After being sued by the Church of England over the appearance of Manchester Cathedral in the hit FPS Resistance: Fall of Man it’s understandable that Sony would go out of its way to avoid offending religious sensibilities. So when a post showed up in the official European Playstation forums pointing out that a song in the soundtrack for LittleBigPlanet contained verses from the Qur’an and thusly could be considered offensive to Muslims, they opted to err on the side of caution and delay the launch of the game so it could be removed. Now they’re being criticized by a different Muslim group over that decision:

M. Zuhdi Jasser, M.D., president of the non-profit American Islamic Forum for Democracy told Edge on Monday, “Muslims cannot benefit from freedom of expression and religion and then turn around and ask that anytime their sensibilities are offended that the freedom of others be restricted.

“The free market allows for expression of disfavor by simply not purchasing a game that may be offensive.”

Jasser, who has also appeared on CNN, in the Washington Times and National Review, said that not only does the First Amendment support freedom of expression, but Mohammed also “defended the rights of his enemies to critique him in any way even if it was offensive to his own Islamic sensibilities or respect for Koranic scripture.”

[...] Jasser said that the demand to censor, as well as Sony’s willingness to bend at the request, is counterproductive to freedom of speech.

“…To demand that [the game] be withdrawn is predicated on a society which gives theocrats who wish to control speech far more value than the central principle of freedom of expression upon which the very practice and freedom of religion is based.”

Jasser added, “The fact that the music writer is a devout Muslim should highlight that at the core of this issue is not about offending ‘all Muslims,’ but only about freedom of expression and the free market.”

He still said that he does not endorse the use of Koranic verses in non-educational videogames, calling the literature “the words of God.”

But he took a clear stance in upholding First Amendment rights.

“AIFD stands against any form of censorship in the marketplace of ideas whether imposed by government or by corporations intimidated by the response of militants or those with an inappropriately sensitive level of political correctness,” Jasser said.

Needless to say, I agree with him. I can totally understand why Sony opted to play it safe, but I still think they should have kept the song. I also think we need more Muslims standing up and saying things like Mr. Jasser here.

The folks over at Gamasutra.com landed an interview with Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello wherein he claims to hate DRM but says it’s necessary due to piracy. He goes on to address the massive online protest over Spore using SecuROM:

“So far, Spore has outsold Sims 2,” he notes. “Commercially, it’s doing very well.”

“Everyone gets that we need some level of protection, or we’re going to be in business for free,” Riccitiello says. But he sees a lack of understanding among “a minority of people that orchestrated a great PR program. They picked the highest-profile game they could find,” he says. “I respect them for the success of their movement.”

“‘I’m guessing that half of them were pirates, and the other half were people caught up in something that they didn’t understand,” he says. “If I’d had a chance to have a conversation with them, they’d have gotten it.”

Thanks John, for telling us you think we’re either thieves or fucking idiots. But let me give you a clue for free: The pirates were all busy downloading your game off of the torrent sites five fucking days before you even put it on store shelves. Why the hell would they bother protesting your game when it was already cracked and on the Net?

And I would absolutely LOVE to have a conversation with you on the topic. Not that I think I could change your mind with my stunningly persuasive argument, but just so you could hear my stance on why I’m not buying your games straight from me. I’d also love to hear you explain how DRM stops piracy on a title that was being pirated before it was ever released? I’d also love to ask you to man up and admit that this is less to do with piracy and more to do with stopping second-hand sales of your titles because you’re upset at how much money GameStop and other companies are making.

This becomes obvious to anyone who reads the Spore EULA which states that there’s no guarantee that you can transfer the activations over to whomever you sell the game to. It’s also clear by the fact that more and more games are coming with features that will only work for the initial purchaser of the title:

Game publishers and developers have long been frustrated by their inability to get a cut of used game sales at retailers such as GameStop.

Rather than just complain, though, game makers are now starting to provide gamers with incentives to not sell their games at all or, at least, not buy used games.

[...] For example, each copy of Gears of War 2 will ship with a unique, one-time-use code for downloading extra multiplayer levels.

Once the code has been used, subsequent owners of that copy of the game will be unable to download the levels.

And NBA Live 09 will include a similar free, one-time code for accessing daily roster and stat updates.

If you buy a used copy of NBA Live 09 and the previous user has already redeemed the code, you’ll have to pay $20 to get the updates.

Isn’t NBA Live 09 one of your company’s titles, John? Why yes, yes it is. At least have the balls to own up to the fact that what you’re attempting to do is to limit what legitimate customers can do with the games they buy from your company rather than stopping piracy. Because we both know that you’re not going to stop the pirates anytime soon and we both know how pissed off you are at all the money GameStop has been making off of second-hand sales.

I am not the fucking idiot you seem to think I am, John.

Well it looks like I won’t be buying Far Cry 2 either seeing as they’re going to use SecuROM:

Some DRM points that will hopefully answer some of your questions and will clarify some misunderstandings about our DRM and SecuROM:

• You have 5 activations on 3 separate PCs.
• Uninstalling the game “refunds” an activation. This process is called “revoke”, so as long as you complete proper uninstall you will be able to install the game an unlimited number of times on 3 systems.
• You can upgrade your computer as many time as you want (using our revoke system)
• Ubisoft is committed to the support of our games, and additional activations can be provided.
• Ubisoft is committed to the long term support of our games: you’ll always be able to play Far Cry 2.

Treating your customers like criminals will do more to kill PC gaming than piracy ever will.

Pity. I really like the first game.

[Update]: I felt the need to register on the UBI.com forums and leave a comment so I thought I’d include it here:

Congratulations! You’ve just guaranteed that I won’t be buying Far Cry 2. Which is a shame as I really loved the first one. Why won’t I be buying the game? Specifically because of the presence of the SecuROM DRM. I could list off all the common reasons such as the known hardware incompatibilities and the fact that it interferes with the operation of some legitimate software tools, but the primary reason is this: I don’t see why I should spend between $50 and $60 to be treated like a criminal when the criminals are enjoying your game with no restrictions whatsoever. And the pirates will crack your game just like they cracked Spore and every other SecuROM protected title prior to that. If Far Cry 2 follows the current trend then it’ll be cracked and on the torrent sites at least a week before it’s due to be released making the inclusion of SecuROM for anti-piracy reasons moot. But then the reason you guys want to use SecuROM over some of the other equally ineffective copy protection schemes that I don’t have a problem with has nothing to do with defeating piracy and everything to do with preventing folks from using the first sale doctrine. I haven’t seen your EULA for FC2 yet, but I’m willing to bet there will be a clause in it that’ll state that the transferal of activations to anyone we happen to sell the game to after we’re done playing is non-existent or very limited. The EULA for Spore had such limitations which proved that SecuROM wasn’t about stopping the pirates and was all about stopping the resale of used games. GameStop is making a KILLING on buying old games and selling them for close to new prices and the game publishers and even some designers have made it no secret just how much that pisses them off. This isn’t about piracy at all because you guys fully expect it’ll be cracked regardless of what you use, but piracy sure makes for a convenient excuse to justify using SecuROM which will keep your legitimate customers from selling off the game once they get bored with it or move on to the next big release.

Every now and then you’ll hear some game publisher bemoaning piracy on the PC and threatening to go console only as though that would stop piracy in its tracks. Shame there’s no truth in that claim:

Code of Bethesda’s highly-anticipated follow-up to Oblivion, Fallout 3, has already been leaked onto the internet and is available on various torrent sites.

The official game isn’t due for release until October 28 in the US and October 31 in Europe, but the Xbox 360 version of the game has been hacked and at the time of writing had well over 2000 people downloading the 6.52GB file on one site alone.

The hacked version of the game would only be playable on an illegally modified Xbox 360.

It is true that the number of modded 360s is probably pretty low and acts somewhat as a barrier against the piracy being too extensive, but piracy still happens even on consoles. If you can make it they can break it and they’ll probably do it long before you ship the game.

The folks over at ArsTechnica.com have been playing around in the LittleBigPlanet beta and they’re very impressed indeed:

Even this early into the game’s public beta (which has been going on for the past few days) the depth of some of the user-created levels is impressive. We raced in a WipEout-themed level, played one long ode to Naruto with custom characters and backgrounds, fought monsters constructed from scratch, and tried to master some dexterity-demanding deathtraps. Some of the levels we played even had special player-created rewards for completing their levels, adding the content they laboriously created to our own roster of usable in-game items.

Admittedly, the variety of tools can be daunting, even if the amiable British tutorial narrator makes learning the ropes a relatively painless affair. Still, the possibilities are staggering. Players can pass materials to one another, create switches that trigger explosives or gears, even script enemies to move in certain ways or set scripted events to occur at certain points. These options create so many possibilities that one cannot help but be excited by the prospect of unleashing these simple-to-use tools on the masses.

There’s no question that Sony is on to something with LittleBigPlanet. The YouTube-like design used for creating levels, sharing them online, and finding new ones to play lends itself to a perpetual play experience that isn’t any more likely to grow stale than YouTube is to draw less and less attention with each passing day. And, while the game may create a bit of a barrier for entry that YouTube lacks, it won’t take much in the way of social spreading for the game to catch on with others.

I’m looking forward to the game myself, though I must confess that I haven’t a clue what I’ll create once I get it. Still I look forward to seeing all the cool stuff other people come up with. More importantly, this could be the killer app Sony’s been waiting for to really kick off PS3 sales. Assuming folks out there still have enough money to buy one with all the financial turmoil out there at the moment.

Thinking of buying a second-hand copy of Spore? Might want to think twice:

According to the buyer, his copy of the game was purchased from “a crotchety old redneck,” but the buyer didn’t get the necessary information needed to get into the game’s main account, and thus couldn’t play. A call to customer support was no help; sellers have to give the purchaser the account name and password, almost like a World of Warcraft account. Unless buyers get that information from the person or store they get the used game from, nothing can be done. EA will not let you open another account.

The portion of the game’s EULA that deals with sales is interesting; the company technically allows it, but EA won’t make it easy on you. “You may not be able to transfer the right to receive updates, dynamically served content, or the right to use any online service of EA in connection with the Software,” the agreement states. “You may not be able to transfer the Software if you have already exhausted the terms of this License by authenticating the Software on the allowed number machine [sic]. Subsequent recipients of this License may not be able to authenticate the Software on additional machines.”

I speculated about that possibility in a previous entry and I elaborated on it in a comment at the GamerDNA blog. I’m only surprised that it took this long before someone fell victim to it. All the claims that SecuROM is on Spore to prevent piracy are now revealed for the total bullshit they are. It’s not about piracy, it’s about limiting the first-sale doctrine. If you bought it they want you to keep it whether you play it or not. Don’t loan it to a friend, don’t try to resell it, make those fuckers buy their own copy so we get a few more bucks.

Saw over on BD’s site a link to a new social networking site aimed squarely at video game players called GamerDNA so I thought I’d check it out. Setting up a profile allows you to list off all the games you’ve played/are playing as well as providing you with quizzes to determine what sort of MMORPG/FPS/RTS/etc. gamer you are. I had a few quibbles with some of the questions because more than one answer seemed appropriate (I consider myself a console and PC gamer for example), but otherwise they seem to paint a fairly decent picture of how you game. Here’s the results from the four quizzes I’ve taken so far:

In all honesty I don’t know how many gamer friends I’ll meet through the website, but it’s still be at least as much fun to play with as Facebook has been. You can see my member profile here. If you’re a gamer and into social networking then this could be a pretty cool place to set up shop.

EA Games Label President Frank Gibeau sent the folks at Kotaku.com a press release about DRM used on Spore which again demonstrates that they just aren’t getting the message. They continue to think the issue is solely about how many installs the game has and they continue to repeat the lie that DRM stops piracy:

Two weeks ago EA launched SPORE – one of the most innovative games in the history of our industry. We’re extremely pleased with the reception SPORE has received from critics and consumers but we’re disappointed by the misunderstanding surrounding the use of DRM software and the limitation on the number of machines that are authorized to play a single a copy of the game.

We felt that limiting the number of machine authorizations to three wouldn’t be a problem.

Let me put this simply: You were wrong, but this is only one of many issues you are wrong about. The limited number of installs may not have been as big an issue had the utility to revoke an authorization been available from the get go, but it would still have been an issue. The claim that the limit is to prevent piracy is ludicrous given that the game was, as has been said many times previously, cracked and on the P2P networks five days before it hit store shelves. Even if you’d managed to keep it under wraps up until launch day the likelihood of it being cracked within a day or so of launch is very high so the DRM and install limit does nothing to prevent piracy.

The only other obvious conclusion to draw from the install limit is that you’re attempting to eliminate the secondhand sale market which the folks at Gamestop have been making millions off of. One of the big draws of digital distribution is that it would effectively negate the ability to turn in a game to Gamespot when you get tired of it and an install limit would seem like the best of both worlds. Sell them a disc, but eliminate the resale possibility.

* We assumed that consumers understand piracy is a huge problem – and that if games that take 1-4 years to develop are effectively stolen the day they launch, developers and publishers will simply stop investing in PC games.

We know it’s a problem, but it’s not one that we - your legitimate paying customers - should be punished for. Which is effectively what you are doing. As a reminder: Spore was effectively stolen five days before launch so your solution to piracy was ineffective. That means the only people being affected by the DRM are those people who paid you for the game. The pirates have already stolen it and will continue to do so.

* We have found that 75 percent of our consumers install and play any particular game on only one machine and less than 1 percent every try to play on more than three different machines.
* We assured consumers that if special circumstances warranted more than three machines, they could contact our customer service team and request additional authorizations.

That’s nice, but it’s irrelevant. Most of us who have concerns over the number of installations we’re allowed are probably part of that 1% that will put it on a single PC. It’s not how many PCs we can put it on so much as how many times we can put it on a particular PC that’s the issue. Some of us restage and upgrade our PCs on a regular basis and could use up a three install limit in the course of a single year. Bumping the installs to five only delays the inevitable. Providing a utility to deauthorize one of the installs helps, but is still a pain in the ass that shouldn’t be necessary. Sure we can call your nice support people and ask for additional authorizations, but we shouldn’t have to be interrogated just to install a game we bought and paid for. I have tons of EA games that I bought years ago that I still install and play every so often, some of them on a computing platform (the Commodore Amiga) that no longer exists as an active platform as far as Electronic Arts is concerned. I don’t have to call your customer service people to install and play those games so why should I have to do it for this or any other game?

But we’ve received complaints from a lot of customers who we recognize and respect. And while it’s easy to discount the noise from those who only want to post or transfer thousands of copies of the game on the Internet, I believe we need to adapt our policy to accommodate our legitimate consumers.

Going forward, we will amend the DRM policy on Spore to:

* Expand the number of eligible machines from three to five.
* Continue to offer channels to request additional activations where warranted.
* Expedite our development of a system that will allow consumers to de-authorize machines and move authorizations to new machines. When this system goes online, it will effectively give players direct control to manage their authorizations between an unlimited number of machines.

Sorry, that’s not good enough to get me to plunk down the $50 you’re asking for. You haven’t addressed the fact that SecuROM itself is part of the problem as it is known to cause issues with some legitimate hardware and software people may have installed in their machines. It’s also known to update itself without notifying or getting consent from the owner of the computer and even if it was working previously those future updates could potentially introduce problems. Additionally it’s known to send encrypted data back to a server without informing the owner of the PC what info it’s sending or why and that falls under the definition of spyware.

We’re willing to evolve our policy to accommodate our consumers. But we’re hoping that everyone understands that DRM policy is essential to the economic structure we use to fund our games and as well as to the rights of people who create them. Without the ability to protect our work from piracy, developers across the entire game industry will eventually stop investing time and money in PC titles.

This argument doesn’t wash because SecuROM hasn’t protected your work from piracy and it’s probably a good bet your insistence on it has less to do with stopping piracy as it does stopping secondhand sales of your game. You’re not stopping the pirates, but you are fomenting a lot of ill will from your long-time dedicated customer base made up of people such as myself. I refuse to spend good money to be treated like a criminal, but that’s what you are insisting you must do for the sake of your “economic structure.” There are plenty of other equally ineffective copy protection schemes out there that you’ve used for years that were less of a problem than SecuROM is so if you insist on putting worthless copy protection into your software at least go back to one that is less of a burden on your legit customers. Otherwise the sales you lose won’t be solely due to piracy.

The folks over at the official PlayStation blog broke the news:

For those of you who’ve pre-ordered and are anxiously waiting, we’ve received great news from Media Molecule - the game code has gone ‘GOLD’ and we’ve started manufacturing the PS3 cases, manuals and most importantly Blu-ray discs.  Meaning, LittleBigPlanet will hit stores in North & Latin America on October 21 (With Europe releasing the same week).  But trust us, you’ll want to be there with us during the first week.  Why you ask?

During the first week only, to celebrate “Launch”, LBP fans everywhere will be able to download a FREE, Limited Edition Spacesuit costume for your SackBoy on the PLAYSTATION Store.  (Get it…Launch…Spacesuit…o never mind)

In addition to the freebie, there will also be a rare “I was there Week One” T-Shirt available - to prove that you were… well… “there Week One.”

I think collecting SackBoy costumes is going to be a big hit with fans of LBP. They’re already offering different SackBoy outfits for folks who pre-order depending on which store you pre-order at and now theres two more outfits for folks who get the game on launch day. The spacesuit outfit is particularly impressive:

Click to embiggen!

So if you’ve been waiting for this title to come out you may want to get a pre-order in ASAP.

One of the things that I love about my PS3 is that Sony seems to be trying all sorts of new ideas with it. Their latest offering is a free service they’re calling “Life with Playstation.” It turns out it’s somewhat similar to the Nintendo Wii’s News and Weather channel, but presented in a much more dramatic way. Here’s an overview from the announcement on the Playstation blog:

Life with PlayStation provides a stunning interactive globe, a 3D world map that you can twirl around to see live cloud movement courtesy of the University of Wisconsin, combined with up-to-date weather information from the Weather Channel, top news headlines provided by Google news, and live web cam images via the Earth Television Network — all localized to the select city. And why not have your favorite soundtrack playing in the background while you go through your morning ritual (just think, no TV commercials and teasers to find out if you need to bring an umbrella to work)? You’re on your own for your morning caffeine fix.

For those following the progress of Hurricane Ike throughout last week, we were able to track the storm’s real-time movement from Life with PlayStation.

At this point they have a screenshot showing the hurricane making its way towards Texas as presented on the real-time globe. It’s pretty nifty, but here’s the part that I thought was particularly cool:

We’re also really excited to share that this new lifestyle service is running in parallel with our Folding@home project. Essentially, this means that while you’re taking a stroll on Life with PlayStation, you’re automatically helping Stanford University to work towards curing diseases such as Alzheimer’s and various types of cancers. For those familiar with Folding@home, we’ve made some enhancements for more advanced simulations of protein folding and support for wider variety of simulations, in addition to adding a unique ranking system showcasing top contributors from around the world.

I have the Folding@Home software installed on my PS3, but I’ve yet to process an entire packet because the only time I leave the PS3 on without playing it is when I’m charging up the controller which is infrequent enough of an event that the Folding@Home software only runs for a little while. Now there’s a service I might actually make use of that as an added benefit does Folding@Home processing as it runs. Again it’s hard to say how much more time will come out of this, but it’ll certainly up the frequency for me.

Sony even includes a short video presentation of the new service:

I’ve not played with it myself yet, but I’ll probably download it when I get home from class this evening to check it out. I’ll post my impressions on it a bit later.

On the one hand I suppose I should be impressed that Electronic Arts bothered to respond to all the complaints about the SecuROM DRM at all, but the responses they gave to MTV Multiplayer show they still don’t get it:

Complaint: A legitimately bought copy of “Spore” can’t be activated on more than three different computers — ever.

EA Response: That will be changed, according to the EA spokesperson, who told Multiplayer that the current limit on the number of computers that can be associated with a single copy of “Spore” is “very similar to a solution that iTunes has. The difference is that with iTunes you can de-authorize a computer [that you no longer want associated with your iTunes content]. Right now, with our solution, you can’t. But there is a patch coming for that.” The official timeframe for that patch is “near future.”

*Some stats regarding this issue — EA provided Multiplayer with updated information indicating that it is rare for consumers to perform installations of recent EA PC games on more than one PC, let alone three

They then go on to show that the vast majority of purchases of Mass Effect, Spore Creature Creator, and Spore are only authenticated on one PC and very few ever do three PCs. However this completely misses the point. Very few of us are worried about being able to use Spore, or any other SecuROM protected title, on more than one PC as much as what happens after the third restage or upgrade causes us to hit the three install limit. Yes we can call EA and request a new license and perhaps it’s as easy as pie to do, but we shouldn’t have to do that. I don’t have to do it with Red Alert 2, but I will if I buy Red Alert 3 and there’s no valid justification as to why. It doesn’t stop the pirates in any way as they had Spore five days before it was available in stores.

If your restrictions don’t actually prevent piracy then all they do is inconvenience legitimate customers. If you continue to insist on them after a game has already been broken then I can only assume there is an unstated ulterior motive for requiring the online activation and install limit. My guess would be A) to gather usage information and B) try to squeeze extra sales out of gamer families. The latter of which is likely to purchase multiple copies of the game anyway.

Complaint: Consumers fear there is spyware being installed by the SecurROM copy-protection software incorporated into the game.

EA Response: “There’s no viruses, no spyware and no malware…We have located a download off of one of the Torrent sites that is a virus. The thing I would say to the consumer audience is that, if you’re concerned with a virus on your computer, the chances of that are infinitely higher when you’re downloading off of a hacked version than it would be downloading the authentic game. We would never put any spyware on anyone’s computers. That’s not going to happen.”

This falls to address exactly what it is SecuROM is phoning home about, which it is known to do. Exactly what information is it gathering and sending off across the net? If you refuse to tell us then it’s exactly like Spyware in terms of spying on us without revealing what info it’s communicating. If SecuROM interferes with the operation of legitimate software and hardware, which it has also been known to do, then it also fits the definition of Malware.

Pretty much everyone knows that downloading a hacked copy is risky, but there’s plenty of virus-free hacked copies that don’t spy on folks out there for the taking. The response also assumes that people who don’t buy the legit version will turn to the hacked copy and that’s not necessarily the case. A lot of us will just refuse to buy the game costing you sales because we don’t appreciate being treated like criminals.

Complaint: The “Spore” instruction manual claims that a purchaser of “Spore” can allow multiple users to create online accounts with a single copy of the game. The game does not allow this.

EA Response: The company has already stated this is a misprint in the manual and referred Multiplayer back to a statement issued by “Spore” executive producer Lucy Bradshaw apologizing for “the confusion.” But EA has not replied to Multiplayer follow-up questions regarding why the company implemented this restriction and what EA makes of complaints from households that include multiple people who want to have separate “Spore” accounts associated with a single copy of the game.

Of all the issues raised, this one is probably the lowest concern of most of the complainers, but I can see how it would affect households who only have one PC. It’s telling that EA would choose to address this over some of the more substantial complaints. It also says a lot about the restrictive nature of SecuROM that they had to drop this feature as a result.

Complaint: The requirement for a “Spore” user to have their ownership of the game automatically authenticated every time they access the game’s online features threatens to render the game useless if EA someday turns the “Spore” servers off.

EA Response: “If we were to ever turn off the servers on the game, we would put through a patch before that to basically make the DRM null and void. We’re never walking away from the game and making it into a situation where people aren’t going to be able to play it.”

At last they finally address one of the more meatier complaints. It’s great to hear that they’ll patch the game to remove the DRM if they should ever decide to walk away from it, but the pirates don’t have to worry about that right now. My response to EA is this: Good. Call me when you decide to release that patch and I’ll consider picking up a copy of the game. It’ll probably be quite cheap by that point in time and you’ll likely never see the revenue because it’ll probably be a second-hand sale so you still lose out on getting my money.

Here’s the part, however, that shows just how much Electronic Arts doesn’t get it:

The bottom line shared to me by EA spokesperson Mariam Sughayer today is that “EA has no intentions — nor will they ever — to make it easier for people to play a pirated game… than to play an authentic retail copy.”

You’ve already lost that battle. Legit purchasers of Spore must authenticate the game online at least once before they can play it, the cracked copy doesn’t require authentication, legit owners have an install limit of three PCs max, the cracked copy doesn’t, legit customers may lose the use of legitimate and legal software and hardware on their PCs thanks to SecuROM, the cracked copy doesn’t interfere, legit owners will have to run a special application to “de-authorize” their PCs when they hit the three install limit or they have to call EA and be interrogated by a helpful customer service rep, the cracked copy doesn’t require that, legit customers have to hope EA keeps their promise to release a patch to remove the DRM should they decide to no longer support the game, the cracked copy doesn’t have any such concerns.

Explain to me how it’s not easier to play a pirated game than an authentic retail copy? Better yet, explain to me why I should pay $50 to be treated like a criminal when your DRM doesn’t stop the pirates from getting the game five days before it was officially released?

Yes I’m writing about video games again because the news about the economy (Wall Street went to hell on Sunday) and the upcoming presidential elections (McCain/Palin are polling well) makes me reluctant to deal with reality at the moment. I thought I’d write something positive about something fun and that brings me to the folks at Criterion Games who are responsible for the very excellent Burnout Paradise.

Despite not being a huge racing game fan I bought Burnout 3 for the PS2 back in the day and fell in love with it for its over-the-top crashes which were part of the strategy in the game. I bought Burnout Paradise with birthday money after it was re-released as a PS3 Classic for $30 and it is an amazing update for the next-gen systems and has provided me with many hours of car smashing fun already. If that isn’t enough reason alone to buy it if you haven’t already then the fact that Criterion are about to release a third FREE update to the game should be. There’s already been two updates that added all sorts of stuff to the game and the third, due to be released this Thursday, adds motorcycles for the first time in the history of the franchise along with a bunch of other cool additions:

I was worried when the PS3 and Xbox 360 came out with their ability to download additional content that game companies would end up nickel and dime-ing us to death and, in some cases, that’s just what they’ve tried to do. That just makes the fact that Criterion is updating BP with major content at no charge some 10 months after its release all the more praise worthy. It’s a great game to begin with and the updates have only made it better. I’m sure at some point they’ll stop putting out free updates and move on to a new game, but word has it there’s a couple more updates yet to come. So here’s a big Thank You to Criterion Games for all the work you’re doing on BP. It’s one of the most heavily played titles I own at the moment.

The official release date for the next expansion to World of Warcraft has been announced:

Anne and I have been playing in the beta for awhile now and I can say that it’s going to be a major change to the game. Not just in new content, but in how long-standing features and various class spells work. For example there’s been a lot of effort put into reducing how much stuff uses up bag space. It used to be that if you wanted to collect non-combat pets, of which there’s already a stunning number in the game, you ended up devoting a lot of bank slots to store them and bag slots if you wanted to actually carry them around with you. The same is true for mounts. Balfour, my level 70 dwarven hunter, has three epic riding mounts and three epic flying mounts that I keep on him at all time using up six bag slots in the process. I only need one of each, but I keep three of each so I can randomly chose which of the three I want to use. There’s no advantage to one over any other other than it’s nice to have some variety, but I have to give up four more bag slots to do it. However, in WotLK I won’t have to give up any bag slots as all mounts and non-combat pets become spells I can learn. This will come in very handy when I’m grouped with people who don’t have their epic mounts yet as I’ll be able to use my non-epic mounts to match their speeds. I still have the non-epics, I just don’t tend to carry them with me all the time.

Plus Death Knights will finally be available on the live realms. We’ve been having a blast playing the DKs in the beta. In particular the storyline you go through after character creation has been done remarkably well. When you first created a DK it starts at level 55 with a full set of decent gear and you’re still enslaved to the Lich King, Arthus. You’ll go through a series of quests that teaches you how to use your abilities, slowly gives you all your talent points for the level you’re at, and upgrades your equipment to a decent set of blues. The cool part is that the quests are phased so that the environment changes as you make your way through them in a manner similar to the phased quests in Lord of the Rings Online. There’s been lots of updates to the user interface as well that’ll eliminate at least a few of the mods I regularly use. A built in calendering system for scheduling events and raids as well as keep tracking of in-game events such as the holidays, a built-in threat meter, and a whole bunch of other improvements. 

Going to have to start saving our pennies now if we hope to pick it up on launch day.

It appears the folks at Electronic Arts are doing everything they can to ensure I never purchase one of their PC games again. Word over on the official support forums for Command and Conquer says that the upcoming Red Alert 3, a sequel to my all-time favorite RTS, will use a slightly more lenient SecuROM DRM scheme:

Hi guys—

I’ve been hearing your concerns about the DRM situation and wanted to get back to you with some information about our plans. In the case of Red Alert 3 (and all PC titles coming out of EA), we will use SecuROM – the same copy protection that the EALA RTS group has used on our last three titles. This time around, however, the copy protection will be configured to be more lenient than we’ve supported in the past.

I know this can be somewhat of a polarizing topic, and I thought it would be best to open the lines of communication with some facts:

- We will authenticate your game online when you install and launch it the first time.

- We will never re-authenticate an installation online after the first launch. In other words, no reaching out to a central server post-install to see if you’re “allowed” to play.

- You will be able to install and play on up to five computers.

- This system means you don’t have to play with the disc in your computer. Personally, I think this is a huge improvement over our previous copy protection requirements, which have always required a disk to play.

- Life happens. I know it’s unlikely, but for those unlucky few who install the game and have their machines nuked (virus, OS reinstall, major hardware upgrade, etc.) five times, EA Customer Service will be on hand to supply any additional authorizations that are warranted. This will be done on a case-by-case basis by contacting customer support.

-You can, of course, play offline without impediment or penalty.

Red Alert 3 is shaping up to be a world-class RTS game that will give you many hours of enjoyment. I think it would be a shame if people decided to not play a great game simply because it came with DRM, but I understand that this is a very personal decision for many of you and I respect that. As you might imagine, I’m a lot less respectful of those people who take the position that they will illegally download a game simply because it has DRM.

Either way, we’ re very proud of the hard work our team has put into this game and we hope you will all enjoy it when it launches.

I’m so not happy. So not happy that I took the time to leave the following comment on that thread:

I’m a 41 year old gamer who has bought numerous titles from Electronic Arts all the way back to the original Archon on the Commodore Amiga back when EA was just a small company run by Trip Hawkins. That was back in 1982 and I was 15 at the time. In the 26 years since I’ve spent countless thousands of dollars on EA games for the Amiga, PC, and various consoles. I’ve watched over the years as the copy protection became more and more intrusive while doing nothing to actually stop the pirates, but the games were good and the copy protection not much more than an annoyance so I spent the money and enjoyed myself. It’s safe to say that I’m a long-standing fan of EA and many of the titles they’ve put out. Red Alert and its sequel remain two of my all-time favorite RTS games and I was eagerly looking forward to playing the latest installment when it is released. Electronic Arts, however, has decided to reward my (literally) decades-long loyalty by making use of one of the more problematic DRM systems available. These days I make my living as a PC support specialist and there are various legitimate programs, such as Process Explorer, which may or may not run properly if I have SecuROM installed on my systems. SecuROM said this was an attempt to stop people from hacking their DRM system, but considering that Spore was cracked and on the Bittorrent sites almost a week before its release it doesn’t seem to be stopping the hackers. In fact the only people being inconvenienced by this DRM system are legitimate customers who have paid for the software. You’ve already admitted that even if it works fine without conflict for the vast majority of your customers there’s still likely to be a subsection who run into problems. I believe you called that “Life Happens” in your original post. What a great attitude to take with your paying customers. It was enough to get me to take the time to register an account just so I could let you know how I feel about it. I’m done being treated like a criminal in order to use the software I’ve paid for. I did not purchase Bioshock despite being a fan of the original System Shocks because of SecuROM, I did not purchase Mass Effect for the same reason, I also haven’t purchase Spore in spite of following its development since its announcement, and I won’t be purchasing Red Alert 3 for the same reasons. I don’t care how many copies you allow me to install before I need to call your support line. I’m testing software and OS installs all the time which means I’m restaging my PC on a regular basis which means it won’t be long before I have to start calling and explaining why I need a 5th, 6th, 7th… 20th reinstall to some poor sap on the phone. Meanwhile Joe Pirate Boy is able to enjoy his copy as much as he wants and reinstall it as much as he wants without having to call anyone. There are three of us in my family who were dieing to play Spore so much so that we would’ve spent $150 for three copies of the game just so we wouldn’t have to wait for one person to stop playing before someone else could start, but now its not going to happen. I still play my copy of Red Alert 2 some eight years after it was released and it still installs just fine without any need for an Internet connection or calling someone up on the phone. Will I be able to do that with Red Alert 3 in 8 years? Will you still have registration servers running for it and someone sitting by a phone ready to grant me my 130th install? Will you release a patch at some point that removes the DRM so that nonsense won’t be necessary? In summary: Explain to me why I should spend $50 just so I can be treated like a criminal?

Every now and then some PC developer goes on a rant about how piracy is destroying PC gaming. I say what’s destroying PC gaming is the bullshit DRM schemes. While they whine about how some game they just released has been cracked and downloaded some 10,000 times being the loss of 10,000 sales (which isn’t entirely true) they manage to overlook the loss of sales from people like me who are sick of the pirates having the hassle free version of the game. If the reaction to Spore is any indication then people are starting to get fed up and the publishers risk alienating the few people who are buying their software.

The Large Hadron Collider at CERN has been attracting a lot of nutcases worried about it destroying the world by creating mini-black holes or some other Thing Man Was Not Meant To Know when it goes online. There’s been legal challenges trying to stop it and several people at CERN have even received death threats over it.

It’s all nonsense of course… or is it? Say, is that Half-Life‘s Gordon Freeman in the picture below?

Click to embiggen!

Guess it may be time to buy a shotgun and stock up on anti-alien anal probe ass shields.

Found over at Popgive.com.