Levine got 'nasty f***ing threats' over copy protection

Well, since FIGHT NIGHT ROUND4 was announced... done and done. ;]

This should be the defacto line for anyone about to get into a fight.

"Your mom is a slut!"

"....I hope you brought Kryptonite, bitch"

Well, said!

Cliffy B., Ken Levine., Hideo Kojima, Tobias Boon, John Romero, Will Wright, Peter Molyneux, Lord British (Richard Garriot), and so on... They're mere mortals after all, and with the rare exception of Lord British's first projects, they had whole teams working with them to make their games.

Wanna worship someone? Worship Roberta Williams, Fred Ford, Paul Reiche III, David Crane, Alan Miller, Bob Whitehead, Larry Kaplan, and Gunpei Yokoi.

Each of these people were innovators who created games ALONE, or created some revolutionary gaming technologies. Yes, later these people had crews working with them, but they all started out in an era where it was one person's idea programmed straight to the screen. Haven't heard of them? That's a shame, because these people were far more pioneering than the likes of Cliffy B. or Ken Levine. They may not have had the same tech to work with, but they cranked out some of the most classic games ever on their own.

If you're a gamer and you don't know those names in the second group, then you probably have no business worshipping the people in the first group. . . Or you've at least got your priorities backwards. Pioneer game designers weren't rock stars or celebrities. They weren't egomaniacs like Cliffy B. or Hideo Kojima. A lot of the time they weren't even given credit for unleashing their creations upon the world.

Personally, I have a lot more respect for Roberta Williams than I ever will for someone like Cliffy B.

Stevie Case, however, falls into the category of "pro gamer turned media whore" and deserves to wallow in the shallow end with "Fatal1ty" and the Frag Dolls.

Uh, that has to do with time more than anything else. In 20 years, no one that wasn't gaming in 2007 will know who Ken Levine or Cliff Blezijeasfjinfski are either.

John Adams did a lot more for our country than George Bush, but I guarantee you more people know who Bush is than Adams.

I could not disagree more. Currently, most of the game industry treats it's talent like it's disposable - hiring and firing people at will, closing or dissolving entire studios, etc. A game is only as good as the people making it. Recognizing the people behind the games will ultimately improve the quality of the games, if it leads to publishers hiring the best and most appropriate designers and other talent for the biggest games (instead of what they do now, which is to get whoever happens to be available or worked for them the longest).

I'm sorry if recognizing game designers hurts your ego because you only play games instead of making them, but the industry needs it's personalities if it's going to grow and mature.

Note: I'm disagreeing with tooPrime, not ZeroCorpse. How tooPrime's short-sighted and ignorant comment has gained a half-heart in rank is beyond me. As for ZeroCorpse, I tend to agree, but that shouldn't preclude modern game designers from being recognized. After all, we still recognize film directors who work with hundreds of others to create a film, and even though hundreds of people are involved, the director still has the most significant impact on the film.

"I'm sorry if recognizing game designers hurts your ego because you only play games instead of making them, but the industry needs it's personalities if it's going to grow and mature."

I think you misunderstand me. My "ego" has nothing to do with it. In fact I have no really problem with Ken L or Clifford B or any successful game designer. Recognizing game designers is fine however I think praising their games are more of a complement than praising their personality and I think sometimes his hero worship confuses the two. I think the focus has gotten off the games they made and rather shifted to the personalities. I don't care if Will Wright is gregarious, I care if he can make good games. When I hear game journalist talk about how much they like a game designer personally, I think that meeting and listening to game designers personally is a luxury few outside of their profession have and I don't think how nice or dynamic a designer is in real life has any effect on their game. I think it dilutes the focus from games. The most recent example I can think of is Spore. People seemed to be wrapped up in the majesty that is Will Wright and not the game it self. Fable is another good example. Before Braid came out people were on the Johnathan Blow bandwagon even before he ever released a game. I just don't like that his article is a hand job for Ken, not Ken himself. This article is written in joking tone, however I think it speaks to a larger problem. I really don't real like rereading this so forgive any spelling mistakes or nonsensical sentences.

so, what you're saying evan, is that it's okay for the majority of game makers to still be treated as hire and fire filth, as long as the guys who probably do the least work get treated like celebrities. Yeah, that's what the industry needs.

@tooPrime: Its okay to admit your first man-crush. We're here for you and you don't have to fight them feelings anymore...

theturtle363 has a good point, and for my man-crush, I already have one on Iamchris4life.

ZeroCorpse:
Nevermind that Cliff Bleszinski started making games alone when he was 16. Sure they may not have been as popular as some of those people, but I remember them. Even now I can hum the theme of Dare to Dream.

I have a total man-crush on both Justin Timberlake and Ken Levine, so you guys can just shut up!

Man-crush? I'm in man-love with Tim Schafer, then again, I think everyone is.

Actually, there is. With enough complaints, they may learn and change.

1000 loud people on the internet isn't going to offset millions of customers (at least in a game like Spore's case) that probably won't even run into the securom problem or even know about it.

I find it really strange when people bitch about other people bitching, only to say things like "well, your complaints won't change anything."

First, if it won't make a difference then why do you care?

Second, even if we never see the data, EA will certainly know how many preorders were cancelled around the time of this protest. It probably won't be millions, but it might be significant enough for them to consider changing their policies.

Third, didn't they change the limit to 5 activations for Red Alert following this protest? So obviously it does matter somewhat.

Or they could not be a dumbass and download the crack for it, like I did.

"1000 loud people on the internet isn't going to offset millions of customers"

No, but 2000 1-star reviews on Amazon might be enough to drive more people to pirate a game, hurting sales.

http://www.amazon.com/review/product/B000FKBCX4/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?_encoding=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

Paying for the game and then cracking it isn't helping, just as pirating isn't helping. The only damn thing that helps is neither buying the game, nor downloading it illicitly. Why? Well, the more people that download their game (believe me, they check) the more they can say "Look! Our DRM is needed because of all these filthy pirates!"

Fighting DRM is only successful when you do it with your wallet. Pirating a game just because it has DRM isn't only just exacerbating the problem, but it's actively proving the DRM peddlers right.

"Well instead of bitching about it they could have either pirated it or played the 360 version."

This is true. But I often feel like the only person on Earth to see the friggin' irony! It can't be emphasized as much as it needs to be to get the people in charge to realize how stupid they're being; their anti-piracy methods not only do nothing to curb piracy more than a CD check, they actually ENCOURAGE and INCENTIVIZE piracy.

You know, I want game developers to be happy and successful when they make good games, and pirating should be fought to help ensure they are. But it's astonishing to see supposed professionals, whose job it is all day to think of ways to fight piracy, dream up and implement with great expense a "solution" that does nothing more to prevent or even just annoy pirates than a CD check does, yet also enrages paying customers and levies arbitrary restrictions on when and where they can play the game they paid for.

What's worse, this wasn't a one-time screw-up, but the same impotent scheme is inexplicably being used with more and more games, and it's essentially just a new type of nag screen that instead of trying to get users to pay, tries to get them to avoid paying altogether.

"Sorry, you've reached the install limit. Please upgrade to the cracked version today to continue playing!" THIS is copy protection? THIS is what they come up with?

I have a better solution; one that I'm sure will work. It's strange to think that I alone, no one special or with any formal training in the subject, could work out a simple solution that will actually DISCOURAGE piracy, when the movers and shakers in the industry who get payed the big bucks not only do no damage to piracy with their efforts, but do a little to help it out. What a messed up world. The most messed up part being, of course, that I have no way to make a difference, and I'm forced to just sit back and watch professionals make fools of themselves, and be the only one laughing (and on the inside, crying).

Sorry man, but I had to downvote you for knowing that much about House.

Wait, so you're saying they should actually mame kill him instead of just saying they're going to do it?

Sounds kind of harsh, even for SecureRom.

Otherwise they're like the guys who over rely on bluffing in poker.

Agreed. While I don't get this current worship of "producers" of games, I hardly think Ken Levine was the one who said, "Hey! Let's cripple the game for PC users!"

It was some jerkoffs somewhere in the corporate structure who did that.

People don't understand that it's the publisher (in this case, EA I believe) and not the developer (that'd be Ken L) that slap DRM on their games. Once the game is done, the developer has almost zero power over that sort of thing.

That depends on the copy protection in question. I'm not sure how bad Securom has gotten, but we know that the more invasive schemes like StarForce require source code integration, and the dev is responsible for making sure it works with the game. It's more than likely that a standard contract from any of the big publishers includes a clause that the developer must implement any copy protection measure that the publisher wants, irrespective of whether this ultimately requires effort by the devs.

Of course once the contract is signed, the dev is legally bound to use whatever DRM the publisher asks for. The point is that the dev is fully in power to refuse that clause, insist on one that forbids DRM, or shop the game to another publisher (like Stardock) before they agree to any contract. The reason they don't do this is because they get more $$$ by doing EA's bidding than they would by trying to negotiate these terms or signing with a smaller publisher.

Publishers are the ones who provide the impetus for DRM, yes, but it doesn't change the fact that the devs are essentially bought out to go along with it. You might as well say that politicians aren't responsible for corruption, the lobbyists are. It's true only in the most asinine sense. Bottom line is that the publisher wants DRM and the devs sold us out to get the most profitable contract. Both parties are responsible for DRM, and it's only a question of semantics as to who is more responsible. Devs know they are riding a gray area here because the nature of the publishing model says that they essentially have the luxury of not worrying about sales. So they can be against DRM, blame it on the publisher, and at the same time they type the code that puts it into their game. If they had to self-publish the game, as Blizzard does, then they would have to worry about sales and would probably end up doing the usual -- put Securom or something even worse on the disk just to satisfy their own paranoid fear that not doing this will bankrupt them when they otherwise would have made billions. The simple fact is that you don't know how any dev would really act if they didn't have the publisher acting as an umbrella.

The only entities that can be measured as good or bad are the publishers, and we've seen examples of both good (Stardock), and plenty of bad. The question now is, why aren't devs signing with the good publishers? Why are they signing with ones we know to be bad? Of course it's always about money, and devs, no matter how talented they might be, can still be greedy bastards just like everyone else (as above, sites like Joystiq seem to encourage cults of personality -- but even game designers are only human). Giving them a free pass on the DRM fiasco is wishful and naive. Now, those devs that are actually walking the walk, putting their own finances on the line to make PC gaming more equitable for paying customers, like Stardock and Gas Powered, you can give them props. Most other devs still need to put up or shut up.

What do white people have to do with it?

Why is he just standing there like that? Why won't he move?

If your going to make a moronic comment at least have it make sense.