Nerdrage: The Backlash

So GOG is back in business. Back to normal, I guess. But now a lot of users are aware of the fragility of downloadable games. After this ill-advised PR strunt, a lot of fans have now become haters, stating that they won't buy anything from them ever again because they feel betrayed. Yes, it was not nice, but I think they are overreacting, because we only lost access to downloads for a few days, and some trust. The games are still there, no-DRM and all.

I've read some great comments in RPS, but in this case comparatively few users have stopped to think about this in a calm manner. One of them named "Kurina" wrote this opinion. I couldn't agree more:

I am definitely not a fan of the actions they have taken, temporarily closing down their website and leaving a cryptic message. It was not the smartest move, and has brought them some bad PR that they really do not need.

On that note though, I believe people are also overreacting to some degree. While access to the service was suspended, the website also clearly stated that games would be able to be downloaded again this Thursday. This was never in question or hinted at by cryptic statements. Games and accounts were not lost, and everyone would still be able to claim titles they purchased in the past.

This does bring to light how fragile our dependence on these services are though. All it takes is one problem, decision, or marketing stunt to impede our access to games. I hope many people are beginning to realize how they truly are putting all their eggs in one basket, by focusing on services such as Steam. The interesting part being, at least with GOG, their stunts do not prevent you from playing downloaded and archived games. If another service did this, good luck reinstalling and accessing them in the future.

While I do not appreciate the stunt, this will not prevent me from purchasing GOG titles in the future, solely for the fact that I know I can back them up and play games indefinitely regardless of what happens to the company itself.

I knew this would happen...

...but this was much sooner than I expected.

GOG is down. I repeat, GOG is down.

I knew about the risks of spending money to buy non-physical games, and I wrote about them. But I never expected something like this to happen so soon, and I never expected it to happen to GOG. I trusted them. Many people trusted them, because they seemed to care about customers, and they were so nice... This shows the main issue against digital purchases: you are just "renting" the games and they could take them away from you unexpectedly.

This is just bad, any way you look at it. Some customers say "oh, but you should keep backups for your games", but then again:

-If I wanted to do that, I wouldn't buy digital games in the first place, I'd buy discs with nice cover art and goodies.
-I own 150+ games on GOG. How long would it take to download all those games, and where do I put them? Should I buy a couple of hard disk drives just for them? And hard disks fail after a while, you know.

We are now waiting to see if this is just a really stupid PR stunt for the end of the Beta stage or something, but nobody is OK with this. The trust is gone. We've been warned about the risks, and many people will think twice about buying digital next time.

They thought nobody would notice

Have you heard about the Max Payne 2 launch file fiasco? It's funny how Rockstar, a company that really, really hates piracy (just listen to the radio in GTA IV... They hate pirates as much as republicans!) finds it much easier to use the cracked files from pirates than to create their own no-cd files.

Well, I don't know if there's any relation, but last week I decided to install Manhunt. I want to get to the end of that game! (I've tried twice, but I got bored every time...) After that, I didn't try to play for a few days, and when I did, I was surprised to find that Steam re-downloaded the launch file for this already old (and probably no longer updated) game.

So... what do you think about this? Are they replacing the .exe files for their other games because they are also cracked by pirates, just in case they are, or what? I don't know what to think.

UPDATE: The plot thickens! More Rockstar games are having autoupdate issues!

To be frank, I didn't mind about the Myth launch file, but I do mind about my games not working properly. What is happening now is for me the PR disaster, not the original "problem".

DRM insanity: The lifetime limit

The DRM nightmare is just starting. You just can't buy games anymore: you rent them. Last week I was going to buy the nice downloadable Final Fight port, but I found a disturbing message in the game description offered through the Spanish Playstation Store: You are limited to download this game in 5 PS3 systems. WHAAAT?!! So there's a limit imposed on me. I call that "renting", not buying, folks. So I had to buy the game using my USA PSN account, because they didn't show any message saying that (or I hope I haven't missed it). But then I found out: it's crippled anyway. (UPDATE: Since I bought the game, they updated the description to let you know that the same stupid limitations apply in the good old USA. Just be amazed at how complicated it is: "One time fee for download or use solely by the purchasing PSN account on up to five PS3 units, with no more than one activated PS3 unit within a 24 hour period. Content may not be used by any other account. If you do not wish to accept all those terms, do not purchase this item.")

And with the same really stupid DRM that made a lot of people hate Ubisoft, no less! So you thought you were safe because you owned a console? Think again! At this point in history, April 2010, no internet connection is constant . Is it that difficult to understand?

So, OK, let's say that I go with that stupidity. As you say, I'll "buy" my games for 5 consoles or computers. Let's say I buy now another console and I start buying games with a 5 system limit, I don't care. What would happen if Sony decided that I'm not allowed to buy any additional PS3 consoles? That would be absurd, right?

Well, think again. Apple is doing exactly that.

You probably are wondering, "why would anyone want to buy six iPads, or even just one?". Well, consumers are free to do whatever they want. Or, I should say, they were. Do you realize that paying customers are being manhandled in a way never seen before? We are going down a road that ends with us getting screwed.

Someone has to put a stop to that. So, I say, please stop buying anything with any form of DRM. There are alternatives to everything. If you want to play Assassin's Creed II, buy the console version. If you want to buy Final Fight... Well, why would Capcom even want to protect Final Fight from pirates now? Just everybody has been playing it for free using MAME for years!!!

Seriously, companies putting DRM in their products are just screwing everybody, themselves included. Please stop that. Please.

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.

PS3 is down! I repeat, PS3 is down!

What the hell is going on? It looks like the PS3 has its own Y2K glitch!

Is there anything more annoying for a gamer than the Xbox 360 3 ROD thing? Well, it looks like if you have an old PS3 and you allow its internal date to advance from February 28th to March 1st, you are screwed too. The date is sent back to the year 2000, you can't play some games and you lose all the trophies you haven't synchronized with Sony's servers. More importantly, you can't access the PlayStation Network. If that's the case, how will I be able to download the fix for the problem when it's available?

This really sucks. Now, I can't use my PS3 until they fix this. I can't believe they didn't plan for something like this in advance. Also, some people think this problem is the consequence of anti-piracy measures out of control. And they may be right. Well, if you are affected by this, you can follow the story with frequent updates in Kotaku. Now I guess I'll have a rest from Assassin's Creed 2 and play some KOTOR on Steam.

But what will happen if Steam goes down too? Depending on a "global network" can be bad on these occasions.

I love what a guy called Mr. Winters said in a forum: "No, seriously... This is unbelievable, a kick in the nuts for Sony. The Xbox design flaw was (is) a more serious issue, that slow death, that invisible cancer... but this meltdown, simultaneous, global, explosive... was spectacular!"

Ubisoft vs PC gamers

Ubisoft thinks you are going to like this.

Well, NO. We are not going to like this.

Ubisoft wants PC gamers to be constantly connected to their internet servers. If not, BAM! You are expelled from the game. That is stupid on so many levels... If you want to stop it before it's too late, try to get organized, and do something that may work.

I respect Ubisoft. One of my first games was Zombi, a shameless rip-off adapting George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead to 8-bit computers. Yes, at that time Ubi Soft was a new French company "inspired" by B movies (they also released Manhattan 95, a transparent adaptation of John Carpenter's Escape from New York) and with very little shame.

For me, Ubisoft means imagination, risk... Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, XIII, Beyond Good & Evil... A company that combines commercial tripe and cash-ins with innovation and imagination. But they can be also evil. Their PC DRM schemes are usually as annoying as possible: They put Tages in XIII, Starforce in Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, SecuROM on FarCry 2... But that was nothing compared to this.

In 2005 I decided I wouldn't play pirated games anymore. I've sticked to that, and now I purchase all my games on Steam. But if they also include SecuROM and those stupid activation limits, I'm out (well, unless they sell it for $3.75...). When you have Steam, you don't really need any other DRM, and even that is too much.

I used to buy those expensive House M.D. DVD box-sets, but when I put a disc in the DVD player I always had to watch an unskippable anti-piracy ad, the annoying "You wouldn't steal a car" one, every single time. Well, I like to watch a whole series in a short time, so I watched two or three episodes every day. At the end of the week, I had seen that bloody video a dozen times. And I was thinking all the time, "But I bought this! The people who get these episodes from the internet don't have to endure this crap".

Then, I bought the third and the fourth season, and... they had repeated or missing discs (!) and several packaging defects. I tried to contact Universal, but they ignored me. Are you surprised that I stopped buying House M.D., or any other Universal series for that matter? Of course not.

Ubisoft will be surprised when their customers do the logical thing. I won't.