Tag Archive

EA Wise Up?

Written by Alec Meer on October 1, 2008.

Time to stick my hand into the angry beehive again… The EA/Spore/DRM issue isn’t likely to go away any time soon. In a funny sort of way, the ridiculous DRM on Spore might well turn out to be a good thing for gamers - like it or not, EA’s weight in the industry means they’re trend-setters to some degree. That a company so big attempted the sort of draconian copy-protection that only smaller publishers had hithero dabbled in, and crucially they now seem to realise it was a mistake, may well set a positive precedent for everyone. So, while I initially decried the mass trolling of Amazon reviews, I have to agree now that a game as high-profile as Spore was perhaps an ideal object for protest. I’d still much prefer it was gone about in a smarter way than fevered screaming, though.

Though EA aren’t behaving in terribly gentlemanly fashion towards DRM-complaint posts on their forums, they are gradually backing down from some of the restrictions they unfairly placed upon Spore installs, and it looks like that trend’s set to continue.
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Diabo III: Antagonism & Screenshots

Written by Alec Meer on September 22, 2008.

It’s a funny thing, Diablo III. On the one hand, we know practically everything we need to know about it, based on confirmation that’s it sticking closely to what’s gone before. On the other, we have very little HARD FACT about it. We only know what two of the character classes are, for instance, while multiplayer system Battle.net 2 remains largely under wraps. For now, all a fanbase that can’t wait to hack and slash and slash and hack gets is hints - and oddly antagonistic ones at that.
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Spore War

Written by Alec Meer on September 9, 2008.

People really don’t like DRM. And a small but very passionate/ferocious group of people really, really, really don’t like DRM. They’ve struck back by shaping Amazon’s user reviews of Spore en masse, bringing its average rating down to just one star.

While I’m aware it’s a major issue for a lot of gamers, I think it’s a hateful thing to do on this kind of scale. I do understand their concerns entirely, and would much prefer there was no DRM in Spore. Fine, don’t buy the game yourself or crack it if you’re not happy with the restrictions and privacy violations. Write to EA or trading standards, blog about it, demand there’s a big warning sticker on the box.

Even protest ratings based on your actual negative experiences of the DRM are entirely valid, but this concerted group effort (most of whom, I imagine, haven’t actually played the game or experienced its usage restrictions first-hand) is giving innocent Amazon customers entirely the wrong impression of a game they might well love: that star rating is all that a lot of people look at. This isn’t raising awareness of DRM: it’s just making people not buy the game because they think it must be rubbish.

The DRM’s a significant problem - a problem we won’t know the full extent of for a while, I’d imagine - but my concern is that one of the most influential buying guides on the web is currently only telling one side of the story. A progressive, excellent game could get sunk because of it, and we’ll end up with more licensed tripe instead. Not that likely, granted, but possible.

Appreciate that this is a subject people feel very strongly about, but please express your comments below without bellowing abuse at each other.

A Dirty Word

Written by Alec Meer on September 6, 2008.

If you’ve been following the 200+ comments in the thread below our recent discussion of our experiences in the Warhammer Online closed beta, you’ll have spotted that a vocal minority of the WAR community, having made their way here thanks to a link on the warhammeronline.com frontpage, are absolutely furious with us. All those that were simply critical remain, but there were at least another 50 abuse-filled tirades we deleted, consisting of the usual expletives, judgements about our intelligence and sexuality, and a surprising amount of racism towards the British. It’s true: we do drink a lot of tea.

Whether expressed politely or furiously, there were three or four central complaints about what we said - but one stands above them all.
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Eve Online And The Big Nerf

Written by Jim Rossignol on August 9, 2008.

I’ve been playing Eve Online on and off for about five years now and I don’t think I’ve ever seen as much controversy as that being generated by the most recently proposed changes. These changes basically concern how fast medium sized spaceships should go, and what the ramifications for the rest of the game will be if they’re made to slow down. The mixture of rage, indignation and constructive feedback that has emerged in response to the proposals has created a sixty-three page thread on the official forums, and countless arguments elsewhere - even between my own Eve Onlining chums. But are the subs-paying players right to be angry when the developer changes the nature of their favourite toy? And who should be calling the shots anyway?

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007: Quantum of Solace / Meer: Shedload of Griping

Written by Alec Meer on July 21, 2008.

Preview wot I wrote about the upcoming Bond game is up over on Eurogamer. It’s not, suffice to say, one of those ‘lalalalalala everything is shiny wooo’ previews:

It might end up feeling like Bond skins taped over a hasty Any-FPS skeleton. While we’ve only seen two levels so far, the bizarre presence in those of exploding fuel tanks (”mousetraps”, according to Treyarch) inside a posh hotel lobby suggests this an action game that very much plays by the rules.

While I’m actually fairly gentle to it, I’ll add the qualifier I did over there - there’s still a few months of work left to go on the game, so it could yet be more Goldfinger than Die Another Day. Oh - beware of the Angry Internet Man in the piece’s comments thread, loudly crying foul at the partially pessimistic tone. Whadda ya think - are not entirely positive previews of upcoming games welcome journo-honesty, or miserabilist, unprofessional presumption?

E3 Rubbish, Say Bigwigs

Written by Alec Meer on July 18, 2008.

From our comfortable slouch in front of our dusty LCD screens, E3 2008’s seemed surprisingly fertile after last year’s dampest of squibs. Perhaps there weren’t many omigosh new announcements, but it gave a glad chance to see long-awaited shinies such as Dragon Age, Fallout 3 (DON’T SAY A BLOODY WORD), Spore, Mirror’s Edge, Dawn of War II, Borderlands, Alpha Protocol and more in extensive action. Me = chuffed.

For those actually at the show… eh, not so good.
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Ain’t No Pleasin’ Some Folks

Written by Alec Meer on July 1, 2008.

You’d have thought “sequel to beloved game announced after eight year silence” would be good news for Diablo fans. And to most, it was. Not everyone felt the same way though - an undercurrent of disappointed muttering had it that the game looked too bright and cartoonish compared to its darker predecessors. Most of us will doubtless wait to see what the game’s actually like before passing judgement based on its appearance alone, but slighted naysayers have banded together for one of those e-petition thingies, determined to talk Blizzard into changing the game’s art style after just four years of development. Can’t fail, surely.
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WAR Wars

Written by Alec Meer on June 26, 2008.

This is possibly best saved for The Sunday Papers, but seeing as we’ve been nattering about Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning lately anyway, I reckoned it was worth its own post. If you’re an active follower of WAR you’ll already be aware of this, but those less ingrained in MMO society can roll their eyes at this startling storm in a teacup.

MMO site Massively.com recently ran an interview with Richard Bartle, co-creator of the Multi-User Dungeon system, the concept that essentially birthed the MMOs. He’s more theorist and author than developer these days, but MMOs remain his major subject matter. And though he may not be making the things anymore, he can still stir up controversy.
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“Well What’s Happenin’, C&C Community?”

Written by Alec Meer on June 23, 2008.

I hesitate slightly to post about this, as the last time I talked about C&C: Red Alert’s music and offhandedly mentioned that it had never especially moved me personally, I received a furious email from an Angry Internet Man about how I had zero music taste and should show some respect for what its composer Frank Klepacki had done for gaming.

Going on the below video, I suspect street-talkin’ Klepacki himself would refer to it as respec’, however. Here he is, “throwing a shout out” to his fans, who will be very happy to hear that he’s officially on Red Alert 3 soundtrack duties. Me? Well… oh, look over there - that dog has a puffy tail!
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