The future of PC gaming - 2009 edition

[DrSpike]

In order to get your money, they had to drop DRM, which is what you wanted. Two cheers for capitalism?

Indeed!

[DrSpike]

Yeah, maybe.

But yeah, much to Dr.Spikes horror - if this is all true, with no hidden catches, then i will indeed get Sims 3 for PC.

There is no accounting for taste.

[Dale]

Anyway what came to me about this declaration from EA is this. I think this is just a sly marketing move. I'm yet to be convinced they actualy give a sh*t anymore about thier customers, as long as they get your money that's all that matters. This is exteneded to their employee's also(eg 'EA spouse' thing) and is sadly very indicitive of what i suspect is top tier management's thinking.

i know it's cool to bash EA, has been for a few years now, but seriously i don't give a monkeys about all that. All i care about is people in games actualy loveing what they do and wanting to make the best game experiences for their customers as they can. I'm yet to be convinced EA can make that mental shift, and it will take more than one 'declaration' of this type to prove their real intentions.

Of course this is sly marketting. EA is a publisher first and formost, with scores of shareholders. They don't give a sh1t about the games anymore. It's all about the pure greenback. That's it!

According to Soren they're now interested in raising their metacritic scores. He tends to believe that means EA wants developers to make better games, me I believe it means EA wants games that will pander to the reviewer and score higher.

Trust me mate, EA is all about the pure dollary, not the game. Spore proves this. Red Alert 3 proves this. Sims 3 will prove this.

[El_Cid]

Of course this is sly marketting. EA is a publisher first and formost, with scores of shareholders. They don't give a sh1t about the games anymore. It's all about the pure greenback. That's it!

According to Soren they're now interested in raising their metacritic scores. He tends to believe that means EA wants developers to make better games, me I believe it means EA wants games that will pander to the reviewer and score higher.

Trust me mate, EA is all about the pure dollary, not the game. Spore proves this. Red Alert 3 proves this. Sims 3 will prove this.

I agree. In fact i'd go as far as to say that pretty much all the big publishers(not talking devs here so much) are so in bed with the 'games media' that you really can't trust the written word anymore. The great inter-web and it's power of democratization is the hit+miss place to find out what a game is really like from 'real' people, not hype journalists.

EA is not the only money grabber in this market sadly. Still I suspect that my inner instinct that Spore would suck due to EA'a part in it, will not persuade the missus that Sims 3 is not for her - i can't even use the excuse that it has nasty DRM now! They are practicaly robbing me at gun point with this "no DRM" move....damn them.

[El_Cid]

To me, it's a solution looking for a problem. In the US, for instance, you would need to pay $50-$60 a month for high-speed broadband in order to save $500 or whatever on a new computer or console.

Fact is that reasonably muscle-bound computers are dirt cheap nowadays. The hardware business has a lot of cut-throat competition, while high-speed broadband is expensive and has little competition in many areas.

opps missed this Dan! but yes especialy with what people state side are telling me about strict metered access that may be coming their way. If that happens and happens hard it could change all such technologies such as this and even youtube watching that we all take for granted etc.

The more i've heard about this project the less seriously i've taken it, too many problems to solve a not so large problem in the first place. Still it did sound kinda cool for a while there - and who knows, maybe it will be the next big thing? or not

[El_Cid]

From the other 'false' thread i created too soon! :

Stardock/Impuls news that sounds great for PC D2D services:

http://gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=23085

[lord of the mark]

To me, it's a solution looking for a problem. In the US, for instance, you would need to pay $50-$60 a month for high-speed broadband in order to save $500 or whatever on a new computer or console.

Fact is that reasonably muscle-bound computers are dirt cheap nowadays. The hardware business has a lot of cut-throat competition, while high-speed broadband is expensive and has little competition in many areas.

even cheap ass Lord of the Mark has high speed broadband these days. Verizon FIOS, which here is highly competitive with the cable company.

[Asher]

even cheap ass Lord of the Mark has high speed broadband these days. Verizon FIOS, which here is highly competitive with the cable company.

The bandwidth isn't the problem, it's the bandwidth caps.

[lord of the mark]

The bandwidth isn't the problem, it's the bandwidth caps.

Yes, thats true, and I am glad you agree with me wrt to the bandwidth itself not being a problem.

[Asher]

Considering I have said many times from the start that this was the case, it would seem you are agreeing with me and not vice versa.

An important distinction between leader and follower.

[lord of the mark]

Considering I have said many times from the start that this was the case, it would seem you are agreeing with me and not vice versa.

An important distinction between leader and follower.

I had not noticed you mentioning it, or had forgotten. I was merely replying to DanS.

[El_Cid]

mandatory caps will be a bad move for games, console and PC(but probably worse for PC?).

A new article from gama with titles of top selling PC titles from various sectors. The interesting bit is they include D2D and Steam alongside NPD. The uninteresting part is the lack of numbers:

http://gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=23183

[Asher]

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/04/demigod-hit-by-massive-piracy-review-scores-take-beating.ars

Demigod hit by massive piracy; review scores take beating

Demigod publisher Stardock ran into a very unexpected problem when the game launched: around 100,000 more online players than expected. The number of games sold? 18,000. Piracy can hurt review scores, as well as consumer confidence, when the stolen copies of the game flood servers, and there's no easy solution to the problem. Being anti-DRM, pro-gamer may have given Stardock CEO Brad Wardell much press, but it could have lead to a disastrous launch for its newest game.

Stardock CEO Brad Wardell became a star in the world of PC gaming when he took a strong anti-DRM stance and decided the best course of action was simply to ignore the piracy. The pirates will do what they do, and the fans who were going to buy the games anyway will appreciate the lack of invasive programs. This easygoing, anti-DRM attitude also brings the added benefits of good press, good will, and all around good vibes. The problem, as he found out with the launch of Demigod, is that you can't always ignore the pirates; they can hurt you in very real ways.

"The system works pretty well if you have a few thousand people online at once. The system works… less well if there are tens of thousands of people online at once," Wardell wrote on his blog, describing the launch of the game. Stardock had 120,000 connections to deal with, a number well outside its projections for online play. The system melted down, causing many customers to have issues connecting to online games.

The number of those connections that were legitimate? It's estimated to be around 18,000.

"Our stress tests had counted on having maybe 50,000 people playing at once at peak and that wouldn’t be reached for a few weeks by which time we would have slowly seen things becoming problematic... So during the day today, people couldn’t even log on, and in some cases, the Demigod forums, which use one of the affected databases for some piddly thing were even down," he wrote. "Even getting the game running was a pain today because a simple HTTP call to see what the latest version would get hung leaving people looking at a black screen. Stuff of nightmares."

The team is working around the clock to fix the issues—Wardell points to having developers in Europe and the US as a good thing, and claimed he was just ending a 56-hour day—but the damage may have already been done.
When multiplayer goes, it takes the scores with it

"Before [Demigod] shipped, I wrote a scary email to our team saying how disastrous things would be and predicted doom for us and [Gas-Powered Games] if there were problems with multiplayer," Wardell wrote. "At the time, my worry was about things like disconnects and CVP. It didn’t occur to me that we’d have near MMO user connections to throw in."

The problem was that reviewers were trying to play the game, and they weren't liking what they saw as a major problem with online play. "Connecting to other players takes an inordinately long time, if it happens at all... Furthermore, the game client may hang should you try to exit while the game attempts to connect players, leading to an unhandled exception error dialogue (and a game reboot). Connection issues are widespread, which is a disastrous blow in a game that requires online play to be of much value," GameSpot wrote in its review of the game, giving it a 6.5 for a variety of reasons.

That score is going to be mixed in with the others in metacritic, and it will hold a ton of power for the length of the game's life, long after the connection issues have been fixed... if they aren't already. It seems like Stardock had a realistic plan for rollout of the online play, only to be slammed by overwhelming piracy, a problem it didn't plan for or expect. Now the company will be punished in the gaming press and gaming fora when players have issues connecting.

Wardell reacted to the GameSpot review on the blog. "First, I totally understand that connectivity is central to a game like this. I totally agree. But I think that should be weighted with what the average user who gets Demigod will experience and in reality, as annoying as this issue is, it’s not something that’s going to be an ongoing issue, it’s something that is likely to be taken care of in the next day or two," he wrote. "So this time next week, players will be happily playing but GameSpot’s review will live on." He wonders about the IGN and 1UP reviews, worried that they will dock points for the same issue.
Sadly, piracy simply can't be ignored anymore

"The reason why we don't put copy protection on our games isn't because we're nice guys. We do it because the people who actually buy games don't like to mess with it. Our customers make the rules, not the pirates. Pirates don't count," Wardell said in March of last year. "When [Sins of a Solar Empire] popped up as the number-one best selling game at retail a couple weeks ago, a game that has no copy protect whatsoever, that should tell you that piracy is not the primary issue."

Now it seems as if he was being incredibly naive. Piracy all but crushed the infrastructure Stardock had given Demigod, hurt the perception of the online play for fans who bought the game the first day of release, and lead to at least one lower-scoring review than expected.

Are antipiracy measures the answer? Not likely. Any bit of DRM added to a game will be cracked, and will only annoy legitimate customers. What about selling through Steam? It's possible it could have curbed the piracy, but Stardock has its own digital distribution platform, and publishers shouldn't be forced to run to Valve in order to avoid the pirates. Switch focus to consoles, where piracy has a higher barrier of entry? Equally unappealing: Stardock titles are a natural fit for the PC, and require a mouse and keyboard to control well.

What's frustrating is that there doesn't seem to be any semi-workable solution, other than to spend time and money supporting a vast user-base that isn't willing to buy your product. While we can simply wring our hands with worry, this is Brad Wardell's livelihood. He doesn't have the luxury of saying there isn't a good solution; it's his job to find one... and he hasn't slept in two days.

[El_Cid]

Clarifications:

1. The 18,000 figure is the # of concurrent users at the peak. On the Steam stats page, for instance, you can see the peak concurrent users on titles that talk to Steam:

Quote:
Current Players Peak Today Game

81,543 90,824 Counter-Strike: Source
57,343 68,662 Counter-Strike
18,788 23,755 Football Manager 2009
14,577 15,606 Empire: Total War
14,394 16,430 Left 4 Dead
11,860 14,030 Team Fortress 2
So just above Empire Total War in terms of peak connections (game just launched so it's not a surprise).

#2
The infrastructure was designed to handle up to 50,000 of these connections.

But on day 0, there were around 140,000 concurrent users of which 18,000 are validated.

Pirated users can't get updates or play multiplayer but they still touch the servers.

So over the first 24 hours, we had to essentially scrap together a doppleganger of the infrastructure dedicated to Demigod's multiplayer network needs, release an update to legitimate users to point them to it.

The result was that in the first day, day and a half, users couldn't connect to each other (the connection servers would time out) and even the in game experience was horrible getting through menus and such because even a simple HTTP keep alive call (something as simple as a http call to check for the latest version to inform users if there's a new version) would cause the in game UI to hang.

The consequence is two-fold: First, early customers got a TERRRIBLE experience. Second, the reviews (notably Gamespot) based their review on this terrible experience.

Now today, day 3, it's pretty much taken care of. Users are connecting in multiplayer, the servers are pretty responsive and we're adding more in preparation for the weekend.

If there's any IT people here, they can probably better explain than I can what we've had to do essentially. It's not like we keep a room full of unused servers so the challenge of putting together a duplicate series of servers in 24 hours PLUS Stardock and GPG having to produce an update to the game to point to those servers was quite an undertaking.

Then an update on the Demigod forums about exactly what happened and how they fixed it:

http://forums.demigodthegame.com/347467

I know Brad has already clarified, but I want to further illustrate what I meant before.

Corrected:
Demigod Falls Prey to Piracy - Wired.com

Wrong:
Demigod: 18,000 Customers, 100,000 Pirates - Kotaku
Demigod crippled by over 100,000 pirates - gameindustry.biz
Wardell: Demigod Burdened By More Than 100,000 Pirates - Gamasutra
Hey Demigod Game Pirates, Stop Killing Fun - PC World

or simply search Demigod in Google News.

I know it's Friday night. We shall see how many will update it tomorrow.
On a sidenote, Brad's recent clarification has create huge positive echo in forums. Kudos to you. I hope it will be reflected in sales.

Piracy on PC games, while a pain in the arse isn't the boggy monster most AAA mainstream pro-console sources want you to believe it is. That's not to diminsh that it really is a serious problem, but that it isn't as big a deal as is often made out in press/publisher press releases.

You will always have people who Pirate your game, no matter what you do to stop them(even consoles get the pirate treatment).

Instead of punishing your legitimate paying customers(with nasty DRM, stupid EULA agreements and poor console ports etc), treat them well, make a good game and the amount of money 'lost' to Pirates will be tiny compared to the amount you make from sales. The problem is often that most games are not good games and that curve is a steady upwards climb on the graph.

The 'throw away' nature of current console gaming(often) is also a contributing factor.

[Asher]

Fact is, Brad Wardell is overrated, his system is buggy and amateurish, and Demigod is an awful game.