Free Rampage - Gaming, Blogging, Nerding
Content Control Uber Alles - Online-Only DRM as a Gaming Kill-switch
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- Category: Ryan's Blog
- Published on Tuesday, 02 August 2011 21:22
- Written by Ryan
- Hits: 269
With the latest SNAFU from Blizzard Entertainment immediately following Ubisoft's Driv3r gaffe, intrusive Digital Rights Management (DRM) has once again been dragged kicking and screaming into the forefront of the PC gaming industry. Blogs are absolutely ablaze with analysis and outrage of what looks like the masochistic punishment of PC gamers for being legitimate users. And why not? History has shown us that intrusive DRM methods, such as always-connected Internet reporting, have been quickly cracked after the legitimate buyers have suffered through the mess. Expired activations, intermittent Internet connectivity, and even invalid CD-keys have forced PC gamers to suffer hyperbolic rigmarole that most console gamers would laugh at if they heard about it.
It's gotten to the point that mainstream blogs such as Ars Technica have resorted to publicly pleading with major publishers to lighten up a little:
We want to give you our money, developers and publishers, so please stop punishing us for doing so.
The problem here is that publishers, even the ones held in prior esteem, don't want to get rid of intrusive DRM, and it's not in their best interests to do so. PC gamers really have become the enemy, because content control in console gaming has become so lucrative.
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Blizzard Forbids Modding Diablo III, Adds Internet-required Single Player for Extra Insult
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- Category: Ryan's Blog
- Published on Monday, 01 August 2011 22:29
- Written by Ryan
- Hits: 267
The guys over at Kotaku have reported that Diablo III mods have been explicitly sanctioned without prejudice by big-game developer Blizzard Entertainment. This, in addition to Blizzard's love of shackling you to the Internet in order to prove that you're not a criminal, certainly paints a picture of a not so kinder and gentler Blizzard Entertainment after the much-heralded merger with Activision. Bobby Kotick jokes aside, it's becoming increasingly disconcerting to witness companies chip away at previously assumed "gaming freedoms" one at a time.
The days of LANing runs of Eastern Sun, or any other mod, will never see the light of a newer, more robust engine. The Lords of Blizzard hath spoken.
At least they'll be on Jack Thompson's good side.
Review - Kerbal Space Program
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- Category: Reviews
- Published on Monday, 01 August 2011 14:46
- Written by Ryan
- Hits: 647
When I was a child, my father had a knack at getting me excited about space travel. I remember being entranced by the repeated stories about the Gemini, Apollo, Soyuz and Skylab missions, and their importance to American history. How towering missiles could bring three men 240,000 miles from the earth to the moon, in a matter of days. How by simply moving through the air with enough speed, metal can become white-hot, and how engineers figured out a way to solve the resulting fiery disintegration with enough ceramic plating. How Apollo 13 wasn't an aborted mission, but was a "successful failure" and the national ramifications that entailed. Dad even had every patch from the Apollo missions, which I'd look at over and over again, becoming more excited every time I saw them. For a time, I thought that I would "build rockets" for a career - successfully engineering immense vehicles propelled by more explosive chemicals than most people get to handle in a single lifetime.
Thanks to to MonkeySquad's Kerbal Space Program, I've now learned how hilariously bad of an idea that would have been. I suck at rocketry, and that's awesome.
