Piracy, Its Countermeasures and Blizzard

It started with Cain and Abel, gravitated to Cowboys and Indians, morphed into Cops and Robbers, was popularized into Allies and Axis (that one may need some definite articles) and finally mutated to become Games Developers and Somalians. Indeed, the age old conflict of protagonist and antagonist migrated to the games industry some years ago, and has continued to fester and grow ever since (for those of you still struggling to follow – legitimately enough, at that - I am referring to piracy).

Piracy is, simply put, the act of using game files acquired from another person to play the game without actually buying it. It is hard to believe, then, that the people who make the games aren’t terribly thrilled about the end-user’s ability to do this, and began to introduce counter-Somalian measures. From key codes to online registration, developers do a lot to try and keep their precious intellectual property safe. The problem, however, lies in the cycle which this creates:

- People pirate games
- Developer creates DRM (Digital Resource Management) to try to combat piracy
- People get around DRM and continue to pirate
- Developers create more hardcore DRM to try and combat piracy
- Legitimate users who actually buy the game get screwed around because they have to jump through hoops to actually play their damned game due to DRM
- Pirates continue to overcome DRM and pirate
- Legitimate users get pissed off and pirate the game out of spite
- Developers create… you get the idea

And it is in that cycle that the games industry finds itself in now. However, amongst a dank cesspool of failure, mutual idiocy and Somalians, one paragon of games development stands tall: Hail to Blizzard!

In my opinion, Blizzard have (intentionally or not) happened upon the most effective form of DRM to date. Allow me to elaborate:

To play Starcraft 2, one must first have a Blizzard account. Once you have a Blizzard account, you register the Starcraft 2 key code which you bought, which allows you to log in to Starcraft 2 with your Blizzard account. Once logged in you can play the game.

Now, Starcraft 2 remains as susceptible to cracking and piracy as any other, the only problem is that is you pirate Starcraft you can only play the singleplayer, while you will be denied multiplayer access. And that is the crux of the issue. The singleplayer campaign for Starcraft 2 was certainly ok, maybe even very ok, but the game really gets good when you play the multiplayer.

Positive reinforcement, ladies and gentlemen. Don’t make your legitimate buyers bend over backwards trying to play your game, reward them.

The interesting thing to note is that Blizzard rewards you without really rewarding you at all – all it does is give you the framework with which you can enjoy their game. They provide a pretty efficient 7-tiered league and ladder system that lets you work towards goals while being pitted against rivals of a similar skill level to you, but it is only when someone else clicks the ‘Find Match’ button that the game really begins to be enjoyable (read: addictive).

Unfortunately, Starcraft 2’s anti-piracy success was due to a number of specific factors which I outlined above, and as such the same formula cannot be applied to say, a singleplayer RPG. The good news is that we are beginning to see positive reinforcement orientated incentives being offered to users who legitimately buy the game (the Cerberus Network from Mass Effect 2, which allows you to download additional content with codes provided at your initial purchase, is a good example of this). Indeed, incentives such as the Cerberus Network are far from perfect, but they will become more refined as time goes on, and more and more developers begin to catch on.

My conclusion? DRM will only perpetuate piracy, and while developers may not philosophically regard the burden to act against piracy to be upon them, reality dictates a different tune. The good news is that there is a light at the end of the tunnel - developers such as Blizzard have proved that for us.

Duncan
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Sweet Mother of Mercy!!(!) It Lives!

It seems quite fitting (and admittedly, completely coincidental. But it remains awesome, so hush) that my next blog post should take place exactly 20 weeks (or 5 months, assuming a 4 week average per month, which normal people generally tend to do) from my previous one (lots of brackets!).

Ultimately, the reason I stopped posting was because I just forgot to. I played a ton of StarCraft 2 and didn't do much of anything else (the dream, amirite?)... and then term started again, my girlfriend came back from Germany and life in general hit pretty damn hard.

Fear not, however, for I post again! And I intend to continue to do so with resolve and vigor, because sharing my views on gaming and simply talking (typing, whatever) about games is something I really enjoy doing. I've had a ton of ideas floating around in the nether regions of my brain regarding posts I'd like to do, but I never really made them happen, so I hope to finally bring those to the fore pretty soon.

I'm not entirely sure how often I intend to post. At the bare minimum I'm thinking of doing one post per week (but hopefully more frequent than that), covering stuff from why I game to my views on the viability of professional gaming.

So yeah, over the course of the weekend I hope to have my first post of actual substance out. Now all you need to do is hold me to that :D

Much <3
Duncan
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Treyarch: The phoenix crashed while rising from the ashes (bugs are suspected)

On the 9th of November 2010, a little (massive) game called Call of Duty: Black Ops was released. The hype which been created around it was incredible, and it easily tore apart Modern Warfare 2's previous sales records (which had been the world records across the entertainment industry at the time). Treyarch shook the world with its sheer awesomosity and innovation. The underdogs had come from behind to become the flagship developer of the Call of Duty series... or so the sales figures would indicate.

In reality?

I don't think Treyarch really realised the incredible position it held... with Black Ops they could make or break their name as a developer, and win over a market which had been teetering on the brink of adopting a new figurehead for their cult. There is an important distinction which needs to be made between successful in sales terms and what I mentioned above. The sales are a result of the fact that 'Call of Duty' is in the title of the game... there are a whole lot of people out there who buy a game for no other reason but that. What I am talking about, however, is the way the more autonomous quota of the community view Treyarch... not as important as profit, certainly not, but a more abstract reality. It may not matter in the scope of their success as a company, but I am going to write on anyway.

I'm pretty sure I outlined everything in my last post, but if you didn't read it then I suggest you scroll down the page a tad to contextualise this a bit better... at least skim it... please?
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Rightyo then, now that you have read and internalised (0.o) my post, let us sally valiantly onwards into the nitty (knitty? gnitty?) gritty of this here virtual publication!

So, Treyarch had it's chance to make or break itself in the eyes of the community. To make themselves, they simply had to create a game at least as mindbogglingly awesome as Call of Duty 4 (the standard to which all FPS games are compared nowadays, 'cause that's just how things work). To break themselves, they had to not do that.

In all truth, they were so close... they were so damn close. The game itself is amazing, it has the makings to easily rival CoD4, in addition to the added zombie mode which kicks ass like an ostrich on steroids... but. There are a few massive, pretty much gamebreaking bugs which have been around since the game's release – the kind of stuff which should have been dealt with in the Beta testing,

First of all, the game was written for quad-core PCs, not dual-cores... dual-cores being what most of the market runs on, of course. So, right from the word go there were huge performance issues felt by everyone running a dual-core system, despite the fact that their system specifications were at least equal to, if not greater than what was specified on the box. It was not only the dual-core crowd who suffered from performance issues either, and massive hindrances were also had by those with the kind of monstrous computers that eat little games like Black Ops for brunch, while hardcore PC nerds get all excited about during their happy time. Overall, the general trend indicated some sort of gamble which you (knowingly or not) entered into when you bought the game, the result of which would determine whether or not you would actually be able to run the damn thing, and as with any gamble the negative outcome was far more likely than the positive.

Second, the crashes. My word, the crashes... most prominent in the multiplayer aspect of the game, you are indeed extremely lucky if you manage a consecutive thirty minutes of game time before the game mockingly freezes up, just as your crosshair comes in line with the head of an unsuspecting n00b and you click the left mouse button, only to have the resulting crack from the gun isolated and looped over your speakers resulting in a continuous sound not unlike the sort of high tempo house music all the cool kids are listening to these days.

I vehemently believe that words can't adequately describe just how frustrating it is to have spend your money on a game, on a product, which by all means should work as intended upon the moment it is released onto the shelves of the various worldwide purveyors of gaming awesomeness only to not be able to adequately enjoy your new piece of software. Perhaps Treyarch would have been forgiven if they had patched the offending (I have only named the two which got to me the most) bugs out like they should have, but with it having almost been two months since the release of the game in question one does begin to doubt whether Treyarch really does give a hoot about just how it's market views it.

The scary truth is that it really doesn't matter how badly treated we are, they never feel the repercussions, because people just keep lapping up the games.

So, Treyarch has been on quite a journey regarding their standing with the community... at the start, they were laughed off whatever the hell a game developer can be laughed in an offwards direction of... then they managed to find acceptance by not completely failing their next installment. When Modern Warfare 2 epic failed the PC market into the ground, they became the last bastion of hope for our CoD fix this year.... and they failed to deliver. By a rather bare margin, perhaps, but a failure is a failure not matter the scale.

Good readers of this hither blog, I think it is time for me to declare that I have finally lost faith in the Call of Duty series... I tried optimism, I really did, but I prefer realism to be honest. Modern Warfare 3? Not for me, thanks.

Rightyo then, good and venerable fellow gamers, where to look for our next fix? Who to turn to now that the series which was the former king of FPS has sacrificed its standing and instead decided to turn Robert Mugabe on us? Well, that is a question which I have every intention of answering... in a further post, howver, as Starcraft 2 do be calling :D

Duncan
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