Mass Effect and Spore were reported as being released with a 10 day authentication scheme in order to prevent piracy. As in you would have to authenticate every 10 days. Needless to say this caused a huge uproar and recently they have backed down to a new scheme, a scheme that requires authentication when you first launch it and when you download things like patches. This new scheme only allows you to reinstall 3 times (more on a case-by-case basis) but adds the ability to play without the disc. Debate has been raging in comment threads everywhere, but some common themes have surfaced that I think are important.

1. Is this a marketing ploy? As several people have pointed out, this sounds a lot like a bait-and-switch routine. They advertise a draconian DRM scheme and then go ‘woops’ and slide in the scheme they really intended, now a lot easier to swallow. It’s certain that the sighs of relief are quite palpable and smell of money as gamers report they now intend to buy the game. Personally I do think it is a marketing ploy, a point I feel is supported by the emphasis of the new system’s feature of allowing discless play. To me it smacks of something they planned all along but I realize this is more of a gut feeling.
2. Is piracy really a lost sale? No protection scheme has ever worked for long. Rather than go into the statistics of sales before the game gets pirated I would like to say that those who habitually pirate will continue to do so and will never buy the game. I feel that the percentage of people who pirate due to prohibitive drm schemes is far greater than those who buy because they can’t get around said schemes. Additionally, the former are guaranteed consumers if you’d only stop crippling their product whereas the latter would most likely not buy the game no matter what you do. What is the smarter percentage to mitigate?

In the end, I feel that crazy drm schemes only serve to hurt sales, raise the bottom line with more licensing fees, and strangle legitimate customers and by extension pc gaming as a whole. Companies simply need to trust their consumers to support the product. I feel that the only group of pirates they can possibly hope to get to pay is the one that does so only to use the product in a way they feel is reasonable. I know several people online and in real life who would pay for something if it was offered and usable in the same way illegal downloads are offered and used. Music is a good example, if you give people an online download system and allow them to move it from device to device, they are more likely and more willing to pay for it. Overall, crazy protection schemes only serve to increase piracy.

Please, please, PLEASE you big companies out there who give us this stuff. Trust us! Don’t cripple your legitimate buyers! Stop basing your business model on litigation and copy protection! We do value original authorship, we do believe that creators should be paid for their work, we do want to support the things we like! Make us happy and we’ll give you money!

Footnote: Steam. The reason I don’t mention it in the main article is because many companies are implementing copy protection on a game-by-game basis and don’t have an overall method of handling content. Steam is the exception, and a remarkable one at that. I feel it is the future of pc gaming as it not only handles drm in a way that is not crazy, it uses the features of our connected world to enhance the gaming experience. I can reinstall my machine, or replace it, or whatever; download Steam and I have access to my entire catalog of games without digging for discs. I can buy gifts for my friends. I can run my lighter-weight games on a laptop. I can access my games from another computer assigned to my use for whatever reason, say a machine at my parents house when I’m visiting. I can even play my games when I don’t have an internet connection. The point is that Steam enables me rather than disabling me, and it is so effective I have even purchased a second Steam copy of some games I bought by other methods. Take a hint big game companies.

• Forward these ports on your router (UDP I think, I left it as forwarding both services):
  • 28962
  • 44301
  • 45301

  This should fix the problem, go to the PB directory in the CoD4 install (C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\call of duty 4\PB by default) and run pbsetup.exe. Click ‘Update’ and see if you get an entry under ‘Client Version’ and ‘Server Version’. If not, try running pbsvc.exe and use the reinstall option. If that fails, manually reinstall PunkBuster.

• Manually reinstall PunkBuster.
  • Use ‘Add/Remove Programs’ for XP or ‘Programs and Features’ for Vista to uninstall PunkBuster and then restart to be safe (the dialog warns you some system files may not be removed unless you restart, this is Winblows after all).
  • Browse to the install directory for CoD4 and open the PunkBusters directory, usually C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\call of duty 4\PB .
  • Run pbsvc.exe or pbsetup.exe. I don’t recall which one I ran first, probably pbsetup.exe and then pbsvc.exe. Both install PunkBuster, pbsvc.exe checks PunkBuster and tests/(re)installs it, pbsetup.exe installs it and helps you manage games.
  • Run pbsetup.exe and click ‘Add a Game’. Select CoD4, it should automatically add the path. Click ‘Update’. PunkBuster should add entries under ‘Client Version’ and ‘Server Version’.

Let me know how this works for you.

I became fascinated with the PS3, and specifically the Cell processor when I discovered that PS3s were whomping PCs for Folding@Home processing. Stats as of the writing of this entry showed a total of 173,398 PCs and 39,388 PS3s, a lot more PCs as expected. However look at TFLOPS per machine and PCs show 165 and PS3s show 977! Almost six times the processing power for about a quarter of the machines! This encouraged me to look into some more detail about the Cell processor and I was pretty interested in what I saw. I plan on buying a PS3 when I can afford it so I can mess around with it myself.

Then today I saw another awesome article about the PS3. Researchers from Dartmouth and University of California at Irvine were implementing a much-improved vision algorithm based on study of the brain, their PC-only configuration took 3 minutes to identify a bar stool out of a scene. So they networked 3 PS3’s up to it and got their recognition time down to 1 second! It’s effectively real-time and is a very exciting development for robotics in general.

Now to be clear the Folding@Home client and the vision algorithm are written in a way that actually utilizes the processor’s 8 cores. According to a friend of mine, he wasn’t very interested in the PS3 because the Cell was ‘a mess.’ However as with most processor technology one of the biggest issues is programming. The Cell doesn’t do you any good if you don’t code for it. However, according to the whitepapers I was reading the Cell was designed to simplify this process. I don’t know any specifics so I can’t say how easy it might be, but the potential is certainly exciting. For myself I became far more interested in parallel programming as a result of this and am extremely interested in seeing/developing ways that utilize multi-core processors more effectively and especially more easily. I don’t know how possible it might be, but some sort of software layer or possibly even a hardware layer that implements algorithms that can break programs up into chunks automagically would be the killer app in this case. We’ll see what happens.

At this year’s Game Developers Conference, Chris Hecker of Maxis/Electronic Arts made an interesting observation of the Wii according to this article:

He believes that Nintendo does not treat gaming as an art form, but simply a tool for fun.

Hm. I’m as ready as most anyone passionate about video games to defend them as a ’serious art form.’ In an earlier post I mentioned Ebert’s shortsighted view on this very topic. However, Hecker’s statement isn’t just shortsighted, its downright backwards. What on earth is wrong with art being fun? Does he really believe the two are mutually exclusive? One of the big draws of video games is that they aren’t exclusively hoighty-toighty too-good-for-you pieces of art that the common man, or woman, is too low to understand. Why should they be? Does Hecker expect gaming to be another elite class of ‘dev-onistas’ lifting up their noses and raising their pinkies? Does he really believe that games shouldn’t be, *gasp*, fun?

As for the Wii, I admit that the architecture seems to be a bit lacking in terms of sheer power. But what it lacks in the electronic pants it more than makes up for in the electronic hands, interacting with the average gamer in ways most (if any) have never experienced and on a scale that is in some ways a watershed indicating that the future predicted in the 50’s and 80’s might finally be a reality, albeit sans flying car. If Nintendo really intended to save a few bucks and cut some corners to actually make a profit on the hardware for once, well good for them cuz it’s working. That being said, I find it hard to believe as the Wii is a very sexy piece of hardware. In my opinion, it far outweighs a Mac’s (or any Apple product’s) overengineered elitist classism by leaps and bounds. In any case, the average consumer has said ‘yes’ and hasn’t stopped saying ‘yes.’ The aftermarket for these babies alone has probably boosted the economy in significant ways that economists will finally note in their text books a couple years from now, filed away next to the tech bubble but ‘more fun.’

Money does not determine good art, I will unhesitatingly admit that. However, in a genre that is already breaking what is considered traditional art how could anyone claim that user interaction in a game can’t be art? On that note, what on earth makes a game art in the first place? What is the goal of a video game? To tell a story or to create and experience or to entertain… it can be all of these, but overall a game has to be interactive or it simply isn’t a game. I think anyone with any sort of experience with these machines can say the Wii has accomplished that. If you can’t see the inherent art in creating an interaction then you’re truly not seeing the level for the polygons.

I have recently become quite addicted to this game, and through browsing around on the internet I noticed that the way most people recommend to trap animals is really quite inefficient. So here’s the method I came up with:

• Make 4 or 5 snares (large traps) and gather 2 or 3 vines.
• Go to the grasslands and find a large animal.
• Watch it for a bit and attempt to place a trap in its path. If you succeed here, great, if not all is not lost.
• As you run around look for wood sticks. I usually find two. Use these to make more traps.
• Keep trying to trap animals using this method until all you’re seeing are the little cat-looking animals and the boars.
• Go back to the cave and rest.
• In the morning, head back to the grasslands. Chances are you’ve caught an animal. You’ll know instantly because you’ll hear it straining and grunting in the trap as soon as you enter the zone. If not, leave and come back until you do. You’ll probably end up with two or three animals in a very short time using this method.

This works because the animals consistently spawn in a finite number of areas. As you try to trap them you seed their most likely spawn zones with snares which increases your chances of getting one. Placing traps near the entrance takes far too long because animals rarely spawn there.

Hints: Always have snares with you when you’re in the grasslands and try to trap animals until you’re all used up. This way every time you enter the zone you’re likely to have caught something. Also, stock up on stamina ’shrooms. These are different for every game, experiment till you find the right ones. I think that they’re usually in the mushroom zone farthest from the cave.

If you’re considering getting this game, I recommend it if you don’t mind a slower-paced game and don’t have preconceived notions about how an rpg should be (or are open-minded to a different sort of game). It’s definitely not a typical mainstream game.

There are better places I’m sure, but a quick Google for it turned up this and this.  Now most places are saying it shows only your ammo, THIS IS NOT TRUE.  I remember seeing more than that when I was using it back in the day, and I finally found where the extra stuff is.  From the release notes:

When installed, this patch will add a UT2004 LCD display screen.  This display screen has 3 modes that can be toggled via console commands.  They are:

Mode 0    - display real-time network stats
Mode 1    - display a scoring summary
Mode 2     - display weapon ammo counts

You can change LCD modes using the “LCDMode” console command.  The format is:

“lcdmode <x>” where x is the mode to display.  Additionally, you can use the NextLCDMode and PrevLCDMode commands to move between them.

Games are not art, according to Ebert; he mentions ‘prejudice’ a couple of times. I have a dirty little word called ‘elitist.’ I understand his point that when a user interacts with the game and effects the outcome it isn’t the same as a completely dictated work like a movie. However, I think he misses the mark horribly. His basic argument depends on a single assumption of what he says he thinks is high art, and that is authorship. In his opinion, it can’t be high art if the user changes the outcome. Interesting thought, considering that people who view art, especially abstract art, have a range of differing experiences. One might say that their basic self changes the outcome. Let’s not forget the phrase ‘leaving it to interpretation,’ often artists depend on people coming up with differing views on their pieces. Is that so different? Is the artistry and creativity poured into a game to generate a specific time, place, atmosphere worth nothing? I think he fails in that he is looking at it in the sense of movies, a complete story from beginning to end presented according the creators’ intentions. He fails to see that multiple endings in a game tend to be presented according to their creators’ intentions. The user gets to choose, sure, but in the context of the argument Ebert should probably consider each storyline and ending separately so that in the end he is actually considering, say, 3 games instead of one. Additionally, apparently the work, creativity, and artistry poured into the game to create a specific time, place, and atmosphere account for nothing.

He also displays the same prejudice nearly everyone of his generation seems to display, and that is that games are a waste of time. I couldn’t find a link to the original article, but there’s a quote here. This has been a topic of interest to me and I’ve conducted some research. I had already planned on posting a sourced and composed essay about this soon so forgive the lack of sources for the following paragraph.

The idea that games give you nothing in return is becoming more and more false. Research is increasingly showing that more than just hand-eye coordination, games are teaching people spatial ability, pattern recognition, and decision-making on a level never before seen in human history (among other things). That isn’t to say that there aren’t people in our past who have these abilities, rather that there has never been such an effective tool that could teach all these things at once. One of the benefits of video games is immediate feedback. If you’ve ever played a complicated video game that had good introductory missions or similar, you’ll know what I mean. You can learn a complex system quickly and enjoyably and get all the benefits of the things I mentioned before; and the game isn’t even geared to teaching you anything. Imagine what could happen if people could make really effective educational games (currently most of these are terrible but that is slowly changing as the understanding of the medium improves).

In any case, Ebert displays an outmoded attitude that shows a lack of understanding of the medium, the same attitude I’d wager that wrote the horrible DMCA. Much like the stalwart oak against the hurricane.

I’m not a Pokemon fan by any stretch of the term, but reading this (start at the second post) gave me some respect for how much the franchise means to kids. Even though there are some fat cats making mad cash off the merchandising, it is true that the show has a positive message and isn’t something to worry about letting your kid see.

The other point is the distressing attitude of fanboys, or in this case I suppose it would be more accurate to say ‘fanmen.’ You all know the type, they buy the entire line of new Star Wars toys or whatever and shove them into airtight storage containers in climate controlled closets never to be seen again, while some kid cries himself to sleep over a pack of new underwear. It was the major theme of Toy Story even. Have they forgotten what it was like to be a child? Or did they actually become basement virgins at 5?

Hopefully this sort of thing will continue until it fractures the gaming consumer mass into separate pieces labeled ‘Children’, ‘Casual’, and ‘Trashtalkers who beat up Little Kids for Fun.’

Also, it was worth seeing in print how the smarmy, friendly, and nauseatingly nice Pokemon shows translated into some major positive real-world behavior. Hopefully these kids don’t grow up to be basement virgins.

Full Disclosure: I own models of all the Eva’s packed away in boxes waiting for suitable display. In my defense, I did it cuz I love the series, it isn’t a series you should show your kids, and if there was a tournament for it (somehow) at Gamestop and a bunch of kids showed up I would also bow out after obliterating the jerk.

Ralph Koster states with matter-of-fact arrogance that single-player games are dead. By his definition of multi-player it certainly seems to be true. How does one define a multi-player experience anyway? Is it solely limited to content in the game? I admit, my enjoyment of Oblivion was amplified when I shared my experiences and amusing anecdotes with the gaming community at SA.

However, his point and the point of those arguing against him are both pointless. Why do humans have such a need to categorize everything? When you take into consideration the multi-player aspect of single-player games contained in forums or crowded couches you are inherently generalizing, the more you do that the less significance that category has. Take the fight over whether Pluto was a planet. The whole problem stems from the fact that there was a real need to decide what being a planet really meant, especially with the discovery of objects in our own system that are far bigger than Pluto. If ‘planet’ includes Pluto then it could arguably include Halley’s Comet. So it was decided to more strictly qualify what could be a planet and Pluto; as the wandering, puny, step-brother; lost out. Perhaps that will happen in the gaming community but unlike the field of Astronomy there isn’t really a governing board with the authority to strictly classify games as purely single-player and multi-player, and why should there be? Honestly, why does it even matter?

Games are games and how you enjoy them is up to you. The market responds to likes and dislikes and in a very broad sense what you want to do with the game will eventually reflect in the market. The system is dynamic to a certain extent. So classifying games as single-player or multi-player (and fighting over the differences) is an ultimately futile and pointless exercise, at least in the context of Koster’s article. So good job Koster for pointing out that internets connect us, and good job protesters for arguing over semantics. Honestly, the level of hoopla over this is ridiculous. Maybe if I post a blog about something as painfully obvious but classify it different I’ll get some more traffic too.

Hm, I use my computer everyday… I use the microwave almost everyday… omg, that means the computer is an appliance! I must post bloggings about this! Everyone will want to know how awesome and astute I am!

(3 days later)

Hey, some idiot is claiming a computer is actually an appliance! Lets flame the crap out of him and post angry threads in our forums! This is rly srs guys!

Protest the use of their church in a video game.

Oh em gee, a digital cathedral that looks a lot like our own was used in a violent video game depicting war… between humans and, uh, aliens…, but still!’ Get over it. Not only is the game depicting events that never happened (or ever will?), not only is it common for war to spill into innocent buildings that have nothing to do with either side of the conflict, but the game depicts a fantasy situation that has nothing to do with ‘gun crime’ on any street! Lighten up guys. Maybe it’s cuz they’re Anglican and are a church made up by some king, so they have identity issues.