Older PC games may well remember the days of Shareware games. Shareware games were essentially a big chunk of a full retail game: often these games would be split up in episodes and you'd get the first for free to "wet your appetite" so to speak. It's a system that seemed like a great idea but ultimately, its success proved to be its undoing.
You see, Shareware games usually gave several hours of enjoyment so why would you want to buy games when there's hundreds of hours of good gaming out there? In reality, while Shareware was meant to seduce gamers to buy the full game, they would move on, devouring game after game like Pacman chasing pills. Heck, because Shareware could be distributed for free, many companies abused this system by throwing all kinds of Shareware on a single disk and then charging anywhere from $5 to $30 for it! Heck, often they'd just stick a single game on a disk and wouldn't even mention on the front that this was a Shareware game.
While Shareware ultimately failed, it did really help quite a few games. The huge success of Doom could easily be attributed to the widely spread first episode "Knee-Deep in the Dead" for example. But, putting aside the commercial value of the system, it's important to look at the more important aspects ...
Yes, the real value wasn't economical - believe it or not, it's not always all about money. TALENT! THAT was the real legacy of shareware! Not only big developers were releasing shareware games but also many bedroom coders. It was the ideal system after all: put your shareware game on the BBS or give it to magazines to put on their cover disks, and in return people could order your game through the mail. No need to spend a fortune on advertising or convincing retail stores to stock your game - let mouth to mouth advertising do this for you! The result was many excellent (if sometimes pretty ugly) games which helped to discover great talent and helped add colour to the very diverse PC landscape.
In the end, I greatly respect Shareware games of old - they gave me hundreds of hours of fun and gave me many fond memories. Often forgotten by time, many of these still deserve to be remembered ...
donderdag 22 oktober 2009
dinsdag 20 oktober 2009
A scapegoat called piracy
So ... let's open can of worms, shall we? Piracy ... the most used excuse for publishers to exploit PC gamers. In the piracy debate, there's very strong feelings on both sides of the fence: some feel piracy is evil and there's never any reason to pirate anything while others feel that publishers only have themselves to blame for the increase in piracy. Me? I think so too.
If you just scratch the surface, it's easy to say piracy is bad: surely developers deserve your money if you played their game? This is also the main reason why people are against piracy since it jeopardises the possibility of more games being made so it's not entirely altruistic to want people to pay for their games. In practice, however, it doesn't quite work that way. In fact, there's a lot of misconceptions surrounding piracy and this is what I wanted to set straight in this blog post:
"Pirating means stealing money from the developers!"
Not always. In fact, almost never! The truth is that developers rarely get money according to sales any more: that money goes towards the publishers - they're the money loaners, employers, investors. They pay the wages of the developers and the expenses and in return they get all the profits. ALL the profits. Some developers get a small amount of royalties (very often a mere 5% ) depending on the contract, but increased sales will not mean more money going towards the developer and this is an important distinction.
"Oh, but!" I hear you say, "But more money for the publisher means they can reinvest more money as well!". This is very true but that money won't necessarily flow back to the developer! The publisher may decide to spend it on marketing or on another developer who may bring in more money. Or, the sequel may simply become a console exclusive! While higher sales increase the likelihood of a developer getting a new contract, it's important to note that very little if any money goes directly back towards the people who actually made the game.
I do strongly support independent developers who work without publisher funds: 2D Boy, Introversion, etc. all self-fund their own games which has become a rarity. It also means that a single unsuccessful game can cause the death of their company so they need the support a hell of a lot more than most other developers.
"Pirating means lost sales!"
Erm, no. This is a common misconception but the truth is that many people who pirate have their own agenda for doing so. This ranges from wanting to try a game before buying it (a potential sale), to simply being broke and not being able to afford the game but with the intent to buy it when they can.
Oh, sure, there's also those who can afford the game but choose not to buy it (for reasons I explained further down) but it's important to realise that these don't count for all pirates. So when a publisher says "our game has been pirated 1.000.000 times meaning $50.000.000 in lost revenue" you got to take it a BIG pinch of salt. More like a truck of salt, actually. With the lack of demos these days, piracy has become a "must" for many gamers in this economic climate. Why risk wasting $50/€40/£30 if you can get the game a try before you head to the shops? Maybe, if they released demos before a game's release, piracy wouldn't be the only other option ...
"Piracy is stealing"
No, it's not. Piracy is a breach of copyright, not stealing. Some may say that's a matter of semantics but it's not: there's a huge difference when it comes to the law which is what counts. On top of that, piracy is copying a virtual product akin to xeroxing pages from a book in the library. In fact, legally it's the same crime.
Even more important to realise, is that there's no actual goods being stolen. The developer or publisher loses nothing physical when a game or program gets pirated. Whether a game gets pirated a 1.000 times or a million times, there's no immediate difference in theory. In practice, it might mean more lost sales of course, but it's important to acknowledge the difference.
"Piracy is why this game is no longer supported!"
This is a good one - a good one because the opposite is true. A lack of support is the main reason why a game gets pirated and then not bought. Publishers see that a game gets pirated a lot and then decide to pull the plug on further support of the game. Why? I mean, why would you punish those that bought the game and also give a signal to those that pirated the game that they were right not to buy it? I mean, continuous support (including free updates) is THE main reason to buy a game so why drop it and then blame piracy? It makes no sense!
Well, to publishers it does: why keep supporting a game which doesn't sell millions, right? But not only are you dissuading your current customers of paying for your next game (why would they if they drop support so quickly?), you're also confirming what the pirates already believed: that it wasn't worth buying the game in the first place.
"Piracy sends publishers the wrong signal!"
This one is mostly true but only because publishers refuse to see the underlying problems. They treat piracy as a cause instead of a symptom caused by lack of support, the releasing of buggy and incomplete games, the removing of the value of owning a physical copy, etc. Some games can be completed in a matter of hours with little or no replay value, we no longer get a decent manual nor any freebies with our games, some only have 3 activations before the game will refuse to run, if the game doesn't run on your PC, many stores refuse to take it back, etc. etc.
All of these problems push down the perceived value of a game and if this perceived value is a lot lower than the store price, it's not too surprising to find that people are unwilling to pay for it. It's no coincidence that games such as Red Alert 3 and Mirror's Edge drastically dropped in price after the DRM "scandal" broke loose! Poor sales are a very likely reason for this.
"You need to buy the game if you want to be heard by the publisher!"
Oh no no no no no. This is the worst thing you can do. Worse than pirating it, in fact. Buying is agreeing with whatever strategy the publisher put in place - it's the worst signal you can send! A publisher will look at the sales and use that to conclude whether their business strategy works or not. If games with DRM measures had sold very well, they'd have tagged it onto every game they could get their hands on but the massive outcry luckily affected sales to a point where some publishers have already given up on the idea.
Sadly enough, voting with your wallet and not buying the game will often be wrongly interpreted as well. Instead of stepping away from whatever poor idea they had in place, they'll try to blame the developer and its game instead even if the actual game is great which might mean no sequel! This has happened in the past, sadly enough, and it's just one example of how shortminded publishers can be.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For all that has been written above, it's important to note that I don't support piracy on the whole. Hell, why I understand why many people pirate, I will always buy a game I enjoy and I strongly support those developers that deserve it. In fact, I buy at least 5 games each month and actively go out of my way to support and promote the smaller and lesser known developers that need the extra attention.
So why did I write all this? Well, if you read it all, you may discover a recurring theme: the ignorance of the publisher which hurts EVERYONE, pirates and ligit buyers alike. I said at the start that I agree that publishers have themselves to blame for the current state of the PC market and for good reason: they ignore the community, impose the most ridiculous systems, try to squeeze extra money out of us while quickly dropping support for their products and even rushing games out before they're finished. This worrying trend is really erroding the respect gamers hold for developers and publishers alike and when there's a lack of respect, the step towards piracy is a lot easier to make.
Publishers need to accept that piracy is a reality and instead of using it as an excuse for yet more draconian measures that punish ligit buyers more than the pirates (which, ironically, creates more pirates), they should take a closer look at why pirates pirate their games in the first place. Until publishers stop pointing fingers and start looking at what they're doing instead, I don't think we'll ever get out of this downwards spiral.
It's no surprise that games such as Oblivion and Galactic Civilizations II sell very well despite having no or nearly no copy protection in please and it's because these are two well respected developers. Take note publishers: respect is something you earn.
If you just scratch the surface, it's easy to say piracy is bad: surely developers deserve your money if you played their game? This is also the main reason why people are against piracy since it jeopardises the possibility of more games being made so it's not entirely altruistic to want people to pay for their games. In practice, however, it doesn't quite work that way. In fact, there's a lot of misconceptions surrounding piracy and this is what I wanted to set straight in this blog post:
"Pirating means stealing money from the developers!"
Not always. In fact, almost never! The truth is that developers rarely get money according to sales any more: that money goes towards the publishers - they're the money loaners, employers, investors. They pay the wages of the developers and the expenses and in return they get all the profits. ALL the profits. Some developers get a small amount of royalties (very often a mere 5% ) depending on the contract, but increased sales will not mean more money going towards the developer and this is an important distinction.
"Oh, but!" I hear you say, "But more money for the publisher means they can reinvest more money as well!". This is very true but that money won't necessarily flow back to the developer! The publisher may decide to spend it on marketing or on another developer who may bring in more money. Or, the sequel may simply become a console exclusive! While higher sales increase the likelihood of a developer getting a new contract, it's important to note that very little if any money goes directly back towards the people who actually made the game.
I do strongly support independent developers who work without publisher funds: 2D Boy, Introversion, etc. all self-fund their own games which has become a rarity. It also means that a single unsuccessful game can cause the death of their company so they need the support a hell of a lot more than most other developers.
"Pirating means lost sales!"
Erm, no. This is a common misconception but the truth is that many people who pirate have their own agenda for doing so. This ranges from wanting to try a game before buying it (a potential sale), to simply being broke and not being able to afford the game but with the intent to buy it when they can.
Oh, sure, there's also those who can afford the game but choose not to buy it (for reasons I explained further down) but it's important to realise that these don't count for all pirates. So when a publisher says "our game has been pirated 1.000.000 times meaning $50.000.000 in lost revenue" you got to take it a BIG pinch of salt. More like a truck of salt, actually. With the lack of demos these days, piracy has become a "must" for many gamers in this economic climate. Why risk wasting $50/€40/£30 if you can get the game a try before you head to the shops? Maybe, if they released demos before a game's release, piracy wouldn't be the only other option ...
"Piracy is stealing"
No, it's not. Piracy is a breach of copyright, not stealing. Some may say that's a matter of semantics but it's not: there's a huge difference when it comes to the law which is what counts. On top of that, piracy is copying a virtual product akin to xeroxing pages from a book in the library. In fact, legally it's the same crime.
Even more important to realise, is that there's no actual goods being stolen. The developer or publisher loses nothing physical when a game or program gets pirated. Whether a game gets pirated a 1.000 times or a million times, there's no immediate difference in theory. In practice, it might mean more lost sales of course, but it's important to acknowledge the difference.
"Piracy is why this game is no longer supported!"
This is a good one - a good one because the opposite is true. A lack of support is the main reason why a game gets pirated and then not bought. Publishers see that a game gets pirated a lot and then decide to pull the plug on further support of the game. Why? I mean, why would you punish those that bought the game and also give a signal to those that pirated the game that they were right not to buy it? I mean, continuous support (including free updates) is THE main reason to buy a game so why drop it and then blame piracy? It makes no sense!
Well, to publishers it does: why keep supporting a game which doesn't sell millions, right? But not only are you dissuading your current customers of paying for your next game (why would they if they drop support so quickly?), you're also confirming what the pirates already believed: that it wasn't worth buying the game in the first place.
"Piracy sends publishers the wrong signal!"
This one is mostly true but only because publishers refuse to see the underlying problems. They treat piracy as a cause instead of a symptom caused by lack of support, the releasing of buggy and incomplete games, the removing of the value of owning a physical copy, etc. Some games can be completed in a matter of hours with little or no replay value, we no longer get a decent manual nor any freebies with our games, some only have 3 activations before the game will refuse to run, if the game doesn't run on your PC, many stores refuse to take it back, etc. etc.
All of these problems push down the perceived value of a game and if this perceived value is a lot lower than the store price, it's not too surprising to find that people are unwilling to pay for it. It's no coincidence that games such as Red Alert 3 and Mirror's Edge drastically dropped in price after the DRM "scandal" broke loose! Poor sales are a very likely reason for this.
"You need to buy the game if you want to be heard by the publisher!"
Oh no no no no no. This is the worst thing you can do. Worse than pirating it, in fact. Buying is agreeing with whatever strategy the publisher put in place - it's the worst signal you can send! A publisher will look at the sales and use that to conclude whether their business strategy works or not. If games with DRM measures had sold very well, they'd have tagged it onto every game they could get their hands on but the massive outcry luckily affected sales to a point where some publishers have already given up on the idea.
Sadly enough, voting with your wallet and not buying the game will often be wrongly interpreted as well. Instead of stepping away from whatever poor idea they had in place, they'll try to blame the developer and its game instead even if the actual game is great which might mean no sequel! This has happened in the past, sadly enough, and it's just one example of how shortminded publishers can be.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For all that has been written above, it's important to note that I don't support piracy on the whole. Hell, why I understand why many people pirate, I will always buy a game I enjoy and I strongly support those developers that deserve it. In fact, I buy at least 5 games each month and actively go out of my way to support and promote the smaller and lesser known developers that need the extra attention.
So why did I write all this? Well, if you read it all, you may discover a recurring theme: the ignorance of the publisher which hurts EVERYONE, pirates and ligit buyers alike. I said at the start that I agree that publishers have themselves to blame for the current state of the PC market and for good reason: they ignore the community, impose the most ridiculous systems, try to squeeze extra money out of us while quickly dropping support for their products and even rushing games out before they're finished. This worrying trend is really erroding the respect gamers hold for developers and publishers alike and when there's a lack of respect, the step towards piracy is a lot easier to make.
Publishers need to accept that piracy is a reality and instead of using it as an excuse for yet more draconian measures that punish ligit buyers more than the pirates (which, ironically, creates more pirates), they should take a closer look at why pirates pirate their games in the first place. Until publishers stop pointing fingers and start looking at what they're doing instead, I don't think we'll ever get out of this downwards spiral.
It's no surprise that games such as Oblivion and Galactic Civilizations II sell very well despite having no or nearly no copy protection in please and it's because these are two well respected developers. Take note publishers: respect is something you earn.
Eroding the foundations ...
It's interesting to see how worked up people can get over their personal hobbies. Even kids will fight over who is the coolest Pokémon or which Jonas Brother is the cutest (*insert nauseating sound*) so it's a bit of an international sport: everyone does it.
Even when it comes to gamers - especially when it comes to gamers - you don't have to look far to find such arguments. Console vs PC, FPS vs RPG, Xbox vs Playstation, mouse & keyboard vs gamepad, etc. etc. etc. More than enough arguments which you'll find repeated on countless forums. But, once in a while, a new argument surfaces and may actually be worth taking a closer look at ...
The latest such case is the lack of dedicated server support for the PC version of Call of Duty Modern War 2. I won't explain why this is a bad thing - there's hundreds of other sites that have already done this - but suffice to say, it wasn't a smart move by Infinity Ward. Earlier, it was already known that PC gamers wouldn't be getting the Prestige Edition with included Night Vision Goggles which already seemed like a poor move but this one really takes the cake!
The explosive response from the PC gaming community was immense: over 100.000 poll votes to bring back dedicated servers in less than half a week. The official forums were swamped with negative messages of gamers saying they cancelled their pre-order or threatening to do so. Is this an overreaction? Well, some responses obviously are but here's why I think it's natural and important for the community to respond this way:
10 years ago, PC gaming was at its peak. It could easily beat any console in term of versatility: RTS, RPGs, flight simulators, space simulators, adventure games, etc. etc. It could play every game consoles could and then some. The most popular genre of them all, however, was the FPS. Very popular with the majority of gamers, casual and hardcore alike, it brought thousands of fresh gamers to the PC. Games such as Quake II, Counter Strike, Unreal Tournament and many others attracted millions of gamers online to battle each other. Consoles had no online answer to this so at that time, the PC was king.
Over the last half a decade or so, we've seen a worrying change, however. More and more, publishers are stepping away from the PC towards consoles - even for FPS games which consoles were never that good at. At best, we get a multi-platform release, whereby the PC version is crippled due to the limitations of its sister consoles. Barely any effort is made any more to take advantage of the PC's superior hardware and flexibility either - whereas a keyboard has over a 100 keys, barely 15 will be used for any game meaning you often see a lack of leaning left & right and other features us PC gamers have gotten used to. It's a worrying trend and one that doesn't seem to be slowing down with fewer and fewer PC-only games still being released each month.
And this is why it's important for us to speak up: publishers all too easily push us in a corner and see us, PC gamers, as an afterthought. We often get games months after their console release in a poorly optimised state and the support which we saw in the past (updates, extra maps, etc.) seems to be slowly dwindling in favour of DLC (downloadable content you need to pay for), another invention originating on the consoles to beat more money out of our pockets.
While I'm sure there's economical reasons for all this, it makes you wonder how far we should go in accepting these changes since we pay just as much money as before for less. We've already had to accept such things as Windows Live, DRM, limited activations, removal of LAN, poor mouse/keyboard integration, etc. The result is that our own hobby is being slowly assimilated to match that of a console experience! I'm sure some of you may think "well what's wrong with console gaming" and I'll answer you this: if I wanted to play a console game, I'd play it on my Xbox 360. I have a PC to play PC games, not poor console ports.
And now we come full circle: if we value our hobbies, we need to defend them. This is not about evolution, this is about wanting to keep what we love about our hobby PC gaming, what makes it unique compared to the other gaming platforms. Call it "PC elitism" or whatever you want, but in the end, we simply want to keep playing the great games we received in the past.
Even when it comes to gamers - especially when it comes to gamers - you don't have to look far to find such arguments. Console vs PC, FPS vs RPG, Xbox vs Playstation, mouse & keyboard vs gamepad, etc. etc. etc. More than enough arguments which you'll find repeated on countless forums. But, once in a while, a new argument surfaces and may actually be worth taking a closer look at ...
The latest such case is the lack of dedicated server support for the PC version of Call of Duty Modern War 2. I won't explain why this is a bad thing - there's hundreds of other sites that have already done this - but suffice to say, it wasn't a smart move by Infinity Ward. Earlier, it was already known that PC gamers wouldn't be getting the Prestige Edition with included Night Vision Goggles which already seemed like a poor move but this one really takes the cake!
The explosive response from the PC gaming community was immense: over 100.000 poll votes to bring back dedicated servers in less than half a week. The official forums were swamped with negative messages of gamers saying they cancelled their pre-order or threatening to do so. Is this an overreaction? Well, some responses obviously are but here's why I think it's natural and important for the community to respond this way:
10 years ago, PC gaming was at its peak. It could easily beat any console in term of versatility: RTS, RPGs, flight simulators, space simulators, adventure games, etc. etc. It could play every game consoles could and then some. The most popular genre of them all, however, was the FPS. Very popular with the majority of gamers, casual and hardcore alike, it brought thousands of fresh gamers to the PC. Games such as Quake II, Counter Strike, Unreal Tournament and many others attracted millions of gamers online to battle each other. Consoles had no online answer to this so at that time, the PC was king.
Over the last half a decade or so, we've seen a worrying change, however. More and more, publishers are stepping away from the PC towards consoles - even for FPS games which consoles were never that good at. At best, we get a multi-platform release, whereby the PC version is crippled due to the limitations of its sister consoles. Barely any effort is made any more to take advantage of the PC's superior hardware and flexibility either - whereas a keyboard has over a 100 keys, barely 15 will be used for any game meaning you often see a lack of leaning left & right and other features us PC gamers have gotten used to. It's a worrying trend and one that doesn't seem to be slowing down with fewer and fewer PC-only games still being released each month.
And this is why it's important for us to speak up: publishers all too easily push us in a corner and see us, PC gamers, as an afterthought. We often get games months after their console release in a poorly optimised state and the support which we saw in the past (updates, extra maps, etc.) seems to be slowly dwindling in favour of DLC (downloadable content you need to pay for), another invention originating on the consoles to beat more money out of our pockets.
While I'm sure there's economical reasons for all this, it makes you wonder how far we should go in accepting these changes since we pay just as much money as before for less. We've already had to accept such things as Windows Live, DRM, limited activations, removal of LAN, poor mouse/keyboard integration, etc. The result is that our own hobby is being slowly assimilated to match that of a console experience! I'm sure some of you may think "well what's wrong with console gaming" and I'll answer you this: if I wanted to play a console game, I'd play it on my Xbox 360. I have a PC to play PC games, not poor console ports.
And now we come full circle: if we value our hobbies, we need to defend them. This is not about evolution, this is about wanting to keep what we love about our hobby PC gaming, what makes it unique compared to the other gaming platforms. Call it "PC elitism" or whatever you want, but in the end, we simply want to keep playing the great games we received in the past.
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