Distributors and retailers refer to games as products. Publishers on the other hand, like to believe games are services, supported by a torrent of content to ensure that you're hooked for as long as possible. They're both wrong. To me, games are moments. They're those events that make you wet your pants in fear, cry like a little girl or just simply smile. Be it the obtuse humour of Fable, the wide-eyed whimsy of Kirby's adventures or the sheer adrenaline rush of Vanquish, there's a lot that make games worth playing. And now, access to newer experiences and feelings that games can elicit are dependent on:

1. How fat your internet pipe is.
2. How often you're willing to stretch your electric bill in the name of grabbing those levels that should have shipped with the game in the first place.
3. Your willingness to spend $10 for a scrap of paper over and above your used game purchase.



There's been a lot of drama around publishers and their online policies to curb used games. Be it locking out campaign levels, multiplayer modes or just modern day horse armour, it's become a bit of a nuisance we've grown to tolerate. Gone is the time when you could just boot up a game and play it, there's an install, patches, and of course, some varying chunks of megabytes of content that you'd to download before you can even think of playing your game. Add the obligatory driver downloads, config file edits and swearing if you're a PC gamer. You're spending less time experiencing the thrills of Arkham City and wasting more time waiting for the damn content that should have been on the disc to be downloaded.

I'm worried about is how this would affect single-player only experiences. Now, not all of us (read: me) are big multiplayer gamers. I like my solo fun be it mining for minerals in Mass Effect 2 (I actually liked that, true story) or flirting with fellow classmates in Persona 3, single-player games, particularly RPGS, are, for the lack of a better term, my jam.



Which is why this entire debacle of locking out single-player content in the name of protecting first hand purchases is preposterous. Even more so when a triple-A title like Arkham City does it simply because it sets precedent. But if we're to be historically accurate, I do believe precedent was set with Dragon Age: Origins' Shale DLC which punished gamers who didn't pre-order or buy day one by missing out on the coolest character and her side-quest in the game. To be honest, I don't think the game would be quite the same without having a big hulking stone golem with a psychotic dislike for pigeons and a disdain for humanity by my side. But I digress...

My major issue with this wholesale adoption of online passes is that it corrupts the design process. It dilutes the impact that a title would have. Imagine how FFVII would have been if you were asked to pay to access the death of Aeris? Or if Modern Warfare's All Ghillied Up mission was an optional download? Would these have the same effect as they did when you saw them for the first time? I highly doubt it. You'd end up with thinking a little lesser of the game than you should. And you can't be blamed either.



After all, it's not like the developers and business folk have the best idea of what should be listed as an online pass what shouldn't. There are some moments in a game that everyone should be able to access regardless of their type of purchase be it day one or two years hence, new or used.

Hell, it was quite tragic that the Naked City case in LA Noire was a download-only affair in certain territories. Reason being it was, in my opinion one of the cases that the game should have shipped with. It did a good job of fleshing out the details of 1940s Los Angeles', it deserved more than being bunged in with the rest of Rockstar's dismal online pass offerings.



Another caveat of restricting content to a digital code is the actual gameplay duration you get out of a single-player game. Fundamentally it means that you're never going to get all the hours the game promises you unless you connect to the Internet and download the data as soon as you purchase it.

I wonder if any of the executives at publishers have ever thought how stupid it is to keep content out from a paying customer just because of his or her Internet reliability (Warner Bros and Rocksteady, I'm looking at you). It's not like everyone has access to a blistering fast broadband connection or is comfortable with downloading a ton of data. Mass Effect 2 comes to mind where the collective wisdom of EA and Bioware thought it was a good idea to let us download close to a gig worth of content (Normandy crash mission, Zaeed Massani's quests) after purchasing the game instead of dumping it on the disc.



Though the US figures show a different picture, it's not exactly true for the rest of the world. Especially when some countries have ISPs that think it's cool to have a fair usage policy restricted to 25GB. Sometimes I feel that the publishers are in bed with Internet providers and electric companies in order to make us spend more than we should on electricity and Internet to get something we've already paid $60 for.

To sum it up, online passes would, in my opinion result developers create half-assed single-player campaigns that make a mockery of your hard-earned money. After all, it's not like you make it a habit buy a used car without wheels, or a used book without half its pages. Some might argue that games are not products, they're services. I believe that games are neither. Games are moments.

And for this reason alone that this entire online pass hoopla is a complete clusterfuck in the making.We're not far from the time when what could be classic moments that make video games special get sliced and diced as pre-order or day one add-ons. So go ahead, do your bit and don't support titles that are making a making a mockery of the very core of gaming because as gamers, we deserve better treatment.

It's tough living in a supposed third world country. You never get access to great games like Persona or BlazBlue unless you've got a credit card plus spare cash to deal with the all but obvious customs charge that follows or a relative kind enough to get you what you need. Reason being, we're a nascent market, where anything outside triple-A (or purported triple-A tripe like NFS and WWE) don't sell. Even the mainstream press doesn't give games or gamers any respect, devaluing the entire ecosystem of gaming, casual or hardcore, PC or console to cheap Chinese knock-offs.



Heck, Nintendo doesn't even have a legit presence in the region, so we're officially three formats short.Throw in the fact that the two biggest formats in terms of install base are the PS2 and PC, even games like Forza and Gears aren't that easy to come by unless you really hunt for them. Having said that, if it's not labelled God of War, WWE, Uncharted, Halo, Cricket 20xx, Assassin's Creed, FIFA, GTA or Hanuman Boy Warrior you'd be at your wits end trying to find it.



Digital distribution services such as Steam aren't exactly the most accessible of options thanks to a glorious Fair Usage Policy (FUP) that caps your downloads to 25GB (yes, I shit you not, I rather get an aneurysm than explain to a customer rep why their policies suck) and the fact that local, physical boxed PC games cost around $20-25 at launch. Yes, we're perhaps the cheapest for PC games in the world. But that counts for nothing when a good portion of titles don't even release here, officially or otherwise.

For example my attempt to find a copy of Fallout: New Vegas for the PC was a disaster. Thanks to D-toid and a few friends on Steam who were raving about it my interest was piqued. I figured it shouldn't be much of an issue getting it. Never had I been so wrong. The first stumbling block was finding someone who knew about it outside my merry band of virtual friends, there wasn't anyone at retail or real-life per se who had an idea about the latest in post-apocalyptic simulation. Most trips to stores were like this:

"Do you have Fallout: New Vegas?"
"No but we have FIFA 11."
"Oh, no thanks."
"Sir we have this new game, GTA4. Just came in. Brand new!"
Me: facepalm

At least Fallout 3 was easier to source due to it being banned (pro-tip: you want a game to sell, get it banned and have parallel importers bring it in and charge a boatload) no such news of New Vegas being banned ensured that my local grey market importers were equally clueless.



Ironic isn't it? There I was, searching for a game that focused on the sheer lack of humanity in post-apocalyptic times and I never felt more alone in my quest for it in the 6th most populous city in the world. Forget obscure, it hadn't even been heard of. No, it doesn't get better.

Entire genres get ignored so much so that RTS or RPGs outside their initial run are absolutely painful to find. This means if you don't snap up a copy of Dragon Age: Origins or Mass Effect 2 within the first week or two, you're more or less boned till it makes it on the shelves as a platinum/greatest hits release.



Don't even get me started about platform parity, for the longest time, things were so bad with Xbox 360 sales that we only got the arcade SKU a year and a half after the rest of the world did. I guess it probably had to do with MS' smart idea of straight math, assuming that ten percent of a 1 billion-odd population with a per capita income of $1219 would actually be able to afford a $500 Xbox 360 Pro console. At least we got Xbox Live before a ton of other territories including the Middle East.

However we're by and large a PlayStation country with PS3 games selling around three to four times as more as they would on the Xbox 360. This basically means if you ever bought an Xbox 360 you're screwed as games are hard to come by because so few of them are brought in unless you're the sort looking to pirate because in that case it's easy to get your hands on a console and games, in some places even easier than getting an unmodified Xbox. The same applies to the Wii in quite a few places as well.



And it gets worse. A few months ago a couple of leading distributors thought it would be a nice idea to start a price cartel, preventing retailers to price games as they saw fit. In fact, no retailer would be allowed to price any EA, Sony first party, MS first party, Capcom or Namco Bandai titles at a discount. All games from these publishers have to sell at suggested maximum retail price for the first two months. The end result? A ton of retailers parallel importing product and some of them doing it catastrophically wrong to the point where NTSC U/C PS2 and Xbox 360 games litter store shelves when we're a PAL territory.

It's a bone-headed policy that's probably going to do more harm than good. Luckily, other distributors aren't too interested in maintaining a stranglehold on day one pricing. Yet. Problem is EA is the topdog publisher in the region and has a major influence on how other big publishers such as Ubisoft and THQ do business.



Are we going to end up with price fixing that's borderline, if not completely illegal? It's too soon to tell, but it's just one of the many glaring problems that gamers in India face. The hilarity of all of this is, how do you expect to keep piracy down if everyone selling legit games is hellbent on making things more difficult? It's these inane reasons as to why people continue to flock to piracy regardless of format. Interested in games for your PS3? Sure, hop on over to your friendly neighbourhood store with your PS3 in tow and wait for 30 minutes as the salesman loads the games of your choice on your PS3's hard drive right infront of you.



All in all,things are oppressive at best. And until the industry decides to be a little more open, a little more perceptive and a little more interested in actually serving a market instead of shoving crap down its throat, it sucks to be a gamer here.

Oh and I did manage to get my copy of Fallout: New Vegas after pulling in a massive favor from a friend overseas. Not something I'm likely to try again. How easy is it for you to get your games in that little slice of paradise you call your country?

Next week, why locally created video game content should die in a fire.

Warning: the following post is not an attempt at advertising the forum linked. It's just another source of information about Sony's PS3 failures. If you think otherwise, click here.

A forum i frequent has a long running thread about blu-ray drives dying out. Living in a country (India) where it's relatively cheaper to buy a gray import PS3 has its perks, such as small service centers the size of 4x4 foot rooms where tech gods resurrect PS3s, Wiis and 360s with equal ease.

And according to them, the problem is indeed the blu-ray drive, which doesn't cost more than $50 to replace (provided you can track down a spare and solder it yourself) or willing to plop down $100 to get it done by them.

Or if you actually own an official PS3 (yes it launched here, for real) then you'd be subjected to waiting for a replacement and around $ 100 check. The money is because in case your issue is with a 60GB PS3 (to which most of these problems, dubbed "Spin of Death" have occurred) Sony India would reimburse you the $100 difference along with a 40GB PS3. They don't repair consoles and in some instances they've even asked people if they've modded their PS3s to play pirated games.

As you can see Sony (at least Sony India) knows jackshit and are too busy drooling over the fact that their PS3 stock sold out pretty quick. Seems that while the rest of the world is subject to a more humbler Sony, we in India are stuck with a vintage 2005 Sony Kaz Hirai Arrogance&Ignorance Edition.

For the paranoid, PS3 haters or Xbots needing more ammo, this is a thread worth looking into if you think it's something to be bothered about, while the rest of us continue playing Gran Turismo or whatever is Sony's black box has to offer. If you're one of the unlucky few who're facing this situation (which has so far only hit 60/80GB owners), this is on me.

Alright, i've spent close to 30 hours in FFXII, and i've reached a scenario where i've stopped caring.

i don't care if the evil empire wins. i don't care if pretty boy Vaan fails in his epic quest to score with Ashe. i don't care if Balthier manages to seduce Fran into a threesome with Penelo.

i just don't care.

Seriously, FFXII got rave reviews from nearly every site and publication. If it is the wunderRPG reviews make it out to be, why the hell am i so disinterested?

It's not like i hate the genre, i've been playing the FF games since VII (like most folks) and i've finished all the single player ones barring FFX-2 which was a glorified Charlie's Angels version of FF.

Why is it that this single iteration of what is arguably the most loved and concurrently, most whored out RPG series ever suck so bad?

VII had a unique, if slightly muddled story, VIII had emo angst and what i believe, was a great premise, IX had flair and old school charm while X was, well, in a league of its own when it came to weaving an intersting tale, not to mention it had the most bad ass character i've seen in an FF game, Auron. In an alternate universe where everyone loves J-RPGs, we'd be cracking Auron jokes rather than Chuck Norris jokes.

So where does all of this leave Famitsu's 40/40 FFXII? Nowhere.

The pacing of the game is drab and slow. Sure it's a tale of political intrigue and other such things but it's cloaked in invisibility with a pathetic structure. What on earth possessed them to bookmark each segment of the plot in the form of "Chapters" is absolutely crazy.

As a long time FF fan it hurts to see a series you've grown up playing mutating into some monstrous whored out piece of garbage. In all there attempts to include new features like the real time battle system and gambits, they've forgotten what's core to the FF experience, an epic saga that holds interest. Not a boring, lackluster tale that kills your interest as well as your appetite for the genre.

If anyone needs me, i'll be playing Persona 3 or Odin Sphere hoping that FFVII: Crisis Core does not suck.

It’s that time of the year when people go crazy making lists. Here's mine disguised in a feeble attempt to make up for the lack of time spent on d-toid and mediocre post count.

The Coolest Weapon in a Video Game Award: The Groovitron (Ratchet and Clank Future Tools of Destruction): Sure weapons are meant to murder, maim and kill, but this one is different. It’s meant , as the name subtly suggests, to make you dance. Rather, make your enemies dance. As a game Ratchet and Clank doesn’t take itself seriously and this is the best example of it. Imagine facing a 50 foot tall Crocodile monster with acid spewing from the jaws. Scary right? Now imagine the same monster uncontrollably dancing to disco tunes? That is the power of the Groovitron. Making you get rid of irritating bosses faster and having a hilarious time doing it.

The Worst Use of Giant Robots Award: Transfomers: The Game- What could’ve been a dream game ended in epic failure. Repetitive missions, buggy camera and boring side missions make this game destroy your childhood memories of how awesome the Transformers used to be. Play it and you’ll wish you purchased that Paris Hilton CD instead. Yes, it’s that bad.

The Game with the Longest Name Ever Award: Simple DS Series Vol.13: The Vehicle Learning DS - What you just read was just a simple translation of the game’s name. It’s actual name is (take a deep breath and try reading this) Simple DS Series Vol.14 The Jidousha Kyoushuujo DS --Gendoukitsuki Jidousha, Futsuu Jidou Nirin, Oogata Jidou Nirin, Futsuu Jidousha, Fusuu Jidousha Nishuu, Chuugata Jidousha, Oogata Jidousha, Oogata Jidousha Nishuu, Oogata Tokuchuu Jidousha, Kenbiki. Yes, some things are too good to be made up. This is one of them, ‘nuff said.

The Game that won't win anything because all you folks do is play in HD: Persona 3 - Seriously folks, it's sad that the best RPG of the year doesn't get any loving. It's even sadder that it's one of the few titles this year that can really suck you in for around 40 hours and you won't be able to tell. Though the loss of job, girlfriend, parents and the death of your pet turtle should be tell-tale signs. If you aren't too busy strategizing how to make the most of the Dark Hour that is.

The Nintendo DS Game of the Year (valid till its obsolete): R4. Let's face it, piracy is what, ironically drives a percentage of console sales, be it handheld or otherwise. It's just hilarious that (from my personal experience) a majority of pirates can afford to throw money around on a brilliant home theater set-up or a fancy car but would skimp on games while your average joe who earns a less than spectacular amount would scrimp and save every penny for the legit stuff. Oh well, as long as Nintendo is laughing all the way to the bank who cares?

By now most of the ADD people around might have made filet mignon out of their entrails and in order to prevent what could be the closest they get to a Hannibal moment...

...or so says the sultan of spin at Sega of America.


"Sega of America PR Director Charlie Scibetta is currently looking into the trademark issue and why it was updated. In the meantime he told us that Sega "has no plans to get back into the console business," adding, "We're very happy being a platform agnostic company and have moved up the ranks the past three years from #11, to #9, and now stand at #6 in terms of our market share by units among third-party publishers. We like our current strategy and have no plans to change in the middle of this outstanding growth."

Well, so much for all the 9/9/9 conspiracy theories and DC nostalgia c-blogs. It's a pity though, Sonic HD would rock so hard on the DC2. That is, if this was Narnia.

Source.