Oldschool Hard

You didn’t actually want to be free to own the games you bought, did you?

I’ve started to backup all my files in anticipation of finally installing Windows 7, which I’ve had sitting here for about a month. It’ll be an interesting upgrade, considering I bought XP the week it came out, and have kept using it through a number of different computers, skipping the maladies of Vista entirely. I have years of crap on my hard drives, so it’s taking hours to catalogue and properly backup everything.

The upgrade seemed necessary, though. Partially it’s because I want to actually use all of the 4GB of RAM I have and not have my graphics card use a big chunk of assignable memory, partially because I’d like to see what DirectX 10 can do for my gaming, and mostly, honestly, it comes down to WoW ONCE AGAIN not patching properly for me, whether I use a downloaded or disc installer, different versions of the patches, install under safe mode or to a different folder, or any of the other suggestions that a google search throws out. Blizzard suggests my problem relates to system restore, which I have never used, just like last time I had a patching problem they suggested it was due to a problem with Dell computers. Pity I’ve never owned a Dell in my life…

While that’s a game-related annoyance, it’s only related to one specific game. As part of my process of backing up my files, I stumbled upon a far more insidious problem: shitty copy protection. Using the oft-mentioned Mass Effect as an example, yet again, I remembered that because it uses SecuROM, I had to ‘de-authorize’ my computer or risk losing one of my five ‘licenced installs’, a ‘generous’ upgrade from the three installs that accompanied the game when it was first released on the PC (it also phoned home every 10 days). To do this, I couldn’t do anything in the game menu or in it’s uninstall program. No, I had to download a seperate tool, which scanned my system, gathering god knows what information before determining that Mass Effect was installed, and making me download another seperate tool to give me back one of my precious de-authorizations. Spore is another game requiring a similar process.

A few questions came to mind as I was going through this process. What if these authorization servers ever get taken down? Will there be a effective way to play the games you bought in a few years time when they’re no longer available at retail? Are you even considered to own the copies of games you buy under copy protection like this? The sad fact is, SecuROM doesn’t even seem that bad next to StarForce, which acts a lot like malware, making disk performance worse, opening your system up to security flaws, similar to a rootkit, and installing its own device drivers alongside game installs, that, up until the latest version of StarForce, didn’t necessarily get uninstalled when the game did.

Copy protection, like many things in gaming, isn’t new. Back in the day, there were code wheels, references to certain letters, sentences, or clues in user manuals that you had to match, symbol sheets (some printed on red paper so they couldn’t be legibly photocopied), deliberate errors introduced into the manufacturing process to prevent physical copying, and plenty of others which I either never saw or currently escape me. Sure, some of these methods are onerous, too, and kinda bullshit, but I’m not against people trying to protect their income from their work. But assuming your mother didn’t throw out your game boxes, and that you have hardware still capable of playing these old games, you have the physical capability to get through this copy protection by legimate means, and the only thing the copy protection affects is the game it’s meant for. This won’t necessarily be the case for any games you purchase with current forms of copy protection.

What I ask for from any copy-protection is for three simple rules to apply:

1. Don’t phone home. If you can’t authorize a game using the physical medium or downloaded file which I posess, don’t make me need to authorize it at all. Sure, the internet is basically ubiquitous, but that doesn’t mean your company or the game authorization servers will be around forever. I should have everything I need to play the game available straight out of the box or download.

2. Don’t limit reinstalls. I might forget to ‘deauthorize’ it…I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO ‘DEAUTHORIZE’ IT. I PAID GOOD MONEY FOR THIS GAME. Again, while I might be able to call or email for fresh installs, that doesn’t mean you’ll be around forever. Or the customer service rep might be a dick and not help me out. And also, checking how many more installs I’m ‘allowed’ means phoning home, again.

3. Don’t screw up my computer. Copy protection should exist within the game itself and affect the game only. It shouldn’t install anything seperate, it shouldn’t have any access to anything not directly related to the game it’s for, and it shouldn’t have any impact on the performance of my computer.

Am I asking to much by wanting to own the games I buy?

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Bill Hicks’ views on marketing probably come from knowing the guy who made this ad.

Some games come almost out of nowhere, quietly released to slowly build an audience. Gems, like Torchlight, or Trine, that take a while to get a hold in the market, but you appreciate them all the more for the surprise element – where has this been hiding?

Of course, the way game budgets now typically are, with a need to recoup staggeringly large development costs, you’re aware of most games for months, maybe years, before they come out. Teaser trailers, developer interviews, hands-on previews – you follow a game from start ’til they go gold, and then you’re lining up at midnight, in the freezing cold, with a stinky fat guy either side of you, looking like they’re venturing into the unknown of the outdoors for the first time in three months. You shuffle forwards, eventually reaching the front of the line, getting your hot little hands on Diablo Effect CreedDead 27, and rushing out of the store to go home and play it for long enough to sound convincingly ill when you call in sick to work the next day, not having slept a wink. There’s nothing quite like that feeling of taking the shrinkwrap off a new game that you’ve been anticipating, popping it out of it’s case, sticking it in the machine (and in the case of a PC game, waiting for it to install), excitedly choosing ‘New Game’ and settling in…

To then find out you’ve bought a turkey.

But why? It looked so good in the videos. The screenshots had wicked HDR lighting and soft shadows and perky polygon tits. How could this game be so shitty?

Sorry, you’ve just fallen victim to the hype monster. John Romero has made you his bitch, and not in the way you intended. Sega don’t do what Nintendon’t. It’s just another mediocre game, no matter how much money’s been spent on marketing it to you. Sure, you could’ve read the pre-release reviews, but you didn’t want to spoil the game (anymore than it had already been spoiled by the 18 months of previews), or you had read the review, and it was a 10 on everything! Like GTAIV – a great game, but with very obvious flaws, not that you’d know it from some of the fawning reviews when the game was released, considering the flaws were only talked about when the reviewers had retconned their thoughts for when the DLC was released.

Hype’s not new. I can remember when Super Mario Bros. 3 was coming out, and they made a whole movie (The Wizard) to promote Nintendo products, with SMB 3 at the forefront. I only saw the hype machine there in hindsight, being too young at the time to recognise what was happening. Then there was the Nintendo/Sega ‘war’ of the early 90s, with crap like ‘blast processing’ and ‘color palettes’ that no kid really understood, but sounded cool, leading to things like the aforementioned Daikatana ad.

Perhaps the hype machine I remember most vividly is the one surrounding Final Fantasy VII. Not just for the game itself, but for the revelations about Nintendo giving Sony the screwjob in regards to a SNES CD add-on, eventually leading to the Playstation, and Square ironically giving Nintendo a screwjob of its own by switching to developing for Sony. There was breathless hype about the pre-rendered backgrounds, the CD music and full motion video, and for a lot of people, FFVII was their first and most beloved RPG, perhaps because of the hype machine making it into the first ‘mainstream’ RPG. FFVII was good, and you could do far worse as far as a favourite game goes, but it’s not the greatest RPG ever – not even the best in the series. V, perhaps also VI, is better.

The machine’s bigger than ever. There’s more money to lose, so publishers will do whatever it takes to make you buy. Sometimes the machine just picks the right way to get us interested. Sometimes, it’s our own fault for not learning from our past mistakes. Anything Pete Molyneaux does is guaranteed to be overhyped, and underdelivered – ‘Yeah, it’ll give you a blowjob while you play, and any cash you make in the game gets delivered to your own bank account IN REAL TIME!’ – and anyone who expected Spore to be different to what it turned out to be had probably never played The Sims before.

I can almost guarantee that like the ‘real gameplay footage’ that accompanies the launch of any new generation of console (and inevitably turns out to be pre-rendered), Project Natal will turn out to be far less interesting than the ‘Milo’ demonstration and subsequent breathless coverage and discussion. But it’s already done the job it needs to do – oiling the cogs of the hype machine.

I bet you’re going to buy it the day it comes out, aren’t you?

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