Category Archives: Computer Games

Independent Productions and How They May Be the Survival of the Future

Computer Games, Movies, Writing, , , , , , , , ,

Over the years, there has been a tendency to avoid the big budget productions of numerous fields and focus on independent producers. This has helped us find some really innovative creators out there in numerous areas, including film, writing, software development and music. But part of the problem has always been twofold: First, an independent producer has very little money to draw upon, limiting the outcome of the product being produced, and second, because the production has little marketability due to a lack of a budget to handle that, almost no one knows the production is happening in the first place.

But several little productions have managed to go big time regardless of the obstacles placed in their way. Although we know that the big studios make the big bucks, every now and then a little guy creates something so good with almost no budget that that person becomes one of the big guys almost overnight. We saw that with Kevin Smith and Clerks. With music, it’s happening every day with overnight sensations showing up and overwhelming the studio produced big names. What’s so cool about it is that it happens so fast that the big guys can’t do anything about it, and it’s always nice when the underdog wins big time.

But this isn’t about underdogs becoming big. There’s enough of that in every Slumdog Millionaire story out there. What I do want to talk abut is how we’ve sort of forgotten that a lot of these big studios that control everything really were nobodies a short time ago, yet because they managed to rise to the top, they want to control pretty much everything else in their realm of creativity. Let’s talk about a few of them.

Apple and Microsoft. Go back twenty years, and they were both essentially operations created in someone’s garage. While they may or may not have made their mark stealing technology from other people, discounting that as significant, what is important to point out is that they are now the big boys on the block, and they are doing everything physically possible to control the marketshare when it comes to their corners of the software and hardware universes. Think about it for a moment. These guys started from nothing and are huge colossus behemoths now. Why can’t someone else come along and replace them? Well, aside from patent control by these entities, there’s really nothing stopping anyone else from rising up just as well.

The big book companies appear to have been around forever, but they haven’t been. They rose up not that long ago, and they’ve been trying to control the market ever since. Amazon is probably the biggest book seller in the world right now, and it came along after Apple and Microsoft, and is competing against them. I still remember Amazon’s first ads where they tried to play like they were this really, really big bookstore and were looking to lease space to hold all of their books. It was a cute joke, but they have become nothing but massive since those days. But why can’t someone else show up and do it again?

Game software development is probably the one area I know the most about because I was in this business from the beginning, and surprisingly a second generation is now on the scene that doesn’t remember how things actually took place. In the 1980s, software developers were creating games on floppy disks, copying them, and then selling them in little plastic sandwich bags. I’m not kidding. That’s how the gaming software industry was created. Some of the largest companies of today were doing that sort of thing, including Electronic Arts and a whole group of others that have risen and fallen (and quite a few have been bought by EA). But what’s interesting is that as more and more of these software behemoths keep announcing that PC gaming is dead. what I don’t think they realize is that as they do more and more to piss off their customers (which they are doing a lot of these days), the more likely they are going to make it that people are going to go back to the beginning and start creating their own games and distributing them much like we used to do before (although probably through easier online distribution). Look at Zynga. This is a company that came out of nowhere, and now is one of the big boys.

The point of this post is that I don’t think the big guys realize how vulnerable they still are, even as they try to completely control the market they currently dominate. A friend of mine recently made a full length movie for about $20,000. I was watching a special on independent movies, and some small studio guy said that it was impossible to make a movie for less than a few million these days. Even the guy who made the $20,000 movie keeps saying almost the same thing. But people are doing it. And I think that’s what’s going to completely change the industry because what we’re seeing is a lot of studio people who don’t know anything different. They’ve been taught that you have to have millions to make a movie, or it can’t be done. But then someone comes along and makes one for thousands, and everyone just shakes their heads and says, “wow, never saw that happening.” That’s what happens with revolutionary change. No one ever sees it happening.

And I suspect that this is going to be happening a lot more soon. Book companies are about to be hit big time by e-readers, and innovative people with little money are going to see a way to get rid of the producer middlemen and make the industries brand new again. But no one will see it coming because they’ll be so focused on RIAA lawsuits and maintaining control over their little fiefdoms, that they’ll never realize how insignificant they’ve become.

So keep your eyes open, or start producing independently, because it’s going to happen. Unfortunately, everyone is so tied into the current paradigm that they’ll never believe it until they’ve become completely replaced and discarded.

Some updates, cause you know you can’t live without them….

Computer Games, Movies, Politics, , , , , ,

1. Blizzard changed its mind. I wrote recently about game companies jumping the shark, and how Blizzard Entertainment was making a seriously, horrible mistake by intituting REAL ID on its customers. The customers went nuts and protested until they practically couldn’t do it any more. The CEO of Blizzard wrote a Blog Post in which he stated, “um, sorry, we hear ya and we’re not going to do what we said we were going to do.” Wise move, and you have to admire the maturity of a company for knowing when it needs to take a step back and reconsider an action. The whole thing was obviously about trying to capitalize on their customers and make insane profits above their already normal INSANE profits, but fortunately they didn’t derail their whole company to try to increase their profit.

2. Stupid politicians. I hate political season, which seems to be almost year round these days. This morning, I was on the shuttle bus when I heard a campaign ad that essentially went something like: “Michigan is suffering badly. It’s performing the worst in the entire country. So send Justin Amash to Washington to fix things!” Or something as stupid as that. Basically, I’m thinking, um, Michigan has problems, so sending a State Representative to Washington is NOT a solution. It means sending someone from a messed up state to Washington to make a messed up country. Sometimes, I think these people just don’t think these things through. It’s not Washington they’re complaining about in that ad. It’s Michigan, so unless their plan is to send Amash OUT OF MICHIGAN TO FIX MICHIGAN because he’s responsible for screwing things up, I don’t really see the point.

3. Stupid corporate contest campaigns. Pepsi is running one right now that involves Major League Baseball. The point is: You collect bottle caps until you have three of them that match, and then you send them in for a free baseball cap. Really? That’s it? I’ve had about 40 diet Pepsis that are part of this campaign, and today was the first time I actually got one that was a duplicate of another (meaning I got two of the three I need). Now, mathematically, I didn’t even think that made sense, but I don’t even have three of the same, and I’ve already gone through 40 sodas. Stupid contest, and the pay off is equally stupid. For the 50 or 60 sodas I’ll need to drink, at least give me the chance to win something cool. Oh, and every now and then I get a cap that offers me 15% off of MLB crap. Really? And read the fine print. It is valid ONLY if you buy $75 worth of stuff. I don’t think there’s $75 worth of MLB junk I would ever want in the first place, regardless of the discount.

4. Movies. They’ve sucked lately. This whole summer should have been discontinued. Not a single movie really worth the money. And the prices of movie are astronomical. No good news on that front at all.

That’s really all for now.

When a Gaming Company Jumps the Shark

Computer Games, Social Networking, , , , , , , , ,

Years ago, I used to be a seriously addicted Ultima Online fan. I played it every day. I became a counselor in the game, which meant I officially worked for EA as one of the in-game special operators who helped other people who were having problems in the game. I ran community events that were quite popular. I mean, I lived and breathed the game.

Then EA decided to do something really stupid. The game population was having problems at the time due to a segment of the population that was preying on other players. The forum community was in an uproad, demanding something be done about it. There were all sorts of alternatives EA could have taken, including to continue to ignore the problem. But they decided to take the easiest route, which was to create a completely “safe” environment in the game by completely duplicating the entire world and then making that “new” area safe. Oh, sure, you could stay in the dangerous area, or you could go to the completely safe area and eat candy canes with the rest of the safe population. And that’s what everyone did. And the old lands died out because no one went there.

But something else happened, too. People stopped playing the game because it became too easy. You couldn’t be killed, and suddenly the game seemed like a joke of its previous existence. So people left in droves. And then new games appeared, like Everquest, so that became the new stomping ground. UO died out. Oh, sure, it’s still around, but it’s a shadow of its once great self.

To me, the reason was that the owners of the game listened to the players, and then when it came time for really listening to the feedback, they decided to take the easier path and then stopped listening. The players, pissed, and practically screaming at the developers, kept begging them to listen to what was happening to the game. The developers not only didn’t listen, but they closed down the forums, figuring that as long as they didn’t have to listen to the complaints, then the problems didn’t exist.

So a LOT of people just dumped the game. I did as well. I realized they weren’t paying attention to the players any more, so I went and found another game.

Fast forward some years to Star Wars Galaxies, and wow, it’s like they didn’t learn a thing. What’s even funnier is that some of the same names were there making the same mistakes. When the game started going down hill, instead of listen to the player base, they went ahead and completely changed the game to one they thought players would want to play. Boy, were they wrong. The player base disappeared overnight. Realizing they made a mistake, but refusing to admit it, they made another abrupt change, causing the few remaining players to say “screw you” and leave. The game is less than a shadow of its former self. To this day, they refuse to admit they did anything wrong, but in all areas where they discuss how to screw up a game, Star Wars Galaxies is ALWAYS mentioned as the showcase of an example of what NOT TO DO EVER.

Well, fast forward to today, and we have the most popular game on the planet for MMORPGs: World of Warcraft. Yesterday, they made an announcement to do something that has me shaking my head because it’s like I’m reliving those two previous examples over again.

You see, some weeks ago, WoW decided that it was going to implement this new feature called REALID, which meant that in order to group with your friends, you had to present your real identification and play as yourself, not as a character name. If someone wanted to know who you were, they would know. This pissed people off, but Blizzard, the maker of WOW, said that you don’t have to use REALID if you don’t want to. Then they announced yesterday that in order to use the forums for WOW or their new game coming out called Starcraft 2, you have to use REALID. What they didn’t really mention is that as their parent company Activision is now partnered with Facebook, this is more about giving identification information to Facebook than it is in presenting a new way to socialize in the game. People are pissed. People don’t like having their ID out there when playing a game.

To prove how dangerous this is, one of the trash-talking employees for Blizzard stated it was no big deal and put his own information out there. In no time, all of his private information was out there, and suddenly his phone was ringing off the hook from angry players, and his Facebook account had to be shut down because of the onslaught of attacks. The problems he’s experiencing are still going on. Blizzard’s response wasn’t to realize they made a mistake but to unofficially announce that its employees wouldn’t have to comply with REALID, just the players would.

This has started a nightmare of bad publicity for Blizzard, which is treating it like the old ad business, thinking that as long as people are talking about Blizzard, it must mean good business.

I’m starting to hear A LOT of people talking about dumping WOW because of this. And that’s interesting because up until now I’ve always believed that the only thing that could ever destroy WOW would be WOW itself. I just didn’t think it would happen by allying itself with the scuz bucket that is Facebook.

This should play out to be a very interesting situation. I’ll be watching this closely.

Cheesy Tactics to Get Your Money in Computer Games

Computer Games, , ,

I started playing Dragon Age-Origins this weekend. It’s been a while since I’ve played a new game, so I was really excited about it. And it’s a lot of fun. There’s a reason why it has been receiving such rave reviews. But I’ve always been apprehensive about buying games affiliated with Electronic Arts (the game was made by Bioware and Electronic Arts, or made by Bioware and distributed by Electronic Arts). Don’t get me wrong; I used to work for Electronic Arts, but when a hegemonic company starts buying out other gaming companies, I always find that to be a scary thing.

Anyway, the game is a lot of fun, but at one point I was in a camp (a resting spot in the game), and one of the npcs (non-player characters) indicated it had a quest for me (it does this by showing an exclamation point over its head, something somewhat stolen from MMORPGs like World of Warcraft). So, all excited, I clicked that character and listened to his rant (quest information), and then right before I was about to click to accept, I realized that the option to do so requires me to purchase downloaded content, meaning that right in the middle of the game the developers are trying to get me to pay them more money.

I’m sorry, but this is really cheesy. This type of thing tends to piss me off because it’s basically saying: “Nyah, Nyah, you can’t play forward and use ALL the content in this game until you go to the EA site and buy more of our product.” That sort of thing really bugs me because part of the allure of a computer game is not having to be reminded of the real world, and someone trying to sell me shit in the middle of a game (that I buy in the real world) pretty much ruins the experience for me.

I see this as a really bad sign for the future. I was half tempted to stop playing right then and there, before realizing that would have meant $50 I threw away because I got pissed off at a gaming company (you can’t return an already opened game…well, you can but good luck trying it at most retailers).

So I’m torn. It’s a great game, but at the same time their business practices really irritate me.

DRM Protection is Destroying Computer Gaming

Computer Games,

Piracy has become a real problem for those who are into computer gaming, but it’s not just because these people are taking money away from gaming companies, but because those gaming companies are now going out of their way to fight the pirates so hard that they’re making games almost impossible for people to play, even if you’re a legitimate owner of the game.

Now, I don’t pirate games. I don’t believe in it. I’ve been buying computer games ever since computer games have been on the market. I used to buy a ton of the games, pretty much every game that was produced. Now, I don’t buy that many. But it’s not because of the cost, even though the cost is somewhat ridiculous these days. Manufacturers have been trying to raise prices constantly, having kept them at $49.99 for awhile before trying to grab the $59.99 mark recently. This would be understandable if games weren’t so watered down these days, where you end up getting less of a product than you used to get in the past. But that’s another story.

The story today is DRM, digital rights management, which is software or procedures developed to make it difficult to pirate a game. In the past, the restrictive features might require you to use a wheel included with the packaging to put in a secret code somewhere during the playing of the game. Then they started requiring you to have the CD (or DVD) in the drive the entire time you were playing the game. But piraters have always been one step ahead of those trying to stop them, so what the gaming companies are trying to do now is force you to be online while playing the game, so you have to sign onto their servers in order to play the game. And you have to remain online, tied to their network while playing the game or it kicks you out.

This is a bad thing, and it’s going to piss off gamers a lot. First off, if this was a PC game, which a few titles have actually required this, which has created a bit of a nightmare of publicity for Ubisoft, which thought it could dictate this as part of its games, then people would probably just stop playing. As mentioned with Ubisoft, that’s what’s happened. The company is shocked that it’s latest game hasn’t sold as well as planned, but not once has it ever entertained the thought that its customer base got pissed and decided not to buy a game that requires you to have to sign onto their network in order to play the game.

Think about it. If the company making the game goes out of business, you can never play it again because that server is going down. This isn’t an MMORPG like World of Warcraft where the content is online. The game is completely on your computer; the permission is what’s online, and gamers don’t like that.

Recently, the PS3 is forcing these restrictions into its games, like with Final Flight. In order to play the game, you have to be signed onto the Playstation Network, and maintain your connection, or you can’t play the game.

As a Playstation 3 owner, this pisses me off to no end. Granted, I don’t play that many games on my Playstation 3, mainly using it as my Blueray Player, but if I decided to buy a game to play on it, I want to be able to play a game on it without having to use the network functions of this system because, to be honest, I don’t generally have it hooked up to the Internet. That’s what my computer is for.

What is really going on here, for those that don’t follow the whole computer gaming thing, is that gaming companies are making computer gaming so much more difficult for the people who actually follow the law, in hopes of hurting the pirates. But the pirates don’t care because whatever restrictions are put in place will be worked around by them, because that’s their forte. They know how to work around the system. The regular gamer, on the other hand, gets screwed. It’s like the RIAA and its draconian processes to stop people from illegal downloading. Not surprising, Sony was one of the first companies to try to circumvent this by forcing a rootkit onto the computers of customers who were buying legit copies of music. Again, the law-abiding customers were screwed while the pirates were able to continue pirating and stealing left and right.

If computer gaming companies want to survive, they need to do what they can to make people want to buy their products. Steam is an online distribution company that gets it. People buy their software through them, and there is no crap forced onto your computer or system in order to play a game that you legitimately bought. If you want return customers, you treat them well; you don’t treat them like potential criminals and then play the game of “if you aren’t doing something wrong, then you won’t care if we treat you like a criminal.”

This is why I’ve bought few games in the past few years. Companies that distribute them have gone out of their way to treat their customers like adversaries, often releasing games half done and then promising a potential “fix” later down the line. I’ve done what a customer who is pissed SHOULD do: Stop buying games. Every now and then I’ll buy a game from a company that does what a company should do, and I’ll continue to reward that behavior.

It’s amazing how many don’t get it though.