In gaming circles, much has lately been made of digital rights management (DRM) and the surreptitious individuals who seek to circumvent the systems inspired by and propagated under the auspices of DRM. More simply, videogame piracy and the manifest security measures taken against it. This argument centers largely around the realm of PC gaming, but other systems such as the DS and PSP are certainly no strangers to the unauthorized use and plunder of their software. Numbers are constantly thrown around by company boards in financial statements or third-party studies, citing millions or billions of dollars lost in stolen revenue. While I have a difficult time believing that consumers would buy every game they steal if the second option were unavailable, I think that it is reasonable to assume that the lost revenue definitely ends at a number higher than zero. "Pirated" is synonymous with stolen. I can attest first-hand that this is a company’s perspective on the issue. Gaming publishers, or the people who finance and assume the monetary risk of a videogame release, offer this argument as the basis for submitting their consumers (in this case, game players) to a battery of protection methods over the years. Whether gameplayers were deciphering code words on page x of manual y, entering CD keys more elaborate than the alarm code at Fort Knox, or dealing with the latest incidents of limited installs and remote verifications, companies have sought their golden goose of total security and have instead left a tangle of used and irrelevant systems in their wake.
What does the consumer think? Sensibly, legitimate purchasers are pissed, tired and still hunting for that lost CD key to Anachronox. That last part may just be me. On the other hand, it is hard to fault publicly traded companies for wanting to demonstrate to their shareholders a level of commitment to securing, in however much futility, their saleable goods. The real question is whether or not a true solution exists. As long as people have had more than others, or have produced a desirable thing, those without such a thing have wanted to obtain it. When money and reality step in the way, the black market ushers the potential customer down a dark alley gleaming with treasures hauled from the back doors of more legitimate enterprises. This struggle has prevailed since the first "have" Cro-Magnon waltzed by a "have-not," brandishing a brand new club purchased from Stones Fifth Avenue (pardon the godawful pun).
I don’t like the idea of having to rely on Steam for my purchased copy of X-Com: Terror From the Deep to work after Valve is dissolved or liquidated. This sort of DRM worries me, but every physical object has an invisible clock ticking nearby. My very physical and very old copy of Dragon Warrior III no longer allows for game saves because the battery has expired. Unless I want to conquer the game in a single sitting (I do not), it is presently a very useless piece of plastic and silicon. Sure, I can open it up and try to replace the dead battery, but the soldier has served his time. No point in resurrecting a thing better held in memory. I am comfortable simply knowing that I played it and enjoyed it; similarly, my copy of Spore will likely not see more than five installs during its lifetime. The flip side is that it cannot. Despite my purchase, I do not wholly own the title.
Somewhat off subject, one element of ownership that really pisses me off is the "key method" employed in certain titles with online hooks. This is mostly an Xbox 360 phenomenon. It goes something like this: purchase a title, log onto Xbox Live, notice said title has available DLC, notice also said DLC is 108 KB or a meg or some similarly small number. Does this seem odd? It should. Such small files may cost the end user a couple of dollars, but they act as nothing more than digital keys, unlocking content already stored on the disc. You essentially pay for and download the right to play content you have already purchased but has been withheld. Long-time readers probably already understand my hatred (seething, indeed!) of unlockables in games. Smuggling away content from the player that has no correlation to a chronological or sensible progression within a game is absurd. It is done to motivate or reward a player for accomplishing certain specified tasks in-game, presumably because the game is not good enough to encourage the player on its own. The one positive aspect of this method is undoubtedly that the player spends $50 for a title and is no poorer financially for his or her efforts to enjoy the fullness of the game. With the "key method," unlockables are extended one further step requiring players to purchase content twice - first for the content itself, second for the right to access it. This method has been visited at other times to other degrees: Lock-On Technology, the Pokémon series and Golden Sun all utilize some sort of bonus system for owning or buying other related titles. This latest step is more direct, and I am at times surprised at the industry’s lack of outrage. Honestly, it rarely ever takes much.
- Irving
It’s amazing how quickly the Hype Machine can enter in to and completely consume our lives. The Large Hadron Collider being tested in Europe is a prime example. The big and quite absurd fear was that the LHC would create black holes that would destroy the Earth. Really? Seriously? Are people actually losing sleep over this thing?
Fortunately, cooler and much smarter heads appear to be prevailing. So, feel free to grab your pillow and get some well deserved sleep tonight.
Switching gears, Mega Man 9 has been living up to it’s hype, at least in my opinion. The stages have proven to be quite challenging and the bosses have been giving me a run for my money. I’ll admit to having to purchase a few E-Tanks in order to beat a couple of the bosses. Look down on me with disdain if you must, but the store feature is a great counter-balance to grinding out boss patterns. To my credit, I’ve only had to use the E-Tanks on Magma Man and Plug Man. For the rest of the bosses, I was able to trail and error their weaknesses or finish them with only the Mega Buster.
The only thing I don’t care for about Mega Man 9 is the downloadable content. It’s ridiculous to charge players for options that used to be free in the past. I mean come on, I have to buy hard and super hard difficulties?! Those used to be rewards in the past and hardly require any extra programming. Now, say they added an "expansion pak" of two to three new stages with bosses; that would be something worth buying. I implore all of our readers out there to not purchase any Mega Man 9 content no matter how badly you want too. Hopefully Capcom will get the message and make that content free in future iterations of the game. Doubtful, but it couldn’t hurt to try, eh?
- Dover
