I hope they didn't remove the perfect gem.

June 9, 2010 6:03 PM

How Battle.Net 2.0 is killing Starcraft 2. Alternative link, with kittens.
posted by furiousxgeorge (101 comments total)

All gaming news is better with kittens. It should be mandatory.
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:08 PM on June 9, 2010

OK, I read the article, I listened to about 3 minutes of the 25 minute video. I still have no idea what the problem is. Can someone explain it? I got two things out of it: "no LAN play" and "no international play because of latency".
posted by Nelson at 6:11 PM on June 9, 2010

"The people who bashed the internet are now playing Farmville on Facebook, the social networking site where you can express your individuality by copy-pasting funny pictures someone else created"
posted by radiosilents at 6:13 PM on June 9, 2010 [3 favorites]

TLDR: Blizzard-Activision have made a lot of decisions with the battle.net software that will negatively impact the player experience and are giving a lot of flimsy excuses for why.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 6:14 PM on June 9, 2010 [6 favorites]

I've been playing the beta, I liked that the MP pairs me with someone of relatively equal strength. I was very very tired of getting completely annihilated by everyone on the original game.
posted by sciurus at 6:15 PM on June 9, 2010

i watched it for the kitties.
posted by TrialByMedia at 6:16 PM on June 9, 2010 [1 favorite]

Q fucking Q.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:18 PM on June 9, 2010 [6 favorites]

All of the online and network features that made StarCraft a megatitanic hit, that could make Starcraft II the biggest seller of the decade, have been stripped out of the new version due to political silly-buggers being played by suits who still think more control over end user behavior == more money.

We're talking major features being nuked, like playing over a LAN (what got me into the first StarCaft), custom maps that you can share and play over a LAN (and the ones you do make, you must to save online instead of locally, and you only get room for, like, five of them) and international gameplay (surprising the hell out of a Korean big-leaguer with a full key of battle cruisers, built while turtling up with bunkers full of firebats and siege cannon, made me feel 1337 for a day.)

Oh, and they're going to a subscription model, like World of Warcraft, where you buy the game, and then must pay to play the game, only without the shared world.

So, this has "Golden Goose Killing Flop" written all over it.
posted by Slap*Happy at 6:23 PM on June 9, 2010 [15 favorites]

Oh, and they're going to a subscription model, like World of Warcraft, where you buy the game, and then must pay to play the game, only without the shared world.

Where are you getting this?
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:24 PM on June 9, 2010 [1 favorite]

Hmm, I can find references to them adding a subscription option, but that says full game will also be available. It's more like leasing a game than a subscription.
posted by wildcrdj at 6:27 PM on June 9, 2010

wildcrdj: Hmm, I can find references to them adding a subscription option, but that says full game will also be available. It's more like leasing a game than a subscription.
...
Slap*Happy: All of the online and network features that made StarCraft a megatitanic hit, that could make Starcraft II the biggest seller of the decade, have been stripped out of the new version due to political silly-buggers being played by suits who still think more control over end user behavior == more money.

Go bnetd, go!
posted by ryoshu at 6:32 PM on June 9, 2010 [1 favorite]

This game will sell a squillion copies, period. The beta is really good, the new Battle.Net experience is light years ahead of the previous version, and The game runs really well on mid-range hardware.

Yes, no LAN play sucks. The game itself is really good. Thinking that Starcraft 2 is going to flop is wishful thinking - by people who are going to buy the game anyway.
posted by DWRoelands at 6:33 PM on June 9, 2010

Summary: Blizzard is dicking over hardcore people, in order to support casual play/money hats.

They aren't supporting LAN based gaming: everyone has to buy the game, and have a connection to the Internet in order to play online.

Two: because your cd key is tied to your account, you can have one person play per account, unless you want to share. This prevents people from creating new accounts in order to play against lower skilled players, a practice called smurfing. Cry me a river about this.

Overall, lack of LAN support is the biggest complaint. Well guess what folks, remember that whole "media companies should find alternative business models now that copyright is obsolete"? Welcome to the future, all games are online now.

On Preview: The subscription model is something cooked up for Russian release, where the level of piracy is so heavy games can't sell for more than 15 bucks or so. They're making that the initial release in Russia, with the ability to upgrade to the full version without a subscription for basically the rest of the $60 you would usually pay. Link here.

Essentially, StarCraft II will be sold in Russia in two versions: A standard DVD case for 999 rubles ($34.36, £22.38 or €25.41 - approximately half the price of the regular European version) or a jewel-case version for 499 rubles ($17.16, £11.13 or €12.63). Players who shell out 999 rubles will have a year of access to the Battle.net multiplayer - but only on Russian servers, not with the whole of Europe - while those who buy the cheaper version will get four months of access to the same.

After the time has run out, the players will have to pay 100 rubles ($3.44, £2.23, €2.53) a month for continued access to Battle.net. However, Russian StarCraft II buyers will, at any time, be able to "upgrade" to the complete version of the game that will be sold elsewhere in Europe for "about 30 Euros," giving them full, unlimited access to Battle.net there on out.

Sounds like a test market thing for high piracy areas.
posted by zabuni at 6:33 PM on June 9, 2010 [14 favorites]

The subscription model will be offered in South America, and it's not mandatory. It just lets you pay less and get the game for six months instead of paying more and getting the game permanently. That's actually not a bad thing for people who aren't going to want to play it forever.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:34 PM on June 9, 2010

I won't get it if I have to pay by the month. I'm not a big gamer in the first place. I wait for games to far to $20 then I may pick them up.

I think the last game I played was the Diablo one where you end up being the bad guy in the end.

I played about 1,000 hours of Starcraft at one point in my life. I love the first and second Warcrafts. Three made me feel like I was playing a bad cartoon without story or strategy. I never even picked up WOW because of the monthly fee.
posted by cjorgensen at 6:38 PM on June 9, 2010

OK, so I didn't miss anything. The big issue seems to be lack of LAN play. I confess I could care less, because I'd never play on a LAN, but that does seem like a stupid thing to take out of Starcraft given all the tournament interest. The lack of international support seems like a basic limitation: 200ms latency is very hard to hide in a twitch RTS.

The article claims LAN was removed because Blizzard wants to charge extra for tournament play. Really? That's not consistent with the company's history, they're not generally a company to worry about continuing to wring bucks out of old games. They're still making Diablo 2 patches, for cryin out loud. They also have to know there's a real risk that the serious tournament guys will simply stick with the original Starcraft.

My guess is they removed LAN play simply because they want to control the whole user experience online. Which you can argue about both ways, but if Battle.net 2.0 works well I think it's a win. Frankly Blizzard has such a great reputation for doing games, including online games, I just can't see them screwing it up. But the linked stuff in this post says otherwise, I'm just not getting it.
posted by Nelson at 6:40 PM on June 9, 2010

OK, I read the article, I listened to about 3 minutes of the 25 minute video. I still have no idea what the problem is. Can someone explain it? I got two things out of it: "no LAN play" and "no international play because of latency".Blizzard's forums. The big one's are no LAN (as you mentioned), no chat channels, no way to make map titles for custom games (this is a bigger deal than it seems, because you can communicate a lot about what kind of game you want to play through the title (e.g. "no rush 20 minutes")), and no passwords on custom games (meaning anyone on your friends list can join a custom game you make).

All in all, a few big annoyances, and a ton of smaller annoyances mean that Battle.net 2.0 is a huge step back from the original Battle.net. Blizzard says they will be addressing these concerns soon, so we'll see.
posted by nhamann at 6:43 PM on June 9, 2010

I'm not sure how I didn't see that my HTML was bad on the previous comment, but it's missing a link to this thread from the Blizzard forums, which is a better organized criticism of Battle.net 2.0.
posted by nhamann at 6:44 PM on June 9, 2010

Does this have anything to do with continued delays in releasing Diablo III? No? Carry on, then.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:45 PM on June 9, 2010

That link should point to this URL: http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=25170840862&sid=5000&pageNo=1.

I'm sorry for the spam, and I have no idea how that link changed to the URL of this page.
posted by nhamann at 6:46 PM on June 9, 2010

The most important issue, I feel, is the custom mapmaking experience. This game has the most powerful editor of any RTS, ever, and it's completely castrated by the bnet2 "publish" feature.
posted by mek at 7:00 PM on June 9, 2010

Does this have anything to do with continued delays in releasing Diablo III? No? Carry on, then.

Yeah, that's basically the only news I care about from Blizzard. Seriously, Diablo II is when I'm going to finally buy a full-ass new computer optimized for playing that game.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 7:03 PM on June 9, 2010 [1 favorite]

The whole friends system sucks, facebook aside. You have to add people you don't know by the email address linked to your whole b.net account and it will show these internet randoms you've added your real name.

Blizz has slowly become a lot more, well the polite phrase is 'money conscious'. Arena.net is where the old blizz talent is and I await gw2 eagerly.
posted by Submiqent at 7:07 PM on June 9, 2010

The lack of international support seems like a basic limitation: 200ms latency is very hard to hide in a twitch RTS.

It's BS to not let people choose. Just let them check a box that says they don't want to play with international players. Easy.


The article claims LAN was removed because Blizzard wants to charge extra for tournament play. Really? That's not consistent with the company's history, they're not generally a company to worry about continuing to wring bucks out of old games.

It's right there in the TOS. They want a cut of all tournaments.

It has a lot of negative impacts. I know people who played Starcraft over LAN on deployment. Can't do that anymore if you can't get online. Have a bandwidth cap? Can't save some bandwidth and play LAN.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 7:08 PM on June 9, 2010

200ms is not a big deal with RTS's, the beta has been running with deliberate built-in lag from the battle.net servers. I've been playing in the beta as an Australian against Americans. The game automatically runs at the speed of the slowest player connected and it doesn't progress without the latest round of information from each client. The pros have been playing with US accounts from Europe. It's just not a big deal. The lack of international support is a piracy/pricing thing, through and through.
posted by Submiqent at 7:13 PM on June 9, 2010

Geek pours forth outrage about specific game features. Shock horror.
posted by malusmoriendumest at 7:15 PM on June 9, 2010

We're talking major features being nuked, like playing over a LANs

See, if they're doing this to Starcraft 2, I worry that they'll also do it to Diablo III. No LAN play and/or subscription-only play would ruin that game for me—and I've been waiting for a long time for it to come out.
posted by limeonaire at 7:20 PM on June 9, 2010

Just to clarify, Starcraft 2 will not require a subscription.

As far as the rest of it, taking away LAN play doesn't really bother me. You have a battle.net account, just sign in with it. Your internet connection went down or battle.net went down? Well, that sucks, but it's not the end of the world. Maybe if more people actually bought game they liked instead of pirating them, it wouldn't have come to this. No chat rooms? Meh. They have a nice instant messaging and friends list built into the beta client. If Husky really thought it was crucial to have a chat room when he was organizing his tournament (from the video linked), there are plenty of free and secure chat rooms available online. Very rarely have I seen lobbies used for anything except spamming in RTS games.

Go look at the World of Warcraft forums. Go look at the Diablo forums. Go look at any major game forums. Some people are always bitching and complaining about big games, no matter what the developers do. Blizzard has a track record of making outstanding games, and from my experiences in the SC2 beta, this one is no different.
posted by sophist at 7:21 PM on June 9, 2010 [1 favorite]

The mandatory sharing of real name is really really squicky. And yes, you have to put your real name on your battle.net account, because you have to prove your identity if you so much as need to change your email.

The lack of "smurfing" (creating new accounts) is really annoying, too. I'm platinum ranked, and if a friend wants to come over and see the game and play it, they can't use the matchmaking feature because they will get stomped by pros and tank my rating.

I wouldn't be surprised if D3 ends up on a subscription model, or a HG:L style "deluxe" subscription for access to clans/banks/auctionhouse features.
posted by mek at 7:24 PM on June 9, 2010 [1 favorite]

Maybe if more people actually bought game they liked instead of pirating them, it wouldn't have come to this.

Quoted for the motherfucking truth.

"But I don't wanna pay for it"--which is all these bloody stupid arguments in favour of piracy ever boils down to--will bite you in the ass, and you will be pissed off about it, and it will be your* own damn fault.

*Not you, if you actually pay for your games/music/movies/etc
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 7:27 PM on June 9, 2010

Well, that sucks, but it's not the end of the world. Maybe if more people actually bought game they liked instead of pirating them, it wouldn't have come to this.

I find it hard to believe people are naive enough to think that is about piracy, and not resale.


No chat rooms? Meh. They have a nice instant messaging and friends list built into the beta client.

People use chat rooms for all kinds of things, for instance making those friends to add to the friends list. Finding a clan. Asking for advice, etc. Just because some people are anti-social doesn't mean everyone is. You use WoW as an example? A game with a chat room in every zone?
posted by furiousxgeorge at 7:27 PM on June 9, 2010

So will Blizzard's actions force the hardcore gamers to turn off their computers and go outside to get some exercise in the sunlight and fresh air? Because if so, I totally sympathize with them.
posted by happyroach at 7:29 PM on June 9, 2010

You can still play in the same room as other people, not like anything is stopping you. Each person just needs their own CD key, and an internet connection. I could be wrong, but I think LAN play is less and less relevant in today's PC market. If I want to play with my gamer friends these days, I just message them on Steam. We all have headsets and access to a Ventrilo server, and it saves me having to pack and unpack my desktop. The only valid criticism I can see is if you are hosting a tournament and battle.net actually goes down.
posted by sophist at 7:31 PM on June 9, 2010

Yeah, that's basically the only news I care about from Blizzard. Seriously, Diablo II is when I'm going to finally buy a full-ass new computer optimized for playing that game.

In the meantime, why not practice up with a similar, but turn-based, like Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup?

MUA-HA-HA-HA THE BAIT IS SET
posted by JHarris at 7:33 PM on June 9, 2010 [2 favorites]

Modern Warfare 2 launched without dedicated servers, a mainstay of the series and foundation of online gaming. The pirated versions can add them back in. History will repeat itself, and as has happened time and again for years, pirates will deliver a superior product to the official release.
posted by kafziel at 7:34 PM on June 9, 2010 [4 favorites]

I'm not a RTS player generally and am unlikely to start now, but I have to say that the 5 map, 20mb total size limit thing sounds horrendous if, as I think I'm getting from this, it's impossible to save maps locally. It sounds like the kind of thing Nintendo would do.

(For those who don't know, Nintendo is infamous for their hamfisted and clueless online strategy. One of their better internet-capable games, Advance Wars: Days of Ruin, has a public map sharing feature. Like, good, right? Except these maps are limited to one at a time, and only 10x10 board size at that. It's exactly like they included a feature in order to make it a bullet point on the back of the box while crippling it so badly no one would ever really use it.)
posted by JHarris at 7:37 PM on June 9, 2010 [2 favorites]

You can still play in the same room as other people, not like anything is stopping you. Each person just needs their own CD key, and an internet connection. I could be wrong, but I think LAN play is less and less relevant in today's PC market. If I want to play with my gamer friends these days, I just message them on Steam. We all have headsets and access to a Ventrilo server, and it saves me having to pack and unpack my desktop. The only valid criticism I can see is if you are hosting a tournament and battle.net actually goes down.

Or if you're at a convention, and bandwidth is very limited and you can't really have dozens of people going through the same pipe. Or behind a router you don't have full access to, to open ports. Or at a LAN party, where a home connection at peak hours will run into trouble connecting to battle.net.

Or ultimately any situation where there's no reason you should have to beg Blizzard's permission to play your game with someone in the same room, and yet are being forced to.
posted by kafziel at 7:39 PM on June 9, 2010 [7 favorites]

The mandatory sharing of real name is really really squicky.

This is not quite how it works. From the Beta FAQ:

How do I add a friend on Battle.net?

There are two types of friends you can add: Real ID friends or StarCraft II friends. To add a friend of either type, first open your friends list by clicking the button directly left of the microphone icon in the lower-right corner of your screen. Next, click the Add Friend button. A window will open prompting you to enter either your real-life friend’s email address (matching their Battle.net account name) or a StarCraft II player’s character name. When you try to add a Real ID friend, a request will be emailed to that person asking if he or she wishes to accept the friend request. The player will not be added to your Real ID friend’s list until he or she accepts.

What is the difference between a Real ID friend and StarCraft II friend?

Real ID friends on Battle.net can see each other’s full profiles, including real-life names, real-life profile information, and all of their characters across all Battle.net games. Both players must mutually agree to become real-life friends before either will appear on the other’s real-life friends list. To add a StarCraft II friend, simply enter a player’s character name. You will immediately start seeing that character in your friends list, but you will not be able to access real-life names, real-life profile information, or any other characters he or she might play. Other players are not notified if you add their characters to your friends list in this fashion.
posted by sophist at 7:39 PM on June 9, 2010 [2 favorites]

Here's the rub: I have friends online with which I play another non-Blizzard game. Or not even friends... maybe they are random people I'm chatting with on IRC, or a message board I frequent has a thread where people are trading names. How do I add them to my SC2 friends list? Since there are no chat rooms I can meet them in and the only unique identifier is RealID, I have to share my real name and email with them, or finagle my way into a custom game that they are in.

Anyway, I thought this other post on The Ghetto was even more enlightening, about the Korean eSports scene and how bnet2 is largely an attempt to gain control of the eSports scene.
posted by mek at 7:46 PM on June 9, 2010 [2 favorites]

To add yet another damning detail: loss of control of the map pool is a huge dealbreaker. This was an essential element of SC becoming a sport, and one of the hugest complaints of pro players; existing maps are simply not balanced adequately, but the hands of gamers are tied by bnet2 "features".
posted by mek at 7:48 PM on June 9, 2010 [1 favorite]

The lack of international support seems like a basic limitation: 200ms latency is very hard to hide in a twitch RTS.

It's BS to not let people choose. Just let them check a box that says they don't want to play with international players. Easy.

This, chatrooms and nerdrage aside, is really what is aggravating the player base. Starcraft is, and Starcraft 2 *should* be a internationally competitive experience. The way it is set up, and will be set up on release, is that the copy of SC2 that you buy is linked to a regional server, for example North America, Europe, or Asia. And what does this mean, other than US/EU players not being able to easily play tournaments with Asian players? ..

...wait for it...

YOU HAVE TO BUY MULTIPLE $60 COPIES OF THE GAME TO PLAY IN MULTIPLE REGIONS.

How is that not wallet gouging? Couple that with the full game being released as a trilogy of full priced games, to be playing in international competitions you would have to spend at least $60*9=$540! Taking into account that they plan to charge for the privilege of downloading popular maps could put the price of a playable SC2 setup at ~$600. Insane, or genius? You decide.
posted by StrangerInAStrainedLand at 7:54 PM on June 9, 2010 [7 favorites]

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

Eh?
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 7:58 PM on June 9, 2010

The complaint that seems most egregious to me is the 20mb map limit, which (according to a $0.15/gb storage estimate) represents all of 0.3 cents of storage space. If they don't want to deal with storage themselves, why not just raise the price by five dollars and store the maps on Amazon's cloud, where that five dollar price increase could buy each user 460mb of storage for six years. Since most users probably aren't going to play the game for six years (let alone make anywhere near 460mb of maps), they probably wouldn't even have to charge five dollars.
posted by Pyry at 7:59 PM on June 9, 2010

Maybe if more people actually bought game they liked instead of pirating them, it wouldn't have come to this.

From the article:

I made a mistake. Not just assuming “There’s no way Blizzard can be that dumb.” I thought LAN was about piracy. If piracy was the concern, it wouldn’t make sense to pass up internet-authenticated LAN. But piracy is an easy target. Especially when the real reason is a laughingstock in the Western World. Already discussed it in detail: The elimination of LAN creates a world where Blizzard is the unquestioned overlord of “Starcraft II: The Sport”. Read the Terms of Service lately?

“You agree that you will not, under any circumstances…use the Service for any “e-sports” or group competition sponsored, promoted or facilitated by any commercial or non-profit entity without Blizzard’s prior written consent;” – Starcraft II Battle.net Terms of Use, Current as of May 28th

Want to run a major Starcraft II tournament? Hope you got money. Blizzard wants a cut. Yeah, Blizzard isn’t tossing lawyers at your college tournament. And why bother? Saw what happened at the University of Central Florida? Where 100 gamers showed up for a tournament and found out Battle.net could only handle twelve university network users at once? And then Battle.net crashed during the round of sixteen and threw the legitimacy of the event into question? Blizzard isn’t worried. The company set up the system so you can’t compete with them. It just sells the message: “Thanks for making Starcraft a spectator sport, fans. Now fuck off.“

I wasn't really sure about that, but then I read this article, which I found linked in the comments. Then I realized that I really don't care anymore whether Blizz is trying to curb piracy, or whether they're just trying to guarantee themselves a big fat slice of the revenue stream derived from professional gaming in Korea. I just want to play SC2 a couple nights a week with my friends, man. Is that so much to ask at this point? My head hurts.
posted by threetoed at 8:12 PM on June 9, 2010 [2 favorites]

If your game has 20 million fans, if you introduce a feature that makes like better for 99% of them but worse for the last 1%, you will quickly find that 200,000 angry people online can make a LOT of noise.

I will draw parallels of what's happening in SC2 to what happend to DOTA - DOTA is an immensely popular mod of Warcraft 3 (I would hazard a guess that there are probably more games of DOTA going on than actual Wacraft 3 games at this point). It could be played on LAN.

An outside game developer gets permission to build an identical copy of DOTA, calling it Heroes of Newerth, with a dedicated game engine and netcode, charging $40 for it, and disabling LAN play. At first the idea of me paying an incremental $40 for a game I practically already owned, with the limitation that I could "only" play online and without LAN was strange, but I tried the beta and was hooked and bought myself a copy.

Basically forcing people to go online did the following -

1. Balancing - every game being played online means all stats and replays can be tracked. HoN tracks almost every single action taken by every player into a huge database, providing a wealth of data for balancing. Win / Loss ratios, gold per minute, exp per minute, assists, most frequently bought items, location of deaths, worst matchups, etc. There really isn't any dispute now whether certain things are overpowered or underpowered - everyone has access to the data.

2. Replays. In-game, I can look up any match, played by any player in the world, and immediately watch it on my computer. This is an incredibly powerful tool for players who want to follow their "favourite" top player or teams online, rather than having to wait for someone to publish the replay file somewhere online and download it. It was difficult for the average player to get access to DOTA tournament replays.

3. Better manners / gaming experience - because all your stats are tracked, this creates a far better gaming environment. You almost never get people "leaving" games now, a common issue in DOTA that ruins a large % of games played there, because your leave % gets tracked. Because the replay of every game is permanently stored online, abusive players can be reported to the moderators. Because ALL your stats are tracked, the server can and does extrapolate the outcome of the match and reshuffle players to provide an estimated 50/50 chance of either team winning. This is borne out by practical experience - among all my friends, of vastly different skill levels, our win % hovers at about 45%-55% - an impressive achievement for their game outcome prediction algorithm especially because we spend equal time player "together" locked as a team and time playing solo. This last point is especially crucial to me - I want the game to offer me matches at the edge of my ability to win, not ones where I get stomped or stomp the other team without resistance.

I can't imagine why I'd ever play on LAN again, barring some catastrophe where I lost my internet connection. But as I said before, that's probably a 1% case.
posted by xdvesper at 8:26 PM on June 9, 2010 [3 favorites]

I don't see how any of those features have anything to do with LAN. A game would just be better with all that...plus LAN.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 8:37 PM on June 9, 2010

Honestly, I think some of you haven't read the article or watched the youtube kitten video or even played a battle.net game before.

Seriously, there is a world of difference between what Blizzard has done in the last 10 years vs everyone else. Watching 2.0 turn Battle.net from the undefeated crown jewel of online gaming into a pile of mediocre shit made by the guy who designed Xbox Live (wtf?) is just a sad sign that the Activision suit overlords are hard at work.
posted by chalbe at 8:38 PM on June 9, 2010 [5 favorites]

Thanks to this video, I just realized that you can "foster" kittens until someone adopts them, thus granting yourself a limitless, if variable, supply of kittens.
posted by heathkit at 8:41 PM on June 9, 2010 [13 favorites]

Maybe if more people actually bought game they liked instead of pirating them, it wouldn't have come to this.

Bah. Despite rampant piracy, video game companies haven't had any problem making truckloads of money with hit games and subscription play. Does it really seem plausible that, absent piracy, video game companies would have said "you know, we've made enough money--we don't need to try to skim from international tournaments."
posted by fatbird at 8:57 PM on June 9, 2010 [1 favorite]

For all of the XZOMG NO DEDICATED SERVASRRSSSS crap MW2 took, I had a play experience that was about 200 times better and less laggy than BC2.

Also, LAN play? Really? When was the last time you played over a LAN?
posted by GilloD at 8:58 PM on June 9, 2010

Also, LAN play? Really? When was the last time you played over a LAN?

You realize there is a massive gaming cafe culture in Korea, the biggest market for the game we are discussing, right?
posted by furiousxgeorge at 9:08 PM on June 9, 2010 [2 favorites]

A more in depth (and less GRAR) piece on Bnet 2.0's deficiencies by SCLegacy.com
posted by chalbe at 9:13 PM on June 9, 2010

I'm in the SC2 beta and have a perfectly fine time with Battle.net. Despite this, the forum is constantly filled with people complaining about how it's a travesty, that they're canceling their pre-order because of it, and so on. Huge numbers of complaints. The most I ever understood is that because there aren't any chat channels in the manner of an IRC server like the original Battle.net, the ability for people to organize games freely has been destroyed. You can still make a party amongst your friends and chat there or in custom games. This issue hasn't affected me and even if it's a mistake, the level of the whining has been totally disproportionate as far as I can tell. I never had trouble logging in, hitting the "find match" button, and playing. It was for the most part completely smooth for me throughout the entire beta. I'm sorry that a number of minor features that added to the original were eliminated, but the idea that it somehow destroys the game experience is typical Internet hyperbole.
posted by palidor at 9:35 PM on June 9, 2010 [2 favorites]

...Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup?

TROG SAYS - KILL THEM ALL!

(Troll Berserker, FTW)
posted by Slap*Happy at 9:42 PM on June 9, 2010 [1 favorite]

The TOS clause about Blizzard owning tournaments really pisses me off.

High schools and universities all over the world have gaming clubs. And gaming clubs like to run tournaments. And, here's a shocker, these kinds of clubs sell a shit-ton of games.

Anyway, the pirates will fix this shit for SC2 players. Just like they did for Modern Warfare 2. And since the pirates will offer a superior product, there's absolutely no reason to buy the game from Blizzard.

And on the subject of piracy, Blizzard could have made the vast majority of their sales by authenticating people online the way lots of other games have. Yeah, you can copy the disc and the CD key. But, the moment that copy calls home, it nukes itself--and the copy of the person who gave you their key. This model has been used for years, and it works just great on games where practically everybody's going to play online at some point.

Also, even if piracy is tenable, I really have trouble getting worked up over a company making $450 million instead of $500 million on a AAA title.
posted by Netzapper at 9:47 PM on June 9, 2010 [5 favorites]

palidor--if I wanted to play you in a friendly 1v1 game, how could we do it without me giving you my personal/battle.net email address (which is also linked to 5 other Blizzard games)?

As it stands, there's no way to do so on battle.net 2

Think about this: if you're part of an online gaming community or forum, you need to swap email addresses to play with any member of the community. This easily becomes more problematic the larger your community is, or the more communities you join. Since the current Friends List doesn't support groupings or subdivisions, you can end up with a hugely long, unorganized friends list.

If MeFites new to the game wanted to play with us, they'd need to PM one of us on here and ask to get Friended, instead of just hanging out at a predetermined bnet chat room (ie. channel Metafilter).

I'm not saying Blizzard should scrap everything and go back to bnet 1, but implementing private chat rooms alongside a Friends List partying system would be incredibly powerful AND flexible.
posted by chalbe at 10:00 PM on June 9, 2010

I'm sure PvPGN will develop support for Starcraft II, well Blizzard's LAN restriction will simply accelerate this.
posted by jeffburdges at 10:21 PM on June 9, 2010

Despite rampant piracy, video game companies haven't had any problem making truckloads of money with hit games and subscription play.

Like the recent dissolution of Ensemble Studios? Or Microsoft's entire Flight Simulator team? Or maybe Raven Software? Or the part where EA said they lost $677 million in FY2010 and almost $1 billion last year? Or Ubisoft, who lost $50 million? Of course Activision-Blizzard is still making money hand over first though, because they have Modern Warfare 2 and World of Warcraft is essentially immune to piracy. The writing is on the wall, move to consoles or go online only. Except for Valve and Blizzard, all the big PC studios have closed up, sold out, or are moving to consoles. The last really big PC only release was Crysis, and Crytek will not be making that mistake again. Bioware and Bethesda are moving further and further toward console-focused gaming. I don't like it, and nobody likes the increasingly invasive DRM policies that Ubisoft and Activision are implementing. Moreover, they know it doesn't work anyway. So the only games they can really count on generating revenue are those driven by their multiplayer, those that require you to be connected all the time. This is why there will not be LAN play for SC2. PC gaming is moving towards the subscription model like WoW, multiplayer only games like Team Fortress 2, and free to play games that are subsidized by micro-transactions or ads. Keep flaming me for blaming the piracy, but I love PC gaming and I hate to see what has happened.
posted by sophist at 10:22 PM on June 9, 2010 [2 favorites]

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

Eh?

I think he was being a wiseguy because you typo'd about how excited you were for Diablo II and how you were going to buy a whole new computer for it even though Diablo II will actually run on one of those candy watches you get from vending machines in Asian supermarkets.
posted by turgid dahlia at 10:41 PM on June 9, 2010 [4 favorites]

sophist, okay, you have a point. I don't see a way out of it, though. Bits can be copied, and people will copy bits.

But antagonizing users certainly isn't the way to achieve better profitability.

On the other hand, I do see lots and lots of independent companies starting up to make PC games. The big publishers may be disappearing, but the little guys seem to have a chance. For instance, The Humble Indie Bundle made over a million bucks a couple weeks ago with a pay-what-you-want model.
posted by Netzapper at 10:42 PM on June 9, 2010 [1 favorite]

And since the pirates will offer a superior product, there's absolutely no reason to buy the game from Blizzard.

Well, y'know, except for paying for the product instead of stealing it.

But the concept of actually paying for something you want is so old-fashioned, I know. Silly me.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 10:53 PM on June 9, 2010

In fairness to pirates everywhere, a lot of us did pay for our external 1TB hard drives.
posted by turgid dahlia at 10:54 PM on June 9, 2010 [9 favorites]

The only in-print game I've pirated since getting a Real Job was one for which I'd already paid, but whose DRM prevented it from running under wine on linux.

But thanks to the pirates, I got to play the game I'd already paid for.
posted by Netzapper at 11:09 PM on June 9, 2010

It's also worth mentioning that the video with kittens was made by one of the people doing commentaries in this post. Here's a guy who'se spent a hell of a lot of his time promoting Starcraft 2, who has a series of tutorials to introduce new players to the game, and is generally the sort of person who is absolutely critical to building a vibrant community around your game.

If your strategy to monetize online play involves pissing off the people who are the most passionate about playing and promoting your game for you, maybe it's time to reassess your strategy?
posted by Grimgrin at 11:52 PM on June 9, 2010 [2 favorites]

Maybe if more people actually bought game they liked instead of pirating them, it wouldn't have come to this.

Maybe if more people actually chewed on corporate DRM propaganda (and spit it out) instead of swallowing it whole, it wouldn't have come to this.

DRM has nothing to do with piracy.

Pirates will never pay a cent for anything. Ever. They are not the target market. They never were. They never will be.

DRM is designed to lock in paying customers (make it difficult for them to move to competing products) and lock out competition (make it difficult for new companies to compete in the marketplace).

It is consumer-hostile and anti-competitive. Ultimately, DRM will stifle innovation in our generation and create nightmares for future historians trying to get a glimpse of our culture.

Let's be clear about this. It is not the pirates who have brought on this DRM abuse. It's the people who pay companies to abuse them with DRM that are to blame.

These are companies that try to maximize their profits at the expense of consumers, free market competition, innovation and future generations. You shouldn't be giving money to these companies. Every cent you give them will be a cent used to develop more invasive DRM schemes to rob and abuse you even more. Blizzard's Starcraft 2 is a perfect example of this. They will keep cranking up the abuse as long as you keep voting them into power with your wallet.

You say:

Maybe if more people actually bought game they liked instead of pirating them, it wouldn't have come to this.

You should be saying:

Maybe if more people actually bought games from companies that respect customers/competition instead of letting monopolist companies ride roughshod over them, it wouldn't have come to this.

Don't blame pirates for something paying customers brought onto themselves. Yes, I am partly to blame because I bought Starcraft and Broodwars despite their DRM. I won't make the same mistake again. And, no. Pirating Starcraft 2 is not an option! Seek free and/or open source alternatives or buy products from companies that respect their fan base. Even if you get Starcraft 2 for free (via piracy), you are giving your time and attention (more valuable than money) to a company that doesn't deserve them.

P.S. I paid for Starcraft and Broodwars but am unable to install/play it because the CD key is long gone. I have the physical CDs but not the cases with the serial numbers needed to play. Thanks a lot, DRM! So, I switched to Total Annihilation. It lets you design your own maps, units, mods, play on LAN, etc. It lets you do anything you want unfettered and unrestricted. The company that made it even released a no-CD hack so you don't have to put in the CD every time you play it. They were a cool company. They had a clue. You can even set the maximum units to 5000 units per player and you can select ALL of them, not just 12 units per group. Epic. If you want to play a real RTS, try Total Annihilation: Twilight. It's free now. Here are Forty Reasons Why Total Annihilation is Better than Starcraft. Reason 41? The people who made TA are not DRM assclowns. Blizzard, fuck you and your DRM. I will never buy or play anything from Blizzard/Activision again. You will never get another cent of my money or another second of my time.
posted by stringbean at 1:09 AM on June 10, 2010 [9 favorites]

Anyway, the pirates will fix this shit for SC2 players. Just like they did for Modern Warfare 2.

Did someone finally hack up a dedicated server and launcher for this? Sweet. I can finally play it.
posted by mek at 1:15 AM on June 10, 2010

Fuck yeah TA.
posted by turgid dahlia at 1:16 AM on June 10, 2010 [1 favorite]

I think he was being a wiseguy because you typo'd about how excited you were for Diablo II and how you were going to buy a whole new computer for it even though Diablo II will actually run on one of those candy watches you get from vending machines in Asian supermarkets.

No, I was being serious. Diablo and Diablo II are not bad games, but are weaksauce compared to the games that inspired them.
posted by JHarris at 1:44 AM on June 10, 2010 [1 favorite]

Thank you for noting that, Grimgrin. I think a lot of people here are unfamiliar with Blizzard, Bnet, and Starcraft's popularity level in general, especially when it comes to tournaments.

Making players reliant on Bnet's servers is an absolutely horrendous idea for tournaments; and the service being down would just be the cream of the crop.

Getting rid of lobby and pre-game chatrooms is easily as stupid. There's no other way to communicate. Everyone keeps blaming the XBL designer for this flaw, but as a designer and a gamer myself, I think that they would have to be completely unfamiliar with any online PC title to not think about adding a chatroom, not to mention I'm sure they were well aware of the old layout. User interface designers and developers at that caliber are smarter than that - they wouldn't do this for a living if they didn't have a fundamental understanding and passion for creating the best experiences. Whoever is calling the shots above them is more likely to blame. As to why they're making up excuses as to not incorporate these tiny yet essential elements is beyond me.

For people that are less concerned with Starcraft and more concerned with Diablo, I'd keep your ears open. What would stop them from stripping these same features on a title that relies on them equally as much?
posted by june made him a gemini at 1:45 AM on June 10, 2010 [1 favorite]

Game companies pulling shit like this was why I stopped playing games. Steam was the final nail in the coffin for me. It's always the same pattern, release 'must have' game but attach all these unnecessary strings to it to take away control from the gamers, and each time a little bit more. Get off the fucking treadmill, just don't buy it!

The original battle.net was awesome, and talking 'inappropriate' smack in the chat channels was half the point. In the good ole days....
posted by Joe Chip at 3:42 AM on June 10, 2010

Oh yeah, and everyone KNEW that when Activision bought Blizzard they would screw it up somehow. They tried to assuage everyone's fears by saying that Blizzard would remain independent but from this it is so obvious that it is not.
posted by Joe Chip at 3:49 AM on June 10, 2010 [2 favorites]

The terms of the merger forbid Activision from interfering with how Blizzard runs their business, so the people blaming Activision are, well, wrong.
posted by Pope Guilty at 5:37 AM on June 10, 2010

Yes, no LAN play sucks.

No LAN play means the game is a complete non-starter for me, my friends, and my entire office. Not a terribly large percentage of the world's gamers, to be sure, but 99% of my world, anyway.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 7:07 AM on June 10, 2010

So, I switched to Total Annihilation. It lets you design your own maps, units, mods, play on LAN, etc. It lets you do anything you want unfettered and unrestricted. The company that made it even released a no-CD hack so you don't have to put in the CD every time you play it. They were a cool company. They had a clue.

Note the past tense. Cavedog is dead, with the TA people going on to Gas Powered Games. They did create Supreme Commander, but wait. It uses a CD key too. Darn, they must have lost that clue. I doubt you could find a company that makes multiplayer games that doesn't:

A)Use a CD key
B)Require the usage of their server
C)Uses other more obnoxious versions of DRM.
posted by zabuni at 7:27 AM on June 10, 2010

Wait, I'm confused... are they saying that if I own Starcraft 2 I will be FORCED to give it access to my Facebook account to use it? Because I've waited nine years for this game and that's still a fucking dealbreaker.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 7:33 AM on June 10, 2010

No LAN play means the game is a complete non-starter for me, my friends, and my entire office.

Why? Why do you care if your game packets are routed through a server 60ms away?
posted by Nelson at 7:35 AM on June 10, 2010

Like the recent dissolution of Ensemble Studios?

A studio owned by Microsoft. And look how poor Microsoft is thanks to piracy. WON'T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF POOR MICROSOFT?

It was also stated that there are at least two new studios being formed by ES employees.[13]

In February 2009 former Ensemble Studios head Tony Goodman started a new independent studio, Robot Entertainment, and a number of the existing employees have been offered a position in this company.[14] Following the announcement of Robot Entertainment, former Ensemble Studios producer David Rippy started a new independent studio, Bonfire Studios, comprised entirely of former Ensemble staff members.[15] In March 2009, a third studio, Windstorm Studios was announced, founded by ex-staffer Dusty Monk.[16] In 2008, a fourth studio called Newtoy was created by several developers from Ensemble,[17] which released Chess With Friends for the iPhone in November 2008,[18] and Words With Friends in August 2009.[19]


Yeah, that all sounds like a total disaster.


Or Microsoft's entire Flight Simulator team?

You are gonna argue with a straight face that the death of the flight simulator genre was because of piracy?


Or maybe Raven Software?

Released a game this year.


Or the part where EA said they lost $677 million in FY2010 and almost $1 billion last year? Or Ubisoft, who lost $50 million?

Oh yeah, or like when the RIAA loses eleventy billion dollars every time you pirate a Lady GaGa single.


Of course Activision-Blizzard is still making money hand over first though, because they have Modern Warfare 2 and World of Warcraft is essentially immune to piracy. The writing is on the wall, move to consoles or go online only. Except for Valve and Blizzard, all the big PC studios have closed up, sold out, or are moving to consoles.

...and both are offering games that aren't online only. The expansion to consoles is just a logical step for developers, they are much easier to develop for and QA test and have a much wider pool of gamers because PC games always push the specs too hard.

The last really big PC only release was Crysis, and Crytek will not be making that mistake again.

PUSHED THE SPECS TOO HARD.


This is why there will not be LAN play for SC2. PC gaming is moving towards the subscription model like WoW, multiplayer only games like Team Fortress 2, and free to play games that are subsidized by micro-transactions or ads. Keep flaming me for blaming the piracy, but I love PC gaming and I hate to see what has happened.

Blaming the fact that PC sales are down on piracy is idiotic. The majority of gamers prefer consoles, and the consoles offer many advantages for the developers. That is why PC gaming is dying.

If the next big MMO comes out for X-Box instead of PC, you can pretty much kiss the PC gaming industry goodbye and it won't have anything to do with piracy.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 7:37 AM on June 10, 2010 [4 favorites]

Why? Why do you care if your game packets are routed through a server 60ms away?

My WoW server gives me around a 150 ping. This is the appropriate server for my region. 250 if I go out west. I sure hope that is just an artifact of being a MMO, because it isn't gonna cut it for Starcraft.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 7:41 AM on June 10, 2010

Wait, I'm confused... are they saying that if I own Starcraft 2 I will be FORCED to give it access to my Facebook account to use it?

No, you won't. This is nonsense being spread by histrionic crybabies who are angry at not getting everything they want their way all the time.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:52 AM on June 10, 2010

Note the past tense. Cavedog is dead, with the TA people going on to Gas Powered Games. They did create Supreme Commander, but wait. It uses a CD key too. Darn, they must have lost that clue.

Yes, I am aware that Cavedog is dead (hence the use of past tense).

I am also aware of Gas Powered Games and Supreme Commander but I am not a fan. Companies that have lost "that clue" are not worth my time. And they've lost their clue in more ways than just DRM: Supreme Commander 2 has been called one of the worst games ever made.

If I want Total Annihilation in 3D, there is excellent, free/open source software available: The Spring Project. Wikipedia has a good article about the Spring Game Engine and lists some of the many mods available.

I doubt you could find a company that makes multiplayer games that doesn't:

A)Use a CD key
B)Require the usage of their server
C)Uses other more obnoxious versions of DRM.

Yeah, that's why I don't give money to game companies any more. "Everyone uses it" is not an excuse to let companies shove their filthy, DRM-infested [expletive] down my personal computer's throat.

If game companies won't respect me or my PC, my entertainment dollars will go to companies that will. The money I saved not buying Starcraft 2 is more than enough to buy a bottle of Glenmorangie and a couple of bottles of Jack Daniel's (things I can still share with friends without having to connect to a company's servers for online authentication).

Note: Avoiding greedy game companies does not mean avoiding computer games. There are plenty of open source video games, commercial video games released as freeware and freeware video games.
posted by stringbean at 8:37 AM on June 10, 2010 [3 favorites]

Does this have anything to do with continued delays in releasing Diablo III? No? Carry on, then.

The did release it. It's called Torchlight.
posted by blue_beetle at 8:44 AM on June 10, 2010 [1 favorite]

I thought there was going to be a new Battle.net integration of chatting across all blizzard games in-game or something like that? (I'm not too clear on the details, as I signed on with Battle.net to get a pengu pet.)

It seems everyone always has something like "OMG they're ruining the game!" to say whenever blizzard tries to change anything. I've been giving the money every month for the past 4 years, and I don't have any major complaints. In fact, no chat in game would take away my only complaint, as far as I can tell. Twelve years olds and gold farmers are ruining the game, at least from my POV.
posted by From the Fortress at 8:50 AM on June 10, 2010 [1 favorite]

So living in the US, I can't play Koreans anymore? Staying up until 3-4AM to play other countries is how I was able to get good as SC, seems a shame to lose that ability - it was one of the things that I enjoyed most.
posted by mincus at 10:10 AM on June 10, 2010

Why? Why do you care if your game packets are routed through a server 60ms away?
posted by Nelson at 10:35 AM on 6/10

60ms? have you played the beta?
posted by chalbe at 10:53 AM on June 10, 2010

I like Blizzard but I think they are making some bad decisions. They are crippling custom maps when the tower defense maps, rpg maps and DotA extended the life of the sub-par, compared to Starcraft, Warcraft 3. Whoever decided this is both overlooking Blizzard's history of releasing powerful map editors and dissing the players who would play the maps of other players.

I don't mind Blizzard trying to profit from the pro tournaments of the game they created, but thinking that the solution to this is removing LAN functionality is absurd. Every sport where amateur games don't prevent the monetization of important tournaments serves as a counter-example. Last, segmenting the players according to their region is nonsense. Either give players the choice to play global or regional maps or tweak the game more. Blizzard is a company which consistently optimizes its products for lower-end systems; Starcraft took off in the age of abysmal internet connections.

I'm thrilled Starcraft is getting a sequel after a decade+ and I will probably get all three installments, barring major disappointment. It's a sure sign of good management when the brand loyalty engendered by developers all these years ago is being squandered by decision that are not related to the game itself.
posted by ersatz at 12:57 PM on June 10, 2010 [1 favorite]

DRM has nothing to do with piracy.

Pirates will never pay a cent for anything. Ever. They are not the target market. They never were. They never will be.

DRM is designed to lock in paying customers (make it difficult for them to move to competing products) and lock out competition (make it difficult for new companies to compete in the marketplace).

I'm confused as to how DRM would lock in paying customers in the context of Starcraft?

I mean, maybe I need to log into an account to play Starcraft - but that doesn't lock me into buying games from one company, and doesn't prevent new companies from producing and selling games.

In what way would needing an account for Starcraft online play lock in paying customers, or lock out competitors?
posted by Mike1024 at 3:02 PM on June 10, 2010

The terms of the merger forbid Activision from interfering with how Blizzard runs their business, so the people blaming Activision are, well, wrong.

suuuree, and it's Blizzard's suits that decided to call Starcraft tournaments 'e-sports'
posted by Joe Chip at 3:16 PM on June 10, 2010 [1 favorite]

I mean, maybe I need to log into an account to play Starcraft - but that doesn't lock me into buying games from one company, and doesn't prevent new companies from producing and selling games.

In what way would needing an account for Starcraft online play lock in paying customers, or lock out competitors?

It's not that needing an account for Starcraft online play locks in paying customers. It's that the one-account-per-purchase-ever locks in paying customers. When you're bored of Starcraft 2, you can't resell your game and try a new one. It's attached to you for life. The inability to recoup any amount of money spent, and the lack of a secondary market, limits your ability to try games without a significant commitment.
posted by kafziel at 3:52 PM on June 10, 2010 [1 favorite]

...and that lock in is another reason console games continue to kick PC ass.

It essentially means the PC version is by default much more expensive than the console version if you regularly do trade-ins.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 3:56 PM on June 10, 2010

Also, LAN play? Really? When was the last time you played over a LAN?

Coupla months ago, when my former roommate who plays DII was in town. Hella good times were had.
posted by limeonaire at 4:07 PM on June 10, 2010

This no-chat-channels business reminds me of the big red X and skull icon to indicate a PK is in hostile mode in Diablo II, which was when I think Bnet started going downhill. It sucked when people looted your stuff, sure, or to read all those unpersonable and offensive things in chat, but to remove those aspects of the game entirely is not the same as a better game experience. Diablo 1 was great precisely because of all the treachery and looting of other people's items; money piles spilling out all over the floor.. the wild west nature of it. DII was fun, in its way, but their need to remove anything that was 'Bad' led it to being like playing single player in the company of other people playing single player. And IIRC that was about the end of the spawned copy era.


If the next big MMO comes out for X-Box instead of PC...

Red Dead Redemption, possibly. If not, then a future iteration of it.
posted by marco_nj at 7:44 PM on June 10, 2010

Diablo 1 was great precisely because of all the treachery and looting of other people's items; money piles spilling out all over the floor.. the wild west nature of it.

No, this was precisely why it was unplayable. Add UO to the equation and you know why carebear games are the norm now.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 8:04 PM on June 10, 2010 [2 favorites]

...and that lock in is another reason console games continue to kick PC ass.

For now. Publishers really want to kill that secondary market.
posted by Tenuki at 9:18 PM on June 10, 2010

It's not hard to have multiple rulesets. PVP or PVE servers, common practice. D3 should do the same.
posted by mek at 9:19 PM on June 10, 2010

...and that lock in is another reason console games continue to kick PC ass.

For now. Publishers really want to kill that secondary market.

And they're doing a decent job of it with one-time DLC. Buy the game new, and you can have all 8 multiplayer maps that people are playing. Buy it used, you only get 4 of them and get kicked every second map switch.
posted by Netzapper at 9:50 PM on June 10, 2010

Netzapper: And they're doing a decent job of it with one-time DLC. Buy the game new, and you can have all 8 multiplayer maps that people are playing. Buy it used, you only get 4 of them and get kicked every second map switch.

Presto. People keep calling to the death of PC gaming, but I feel the exact opposite way about it; it seems like it is impossible to turn on the xbox these days without it wanting me to spend real money on something stupid, from two maps that they decided to hold onto for a few months out of greed to some stupid 'accessories' for my stupid avatar I have to have, to even a wallpaper with an ad for Mtn Dew, why would anyone pay money just to see an ad?!
posted by paisley henosis at 7:34 AM on June 11, 2010

It's not hard to have multiple rulesets. PVP or PVE servers.

...but even they tend to be carebear by UO or D1 standards, you don't drop money or gear on a WoW pvp server.

Not to mention both of those games were full of hacks in their so called glory days. It was really fun being insta-killed by someone in town in public D1 games, I tell ya.


For now. Publishers really want to kill that secondary market.


Gamestop and Blockbuster (lol) better start flexing some muscle. Of course, with the move towards total digital distribution they are screwed anyway.

Your next generation game store is going to look a lot like the Apple app store.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 12:35 PM on June 11, 2010

Your next generation game store is going to look a lot like the Apple app store.

Yeah, it's called Steam.
posted by sophist at 4:56 PM on June 11, 2010

Steam sits on the PC platform, where you have millions of other options. Won't be the same for consoles, the lock in for the device is the key.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 5:04 PM on June 11, 2010

My late two cents' worth - this loss of functionality and freedom is crapsticks. And also, call me stuck in 2001 but I like LANs / LAN emulation. Why? I don't want to game via the internet if I don't have to. Mostly though, it's so I don't have to deal with only-1-user-per-CDkey. Fine for online situations, but not cool if I would like to multiplayer with partner, brother, sister and mother. I like the communal gaming experience.
posted by Enki at 4:31 AM on June 12, 2010

No, I was being serious. Diablo and Diablo II are not bad games, but are weaksauce compared to the games that inspired them.

*belated nerdly high-five*
posted by cortex at 9:36 AM on June 15, 2010