothers me most is the casual threat of banning his account just for wanting a refund. Even if SimCity is patched not to require a connection all the time, it'll likely still require Origin. As much as I loved the franchise, I won't support games that can be rendered unplayable by the company's disapproval of you any time after you "purchase" it.
I just love how these people hide behind claims of digital rights, while simultaneously violating yours as a customer. The average consumer pays money for a legitimate copy of a computer/video game - a product which, whilst comprised of digital data, often exists on a physical medium - in good faith, and places their trust in the publishers to respect their rights as a customer and a supporter of their trade. At least, that's how it is supposed to be...
Instead, companies like EA, using the done-to-death excuse of protecting against piracy (piracy counts for around 5% of losses at most), subvert and twist that contract in every way possible, relying on people's ignorance of the fact to get away with it. You may have seen and heard the many ludicrous claims of piracy funding things like terrorism and organised crime. It's nonsense. Drugs and diamonds, among other high-value goods, are far more valuable to such groups than games.
And now EA blatantly threaten to steal from you if you even contest their greed? Time for molotov cocktails at EA headquarters, methinks...
They were already forced to change the Mass Effect 3 ending, after all.
I support Kickstarter largely because it gets the producers entirely out of the equation, an unneeded parasitic middlehand as they are. It allows some of the greatest game developers we have seen to finally fulfill their dream projects, without anyone getting on the way. And while I admit there is a possibility of it turning up like Star Wars Episode I, the power going to their heads and them tossing through all sorts of crazy stuff, the first Shadowrun gameplay video at least looks pretty amazing.
And yeah, I'm not saying I would throw my money at absolutely everything, but there are four particularly promising games I've given a bit of money for so far, not much even in that case. But if you have allowed the gaming industry to crush your spirit enough to not even allow yourself that, then I guess there's not much I could do to convince you otherwise.
These people are not motivated by greed: if they were, they'd just make another stupid Call of Duty clone, because those clearly sell a lot these days. No, these guys just want to do something they really want to. They understand that video games can be art, instead of a way to print money with rushed badly-made games people buy anyway, and there's no way I'm not going to support something like that.
I also realize you don't have enough money to do what I do, though. Hopefully that too changes one day.
Anyway, this video of Shadowrun I posted, along with anything I know of Torment: Tides of Numenera, all the numerous emails I get about how Project Eternity is progressing, the mere pictures and general idea of the Delver's Drop, and just the simple premise of Homestuck and knowing what kind of an insane person is behind it (completely unhindered by the producers or other sort of shadies, at that), is enough to lift my expectations to them higher than a lot of games could have done for me for many years, especially if you count only non-indies. And even if they won't meet my expectations, I don't really think there could be any conceivable way all of them will suck.
And even if you do get the funding, it's not always easy to spend the money properly. If you have planned on making a game with a dozen people but get a lot more budget than you were expecting, how do you spend the extra money? Increasing developer salaries helps the developers, but doesn't improve the game. Hiring more staff is a fairly time consuming process, both to identify the correct people and then appropriately fit them into the team.
I mean, these days you could easily program something like Baldur's Gate in your backyard garage. Does that mean it's a pointless and outdated game, the sort people should not do these days anymore? Is a good game all about graphics?
Ah there it is