EA Editor Criticizes Command & Conquer 4 DRM 266
Command & Conquer 4's DRM hasn't garnered Electronic Arts as much bad press and fan outrage as Ubisoft's scheme, despite being very similar. Nevertheless, it's been causing problems and frustrations for some users, including EA.com's own editor-in-chief, Jeff Green. An anonymous reader points this out:
"Green wrote on his Twitter account late last week: 'Booted twice — and progress lost — on my single-player C&C4 game because my DSL connection blinked. DRM fail. We need new solutions.' He continued later, 'Well. I've tried to be open-minded. But my 'net connection is finicky — and the constant disruption of my C&C4 SP game makes this unplayable. The story is fun, the gameplay is interesting and different at least — but if you suffer from shaky/unreliable DSL — you've been warned.'"
Give that man a new job (Score:5, Insightful)
I've got the solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey Mr. Green, the solution is quite simple and at your fingertips [thepiratebay.org]
That patch will fix your broken version of C&C4 ;-)
Another I'll have to avoid... (Score:5, Insightful)
Some people can just pay for a better connection; living in the middle of the desert in a Marine Corps barracks leaves me with fewer options.
While I'm more than willing to shell out the cash for a game like C&C4, my internet is horrible (one of the main reasons I like playing SP games so much now) and to make SP games reliant on a constant internet connection means one less sale for them. Ubisoft has already lost my sale on AC2 and now it looks like EA is going to follow in their footsteps.
A shame too because I loved AC and the C&C series.
As nice as this is on paper... (Score:5, Insightful)
Digital Restrictions Management works! (Score:5, Insightful)
Assuming, that is, your goal was to destroy the PC as a gaming platform.
One of the reasons... (Score:5, Insightful)
...why i am losing interest in games rapidly.
While i can still play games i bought 15 years ago, there is no guarantee whatsoever that i can play today's games in 15 years. In the past, i got the feeling of really 'owning' a game (well, a non-revokable license to play it, you know what i mean), but now, i can only play it if the publisher is still in business *and* allows me to activate the game, so essentially holding hostage a game i paid good bucks for.
Another reason is that intolerable dlc business, which i still suspect is a mechanism for publishers to hinder the secondhand market, and/or generate 50% more revenue of a game by selling content that (in most cases) might as well have been included in the release.
Then again, maybe it is just me getting older, having kids, etc.
Re:No problems here (Score:4, Insightful)
The PC as a gaming platform is done.[...]PS3 offering unparalleled processing power[...]
Can I play every PS3 game in 1080p, 8xAA ? Didn't think so. On my gaming PC, I can. With an Xbox Controller and HDMI output, I can play Batman, GTA, etc. on my HDTV, sitting on my couch, with (far) better graphics than on any so-called Next-gen console. And with the same machine, I can play FPS, CRPGs, and strategy games with proper controllers (mouse/keyboard). Oh, and thanks to Steam's constant stream of special deals, I don't have to pay 50-70€ for each game.
Each time a console's price drops, I've had the temptation to buy one. But each time I quickly remember that I would hardly use it, except for playing the odd exclusive title.
Re:I was about to buy this... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's worse than that... (Score:5, Insightful)
these DRM failures have scared me away from buying games, life is too short.
Much like Sony demonstrated that CDs are fair game for malware deployment, I'm never buying another CD or game again.
My gaming is pretty retro by now, so I can live with it, and the occasional pirated/cracked game.
It's kinda funny that I have more faith in crackers to give me a "clean" product, than i do in the publishers.
I have the money for the odd game i want, but I have exactly zero patience with DRM. Oh and my original Quake and Diablo install discs don't require any kind of activation from a remote server, and should work just fine in another 20 years.
Re:One of the reasons... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No problems here (Score:3, Insightful)
The annoying part is that it knows a patch is available, but doesn't download it or do anything with it, it just notes the fact, and then refuses to run if the internet goes down before it gets patched. This is a Really Bad Design for a service that supplies single player games. Not quite as bad as the DRM fiascos people are reporting, but it's been an extant issue with Steam (with people complaining about it) for years.
Re:As nice as this is on paper... (Score:4, Insightful)
"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." - I really doubt they planned on designing crappy DRM so that they can remove it and gain the good will of the fans.
I think it's much more likely a bunch of execs thinking they can do whatever they want and "those desperate suckers will buy it anyway".
Re:Another I'll have to avoid... (Score:4, Insightful)
I quit buying EA Games when C&C 3 Kane's refused to play after I purchased Alcohol 120% .
Apparently they felt they had the right to tell me what programs I am allowed to run on my PC. Unfortunately, they forgot who had the right to open up my wallet to purchase things.
Re:Another I'll have to avoid... (Score:2, Insightful)
A shame too because I loved AC and the C&C series.
dont worry, they screwed up the gameplay too, no more basebuilding, apperently a single building produces all units, and you are supplied with all needed building at the start.. so you arent missing much.
As i commented in an other thread (i think about the ubisoft shitstorm days after release), EA lost me, and my girlfriend as a customer, even before i read about how they butchered the entire C&C core gameplay, with this ridiculous DRM. Part of the fun of CnC for me always has been toying around with different tanks, taking over an entire map and then steamrolling the computer adversary, and i will not be restricted in doing that only where i have internet (case in point, hotelrooms when travelling, on holiday)
Re:No problems here (Score:5, Insightful)
You say that Steam requires and internet connection. But then your example is a rare edge-case involving a half-way downloaded patch. It sounds like a bug, and it sounds annoying, but it isn't the same as saying that steam requires an internet connection.
Hello there EA! (Score:5, Insightful)
Command and Conquer style games I've bought (first sale):
- Command and Conquer
- Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun
- Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun - Firestorm expansion pack
- Command and Conquer: Renegade
- Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars
- Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars - Kane's Wrath expansion pack
- Command and Conquer: Red Alert
- Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2
- Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2 - Yuri's Revenge expansion pack
- Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3
- Command and Conquer: Generals
- Command and Conquer: Generals - Zero Hour expansion pack
Command and Conquer style games I won't be buying because of DRM restrictions on single-player gameplay:
- Command and Conquer 4: Tiberium Twilight
So, there you have it. One guaranteed, demonstrable lost sale because of your choice to implement a ridiculous restriction on single player gameplay. Thanks for reading.
Re:Bonus.... (Score:2, Insightful)
That is the typical scaremongering of the BSA. Although some of the patches have trojans, the idea of using sites like PirateBay and the like where releases are PEER REVIEWED pretty much renders that point moot.
Re:No problems here (Score:4, Insightful)
While the CPU power and abundance of input devices make it an attractive target platform, there are simply too many problems related to software piracy to sustain the PC as a viable platform for much longer.
Why would there be more problems now than any other time in computer gaming history? There has always been piracy; it was sneakernet and BBSes before the internet came along. The difference is, back in the days of the floppy when Duke Nukem was a squeaky little side scroller, gamers revolted and stopped buying games with any sort of DRM, and DRM went away -- for a decade or two.
Piracy does not cost anybody and actually can cause a company to make even more money, by getting the word out that it's a kickass game. The only people who pirate are those who just want to try it out, and they'll buy it if it's good, and the rest of the pirates aren't going to buy the game anyway and wouldn't even if it was impossible to pirate it, so there aren't any lost sales to pirates. But pirates help sales when their non-pirate friends see the game.
The kicker is, for piracy to help sales of a game, the game has to be good, as opposed to being a piece of shit that the publisher bribes gaming magazines to lie about. Bad games that shouldn't even be on the market are the only ones that piracy will hurt, because the pirates will let everyone know that the game is shit.
If you believe the bullshit the RIAA, MPAA, and BSA spew, I have a nice bridge in Brooklyn you might be interested in buying. DRM only helps games, movies, and music that suck anyway; good media will sell regardless.
Re:Give that man a new job (Score:2, Insightful)
If Ubisoft is remotely rational, the test of their DRM is not whether the game is available for pirate download, but rather whether the game's sales were higher with the DRM than they would have been without it.
Given the immensely bad buzz around ACII because of it's draconian DRM, I doubt that they were.
Re:No problems here (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm not in full agreement with this, I think that DRM can be a good business strategy if done well. Steam has become a fantastic example of this after its troubled early days, the trick is simply to be honest about what it is and offer some benefit to the system to balance the irritation and the risk.
What I really wanted to say though is that the problem of spending millions on a game isn't that the game is crap, just that it isn't worth millions. Cheap indie games that were developed on practically a budget of zero and sell for trivial amounts if they aren't free can do pretty much the same gameplay concepts as any major game. Trying to compete on graphics is an uphill struggle too, and with poorer returns ever since games stopped looking shit.
I honestly think that most large publishers should turn into nothing more than advertising consultants. Sign deals with games studios to generate customers in return for a percentage, and keep all dealings on a per-game basis. No ownership -> no incentive for ridiculous chains of sequels.
Re:Piracy: the better choice (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Give that man a new job (Score:3, Insightful)
Given the immensely bad buzz around ACII because of it's draconian DRM, I doubt that they were.
History has proved your doubt is almost surely to be misplaced. Badly misplaced.
At this point in time, if company after company didn't have numbers to validate DRM bolstered sales, and by a lot, they wouldn't be spending the large dollars, plus likely royalty payments, to obtain the various DRM kits and spend the manpower to develop/maintain the implementation.
Simply put, without a doubt, companies lose lots and lots of money from people stealing their property. If that were not the truth, companies would not even make the effort - and especially not at what would otherwise be such large losses because of their investments in DRM. The fact they can make back their investment plus lots more because of DRM speaks volumes about how clueless and completely uninformed the popular lies are about pirates and their stealing ways.
The simple fact is, pirates steal! Because pirates steal, companies lose money. Because companies lose money from pirates stealing, they make investments in DRM. Note the usage of the word, "investments"; its very applicable. Companies then stymie pirates, ranging from short to long durations, allowing them to not only cover their initial DRM investments and manpower, but then make a lot more money because pirates are no longer stealing their properly - or at least not nearly as effectively.
So long as leeches on society, aka pirates, keep stealing other people's properly, we are all going to have to pay the DRM price. So ratcheting up the rhetoric about how DRM is justification to steal, only demands more DRM, which punishes everyone. Period.
The funny part is, idiots now use DRM as a flimsy reason to steal. Its like millions of bank robbers complaining about higher taxes which are then used to hire more police to combat the robber's crimes. In reality, if robbers would just be shot in the head, taxes would go down over time (DRM) and the public in general wouldn't be strapped with needless extra taxes (DRM). But that's yet another lie propagated by scumbag pirates to push their thieving agenda...
So at the end of the day, if you don't like DRM, find a couple of local pirates and kick them repeatedly in the nuts because they are the reason we all pay the DRM tax burden. Period. The sooner pirates are repeatedly kicked in the nuts at every opportunity, the sooner the world starts to become a better place.
Re:It's worse than that... (Score:3, Insightful)
I know exactly what you mean. Basically a Sunday evening goes like this:
Me + 2 roomates. Lets play a PC Game. What genre? If its RTS we'll go with Either Starcraft or Age of Empires 2 mostly. Turn Based? Probably one of the Civs, or Age of Wonders. First Person shooter? Well we got Rainbow 6 Rogue Spear or the Original Ghost Recon if we're in the tactical mode. Original Halo. Anything in the Half Life verse, 1 or 2. If we want to try a new FPS we normally just browse the free HL2 Mods on Steam - find one we want. No need for Nazi Zombies on CoD when theres half a dozen zombie games already made online. Roleplaying, probably DotA. And I got Madden 98 should we feel the need for a sports game, but thats never actually happened.
Basically, all the bases are covered already. And we don't have to worry about buying the next gen console to play em, making sure our internet speed is the decent and not flaky, and in most cases, you can make an ISO of the CD without any hitches, and just use that in a virtual drive (no need to CD Swap like in the old days). In the case that you want to play online against other people, most games have CD Keys built into their DRM, so you can't have 2 people online with the same Key at once. And thats fine, thats DRM we can live with, because it still means we can play it locally and have fun.
I don't get why they had to mess with that structure - it worked VERY very well.
A) Games were inclined to create multiplayer content, so that limitting their online usage to 1 key was understandable and accepted.
B) You never needed a connection to play the single player content. This means you could share with your friends but thats like what, maybe a dozen people if you're slutty with your games. And that'll incline them to go out and buy the game themselves if they really enjoy it, so they can continue to play it when they give you your game back.
C) It's lifespan still has not died, and won't likely. Sure - their hosting servers might go down and the large matchmaking system could go under in a decade, but so long as you can still host a lan party, its all good.
Even Spore or World of Warcraft's system works, where you Register online ONCE, with your CD Key, and you don't have to enter it ever again. Then all you need to remember is your account info (*Yes, I know WoW you need a constant connection, but the DRM otherwise is pretty weak. This is why private WoW servers can run). You can share your account info, but you can't both login online at the same time. Which means you can't play together, usually, but allows you to share it enough to the point where it'll convince the other person to buy it if they enjoy playing it and want to face off against you.
If it ain't broken, why did they fix it?
Re:Give that man a new job (Score:5, Insightful)
You might not be able to download Assassins Creed II, but I, an ass hole who dumps a thousand or so a year on video games have not bought the game despite loving Assassins Creed II. You prevent the 12 year old punk who doesn't have any money from playing your game. Being a fucking moron though, you also made it so that the mid twenty single guy with too much money and time on his hand won't buy your game. Good job Ubi. Good job Ubi. Hey, if you create a dead plague that wipes out humanity that will prevent pirating forever! Get cracking Ubi!
Oh well. I bought Bioshock 2, the new DA:O, the new STALKER, Empire Total War, and Mass Effect 2 instead. But hey, at least I didn't pirate Assassins Creed II. Fucking idiots.
He should criticize the game itself. (Score:4, Insightful)
Because it's pretty terrible. Well, let me clarify that. If it was some other combat game set in any other universe released for cheap on Steam it would be OK. For a Command and Conquer game it blows.
No base building?
No resource gathering?
No continuity with the previous story?
Did anybody in EA management play any of the other C&C games? Or even know of their existence?
C&C 4 is the Indiana Jones 4 of the gaming world. What is it with 4s?
Re:I'm not a happy bunny either (Score:4, Insightful)
I can't emphasise this enough.
If you fire up Dawn of War 2, you are only ever controlling a small number of units at once. However, each of these units is highly sophisticated. They can be tweaked extensively between missions and, depending on the tweaks you make, have access to a wide variety of special abilities and powers during missions. They have more in common with a character from a party-based role-playing game like Baldur's Gate than with a traditional RTS unit. When you're actually deployed in the mission, the terrain is highly complicated and the environment has many interactive elements. Securing an area (provided you aren't on the easiest difficulty) will involve careful micromanagement, use of cover, and co-ordination between individual units. Thus the game compensates for the depth it loses by stripping out the traditional base-building and resource management elements of the RTS genre.
If you fire up Supreme Commander 2, you are faced with fairly generic units, most of whom have no special abilities or powers, and which are normally only capable of moving and attacking (though exceptions exist). However, you are managing hundreds of units at once, often fighting on multiple fronts (one set of units defending your base, while an expeditionary force goes on the offensive, with both teams containing hundreds of vehicles). You have little capacity to micromanage individual units without losing control of the wider battlefield, but the depth here comes from managing your economy, building up your base, and controlling a large combined-arms force.
Both of those approaches to the RTS genre are entirely valid and I would have no qualms about recommending either of the above games. They inhabit different ends of the RTS spectrum, but ultimately, the genre is richer for containing both of them. Some will prefer one approach, some the other, and some, like me, are happy with either.
Then we get C&C4. You are only controlling a small force at any one time (slightly larger than in Dawn of War 2, but not by a huge margin). However, the units within it are generic, cookie-cutter stuff. Only a few have any kind of special abilities to micromanage. For the most part, they just move and attack. At the same time, there is no economy to manage. You have a mobile base that can deploy, quickly build a full force of units (with no resource cost) and then pack itself up and move around again. You can slightly influence the course of battle through micromanagement, but with your small army being so easy and fast to replenish, there's relatively little point. It's better just to wheel up near your target and keep pumping out a combination of two or three unit types until you win. That's all there is to it really; no depth, no strategy, no fun.
Re:Give that man a new job (Score:3, Insightful)
If it's not win for DRM, why are pirates comments generally like this:
I just came across some extra cash and, unless I get hit by lightning tommorow, I'm gonna go and buy the game.
I don't feel like waiting anymore for a crack, and since I've pirated every game I've ever played in my life, aside from ST:O, it won't be so bad if I shell out some money for this one, regardless of drm or not.
Seems like the DRM is working and pirates are turned customers.
Re:No problems here (Score:1, Insightful)
Lol such a low UID for such a stupid college kid-esque attitude. There are no PS3 modchips. Thanks for playing.