14 réponses à ce sujet

[Flamingdropbear]

I read somewhere that all new EA games have to have an onine component and most of the thoughs on this board relating to it seem to suggest that multiplayer in NOT the way to go. So here is another idea:
Every week a new notice goes up on the Chanters board, Mage's Collective bag or Favours for intersted parties barkeep altering you to new mission to complete over the week, wether that's killing bandits threatening the village, stealling documents from a bard or just getting ingredents for a pie. Complete the task and get some cash, or an new bit of loot, or a decoration for your castle.
The idea was from ME3's weekend operations but kept within the single player experience. Since it can be kept within the pre existing maps little need for new resources, and the only VA needed is the Chanter spouting the chant of light mumbo jumbo, and it can be added to like the additional free packs in ME3's mutliplayer
So BSN pull the idea apart like wild horses, and lets see if we can get something workable.

[Allan Schumacher]

A mod might dislike me saying this, but I am in no way actually supporting piracy when I say this:

I do dislike you saying this, because despite your refutations you are supporting piracy, even if it's as a last resort.

If you don't like the features and the mechanism, the strongest way to show your disapproval is not to not buy it, but to not play it altogether.

When you pirate a game, you're providing another data point that someone somewhere can use to justify DRM. I'm not a fan of DRM, but someone somewhere looks at it, makes a financial case for it, and presumably is able to financially justify its existence (I have no idea who this person is).

Here's some food for thought: If piracy didn't exist, DRM would undeniably be a 100% waste of money. The corporate fat cats that are always in someone's crosshairs couldn't possibly justify it.

However, since its effect is rather nebulous, all I can leave with is this vagueish notion that "it's probably not very helpful." Though I suppose if someone were to come around with some definitive numbers and showed them to me, I might be inclined to think otherwise. Like you and everyone else on this forum, I am left with only a hunch.


As for whether or not one should "be denied from playing an awesome game." I infinitely respect someone that can go "I really want to play this game, but it has aspects of it that I cannot support, so I won't." That voice resonates strongly with me. Circumventing and supporting piracy (and all the negatives that can come with it) because you simply could not go on without playing a video game you think is awesome is not a position I can respect.

I draw a line in the sand for how much a feel a game is worth to me. If a game ever comes across as having aspects of it that I cannot justify ANY price, I will never play that game. I'm not a big fan always online requirements. I personally think SimCity should have probably just marketed itself as being a multiplayer online experience. However, given that the game's always online aspect was something even I (who hardly followed the game during development) knew about, I do find myself surprised.

I don't find always online to be innately evil (nor do I hope those games bomb. Note to forum goes, the people most likely to be affected by the game bombing is someone like me. If the game isn't for you, fine, but if others are okay with it that's their prerogative). The only games I have purchased that have mandatory online components (that I wasn't buying to explicitly use, like Diablo III), are games that I purchase on extreme discounts (or in the case of SimCity, able to get for no cost to myself). This is because I consider always online for a game that has no online component I'm interested in to have a negative value. So I picked up Silent Hunter V for dirt cheap ($5 ultimately waste of money, but alas) and Splinter Cell Conviction for cheap too ($10 but ultimately worth the money for the experience I got, and I did enjoy the Co-op component a lot).

I encourage others to do the same sort of things.


IMO, if something is a deal breaker for you, I think you do the gaming industry a greater service by not playing the game. It prevents anyone from taking the data of pirated games and drawing conclusions that are not correct. No one can look at an always online game that had crap sales and zero pirate downloads and make any excuses that piracy affected it.

[Allan Schumacher]

Wulfram wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Here's some food for thought: If piracy didn't exist, DRM would undeniably be a 100% waste of money. The corporate fat cats that are always in someone's crosshairs couldn't possibly justify it.

Not if it also stops legitimate reselling.

Point taken and conceded.  I often forget about that perspective since I never resell my games.

[Allan Schumacher]

soooo when I say the only reason I never bought DA2 was that the dev team chose not to include NG+ (and the same can be said about the witcher) how does that resonate with you?

It tells me that if we add New Game+, you will buy the game

And yet . . . the people most hurt by DRM, or always online requirements
for games that do not, and should not be, required to be always online .
. . are not Pirates. It's the legitimate users that has paid for your
game. I run out of fingers and toes long, long . . . long before I run
out of my own stories about one way, or another, DRM or an always online
requirement has caused anything from a small inconvenience to an
outright and complete inability to play a game I HAVE PAID FOR. That
includes EA and Bioware titles, yes, but it is not limited to EA or
Bioware by even the longest of shots.

DRM and always online
requirements punish exactly one group of people - the people that
actually support you by paying for your games.

This is tangential to my point (notice I actually say that DRM may not really be worth it).  You can hate DRM all you want, but if you hate it so much and think it's so bad, pirating the game will not make that go away.  Not pirating the game has a greater chance (even if that means never playing the game), in my opinion.

I don't think always online is a negative if a game is an always online
game, with no single-player portion. If it's obviously a single player
experience, or has options for a single-player experience, however, then
. . . no. Always online should not be there. An MMO like WoW or SWTOR
should be always online. Simcity, the new one, no matter what
justifications are put out there . . . is not an MMO, and it should
never have had always online requirements.

Even if a game is 100% single player, I don't have any issue if someone requires me to play it online.  It just means it's not a game I'm going to get (at least certainly not at full price).  The only issues I would have with always online is if that tidbit of info is hidden from me so I cannot make an informed purchase.

If I buy a single player game that has an always online connection, I do so with the understanding of what setbacks that may entail.

And, if that were to happen, it would be sad. No one likes being put in a
position where their company goes through a rough spot, especially if
it means they might lose their job. However, don't believe for a second
that DRM and always online requirements are securing you anything

I'm not, and never said anything of the like.  What I am saying is anyone "hoping that a game bombs" because it has a feature you may not like in it is being rather vindictive over a luxury good.  I don't think always online for a single player game is actually a good idea, but I still have zero issues if a developer/publisher wants to add it, as long as I'm still able to make an informed purchase.

Just so we're clear, I'm not supporting piracy not do I agree with that
poster you're responding to. I've just had one to many, of far . . . far
too many negative experiences with DRM and always online requirements
don't really make anything better.

I have never been burned my DRM in my life.  Since starting at BioWare, my stance on DRM has softened significantly because as Tech QA, I've been there dealing with the backlash of people who have issues.  It sucks to pay $60 for a game and have it not work properly.

On another note, while I will never support pirating a game, I'm not
sure that 'not buying' a game, or, 'voting with your wallet' has any
actual effect. When a Publisher sees their sales turn out low, because
their potential customers voted with their wallets . . . do they really
know why they voted not to buy the product? There are several articles
and videos across game related sites that talk about this from different
sides. It's a legitimate question, "Does voting with your wallet send
your message?" And the answer seems to be, "It does send  - a - 
message, but the company in question doesn't necessarily recieve the
message you intended."

Absolutely correct.  Fortunately games are not built in isolation.  EA is certainly not concluding "RPGs are in decline" with DA2 having lesser sales than DAO.  What it tells me is that there is some aspect(s) of DA2 that didn't resonate as well as DAO.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 07 avril 2013 - 12:39 .

[Allan Schumacher]

Rawgrim wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Wulfram wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Here's some food for thought: If piracy didn't exist, DRM would undeniably be a 100% waste of money. The corporate fat cats that are always in someone's crosshairs couldn't possibly justify it.

Not if it also stops legitimate reselling.

Point taken and conceded.  I often forget about that perspective since I never resell my games.

DRM would also mess things up for people who bring their consoles with them. Like soldiers, for example. Playing games while they hang around for weeks or months, in areas with no internet connections...

Err, I'm not sure how this relates to the clarification that Wulfram made that DRM can restrict legitimate resale (I am making the assumption that Wulfram was talking about any/all DRM, which I was doing in that specific example).

I know that any sort of online DRM is a problem for people that bring their consoles with them with no internet connections.

I'm getting the feeling that you are thinking I support always online DRM, which isn't the case.

[Allan Schumacher]

M25105 wrote...

addiction21 wrote...

Name me one singleplayer game that pirates can't crack.
DRM is punishing legit buyers while the pirates get away with it.

The point, you missed it.

Oh and how so?

I was saying that regardless of DRM's actual real world efficiency at stopping piracy, if DRM is being added to combat piracy (And as Wulfram pointed it, this may not be the case), all that matters is someone thinks it does.

So yes, I think you missed the point I was trying to make.

Thing is, even working for a game studio I have limited visibility to the effacacy of DRM stopping (or not stopping) piracy.  To simply say "it does nothing" contradicts some of the criticisms that big publishers have - that they are excessively driven by data.

People always say that big publishers love money more than anything else, to the detriment of everything else.  Yet, it's somehow so simply and obvious to consumers that DRM doesn't help make more money, yet the people that love money more than anything else aren't able to see this.  I'm skeptical.

Merely not buying a game is not sending the message. The company doesn't know why
you didn't buy a game. For all they know, you was simply not interested
in the game and was thus not part of the marketbase for that game
anyway. But by pirating, you are showing the message that you was
part of the marketplace and going to be a confirmed sale, but their DRM
made them lose that sale. It's showing "I would have bought your game
if you hadn't put in DRM". Simply not buying doesn't get that point
across.

You may think it's showing that.  Yet we keep getting DRM to combat piracy.  Fact of the matter is, we don't know what precisely motivates someone into pirating a game.  There's a lot of justifications that people use, but even then there's no guarantees that they're actually being honest in their recounts.

By pirating the game, the strongest message you are sending is that you have an interest in playing the game.  What I am saying is that someone can take that data point, and for any individual person, may or may not make the correct assessment as to why they pirated that game.


Big publishers love the money right?  If they look at the data and see that their games don't even have the buzz and interest via piracy (let alone sales), while games with no DRMs start to become increasingly successful, with enough data points the information will start to show a statistical correlation that shows DRM impacts the interest level people have in games.  The most influential thing you can tell a publisher is that you don't care about a product.

Given that you've already admitted that you should not be denied the ability to play an awesome game simply because it has some DRM you don't like, it really looks like you're simply rationalizing a desire to play the game for little other reason than because you want to.

I mean, despite SimCity's online DRM, it was still the fastest selling SimCity game ever.  So while there's undoubtedly more gamers than there once was, unless they were all completely oblivious to the fact that it had an always online component, all of the piracy to show The Man seems to be somewhat lost.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 07 avril 2013 - 04:54 .

[Allan Schumacher]

Not purchasing it is fine, but being okay with it? Especially if it
becomes a larger trend in the gaming industry? I'm not sure I can ever
get behind that. From a customer standpoint this is nothing but a
negative because it actively locks off products you may want to buy (if
your response to always online/DRM is to not buy a product), and if you
do buy them will inevitably inflict any number of the problems that
we've actively seen these services have (especially during their launch
period). Diablo 3 and Simcity both actively showed what some of these
issues can be, and let's face it . . . Life is what happens while you're
making other plans.

What would cause something like this to become a larger trend in the gaming industry?  (answer: it has to be accepted on a large scale)

You're right that it locks you off from products you may want to buy.  And that can suck for sure.  This is not the only thing to do this.  I wanted to buy the first Spec Ops game, but I didn't have a 3dfx based chipset (old crappy Rage Pro).  I remember being unable to buy games because I didn't have a math coprocessor.  Heck, I was a "Mac Gamer" for a long time, which definitely saw me getting a raw deal.  Today, some games can only be purchased digitally, and for some people this is a line in the sand that they don't want to cross.

I have no problems with it because if other people are okay with it, then kudos to them.  If it ends up being successful and a company considers it a benefit, then kudos to them as well.

I suppose the big thing is that I really have no problems with it is that I'm okay with the idea that, if the industry heads down that path, I won't be an avid game player anymore (at least not for games where the MP/Online component isn't appealing to me).  I suppose other people may not be in that situation, but I'm definitely at a stage in my life where I feel games are a luxury.  If there's enough people like me, gaming sales will suffer and things will have to change, and my money will come back in.  If there is enough people that aren't like me, c'est la vie.

True, but it still has an effect even if you choose not to purchase it.
Let's say all future Bioware games were always online, and I'm not
saying that will happen. Let's just say it were to happen. All the
series I've loved from Bioware over the years would, presumably,
continue. And I could never experience that.

This is true.  But I'd respect you 1000 times over for having the conviction to stand up for what you believe in.  If all our games ended up requiring always online and the online component is interesting to me, I'd also have to reevaluate my continued employment.  I like working at BioWare because they make games I want to play.  If they start making games I don't want to play, that complicates things, especially since I'd likely be less effective as an employee anyways.


Going back to my point, widespread always online for single player exclusive experiences can only happen if there is widespread acceptance.  If we keep getting Diablo 3s and SimCitys over and over and over, this will undermine the widespread acceptance.  The only way widespread acceptance can occur is if the online service becomes acceptable on a widespread level.  Which means any company doing an always online experience better damn well make sure they're releasing something that won't blow up in their face.

[Allan Schumacher]

3)The individual is entirely irrelevant, you seem to be missing that point. When your game is pirated en mass, there's usually a reason, or is the spike because everyone, suddenly became strapped for cash for just that game?

The #1 reason for a game being pirated en masse, however, is because the game is popular (this goes for anything being pirated, really)

Furthermore, is there actually an up to date reference for Spore's piracy numbers?

The only ones I found are from 2008, and they actually undermine their own headline when they literally state that the Sims 2 is the record holder for most pirated game in the same article. This article shows the numbers for the past 5 years (in 2011) and Spore doesn't make the Top 10 actually.

[Allan Schumacher]

Look at Steam, it has it's own system of DRM. and yet there are millions and millions of digital downloads via steam. It's all about proportionality. How much am I willing to put up with, before I think "hell with it, I'm going to pirate it" as it's easier and I get a better experience than getting booted from the game everytime the internet gets a bit twitchy.

You're right, Steam has certainly made DRM convenient. Steam's biggest advantage is that it can competes with the convenience of piracy. I have several anecdotes of friends that stopped pirating because Steam was more convenient (though they were typically pirates that pirated because they could). Although Steam had to endure the **** storm of forcibly including it in their games. I remember the rage when Counterstrike had to use it, I was there as people said "Steam is a steaming pile of ****." I actually ran into authentication issues with Half-Life 2 as well, one of the few games I preordered because I just had to play it ASAP. Valve wasn't dumb, and the mandatory Steam requirements for their games (which were very popular) helped drive acceptance of Steam and its DRM.

To follow up on your second point, excessive DRM also impacts developers because they spend a large amount of time following up on false positives (I have had to directly deal with this myself).

What do you think the reaction to always online DRM would be like today if Diablo 3's and SimCity's launches were flawless victories?

[Allan Schumacher]

Take note that Steam is a form of DRM.

[Allan Schumacher]

I know. Yet, it's a form of it that doesn't punish paying customers... Totally unlike the SimCity format. It's a DRM that doesn't feel like a slap in the face, and doesn't possibly turn your games into a paper weight because of bad luck.

It's DRM, but it's DRM done right.

There are very vocal groups that loathe Steam for its DRM as well though (as well as other reasons).

[Allan Schumacher]

billy the squid wrote...

The sales deals, the ability to run things in offline mode, if I wan't as well as general online stability and now the recent addition to trade licenses digitally on steam.

Has this actually happened yet?  I remember hearing some news from Germany but don't know the details, nor how widespread it is.

The issues with Diablo 3 and SimCity is that it's not a form of DRM, perhaps in a cynical roundabout way it is, because it's designed to always be online. Diablo 3 got that sorted out, it's impossible to pirate it, to my knowledge. SimCity, the higher ups in the company said that the online requirement was necessary, like Diablo 3, except it was found out not to be, that playing it offline is possible.

I know the "we offload calculations" was overstated (and not handled super well), although aren't there still issues?  I have briefly played the game, and I am not sure if the games could be saved, nor if the full effects of the region and whatnot are proprerly taken into account (i.e. at best it's static, and I don't think you could build the great works).

There is a difference between the two. But, I think Diablo3 and Sim City would have been recieved  a lot better had the servers been up to stuff. Perhaps you can answer this though, if games like Diablo 3 are becoming the accepted norm, as part of the game is run on the company side, if I understand it correctly, is it actually feasable to do that with multiple games, each with seperate servers.

It's possible to do it without even needing separate servers (and has been for some time.  Our counterstrike clan rented out several "servers" on an OC3 line through a local television station.  We had 4 unique game servers, but they were all running on the same machine in 2000).

Google is able to seamlessly update their server capacity and storage space on the fly without having to take the their systems offline, just by plugging more hardware into the nexus.

With streaming game services, I could see consoles having longer lifespans as the server cores themselves could do all the hardware upgrading for higher performance games (though we're some ways away from that, IMO).

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 07 avril 2013 - 06:10 .

[Allan Schumacher]

It's awfully funny how you make optimistic statements about drm-infested, internet-connection restricted cloud computing for gaming.

I was answering a technical question based on the ability to utilize hardware systems and bandwidth for multiple games. It actually has no bearing on any sort of optimism (nor pessimism) for always online connections.

The unfortunate thing is after reading the confrontational nature of your opening line, I didn't read the rest of your post.

[Allan Schumacher]

Brockololly wrote...

I think he's referring to Peter Moore's recent blog post defending EA against them likely winning the Consumerist's poll for Worst Company in America for the second year in a row. Moore basically tries to shift blame and lumps in people that have issues with SimCity, microtransactions and Origin with homophobic bigots. classy.

The Consumerist has a nice rebuttal to Moore's post actually.

This. Crap.  Stops.  NOW!

If I see one more misrepresnetation of Moore's comments as shifting blame - specifically that he is lumping anyone with "homosexual bigots," I will start handing out bans and it is not going to be pretty.

Directly from Moore's post:

"Some of these complaints are 100 percent legitimate" is a direct admission that EA has made epic mistakes and needs to do better, and Moore is not shifting blame.  Moore is saying EA needs to do a better job with these people.  Speaking on behalf of myself, these people speaking up as EA being the worst company is their own prerogative.  If they feel that's an effective way to communicate their message, fine.

The Consumerist response is only a "nice rebuttal" if you have zero interest in critically looking at it, I can see just by looking at the headline that is is looking to illicit a reaction.  Moore isn't dismissing "winning" as just a bunch of people pissy about Madden and a bunch of homophobes.

Moore makes comment that anyone voting for this poll for the reasons he listed are going to find themselves disappointed.  And yes, there are online pushes from people to vote for EA as the worst company in America because of EA's stance on homosexuality.  I don't care to go around looking for tons of examples like this (scroll down to the bottom) if you need some sort of validation to stop saying stupid **** because it's in vogue to hate on Electronic Arts so we might as well spread some misinformation to become a rabble rouser.  It's unacceptable and it stops now.

Since I'm in a pissy mood now this thread dies too.

[Allan Schumacher]

So whoever dares challenge the concept of that deserves a good ignore? Good to know things haven't changed in the BSN at all. Mods being ignorant as ever. "Confrontation? In my BSN? This didn't happen, no no no."

Carefully waiting for the banhammer again, as that seems to be the trend these days. Speak out loudly or strong against something? Not on our glorious bioware forums! Everyone must get along at all times, everytime! Now let's all hold hands and sing something nice while we smoke on the native american peace pipe.

And so people know, yes, he has been banned. And yes, it's because of personal attacks. If you're going to act like a child, I don't want you here. If you're going to rabble rouse that EA just calls people homophobes and derail the thread, then I don't want you hear. So yes, banned.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 07 avril 2013 - 11:49 .