EA has recently announced that they're essentially flipping the kill switch on their free-to-play real time strategy game BattleForge, terminating all server support for it by October 31st. As the game requires an Internet connection to play, this means in the absence of a server to host the online content, the game will be rendered totally unplayable in the coming months. Though I have never played the game myself, looking over some reviews of it, there were many players who were quite fond of the game and had much praise to say about it, even though the game has failed to reach the mainstream market penetration that it might have deserved. What's more from what I've read, it is technically possible to solo through the game by yourself without necessarily needing to interact with any other players; in fact some missions are exclusively single player by design, and in-game currency can be earned through playing the game and without necessarily needing to spend real world money.
With these points in mind, this begs the question to all those always online digital future supporters a few months ago, who ardently supported Microsoft's DRM policies: What happened to all that good faith you had that these companies will provide an offline patch later? I've been told on several occasions that surely if it ever came to this, these benevolent corporations who think only for what's in the best interest of the gamer will simply provide a patch for offline play, and thus problem solved! Nothing to get worked up about, so see? What's the big deal? You're all just making a big scene about nothing. Well here we are; that theory has been put to the test now and it failed. Even though BattleForge theoretically has enough of a framework in place to offer an offline option, none will be given even in its final hours.
It's worth noting that BattleForge is far from the first video game ever to suffer this kind of digital fate, as there have been many free-to-play style web browser games that have come and gone over the years as well, but BattleForge is particularly unique in that it's a much more advanced and in-depth game produced from a well-established AAA publisher, which gives us a frightening glimpse into what we can truly expect from this grand "digital future" for hardcore gamers that always online proponents speak of so fondly. Some players have actually invested well over $100 into this game and now they will have nothing to show for it. BattleForge wasn't originally free-to-play either; it came in full retail boxed copies, which have now been effectively repurposed into paperweights too. Isn't always online great guys? I love it when my software discs come with an arbitrary ticking time bomb attached. In fact, I think I want all my games always online. That's the world we live in after all, isn't it? #AdamOrthLogic
Where's Batman when you need him?
In EA's statement, they remark that they find it unfortunate and never easy to shut down an old game like BattleForge. That was a nice sentiment, but wait a minute, BattleForge was released in March of 2009. The game is only four years old! This is considered an "old" game? Even World of Warcraft is still being supported after all these nine years and counting. Of course, one could argue that Warcraft is a significantly more popular game, and as long as a game maintains a healthy level of player activity, it will always be supported. Perhaps, but the lasting value of a game really shouldn't be left up to the whims of the majority. If a player feels like revisiting a game they paid for with their own money even many years into the future, there's no reason that option shouldn't still be left open to them, regardless of whether that game ever managed to achieve popular widespread appeal or not. It's their game; they should decide when they feel like playing it or returning to it, especially when the game theoretically should have been capable of offering offline content in the first place.
BattleForge may not be one of the more iconic and well-known games to suffer this fate, but it raises a warning flag for what we can expect from bigger games to come as more AAA mainstream games are fundamentally integrated with online functionality. The clock is ticking for some of your favorite games, and someday many classics may be lost to future generations because of arbitrary restrictions created by an online service-based approach to gaming.
As I feared, the Wii U's slow adoption rate appears to be taking its toll on Nintendo, and it seems they're now rushing some of their big name games out the door in an effort to boost sales. Sakurai has announced that they're cutting the story mode from the upcoming Smash Bros game, citing that the cutscenes from Brawl were leaked to the Internet which ruined the element of surprise and sense of reward from that first-time playthrough. While this is their official statement, I think it's fairly obvious that we all know the real reason behind the omission, because the excuse given is pretty bad. Really, because the cutscenes were leaked to the Internet? Everything gets leaked to the Internet. Deal with it. I guess Hollywood should just pack its bags and find a new industry then, because obviously no one must be going to the movies anymore since it's all being leaked to the Internet, right? Oh wait.
Not swimming in money at all.
To punish legitimate players like me who actually waited for the game to come out before viewing the cutscenes is just stupid, and even if I had seen them before, what good does it actually do to just cut the content entirely? It's not like viewing them online meant that I now had no incentive to play through the story mode, nor for that matter an incentive to play the game at all. If anything, I would have just been hyped more to see what kind of gameplay is in store for me between those cutscenes.
What this really comes down to is that now the new Smash Bros already feels like it's going to be a significant downgrade from the last game and my hype has dissipated for it. One of the biggest attractions for me with Brawl was that the series was now getting a proper fully-featured adventure mode as the Melee version had previously felt tacked-on and incomplete. The idea of being able to play through a large expansive world with all my favorite Nintendo characters was a very attractive concept to me, and I was looking forward to seeing how Nintendo was going to continue to expand upon it in this latest release, but now that interest has been evaporated. My biggest disappointment about this whole omission is that the series has historically always been adding and expanding upon its features with each new release; never taking away from them. The roster was always getting bigger, and the gameplay modes were always getting better. Sure there would sometimes be some small things here and there that wouldn't always carry over, but all of the bigger features of the franchise have always been taken and expanded upon in each iteration. Now for the first time this feels like it's not the case, and it's really killed my excitement for the game.
Look what you made Samus do, Sakurai.
Perhaps I'm wrong though; maybe even though they're omitting a story mode, they intend to make up for it by expanding much more of the game's other features. I know they did mention that there's going to be character customization this time which has never been done before within the franchise, and it will not only affect appearance but performance as well, and that will be interesting to see, but so far that feature by itself is not nearly enough to make up for all the content we're going to be losing out on from having a story mode instead. I know a lot of fighting game enthusiasts don't really care for a story mode in their games, but for me personally, I've never been a big fan of the fighting genre outside of the Smash Bros games, and this is in part due to the feeling of there being a lack of content in most typical games of the genre. The single player modes often only feature the same content that you can access from versus mode; it just pits you against an AI and takes away your ability to customize the matches, which ends up leaving me feeling bored pretty quickly, and only able to play the games in short bursts. Features like Brawl's Subspace Emissary mode on the other hand add a lot more value to my purchase and allow me to absorb myself into the game for much longer periods of time.
I think it's fairly clear that the real reason behind Sakurai's decision is that they just want to rush out the Wii U's killer app, as it currently doesn't have one. Nonetheless, it's not doing right by their fanbase to be cutting corners like this. It's not our fault that they thought they could pass off another Mario Bros sidescroller as a must-have launch title for the system, and it's not going to make their situation any better by continuing to make lazy releases while the system is so desperately hurting for new adopters.
A few new characters and some shinier graphics aren't enough to cut it for me anymore, especially when most of the additions are so lackluster as it is. The WiiFit trainer? Animal Crossing villager? Seriously? Those can barely even be described as "characters". Where's Marina from Mischief Makers? Crono and Magus from Chrono Trigger? How about Krystal from Star Fox? I'm sure they could come up with a creative move set for her if she's equipped with the magic staff from Star Fox Adventures. There's still plenty of awesome characters that haven't been used yet in spite of Nintendo's lack of new iconic IPs as of late. Even as nice as it is to finally have Megaman, they're only using his older NES iteration instead of the more appropriate X variation which would have opened up options for them to bring Zero and Sigma into the cast of characters as well.
My reaction to this character announcement.
The omission of the story mode harkens back to a longstanding issue with Nintendo in that while they're usually on the cutting edge of inventing crazy new gameplay mechanics, they have been very slow to catch up with the rest of the industry as far as narrative development goes. While western game studios have been creating deeper and richer stories, Nintendo ignores an opportunity to improve itself in this aspect almost every time. Mario is still stuck saving the princess, and Link is... still stuck saving the princess too. But the thing is, we know Nintendo is capable of doing better than that, as evidenced by examples like Metroid Fusion, which did an excellent job of providing quality gameplay coupled with a compelling story. And then you have examples like Super Mario RPG that--while it was produced by Square and not directly by Nintendo--it still shows that you can tell a more interesting story even with a character as absurd as the classic Italian plumber. There's no reason you can't have great gameplay while telling a good story too, and I'd really like to see Nintendo try to improve in this area.
As things currently stand, the latest addition to the Smash Bros series feels like it's only shaping up to be another Melee with an HD coat of paint and with not even as strong of a character roster to show for it. I don't know what Nintendo is thinking, but I hope they can get these bad decisions turned around very soon because now I doubt even the latest Smash Bros can entice me to pick up a Wii U at this point.
So in addition to being a video game critic, I'm also an avid anime watcher who frequently rates as well as sometimes reviews anime too. I have a full list of every anime I've ever watched neatly organized and rated on a 10-point scale which you can view here. Ironically despite being more gamer than otaku, I keep a more comprehensive list of my anime due to having started tracking my progress much earlier into the start of my hobby. XD At any rate though, let's get down to business.
The reason I'm mentioning all this is because today I'd like to examine some common pitfalls I see in the critical examination of products from both mediums. To put in simpler terms, I often see critics be too forgiving of a game/anime's flaws or in other cases too harsh due to placing an overemphasis on more trivial aspects of the product's design. Dammit, that still sounded sorta complicated, but I think you get the idea.
Not really.
As a first example, let's start with the anime television series known as Fullmetal Alchemist. If you're unfamiliar with the anime, here's a little history on its development process. Fullmetal Alchemist like many anime started off as a manga (Japanese comic book) series before being adapted into an anime. However, the first anime adaptation started airing before the manga was complete, so the animation studio ran into a typical problem that occurs in the industry; what do they do once they have caught up with the incomplete manga story? At this point they have several options. They could make up their own continuation and conclusion of the story based on their own interpretation of where they think the series should go, they could write in a "filler" side story to hold fans over until there is more manga content to work with, or they could just simply end it on a cliffhanger and wait it out while potentially losing fan interest due to a lack of new content. Each choice has its own set of risks and consequences. In the case of Fullmetal Alchemist, they chose to invent their own conclusion to the story not based on the author's vision in the manga.
Now fast forward a few years. Despite the risky move made by Studio Bones, in the end it paid off and the original 2003 series turned out to be a huge success. Fans were still craving more content though, but the story had already concluded. Thus, now seemed like the perfect opportunity to retell the story following the manga to its completion. And so, six years later, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood was born. And once again, it was a huge critical success. But then something peculiar happened. Suddenly fans were becoming very dismissive of the original series; citing that merely because it doesn't follow the story of the manga it is therefore an inherently inferior product. Not only is it an inferior product, but some went so far as to say that it is a *bad* product and that you should just skip it entirely, so in a strange turn of events, Fullmetal Alchemist had become a victim of its own success. It was due to the popularity and success of the original series that we were even given the chance to have a big budget remake like Brotherhood in the first place, yet here it now was being left in the dust; overshadowed by its successor and shunned by many of its former fanbase.
So now we have encountered my first major annoyance, and in my view, a failure of critical analysis. Brotherhood now ranks as the #1 highest rated anime of all-time on MAL, and all I can think every time I see that statistic is how much I find it to be a colossal misstep on the part of critics. To me, there's no question after having viewed both series that the original anime is better in just about every conceivable way. Much of what made the original series so compelling was its very maturely-handled themes, incredibly well-developed characters, and its surprisingly emotional delivery of the story that really feels genuine, all of which were characteristics mostly absent in this largely average and dare I say even soulless retelling. So why? I keep asking why is it that the original series is obviously so much more intelligent and on a completely different level than its successor, yet Brotherhood is soaking up all the attention in the limelight? The number one reason I am continually referred to is because Brotherhood follows the manga.
At face value, I can certainly understand why this point is worth some merit. Typically when artists take adaptations into their own hands that don't follow the original author's vision, they are very prone to creating plot holes and inconsistencies in the portrayals of characters. After all, there's usually no one who understands a character best than the person who created him, right? Usually.
Yeah, about that ending I had... I should go.
And therein lies the problem. There seems to be an undue importance placed on original source material where it is completely unwarranted. There's really no inherent value in a particular piece of storytelling just because it's written by the original creator of the intellectual property as opposed to a third party source. A true critic should judge media on the quality of its presentation and strictly on its own merits independent of whether any prestigious names happen to be attached to it. After all, we have many examples of original authors making mistakes; even fairly large ones.
By now just about every gamer has heard about Mass Effect 3's inexplicable narrative flop during the last ten minutes of the game. Even though the writing up until that point had been mostly on par with the rest of the series, suddenly in the final stretch of the game's conclusion, huge breaches of logic were made consecutively one after another, creating plot holes almost as big as the explosion from the Citadel that followed them. Whether you played as paragon or renegade Shepard, his determination to defeat the Reapers was always constant, and Shepard would never suddenly agree to his arch enemies' ridiculous ultimatum after seeing them commit the largest scale genocide the galaxy has ever known. Yet here he was, astonishingly leaving the Reapers' abhorrent justifications for their actions unchallenged. In all of about two minutes I was easily able to construct a more satisfying and consistent conclusion in my head than what was presented to me by BioWare despite that they are the original authors of the story. I would have personally taken any fanfiction interpretation of the game's conclusion over what BioWare ultimately decided on. And there's many more examples of media better served by third party contributors. Peter Jackson's adaptations of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings are vastly superior to the books even though he took many liberties particularly in his re-imagining of The Hobbit's story. I find Tolkien's writing style to be rather drab and boring, whereas Jackson was able to inject some much-needed emotion into the narrative. Remember when Star Wars was at its best during Empire Strikes Back? Yeah, that was when it wasn't being directed by George Lucas.
Getting back to the topic at hand, the bottom line is that while it might seem like conventional wisdom that canon and original source material are always better, it really shouldn't be assumed, and I think Fullmetal Alchemist is a strong demonstration of that among several other examples I've now given. So, if it's not the fact that it follows the manga more closely, what else might be driving Brotherhood's popularity over its predecessor? The second most common defense I've heard is that its ending is much more fulfilling than the 2003 series. To a certain extent, I can see where this point is coming from. Admittedly, Brotherhood's ending is more cathartic in the sense that it ties up all of its loose ends and generally finishes on a high note. On the other hand though, its upbeat ending feels rather hollow; almost like an undeserved victory in some ways. Due to the rest of the anime's inability to depict the emotional struggles of its two main protagonists as superbly as the original series did, when they finally got the respite they had long sought after, it just didn't feel as genuine or powerful as its predecessor. While Fullmetal Alchemist's 2003 iteration may not have delivered the fairy tale ending many might have been hoping for, that was sort of the point of its story. As a darker take on the narrative, it effectively depicted the passage of Edward and Alphonse into their adulthood, demonstrating that they've learned to accept the consequences of their actions and the limitations of their existence as finite human beings; no longer naively attempting to rely on alchemy as a magical crutch to solve all their problems. It is precisely because of its ending being less idealistic that it turned out to be much more thought-provoking and therefore more satisfying for me.
This brings me to the second major fault I often find with critical analysis of media. So long as a franchise finishes with a strong climax, critics will be all too quick to ignore many of its flaws. I think the best example of this overlooked mistake is exemplified in the anime series Clannad: After Story. Many fans of anime tout it as a brilliantly-moving romantic drama that will have you shedding manly tears and rethinking your entire life, and while I might agree with this, the problem is all that emotional revelation doesn't really happen until in the last third of the series. The other half of the anime is largely comprised of dull filler that I really struggled to get through and almost gave up on. After Story could have really benefited from being at least a full 12 episodes shorter, but because that ending was so emotionally powerful--so moving--I was really torn about my rating when it came time for me to evaluate it. In the end though I had to give it a 6/10 because I was forced to acknowledge that the series was severely flawed in spite of its expertly-delivered final act. Regardless, my efforts certainly haven't stopped Clannad: After Story from attaining the #4 top-rated anime of all-time on MAL with an average rating of 9.16/10. Sigh. Well, I did my best to try and warn you if you're sitting through the early episodes of this series wondering why in the world anyone cares about it. As a brief footnote, I'd also like to mention that the reverse mistake can also be made here in that people are all too quick to pan a product if the ending was bad even though it might have delivered in nearly every other respect. Going back to Mass Effect 3 again, as much as I might be tempted to pan it for how much I loathed its ending, I can't deny that it succeeded at wrapping up lots of other story arcs and made some nice improvements to the combat system, so I would still call it a good game in spite of its flaws. With all this in mind, let's just assume for a moment that I agreed with the earlier point
that Brotherhood's ending is indeed superior to the 2003 series. OK, but
that still says nothing about the quality of the other remaining 63
episodes, which for all we know could be total crap, so if you intend
to do any kind of proper evaluation of the series as a whole, that still
needs to be accounted for too.
To bring this discussion back full-circle, I think it's important as a critic to be honest with yourself as much as possible and really consider a piece as a whole; not just the parts that stood out to you the most. No matter how much you may want to be forgiving of various flaws in a product because it delivered so well elsewhere, you still need to acknowledge its faults and vice versa. It's really unfortunate that Fullmetal Alchemist has now become such an underrated series because it truly is an amazing story that offers something for everyone even if you aren't normally a fan of anime. Sadly, it will probably continue to be ignored due to lazy critical analysis. Brotherhood may offer shinier production values, but it really is more flash and less substance.
Following Microsoft's decision to actually listen to its customers, I was somewhat astounded by the fact that there were people who were genuinely angry about the policy reversal. Apparently it's a bad thing to be able to own your own games and not be forced to arbitrarily connect to the Internet in order to play them. How does this make any sense, you might ask? Well, it really doesn't, but making sense has never been a bad opinion's forte now, has it?
Case study #1: Kyle Wagner. This guy seems to be the one most cited by DRM apologists as having good reasons for why we should like corporations dictating absolute control over our games. Now, I could dissect each individual point of his arguments and show why they are almost all flawed in some way, but there's honestly just too much nonsense there to cover and it wouldn't even be worth it, so I'm only going to address some overarching points made by him and other DRM defenders.
First of all, this narrative that we are holding back the "evolution" of the industry by resisting DRM is just silliness. The implication is that we are being resistant to change simply because it is change and we're not really objecting for any rational reasons, which couldn't be further from the truth. I've got no problems with using the Internet to enhance my products. I use it all the time. I'm using it for this blog right now. My issue is not with the mere use of the Internet, but rather *how* it is being used. See, traditionally online functionality has been used to improve gameplay by offering new multiplayer capabilties that previously couldn't be achieved in games. But tell me, what tangible gameplay benefit is there in making me arbitrarily connect to the Internet to play a single player game? Answer: none. None whatsoever. All this does is restrict my use of the game with the needless addition of another requirement that must be met. Using the power of the Internet merely to restrict my products rather than expand their features is hardly evolution.
The other big argument I see often is the comparison to Steam. Like Microsoft, Steam's platform employs the use of DRM; requiring an online connection in order to activate your games before you can play, and therefore to criticize Microsoft while praising Steam for doing the same thing is somewhat hypocritical. To the first part of this point, I actually agree, though maybe not exactly in the way that apologists might be hoping for. Yes, I do think it is a bit of a double standard. In fact, I think far too many people let Steam off the hook when it should be scrutinized too. Just because Valve has done a lot of other things right doesn't make it OK to take away ownership of your games and dictate whatever terms of service they feel like which they can change at any time. So yes, the comparison here is fair, but that's precisely why you should *oppose* both platforms, not support them.
However, the other aspect of this argument is the assumption that, given time, Microsoft's service could easily become as robust and affordable as Steam's, and therefore it could be just as "awesome" with big sales full of cheap games. The problem is that this argument hinges on nothing but gigantic leaping assumptions, because I have yet to see any evidence presented that there is any actual link between Steam's DRM and cheaper games. Has Valve actually made any official statements claiming that it is directly as a result of their DRM that they are able to profit from hugely discounted sales? To the best of my knowledge, I could not find any sources stating such. In fact, if anything the reasons for Steam sales probably have more to do with the fact that Valve is still an entirely privately-owned company and has not gone public with its assets, so they don't need to answer to any shareholders and therefore have more flexibility to experiment with different business models. This theory is further bolstered by the fact that a while back EA senior vice president for global commerce David DeMartini criticized Valve's Steam sales, claiming that they were having a negative impact on the industry. Now what does this have to do with my point? Well, at the time of his statement, DeMartini was overseeing EA's own digital distribution and DRM client, Origin, which had accumulated a respectable 11 million users during that time; making it the second largest digital distribution client next to Steam. Now why would DeMartini be objecting to this business model if he himself should theoretically be able to offer the same deals with his platform? To me that says the issue has more to do with differing business philosophies rather than anything related to DRM, as here we have an exhibit A example of a company offering a DRM platform but still openly opposing Steam's sales model.
Even Kyle Wagner basically admits in his article that despite his assertions of DRM complaints being "so last decade", the problems people used to have with it still apply. It still forces a dependency on outside servers, and therefore it still amounts to a ticking time bomb/extended rental service for all your games. His only real counter to this is to just ignore the problems anyway because the benefits supposedly outweigh them. Well I'm sorry to say Kyle, but they don't. Most of your arguments hinge on good faith assumptions that we really have no reasons to believe. Moreover, there's nothing stopping Microsoft from still implementing all the features they originally wanted to have anyway. They could still have the 10-person share plan and games being linked to your Xbox Live account. All they'd have to do is just implement it only for their *digital* marketplace and then merely let players have the option to choose which method they would rather prefer. The fact that they decided to completely rescind the whole thing anyway simply tells me they were being petty and wanted to make us feel guilty on all the features we're now losing out on, so your blame should fall squarely on Microsoft if you're still honestly that hung up about it.
Steam and other platforms like it are not god's gift to gamers and I'm not some ignorant neanderthal that just hasn't yet been enlightened about their awesomeness. On the contrary, I've tried Steam and purchased from its sales before, and I've concluded that ultimately I don't agree with the policies of their platform even in spite of their affordable prices, so deal with it.
I won't applaud Microsoft for doing what they should have obviously done in the first place, but I will continue to maintain that they made the right decision here in listening to their customers and removing DRM. It's not "evolution"; it's not the "future of gaming"; it's just corporate greed overstretching its limits, and it's time everyone recognizes that.
I've read countless comments from gamers over the past several years calling for Nintendo to step down from the hardware business and just go the way of Sega making third party software. This sentiment strikes me as lacking in foresight and consideration of the consequences that this would entail; on top of just plain being a bad business decision in general.
First of all, it should be noted that the Wii won the last generation. Yes, I know this still comes as a shock to some, but in terms of raw console sales, the Wii outsold its other two competitors both in the US and worldwide, currently clocking in at a full 22 million units ahead of the Xbox360 with 99.84 million units sold. What's funny is that in spite of this, I was still seeing comments even before the rough launch of the WiiU calling for Nintendo to drop out of hardware, which makes absolutely no sense considering these statistics. Yeah, sure, let's just quit while we're massively ahead? There's a winning business strategy if I ever saw one.
OK, so there is the consideration that despite the Wii's humongous sales, it could be argued that the system isn't as successful as it is made out to be because for many gamers the console has been collecting dust on their shelves after the initial excitement over the motion controls died down and there was a lack of titles to satisfy the hardcore audience. I get that, and from a consumer standpoint, the success of a console should probably be measured a little differently, but strictly from a business perspective, it's the sales that matter at the end of the day, and there's no question that from this viewpoint the Wii was the clear victor. On top of this, the Wii's hardware and price point allowed Nintendo to turn a profit merely from the sale of the console itself whereas Sony and Microsoft had to sell their consoles at a loss and recoup the damages through software. This generation was a massive victory for Nintendo in that regard, and so it would be completely silly for them to stop at the Wii.
But now we enter the WiiU. The console has certainly had a rocky launch and Nintendo has suffered some financial troubles with the loss of the casual market, third party support, and hardcore gamers as well, but even still, this is a far cry from being in the dire straits that Sega was facing when they launched the Dreamcast. Remember that Sega went through three failed consoles in a row before their ultimate decision to throw in the towel on hardware. When was the last time Nintendo had a failed console? An argument could *maybe* be made for the GameCube, but even despite finishing third place, it sold enough units to hold its own, and it was only a very short margin behind the original Xbox in sales. Other than that, the only real flop they had was the Virtual Boy as far back as 1995; a full 18 years ago, and we're long past that now. Furthermore, can the WiiU even be regarded as a failure yet when it's this early in the game? The Playstation 3 had a more difficult launch than this and was able to pull itself up by its bootstraps. In fact, the WiiU has sold 2.6 million units globally as of March 2013, which in a similar timeframe during the last console era, the PS3 only sold 2.4 million units and the Xbox360 had sold 2 million. Still, this doesn't change the fact that in the markets Nintendo really needs to hit right now, they're in quite a bit of trouble, but nonetheless the situation could be a lot worse than where it actually is.
Now, that's just the business side of things, but there's another aspect to this we should consider too. While it's true that Nintendo's innovations don't always deliver and can sometimes come off as gimmicks, they are the only ones in the business that are actually trying to do something different. Without them, we wouldn't have seen our traditional thumbstick controllers in the first place, as the N64 was the first console to feature them. I applaud Nintendo for continually taking the risks that they do because no one else will. Sony and Microsoft in contrast tend to refine and iterate rather than innovate, and while there's nothing necessarily wrong with that, in the absence of anyone else taking the helm to try something different, all that spells is more stagnation and Call of Duty. It's slightly irritating that many of the same gamers who speak out against repetition and lack of innovation in the market are the same people who then turn around and instantly write innovations off as gimmicks. What were you honestly expecting anyway? You think one day we're going to be playing with our standard thumbstick controllers and then the next we're suddenly into full-on virtual reality? Sorry to say, but I got news for you: that's not how it works. Technology generally progresses in stepping stones, not giant leaps and bounds, and the Wii was just one small step toward that virtual reality future we all desire. At the very least, I find it refreshing that I can sit through a Nintendo presentation and get through minimally 5 or 6 trailers before I see the first gun or sword being swung around. I for one welcome Nintendo to continue to carry the torch for game genres that aren't really being explored in the western markets and offering more variety to the table.
I have my fair share of beefs with Nintendo as well. They really do need to step up their game with a more robust online network, stronger hardware, new IPs, and better third party support. I also don't like what they did with screwing over Let's Play Youtubers by stealing their revenue. Never for a second though do I think they should step out of the hardware business; not while Sony and Microsoft are behaving the way they are now, and not while Nintendo is holding such a strong standing in the market. We need the competition.
I just wanted to make a quick note before posting my main blog article for the day. Microsoft has just come out with a new statement announcing the discontinuing of their planned software policy to institute online DRM and mandatory check-ins with Microsoft's servers every 24 hours. Now I admit I've become a rather cynical gamer these days, but at least for this brief moment I'll take my victory. I'll take my victory and run with it.
This proves that our voices can be heard. This combined with PS4 preorders selling out instantly while the Xbox One dragged its heels in the dirt effectively forced Microsoft into making this move before the boycotts even needed to begin. For once it seems justice has been served.
Still, I'm left feeling a little bit like it's a hollow victory. Because of Microsoft's gross mishandling of their next-gen console, Sony was allowed to divert our attention away from sneaking in PS+ subscriptions for online play. At the end of the day, we didn't gain anything. We only lost something while maintaining other features that we should have always had on our consoles to begin with. Nonetheless, it's a small loss in what otherwise could have been a much worse future for gaming.
At this point though, the bad blood is already there, and Don Mattrick can't simply take back the things he said just like that. The damage has been done and it's going to take more than giving back a few features we should already have as a gesture of good faith. Maybe now is the perfect time to start offering Xbox Live for free? That could be a great start.
Following my harsh blog article I wrote on Sony's E3 2013 Press Conference, I not-too-unexpectedly received a lot of hate. My pro-consumer positions on most issues are rather uncompromising, and unfortunately that means sometimes I'll butt heads with even some of the more popular icons of the industry like Valve, and now recently, Sony as well. Nonetheless, I am a firm believer in holding businesses accountable, and I'm not going to hop on the white knight bandwagon just because that's the narrative that is currently being painted for Sony, which brings me to my first point of the day.
Jack Tretton at E3 2013.
Sony is above all else a corporation like Microsoft; not your friend. I can assure you they are in this business for the money first and foremost, and if they saw that it would be more profitable to institute always online DRM and used game restrictions, they would have done so. But they didn't. Why was this the case? Because it was the perfect opportunity to seize a large chunk of Microsoft's disenfranchised audience, and it worked brilliantly. Gamers were angry, and they were seeking an outlet to satiate that anger. Sony was able to fulfill that role for them, and now Sony is poised to make huge bank off that audience because they know Xbox gamers are willing to pay subscription fees for services otherwise provided free on other platforms. This idea that Sony is your savior that cares for you and is looking out for you is misguided in light of that fact. There is arguably no worthwhile benefit for us by taking away a feature that was previously offered free on their platform and charging extra for it. PC games have long been supporting online play without subscription fees quite effectively even before XBL and PSN came into existence.
I bring all this up because I'm trying to show that you should always be vigilant toward business interests, as they don't always have your interests at heart. I know this doesn't fit the nice fairy tale narrative we'd like to have that Microsoft is the big bad wolf and Sony is the white knight savior coming to our rescue, but this is the reality we should come to understand. We as consumers have to keep our interests balanced with theirs, and often times the only way to do this is through exercising restraint with our wallets. That being said, this isn't necessarily to assert that Sony is "evil" per say; all I'm saying is to be mindful that as a business they have their own agendas that do not always coincide with yours, so you shouldn't always assume they are making all their decisions based on your best interests.
There's a couple observations I witnessed firsthand this year at E3 that I think are important to highlight. First, that marketing matters more than facts, and second, that lack of competition is very damaging for the industry. I think people would be singing a very different tune about Sony if they tried to introduce these online subscription fees while Microsoft had been offering strong competition this whole time. If Microsoft never even considered DRM restrictions and they were actually offering real competition in the market, I think we'd see quite a few more longtime Sony fans feeling betrayed, but because this subscription fee was introduced in the context of Sony not being as draconian as Microsoft, it was allowed to slip under the radar. I've been told that I should just be grateful that Sony isn't *completely* screwing us over with used game restrictions and DRM, but what is failing to be recognized here is the understanding that these features have always been standard for every game console and aren't something to be lauded. Make no mistake, this is a *downgrade* from the Playstation 3. Let's review.
The PS3 offers:
>No used game restrictions
>No online DRM
>Free online play
And now the PS4 only offers:
>No used game restrictions
>No online DRM
That's a loss for us, not a gain. Yet, because of Sony's clever marketing and capitalization on Microsoft's tremendous blunders, this is now somehow being billed as a good thing, or something we should simply chalk up to a necessary compromise just because it could have been worse. This is a classic politician move. You play off people's fears about something they're currently really worried about so that you can redirect their attention away from the other despicable move you're going to make. Then you turn around and go, "What? Am I not merciful? I gave you used games and offline single player!" NEWS FLASH: We've always had that anyway. Why are we treating these like groundbreaking features for the console? You might as well inform everyone, "Our game console can play video games!" Holy #$*&, really?
The Playstation 4 can play video games! More at ten.
Microsoft actually tried to use this same tactic with their marketing about their DRM only to lesser effectiveness. For example, when pointing out that all their games need to go through a redemption process that ties them to your Xbox Live account, they were quick to try and redirect our attention by reassuring us that anyone sharing your Xbox One with you still won't have to pay for a second copy. Of course, as I mentioned in my blog article covering this, their point cleverly ignores the other more prevalent problems with this DRM system such as the fact that it still is requiring an Internet connection to access single player content that should otherwise theoretically be able to work fine offline in the first place, and therefore is completely unnecessary.
It's really too bad that Nintendo didn't do a conference this year, because aside from the fact that I think they would've had enough games to make at least a decently compelling showcase, they could have also taken the opportunity to put things into perspective and remind everyone that their system already has been offering these features from day one; including free online multiplayer which now even Sony can't attest to. Hate on Nintendo all you want, but at least despite their currently lacking library of games and hardware, they don't try to pull any nickel-and-dime measures on you and instead just try to win you over by making great games, which is the way it should be normally if gamers had any standards and would stop buying into this crap.
At the end of the day I can understand why Sony did this. Yes, it makes them more money. Yes, they are a business. I just wish companies would stop feeling like they need to make more money through such contemptible means. How about buying out more exclusive developers instead and investing in more games to increase your player base? Or, make the Gaikai cloud features and other new online functionality PS+ exclusive, but still keep the core PSN online play free. After all, if these are really features that gamers want, then let them decide if they are willing to pay for them. How about offering *more* features to entice players to upgrade to your premium services rather than taking them away and charging extra for them? Hell, I'll even take advertisements during load screens if they really need the help that badly to pay the bills for the servers. No sweat off my back. I dunno, that's just a few ideas, but at this point I'm simply tired of all the short changing practices from day one DLC, subscription fees, microtransactions, and the like. Personally I'd rather have companies just be up front about their prices and increase the retail price of games to $70. If games are really getting that expensive to make, then so be it. After all, the retail price of games hasn't been adjusting with the rate of inflation anyway. Don't saddle me with little hidden fees around every corner though.
Speaking of these other questionable practices however, this just yet again exemplifies the double standards and hypocrisy being exhibited from gamers as a result of Sony's marketing. I would be willing to wager that a fairly large segment of the defenders for PS+ are the same people who would decry Capcom for their short changing practices such as on-disc "DLC", so I have to ask, what's the difference? Why is it acceptable for Sony to charge you more for less but not Capcom? After all, it's "only" ten more dollars! As far as I'm concerned, if you're defending Sony's decision with PS+ then you have officially revoked your right to complain about any other nickel-and-dime practices; because really, if you're going to shun me for making such a big deal out of this, then it's pretty curious how selective your outrage is when on the other hand you're unleashing your wrath on Microsoft for requiring a simple Internet check-in. Maybe you think this is all apples and oranges, but at least on the pure
substance of the argument, "It's only $4 a month," I'd say on-disc/day
one DLC is a completely comparable analogy. Debating the value of the
purchase is one thing, but dismissing me merely because the price isn't
expensive (regardless of the actual content you're getting for that
price) is a pretty weak argument.
I think it speaks volumes about the state of the industry right now when a company is being lauded just for not being as bad as the other guy instead of, you know, being praised for genuinely doing a good job. But OK, perhaps I'm being a bit too cynical about this whole thing and blowing it a little out of proportion. Truthfully, I'll admit that by itself the PS+ subscription fee is not a deal-breaker for me. It's just that it feels like the breaking point for me on top of a long list of exploitative practices the industry has been adopting over the years. It seems so silly to me to pay for online play when I already pay my Internet bill for online access and I've been gaming online for over a decade on my PC without ever suddenly being prompted to fork over extra cash. Up until this point, Microsoft was the only one charging for such a service, and I was hoping that eventually the industry would move away from treating online gaming as a premium privilege, but instead it's taking another step toward it. Therefore I have decided to boycott both the PS4 and Xbox One until they change their practices. I am still considering a PS4 possibly at some point in the distant future, but certainly never an Xbox One, and if I do get a PS4, I'll never pay for a PS+ subscription; just as I have done with Xbox Live in the past. As responsible consumers, we've got to fight back at some point, and now more than ever I don't see a better time to start. Maybe you disagree though. Maybe you can live with that one extra subscription, but can we at least agree that I'm not the bad guy here when I'm just trying to look out for your wallet and put things into proper perspective? It amazes me that I'm being bashed and condescended to for pointing out what should obviously be recognized as a dick move. Even if you don't mind the subscription, you should at least be able to understand where I'm coming from.
TL;DR, Maddox summarizes my views on E3 this year the best.
I realize though that almost all of my blog posts focus on negative topics thus far, so I'm going to be working on changing that. Truth be told, I can't help but admit that I am definitely a critic at heart, and there's nothing that gets me more passionate and motivated to sit down and write something than when I hear news that makes my blood boil. I can't guarantee that I'll ever strike a proper balance with this blog, but despite whatever image you may have of me at this point, I can assure you that I do very much love my games, and I care about them deeply, which is why I will try to devote more time to actually showcasing that passion from this point onward. Therefore, I have planned several new pieces of content to be featured on this blog. First, I will be revisiting two topics that I previously had negative opinions on, and I will be sharing my recently more optimistic perspective on them. Those two topics include the crowd-funded Ouya console, and the state of the MMO genre. I'll also be defending a game that has received a lot of hate from fans of the series, Metroid: Other M. Finally, I'd like to finish off with a "Top 10 Greatest Games You Never Heard of" list, where I will go through some of my favorite games throughout the years that may have often been underrated or overlooked, and I'll be explaining why I love them, and why you should be playing them. So, I hope you're all looking forward to a slightly less cynical Derpalon coming to you in the near future. :p
