Piracy Makes Games Suck

I'm a geek. I'm not shy about that fact. Being a geek means you have friends who are geeks. Having friends who are geeks means that when a new game or movie comes out, you're sometimes offered a copy before it's even been released. Piracy is big, especially in the PC gaming world. Less so for console games, but don't think it doesn't happen.

Games are expensive. It's a fact. If you take into account the level of quality people want in their games these days, and what it costs to make them, it's not surprising the unit price is so high. And don't tell me movies are cheap games should be. In movies they only have to worry about how it looks, not what'll happen if the player decides to do something ridiculous. 

So when you're offered an opportunity to play the game, no strings attached, before you pay for it (if ever), people tend to go for it. But what are you missing?

Many times the process of cracking the game breaks some aspect of the game. Things like online play or achievements. In some cases the game may crash because of the workarounds involved. Some people may seize the opportunity to plant and distribute their virusses through these "cracked copies". Often, in an attempt to crack the game before the official release date, an unfinished or reviewer's copy of the game is used, which may include critical errors. Cracked games can also not be patched, leaving it open to vulnerabilities or flawed gameplay. For the online play that did work with the cracked version, the fact that you can't patch it means that now you can't play online because the servers require you to have the latest fixes installed.

And worst of all, your experience of the game is tainted. 

As a programmer I know how it goes. You sit for days writing a small part of the game or program, but you can't get it perfect. You've been working so hard on the whole project that you think this little problem can be fixed later, or is really not so bad. So someone gets a pirated copy of your game. They didn't pay for it so they're willing to install it and try it for an hour or two. If they don't like it, they skip it. Or worse yet, they go onto public forums and discredit your game because of that small niggle in gameplay you decided can be left. They are in general more critical of the game.

If they had payed for the game, they would see the niggle, but think to themselves "It's really not that bad. The rest of the game makes up for it. It's a good experience in general." Because they payed for it, they want to get their money's worth so they give the game a proper chance.

Personally, I enjoy a game more if I have the physical package I can put on my shelf. Often the game comes with some special trinket, or there's a collector's edition. It makes it an experience instead of a pastime while you wait for your pizza to be delivered or whatever.

The last problem I have with piracy is DRM. I know it sounds backwards, but it's simple. When games are pirated, the producers don't get money for it. So they need to stop a game from being pirated. They end up licensing outside software to do it for them (Starforce or SecuROM). These methods are never perfect because no two computers are set up the same, so by doing so you introduce a margin of failure to your games: a number of buyers for whom the game will not work because something on their computer isn't how it should be. In some cases it also introduces an install limit. Someday I'm going to look at an old game and think "I want to try this again", but when I try to install it, the game will firstly require internet access to a service that may no longer be available. If that service is still there, it may tell me that I've installed the game too many times. How can this be? I'm sitting with the disc in my hands. I payed for it. The slip is still in the case, although the writing has faded a bit... If I pay these exorbitant amounts for my game, I expect it to work when I want it to.

Even games with DRM gets cracked. Sometimes the DRM is only there to stop it from being cracked on release day, but it will be cracked within a week. However, it ruins the game for years to come.

Unfortunately piracy is here to stay. Unless they can find a way to make sure you can't do anything without a legal copy (WoW did it) you can really only rely on people's good faith and support.

Words:
"In the case of pirates, say, I would like to know whether that profession of theirs has any peculiar glory about it. It sometimes ends in uncommon elevation, indeed; but only at the gallows."
-Herman Melville

The Internet Is Not Real

When we negotiate our way around the internet, we come into contact with many pages and many people. They have no idea who it is that's viewing, and it doesn't really matter. So when you start interacting with others you don't really pay attention to what you're doing or saying, because it doesn't relate back to you in any way. When you comment on a blog like this one, the people on the other side see only your username and maybe a profile connected to it, with no information that comes back to you. Nothing stops you from simply never returning to that account.

You also communicate with the people you know in real life. Many of them you haven't seen in a while, or you may never see them. But you can make or break relationships through your actions. What you say on Facebook carries weight. If you're racist on the internet, it hurts people's feelings. It's fine if you air your opinions in a rational way and have an adult discussion about it, but lashing out at a specific demographic serves no purpose besides emotional injury and aggravation. Besides, I don't see how any mature, rational person can be racist. It's a counter-statement.

Your subconscious tells you the internet is something non-existent. It's just a cloud in the sky. So you don't think twice about speaking your mind. I've heard people say: "I didn't mean it that way! Come on! It's an e-mail for goodness sake. Don't take it so seriously."

That's the wrong approach, but sadly it's how people think.

We need to realise that the person on the other end is an actual human being, with feelings and opinions. Even if you've never met them, and never will, your words could impact their life. Just because it's the internet, doesn't mean it doesn't communicate.

Sorry for the depressing post. I'll be up to my usual ponderings next week.



Words:
"When the internet gets angry, it's an infinite source of amusement."
-Evil Avatar Radio, now In-Game Chat

Organic Computing

Anyone who's seen sunlight in the last 20 years knows that computers work in binary. Ones and zero's. On or off. There's no inbetween. It's structured, organised and predictable. It allows people like me to control a user's experience, anticipate their behaviour, and provide them with what they need. But why is this? Humans have a natural urge to organise. To put concepts into categories. To decide what is relevant and what can be ignored. But why is this? Because when we were barbarians (no offence to barbarians, they did a lot for our species) knowing what to pay attention to meant the difference between life and death.

Personally I don't make decisions until I know something about all the options presented to me. When there are only 2 options, the decision is easy. You can then begin assigning theoretical meanings to each value. "When this link changes colour, it means I've been to this page." The information that is given to you is simple, but you're willing to be more loosely coupled about the concept when it's in your mind, because then you're in control. As long as it's in the computer, the values of on or off means that electricity is flowing or it is not flowing, like a complex network of electric extention leads all plugged into each other, back and forth. Depending which lights you want on, you walk around flipping different switches. After a while you get bored and you start doing strange things such as synchronising Christmas lights to music.

This is the core of all electronics: Flipping switches really fast to make it do what you want.

The truth is, nothing is coldly logical. A computer may present itself in ones and zero's, but when you drill all the way down, those digits are stored somewhere on a disc. On that disc there's some physical medium being forced into a positive or negative state. The medium may well be able to store more values, such as half-on or almost off. But if it did, it would be much more complicated to control.

But now we've become used to the basic functionality of computers. (I use the term "basic" loosely) Now we want a computer that can think and deduce like a person. We want a computer in our fridge that will order milk over the internet when you're running low. We want a door that unlocks when you ask it to. We want computer-controlled players in games that can play against us as if we're playing against a friend, making mistakes like a human player would. So we programmers end up trying to get ones and zero's to seem like they're thinking. To appear to have several options such as half-on or almost off. We end up taking the analogous medium, forcing it into a controllable digital medium, only to create a pretend analogous experience.

In my opinion, the only way we can create machines that can think, is to leave the electronic and robotic environment behind and work with something pure, something natural. Something that works like a brain. As long as we're stuck behind coldly logical situations, we have to think of every possible scenario and prepare for it. We can never just leave the thing to learn. A computer, no matter how advanced, can never truly be spontaneous. The problem is, creatures have spent millions or years making mistakes, only the lucky few surviving, to develop the natural ability to learn. Even a child of a few weeks old can learn from their own experience (with a little help).

As far as I know the closest we've ever come to a human-created thing teaching itself is Lucy the Android (pictured).

There isn't really a point to this. I'm just putting out there something that was mulling around in my head the last few days... It's all very interesting once you start reading up on it a bit. Comments welcome, especially if it's philosophical...

Words:
"Anyway what went wrong with A. I.? Well its all this guy’s fault and I presume most of you recognise Alan Turing. He was probably the one person qualified to expect that by now nobody would be making me stand up here and talk about how we were going to achieve human like intelligence because we would have done it. Because 52 years ago, he made this prediction 'By the end of the century one would be able to speak of machines thinking without expecting to be contradicted'. Well the end of the century came and went a couple of years ago and coincidentally the time ran out for Turing's prediction the exact second when computers were destined to tell us how stupid they were on account of the fact that they couldn't add up the date properly. So it all went horribly wrong and around the turn of the century I started thinking about why it went wrong. I considered it carefully and came up with the following considered opinion "its because we A. I. researchers are all narrow minded, domineering, chess playing computer nerds'."
-Transcript of Steve's keynote speech, "Machines Like Us," given at the Applied Knowledge Research Institute's 2002 Biennial Seminar

Everything is Romantic.

The title will make sense in a few minutes, I promise.

We as a human race are constantly disappointed in our experiences. A new love interest is never as exciting as in your Marian Keyes book. Going to a formula 1 race is never as exciting as watching it on TV, because you miss half the action. Being a hero is never as glamorous as in the movies. Why is this?

Because media and entertainment has made us blunt. Movies and games are constantly trying to make things more real and more fantastic, and it leaves reality behind. If this relates to something we've never experienced ourselves, it shifts our expectations. A car will not spontaneously explode when hit by a train. You can't empty a pistol in someone's chest and they will still be alive, much less be able to chase you, even through kevlar.

I have two things I want to mention with regards to this, one good and one bad.

The good is shows like Mythbusters. A whole form of entertainment based on debunking the misconceptions.

The bad: People's concept of physics is fundamentally flawed. In many cases it could make truly amazing things seem boring, because in a movie you saw it to be much more impressive, even if it was fake. This is a theory called suspension of disbelief. To quote:

"According to the theory, suspension of disbelief is a quid pro quo: the audience tacitly agrees to provisionally suspend their judgement in exchange for the promise of entertainment."

This means you're willing to overlook physics because... well... "Wow! Did you see that!?"

Because of this tendency in people to believe what they see even if it's obviously faked, some lawyers are able to argue that games are harmful to children because of the violence depicted. When playing Postal, you see people rejecting you, the player, because of your deeds.

The end result is the banning of many games in countries with stricter parental control. But the effect is inverted. Because the game is now illegal, it becomes more special and interesting and people will go to greater lengths to play it.

And once they're used to the blood and carnage in this game, the next game will have to be even more gory and gut-wrenching. It's a vicious cycle.

There is no solution to this. Movies and games will always try to be better than the last. The only way the effect can be kept to a minimum is for people to realise it isn't real. We should stop expecting things to be like they are in the movies and just live life. Or better yet, be inquisitive. If you watch a movie and see someone shooting a car and the car explodes, ask yourself if this is possible.

Don't be stupid and go test it! Find out by other means. The chances are that someone has tested the theory under controlled circumstances and published the results.

A good place to start would be Mythbusters.




Words:
"The claims were that Diablo III looked more like World of Warcraft than Diablo. I don't know where these people got their impressions of World of Warcraft, because in all the Diablo III material out there, I have yet to see a bipedal cow in a wedding dress attempt to seduce a pink-haired gnome in the ancient forest of elves."
-Gameplanet Feature

Too Safe To Care

The main reason game development companies prefer creating console games over PC, is because PC games are so easily pirated. For years companies have tried everything to keep their games safe and their players legal, from CD keys to encrypted discs to draconian rootkits.

In a few cases, these copy protection devices were so strict that legal buyers of the game were unable to play it. I myself was once unable to play a game after it detected I run a virtual DVD drive. The drive, mind you, I use when installing linux-based software to my VirtualBox, software that is usually distributed as an ISO for download.

The most memorable occurrence of this was BioShock. It was announced that the game would require players to activate their game online, and would only be allowed to install the game 5 times. Ever.

You can imagine how this upset many people. There was a public outcry on the gaming forums and the company eventually removed the activation limit last week.

The next big scandal was Assassin's Creed for PC. Some users noted funny internet traffic while playing the game, which has no multiplayer. It turns out that the game was "phoning home" every 3 minutes to make sure your copy was still legal. I have a wireless internet connection that isn't the most stable of ways to get online. On several occasions the game would completely lock up, as if waiting for something to happen, before continueing. I noticed that this didn't happen if my internet was disconnected. Proving the point that the game was indeed waiting for confirmation before continueing. This was not documented anywhere and users' permission was never asked, although upon finer reading of the license agreement it was found that by clicking "I Agree" you give them permission to collect " anonymous user data". Surprisingly this created little media stir.

But when it was announced that Mass Effect for PC would use a similar scheme (but only every 10 days or so) the general public exploded in rebellion, many urging players to pirate the game BECAUSE of the protection, thereby defeating the purpose and proving a somewhat elaborate point, which I'm getting to.

The "phone home" was removed, but in such a haste that for many people (your's truly included) the game can't even run. I'm hoping this will get fixed in the not-too-distant future, as I can't return the game.

I found out today that Alone in the Dark uses the same system. When the game is installed it must activate, either over the internet or through lengthy phone conversations with technical support. When you uninstall the game, it must revoke its activation in much the same way. This means if your computer accidentally fails under the pressure of its daily workings, there is no way to legitimately uninstall the game and it will not allow you to install again until you have revoked the activation, which means more lengthy phone conversations to explain why you want to play the game on another computer (or again on the same computer).

If I may be frank, this is bullshit. If I pay for the game, I want to play the game. Why should I need to explain myself to some third party? "Yes I legally bought the game. No it is not installed on another computer. Yes I can give you my product key."

I understand that they don't want the game to be copied, but they're trying to hard to stop people from copying it, that they convince people to pirate the game simply to avoid the shlep of activating it! You're losing precious sales here, people!

Look at Darwinia. The game has no copy protection whatsoever (as far as I can tell). It is indeed pirated and easily available on the internet, especially because it's a comparatively small download. I know a few people who illegally downloaded and played the game, but once they realized what a gem of a game it is, they went out and bought it as a sign of due diligence.

We gamers give credit where credit is due. If we think a game is worth our R315 (Alone in the Dark), we'll gladly pay it. But I might think twice about it if I know I'm going to have to explain my purchase to some woman in an office 10 000km away, if not overseas. And then the game might not even work because of my shoddy internet connection! I can see it now.

"Hey John let's play Alone in the Dark!"
"OK but I need to get my internet running..."

...followed by pointless fiddling with a foil-covered paper plate in an attempt to direct the onmidirectional signal out a window towards a tower...

Bottom line: If you try too hard to stop people from pirating your game, they're going to pirate your game just to spite you. If you let people (relatively) freely distribute your game illegally, many people will feel obligated to pay for the game and you will end up with more sales.

Words:
"But it's not. It's basically an 18 to 28 year-old male dominated business of about 15 million. That's where most of the traffic is. Casual games on the net add to that, but they're all network-based."
-CVG Article

Discrimination

Has anyone else noticed the fact that "discrimination" is of the root word "crime"?

Let's begin:

In the aftermath of a recent school shooting in Germany, the regional governments of Bavaria and Lower Saxony have proposed new legislation that could punish those who make, distribute, or even play video games featuring "cruel violence on humans or human-looking characters" with a fine and up to a year in prison. The newly drafted bill is scheduled to go before the upper house of parliament next year.

I don't mind the bill. It's a good idea. Kids see far too much violence in the modern world. But this is where I disagree:

The 18-year old shooter, who according to an online report from MSNBC was an avid player of the popular first-person shooter Counter Strike, attacked the Scholl secondary school on November 20 in the western German town of Emsdetten, and wounded as many as 37 people before killing himself.

It's as if they went "Aha! He plays Counter-Strike! He must be a bad seed..."

Let's look at Counter-Strike. It's a team-based, round-based game where a group of terrorist group needs to protect hostages or plant a bomb (depending if they're playing offensive or defensive) and the counter-terrorist team has to rescue hostages or prevent the bomb from being planted or worst case scenario defuse the bomb. If any team is eradicated the other team wins by default. So, except for the fact that it's a computer game and you have real guns... It's simply paintball. The characters in the game don't die in any realistic manner, they never cry for mercy nothing. How can you blame such a lame game with graphics from the late 1990's and gameplay similar to a classic teenager pastime for a guy buying a gun and massacring in school?

The same thing used to happen with suicide and metal music in the late 1980's during the new wave of American Metal. In many cases that the government and Tipper Gore were unaware of metal actually saved lives because children (teenagers) realised that they weren't going through those things alone.

You really start to think "Where do they come up with this stuff?"

Slayer is an "openly satanic band and a detriment to society", according to a musicologist I shall not name. Slayer's lead vocalist is a devote catholic.

My point: People are very quick to judge you by what you do as recreation and stop listening when they find what they are looking for, not when they find the truth.

I fully understand that you cannot get to know a person fully, few people know themselves that well, before making up your mind about them, but try not to use your personal judgement and damaged history to decide why someone else did something.

OK, I'll stop now.