dear god i love resident evil

• 13Jan 13

  And these developers wonder why people pirate games?

  At the time of this writing, people (myself included) are still having trouble getting Farcry 3 retail copies to work properly. I still have framerate hitching, audio issues, and other annoyances. I have spent about four or five hours trying to get the game to work flawlessly on my amply-constructed rig (runs circles around most games with no difficulty at all), but Farcry 3 remains with just a toe over the unplayability line. The game is gorgeous, plays remarkably well, and feels amazing, but I am not able to play it in the way I paid for. I built my rig to perform, and I bought this game with my hard-earned dollars to see it perform in tandem with my hardware.

  Well imagine my surprise when I went to a friend's house and saw him playing Farcry 3 flawlessly on a very similar rig. I asked him how he did it. His answer shocked and depressed me: "I pirated it. The retail copies play like garbage. That stupid Uplay DRM from Ubisoft kills it."

  I must admit, I went home and pirated the game (which I almost never do- I purchase 99% of my games) and to my astonishment...........

  
  It plays flawlessly. No slowdown. No graphical errors. No audio dropouts. No crashes. 1080p, ultra graphics, DX11... It's amazing.

  This is a huge problem for consumers and developers. When the copy we pay money for performs well below a pirated copy, we should seriously start to consider why we should pay for games at all. I pay for games because I like to enjoy a quality experience, and I love nothing more than to reward the hard work of the developers who spent countless hours to bring me a product of their sacrifice. I feel like, for great games, $60 dollars is a pretty fair bet, considering that the average video game will give you at least four times the enjoyment of a $15 movie ticket. But when paying that $60 dollars buys me a technical disaster that results in truncated enjoyment, I have to ask myself who I am rewarding and why. Ubisoft wants to protect its product with its Uplay DRM system. Fat lot of good that did them, because there are pirated copies available anyway, and they play to a higher standard than the ones we are paying for.

  Consumers lose in this scenario because the developers know there are always those who will take the game for free, so the developers add these useless DRM programs that result in headaches and other problems (I understand Uplay is making Assassin's Creed 3 for PC a mess as well). Developers lose in this because all they do either way is piss customers off (pay for a copy that underperforms due to DRM, or pirate a copy and contribute to the very reason DRM exists in the first place).

  But there is another way to vote with your dollars. Don't spend them. If this is the product that Ubisoft is proud to sell me, then I'll stop buying their products, but I won't pirate them either. I'll stop playing them. I don't like to pirate games, because there are people that made that game and poured their heart and soul into it that don't represent Ubisoft. The average game has dozens of studios and sub-developers that have done nothing wrong. It's the publishers that want to bend the consumer over a table at the expense of product quality while simultaneously ignoring the hard work by talented teams of devoted video game fanatics that want nothing more than to get a great product into people's hands. If Ubisoft wants to dilute my gaming experience because they are afraid of pirates, then they don't deserve my $60.

  So to any of the sub-studios that made Farcry 3, if you can break away from a big publisher and perhaps self-publish or go with another publisher with more integrity (like 2k or even Bethesda), I will HAPPILY give you my money. Until then, I'm going to have to say goodbye.

  • Posted Jan 13, 2013 10:44 pm GMT
  • Category: Rant
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• 22May 12

  Diablo 3 and the presumption of Blizzard's guilt

  I am not really a fan of Blizzard. Not because I hate their business practices. Not because I haven't played many of their games (I own plenty). I see Blizzard as a company that does amazing things with gaming from a business perspective. They always know how to monotize and capitalize on gameplay mechanics. That's wonderful for a company that wants to keep pushing the envelope.

  No. I am not really a Blizzard fan because I feel like the games they make are bigger than the company making them. I am a big fan of the Warcraft series (no, I have never played WoW), Starcraft, and Diablo 2. I love all those games with all my heart. The DotA mod for Warcraft 3 gave birth to the entire MOBA genre. Blizzard is on the cutting edge of gaming, and they deserve a lot of respect and admiration for the work they do. And yes, I am also a huge fan of Diablo 3.

  But there are gamers out there (lots of them, apparently) that practically require instant gratification and demand nothing less. When the servers go down for maintenance, they only think of how their inability to play affects their own lives in that moment, and they take to the forums to complain.

  What has happened to gamers? We as a culture are quickly becoming the stereotypical epitome of the kid with a temper who demands that things be perfect the first time, while contributing nothing to the system.

  Seriously, what happened to us?

  • Posted May 22, 2012 2:41 am GMT
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• 10Mar 12

  Mass Effect 3 and gamer maturity

  I find it kind of embarrassing that gamers are acting so immature about Mass Effect 3. I feel like, in the last three years, gaming has been less about playing the games you like and avoiding the ones you don't, and more like a screaming match between children about how anyone who doesn't play a game they like is stupid/retarded/homosexual.

  It's mostly the children doing the yelling. The 13 year olds among us who don't pay for their games. You know the ones. They're at every midnight release with their parents, demanding that they purchase the strategy guide, sitting around on their smartphones trying to beat the adults in trivia contests. Frankly, I don't think these kids should be playing adult-oriented games to begin with, but that's a discussion for another day.

  What really irks me about this whole situation is that Bioware, one of the most beloved and forward-thinking developers of the last decade, is getting so much flak from people who clearly DIDN'T play Mass Effect 3. Go on Metacritic and read the user reviews. The negative reviews are mostly commenting about BioWare and EA, not Mass Effect.

  Look, I don't really like day 1 DLC either. I hate Origin, which is why I didn't buy Mass Effect 3 for PC (which I wanted to). But I don't just go online and complain and gripe. That solves very little. I don't support Origin, so I don't use it. I vote with my money. Yes, I bought the "From Ashes" DLC on day one, because I wanted to. I wanted the full experience. I understand that the game might not be everything you wanted, but that's life. They made the game THEY wanted to make.

  If you don't like it, go make your own Mass Effect 3. See how close you come to perfect.

  • Posted Mar 10, 2012 10:49 am GMT
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