The new censorship

As you can see in the comments from users here, the Steam software forces you to upgrade your version of Plants vs Zombies to the GOTY release even if you don't want it. Yes, even if you have disabled automatic updates for that game. They have blatantly ignored the choice made by players to keep the old version of the game, following the rules set by Valve to handle Steam.

This kind of disregard for what the player wants, taking advantage of the power they hold when they fully control your access to the games, is what makes me skeptical about digital downloads. They can tamper with your game in any way they think appropriate. Now they are saying, "oh, sorry, some character in the game may get us sued so we are removing it", but at some point you can log in to your game account and be confronted with a disclaimer telling you that "sorry, a big Earthquake killed 100,000 people in California so the Quake games are in bad taste and you can no longer play them". Or maybe one day you try to play "Rock and Roll Part 2" in a Guitar Hero / Rock Band game but then Gary Glitter is arrested for molesting a child, so then the song gets patched out of the game because some parents complained about it... You know what I mean!

And then I, as a player, will yell "stop screwing me! I just want to play my game in peace! Don't take anything away from me!". But now there's nothing I can do, because in the digital era nobody can hear you scream.

The first day we die

Today is an important day. Online support for the original Xbox ends forever.

You may think this is not too important. Who would want to play those old games when you can have bigger and better new games? Well, many people. Most people won't care, but just think about the future repercussions of this new age of gaming. If I wanted to do so, I could get a old computer or console (Amstrad CPC, Spectrum, C-64, NES...), plug it in, and start playing my old collection of games. I could do that now, just as I could in 1988, and I will be able to do the same in 2018.

Now think about the current generation of games. The Modern Warfare online matches that you love so much. World of Warcraft. Anything with online features. Just think of the future.

2016: Microsoft issues an statement: "Xbox Live is no longer supported. Additionally, we assume that gaming with controllers is a thing of the past, so hand-held controlling devices are no longer supported either. We know what today's gamers want and we'll continue offering the best service for our Natal 2015 gaming interface."

2021: Steam is bought out by Microsoft. All non-Games For Windows Live and Mac games stop being supported. Also, all games released before 2012 stop being offered for download. A 30-day period is offered for users to backup all their games, because they won't be able to access them anymore afterwards.

This is not a paranoid fantasy. If you think about the current gaming landscape, you know it's true. We know rely on the online functionality not only to get the essential patches to avoid those annoying game-breaking bugs, but to even activate the game. But now we are starting to see that online is not forever. Servers are shut down, companies go under, and we have literally no guarantees that the games we buy now will still work in five years.

Just think about it.


...

It didn't take long, did it?

Only 3 days after the European PC release date, the strange/stupid DRM imposed by Ubisoft has already screwed the users, who can't play the game. I guess they didn't expect so many people to buy the game or something (the Ubisoft rep said something about "excepcional demand"), as some people were saying on the forums that they really didn't mind about this form of DRM and that they would buy this great game (one of the best from 2009, that's for sure!) anyway. Well, I wouldn't be surprised if those same users are saying right now "This is the last Ubisoft game I buy!"

Let me tell you a little story. I always have some hot chocolate and toast for breakfast. And my toast used to have some "Philadelphia" cheese on it for a really long, long time. A few months ago, my supermarket stopped carrying the old boxy Philadelphia and started selling a new format. It looks like they also fiddled with the recipe, because only a few days after opening it, the cheese started getting mouldy. Was it a bad batch? Well, I bought a different type of Philadelphia (probably the diet version, or maybe one of the bizarre variations you can find in Germany), and I had the same problem.

You know what? I haven't eaten any Philadelphia cheese since then. I haven't put anything else over my toast for ten years, and now they lost me because they fiddled with the product for reasons that are not clear to me.

See what I am getting at? Ubisoft wanted to re-invent PC gaming to offer... nothing but a half-baked, big-brothery DRM scheme. Which nobody asked for. So yes, Ubisoft still offers some of the best games around, but we are not going to pay for something that is liable to stop working at any time while offering me nothing in return but some cloud-saving that I don't really need. I haven't played Far Cry 2 yet because of the 5 computers activation limit, and I won't play Splinter Cell: Conviction because of this mess.

Ubisoft, don't be stupid and don't fight Activision for the #1 Baddie spot.