Fable was pretty much portrayed as one of the most open games of all time, but in terms of hype, it failed to meet the high expectations that you gave the game. There was even a forum post where you apologized about this: why did it get to that level?
Well, it started with this fatal line that I made and that was that I wanted to make Fable the greatest role playing game of all time. I kinda still defend that because I honestly don't see the point in making a game that you don't honestly believe has a chance of being the greatest game of all time. I meet the press quite a lot, every 6-8 weeks there's some sort of press interview. The way I work then is to get a system in, play around with it, polish it, make it better. Sometimes I leave it as it is and sometimes I throw it away.
I think what ended up happening was twofold: because I was meeting people so frequently I was talking about features that actually hadn't gone through that process, like the tree example. Actually it was stupid! Growing trees took a lot of the processing power that could have been used for combat. What does growing trees really add for the player?
Do you think this is partially a result of the press misunderstanding your position? Not just you, in terms of everyone who's a developer has this idea about how they want their game to go?
No. It was my fault entirely. It was completely my fault because what I should have said is "we are experimenting with this idea and I quite like this idea" because I don't know whether it's going to work or not.
Was that actually reported?
I don't know really. The only way I do interviews is to talk about what I'm passionate about, and when you're passionate about something it's very hard to shut up about it. That's the problem, but the solution really is to talk about the stuff that I absolutely know is going to be in the game and to say "look, we have some really amazing stuff. I can't show you what it is until I've had a chance to play it and look at it myself".
The other thing is that for the longest time in Fable there was this concept of free roaming. And, in the end, we had a simple choice. We could extend the game development six months and have free roaming, or we could cut free roaming out. The way that we crafted the world, we first crafted the world round the path that you were following, and then we had a plan to craft the rest of the world. But we just simply didn't have the time and we chose in the end to put the game out earlier.
You talked in your seminar about how the industry has shifted away from programmers to designers leading games. Do you think people in management are better suited to leading games than people that have experience in coding?
I would answer that by saying that experience, and being able to appreciate the problems that people have is really important.
Especially in terms of developers.
Exactly, the coders need to know that this idea which I've conceived, which is very easy to imagine, but when it comes to coding an idea from a designer like "well I really want someone to feel like they're alive" you have to say O.K., you've got facial animation, but behind that you've got A.I. and having an appreciation of that is really important. I'm sure there are some designers who have never touched a keyboard in their life, and who've never programmed, but for me it is really useful to think that whenever a thought pops into my head I can find a way to visualize that in code.
Can you say anything about the concept or the genre behind your "secret project" which you mentioned during your seminar? Obviously I don't have my hopes up that you'll be able to talk.
It's going to be the most amazing game ever.
Yes, well you would say that!
Well, it is! I really honestly believe it, because I think that we almost wouldn't think about developing it if it's not. Here's the thing. What is our responsibility? What is Lionhead's responsibility and what should we do as Lionhead?
Your responsibility is to make a good game and make sure it sells well.
Well, kinda, yeah, but I think the position we're in now, and we're owned by Microsoft, and they said to us "make amazingly brilliant games that have never been seen before". And that's our responsibility. We could do another Fable game, or we could do a genre that we feel comfortable in but I don't feel that's what we should do. I think we should be saying "right, how can we get gamers and a wider audience to experience something they've never seen before?" And that's true of Fable 2, by the way. There a very big surprise in Fable 2, which is a fundamental part of the gameplay that no-one knows yet. I've never seen it in any other game before. But the other "secret project" has also never been seen before.
Do you find that, considering the background of you hyping up your games in the past, do you think you run the risk of being the boy who cried wolf? You keep saying "my game's amazing", "my next game's amazing"...
I do, I know that I'm gonna get in trouble, I know you're gonna tell me off and I know that. What I'm saying is that it's such a subjective thing. I can't lie to you; there's no point me saying I'm gonna make a really good game, because that doesn't do it for me. I've made so many mistakes, I've made so many terrible games, and I honestly struggle and strive as hard as I can to try and make the team struggle and strive around this as hard as they can and make the best game that I can. I honestly believe that Fable 2 is going to be the greatest game of all time.
But you said that about Fable 1!
I know, this is the problem. Fable, and this is not an excuse, this is not meant to be an excuse, we had never done a role playing game, or anything like a role playing game before. We had never done a console game before, we're never dealt with a controller before. There's so many things that we'd never done before that this time [with Fable 2] we've done that before, we haven't got those excuses. We've also got this fantastic team that I believe are the smartest people I've ever worked with. Jesus, if this one isn't amazing, we're being stupid somewhere, so when I put that Fable apology out really I should have said "I'm gonna create a great game".
Do you think there's some logic behind getting developers behind blogging and letting them be more open about their projects?
Absolutely, I agree with that. We've got Sam Vantilburgh, who is in charge of our communities, we're thinking about what we're going to do with the communities. I really want to support the idea of more than myself talking and get the team talking. The only problem with all this, and this is why developers are very closed mouth, is there are millions and millions of dollars riding on these things. We're talking twenty or thirty million dollars and that's a lost of risk. Still, I think things like blogs and even diaries are really informative.
I don't know whether you know, but Google has this scheme where they give developers 20% of their working time to work on their own projects of their own choice. Do you think this will eventually become standard within the programming world?
That's what Lionhead has already set up. It's not 20% of their day, because when you're working on a game I think you need people to be totally immersed in it. But when they finish a game, they have 6-8 or even 10 weeks to just play around and experiment. Some people would sit there and say "well I don't know what to do", and some people have a really strong idea about it.
I think this kind of thing is essential. People have said for a long time that the games industry is getting less creative and I think developers need more time to get out and be inspired to write good code.
I think that's true. The games industry is getting less creative, because in a way there's less games around.
Instead of saying there's less games, would you say that there are in fact more big games which are taking away the money and limiting the number of small games produced?
Yes, there are, and that is an enormous shame. But the reality is that, people as consumers, are being very honest. Consumers want to play something that has had fifteen million spent on it.
Some of my most favorite games are indie titles which are either free or are distributed via shareware, I've spent hours on these sort of games.
What was the last triple-A game that you played?
Ah, probably Rockstar's Table Tennis.
Right! God I'm aggravated with Table Tennis!
See, this is the thing! I love this sort of game where you have very little pressure, you have no, or very few cutscenes. I don't understand why the industry is moving away from this sort of thing where the gameplay is the central focus. I wrote this article about playing my sister where she beat me three times in a row on my first game with Table Tennis, and it was because I had this preconceived notion about how the game was supposed to be played, but my sister just picked up the controller and straight away just got the game.
Did she straight away get the game, or get the fact that all you had to do is press the green button?
Yeah, the article was about how she beat me by just pressing the green button.
My three year old son did exactly the same thing and he's never played a game in his life and he beat me and I thought, gee, that's not great. Yeah your point is a good one...
Yes, why are developers spending so much time with established genres, why aren't they creating new genres and why aren't they creating God games?
Because, the consumers buy those big games. They buy Halo and they buy GTA.
Do you think there's a failing in the press in terms of awareness of new concepts?
Well, here's where my hope is. I think online, and Xbox Live is somehow evolving in the way that I'd say television evolved. We all go to the cinema and we all look out for Spiderman 3 or Superman but the fact of the matter is that they are just big moments and I think we're going to have big games like that. But maybe there's a model emerging like live TV where you don't spend upwards of three hundred million dollars on a game and instead spend three million. And you create something which is not so high quality...
When you say Xbox Live, do you really mean Xbox Live Arcade?
Yeah, one of the big problems is that the big publishers are investing lots of money into the big titles and you can't blame them for that because consumers are buying the big titles, they're not buying the small titles. They didn't buy Ico...
...Psychonauts...
...these were just brilliant, excellent and amazing games. They didn't cost as much to make but they were truly inspirational games but they just didn't sell. So you can't blame the publishers for doing that. A lot of it is down to the publishers, and a lot of it is down to distribution and how you get those small games.
The internet is obviously the future of this.
The problem is, with the PC, where do I bloody go to get that stuff? You can go to Reflective or Big Fish Games, and it aggravates the hell out of me that there's no central location.
Do you think that Microsoft is actually dropping the ball here? Because they're doing this games management tool in Vista, but they're not actually producing a place where independent developers can put their work in the same sort of way that the iTunes Music Store has done for music.
I agree, absolutely. I mean, I think on Xbox Live Arcade there should be an experimental section.
But then, it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars even to get a title onto Xbox Live Arcade; but in terms of the PC, it generally doesn't cost anything to get a game out. Do you think Microsoft is focusing less on games in Vista than it should be doing because of Xbox Live Arcade?
Well, this is where I've got to be very careful considering what I say about Microsoft. I do think that the PC and Vista has a huge challenge ahead of it. The PC as a gaming platform has had a terrible two years. And again, just in terms of distribution, don't just blame the publishers. You walk into a gaming shop then you don't see a huge PC section anymore. It's more like The Sims, and just The Sims. It's such a messy format.
So two weeks ago I bought a new PC right? So I went along to PC World, and I said "could I have your bestest PC please?" And they gave me this HP thing...
...with a Radeon 9200 or something?
...and even I said to the guy, look, I don't know about these things. ATI change their line every six weeks. It doesn't mean anything. And I took it home, and I wired it up and it was all the hassle of all the wires and the cables and where they went and it didn't fit and they weren't long enough. You just don't get that on the console. And my son was just sitting down there and at last I thought, I'll turn it on. And I turned it on, and honestly, this hurricane force fan was literally blowing his hair back. That's not the place I want to play my games on. I mean, it's so loud I had to turn up the volume on the game, it's so fiddly. There's spyware, and the anti-spyware got in the way and it took about half an hour to boot. No wonder no-one wants to play games on their PCs anymore.
I'm actually working on a feature about how the Mac is very under-utilized in terms of game development. You mentioned problems about fans and Macs generally have silent/quiet operation, and there's also the fact that the Mac line-up is a pre-set line-up. You know what hardware you've got in a Mac and therefore you only have to develop for a limited set of hardware. Why haven't developers picked up on Mac OS X?
It's a very interesting idea. We've always supported the Mac and we've always done Mac versions of all our titles, and I think that this is a perfect thing (referring to the MacBook on table being used to record interview) and I've never really quite worked out why more people don't support it. I think...
There's this Catch 22 situation where not many people play games on the Mac and therefore developers don't want to make games for the Mac.
Exactly. I think it would need Apple to get behind games. There's nothing in their operating system that panders to games at all and I take my hats off to Microsoft. I think they've realized that games are important. And then you have this fantastic thing where they're saying that they'll let you play PC games against Xbox 360 players. Of course that's a nightmare for us designers, because we have to work out how to design games that work on both platforms equally as well.
You said in your keynote about the "pizza days" when you had small teams between 2-5 working on game, would you prefer to go back to these days?
Would you like to going back to being a child again? I mean, those happy 12 year old days skipping through the meadows with little bluebirds sitting on your shoulder?
You know in those days that's what it was like, I smoked more cigarettes, drunk more and did disastrous things to my body. I was a total introvert, the world outside of what I did on my computer became dim, almost psychotically so. But, there was, and I apologize for using this words, there was this orgasmic delight in physically creating something. Now, what you're kind of asking me is to trade anything I've got now -- I couldn't have a family, I couldn't have a son, I couldn't have the ability to inspire people because I'd be obsessed by that. I look back there, and I still work on little projects and some coding at home, and I think yeah it was a great time. But then I also look back at the skipping through the summer meadows with bluebells on my shoulder.
O.K., thank you very much for your time!
(Page 1) Reader Comments
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He seems like a real great guy who really loves the industry.
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Unfortunately for most of us jaded gamers the halycon days of gaming may be gone. And from reading parts of that inteview it may be no different for the developers.
I don't think I'll ever experience the thrill from playing Populous for the first time again... I Was A God!
The movie industry and games industry on a similar track. In the same way that each summer we get the next blockbuster - which seems to exist for the sole reason of topping the FX of last years blockbusters - while sacrificing more and more of the story elements that may have drawn us in to the films of years gone by.
There will always be gems amongst these cookie cutter big budget films, and in the same way games - but there will come a time of critical mass where games can look no better, sound no better, have perfect physics etc etc.
I really hope the industry wakes up and starts supporting smaller projects, or just realises that gameplay and FUN is king... but perhaps it's too late - perhaps in the same way we expect bigger effects, or have become de-sensitised to violence in movies - we now expect more and more from the visuals, sound, but all the while gameplay is sacrificed.
Some may argue that this is a good direction for the industry. Some of the newer or younger gamers who never got to experience Populous or Elite may demand more from their eye-candy and know no better that hameplay was once the be all and end all of games.
Surely something is pushing the industry in that direction, and it can only be us, the consumers, who keep laying down their money for yet another sequel (although it could be argued that it's the hardware manufacturers for keep pushing out bigger, better, faster hardware).
Perhaps that's why game slike Loco Roco and Katamari Damarcy take us by surprise... they are the islands of fun in the sparkling ocean of medicority.
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This is what Joystiq was probably doing whilst Phil was giving his presentation... blowing smoke up Peter's Microsoft-owned ass.
There was no "interview" with Phil... you can't compare the two.
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I agree with making games easier to play, what with 'Table Tennis' being instantly playable even to kids and non gamers.I also agree with the ease of hooking up a console to play games is definitely a breeze and no worry of incompatible drivers and such,just plug'n'play.PC gaming will never die but I do wish that more experimental games from smaller outfits would be available on consoles.I don't think that will ever happen though considering what it costs to develop games/demo's on a console.
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Arrogant = "We're not arrogant. Why arn't you asking me easy questions? Jerk."
Not Arrogant = "Fable? Uh, yeah. I kinda blew things out of propotion on that. My bad. But I'm gonna try harder on Fable 2."
PM has a habit of thinking bigger than his development cycle allows for. Both Fable and Black and White needed a little more time in the oven, but they were both solid games that I file away under 'OK.'
And whatever else you want to say about the guy, and his track record, or whatever, he's making ORIGINAL games. As long as he keeps trying to come up with new stuff that's fun to play, I'll stay in his corner.
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You came out with the harder question, albeit one Molyneux is used to. You got him talking a lot. And you got him to make the exact mistake he made with Fable, haha.
A very good read from Molyneux.
Fable had so much potential. But it was one of those games that's a lot of fun for 4-6 hours then you just lose interest. Oblivion kind of blew it out of the water, but to be fair, Bethesda has been honing that genre for over a decade.
I agree that Arcade could do a lot for gaming by allowing cheap, innovative games. But it's being so underused.
And, lastly, I still think PC gaming is the way to go. Best control, deepest games. It does suck to see publishers going to consoles, but that's where the money is. But console games so rarely have the depth of PC games. And strategy games are essentially non-existent. It's all twitch...
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Sony is arrogant. "We're going to sell a bazillion units, people will gleefully mortgage their homes because we are their God!"
Microsoft is sometimes arrogant, often just confident. "We like our product. We think it's the best on the market, we think you'll agree, and we think we'll be very successful."
Molyneux sounds humble, hopeful, and a bit like a naive dreamer with his intentions to build the best game ever. He's enthusiastic, though, his heart is in the right place, and he's already made a few of the best games ever. He doesn't seem arrogant because, unlike so many others doing PR, he doesn't say his game will be better than everyone else's, he just says most amazing ever. While it implies it will be better, he doesn't actually reference anyone else or consider competition. He just wants to make a very good product, not kill everyone in his way.
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For those who would think this interview was somehow biased, comparing it to the Sony one, I think the difference in the reception of those Peter and Phil is what made the difference in these interviews. Peter was defensive and stated, yeah, I've made a mistake or two when it's been obvious.
Phil basically was defensive and did not respond well to interview questions. Maybe that's why the interview was cut short.
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It's a good interview, in which one question in particular addressed an issue that, if it were me, would be tremendously embarrassing to answer (i.e. "Why were you full of s*** about your last game?"). I like and respect this guy quite a bit, and especially appreciated his comments on PC gaming, something I've grown somewhat frustrated with. I'm pretty excited for whatever he's got on the burner.
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Wonderful interview, and for everyone that blasted Joystiq for the small interview with Phil Harrison, there were tough questions here and Peter answered them in a professional manner. Not only that, he owned up to what he said and didnt try to spin it with the out of context bullshit. Bravo.
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Let's remember two titles, Madden and NBA Live for the XBox 360, that got slammed by the gaming press. Pretty unoriginal titles, but let's look at what they did right:
1) Solid gameplay
2) Improved graphics, which really enhances gameplay when you are trying to quickly survey a field full of players
3) The best online gaming support ever offered in an EA Sports title
In short, what they did right right was they let you quickly pick up the game and have a fun experience, either online or against the CPU.
But when they got slammed in the gaming press, here and elsewhere, the number one complaint was the lack of 'extra features' that have become so prevalent in games of this type.
There's no slam dunk contest. Or practice drills. You can't negotiate leases, or set vendor prices, at your stadium. You can't set up complicated contracts with a big balloon payment to fit in under the cap. You can't run a rotisserie league off of it. You can't decorate your star player's crib. Or choose his brand of sneakers. Or pimp out his Escalade. There's no minigame for creating your own steroid concoction to finetune your stats. You can't roleplay through a pretrial hearing after you rape a stripper.
Basically, EA cut out (although not from pure motives) all the crap that wasn't fun and delivered a solid, pure gameplay experience. And the gaming press absolutely trashed them.
And yet, this fall, when they put all that shit back in, and a few gigs of FMV cutscenes to boot, the gaming press will be wailing and gnashing their teeth. "Why can't EA learn from Geometry Wars? Whatever happened to the focus on gameplay?"
I am all about shedding the excess, and emphasizing a good play experience. But let's reward a game company when they do it.
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I agree with you but only to a certain extent. The reason EA got bashed by what they did was they pulled all those feature so they could release on launch day with the 360. The same features that were and have been present in previous iterations of the previous gen versions. So even though Madden had all those features in the Xbox version they scrapped them in the 360 version just so they could get it out the door. This could be either EA or Microsoft's fault, who knows. Table Tennis is a completely different ball game. The game was ultimately created to be sleek and trim...to get to the core of the game play, online.
Now i agree that Madden and Live did this as well, they got you online and playing straight away, but those other features arent so much addons anymore as they are core components of the game.
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I think that Peter has become much more solidly grounded in recent years. The whole Fable thing definitely changed his outlook. I'm sure that the kind of decisions that had to be made about budgets and staffing when they were having financial troubles also factored into that change.
A very good interview that is pretty much the epitome of his recent discussions. I'd probably prefer not to see another PMol interview until he has something else to say, unless the interview is going to be more about the way that he manages the company, questions about their past financial struggles, details of their approach to making games on a day to day basis (we have some information on that already, but more is always good), etc.
Hearing from some of his staff guys would be really interesting, I think, if he would allow it. Getting a coder, a project lead, an artist, musician etc working on Fable2 (probably the project that you're more likely to get someone from), would be really interesting.
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But if they are such core components, then why didn't I miss them at all?
The year before last, I picked up NBA2K5, the best reviewed basketball game at the time. I made the mistake of trying to play through an abbreviated season to learn the game.
I had to navigate through three layers of confusing menus just to be able to play the next game in the season. But usually I couldn't even get to the menus, because I would be interrupted by a cutscene where my star player would start bitching about feeling undermotivated. Or I would get prompted to allocate salaries among my assistant coaching staff. I am not kidding.
I JUST WANTED TO PLAY A FREAKING BASKETBALL GAME!
It would have been really nice to see the gaming press congratulate EA for leaving that crap out, even if they did it for all of the wrong reasons.
The fact that gamers have come to 'expect' this stuff is not a good reason to leave it in. I have come to 'expect' traffic jams when I drive to work every morning, but that doesn't mean I'd miss them if they stopped.
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It all comes down to options and choice. What would have solved your gripes about NBA2K5? The ability to select "I don't want to manage my team" in the options screen, right at the start of a season. Even better, give us a slider to choose how much to manage the team - from "AI does everything" to "I want to pick out my players' underwear".
That way people who want to have a "full experience" can have it, while others who just want to play basketball can have that too.
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He also contradicted himself by saying he wasn't going to say Fable 2 is going to be the greatest game ever...while saying the secret project would be then going on to say Fable 2 would be the greatest game ever.
He's just a PR guy now.
ps,
Amiga did kick ass. I preferred Power Monger to Populous...
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You're missing the point, anyway.
Table Tennis was applauded for its simple gameplay. However, most reviews knocked it for being too shallow a game. No career mode, no minigames, just ping pong, which got dull after a while solo.
Gameplay is often, but not always, best being simple. But that doesn't mean the game should be.
With a basketball game you want the actual basketball part to be refined. Not necessarily simple, but refined. You want more than just a "shoot/block" button, but you probably don't want a "shoot" button and an "off-hand shot" button.
Out of the game you want some choices. They could make it simple and have nothing. You pick your team and play. But isn't it better with trades? Throw some economics into it and you have a more well-rounded game, assuming it is done well.
Which is why simple != better. You need more to do.
Take the most simple game on the market - Wario Ware. One button. Think about how terrible it would be if you just chose a level, played it, then chose another. But make them a series of minigames in one larger minigame and you have fun.
Or take another simple game - Kirby's Air Ride. It's Mario Kart simplified to one button. And it sucked. It was simple, sure, but had no depth. Which is the other key, Table Tennis is simple but deep.
And sometimes you want a complicated game. If we always had simple games we'd be stuck with Checkers instead of Civ 4. Where's the fun there?
To sum up - simplified gameplay can be fun, but usually needs to be wrapped in a complex shell to hold your interest. And the gameplay itself needs some depth. If you can be as good the first time as the thousandth time it's probably not a fun game.
And complex gameplay can also be fun, and often more rewarding.
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Finally, the PC has its indie way; Steam. I'm not saying Steam is the only way but by having similar systems like Steam we can easily distribute indie games and for a low cost too. For a recent example, the game The Ship which was just released on Steam is an indie game made by newcomers Outerlight and it's 20$. The Steam system gives developers a pseudo-publisher and even if needed a full game engine with the world's best physics engine; all you need is a coder and some artists. Steam opens doors for indie devs to create new genres and new styles because they are not limited anymore; they have the freedom and the tools to realize their coolest gaming fantasies and that is where I personally see the future of pc gaming.
With the current Steam system, for small time developers to have their game listed next to Half-Life 2 or other big titles means alot of media coverage without doing much of a big job. It goes same way for big games such as Dark Messiah which will be released on Steam; it already gives out so many options; The possibility to get a discount, the possibility to play it the minute it's released because you will have pre-loaded it and the possibility to cut the install + plus protection and finally the possibility to have your game instantly updated without you doing anything.
In other words, Steam offers big and small developers an excellent way to get your games known and spread and it is with systems similar to Steam that we will see pc gaming evolve to the next level where the fun factor is back to priority number 1.
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I wonder what will happen, however, when his fairly artsy design sensibility butts heads with Microsoft. Bungie's been allowed to go their own way because they're absurdly profitable, but I'm unsure Lionhead will come out of it as well.
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I totally disagree about Steam. If anything, Steam, and systems like it, are what drove me AWAY from PC gaming. It's clunky, and all this "authorization" B.S. is really killing the fun. Even games without a central hub like Steam are starting to require some sort of authorization to combat piracy on the PC. Neverwinter Nights premium modules do this! Just like with Steam, If I don't have an internet connection, I can't play my ONE PLAYER game. What the hell good is that?
Compare that to the consoles. I buy games from XBLA, and they do not require "authorization" every time I play them. I can play without being connected to the internet. I can take the 360 to my parents' house and play those downloaded games with my family, without having to have some draconian system of "proving" that I paid for the game.
And when HL2 comes out for the 360, what do you want to bet I won't have to be online to start a single-player game? There will be no Steam on the console version, because the game media is enough to make companies feel secure and less at risk of piracy.
Steam is not about making things convenient or allowing people to develop and distribute games easily. Steam is about making honest people go through hoops to prevent a few dishonest pirates from stealing games.
Oh yeah--- Just try selling a used set of Half-Life 2 game CDs. You can't. They're keyed to the Steam-registered owner. This is getting more and more common with PC games. The used market was effectively killed by it.
PC games become more and more restrictive, and require massive technology investments every six months or so. If anything is killing PC gaming, it's the arrogant, "you owe us" attitude of publishers. Instead of treating us all like honest consumers, they treat us all like pirates.
So, like pirates, we're abandoning ship from PC games, and boarding the consoles so we can play our games without having to jump through hoops, "activate" our software, "authorize" our game play session, or type in 40-character-long alphanumeric registration keys, only to have the copy protection refuse to play the game or not recognize the disc because we have a CD copying program installed somewhere on our hard drive.
All *this* stuff has ruined PC gaming. I'll take the ease of popping in a disc (or downloading to my 360 hard drive from XBLA) and playing without restrictions over the garbage that drove me away from PC gaming.
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Thought you might be interested!
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Yeah, I love XBL too.
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I must agree with you on the copy protection problem. As an example, the game Earth 2160 released on Steam had a major problem (now fixed) that couldn't let anyone play and other reported problems of activation keys not working are scattered here and there while a pirated version of Earth 2160 will work instantly.
The gaming industry has taken a considerable shift once the MPAA and RIAA complained of the supposed "loss" in profit in music and film and so game copy protection became more and more invasive (see Starforce).
Steam with its authentication system attempted to build something different from the crappy standard copy protection (SecuRom mostly) yet it is not perfect.
In my opinion, I strongly believe copy protection should be abandonne since it is not stopping pirated games, you can still get Half-Life 2 easily and get its updates easily for free. There are numerous ways to emulate Steam or to emulate any other copy protection or to simply disable them. In example, the game Prey was available throughout internet nearly 2 weeks before its release and still Prey is selling considerably good. Developers know the pirated world known as the Scene is a rather relatively good way to get your game known + get feedback on features and bugs. Publishers however tend to go with political opinions.
Finally, my above comment was to specifically talk about Steam + Independant developers. Your reaction to my comment seems to be targetted at protection in general. SecuRom protection won't let you publish your game as Steam will. Let it be a bad authentication system if you wish yet you can still easily get your game / mod on Steam's storefront. You can distribute it for free or you can even simply sell it. That's where the goods are. Create a similar system and kill the authentication module and you've got the perfect auto-publisher non complaining with no pressure and no stupid content constraint. No internal advertisement and no cutout. You have the dream publisher. That's where I'm putting my money.
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...who gives a shit?
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Is anyone else excited about the thought of playing The Ship?
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Just thought i'd get that out of the way early.
Posted at 9:47AM on Jul 14th 2006 by dave
no they're not, they're bloggers.
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The only part I couldn't agree with was "The PC as a gaming platform has had a terrible two years".
Seriously, we've had great FPSes (Far Cry, HL 2, UT 2004, SWAT 4, BF 2, FEAR...), great strategy games (Dawn of War, Rome Total War, Civilization 4, Rise of Nations/Legends, Ground Control 2, AoE 3, Act Of War...), great adventure games (Paradise, Dreamfall, Syberia 2, Myst 5, Still Life, Indigo Prophecy, Ankh, Scratches...), great RPGs (Vampire Bloodlines, Gothic 2, Oblivion, Spellforce 2...), great sims (GT Legends, GTR, Silent Hunter 3, rFactor, Virtual Skipper 4...) and so many others like Space Rangers 2 or Galactic Civ 2, not mentioning all those cool indie games like Darwinia, Eets, Oasis, Weird Worlds, Professor Fizzwizzle, etc.
Terrible years indeed. Keep 'em coming!
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Actually, you can get rid of HL2 discs. You need to know who you're selling to, though, and they need to have a pre-existing Steam account to which you can transfer your authorization key for the game. It almost makes it more trouble than it's worth.
And, anyway, that's just nitpicking; I got your point. PC gaming is becoming so complicated that I find myself going back and playing all the great games I missed along the way instead of bending over backwards to play the newest titles (not to mention the constant "turnover" of sorts amongst graphics cards).
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Dude, either quit bitching or go to some other video game news site. If you think Joystiq is so blantantly biased, go to Engadget* or some other website for gaming news. Nobody is forcing you to get your info here, and if you don't like it here, go somewhere else.
@ The ZeroCorpse
Exactly. All the things you just listed are all the reasons why I stopped playing games on PC. Well actually that and one more thing, the multiplayer. To play PC games multiplayer you need a copy for each PC (well, most of the time anyway), and that gets damned expensive. I could either spend $100 or more to play a game with my bro and I on PC, or I could just buy a game for 360 (or even better rent one from Gamefly) and play together lickity split. I also hate having to worry about whether my computer is fast enough, and all the bugs that come with games before they are patched, etc. I used to be a hardcore PC gamer ONLY. Well, times have changed and the only game I've played on PC for YEARS is Neverwinter Nights. And if I do play a PC game it will probably be pirated. Those online activation codes can suck my @$$.
*Using Engadget as an example was obviously a joke. And anyone who takes it seriously is braindead.
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Yep, to EA back in the mid to late 90s, but the amount of pressure they put on Bullfrog to rush game