Ubisoft Cries Wolf on Piracy, Cancels Future Soldier on PC

In a new turn of events after claims that Ubisoft's title I Am Alive may not reach the PC, Ubisoft is pulling an even bigger rabbit out of its hat. Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, the highly anticipated continuation of the Ghost Recon series, has apparently been cancelled for PC. Why? Piracy.

Ubisoft has now officially lost it. I'd like to keep things fair and in perspective, but they've simply just shot themselves in the foot. How can you respect a company that is laying down and saying "heck, piracy will just take up all of our would be sales so lets just not release it?". This is coming from a company that has the absolute worst DRM among all current PC releases. They usually are extremely intrusive, require a constant internet connection, signing up at their website and registering your game several times over just to turn it on and play. No wonder your titles are pirated so often when pirates over the game without all the intrusive DRM you have required that makes a game unplayable for paying customers. You are making your games such a poor value to PC gamers that you are encouraging your own piracy issues. If you make your games a better value by perhaps utilizing Steam's VAC system so that DRM is nearly unnoticeable people would buy your games at a much higher rate because your offering the same easy service that the pirates are.

Piracy is an issue, yes, but for a major company to roll over and just give up is inexcusable. CD Projekt Red, a small developer in Poland, has been able to sell 1million copies of its RPG hit The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings (with about a quarter of the sales through digital distribution) with no large publisher behind it, no marketing, no console version released, and you guessed it, NO DRM. PC gamers do pay for games, we aren't all looking to score a free pirated version, we just don't want to deal with the crap developers hand us because they think piracy is a big deal and great inconveniences for us. Ignoring the PC platform is foolish, sure they aren't as readily available as consoles are as far as sales, but they aren't dying in the way most people would like to paint it. Until Ubsisoft gets it's act together (and perhaps gets back to making good games as they've been on a steady downfall when you look at the review patterns over the past 5 years), I'm not going to buy another title from them whether its on my PC, my PS3, or my Xbox 360 till they figure out how to better treat its customers. What do you think? Is piracy such an issue that Ubisoft should stop making PC games? Is Ubisoft just an awful company when it comes to how they handle PC games? Do we need stricter or more lenient DRM features? And is the console pirating and sale loses through used titles being really underplayed next to how easy it is to pirate on a PC? Sound off below!

Crazy People Petition Whitehouse for Skyrim Ban

At Kotaku there was a small, but very funny article about a petition against Skyrim. This isn't the run of the mill "we need a patch, there are issues with the game" fan complaints, this is full on "round up every copy and burn them" style. That's a little intense don't you think, to you know, destroy any mention of a game that sells millions? Well, maybe that's because the authors are a little out of left-field. Here is the petition in it's amazing original form, straight from Kotaku:

WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO:
Immediately Ban the Deadly Videogame Known as "SkyRim" for The Safety of America's Youths.
Whereas videogaming has proven to cause social, ethical and health problems in people of all ages,

Whereas sexual perversion and homosexuality are threatening to destroy the Christian foundations on which this nation was built,

Whereas a new video game has just been created that far exceeds any others in the psychological and spiritual damage it does to teens,

We, the American people, today ask you,

1) To enact an immediate ban on the videogame known as "SkyRim" produced by Blizzard Entertainment.

2) To seize and destroy all copies already in public hands and erase its presence on the internet.

3) To prosecute the players of "SkyRim" to the fullest extent of the law.

4) To create a national database of videogame avatars and "screen names" so that teenagers can be better monitored.

Good chance it's a joke, but hey their are crazy enough people in the world that this could be legit. It also felt like a good time to poke some fun rather than my usual commentary on the happenings in the videogame industry. Mainly this was an excuse to bust out a Buddy Jesus pic, but I digress, let's look at everything wrong here.

1.) They call it "SkyRim"

First off, it's "Skyrim". It's the name of a country in the continent of Tamriel located on the planet Nirn in the Elder Scrolls Universe. It's not two words, it's not like they named the place "Sky Rim Job" or something (considering they allege "sexual perversion and homosexuality" is a big part of this game). So credibility is getting questioned here.

2.) "Whereas sexual perversion and homosexuality are threatening to destroy the Christian foundations on which this nation was built"

You mean Protestant?

3.) "To enact an immediate ban on the videogame known as "SkyRim" produced by Blizzard Entertainment."

Really? I mean c'mon, I can understand messing up the whole history of america and the pilgrims deal, but it says "Bethesda" right on the damn box.

4.) To seize and destroy all copies already in public hands and erase its presence on the internet."

You ever hear of 4chan or anonymous? Good luck with that one.

5.) "To prosecute the players of "SkyRim" to the fullest extent of the law."

I didn't know that 1000 bounty in each of the 9 holds was going to catch up to me in real life....

So, in conclusion, this whole thing is ridiculous. Yes, I have logged over 90 hours on Skyrim but I'm not going on shooting sprees, acting homosexual, or trying to burn down the christian church and none of my friends are so I think we are going to be fine. I think everyone else thinks it is a joke too when they get digital signatures on the petition from people with Skyrim reference names like "Dova K", "Fus Roh Dah", "Lusty Argonian M", "Balgruuf T", and "Tiber S". All in all, people just need to relax on videogames. Media sources like Fox feeding us awful information from people like Jack Thompson over recent years has given a bad image to games. There is nothing better or worse on television or a movie that you will find in a game and the rating in systems in place are there for a reason. No game is going to cause someone to do ridiculous things unless a careless adult can't read that a game like  Skyrim contains blood and violence and gives it to an impressionable person like a 5 year old or an unmedicated schizophrenic. So what do you guys think? This is a hilarious petition by crazy people, that you actually agree with them, or that this joke does point toward the issues of game content and the audience that they are meant for with the current ESRB rating system? Sound off below!

Torchlight 2 Delayed

Got an itch to play a dungeon crawler this holiday season? Well, you might have to hold your breath as Kotaku's Owen Good is reporting that Torchlight 2 is being pushed back to an early 2012 release. Runic games sited that it wanted more time to polish the title and even do a short beta before it's release.

The cooler thing, in my opinion, is the frankness the company has to the other reason it has delayed the title: all the great games that are out now. Think about it, this may have been one of the greatest years for videogames ever. IGN awarded perfect 10 scores to two titles already in Uncharted 3 and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, not to mention the other amazing titles out there. Assassin's Creed: Revelations, Batman: Arkham City, Battlefield 3, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Dark Souls, The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, Minecraft, RAGE, Saints Row 3, and Star Wars: The Old Republic are just some of the big name titles that have (or will be out) by Christmas. It's a breath of fresh air to see a game developer realize that most people will be consumed in these games and that pushing their title into early 2012 can give them a better chance as being seen as a stand out title. 

The move could turn out to be a mistake however. By pushing back into early 2012, they have to compete with that other popular dungeon crawler. You know...oh what's it called....oh yeah, Diablo 3, probably one of the most anticipated games this decade. Being in direct competition with them could hurt their sales as they'll launch around the same time. Runic does, however, have a lot of the staff from the original Diablo game developing the Torchlight series, so it does stand a very good chance of being as good or better than Diablo 3, but it is still relatively not well known compared to the big franchise name Diablo has evolved into over the years. So hopefully Runic is not hurting themselves by doing this, I'd hate to see Torchlight 2 sink in this holiday seasons lineup, but it would be even worse to see it struggle against the Diablo juggernaut. So what do yo think? Is delaying a good idea with what is all available right now? Is it cool that they are willing to admit to this? Or are they making a mistake by not getting to the market before Diablo 3? Sound off below!

Website Time!

It's time for me to create a website for my MAGD 150 class that this blog was created for. As per request of my professor, I have to post my palette of colors here. It's a rough palette, most likely to change in the near future. The palette is based off an image from the Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim marketing material. I really like dark and sleek colors, keeping it very contemporary and as far away from gaudy colors as possible. Here is the palette:

Woll use the #0d0f0b black for background and text, text will be in a white box, tangaroa for body head text, bali hai for links. The main navigation will be Copperplate Gothic Bold , all other standard text will be Calibri with a bold Calibri for titles of articles. Mock layout:

And finally, for a logo I have a little web icon with my gamertag name as the site focuses on me on the web and the games I play. So it's a videogame resume of sorts.

The "Modern" Gamer

Call of Duty is by far the biggest, most publicly known video-game in the industry. It shatters sales records every year that they set with their previous games. Despite all of this, it is also one of the most slandered and despised game among gamers. Why is this so?

Brian Crecente at Kotaku had a novel idea to find out why: let everyone on twitter comment on why they don't like COD. The comments are interesting and varied, from claims that COD is the videogame equivalent of a popcorn film like Transformers to distaste with the management of its publishing company Activision and even some disgust of how unrealistic it portrays and over glorifies war. The unique voice of the community can be heard in this wide range of comments, but there was one in particular that really struck a chord with me from the twitter handle jerschobel: 

"it perpetuates stereotypes of gamer culture that simply aren't true. many who buy COD buy ONLY COD."

It made me think about myself as a gamer, what I play, and what games my friends play. We all lean toward certain genres, I certainly enjoy my FPS and RPG games, but I found that I do have a robust library. Titles like Frozen Synapse, Limbo, and Magicka can be found throughout my steam library from the very small developers that created them. I clearly enjoy my fair share of strategy games as well with turn based Civilization and the Total War titles, not to mention the real-time titles like Dawn of War II and the iconic Starcraft games. 3rd person action games even get the nod with Batman Arkham Asylum and Arkham City and I have never played a game so thoroughly as Assassin's Creed II in recent memory (100% completion including DLC in one glorious weekend). Yet, when I compare it to some of my friends and roommates, things start to diverge. 

To start, 2 of my roommates (with the exception of sports titles) own exclusively Call of Duty games on their Xbox 360. In fact, since the release of Call of Duty 8 (Modern Warfare 3) this past Tuesday, it's the only game they have played.  They have nearly 30 or more than hours into it's multiplayer mode and it's been for sale for only 5 days as of writing. That is a ridiculous amount of game time. Another 8 of my friends own only games from a total of 4 franchises (Call of Duty, Battlefield, Gears of War, and Halo) with the iterations of Call of Duty being considered their most played title. 4 more of my friends own the same titles, but start to add in more role-playing games like the Elder Scrolls, Fallout, and Mass Effect. Only 3 of my friends have a library as diverse or even more varied than the one I have.

It's interesting to see how dominate Call of Duty was among my friends that claim themselves as gamers. If you blow the numbers up by millions, it sure would outweigh a lot of the other players with very uniquely dispersed library's. The question is though: are those who seemingly play only the blockbuster AAA titles like Call of Duty the definition of today's gamer? The loudmouth, trash talking, racist, sexist, 17-28 year old guy on Xbox live is getting well known in society. Even popular viral shorts like "The Online Gamer" have been dedicated to this stereotype, with one of my friends actually making this mockery series look tame. A lot of my friends are highly competitive and hearing a small tirade of cussing from the other rooms in my house is common place at the moment. Is this becoming the face of the gaming community? Like movies, the Michael Bay movie with cheap thrills and no story and a massive marketing budget rule the roost and bring in the masses while the more well refined experiences get lost to a more niche audience? I for one don't like telling people that I am a gamer, in particular a Game Development major, and then get asked immediately about Call of Duty. I want to talk about the art and magnificence of Skyrim's landscape, the brilliance that The Old Republic looks to bring with story telling to MMO's, the creativity in Minecraft, and the success of free communities like League of Legends. *Sigh* or maybe I should just give up and be happy that the stereotype of a gamer is no longer the neck-bearded World of Warcraft die-hard. Regardless, I want to hear your thoughts on what you think a gamer is. Is it the new sterotypical COD rager, is it still that WoW guy in his mom's basement, maybe it's the rise of the female gamer? Sound off below!

Battlefield 3 Requires Online Pass For Consoles

Owen Good on Kotaku confirmed this week that Battlefield 3 will require an online pass in order to play the game online. The pass comes with every new copy of the game and if you do not have a pass, it costs $10 to acquire one. EA has been slowly integrating the online pass requirement for all the multiplayer components of their games recently, with titles like Dead Space 2 and Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit requiring it in addition to all of their sports titles.

Why is it a big deal? Mainly because it's becoming the best trend to combat used game sales. One of the biggest battles videogame publishers have been faced with in recent history is used game sales, namely through GameStop. Buying a slightly used game for a few bucks cheaper seems like a great deal for the consumer, but none of the money goes back to the developers while GameStop sees all the profit. Many gamers that buy used copies have been outraged as they are now essentially paying for a new game where these online passes make up the difference in price.

In my opinion, these online passes are genius. GameStop is a nice store and it's given me a great place to get some of my money back on games I no longer play or didn't like, but the used sales business as a whole is very damaging from my point of view. The dawn of online gaming and connectivity has made it easier to track the effects of used sales and many companies are seeing startling results. Heavy Rain reportedly had 2 million copies sold, but close to 3 million people have played the game online, meaning nearly 1 million units and anywhere between $5 to $10 million dollars in royalties that it's developer lost. As someone who wants to be involved in the development of games, seeing series lose large chunks to used games is concerning to me. The PC went through a similar even in the late 90's when CD keys became a standard and now we are starting to see a similar revolution in the console market and I fully support any means to try and make it more attractive to by games new. Anything that can help raise developers see more money from their sales to raise the quality level of new IPs or create sequels to critical successes is a positive in my book. What do you think? Do you agree with online codes to promote buying games new? Do you hate it and want to see in ban hammered? Sound off below!!!

Bioware Crossing Multiplayer Into Mass Effect 3

On Kotaku, Michael McWhertor had the biggest scoop in videogame news yesterday when he went over the details of Bioware's plans to add multiplayer to Mass Effect 3. Bioware has stated that they are adding 4 player co-op to the game and that the results of it will directly influence your single player experience. You do not play as Commander Shepard or any know characters, but instead create your own unique soldier from the ground up. You can pick a race (Humans, Turians, Krogans, and Asari are confirmed as options) and unique abilities, then form up to take down positions and capture territories from the enemy.

A unique class based co-op mode sounds pretty awesome, but why does Mass Effect 3 need it? As someone who has played through Mass Effect 1 and 2 more than once, I'm thoroughly happy with what I have: an engaging single player experience with deep, story driven choices that compile into a narrative entirely unique to me. It's a role-playing game at heart, creating a connection to my character through moral choices that define whether I'm the noble soldier ready to lay down my life for Earth or the dick who'd throw the nearest person under the bus to save his skin. When you add multiplayer to something like this, it seems out of place. Team and objective orientated gameplay is the polar opposite of it's audience and adding 4 player co-op with it's cover focused mechanics seem like it's trying to copy Gears of War. Why can't it be enjoyed as merely a great single player game?

Personally, I think it has to deal with the evolution of games and growth of expectations by demanding fans. 20 years ago we were happy to play through titles like Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past by ourselves, now we want that experience, competitive multiplayer, and the kitchen sink from current games. Great single player games are being watered down by wasting development time to make the now "mandatory" multiplayer aspect of their game. Just recently, great single player titles Bioshock and Dead Space had multiplayer added to their sequels and both titles suffered in overall quality compared to their original. We need to just sit back and remember that not everything is meant to be played in team deathmatch. We can't keep trying to blur the lines between the quality of an rpg like Mass Effect and a shooter like Gears of War, we'll eventually lose the battle as quality declines trying to appease both audiences and publishers planned release dates. What do you think? Are single player games quality being hurt by the demand of multiplayer? Do you like Mass Effect adding multiplayer? Sound off below!!!

Extra-Life: Play Games. Heal Kids.

Not very often do I come across events that allow me to do great things with my passion for videogames. Sure, I have a lot of fun with them, they inspire me and create memorable moments; but they never quite let me help someone in need. My top-score in Tetris isn't going to build a homeless man a house and leading my team in kills and base captures in Battlefield 3 isn't going to cure cancer. What would you say if I could offer you a way to make a difference for someone through playing games for 24 hours?


Sounds a bit ridiculous, but extra-life.org has provided an avenue to make your 24 hour binge of gaming benefit charity. Extra-life is a project that was started by the Sarcastic Gamer Community back in 2008 because of a little girl named Victoria Enmon. Victoria was battling acute lymphoblastic leukemia and the some of the SGC's gamers decided to donated several games to her to help keep her in high spirits through the encounter. Unfortunately, Victoria passed away in January of 2008, but the gamers involved with helping her felt inspired to continue aiding children faced with severe illness. They came up with extra-life, a 24 hour gaming marathon in order to raise money for their local Children's Miracle Network. In 2008 and 2009, they were able to raise $302,000 through their event for the Texas Children's Hospital. Now, in 2011, the event has grown for you to choose the hospital you are giving too and support Children's Hospitals that are local to you. All your asked to do is sign up on their website, choose your charity, and then try to minimally get 4 people to sponsor you $1 for each hour you play (so $24). The event is on October 15th, beginning at 8am and ending on 8am October 16th.


It's a really great opportunity in my opinion, I personally have done a lot of volunteering in my life and frankly I've gone through some rather boring events to help great causes. This is a chance to do something I love to do with my personal time and turn it into a way to really make a difference in a few young peoples lives. I'd love to start up a team for the MAGD department to get behind here in Whitewater (and ideally the whole campus) to try and make a significant contribution to the Children's Hospital of Wisconsin. Hopefully some of you reading this would like to get behind me and promote the event, if I can't I will for sure be registering for the event under my own name. The site provides a multimedia kit to easily print off fliers and posters to promote the event with little hassle and I could really use the help setting the program up with such short notice. Sound off below on extra-life, ways you use games to help people, or unique ideas to make games a way to contribute to good causes! 

DCUO Latest Game Going Free to Play

Enjoy the notion of being a billionaire masked vigilante or an alien from another planet that can only be harmed by green space rocks? Then you probably have already checked out Sony Online Entertainments title DC Universe Online, the MMORPG that allows you to create your own superhero or villain and explore the fictional locations from DC's popular comic books. If you haven't, now is the time as the game will soon be free. Mike Fahey at Kotaku reports that the game is ditching it's monthly subscription fee's and making the game free to play starting this October. The new system will include a 3 tier system: the base game being free with limitations to 2 character slots, premium membership for anyone that spends more than $5 on content will  be allowed more character slots available to them, and legendary for those who want to continue paying the monthly $15 fee to get 15 character slots and all future expansions and content free.

The question is why is SOE changing from a straight monthly fee service to a F2P system only 9 months after it's initial release? The answer may be more complex than why is DCUO going free, but rather why are many games going free? Age of Conan, Champions Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Lord of the Rings Online, and later this year City of Heroes will all have adapted free to play systems to their games. What is changing all of their minds to embrace this system? It's simple and can be summed up in one word:

Microtransactions.

The microtransaction model in videogames is a truly extraordinary concept involving having the basic bones of the game free to download and play, but in order to experience the game fully you must make small monetary transactions for premium content. The system effectively takes out the risk of buying a $50-$60 dollar game with the chance of not liking it and instead makes an extremely low barrier for entry so that more people will try the game. More people trying the game gives it a higher chance of finding its niche audience that's willingly to pay for additional content. It's popularity in MMO's has been the highest so far, helping keep Age of Conan and Lord of the Rings Online afloat, even profitable, after struggling to maintain a steady flow of money from the monthly subscription method.

DCUO's change to F2P may upset some that paid for the title, but I think it's the right move for the company. If you can double your communities size by making the game free instead of charging the $15 a month, the new larger community spending (lets say) an average of $10 a month on microtransactions will see better profits at the end of the day. I think its an ingenious system that ultimately allows more people to experience great games at no cost and allows the passionate fans like myself the chance to enhance their experience for small sums of money. I can skip out on the games I see as busts and put my precious free time and money where I want it to be. What do you think? Do you want to see more free games with their income coming from content transactions? Do you think it could work for blockbuster titles like Battlefield of Call of Duty? Do you think that we should instead be entitled to all content from the publishers at one simple price point? Sound off below!

Step 1: Diablo 3 Skill Calculator Step 2: ??? Step 3: Profit

Kotaku writer Mike Fahey had the scoop Wednesday that Blizzard has released a Skill Calculator on their website for Diablo 3. The die-hard fans rejoice as they can plan out their class of choice over and over again with endless speculation in wait of its rumored release this holiday. You can deck out the barbarian, witch doctor, demon hunter, sorcerer, or monk (my personal favorite, depicted in the picture above) any which way you want from level 1 to level 30 without having to plug a single hour of gameplay in to realize how badly you messed up your build.

To the average gamer this isn't much news at all, but for me and other Diablo fans this news should be huge for one reason: the auction house. Blizzard had announced earlier in August that Diablo 3 will feature a new auction house that will allow players to trade in game items for real currency. That's right, you can now make a profit from all the tireless hours you spend playing the game. Like that enchanted battle ax? $10. Need new gems? $5. The possibilities are endless as it is presently laid out.

Now consider the news of the Skill Calculator. You can pre-layout your entire character before the game launches. Half the battle with new rpg's are figuring out what skills best coincide with one another and how to become a well rounded team with the varying talents available. With the skill calculator, you can figure that out before the game launches and be entirely set to tackle the game at full speed. As we speak, one of my roommates and I are using this tool to plan out our characters and how best to complement each other so we can focus on getting good loot and exploiting the auction house as early as possible in an attempt to find a fun way to pay our rent. All jokes aside; if the Skill Calculator shaves off 20 hours of learning my monk through trial and error, I gain 20 hours I can use to make money playing the game, it's a huge payoff for me in the long term.

What do you think? Is the auction house for real money a good idea? Is the calculator really going to help people looking to make money on the auction house get an early edge? Sound off below!

Origin And Digital Distribution

Over at Kotaku this week, Mike Fahey posted an interesting article about Electronic Arts plans to expand their digital distribution service, Origin. Origin is EA's re-branding of their online store and the beginning of a new service that can be installed on computers for PC gamers to digitally download their games. The article cited EA chief financial officer Eric Brown saying that install numbers of Origin has reached "about 4 million" and that 3rd party game support is coming "very soon" to the platform to make it a more complete service.


As a PC gamer, I am having a mixed bag reaction with this news on Origin. Digital distribution is in the midst of revolutionizing the way games are distributed and played on PC, completely cutting out the need for brick and mortar shop with a packaged product by delivering your gaming content directly to your household over the Internet. You don't have to browse through stores for the last copy of a popular title, the game is conveniently located in a browser that you can buy and download in a few mouse clicks. It is making PC gaming much more accessible than in the past. Origin adding extra games to their library adds competition to the scene, it forces prime digital retailers like Direct2Drive or Steam to give out better deals and improve their service. It can only help me as a consumer trying to get the best bang for my buck. 


On the other hand though, there is some potential downside. EA's Origin has caused some conflict with Valve and it's Steam service. Steam's estimated 40 million users have seen Crysis 2 and Dragon Age 2 disappear from the store over night, while Battlefield 3 and Star Wars The Old Republic have already been confirmed to not be receiving a release on the platform from EA. The "4 million" installs that Eric Brown claims seems less to do with the service flourishing and rather because EA is essentially trying to power play you into using it's client now with the promise of content later. Ironically, I see this as discouraging to the whole digital distribution market. If EA can get 4 million people to download it's Origin because its the only way to get their games, why wouldn't other companies do the same? I could easily see Activision make it's own service to distribute Call of Duty or Ubisoft for Assassin's Creed if they get to control their product more and receive a larger chunk of the sales. It's a worst case scenario that could prevent me from getting good deals, as a gamer it would splinter up the large communities that surround streamlined programs like Steam, and it would make digital downloads more of a hassle managing multiple accounts and programs to get the games I want.


Maybe everything works out and Origin seamlessly co-exists with other services that are out there. Maybe it burns and crashes when it can't sell more than the exclusive games it offers. Maybe it is a sign of things to come and the end of the market as we know it. I am content with my gaming cloud on Steam, but I'm willing to see what Origin has to offer and any other distribution services that may be in the works if it enhances my gaming experience. It's something I'll be keeping a close eye on as we get closer to the launch of the holiday season. What do you think of EA's move into the digital market? Sound off below!