What's this all 'bout?
No, it won't be online stores what punches retailers and contributes to worse-quality games, it will be the creation of so-called online passes what will take on retailers. Steam and several other online stores drained the HP for sure (and please oh please, if you thought that meant Harry Potter GET OUT OF HERE), but the fatality will come from that smart stupid strange idea of creating online passes for games.
(NOT SO) Quick explanation, (if you already know about this subject skip the following paragraph or just read it for the lulz). Online pass is not the official name, it's the way EA calls them, but other companies use this concept (or will start doing it). It is this ohsosmart idea that game producer companies (specially third-parties) have about making it sure to get some money from you. How? Well, each new physical copy of the game includes a code that you must redeem on the internet to register your product so you become able to use the online components of your new game (in most cases multiplayer and leaderboards). But what happens when you go to that nice retailer who offers you cheap and well-taken-care-of used games? You MUST pay some extra bucks to get a new code you can use, and you must pay that money to the creators of the game. If not, you will suffer the consequences... no multiplayer for you. Sweet isn't it?
You may wonder WTF were they thinking! (AVGN style) when they did that. Then you might have looked through the internet for some kind of explanation just to find that almost all kinds of media supported this OHSOGR8 idea because, let's admit it: the poor poor crybaby-pussies some game companies have become really and desperately need those $5-15 in order to pay their employees. I would personally like to say to EA: STOP BEING SOUCH BIG DOUCEHBAGS. Stop buying small studios for 3 bucks (yeah millions, but for EA that's like taking a piss), just to close them 6 months later and making more people unemployed while keeping their IP's.
ONLINE VS. OFFLINE. Which one should be the main focus of today game studios?
We can start a very long discussion about this and get nowhere. We wouldn't reach an agreement before FFvsXIII is out and believe me, Nomura told me it would take a while. The point here is that whether you prefer to play MAG or Mass Effect, you want a GOOD GAME. It is a shame that some game studios don't think that way. They think games are not expensive enough, some of them got together at an orgy important meeting (I think I saw some CEOs on that "Eyes wide shot" scene) and decided to PWN us with DLC invention and now, they must have been too bored swimming in money that they got out of the green stool pool, and said as a chorus: Hey! gamers are not Marcellus Wallace, so why don't we create these online passes... and so our story began.
I know this is not new, and I don't think it's an entirely bad idea. The problem is as follows (Master Yoda voice please): Greed leads to fast-produced games. Fast-produced games lead to focus on multiplayer aspects. Focus on multiplayer aspects lead to online gaming. Online gaming leads to poor offline components. Poor offline components lead to online passes as a must. Online passes as a must lead to gamers' suffering and we all know where that got good ol' Anakin. Of course, as we know a lot of games are great ones on both their online and offline parts; some others are good just on one side (take Mass Effect or the first Uncharted and Assassin's Creed games as a reference), but how can we expect new games to keep getting better when studios just keep thinking about how to get money. YES it is an industry and you , the guys who make games, sell us a product, but at least don't let your product become lame. "I love gaming" (Butler, 2010), and I own a bunch different titles and consoles since I was a kid, but that doesn't mean you can treat us gamers as stupid-minded people. There are a lot of good games today, but each year some IP's seem to go down the toilet, if you still disagree, compare KZ2 with KZ3.
About studios' poor lame crybaby reason...
Go talk to Larry and you'll remember good old games and about being pussy-whiped. Go lame studios (and no, EA is good, they just act stupid sometimes), go ahead and keep wanting to get our money to build more and more servers for more and more online games, until GLaDOS takes over Skynet and rips us all a new one.
Ok, on the more serious side, they do not NEED that money. They say buying used games gives all those bucks to the retailer, so they want to assure by using these online passes, that they will get some. The thing is even easier to solve, do you really think gamers would sell their games back to retailers if the game was actually a good masterpiece? Of course not! How many ICO, Shadow of the colossus, God of war, Child of Eden, ReZ, Halo Combat Evolved, Mass Effect and so on, copies do you find under the used section, against the gazillion tons there are of dumb FPSs, movie games and silly adventure titles.
Let me tell you a little secret guys (this is for the CEOs if you are not a CEO, but know one, read it and pass it forward, if you have nothing to do with game studios' CEOs, you may read, but as you don't have an uberbladder for brains, you might not get the point, it's made VERY simple and your complex adult brains won't be able to see it): How about stop producing games as often as babies crap, stop exploiting good franchises, and begin to really think about more than graphics (yeah, gameplay matters too). I know guys, it will be difficult, but here are some advices:
- Movie video games: stop doing them, they all will have Atari's E.T. fate.
- Rockband and Guitar Hero (and all "hero" games): Stop them for a decade, it's like having sex and using position FOREVER. I T G E T S O L D...
- Stupid prices: cut the crap, check how expensive are your products in EVERY country and see why you don't get income from there.
- Read about the 1983 fiasco. If you are too lazy mr ohsobusyCEO I'll sum it up. Quick production means bad quality means your game will be returned. PLEASE start giving us what we pay for and sacrifice 10 shitty games a year for 2 or 3 good ones.
- If you still think you are right and I'm wrong read this blog again and again until your head gets my point you dumb-ass.
So this is not entirely about online passes. As you can see this rant is about how we are approaching another game industry crisis and why we gamers desire better games. Online passes are just a confirmation on what is mattering the most to studios.
Mr. Obnoxious Ranter out.
X_X
Wow, I have never seen you so outraged. I do agree with a lot of what you said though. The online components really do alter some peoples decision/ability to get a game. There are games I would love to play but I refuse to get online and pay for monthly participation and I do not want to play with others. I know that sounds crappy but I don't. If I do well/bad on a mission I prefer it's my own doing.
ReplyDeleteAnother concern I have about the playing codes is that if I want to take my game to your house to play on your system - can I? There is just a slippery slope here.
The most important thing for me is finding a game with a GREAT solo campaign/story mode. I'm also not so into the online on certain games. I played all of Fable III MOSTLY offline and still had a GREAT time. When FFXIII2 comes out (or whatever they're choosing to call it) we know Square Enix is going to deliver but the online aspect is something we're not familiar with in the realm of FF. When they released the beta for FF14, it was cute but I was not too impressed. But there are games that THRIVE in the online combat and those are mostly FPS.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, there's always 2 sides to every story and if you played FPS and LOVED it, then there would be no complaint...maybe. There's a fine line here.
I gladly play for my World of Warcraft subscription. Do I wish it was free? Hell ya! Is it worth it? To me, yes. Is playing The SIms online worth paying for? To me, no.
But we do agree on one thing:
STOP GIVING US SHITTY GAMES!!!!