Posts Tagged ‘Ubisoft’

Tiger has Tanked

 

Those of you who are old enough will remember the commercial from the 60’s that touted the slogan “put a tiger in your tank”. Now it seems the Tiger has indeed tanked but this time its Tiger Woods.  It was just late last year that Howard Rubenstein,   Chairman of the famed public relations firm Rubenstein Communications, inc.  was quoted by ABC news as saying, “He [Tiger Woods] is beyond PR redemption. He is in public relations hell right now. There is not a PR man on Earth who can restore his image,” said public relations maven Howard Rubenstein.

And so what?

Activision has the Modern Warfare series, Nintendo has that famous plumber Mario, Electronic Arts has Madden, FIFA and the Sims series.  What is missing from the list? The series based on he of the self destructing reputation – Tiger Woods.  Who knew that the “family man” whose reputation was once as pure as the driven snow was only as thin as siding made from onion skin paper? It seems that in the first two quarters of 2010 fans have spoken. Fans have been teed off at the Tiger, who has smacked his ball, seemingly irrevocably, in to the rough. Cowen and Company analyst Doug Creutz  is quoted in Edge  discussing the June release of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 and it’s 68 percent decline in the first month since last year’s version. “The 86 per cent decline on the Wii was particularly catastrophic,” said Creutz. I wonder how long it will be before we the famed golf series being given out as free prizes with every box of Wheaties cereal.  It just goes to prove the sage advice of my grandmother who pointed out that “there are times when it is best to keep your genes in your jeans.”

Climbing out of the tank

 

Remember the commercial slogan “only her hairdresser knows for sure”?   This is a case of only the CEO knows for sure.  It seems that EA is selling off its 15% stake in French game publisher Ubisoft.  Is it a case of Electronic Arts climbing out of the dip in earnings that the Tiger’s tanking has caused? Perhaps EA knows (or suspects) something about Ubisoft that the rest of us don’t.  Either way, Ubisoft sounds a bit like a jilted lover to me when they said, “we feel that this transaction is in Ubisoft’s best interest”. 

Getting out of Dodge

 

One of the movements we here at No Prisoners, No Mercy have been following closely is the fiasco going on between the U.S. Broadband providers intent on charging American consumers out the wazoo for their services and the FCC (see The Digital Stream becomes a Trickle ). With Google and Skype on the other side (and Steve Jobs oddly enough fighting for deregulation) it seems that Netflix has taken steps to get away from the foul odor that has been blowing in the wind.  Like many American households we had out cable provider pull their cable out; shortly after which we switch internet providers.  More than a few homes across the U.S. must be following in suit if broadband providers are attempting to take up the slack by hiking the rates like a field goal kicked over the moon.  Netflix is “getting out of dodge” and is moving its movies and television shows in an expansion to our neighbors to the north – Canada. So far it seems to just be a matter of expansion in to other markets, but I can tell you that if we here at NPNM can’t get our streaming we will be screaming.

 

Blowing in the solar wind

 

The artwork formerly known as walking in station…

…now known as Incarna has reared its head once more. Eve’s new Senior Producer CCP Zulu (the dev formerly known as Zulupark) has been discussing playing walking on stations and fighting on planets in the latest devBlog .  Be it known that as of August 17^th CCP will have 90 developers working on making sure players can one day walk in stations, and that friend, is a lot of manpower (and presumably womanpower).  Apparently CCP is serious about Incarna and here is the reason that CCP Zulu gives:

 

“To achieve our goal of EVE being a complete sci-fi experience we must have full body avatars. When we talk to people who like the concept of science fiction games but aren’t attracted to EVE, it becomes obvious that there is a need gap that can best be filled by having a character to associate with rather than a spaceship, and I would venture there are many existing players who want this option as well.” – CCP Zulu

Personally I have been hoping for this for a long time…a long, long time. So long, in fact that I have given up on it and simply considered if vaporware; relegating it to the same category as the little boy who yelled wolf a few thousand times.  But word around the blogosphere is that many of the zero security players would be happy if it never came out – one website insisting that CCP would never pay the pvpers any mind at all.  There may be more grouse out there than a bird sanctuary amongst some of the players out there, but this is something that the rest of us who help pay CCP bills have been looking forward to since we first set virtual foot on a frigate.

Who’s on first?

Apparently CCP is on first – or at least they intend to be.  As all Eve players know, CCP recently launched their planetary interaction in preparation for linking Eve Online with their impending console game, Dust 514.  Even though the good folks at CCP have already stated they don’t expect Dust 514 to do well they are committed to quality over quantity – that and being the first developer to link a console game to a mmo. Here is what CCP Zulu had to say:

“Let that sink in for a minute. CCP is the first company in the world to do something like this. First. Ever. The „resource cost” on the EVE side for that is a team continuing on development of the Planetary Interaction feature (the primary link between the two) for the next three releases, delivering immediate, meaningful value into EVE Online and making game development history while they‘re at it.” – CCP

Planetary Inaction

When I was a youngster the toy stores all sported these large rings of plastic hanging in racks called “hula hoops”. The concept was to put it around your waist and gyrate in such a manner as to keep it aloft through the use of centrifugal force…this was called fun you see. The problem was, even as a child with a vivid imagination (of which I had in abundance) it was fun for about a minute and a half. Then it was just a boring pain the ass. 

When planetary interaction was first introduced with slick trailers that would make even Paramount motion pictures proud I bought into the hype.  Like many others I had images of claiming my own planet. It was a misconception which CCP purposefully encouraged amongst players, even to the point of calling it a “land rush”.  I bought into the hype with great hope; certain I could pull isk out of the planets much like I could asteroids.  In the end, nothing was further from the truth. The money I could pull out of a colony in one week was less than what I could profit from one wreck in a level 3 mission. The profit margin was such that it would take me about a decade of real time just to break even. And normally there might not be anything wrong with that, if process of planetary interaction was fun.  Oh it was fascinating at first to be true. But then, much like the hula-hoop it got old fast – it didn’t make any money, and quickly became a pain to manage.  While it was nice to get the limited edition planetary interaction ship, as all regular Eve Players know, no matter how well the execute the design of a limited edition ship of that sort, it is a waste of hanger space.  All they end up being is a target for players who just want to make their day by ruining someone else’s. At this point if a Dust514 player wants my Eve Colony they are welcome to it.

Early re-adopters

Early re-adopters is not my phrase to be sure, it was coined (as far as I know) by Dr. Richard Bartle. To be sure CCP is the first to link a console game and an mmo.  It may be that, like Zynga, they are one of the first developers/publishers to say “wouldn’t it be great if…” and that is what they seem to be banking on.  Certainly they know their own market. I am overjoyed they want to address the desires of that sector of the market that, “like the concept of science fiction games but aren’t attracted to EVE.”

World first or not, it seems you would want to fix what you have before you attempt to pull in players from a new market. And if CCP does players from new markets then things are going to have to change.  When I consider “who gives a rat’s ass” attitude toward new players victimized by suicide gankers, the words of the Ancient Gaming Noob come to mind:

“And you can take the cliché attitudes that people throw around in EVE.  Don’t fly what you cannot afford to lose.  Don’t ever assume you are safe outside of a station.  Don’t AFK.  EVE is about PvP.  Sandbox, landmines, blah blah blah. But all that amounts to is throwing a teaspoon of kitty litter over the steaming cow turd that is the loophole in the way things work in EVE Online.” – The Ancient Gaming Noob

Walking around in stations just might pull in a new breed of player for a “look see” but it will never keep them there. The first time a player ventures over from Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic and finds themselves the victims of a suicide gank, or a swindle that is “just part of the game” said new player will leave the game so fast it will set new land speed records.

So why do I stay around? Why pay a parking fee and the training game? Well the fact of the matter is that it runs in cycles. The last time out I worked a player up until I could mine in tech 2 ships.  This time out I have worked my way up the training scale until I can zoom around the universe in tech 2 ships at 6,000 m/sec. But it is starting to look like I am reaching the end of another cycle. I find myself logging in less and less in what has become a summer mmo doldrum. In the end I think the only reason I keep coming back is that one day CCP just might engender comments like “Gee I wish I had paid more attention to that ‘Jobs’ kid back when he was working in his garage.”

See you online,

Julie Whitefeather

[posted for Julie Whitefeather by The Webmaster]

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

Benjamin Franklin once said, “A penny saved is a penny earned”. But what if every time you saved a penny you had to give one to someone else?

 

Think of it this way – why do people buy used cars? The answer, obviously, is to save money. But what if suddenly the Ford Motor Company decided that it needed a piece of the action every time a used car was sold anywhere.  Imagine Ford imposing a fee every time someone bought a used car from someone else.  Suppose you decided to buy your uncles old Ford f150 truck. You give your uncle 6 grand, he hands you the title and the keys.  Then suddenly, a week later, a letter comes in the mail from Detroit. It seems that Ford has decided you owe them an extra thousand dollars because they want in on the deal.

It would probably go over like the proverbial lead balloon wouldn’t it?

Yet that is exactly what Electronic Arts (EA)  is in the process of doing every time you buy a used console game, and other publishers are following suit.

You see it seems that Gamestop is having a very good year.  In fact, the retailer is reporting an increase in sales in the first quarter of 2010 up to $2.08 billion dollars. This, according to the retailer, represents increased profits of $75.2 million, with a 6.8 percent growth rate. My friends, that is a big piece of pie in anyone’s book and Electronic Arts wants their cut.  There is one slight problem however…

Electronic Arts doesn’t have any right to a slice of that particular pie – yet.

It all starts next month, beginning in June with Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 that will come with a “ one-time use code that will allow gamers to play online on the Xbox 360 or PS3 systems.” (We here at No Prisoners, No Mercy aren’t sure how the dent Tiger has managed to place in his otherwise pristine reputation will affect game sales but that is another matter altogether).  

Eventually, most players will grow tired of the same console game.  In my case there was a time I played Grand Turismo games until the virtual wheels fell off. In the end I donated the games, but the usual process is to sell the games to someplace like Gamestop.  Now when you grow board with Tiger’s new game, or any other EA games that will follow, you will have to buy an online pass directly from EA for $10.00.

Now it seems that Ubisoft likes the idea as well (why am I not surprised?).   According to Gamasutra  Ubisoft CFO Alain Martinez said, “We are looking very carefully at what is being done by EA regarding what we call the ‘$10 solution, and we will probably follow that line at sometime in the future.”

Who we are surprised at being all for the idea is Gamestop.  Games Politics is reporting  that GameStop CEO Dan DeMatteo is “looking forward to the launch of EA’s Online Pass” adding that…

 

“There have been some questions concerning first user only content and the effect on our used business. We have not seen an impact thus far and as a matter of fact, we will turn this into a positive with our ability to sell DLC through our investments made in technology to market and sell this content in our stores.” – GameStop CEO Dan DeMatteo

 

We can all understand why Ubisoft is excited about this new trend in used console games; But Gamestop is another matter. Is it a case of David staring down Goliath, wondering if he can stand up to the giant? Gamestop Chief Operating Officer Paul Raines says otherwise :

“We support the creation of added downloadable content for popular franchises, as we see that as extending the life of titles and broadening the base of game players.  We do not anticipate an impact to our used margins due to this program. The amount of used game buyers currently playing online is low, and as it grows, our proprietary models will manage trade and sale pricing to reach margin goals.” – Gamestop COO Paul Raines

 

So what’s the big deal?

 

The big deal – you may say to yourself at this point, “So what? I don’t play console games.”  Even if your hands never touch any controls but a keyboard it still may be a cause for concern. Why? Those whose favored games fair best on a PC have seen the increase in the $25.00 my sparkly little ponies, and the $10.00 Pandaren Pets . Now our own Sister Fran will be the first to tell you that riding a Celestial Steed is a lot better than riding a rhino (a Kodo for you WoW fans out there).   Now Direct 2 Drive is getting in on the action .  The digital distributer starts with free to play games, adds in “extra digital content”, and sells them to get their cut of the action.  The problem is, apparently, that they are not labeling them as free to play. Here is what their vice president Sutton Trout told Gamasutra:

“In the same way an MMO is an online game, a free-to-play is an online game,” he explained. “The monetization might be slightly different, but at the end of the day, [gamers are] playing online. We named it that [way] for a reason. It would be very confusing to tell our users, ‘free to play channel,’ and then ask for money.” – Direct2Drive Vice President Sutton Trout

 

My grandmother used to call this “squeezing the nickel until the buffalo shits”.  Of course that was back when the nickel had a picture of a buffalo on the back.  Where does the monetization of the video game industry stop? Yes, I understand that the whole point of a business is to make a profit.  Still, we here at No Prisoners, No Mercy are beginning to feel like we will eventually end up buying our games from people in trench coats in dark alleys.

See you online,

Julie Whitefeather

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.)

 

“Last month, PC Gamer took the extraordinary step of recommending against the purchase of an otherwise excellent game, solely on the basis of its obnoxious digital rights management (DRM). The victim was Assassin’s Creed 2, and the perp was the software that required the player to maintain a constant internet connection while player…Ubisoft’s mistake is repeated in this month’s Silent Hunter 5 and The Settlers 7, and it will be attached to next month’s Splinter Cell: Conviction as well.” – Logan Decker, Editor in Chief, PC Gamer Magazine.

Recently I was gifted with one of the few material possessions that you know a nun will use (well at least this nun) – a new subscription to PC Gamer Magazine. With the first edition to arrive in the mail was the good news that one of my favorite columnists, Desslock, has returned.  I was also pleased to see both Logan Decker and Andy Mahood rendering opinions on a subject that is important to us, the treatment (or in this case mistreatment) of you, the customer, by a publisher.

The new editor-in-chief, Logan Decker, lead off his Soapbox column with the quote above.  What caught our eye first, however, was the review of Ubisoft’s newest addition to the Silent Hunter series. Half way through the review I found this quote, under the heading “20,000 bugs under the sea”:

“Even when you do figure things out, SH5’s numerous bugs and missing features will generate further anguish. Chief among these are a broken crew morale feature (that can zero out your crew’s morale rating when loading a saved game), a deck gun that won’t accept AI control and enough AI inconsistencies and screw-ups to scuttle half the Kriegsmarine fleet. This includes AI ships that regularly beach themselves in friendly ports, enemy warships escorts that might passively ignore you after some fresh merchant sinkings and enemy aircraft that’ll sometimes blithely overfly your surface boat” – Andy Mahood, PC Gamer

Now I understand that not every publisher can share the famous Blizzard attitude “It’s ready when it’s ready.”  Still, you would think with all discussion there has been over the last couple of years regarding the over worked buzz word “polish” that Ubisoft would at least lend a modicum of attention to the matter.  Granted, we aren’t talking about an MMO here. However with digital download and down loadable content (DLC) increasingly popular, even though this is a single player/multiplayer game, Ubisoft should still consider itself as selling a service, and not selling players short. But it appears that Ubisoft no longer has a problem doing just that:

“As bad as these game play issues are, they pale in comparison toSH5’s cardinal shortcoming: it’s draconian DRM scheme. PC Gamer can’t recommend purchasing any game using Ubisofts new system, which requires a permanent net connection, where any interruption …There’s a promising simulation lurking under all these hull-popping warts and hiccups, but it looks suspiciously like Ubisoft is counting on its Silent Hunter fan base to effect the major repairs. Too bad you can’t mod out the DRM.” – Andy Mahood, PC Gamer

All this leaves me wondering why a company like Ubisoft would seemly be bent on the self destruction of its reputation.  We aren’t talking about a dev or two who have snubbed members of the blogging community; this isn’t a handful of gamers who have launched a futile and aborted attempt at a boycott.  It has reached the point where even PC Gamer is advising its readers not to buy Ubisoft’s products no matter how good they are – or in the case of Silent Hunter 5, how good they aren’t. Given all of the above, why would you even consider selling a game that is in such an unfinished state as Silent Hunter 5?  Are they truly hoping that the modding community will finish the job for them while Ubisoft moves on to something else?  This has gone way past the concept of someone like Activision head honcho Bobby Kotick telling us all his goal was to take all of the fun out of making games (judging by Activison vs. former Infinity Ward employees he seems to have succeeded).   This has even taken the express train beyond the realm where misguided, and out of touch executives make decisions to please un-informed investors (like the three ring circus going on over at Quest Online these days).

While Ubisoft is busy doing whatever it is doing to impress whoever it is trying to impress with its bizarre business practices, other game publishers have found a practical solution, as Logan Decker points out:

“Let’s look at who’s doing it right. BioWare and EA gave us Mass Effect 2’s Cerberus Network, a pipe through which it can push DLC [download loadable content], patches, new weapons and even new missions – enough to justify another play through! That’s a powerful incentive to buy a legitimate copy because it’s a better product that the pirated version.” – Logan Decker

See you online,

The No Prisoners, No Mercy Team

A couple of items in the news this morning had a quote from the old Marlon Brando movie popping right into our collective heads – “I could have been a contender.”  The reason for this, is that both stories seem to place at least someone involved as a serious contender for the Darwin Awards. The current purveyor of the Darwin Awards can be found here: .   Now we are aware that there are many places that have awarded “Darwin Awards” and we don’t know if this site originated the concept.  However their description of the award is apt:

‘The Darwin Awards salute the improvement of the human genome by honoring those who   
accidentally remove themselves from it…” – www.darwinawards.com

The first contender nearly did remove themselves from the human genome. The second contender, as you will see, may not be in danger of removing themselves from the human genome, but depending on the outcome, one of the parties involved in serious danger of finding themselves in the lower end of said gene pool.

A very serious contender…

While Ubi Soft, publisher of games with what we call the “posterior push” digital rights management (always connected or the game won’t work) tries to recover its reputation with a “Green Movement”  (read no paper game manuals and recycled game “boxes” their New Zeland distributor is busy undoing all there good work by proving they are in serious running for the next Darwin Awards: . 

“According to the New Zealand Herald, a man dressed as Fisher, with bandages wrapped around his hands and a fake gun, pointed his weapon at bar goers in Auckland’s Viaduct Basin. Someone thought the weapon was real and yelled a warning, causing the people in the bar to take cover. Police were called, and even though they thought the gun was real, they managed to diffuse the situation without hurting anyone.” – Gamepolitics.com

Whoever the person they convinced blackmailed or got stoned enough to run into a bar somewhere with a fake gun, we can only point out that he should “thank his lucky stars” as grandmother used to say, that he did so in a place like New Zealand.  If the same incident had taken place in Chicago (where there have been times in the city’s history where the only way to tell the cops from the robbers is with a program) the distributor would have been planning the actor’s funeral.   On a positive note, no matter what impetus, we are happy that the result was Ubisoft doing something for the environment. After all, in our home, we are so conscious about recycling that Fran makes the dogs use the same bark twice.

Someone here is in the low end of the gene pool…

…We just aren’t certain who.

Meanwhile the “good” folks at Activision (no doubt worried that they are also in running for the Darwin Awards) are trying to recover their reputation via COO Thomas Tippl by telling the LA times” We treat our developers extremely well” in an interview here:

On a personal note, we here at No Prisoners No Mercy wonder when interviews that are reported to have been more like interrogating prisoners, interrogating employees for six hours over a holiday weekend in a windowless room and attempting to seize personal computers, all the while bringing employees to tears become the definition of “treat our developers extremely well”. We are thinking that perhaps Activision COO Tippl should have qualified his statement by saying  “We treat our developers extremely well NOW”.  The employees themselves, however, seem to be painting a picture with a somewhat different brush, as related by Edge Online :

“They’re scared shitless,” the source said of Activision management. “They never saw this coming. They can’t believe what’s going on. At first they gave us some bullshit about moving up payments of all the money they owe us to sooner increments. That was when [designer] Todd [Alderman] and [engineer] Frank [Gigliotti] left. But with the announcement of Respawn and all the people leaving, they just got their heads in their hands.

“They fired the two most amazing leaders we’ve ever seen, and then shafted us all out of a lot of money that was promised to us… there is nothing they can do to gain our trust or respect. And I’m pretty sure they know it now… I w as you know it is dead… and it will continue to crumble. There are a lot more veterans who are definitely going to leave.”

It seems that the COO of Activision and some of the employees are not only painting different pictures, but Activision seems to be using some sort of magical paint box where everything is rose colored and the general public are all imbeciles.  Time will tell, and as they used to say on the old Perry Mason show, “The truth will out”.

Was it good for you?

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

Access Denied

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

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:

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.

 

Communication is a wonderful thing – I love it when game developers communicate with their audience (and make no mistake we are the audience they play to whenever we log on or boot up).  When I say communication I mean real communication… Not “Electronic Arts” communication that says “maybe we should take off Securom, after all the game it was meant to protect is now the most pirated game of all time.”  I don’t mean Gpotato “over price, then sale” listen. I mean Cryptic, keep you informed, here’s a list of what we are working on listen. Even if there may be a hint of fear of market reaction, they are listening and to their customers and communicating.

What about Ubisoft?

Ubisoft is busy telling their customer’s “Let’s all play death of Edward the II” (O.K. a bit of an obscure reference – just google “death of Edward the II king of England to find out how he died).  When news that Ubisofts draconic DRM had been cracked within 24 hours they were so swift with a denial that it set land speed records – the original Edge Online article is here:

Reports suggesting that Ubisoft’s controversial new DRM platform have already been cracked are wide of the mark, according to the publisher.

As part of Ubisoft’s new anti-piracy measures, consumers of its PC titles are required to connect to Ubi.com accounts to authenticate games online each time they play them, meaning they always need to be connected to the internet.

The new scheme didn’t go down too well with some sections of the PC community, and reports over the past 24 hours have suggested that pirated copies of Ubisoft games circumventing the new protection are doing the rounds on file sharing sites.

“You have probably seen rumors on the web that Assassin’s Creed II and Silent Hunter 5 have been cracked,” Ubisoft told us in a statement this morning.

“Please know that this rumor is false and while a pirated version may seem to be complete at start up, any gamer who downloads and plays a cracked version will find that their version is not complete.”

Submarine Warfare games go back before there was an internet to play an MMO on period.  I remember playing naval warfare games when “going online” meant dial up a bulletin board.  But whether or not the digital rights management for Silent Hunter 5 has already been cracked, or even will be is far from the point.  The point is that not only is Ubisoft not interested in listening to their consumers, they are so filled with hubris that they are telling you that your opinion doesn’t matter.   They believe they know the market place, and sadly they just may be correct.  As agent K says in Men in Black “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.”

As much as I am enjoying reruns of the Seaquest television series on Netflix, as much as I might want to play Silent Hunter 5, I have no intention of letting Ubisoft play Edward the II with me – I am wearing my solid steel panties.

See you online,

Julie Whitefeather

(posted by the Webmaster for Julie Whitefeather)