One of my 2010 goals has been to play more video games.

Yes. That’s right. I want to play more video games. I did a piss-poor job of it last year, and I missed out on some gaming goodness. Pursuant to that goal, I’ve been playing a more this year. While I’m deriving some enjoyment from my primary hobby, there are  several things that fill me with rage, decanting their liquid anger into my empty soul like the devil’s own urine. Here’s a random sample of items that get my goat:

Borderlands Expansion Pack

The first time I played it, Mad Moxxi was cute, boobalicious, and sarcastically witty. Now, every time I play the arena, her voice grates, her taunts wear on me, and the loot that she drops from her high tower makes me want to put Brick’s (the tank character, and my main toon) fist through her face. This was high concept with poor execution–the arenas provide replayability, the potential for loot is great, and you get enemies/bosses from the entire game. The bad news is that it is all recycled content, and the voice tracks are repeated way too often. Couple this to fact that this should have been patched content support and not a paid expansion pack, and my knuckles want to taste flesh. (But I still play it almost every night. Go figure.)

Battlefield Bad Company 2

If you’ve known me at all, you know that I am a Battlefield fanboy. I even played that atrocious “sequel” they called BF2142 (the fewest hours I’ve spent in any Battlefield game). Now, we get scraps from the console table (Battlefield Bad Company was never a PC game, and we only got the sequel because someone in their company decided to throw us a bone). The game officially releases on March 2nd, but you can play in a one-map beta test with a pre-order. Saddling up with the old Battlefield crew (*fist bump to TulsaLAN*), I downloaded what was supposed to be a beta game.

In reality, it is an alpha, because beta at least implies functionality out of the box. I currently cannot run the game through Steam, I cannot use Ventrilo (VoIP software) unless I key the transmit button during the load process so that my mic stays open all the time, the server browser crashes to desktop, and the friends/matchmaking system is broken. When I finally do get in the game (by finding the game executable buried in my Steam directory and right-clicking to “run as admin”), it’s pretty okay. It tries a little too hard to be Call of Duty (the damage model is terribly unforgiving, and the movement isn’t as fluid as other Battlefield games).

Sniper rifle and RPG zooms are toggles, while battle rifles and light machine guns require steady “holds” on the right mouse button to bring up iron sights. Crouching isn’t a toggle either, you must hold it down. There is no prone. That’s right, boys and girls, this is a war game, and you can’t lay down on the fucking ground and avoid enemy fire.  When I quit the game tonight (playing with the wonderful Kate) and reflected on my experience, I realized that I wanted to fly to Sweden and punch the lead developer of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 in the face. Twice.

They’ve taken my beloved franchise, dumbed it down for the console retards, and then castrated what they didn’t break. I can only hope that someone in the mod community can fix these issues about four to six months down the line, or maybe even give the game something like Desert Combat was to the Battlefield 1942 series. If not, it may top Battlefield 2142 for fewest hours played in a Battlefield game.

Steam

Steam is the elephant in the room when it comes to digital distribution. I’ve been a retail box kind of guy, but recently I’m transitioning to steam. For example, I bought Borderlands and Dragon Age retail, but I’ve gotten Mass Effect (the first one), Torchlight, and now Battlefield: Bad Company 2 through Steam. It’s nice that my games and profile reside in the “cloud.” It’s a pity, though, that Steam still forces SecuROM copy protection/DRM on me when technically I don’t even own the content. I have to be connected to their authentication servers to even play the damned game, and they still saddle me with copy protection.

Are you kidding me?

Really?

I’m not going to pirate games; as a content creator myself, I fully believe that artists should be compensated for their time. Supporting a platform like Steam implicitly recognizes that I’m willing to put up with managing still another on-line account in exchange for content security and file management. That copy protection is a by-product of this should be a win for everyone. Instead, game companies have taken the opportunity to ram their DRM phallus into my mouth in an attempt to make me swallow their load of resource-hogging superfluous garbage. It’s like people are trying to kill PC gaming. I’ve refused to go the console route on general principles (no mouse and keyboard, auto-aim in first person shooters is lame beyond belief), but if I continue to have to wear an “Exit Only” sign on my ass when I buy and play PC Games, then I’ll be forced to turn my back on the platform. That sucks for everyone.

Reponse to Infinity Ward Petition

Infinity Ward is the maker of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. I’ve boycotted the game (and encouraged others to do so, as well) due to the lack of dedicated server support, the ten dollar price tag increase over standard PC Games, the lack of mod/community support. After signing the petition, I received a mass email from a community manager that was basically a big “Dear Pete and everyone who signed this petition: Fuck you.”  They detailed their sales of the PC version, the number of players playing during peak times (via Xfire statistics), and the fact that they’re “on the cutting edge” and they’re “changing the way PC Gamers interact with online content.” If by cutting edge they mean “Xbox 360″ and they want to strip features that PC Gamers demand in their games by taking an intentional step backwards, then sure, I guess it’s a success. I felt more like they were rubbing the noses of the 125,694 signers of the petition in the fact that their opinions and money didn’t matter. (It would be interesting to know how many signers actually bought the game despite their “commitment” not to.) That alone earns the responsible cretin of this organization a punch in the nose.

Let’s play Infinity Ward’s game and do a little math here. Let’s assume that 20% of the signers followed through on their promise to not buy the game (Is that optimistic? Look at the Amazon review for it.) That’s 25, 140 people.

Multiply that by the $59.99 ($60 for convenience’s sake) premium for the game: $1,508,077 sales dollars are now left on the table. If you assume a 10% profit margin, they’re leaving about $150,000 of pure, bottom line, dividend-producing money untapped. That alone is more than enough for a business unit to spend the month that it would take a couple of programmers and a user interface specialist to put in those items.

Oh, and did I mention that it uses SecuROM, too?

Since they want to play the math game, I’ll chortle to myself every time I leave the game alone in Best Buy or the Steam store and say: “1.5 million dollars, haha!”

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 30th, 2010 at 11:38 pm and is filed under Video Games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.