This weeks gaming podcast, Settlers of Catan developed by Teuber or Teubler or …whatever! We’re flashing back to mr. Teuber as well and covering some cool gaming news. The news covers a few hot topics of the week, we’ve included:
- Pachter predicts project natal will retail for $50
- Sony trying to make money off of used game sales, too
- John Carmack getting life time achievement award
- Rumor: Nintendo DS 2 may have a rumble feature
- Sony thinks 3rd party publishers leaving Nintendo
- Ubisoft tries their hand at DRM
The question of the week! What type of DRM is universally acceptable?
David Braben, founder of Frontier Developments, says retail outlets that buy and sell pre-owned games are “essentially defrauding the industry.” Although multiplayer gaming might not be a huge threat, the single player experience in games may die out because gamers play the game quickly and resell it back to places like GameStop for others to buy.
Now here is another interesting video game for the Atari 2600, the game Dragon Fire consisted of two game screens, one which you ran across a bridge while fireballs were shot at you, you had to duck or jump over the fireball. This screen was a side-scroller style screen (although it doesn’t actually scroll), at the other end of the bridge was a castle door which you’d enter to get to the next screen.
When you finished collecting all the treasure an exit would pop up in the corner and you had to run to it without being burned by the fireballs, that dragon would turn from left to right nearly instantly too! Then, you’d jump into the exit and be back on the bridge again, but this time it was harder. You could die up to 7 times before the game was over (just to show you how hard it is, they gave you a bunch of lives).
Interesting gaming history but I’m afraid I suggested “The Settlers” series by bluebyte not the boardgame “Settlers of Catan”. Easy to see where the misunderstanding came from tho as both developed in germany. The original game “The Settlers” (’93) was published a couple of years before the boardgame (’95) and although there are similarities, as far as I know they are in no way related. You even referred to the Settlers Series later on when you mentioned The Settlers 7 in the Ubisoft drm segment. Speaking of which, Ubisoft can diaf for ruining my most anticipated game of 2010!
lol, oops. Catan was the first thing I thought of 🙂
Interesting gaming history but I’m afraid I suggested “The Settlers” series by bluebyte not the boardgame “Settlers of Catan”. Easy to see where the misunderstanding came from tho as both developed in germany. The original game “The Settlers” (’93) was published a couple of years before the boardgame (’95) and although there are similarities, as far as I know they are in no way related. You even referred to the Settlers Series later on when you mentioned The Settlers 7 in the Ubisoft drm segment. Speaking of which, Ubisoft can diaf for ruining my most anticipated game of 2010!
lol, oops. Catan was the first thing I thought of 🙂
@making money of used games
One effect would be driving the used games sales to the ground. Not that Sony or EA would be upset by that.
@John Carmack
“Programming is not a zero-sum game. Teaching something to a fellow programmer doesn’t take it away from you. I’m happy to share what I can, because I’m in it for the love of programming.”
I’d award the guy just for this kind of mentality.
And he did open sourced his engines, all the way to the Quake 3 engine.
@Mario story:
Nowadays kids see computers for granted. They’re interacting with them from a much younger age, so a seven years old accessing youtube is not that surprising.
@3rd party publishers leaving Nintendo
Riiight … publishers leave platforms that are easier to program on just to program on the ps3:
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/sony-playstation-ps3-developers-hirai,news-3346.html
@Online DRM
This is far worse than Steam. Steam works offline at least.
They claim that Steam gets hacked too easy, and that’s one of the reasons they do this kind of online DRM.
Seriously, ALL DRMs get hacked.
The thing that makes Ubisoft’s method worse than Steam is that it is missing the offline mode.
@Question of the week.
The only DRM system I got used to is Steam. I guess the fact that it has an offline mode helps.
A DRM scheme is good only if you don’t notice it. Steam gets as close as possible to this, and it can be used on any type of game.
MMOs are also a perfect example of a good DRM scheme, I agree with Jennifer on that. There is a difference though, MMOs use central servers anyway, so implementing a no brainer. The challenge is to make a system that can be used by any type of game, and Steam comes up as winner in my opinion.
@making money of used games
One effect would be driving the used games sales to the ground. Not that Sony or EA would be upset by that.
@John Carmack
“Programming is not a zero-sum game. Teaching something to a fellow programmer doesn’t take it away from you. I’m happy to share what I can, because I’m in it for the love of programming.”
I’d award the guy just for this kind of mentality.
And he did open sourced his engines, all the way to the Quake 3 engine.
@Mario story:
Nowadays kids see computers for granted. They’re interacting with them from a much younger age, so a seven years old accessing youtube is not that surprising.
@3rd party publishers leaving Nintendo
Riiight … publishers leave platforms that are easier to program on just to program on the ps3:
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/sony-playstation-ps3-developers-hirai,news-3346.html
@Online DRM
This is far worse than Steam. Steam works offline at least.
They claim that Steam gets hacked too easy, and that’s one of the reasons they do this kind of online DRM.
Seriously, ALL DRMs get hacked.
The thing that makes Ubisoft’s method worse than Steam is that it is missing the offline mode.
@Question of the week.
The only DRM system I got used to is Steam. I guess the fact that it has an offline mode helps.
A DRM scheme is good only if you don’t notice it. Steam gets as close as possible to this, and it can be used on any type of game.
MMOs are also a perfect example of a good DRM scheme, I agree with Jennifer on that. There is a difference though, MMOs use central servers anyway, so implementing a no brainer. The challenge is to make a system that can be used by any type of game, and Steam comes up as winner in my opinion.
Hmmm. I just wrote a lengthy comment, but I don’t see it above.
Did it say it posted successfully?
Hmmm. I just wrote a lengthy comment, but I don’t see it above.
Did it say it posted successfully?
I disabled “ajax comments” maybe it’s causing issues for you.
I disabled “ajax comments” maybe it’s causing issues for you.
QotW: I dont think it’s possible for a drm scheme to be universally acceptable. Even ones like steam that offer benifits such as offline play, friends and community support, competitively priced gaming store, auto updates and cloud saving has plenty of haters. Its still not going to help someone with very slow or no internet acess certain games. Many games often have issues accessing offline mode or are tied to multiple drm platforms (also include gfwl, securom, limited installs), and steam sometimes bugs out/breaks and requires various steps to fix it (eg. deleteing ClientRegistry.blob file or spending extended time in forums looking for fixes).
Publishers need to look to an alternative to limiting piracy and drop drm altogether. It will never beat the pirates (hell, even mmos have private servers), and it just turns more and more customers away as it gets more restrictive.
Whatever happened to demos. What if you could release demos for all your new releases that were of sizabable content and also included a way to purchase the entire game with an online link to a digital store or a snail mail order form to print off. I really dont know how long a pirated game gets played after download but I’m sure there are some who are just trying it out to see if the game appeals to them. Offer them a free, legal alternative with an easy and accessable way or purchasing if they enjoy it. Ofcoarse many publishers wont do this often as if their game stinks customers will find out before being cheated out of their dollars by the hype machine surrounding so many releases.
Or maybe games could come drm free to play but with novelty benifits for playing a activated copy online. Achievements, rankings ladder, novelty customazibale apparel or avatars could be accessed only while online while those without the acess or desire to be online all the time wouldnt be crippled from playing what they paid for.
Another suggestion:
RELEASE YOUR GAME IN ALL REGIONS AT THE SAME TIME FOR THE SAME COST.
No-one wants to wait 2 months or in some countries for forever to see a game they are reading about in online or magazine reviews. It also pisses off your customers when a game int he US costs $60 and in australia $90 USD. What about regions where games arent being released at all, they have no option but to pirate if they want to play it.
If companie still want to persist with drm, at the very least, offer more benifits for having your game locked down to a platform or drm method than what pirates get with an un-drmed copy. Regular free updated content and bug fixes that are auto downloaded are a lot more convenient than having to wait for patches to be made avalable to cracked versions of the game then sifting through the malware fromt he legitimate patches and dealing with any install problems.
A quick plug for gog.com (Good Old Games) is probably warrented here as they provide downloads to classic pc games at low costs with zero DRM and still give you the option to download them as much as you want incase you ever uninstall it.
QotW: I dont think it’s possible for a drm scheme to be universally acceptable. Even ones like steam that offer benifits such as offline play, friends and community support, competitively priced gaming store, auto updates and cloud saving has plenty of haters. Its still not going to help someone with very slow or no internet acess certain games. Many games often have issues accessing offline mode or are tied to multiple drm platforms (also include gfwl, securom, limited installs), and steam sometimes bugs out/breaks and requires various steps to fix it (eg. deleteing ClientRegistry.blob file or spending extended time in forums looking for fixes).
Publishers need to look to an alternative to limiting piracy and drop drm altogether. It will never beat the pirates (hell, even mmos have private servers), and it just turns more and more customers away as it gets more restrictive.
Whatever happened to demos. What if you could release demos for all your new releases that were of sizabable content and also included a way to purchase the entire game with an online link to a digital store or a snail mail order form to print off. I really dont know how long a pirated game gets played after download but I’m sure there are some who are just trying it out to see if the game appeals to them. Offer them a free, legal alternative with an easy and accessable way or purchasing if they enjoy it. Ofcoarse many publishers wont do this often as if their game stinks customers will find out before being cheated out of their dollars by the hype machine surrounding so many releases.
Or maybe games could come drm free to play but with novelty benifits for playing a activated copy online. Achievements, rankings ladder, novelty customazibale apparel or avatars could be accessed only while online while those without the acess or desire to be online all the time wouldnt be crippled from playing what they paid for.
Another suggestion:
RELEASE YOUR GAME IN ALL REGIONS AT THE SAME TIME FOR THE SAME COST.
No-one wants to wait 2 months or in some countries for forever to see a game they are reading about in online or magazine reviews. It also pisses off your customers when a game int he US costs $60 and in australia $90 USD. What about regions where games arent being released at all, they have no option but to pirate if they want to play it.
If companie still want to persist with drm, at the very least, offer more benifits for having your game locked down to a platform or drm method than what pirates get with an un-drmed copy. Regular free updated content and bug fixes that are auto downloaded are a lot more convenient than having to wait for patches to be made avalable to cracked versions of the game then sifting through the malware fromt he legitimate patches and dealing with any install problems.
A quick plug for gog.com (Good Old Games) is probably warrented here as they provide downloads to classic pc games at low costs with zero DRM and still give you the option to download them as much as you want incase you ever uninstall it.
^^
I really need to start proof reading what I write and not rushing to finish. So many typos 🙁
^^
I really need to start proof reading what I write and not rushing to finish. So many typos 🙁
I think Valve came up with the right solution with Steam. It’s not annoying, the bargain deals are great, you can install it on every computer you own with Steam with the only limit being only one version can be playing at any one time, like Microsoft’s Marketplace, you can delete it and reinstall it whenever you like, and it has some Xbox Live-style features like a live friends list. You can also get real old games for $2 like STALKER at times, too.
EA has its own version with Download Manager, and Microsoft is doing a Live for Windows Marketplace, so the idea is catching on.
I think Valve came up with the right solution with Steam. It’s not annoying, the bargain deals are great, you can install it on every computer you own with Steam with the only limit being only one version can be playing at any one time, like Microsoft’s Marketplace, you can delete it and reinstall it whenever you like, and it has some Xbox Live-style features like a live friends list. You can also get real old games for $2 like STALKER at times, too.
EA has its own version with Download Manager, and Microsoft is doing a Live for Windows Marketplace, so the idea is catching on.