So I guess I'll try my hand at another blog entry.

Piracy has always been a hot topic in the gaming industry, especially in the PC world. It seems that every day we are seeing PC centric developers doing one of two things. Either they blame piracy for low sales as their earnings decline, or they become more and more console centric with every game. I’ve even heard recently that Epic, known for making the popular Unreal series of shooters, will develop their next version of the Unreal engine for consoles primarily. This came as quite a surprise to me coming from a company which was built on an empire of PC games. So the question is this, what effects do piracy actually have, and what can PC developers do about it.

A friend of mine recently introduced me to the work of Matt Mason, who published a book in January concerning piracy, and his ideas are quite interesting. One major point which stuck with me was the question concerning what a company is actually selling. Basically, whenever a company is confronted by piracy, they need to ask themselves, “What product are we actually selling?” The problem I think many PC developers have is that they see their business as selling plastic discs, instead of selling interactive experiences. This is similar to the way Mason describes what happened to the record industry. Large record companies became too focused on selling CD’s, and forgot that they’re supposed to be selling music. They didn’t realize that the form it took was not the point.

In addition to this pinpointing, it is recommended that the companies involved try to compete with the pirates instead of combating them. By blaming pirates for all of the problems of the modern gaming industry, a lot of developers are essentially calling their audience evil bastards. This isn’t exactly the way to win over the hearts of the gaming world. What developers need to do is very similar to one of the outcomes described by Mason in the war between record companies and pirates. As file sharing became more popular, along came iTunes which provided the exact same service as a torrent but for a price. Apple sells its customer’s the convenience of a torrent in a legal method of download. They competed with the pirates and have made millions because of it.

What this eventually comes down to is this, more dev’s need to take advantage of digital distribution. If a company wants to make money with a PC game, they need to not sell it like a console game. Make it as easy to download a game from its official site as it is to find a torrent and see what happens. One doesn’t need to be a hardcore PC gamer to see the success of Valve’s Steam program. They, like Apple, are competing with the pirates and raking in the money because of it. I am not condoning the piracy of PC games, or trying to argue that it has had no affect on the sales of said games. What I am saying is that things change. A capitalistic society is one which is constantly being thrown new technologies which mess with the norms of production. The widespread acceptance of high speed internet connections is just another new technology. PC developers need to stop complaining about it and start using it to their advantage. Thoughts?

Ok, so I’ve been a reader of Destructoid for probably about a year or so now. I never made an account here because I never really had any good ideas for blog posts, but I’ve visited regularly for news and to listen to the podcasts. I’ve always meant to begin a blog but never knew what to write about. Hell, I haven’t even set up an avatar, profile, etc. yet. I never really had to say anything until recently.

I’ve been one to casually scroll through the comments of certain news articles to see what other people think. Mixed in with the usual cries of “first,” posts of outdated internet memes, and mindless nonsense one could usually find intelligent comments actually discussing the topic at hand. And as Destructoid game reviews have become more frequent, I’ve always read those which interested me. From hearing a certain number of the editors of this site in the podcasts and reading their posts on the site, I think I can assume that most of them are not utterly stupid. From what I’ve seen at this site these people know what they’re talking about, and are at least somewhat devoted to the medium because they’re willing to put this much effort into what is essentially “just talking about” video games. This mindset I have is why I can’t understand the reaction to a lot of the recent reviews.

I finished reading Reverend Anthony’s review of Condemned 2: Bloodshot about an hour ago, which he gave a three out of ten. Oh, and of course we can’t forget the glaring “FORGET IT” tag which is displayed below. And from a large number of the comments I feel I can safely assume this is all most of you read. I cannot understand the value so many gamers place on the number at the end of a review. They are arbitrary and meaningless tags which reviewers have been forced to place at the tail end of any write up because so many people are too dim to come to their own conclusions. And if somebody finds they disagree, I welcome anyone to please explain to me the finer points of the differences between a 9.0 and 9.5. I would honestly like to know what defined quality in games warrants that half point. You want to know why you can’t answer that question? Because the goddamn number is fucking arbitrary. It’s meaningless and should have no effect on how you view a review.

I guess a better example of this mass of nonsensical reactions would be the recent review of Patapon. If one simply reads the text, you know… the actual review, the message is that Patapon is an above average game for the PSP that is worth playing; that it has it’s faults, but is at the very least worth trying. But, what’s this? A 6.5? Sound the alarms! Amass the armies of the internets! Fanboy’s unite for an evil has risen in the land! He goes by the name Jim Sterling and he must be destroyed for he hates innovation! Why, for the love of whatever invisible man in the sky you believe in, why must you people be swayed so much by a number? He might as well have given the game an oil stain out of trash bag. Oh no, but Patapon obviously deserves a ham sandwich out of trash bag, you obviously don’t know how to play the game. It’s a fucking arbitrary number; we each have our own idea of what a certain number or percentage means when it comes to reviews, get the fuck over it. All each of us can know is our own perspective. Don’t get pissed off because you don’t have the capability to understand another person’s perspective.

To close, I’d like to mention I’m about half way through Condemned 2 right now, and you know what? I like it. It’s not perfect, but I’m diggin it. Do I agree with some points in Reverend’s review? Yes. Do I disagree with some points? Yes. Does this slight difference in opinion affect my opinion of him as a writer for Destructoid? For fucks sake no. I read his review, understand why he doesn’t like the game, and have gone about my business. I guess what I’m trying to say is this. A certain number of you people out there need to stop fucking caring about this bullshit. Stop letting these goddamn aggregate review sites decide your game purchases for you. Stop fucking worrying about a single meaningless character at the end of a review and start worrying about the body of text which precedes it. I feel that chances are nobody is going to end up reading this, but from what I’ve seen recently regarding some of the community on this site, that doesn’t bother me at all.