Game Preservation

I was recently watching a video about the sound modulation used to voice the robotic Cylons in the original Battlestar Galactica.  As it turns out, the technique was lost to time and had to be reverse engineered by means of digital post-processing mixed with some antique electronics that were cutting edge when the TV miniseries was in production.  The end result was a very close approximation rather than a precise match, overall, the entire endeavor served to illustrate how painstaking it can be to reconstruct something if the method for making the original is forgotten.  When people talk about preservation, especially with regards to skillsets, I feel like they really just want to save on a whole lot of effort somewhere down the line when some as-of-yet-unborn historian or wants to know how his or her predecessors did it.

Worse still are techniques that have not only been erased, but the products are also irrecoverable.  The burning of the Library of Alexandra marked the loss of countless books only known to exist because they are mentioned in other works that managed to survive down through the ages to the present day.  Marie Empress was one of the biggest stars in pre-WW1 Hollywood before vanishing without a trace.  What's more shocking though is the fact that not a single movie she appeared in still exists.  Like so many silver screen films, they have all been deliberately destroyed or eroded into nothingness due neglect.

Presented with these harsh facts, I feel like it isn't really all that difficult to understand why some people have strong feelings toward video game preservation.  Batteries die, circuits fail, monitors burnout, controllers break...it's an inevitable side-effect of age and use, particularly when a lot of these devices were never built to last.  Making digital downloads version of old titles is an optional solution, but requires emulation and, if truth be told a CRT monitor.  There is only one company left that makes these antiquated displays, but they are what old games were designed to be played on and as such the graphics don't match quite right on modern HDTVs.

Of course, all this is peanuts compared to the biggest issue of all.  Companies, either due to neglect or deliberate distain, will ensure their games eventually arrive at an unplayable state. Typically, these sorts of titles are MMORPGs or other games that require an online connection, while simultaneously lacking dedicated server support.  An incomplete list of titles at risk, dead or saved is available here (link).  I should mention that some of these games aren't very good (at least as far as aggravated review scores go), but it's still sad to think that with a little effort from the developers "dead games" wouldn't be a concern.

Another very weird case is games that have received so many updates and patches they only vaguely resemble what they once were.  Stellaris, as of Spring 2021, is almost an entirely different game compared to what it was several years ago at launch.  The same goes for No Man's Sky and Oxygen Not Included.  There was a time when the star voice actor for Destiny was Peter Dinklage.  Now he's nowhere to be heard.  In some games (such as Minecraft) it's possible to revert to older versions fairly easily, but most titles don't receive that amount of support.

So, what all this really comes down to is every single one of these kinds of games needs an end-of-life plan.  What that entails exactly can differ depending on the circumstances.  In one case it might involve releasing the source code, in another it could mean making the game shareware.  Ideally, developers need to put out a final version of the game that allows people who purchased the game to continue to have the ability to play it.  Some people might claim that publishers are just engaging in a bit of double-dipping in the hopes of selling the same game to the same customers (just on a different platform), but as Sony's attempt to kill their PS3 shop on the PSN has shown it's not even about that.  Is it laziness?...Greed?...a simple lack of foresight?...I don't know for sure, but I can say with complete confidence that it comes from a lack of respect for the art form.  Humanity has already made this mistake at least twice before with literature and film.  How about we not make the same mistake a third time with video games?         

Zzz...3

I've been critical of the Electronic Entertainment Expo for many years now.  It lacks the focus of GDC or the compartmentalization of Gamescom.  It also feels very dated compared to newer internet-based forms of promotion like Nintendo Direct.  When it comes to the whole loot box controversy, the ESA (the show organizers) have done a bang-up job of alienated both their contributors and the people they are supposed to be representing.  All this and more has steadily eroded the value of having E3.  Sony isn't there anymore.  Activision decided not to go as well.  An ever growing number of leaks stole a lot of the show's thunder, and various games coverage outlets are finding it increasingly difficult to justify going when pretty much everything of relevance is available on the internet.

It's certainly a lot cheaper not to attend.  When you consider things like hotel fees, taxi rides, plane tickets and the cost of being at the event, the bills add up to a lot of money very quickly.  Considering all the funds, time and effort companies like Bethesda, Microsoft, Square-Enix and Ubisoft dump into their presentations, it doesn't seem worth the hour or so each of them lasts.  Preparing for E3 is hard on development studios too in that they are often asked by publishers to put together a flashy demo that can take months of work, devouring resources perhaps better spent on finishing the actual game.

For awhile I felt like (even though the show itself had become boring) the stuff surrounding E3 continued to be interesting mostly because of the snark, cring, memes and so on.  Even that source of amusement though has faded in recent years.  Perhaps video game companies are becoming more self-conscious?  Of course, it's not all bad...Last Oasis had some neat visuals...as a Heroes of Might and Magic fan, Songs of Conquest looks enticing...I guess one could also argue that it's still an opportunity for industry veterans to hang out and swap "war stories"...although, I got to say when the biggest thing to come out of a video game expo is a surprise appearance by Keanu Reeves, then it might be time pull the plug.

Verdant to Brown

Once upon a time consoles had radically different hardware.  This meant games found on one platform were rarely seen on another.  Porting was a labor intensive process that didn't happen much because it might entail rebuilding a game from the ground-up; re-recording sound and music, re-drawing sprites, etc.  Few as they were, ports tended to be pretty similar.  Mortal Kombat and Earthworm Jim for the Genesis/SNES were almost completely identical.  On the other hand, Alien 3 tie-in games for those two 16-bit platforms are radically different despite having the same titles and cover artwork.

It was also common in those days to see games made with the express purpose of challenging a rival system-seller (i.e. a popular game exclusive to one platform).  Franchises like Phantasy Star and Sonic were created by Sega in order to complete against Final Fantasy and Mario Brothers respectively.  Killzone was often thought of as a game made to directly oppose Halo.  To a degree this sort of think became blown out of proportion by overzealous fanboys, but the fact remains that exclusives helped sell consoles; Golden Eye on the N64, Gears of War on Xbox 360, and...well...to this day Sony maintains a number of studios that develop games only for PlayStation hardware.  Naughty Dog is probably the most famous, but there are others such as Team Ico, Gorilla Games, and of course the newly formed Kojima Productions.  Exclusives are what has allowed Nintendo Switch and PS4 to overshadow the Xbone in terms of Market Share.  When you get down to it though, there aren't many differences between current-gen consoles.  All of them are basically using similar off-the-shelf-parts found in gaming PCs.  As such it seemed like exclusivity was going to become a thing of the past, and the only difference between ports would be some minor variations in graphics fidelity or operating system feature sets...that is until Epic decided to take a bite out of Steam's market share.

Just for the record I use Steam, but I'm not a fan of Steam or their borderline monopoly on digital game distribution.  I also appreciate attempts by smaller competitors to weaken their dominance thorough cheaper prices and less restrictive terms-of-service agreements.  Unfortunately, a recent tactic is the timed exclusive.  I first encountered one of these with the indie game Bad North and felt that it was a terrible business practice because it basically comes down to strong-arming customers into using a particular service provider.  True, it doesn't cost anything to download and install Epic's client Software, or GoG's, or Origin's...or Uplay's.  Having said that, none of them are particularly useful either; beyond having an alternative digital storefront from which to buy games.  There's no reason why, from a consumer's perspective, a game should only be available through one service.  Of course from the publisher/distributor viewpoint there can be many reasons; almost all of which have to do with stuffing more money in already fat pockets.  Basically, it's a case of pachyderms butting heads...and we all know what happens to the grass when elephants fight, right?

Black Tiger, Hidden Agenda

Steam has a serious problem with shovelware.  To Valve's credit though they don't really promote any of the garbage that is steadily overcrowding their library of games.  PSN, on the other hand, has gone out of its way to advertise the abomination that is Life of Black Tiger.  Right off the bat, would-be-players might notice the banner art for the game is actually just a slightly reworked version of a freely available background wallpaper image.  That in itself isn't a big deal, but it gets worse.  Watch the trailer and you might notice some music playing in the background.  It's actually a cover by "JackonTC" of the OST song "Next to You," for none other than the anime "Parasyte" ("Kiseiju," in the original Japanese).  So what?...you might think.  Original art and sound assets aren't necessary to make a good game, right?  Technically...yes, but Black Tiger isn't a good game by any stretch.  It has graphics comparable to a PS2 title, despite being released on the PS4.  It also has audio issues, non-existent collision detection, clunky controls, and English localization text that reads as follows:

It's full of smell with blood of wolves today and the smell is stronger than a few days ago.  I can't bear with it. Let's kill every wolves found.

That's just one of the less jiberish-laden examples, but believe me if it hadn't originally came out for the Android three years ago I would have given it this blog's "Engrish Award" for 2017.  Another point worth noting is the Android version of this game is absolutely free, while the PSN version costs 10 USD.  Horrible, I know, but even worse is the fact it's not the only game on PSN that has done this.  Horse Racing 2016  (which actually came out for the PS4 in 2017) is a dollar on google play...but...well, let's just say it goes for a bit more on PSN.

Generally speaking, Black Tiger is considered to be one of the worst, if not the worst game currently available on the Playstation Store.  A number of people strongly believe Sony is pulling some kind of elaborate joke by curating this game.  I've also seen accusations of nepotism (the developer must actually be the son of a Sony CEO or something along those lines...).  The publisher is a company called "1GAMES" which, as far as I can tell, has pushed out a fair amount of trash over the years.  However, I haven't been able to find any specific names attached to this particular title (perhaps for somewhat obvious reasons).

The last thing I want to mention about Black Tiger is the reviews...particularly on Metacritic.  Of course there are plenty of 0/10 scores that are fairly honest about their impressions of the game, but the real enjoyment comes from reading those 10 out of ten perfect ratings.  They are, in the vast majority of cases, being deliberately sarcastic about the quality of the game to the point that it can be pretty entertaining to browse through some them and see what people wrote...at least more so than actually playing the game.

Coming Next Spring

2015 isn't exactly over yet, but I'd like to take a moment to talk about three games of note that have been pushed back until next year.

A Kickstarter project that has been funded and in development for almost exactly to years now, Hyper Light Drifter shares DNA with the like of the Zelda franchise.  The key difference being this game has a bit of sci-fi mixed in with the fantasy.  While I'm glad the game has a set release date, it feels like this should have come out this year.  It's understandable though given the creative director's heart condition and the relatively small size of the team.  Plus, the preview build sent to Kickstarter backers suffered from an inexplicably poor frame rate.  So, hopefully they'll have enough time to get that ironed out before the full release.

XCOM 2 coming out this holiday season sounded too good to be true when it was announced during the reveal trailer, and...surprise!  It turns out the release date was far too optimistic.  Supposedly the reason for the delay has to do with the developers wanting to increase the replayability of the game.  That's part of the reason, I'm sure.  My gut instinct tells me that the rest has to do with cleaning up buggy code and time to give the console ports developers a chance to catch up to the lead platform on the PC.  Regardless, I'm still looking forward to playing the game when it finally does come out next spring.

With regards to games made by Naught Dog Studios, I prefer The Last of Us to Uncharted.  That said, I'm still looking forward to Uncharted 4.  Not so much in a binge-play-it-to-the-finish-for-the-story kind of way, but more for the technical aspects of the game.  In all likelihood the graphics on display in this PS4 exclusive title will be the best yet for Sony's current gen home console.  In other words, I'm more curious to see the hardware potential of the PS4 than the ultimate fate of Nathan Drake.  If anything, the delay just means more polish will be applied that what would have otherwise been had the game come out this year.

So, those are just a couple of games set to hit store shelves (and digital marketplaces) early next year.  It's a bummer having to wait longer than expected, but overall at least it isn't as bad as 2014.  It seemed like the majority of games originally planned to come out that year were pushed back to this one.  Now if only we can ensure that delayed games don't launch in a broken state...

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

I'm a big fan of the dark fantasy action RPGs collectively known as the Souls series.  So much so I even went so far as to earn the platinum trophy for Dark Souls (no easy feat, I assure you).  As you can imagine, when Dark Souls 2 came out I was very interested in playing it.  However, I knew the game had DLC in the works, so I withheld my enthusiasm.  You see...I made a mistake with Dark Souls.  I played it so much that by the time the DLC for that game finally became available, I didn't have the heart to go back again for yet another playthrough.  Hence, for Dark Souls 2, I've only recently started playing it.

Scholar of the First Sin, as this definitive version of the game is called, has a lot to see and do.  Then again, for someone who already played the original PS3/Xbox360/Dx9 release and DLC as it came out, I doubt this new PS4/Xbone/Dx11 version is worth the price tag (unless you happen to be a truly obsessed with the series).  For someone like me though, who has yet to go adventuring in the world of Drangleic, it's a blast.  The only problem is I'm not sure that I'll be able to really enjoy Bloodborne after I'm done with Scholar of the First Sin.

That might sound like a strange thing to say considering that Bloodborne is very much an evolution of the Souls formula, and thus generally superior to previous entries in the series.  The thing is though, despite being a "next gen" title the loading sections are ten to twenty times longer and the frame rate is cut in half.  this sounds like nitpicking, I know, but Bloodborne is a faster paced game than Dark Souls 2, with a great deal of emphasis on dodging (something I find a lot easier to pull off at 60fps than 30).  Not to mention the inevitably frequent deaths associated with From Software games means exacerbated aggravation brought on by spending an excessive amount of time staring at loading screens.  Forget the character, I'm the one who's about to max out their frenzy bar!  Jokes aside, there is one other fundamental issue I have with Bloodborne in it's current state it has a certain lack of content.  Don't get me wrong, what there is in the game is of the highest quality, but everything (from art assets to NPC storylines) feels a bit slim either in terms of breath or depth.  Granted, From Software is a relatively small developer  with limited resources to draw upon.  Then again, for pretty much the same reason, I think there will be DLC down the road.

I have two swords.
One for each of you.

What I'm really hoping for though is an eventual PC port.  I don't think it would be particularly hard to pull off given the similarities between the PS4 and PC architecture.  Plus, having to buy a PS4 and PSN subscription to fully enjoy Bloodborne feels a bit scummy...yes, I know both are a good deal, but not everyone has that kind of money to throw around.  In my case too, a PS4 is a bit redundant given I have a mid-range PC more or less equivalent to the PS4 in terms of processing power.  The online play is free to boot (which is good for me because I often go months at a time without playing games multiplayer).

A lot of folks on the internet keep saying that Bloodborne is going to stay a PS4 exclusive, but I think there's a decent chance that it will find it's way to other platforms eventually.  After all, in Yharnam they say blood is more intoxicating than alcohol, but in the game industry I think money trumps them both.    

Opening Salvos

Using the analogy that PS4 and Xbox One are dueling battleships, we could think of the 2013 Electronic Entertainment Expo as the first broadsides in what will undoubtedly be the main engagement of this upcoming console generation.  Obviously, tactics play a big part, but so does overall strategy and even basic design.

I think we can all agree that it was a good day
for black rectangles 

Lets talk briefly about the box makers themselves, shall we?  It's important to note that Microsoft is, at heart, a software company while Sony has traditionally been a hardware manufacturer.  You might be tempted to conclude from those facts alone that it's no surprise Sony is ahead right now, but remember that their obsession with the PS3 cell processor led to a lot of headaches for game development down the road. Conversely, Microsoft has had reliability issues with a number of their early model Xbox 360s.

Taking on a more macro view, I think Sony pulled a rather clever ruse leading up to the big press events at E3 in Los Angeles.  Going in, there were a lot rumors that Sony would follow suit with Xbox One's DRM schemes, but as it turned out this was a big pile of falsehoods.  Couple the deception with PS4's $100 cheaper price tag and you have a brutal one-two-punch against Microsoft.  Now, there's still things Xbox One can do though.  Subsidized price plans, early release dates and lots of exclusive content would ensure that the console war is far from over.  That said, there's one really huge factor that could spell doom from Xbox One - demographics.

The only Xbox One exclusive
that really caught my attention

A lot of American gamers tend to forget the Xbox 360 really only outsold PS3 in the USA.  Europe and Asia are smaller markets, but the fact remains PS3 dominated in these regions.  The result is Sony catering to a much wider international audience while Microsoft feels like it is contracting in terms of core customers.  Still, there are a lot of people who enjoy sports TV and games as well as online focused first person shooters.  However, I don't believe these "Dude-Bro" gamers make up the majority.  If anything Microsoft needs to cast a wider net.   I'll give you a hint, securing stuff like Titanfall isn't going to do it.  That game really only appeals to the aforementioned Dude-Bro player base.

What we are left with is a situation in which Microsoft could very well go the way of Nintendo and the Wii-U, clinging to a small market share of hardcore fans.  I guess you could say Microsoft came into this expecting a stand up big gun fight and instead got torpedoed.  Maybe they can contain the flooding with skilled damage control, but the fact remains the waters around Xbox One are seeded with mines.  

Digital Doping

Power up for the low, low price of
$9.99 per boost!

It seems like there has been a lot of conflicting messages in the video game industry as of late.  Over on the Epic Battle Cry podcast, Daniel Kayser made an interesting observation regarding the PS4 press conference.   Specifically, he pointed out that Sony telling its audience about the benefits of connected gameplay, motion sensing cameras and dedicated hardware that does things online without your input, doesn't really jive with games like Infamous: Second Son, in which the entire premise revolves around fighting a "big brother" society.

Another aspect of gaming that is developing a similar conflict of interest is the notion of online play and micro-transactions.  Of course, the most obvious example is competitive multiplayer games where players can pay extra for perks over their fellow players, or at least bypass the time needed to earn upgrades.  It looks great from a business perspective, but has a souring effect on the player base.  Generally speaking, people who play video games want success to come to those who put in the effort, merit over money and skill over hacks.  Then again if we're talking offline gaming then who cares, right?  Well, recently there's been a big shift in the industry to make always online, always connected and always social key features.  The thing about that is I don't think the industry has really considered the way this might work against their revenue models.  Not many people want to play a game were the top dog is ultimately the one who spends the most real world cash.

To me, it feels like the end result of pushing for more and more micro-transactions is the creation of a system that offers a false sense of status.  Do we really want various video game companies to go the route of BMW, Bose, De Beer, Gap and a bunch of other trendy junk manufacturers, targeting the over-privileged and extremely gullible?  At the very least we're going to have to put up with a lot of unwanted design choices.  I don't know about you, but I'm not looking forward to seeing a bunch of Farmville hybrids, nor am I excited by the prospect of  sports games that let players artificially enhance their athletes' performance for the small fee of $X.XX in real world cash made payable to EA and their ilk.  Video game companies want to be a service-based industry, but the question a have to ask is "Who do they really want to serve here?"

Bad Blood

Antagonism is nothing new in to the world of video games. There's been plenty of rivalries over the years. Not just between leader board high scores or companies like Sega and Nintendo, but also between fanboys. Even iconic talking heads go at it from time to time. Most recently Annoyed Gamer (GT) and HipHop Gamer (EGM) have been doing a bit of tit-for-tat. What I haven't really seen though in the last couple decades is the level hostility we're experiencing now between the people who buy games and the people who sell them.

Sure, there has always been some degree of conflict when it comes to internet piracy. What's really getting out of control is the antagonistic nature of publishers. Granted gamers can bitch about anything and everything, but that doesn't mean all complaints are equally (in)valid. Word spreads fast now via twitter, youtube, facebook and various forums allowing a greater degree of communication that ever before. Gamers, if they really want, can put pressure on companies that rub them the wrong way. So to counter this publishers have been engaging in a number of tactics.

For one they have tried to cozy up to media outlets as well as restricting their voices by way of NDAs. At the same time they push for pre-orders which is a great way to ensure bad games still sell well out of the gate. Another trick is to take a beloved franchise "hostage", claiming that if it sells bellow a certain target no sequels will be made. Thus putting boycotting prone gamers in a major imposition. Speaking with the wallet is a gamers best voice, but "hostage taking" tends to misdirect that voice.

DLC sales also drop off the longer a game is out, but rather than making better DLC many companies deiced to simply make it day one.  Or else have a "season pass" which allow them to pre-sell content. That way they get gamer dollars regardless of the quality of the final product. Marketing deception is an issue too. How many games came out last year that were trying to copy Call of Duty? I guarantee it was a double (if not triple) digit figure. Ads also have increasingly focused on the lowest common denominator, obfuscating genres and aiming for the least industry savvy demographics.

Lastly, and this is the one that irks me the most, is front-loading. Supposedly there are statistics out there that show only a small percent of games sold are actually played to their finish. So, somebody got the bright idea that the solution is to cram all the good stuff in the beginning and pad out the end. Dead Space 3 is probably the most recent example, but even games I personally like (such as the Witcher 2) suffer from this. It's nothing new. Dark Forces had this problem at it came out in 1995, not to mention a myriad of JRPGs. That said, it still sucks that we haven't moved beyond this.

So, where are we headed? I'm not sure, but the ball is in Sony and Microsoft's court.  For everyone's sake let's hope they make it a good serve.

Hate the Game, Not the Genre

Fist, this is advice to me as much as anyone that happens to be reading.  Second, I figured I'd post it here because maybe what I've got to say will prove useful to others. Third, and finally, it's a bad habit in the gaming community to hate things they don't get. Call it "tribalism" if you want. I some psychologists might refer to it as "insecurity" steaming from low self-esteem. Personally, I don't think it matters what you call it, being a jerk just because you can isn't cool.

Hate speech, bigotry, trolling are a few names for it, but the fact is I highly doubt a lot of the people making insulting remarks on the internet are all that prejudice against blacks, women, gays, Jews, and so on. Rather it's their best attempt to get a rise out of listeners. They know deep down that they're nobodies so they vent their frustrations by trying to bring everyone else down to their level. Hence the reason we got PC elitists/haters, fan boys for Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo and a whole mess of people who praise one genre and bash another.

I'll be the first to admit that I had some pretty big biases when I was a teenager, so it's not like I'm above all this. However there is something I'd really like to stress. Even though I'm burned out on shooters I don't hate the genre. In fact I don't hate any genre. Sure I'm not so big on sports games, but there are still some I like; Blades of Steel, Pigskin, as well as a select number of racing games. Here's the thing though, when I grew up I grew out of stereotyping stuff and so should everyone else.

On the other hand it's okay not to like a game, just make sure you have real reasons for feeling so. Saying it sucks amounts to nothing, and taking such overly simplistic trash talk online will probably get you a lot of well deserved flack. If you don't like a game judge it on the merits of that particular title and criticize it based on supportable evidence. Also, keep in mind that if it's not you cup of tea don't drink it. Let other people have their fun and you likewise. Trust me you'll save yourself and everyone else a lot of misery in the long run by taking a more mature stance.

Recently companies like Google have been taking a lot of heat for allowing abusive language, but I think there is a big danger in censoring speech. It's all too easy to start shutting down people just because they have an unpopular opinion, or simply disagree with the powers that be. The only real solution is to teach manners to those who have anti-social attitudes. More often than not pushing them down only serves to re-enforce their destructive behaviors. Hard as it might be, if you want results your going to have to pull them out of their hole and up to a level of more reasonable discourse.

Odds and Ends

Here's the deal. I don't have enough material for a single topic so I decided to make a post that includes several subjects that have been on my mind recently that I'd like to touch on briefly in turn. I might expand on the three following points at a later date, but for now this is all I got.

First, why am I seeing so many comparisons between Dark Souls and Skyrim recently? Not only did the games come out a full month apart (more than that if you count the Japanese release date), but they're not even in the same league. Yes, you can say they’re both fantasy/action RPGs, but beyond that design philosophy they couldn’t be further apart and more importantly there is a huge difference in resource allocation. Dark Souls was made by a team of 40 people in a period of two years. Skyrim was made by 90+ individuals over a five year development cycle. I might be tempted to say "apples and oranges" but I think a more fitting analogy would be "wine vineyard and cattle ranch."

Second, why are there so many games coming out now that have to be online all the time in order to be played? I can understand MMORPGs, but Diablo III? Or how about pretty much every game sold on EA's new Origin online store. Banning issues aside, the Internet and it's library of websites aren't all that reliable when it comes to access. Just last night I tried to log into PSN and found that I couldn't because of the reoccurring "80710B23" error having to do with Sony servers. Luckily for me I can play offline, but I would have been pretty pissed had that not been the case. Seriously fellow gamers…don't buy games that require you to always be online unless you like being aggravated.

Third, why aren't motion controls going anywhere? By that I mean they are neither becoming a prominent feature in the case of Sony Move, nor are they going away when it comes to Kinect or Wii Motion Plus. If they pushed it into the background I can understand such as making it optional, but Zelda: Skyward Sword has made the Wii remote mandatory and it looks like Wii-U will have similar requirements. Alternatively Kinect could be used in a supporting role, but as of this moment I've only heard of one game, the sequel to Steel Battalion, that is capitalizing on this idea. Maybe the reason is developers have yet to hammer out the kinks...then again half a decade seems like enough time to start producing some quality titles other than in-house Nintendo productions and dance/rhythm games. Needless to say if 3D integration is going to be the same deal then I'm not looking forward to it very much either.

Sony's War

There are many kinds of wars; set piece battles where armies face off against one another, cold wars where two sides are on constant alert but neither attack out of fear of repercussions, drug wars, the war on terror, and most importantly (for the purposes if this blog post) guerrilla wars. Those costly conflicts in which a much more powerful force is slowly worn down by attrition caused by a much smaller and weaker but more cunning and determined foe. I think it's safe to say Sony is in just such a conflict. Not in the literal sense of course. Nobody is dying as the result of violence at Sony (I hope), but nevertheless the economic and ideological aspects of "Sony's War" are all too real.

So what was the spark that started this conflict? Well it's been smoldering on for a long time. A conflict of interest in which the guerrillas are the hacker community, an extremely loosely allied group of individuals who pride themselves on freedom of information backed by a talent for computer science. And Sony, a massive corporate conglomerate dominated by a long tradition of business culture. I could go into the history of how these two have been skirmishing for years. Usually it comes down to Sony wanting more money and the hackers wanting more freedom. Regardless I've never really sided with either group. Or rather I am sympathetic to both sides. After all Sony employees need to eat, but when their execs are writing themselves fat year end bonuses while at the same time complaining that they don't make enough money...well let's just say it's hard to feel sorry for rich people. Meanwhile one could think of hackers as being Robin Hood figures looking out for the poor and powerless. Then again it's also easy to find hackers who engage in activities that are nothing more than mean spirited thievery and vandalism. I think it's generally safe to say that there are moderates and extremists on both sides of this conflict with a mild tug-o-war over the boarder line of what's fair ideally based on common sense...until now.

It's just my opinion but I strongly believe that Sony really set things off in earnest when they decided to pull the other OS option retroactively from their PS3 systems (not a good idea when your slogan is "It Does Everything!"). Let me ask you this; Would you grab a green beret's hat off his head and throw it in his face? Because metaphorically speaking that's exactly what Sony did. They insulted one of the most elite group of tech-savvy people simply so they could make a little more profit...or so they though. As it turns out they might as well have dumped a bucket of gasoline on the sputtering flames of the conflict. Since then there's been a lot of back and forth with the hackers hacking and Sony going sue happy with it's small army of lawyers. For a while it looked like Sony was beating everyone into submission through shear ferocity. But then came the counter-attack. PSN, over 70 million user accounts world wide, had it's security compromised forcing Sony to shut it down. Needless to say this is going to cost the company a lot of money. One can't help but wonder if it would have been less costly to just leave the PS3 other OS option alone.

Sadly, it's too late now. Sony might as well be the USA in Vietnam, the USSR in Afghanistan, or the Roman Empire in Gaul. But wait those of you who know your history might say "Hey didn't the Romans eventually pacify Gaul?" to which I would answer "Yes...yes they did." However it wasn't done by dragging people out into the street for public execution (although they tried that) rather the way the Romans eventually achieved a degree of success was by winning the people over. And therein lies Sony's way out of this mess. Gamers are a fickle bunch but they've been burned enough times to appreciate it when someone gives them a fair shake. Maybe for the execs at Sony that sounds like the road to the defeat of lower revenue, but that would be a shortsighted view dominated by an obsession with quarterly profits. No, what is need is a sustainable situation - an arrangement where honest consumers of games don't suffer. Because let's face it the real losers in this conflict isn't really Sony or hackers, it's everyone who can't log in to PSN and play the games they paid for.