I almost bought Cities XL on Sale- do your homework first

9/28/2010

How much is $5 worth to you? I decided today that it wasn’t worth the heartache of trying to get a broken game to work. I had spied this game months ago, and decided to get Torchlight instead for my $20. I logged on to Steam today and found that this neat looking city sim was on sale for 75% off!!! Sweet I thought, I’ll just pick this up for that price. The Steam variable price model really appeals to me and any time there is something good I pick it up.

I poked my head in the forums to read what people had to say about it before I clicked buy amd this is the post at the top of the screen:

Hmm, I wonder if there is any merit behind this post with 100 replies to it? Without a huge twitter gamer following to source from, I chose to dig a little deeper. Come to find out the company that originally made the game knows all about the technical issues that promted the creation of the “DO NOT BUY THIS GAME” thread on Steam’s forum. The gist of the thread focus’ on the fact the the game developer is perfectly aware of the thecnical issues that make this game unplayable, and have opted not to fix the issues, but create a whole new game.

The kicker about this whole thig is the new Cities XL 2011 will not be avaialbe on Steam because they picked a different distribution method. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Staem the number one didgital distributor of games? This rat hole is far beyond me, and in diving in it I just got more frustrated.

The end result of this foray, I saved $5. There are a lot of people that buy things that they never intend to play just because they are on sale, not because they are good games. In these hard time it is a shame that we have to quibble over $5, but that’s $5 closer to Civ 5 as far as I’m concerned.

Are we getting too much Bioshock Infinite too early?

I have been inundated recently with info and promotion of Bioshock:Infinite. The front page of Xbox Live, the full cover and spread in Game Informer this past month. Don't get me wrong, I was a big fan of the original Bioshock, and an old time player of System Shock and System Shock 2. I did play a little of Bioshock 2, it Didn't catch my fancy like the first one did. I watched the interview that the Xbox Live community guy did with Ken Levine about the game. It was full of game play and the stuff really does look awesome. The story telling that is possible with this world may have even more potential than the original Bioshock. The same question remains, is this too much hype of a game that is coming out in 2012? I hope not..

How will Tivo compete when it can't deliver product??

After reading this post on engadget, I felt compelled to express some opinion about Tivo and its place in the market. I have owned 2 Tivo units over the last 10 years. A Series 1 Unit that worked wonderfully for us for 4 years, and a DirecTV SD unit that was the bees knees since I didn't have to have IR blasters and it had dual tuners.
Like many DirecTV subscribers, I have been waiting years for this fabled unified box again. I have been tolerating the Hughes box for a few years since I went HD. It works, but it does not have the interface of Tivo, which I believe if their "secret sauce".
This latest announcement hints at the idea that Tivo will be getting out of the hardware business. Does this make sense? I think it does since the the streaming content software companies are moving rapidly out of the HTPC realm and into the set-top-box area. With the advent of the Boxee Box the idea of Al-La-Carte consumption of media, the cable and satellite providers are going to have to innovate and deliver content as consumers want it. Will Tivo be able to deliver? Their track record says no, but maybe they will be able to come through.

Netflix Universal Deal bearing fruit for streaming customers

 

Netflix customers, do you remember how upset you were when you couldn’t rent “Avatar” for the first 28 days of DVD/BD release? I do, and to fight “The Man” I went down to one of the last remaining Blockbuster stores in my area (there used to be 4) and pick up a BD copy to my family to watch. Now we all know based on the latest news, that we will be seeing fewer stores very soon as the bankruptcy protections they are seeking will allow them to break leases and consolidate their stores. This has already been happening here in the Midwest for a few years now.

Is the 28 day rule tolerable with the new content that is available on Netflix streaming? As long as you are willing to wait to see future new realeases. I recall the days of VHS, and the months, and even years that we had to wait to rent VHS tapes of our favorite big-screen hits. I believe that these agreements will eventually push the hard-core movie buff in the direction that the movies studios want them to go. It will introduce the re-emergence of the DVD/BD purchaser that just HAS to have that new release the day it comes out. Those of us that are a little more frugal, will most likely wait for it to be avaialble to stream, or go down to the new BLockbuster Express machine to pick it up.

The fill press release can be found in this article at Engadget.

Good Old Games Closing…… FOOLED YOU!!!!

To coin a line from Dark Helmut, we’ve been fooled. Was this just a ploy to get attention? Sounds that way. What does this type of stunt do to the hard-core fan? I personally have purchased a few games from GOG, but a majority of my library comes from Steam. This approach damages their base, and they did work to help mitigate the damage. The statement has been made the the site has always had “Beta” at the top, so we can only assume that this is the big release.

The re-launch of the the site brings the original Baldur’s Gate. The big issue with the launch is they generated too much publicity. They are adding servers to take up the load. If you are in to old games that are modified to run on modern systems, give the newly re-launched GOG.COM.

If you still have that old media hanging around like I do, take a look at dosbox. I have some moldy-oldies like Tie Fighter, Renegade, and Gabriel Knight. I will be publishing my testing with these games in use with dosbox and dbox to ease the pain.

 

Stay tuned!!

The continuing story on Vernor v Autodesk

 

In my previous post I had talked a little about what ramifications this might have for the resale of games. There has been considerable buzz around the “Doom and Gloom” of this decision as it pertains to used video game sales. There have been a few articles written about this topic, but the most comprehensive one is on gamepolitics.com.

Rules of first sale

It’s up to the courts to interpret laws, that’s how our system works, but what happens when there are conflicting decisions? That’s the predicament that the Ninth Circuit Court was dealing with in this case. The term “quacks like a duck” are used to describe how they rule on if something is a sale or a license. Basically the content owner decides on the terms on which you can use their product. This type of scenario was successfully used by Blizzard to shut down a bot manufacturer in World of Warcraft.

What came from this decision

Really, what we gain from the court decision are some guidelines to apply to these types of cases. There were no questions asked on the criteria of the product in question. Now there are questions that are asked about the how the license is written, and that is only one component of the process.

Will this affect how the used game market works? Probably not. There are more characteristics of owning a console video game that are like a sale. It’s more about having a copyright on the content than licensing it to the end user. The major exception this is MMOG’s. Users pay a subscription to this, and if they stop paying it, the lose access to the service. If you try to pirate the software or install it against the terms of service your account will be banned.

The moral of this story is DON’T PANIC!

The software ownership discussion….

This past week on This Week in Tech (TWIT) the topic of software ownership came up. The story is around the case Vernor v. Autodesk in which a man purchased used copies of AutoCad at an office sale with the product keys. He then tried to sell them on Ebay, and AutoDesk asked Ebay to take down the auctions repeatedly. The man then sued to get the sales declared legal.

The court interpretation of the EULA upheld AutoDesk’s claim that the sales were in violation of the agreement. This, of course opens a can of worms that should have been left closed. If software manufacturers and media companies had their way, any time you were done with their product, you would send back the media for them to destroy them.

This argument comes down to weather or not you own the software or media that you buy, or are you just “renting” it. Some think that if you don’t really own a game when you buy it the costs are too high for games. This line of thought also hurts the largest game retailer in the US, GameStop. Their entire business model was built on the used game market, and everyone’s desire to save a few bucks. I’m not going to go in to the merits of their business practices now, but there is some value to the games industry that they provide.

Consider that someone buys an Xbox360 late in the console cycle. You of course would want to build a library of games to play at a lower cost. You may pick up earlier titiles that have new sequels coming out currently. Those earlier games may sell newer game titles. That is of course hypothical, but it is one example of a potential benefit.

A major success story is Valve’s Steam service. It gives the software publishers control and rights management of their games, and a convienient method for media delivery. It’s a great way to keep older titles in front of consumers and continue to genereate revenue for game developers. Valve also does a great job of shaking up prices by running frequent sales on individual titles and bundles of  titles at deep discount. This week the Star Wars software collection is on sale for $49.99US. Well over $150.00 of software for $50.

There will eventually be a middle ground in this battle. For now, speak with you wallet, and show these businesses what you think!