If it quacks like a duck…

It’s not always a duck.

And at least a few of the big dogs on the porch agree – starting with the 1 ton gorilla on the block, Blizzard.  Frank Pearce, the executive producer for World of Warcraft and co-founder of Blizzard, confirmed that Starcraft 2, which is due to ship this July, will not require the same “always on” digital rights management (DRM) system that Ubisoft uses. The game will require a single online activation using the Battlenet servers and that, apparently, will be it. Hopefully, the industry will take not just a note, but the whole symphony from Mr. Pearce’s handbook:

“We need our development teams focused on content and cool features, not anti-piracy technology.” – Frank Pearce, executive producer, World of Warcraft

The Blizzard exec said, “If we’ve done our job right and implemented Battle.net in a great way people will want to be connected while they’re playing the single player campaign…”

Even better news is that there are indeed some development studios that feel the same way – Avalanche Studios (Just Cause, Just Cause 2, The Hunter) being one of them. Cristofer Sundberg, Avalanche Studios co-founder said, “Games have become a luxurious form of entertainment and piracy has scared the market to start implementing ridiculous DRM solutions that only limits the consumers that actually PAY for their games, not stopping the pirates.”

While we here at No Prisoners, No Mercy hope that the rest of the industry follows lead of Messers Pearce and Sundberg, we aren’t going to bet the proverbial farm on it.  Money talks, or so they say, and until the bean counters, be they executives, investors, or both, SEE that DRM bites that hand feeds it, the path blazed by backward thinking companies like Ubisoft is likely to look more appealing.

In the end, however, the song made famous by The Mills Brothers is likely to ring true: You always hurt the one you love.  While the “one” game publishers should love in this case are the consumers, what will change their mind is what they do love most of the time and that is the bottom line.

Expecting “always on” DRM to thwart game piracy is like handing a chef a sledgehammer, daring him to break some eggs with it, and hope that hammer gives out first.  Avalanche exec Sundberg called DRM the “ultimate Rubik cube” for game pirates.  Blizzard Boss Pearce called it a “losing battle”.  Yet still publishers insist on DRM schemes that hurt the consumer more than the target at which they are aimed.  The two likely situations seem to be that game publishers think gamers are apathetic enough to continue to put up with the treatment, or investors are stupid enough to believe that such extreme measures work.  While the former of the two is more likely, we really hope we are wrong, and you will see the pig for what it is – vote with your wallet.

The No Prisoners, No Mercy Team

Welcome to the wet feet edition.

Why wet feet? For many reasons, not the least of which are the background sounds used by Turbine. 

Have you ever been to or acted in a high school drama production? Remember what the high school acting coach used to tell students to say to make “crowd sounds”?  During more than one production we saw the dramatis personae on stage muttering “peas and carrots, peas and carrots”.  Most of the time it makes us wonder why the students are so hungry.   Even game developers use “crowd sounds”.  Have you ever spent any time in the auction house in Lord of the Rings Online? Next time listen to the background sounds.  From day one of the beta we have been listening to the same person say “feet wet” in the back ground. So on to the first set of wet feet…

Is Zynga wading out of the water?

You always have to be careful when you are quoting a “source from a source”.  It‘s kind of like having a guy, who knows a guy, who knows a guy, who has a distant obscure relative.  When you are quoting an “anonymous quote” that has been deemed to be “largely accurate” you have to be as careful as a long tail cat in a room full of rocking chairs.  With that lengthy qualification here is the quote, via Tech Crunch:

Pincus announced at a 5pm meeting yesterday at Zynga that Zynga was going to launch a social game network called Zynga Live. The Zynga Live initiative was a social gaming network. Facebook and Zynga has been negotiating on Facebook Credits and the talks turned for the worst. In the negotiation process, Facebook shut off Zynga’s feeds and threatened to shut down games. Zynga in the process threatened to completely leave Facebook and prepared to do so in the previous upcoming weeks.  – via Techcrunch.com

Techcrunch is also reporting that the 800 pound gorilla of accessible games, publisher/developer Zynga, may indeed be set to take their massive virtual farm conglomerate, Farmville, and other games, to their own website.  If (and believe me friends that’s one mountain sized if) reports are true, it’s sort of ironic that just as big names like Electronic Arts, who just acquired Facebook games publisher payfish…oops, Playfish…to the tune of $25 million dollars , in preparation for getting their feet wet, that the people who where there when the trend started are preparing to get out of the pool.  It sounds like something we should talk about on The No Prisoners, No Mercy show.  In fact we did, as you will hear on show number 61, already recorded.

Wading into the deep end

The problem with the anonymity of the internet is that you never know who is really who. So while we are pleased that Logan Decker, editor-in-chief of PC Gamer magazine stopped by to read our latest tirade on Ubisoft’s draconic rights…er…digital rights management we can only hope it was really him. Regular readers and listeners, will, of course, know that we first wrote about Ubisoft’s DRM in an article entitled “Kiss us first”. What really lit a fire under our collective butts, however, was the affect this had on active duty military in places like Iraq, spoken about  over at Arstechnica in an article entitled “The Victims of PC Gaming DRM: One Soldiers Story” .  So yes, in the end we will all admit this issue has us hopping mad.  We didn’t want Mr. Decker’s comment to get lost in the shuffle so here it is :

I’d like to add that I do sympathize with developers very much on the issue of piracy. I can only imagine what it must be like to work your ass off for years on a game — especially a great game like Assassin’s Creed 2 — or to risk tens of millions of dollars and your professional reputation publishing one, only to see it casually exchanged after its release. I get that.

My point wasn’t to pick on Ubi over this DRM, but only to bemoan the terrible effect this DRM can have on the experience for PC gamers, and to do our part to encourage the growth of alternatives like Steam, Cerberus, et al.

Later gators!
Logan

If we raised a ruckus over Ubisoft and DRM, it is only right that we toot someone’s horn loudly when they do a good thing that addresses the same issue.

You all know, of course, how near and dear to our hearts we hold the independent game developers out there. Not convinced? Listen to show 60.  If you haven’t heard of The Humble Bundle by now, head on over to Arstechnica and read all about it here .  For those of you who refuse to go over to the link here is the first paragraph explaining  The Humble Bundle:

“A group of indie developers are selling a package of their games which includes some of the biggest independent games on the market. Gamers can name their own price—from 1¢ to $1,000—for a pack of games that would go for around $80 if sold separately. Anyone who buys the package can feel better about themselves as well; customers can send any amount of their purchases to two major nonprofit groups.” – Michael Thompson, Humble Bundle: greatest sale of indie games ever?

O.K. , Show of hands – a bundle of software, all games that are already popular in their own right; put out there on the web with the only price “pay what you want”  and no DRM whatsoever? Who thinks the developers won’t make a nickel? O.K. now everyone put your hands down because they made over a million dollars. Sadly, there was some pirating of the humble bundle; we won’t lie to you (what two nuns lie? NEVER) .   But in the end it appears that there is at least some good left in the gaming community. Perhaps, just perhaps, in the minds of some of the big triple-A game developers and publishers (and yes maybe even investors) this will convince them to seek other avenues to insuring revenues rather than unreasonable DRM.

The No Prisoners, No Mercy Team

Side Note

There are many things that I have woken up to in my life – some BN and some AN (before nun and after nun).  In the BN days there have been times I was awakened by a garbage can being thrown down an isle by an angry drill sergeant.  The most startling of sights I ever woke up to in those days is a hallway filled with smoke. One of the nicer things that I regularly wake up to is a small dog who alternatively licks my face because she wants to get up, or moans because she doesn’t.

This morning I was awoken by something much different. At 4:00 am I woke to the sound of a nearby fire department sounding a periodic horn blast that sounded a flash flood warning. I can’t say it was a sound sleep, because our guard dog was busy making the rounds between the rooms, one of the stops being on my bed; and the worst the storms got, the quicker went the rounds.

As diligent as he is, even our guard dog needs a break now and then – and sometimes that break comes in the middle of the proverbial dark and stormy night. During a lull in the storm he decided that he should “get while the gettin’ is good” as grandmother used to say. 

Our guard dog has a particular quirk.  He certainly takes his duties seriously, his usual reaction to someone he thinks doesn’t belong on the premises is to offer to “rip them a new one”.  Outside the storm had indeed calmed, if only for a moment – long enough for the guard dog’s odd quirk to come into play.  After all, even guard dogs need to answer the proverbial call of nature.  Out the front door we went. We both stood there on the front walk. I looked at him, he looked at me, as if to say “and just what are we doing out here?”  Now knowing that it is merely a momentary calm I urged the dog into action, with no results whatsoever.  The thing is, you see, while there are plenty of walk ways on which to relieve himself he simply prefers the grass. That in itself is not unusual, of course, as most dogs prefer the same. The difference is, as brave as our guard dog is, he simply doesn’t like to get his feet wet.  

A lighting strike just over head sent both I and the guard dog into the house like…well, like a bolt of lightning – And right into the anxious Boston Terrier waiting just inside the front door. You see the guard dog isn’t our only dog.  The second is a Boston Terrier that weighs all of 16 pounds soaking wet. A fact she was anxious to prove.  Lighting strikes nearby? She didn’t care.  Pouring rain? Please. Sound of someone or something rattling around in nearby bushes? Kid stuff. 

Yes, the sound of something in the nearby bushes.

The rain started up again. Nearby, no doubt, some wild animal tried to arrange itself to stay fairly dry in the shelter of the building’s eaves.  Fifteen pounds or one hundred and fifty, it didn’t matter to the small terrier what it was – she was ready to take it on.

The guard dog starts his training with the Boston Terrier next week.

 (For the record, the dog above is not our guard dog, merely a clever picture I found on the internet.)

Just as you were getting over the hurt – just when you said to yourself, “O.K. Ubisoft used and abused me, but hey, she’s French so you have got to expect that right?”… 

It happens all again.

Here is an excerpt from an article over at Kokatu.com.

In a post over on Command & Conquer 4′s forums, EA community manager Apoc writes “First thing to be clear about, Command & Conquer 4 has NO DRM. Zip, zero, zilch, none.”

Sounds great! Until, a few lines later, he says this. “To play Command & Conquer 4, the computer needs to be connected to the internet.”

Uh. Apoc. If the publisher is imposing limitations on when and how a game can be played, it’s DRM. While it’s unclear how often you’d need to be connected – whether it’s just at startup, or whether it requires a constant connection – what is clear is you’d still need a connection at some stage. So laptop gaming is out. As is playing when your internet connection is down. – Plunkett, Kokatu.com

Maybe all this only means you need to be connected at startup, but it appears not. Most of the sources we see are saying otherwise.

In fact we discussed this very issue on show 56 (nearly through the lengthy editing process).   Maybe we should have expected the gaming equivalent of Robin Williams early years out of Ubisoft (always need to be on).  Maybe we should have said to ourselves what does a French company care about American soldiers in isolated areas of the world who can’t play some silly game, let alone American gamers. After all, those soldiers aren’t protecting French freedom right? Yes friends just as I was getting used to the pain, it seems that I am going to have to go out and buy what grandma used to call “an inflatable donut”.  You must have seen them – those inflatable round rings that you can sit in because yet another gaming company decided to shove one up our collective posteriors? Perhaps that’s not what they are used for but personally we expect a run on them down at the local Wallmart now that Command and Conquer 4 is on the shelves.  Originally my thought was that EA was going to ship a free inflatable donut with each copy of the game.

Now that we think about it however…

They did so well with Spore that the best course of action would be to simply ship the game with the code to crack the “always connected” DRM, after all, it’s probably already out there.

The No Prisoners, No Mercy Team

While Ubisoft is busy showing us their middle finger these days, it seems that the collector’s edition of Silent Hunter 5 is being shown the door in Germany.  It seems that someone at Ubisoft forgot to account for the German constitution and left in images that violate the same – that’s one heck of an “oops”.  This, of course, comes on the heels of a denial of service attack on those same Ubisoft servers that Assassins Creed 2 customers are required to keep in contact with for every minute that the software is in use.

Meanwhile Gabe Newell, who founded Valve along with Mike Harrington, was busy accepting his Pioneer Award at the Gamers Choice Awards…where he took a few moments to sound out about, amongst other issues, digital rights management.  In an article over at Arstechnicayou can take a look at the picture of Mr. Newell with the screen behind him sporting foot high letters that spell out “DRM is entertainment as dis-service”.  Here is a quote garnered by Ben Kuchera:

“One thing that you hear [Valve] talk a lot about is entertainment as a service, it’s an attitude that says ‘what have I done for my customers today?’” he said. “It informs all the decisions we make, and once you get into that mindset it helps you avoid things like some of the Digital Rights Management problems that actually make your entertainment products worth less by wrapping those negatives around them.” – Gabe Newell, via Arstechnica.com

A bit closer to home, because it is closer to our hearts, is a whole different set of initials: ADA.  It appears that Sony was forced to dip its toe in the waters of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in Stern vs. Sony. If you haven’t read the article about it over at Terra Novayou should (that’s an order from the nuns at No Prisoners, No Mercy).  The article is by “Greglas” and is entitled is Everquest II a place of public accommodation.  In short the answer, at least in California is “no”.  But it appears that the answer is not a final no but more like our mothers “I will think about it” no.  As the article reports, in other states like our home state of Illinois, the ADA is not limited to physical structures.  In Stern vs. Sony, Judge Percy Anderson relied “on past decisions in California courts interpreting the ADA”. Judge Anderson concluded that the ADA did not apply in this case because “SOE games are not physical places or services connected to physical places”.

Mind you no one here is a lawyer, but our own Julie has had to deal with ADA on a professional basis on prior occasions (and was raised by a mother with cerebral palsy).  One operative phrase that might end up being applied, even if the “is cyberspace a public place” hurdle can be passed is reasonable accommodation. Even if courts do eventually find that the ADA applies to Cyberspace as well as physical space will the “reasonable accommodation test” be applied? In other words if it were applied (and we have no idea if it would be) what could Sony be reasonably expected to do to accommodate needs which were the subject of the lawsuit? Interesting changes may be “afoot”.

See you online,

The No Prisoners, No Mercy Team

Brand recognition of a different sort...

Many of our regular readers and listeners may have noticed that we tend to have  very pro-developer viewpoints lately…especially where there is some doubt in any given issue.  After all, as grandmother used to say, you get more industry professionals with honey than you do with vinegar (or was that flies…in any case the expression works either way). But this is one time where there is no doubt that the developer and publisher are solidly in the wrong.

*rummages around in her old duffle bag, gets out her bdu’s, and puts on her uniform.*

My strongest feelings on the matter, as you know from prior posts, come from reading articles over at Ars Technica that served as a slap in the face and a strong reminder not to forget my roots, nor the people serving over seas in places like Afghanistan.   Ars Technica has another article out today that caught my eye when the news feeds crossed my desk concerning the recent “outage” of Ubisoft servers – here is an excerpt (you can read the entire article here):

Ars Technica contacted Ubisoft to ask about the issue, and we were told that the issue wasn’t simply a server malfunction. “This ‘failure’ was due to a massive DDoS attack on our servers,” an Ubisoft spokesperson told Ars. “Our servers didn’t go down but 5 percent of the overall people attempting to connect received denial of service errors. This is, of course, unacceptable and our teams are working around the clock to ensure it doesn’t happen again.” – Ben Kuchera, Arstechnica.com

Ubisoft, per the same article, goes on to say the following:

“We worry about our customers and apologize to anyone who couldn’t play ACII or SH5yesterday. All in all, we hope people understand all this is done to preserve the future of PC gaming.” – Ubisoft

Now it may have rained here yesterday, but no one on staff on the No Prisoners, No Mercy team came down with it.  This isn’t about perserving anything but a draconian attempt at preserving the line on the quarterly profit and loss statement that reads “Net profit before depreciation.”  If anything it is a surefire way to drive off customers and drive a nail into what some in the main stream media already see as a nail in the P.C. Gaming coffin.   If Ubisoft were worried about their customers they wouldn’t be using the bizarre form of “Brand Recognition” that refers to an attempt to shove a hot brand up the nether regions of the gaming public.

It is, of course, their game, their product, and they have a right to do whatever they want with it.  They have the right to tell us that we can’t play their games unless we first put it all in a large paper bag, bring it out on the front lawn, twirl it above our heads and scream like a chicken (one no-prize to the first person that can tell us what 1960′s television show that line is from).  Even if the execs at Ubisoft making the decision to have an “always need to be connected” DRM failed to learn the lesson that Spore taught Electronic Arts – perhaps then names like Asherons Call 2, Earth and Beyond, Auto Assault, Tabula Rasa, and lately There.com will ring a bell.   Now many of you will point out that those names are all mmos and this is supposed to be a single player game. 

What is important about all those names is this…

There are some companies in game development industry, with names like Cryptic and Icarus, that listen to thier customers, and do so intently.  But sadly there are still some companies that develop what I have come to think of as the “Activision 800 pound gorilla” attitude.  They feel they can do whatever they want, treat (or more appropriately mis-treat) their customers in whatever manner they chose and we will all just bend over and take it up the bum.  Hopefully the market will teach Ubisoft a lesson that you don’t treat customers like something that crawled out from under a rock and then say “But we care…no really.”

*update*  Those reading the article may ask themselves, “What would it take to make you happy?” Or perhaps “How about a solution other than removing the DRM altogether?”  Want to keep us happy?  The Ubisoft CEO should apologize to veterans and active duty military everywhere and offer a free copy of Silent Hunter 5 to any active duty service member in a hardship tour for a limited time – and furnish a special (but complete) “military copy” that does not require an active connection.  As a further suggestion, Ubisoft could perhaps make the military copy require a disk check with a limited number of installs, upgradeable by request of the active duty service member.

See you online,

Julie Whitefeather

Side Note:

Side Notes

We here at No Prisoners, No Mercy would like to thank Rubi Bayer, and Massively.com for the kindness of featuring show number 55 on thier web site.   We had a fantastic time recording the show and I must say that Glen Swan had us salivating at the thought of playing there upcoming mmo “The Secret World” by the end of the show.

Thanks again.