Secur-bomb

DRM (digital rights management) has been a growing concern for years now as publishers of any and all media try to find new and different ways of controlling the release and prorogation of that media to consumers.

Unfortunately, last century paradigms are still being applied to 21st century media, and industry by industry try and fail, repeating the same mistakes over and over again. Napster lead the way in the 1990's in regards to music and the internet. Consumers came to like and more importantly desire portability of music in manner never before scene. Mix-tapes and CD's become irrelevant in an era where hundreds and eventually thousands of songs could be shuttled around in smaller and smaller devices. Relatively small file sizes allowed consumers to transfer and share their music with others over email, the internet and peer to peer.

The music industry slow response was first to litigate everyone in sight to try and prevent music sharing, then misguided attempts of DRM were implemented (Sony rootkits, magic marker workarounds). Only Apple's monolithic hardware allowed them to leverage the music industry to become the single success story in monetizing digital delivery of music with Itunes, and even they have DRM laden product, though workarounds are easy to find.

As broadband internet has become ubiquitous, fast and cheap (relatively) the film industry has fallen into the same trap. By not adapting to the media rather than trying to force the media to adapt to an outdated business plan, movies are now traded on the net through P2P almost as frequently as music. Blockbuster hits can be found, in varying quality, on the net within days or hours of the films release to theaters. Like the mistakes made by the music industry, the RIAA have tried to litigate everyone they can find, while forcing different forms of DRM into their product. Unfortunately, each new encryption program is cracked within its first year of existence up to and including blu-ray. In a war of mutual assured destruction the music biz has shown they cannot win, because the courts and governments move exponentially slower than technology. Laws will always be far behind the ability to circumvent those laws. The only reasonable solution is to create a new paradigm for a new form of business.

Piracy and DRM have always been a bone of contention in the games industry with many early PC developers growing their fanbase and bank accounts by giving aware portions of the games as "shareware". The advent of consoles made piracy more difficult but like any encryption eventually beatable given time and a world of hackers who will do it just to prove they can. This has lead to a dichotomous approach to protecting and monetizing the intellectual property of the company while also trying not to alienate an increasingly well-informed and pro-active audience.

Various forms of DRM have begun to plague the releases of major companies, the latest and most prevalent being Secur-rom. Once a simple disc-check to ensure the game is in the computers drive when the game is started, secur-rom is now an invasive and often invisible piece of spyware that sits on the user's harddrive long after the game has been uninstalled. Lawsuits have sprung up regarding this as have virtual attacks against the bottom line of companies like EA with hundreds if not thousands of users spamming consumer review sites like Amazon with bad reviews on product because of the restrictive DRM.

Most disappointly my beloved Fallout 3 uses securom, but as quoted by the developers, "only as a disc check" which is fine, except that if I try to have a process explorer running (showing me what is running on my system and eating up resources) when I try to start the game, securom crashes out. Apparently it doesn't want you to know what it is doing on your computer, which to me is unacceptable and the behaviour of spyware or a virus.

It appears the game industry is now heading down the same path as music and film before it, the question is only whether there are lessons to be learned.

Game-a-day-ish:Premature Endings

Finished both Dead Space and Fallout 3 within 48 hours of one another-both games represent in the own way the best and worst of the artform.
Dead Space left me (after a ginormous boss battle and an ending stolen from FEAR and a gazillion japanese horror films)with more questions than answers and feeling empty. Either purposefully or as an accident of omission the game never digs deeper than the surface regarding the plot and the character's relationships therein. Character setup early are eventually killed off arbitrarily, while the fates of other characters are foreshadowed so blatantly that the final reveal is more of a "meh" than a "doh!".
Having created such a beautifully rendered world as well as innovated in terms of the user interface it feels as if the story was left behind, where it had the potential to be something extraordinary as well. Worth renting.

Fallout 3 is entirely a game made of the journey not the destination. The final mission and the lead up to it is so abrupt you don't realize the game is about to end until it does. This is hampered by a late game character that is introduced as a deus-ex-machina solution to an earlier problem but then unable to be used in the same situation within the endgame. The emotional commitment made to building this character as it travels through the wasteland encountering some remarkably creative and unique situations is given short shrift in the resolution. While the mechanics of the plot ends, the emotional payoff is absent and there is no satisfying resolution to your character's story. Fallout 3 is in essence all foreplay and no climax.

Started and quit World of Warcraft last night after about 20 minutes of killing little fluffy animals. Don't get it, the essence of the game appears to be grinding. Was that ever fun?

Game a dayish-Fallout 3

While this should be called game a week and I going to try and post something, even a few sentances regarding whatever I am playing at the moment. Today’s subject is the new multi-platform release, Fallout 3. Based on the original isometric RPG Fallout, Fallout 3 is an FPS-RPG and is a stunningly beautiful game. The RPG elements are a successful amalgam of the original post-apocalyptic world of Fallout blended with the dialogue tree sensibilities and scripted scenes of Oblivion.
Borrowing a page from the Metal Gear Solid design book, Fallout 3 leverages the graphics engine by using a carefully chosen limited color palette for the outdoor sequences. It makes for a wonderfully stylized yet gorgeous visual experience with a wide open world, outside of the urban environments.
Set in the ruins of Washington D.C most of the game is a literal “if you can see it, you can walk to it” experience outside of the city proper. Once inside the urban sprawl, environments are still expansive but limited in terms of accessibility. Load times are virtually non-existent but I long for the day when I can dynamically open a door and walk into a building without a load screen.
Due to repeated textures and elements artfully re-arranged in the world, the game runs at a solid 60 FPS on my PC, which is a small miracle in and of itself in these days of big budget, big buggy PC releases. This game runs some very tight code given the open nature of the gameplay and the non-linear world.
Exploration is rewarded but unlike Oblivion, enemies do not level dynamically with the player, so when you are in a place you shouldn’t be, you know it. However, once a zone is cleared, enemies do not respawn (at least not rapidly) allowing for a sense of accomplishment. This non-linearity can lead to moments where the flow of the gameplay is broken such a moment where I stumbled across a quest area that I was not meant to find for some time later in the game. My sense of discovery was tinged with a regret as I had now closed off who know how many side-quests I was meant to find prior to finding this area. It does add to replayibility as the engine does a fine job of modifying the world as you work through it, responding instantly to the unpredictability of the adventurous player.
The morality system of the game is simple but the moral choices presented are complex. There are always at least two solutions to an issue and the illusion of a living breathing world that will function with or without the player exists here as it did in Oblivion. I do find myself making a mental checklist of things I would do differently next time and that is always a good thing.
Finally the VATS combat system is a exciting way to spruce up the standard FPS play. A twitch shooter this is not, but VATS allows the player to stop combat in a frozen moment, allowing them to target specific body parts and also showing the stats on hit chances as well as damage already done. Strategy becomes a part of the shooting experience and it is a refreshing change.
Fallout 3 is easily once of the best games this year if ever, and a welcome return to that world.