No more 10-day online activations required

Showing respect for the gaming community, Bioware has taken feedback to heart and has decided to scale back their DRM somewhat.

A few days ago it was announced that Bioware would be requiring users to re-activate PC copies of Mass Effect, every 10 days. In that situation, if you lost your internet connection, you'd be stuck with a nice shiny DVD to play frisbee with, instead of being able to play the game.

Here is an excerpt from a lengthy post on the Bioware forums, where community manager Jay Watamaniuk related the following:

"There has been a lot of discussion in the past few days on how the security requirements for Mass Effect for PC will work. BioWare, a division of EA, wants to let fans know that Mass Effect will not require 10- day periodic re-authentication.

BioWare has always listened very closely to its fans and we made this decision to ensure we are delivering the best possible experience to them. To all the fans including our many friends in the armed services and internationally who expressed concerns that they would not be able re-authenticate as often as required, EA and BioWare want you to know that your feedback is important to us.

The solution being implemented for Mass Effect for the PC changes copy protection from being key disc based, which requires authentication every time you play the game by requiring a disc in the drive, to a one time online authentication.

This system has an added benefit of allowing players to seamlessly play the game without needing the DVD in the drive.

Key points---

•This solution allows gamers to authenticate their game on three different computers with the purchase of one disc. EA Customer Service is on hand to supply any additional authorizations that are warranted. This will be done on a case-by-case basis by contacting customer support.

• Games are authorized to the machine when the player installs and launches the software for the first time.

• We’ve all had those times when the discs get lost or scratched and you can’t play a game you’ve bought because you need a working disc in the drive. With the new system players will no longer need the disc to play the game, but can instead simply retain the disc as back up for re-installation.

FAQ---

Q: What is the difference between the old PC disc authentication solution and the new online model?

A: Two things have changed:

• First, authentication of discs has now gone from the physical format to the online format, freeing the need for consumers to have a disc in the drive at all times.

• Second, with online authentication consumers now connect to the Internet the first time the game is launched and are required only to reconnect if they are downloading new game content.

Q: What happens when I’ve reached the maximum # of computers for my game and I need more, say due to theft of computer, computer crashes, etc?

A: EA customer service is on hand to supply any additional authorizations that are warranted. This will be done on a case-by-case basis by contacting customer support.

Q: Did BioWare and EA change their mind on requiring that the game be re-authorized every 10 days?

A: BioWare has always listened very closely to its fans and we made this decision to ensure we are delivering the best possible experience to them. To all the fans including our many friends in the armed services and internationally who expressed concerns that they would not be able re-authenticate as often as required, EA and BioWare want you to know that your feedback is important to us.

Q: If the game isn’t going to require an authentication every 10 days, will it ever require re-authentication?

A: Only if the player chooses to download new game content."

While some of the more rabid anti-DRM folks are still upset with SecuROM's presence in Mass Effect, many more people applauded Bioware for at least removing the 10-day required activation system.

It'll support at least five years of content, anyways

Electronic Arts Mythic wants to come out swinging if it hopes to even dent World of Warcraft's mega-armor with Warhammer: Age of Reckoning. Speaking in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Josh Drescher provides reassurance that the Warhammer Online team will planning for the long haul in order to attract and keep subscribers.

...you need to spec the game out in such a way that you actually have those progressions in mind for later - so you don't wind up trampling all over the earlier experiences every time you expand the game. We have actually five years' worth of numerology out in front of us in terms of all that.

Content will definitely be important, if we're to keep the MMORPG war in perspective. Consider that the runner up online RPG in terms of sheer number of subscribers is in fact the free-to-play Runescape, at least according to the NPD Group's newest Online Subscription Tracker report. Their current MMORPG ranking is as follows:

1. World of Warcraft
2. RuneScape
3. Lord of the Rings Online
4. Final Fantasy XI
5. City of Heroes

With Funcom's Age of Conan also on the horizon, this list stands to be shaken up in the near future. Will these new titles last against the current old guard of MMORPGs?

Seems like its going to be available on -6- gaming systems

Call of Duty 4 was one of the biggest games of the year, so hardly anyone should be surprised that the work for Call of Duty 5 is already underway.

Some scant details were revealed in a conference call with some Activision investor-types yesterday. One noteworthy detail that emerged was the franchise is coming back to the PS2 and the Wii, in addition to the 360,PS3, PC and DS versions.

Call of Duty 5 will also take place in a brand new military theater -- rumors hint that the game might go back to the days of World War II.

Update: Word on the street is that Call of Duty 5 is actually already playable, and is going through quality assurance as I type this.

Take Two: "[it's] extremely well-suited to film"

Evidently the success of 2K Games' sci-fi shooter-ish masterpiece thing has been such that it warrants a film production. And not just any film production, a Hollywood film production. Dun dun dun. The film is set to be directed by Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski under Universal Pictures. Honestly, I'm not sure what to think about that. Either he's got a whole demented side to him just waiting to be unleashed with the right project, or BioShock is gonna get butchered good. Apparently Verbinski is a big BioShock fan though (thank God):

"BioShock fans appreciate the depth and complexity of the game," Christoph Hartmann, President of 2K Games, noted. "And our partnership with Gore Verbinski will introduce the world of Rapture to an even wider audience. In addition to his impressive body of work, Gore is an avid video gamer and true fan of BioShock. That was extremely important to us in deciding to move forward with this project."

John Logan, writer of Gladiator, The Aviator and Sweeney Todd, is being considered for the screenplay.

Take-Two Interactive, owners of 2K are pumped. Check out this quote from its chairman Strauss Zelnick:

"BioShock has been hailed as one of the most highly cinematic and richly plotted titles in interactive entertainment, making it extremely well-suited to film... Our ability to attract a major studio and unparalleled creative team speaks volumes about the strength of our BioShock franchise."

I'm imagining they'd be pretty protective of something like this, so here's hoping it is in the right hands.

As for how this will fit in with the BioShock storyline, that's hard to say. The sequel is planned for next year, so the film could be released before or after, really. It would be interesting if and how the sequel's storyline would be changed to complement the film.

Admits the Xbox 360 is not "big in Japan."

Hah, get it?  Big in Japan?  Okay, as long as no one understands these Initial D jokes, I'm going to keep making them.

So anyway, Bill Gates went to Japan recently and made a pretty obvious assessment -- the Xbox 360 is not Nippon's favorite toy.  This is why we all pee'd our pants when Gears of War made top 10 in Japan when it was released, surprising much of the gaming community.

Gates sounded rather optimistic when he explained the situation:

"Product share varies from country to country. In the US and the UK, the share [of Xbox 360] is high, but besides Japan, there are other areas we haven't penetrated. From now on, I think the breakthrough's going to be the online service, and you'll be surprised if you look at that."

This makes you wonder what other regions of the world the 360 may it off with.  There aren't too many places where money can be thrown away so easily on leisure products, and the 360's image will need to be altered from country to country.

I personally love the Xbox 360 (I named mine 'NAVI,' and dressed it up with some Assassin's Creed decals), but how many regions around the world can afford to throw money into the console wars?  Should Microsoft concentrate on pushing their product in Japan?  I'd love to see what more they can do with LIVE, if that's the case.

Sort of like virtual spray painting and tagging

The other day, while well surfing the World Wide Web, I happened across a stimulating website called Paint That **** Gold.

The basic premise of the website is this: you write a url in this little box, then it takes a screen capture of the website, and then it gives you some tools to get to work. You can spray the URL image with paint, color it with markers, use stencils and stuff like that -- anything to help you get that pent up hostile artistic aggresion out. The website is fairly fun, in a let's-waste-time-on-the-Internet kind of way.

True to the site's witty name, the only colors you have at your disposal are black and gold. However, I did not let this stop me when I created this visual masterpiece, playing on an age-old, classic graffiti-inspired statement. I call this work of art "Barf":

I don't think it is possible to do anything better than that work of art, but be my guest -- your welcome to try.

The website was made to promote a hip-hoppery group named Atmosphere. From the site, you can listen to their music, check out the tour dates, write them hate mail, and do similar stuff like that.

Major increase in the first quarter

Looks like that format war victory is starting to show real results. Home Media Magazine reports sales of Blu-Ray discs have shot up 351 percent from January to March of this year.

This in turn saw consumer spending on home entertainment increase by one percent since the same time last year. Seems small? Not really, that one percent is worth $5.5 billion. This is also the first real rise in two years.

Video sales rose 2.3 percent while rentals decreased by 1.6.

Bernstein Research predicts one quarter of US households will own a Blu-Ray player inside three years, and it notes the process is going slower than for that of DVD.

FTC reports much fewer illegal sales to minors this year

According to the Federal Trade Commission's recent reports, 22% less illegal M-rated video game sales to minors were made this year. This, of course, comes right on the heels of the expectedly backlashed Grand Theft Auto IV.

The research was conducted by sending 'secret shoppers' out to each of the main game retail outlets (Gamestop/EB Games being the biggest) and notating the occurrences in which the shoppers (aged 13-16) were able to obtain an M-rated game. Only 20% of them were able to, whereas in 2006 42% were able to, and 69% in 2003 (remember those days?). Gamestop performed best, turning away 94% of the minors (maybe the 6% were wearing fake beards). Walmart stopped 82%, Best Buy, 80%. Hollywood Video and Circuit City performed worst, with 60% and 62% turnaway rates, respectively.

Below you can see data for other mediums included in the research data:   

Sony's new device turns PS3 into DVR

Sony has released something called PlayTV, a new device that will allow PlayStation 3 users to watch and record digital TV or radio via the console. The device will run you about $155 USD. No worries about compatibility either, it works with all versions.

PlayTV utilises a USB tuner and some included software to play, record or stream free-to-air digital programming (up to two channels at once are available), and doesn't require an external power source. Also, there's no copy protection for what you record. Streams are recorded in their original MPEG-2 format, so there's no quality degradation, and audio streams are recorded in MP3 format.

You'll be able to pause at any time, but buffering will only occur during pausing so as to downplay the strain on the hard drive, unless the user chooses to change this in the settings. Also, while you can't set it up to record your favourite shows automatically as with many other devices, PlayTV does have the advantage of a search by keyword function. It can, however, record specific timeslots.

It's a little bigger than its PC counterparts, about the size as an original Nintendo DS.

For those who happen to have a PSP as well as a PS3, you can enable remote play on your PS3, and watch programming on your portable system via wireless or from anywhere that emits a Wi-Fi signal.

Do you like maps, and making stuff? You could be a map-maker!

A new contest was announced by Sierra recently. The contest is called "The Official Map Making Contest." A stretch of intense research into the "Official Map Making Contest" has lead me to the discovery that the map making contest is for the game World In Conflict.

If you are a fan of the popular W.W 3 game, into making maps, or want to enter the contest just for no reason at all, you can do so over here, at the official Official Map Making Contest's Website website.

NVIDIA has thrown some prizes into the mix: the grand prize is 1000 clams, a fancy new video card (a 8800 GT I believe), and a good chance of seeing your map in a future World In Conflict game, or expansion pack. There are also some prizes for the chumps who win in the following categories: Best use of DX10, Best Assault Map, Best, Domination Map, Best Tug of War Map.

I believe the comma after "best" is a typo -- it's not really its own category. Furthermore, as for the "Best use of DX10" category, for those of you that have been following the contest, it was previously called the "Best Map That Slows Down Your Framerates, Yet Does Not Add Any Better Visual Effects" category (evidence.)

If you want to get into the wacky world of game design, you could do worse than win a contest like this. So hop to it.

(Oh yeah: and the map editor is free. So you don't even need the game to make the map. Though this may make the whole 'design' phase somewhat tricker.)

It was the craziest launch yet in the history of interactive entertainment, that's for sure

Microsoft is already giddy over the release of Grand Theft Auto IV for the Xbox 360, and for the time being their console's version of Rockstar and Take-Two's blockbuster action adventure appears to be enjoying greater success than the PlayStation 3 edition.  GTA IV thus far has sold 6 million units worldwide for some massive damage, netting some $500 million USD in sales; first day sales alone were 3.6 million units.  That's well over Take-Two's original estimate of $400M USD, and certainly a new record for the gaming industry.  U.K. sales figures were already posted here, and are included in Take-Two's report.

Approximately 60 percent of all GTA IV sales during launch week were for the Xbox 360 version, according to data culled by Microsoft.  Additionally, the game's launch last week helped push 360 console sales in the U.S. up by 54 percent compared to previous weeks, and over 40 percent of new 360 consoles were purchased alongside a fresh copy of GTA IV.

We already know that GTA IV is the hottest game on Xbox Live, and Microsoft is ready to share the stats to back this.  Over 2.3 million Xbox 360 gamers have played the game over Xbox Live since its release last week; XBL saw the patronage of around one million concurrent users over the past weekend.  XBL gamers have played GTA IV online for an average of four hours per session, setting another XBL record for the most time played.  In total, Xbox 360 gamers have unlocked over 12 million achievements (worth over 100 million gamerscore points) in GTA IV.

45nm goodness to come soon...

AMD's 45nm quad core, "Shanghai" is apparently on-track for production to start in the second half of this year. Initially it will be offered as a server product, it will include "coherent" Hypertransport 3.0 for processor to processor communications in multi-socket systems.

Shanghai will be an incremental change to Barecelona, consisting of a geometry shrink to 45nm, some IPC (instructions per clock) and core tweaks - as well as increasing the L3 cache to 6MB.

Potentially more interesting will be next year's "Istambul" six core processor. Slated for Socket F1, the current 1207 pin socket, it is intended to increase performance without having to radically change the AMD architecture by the simple expedient of adding two additional cores, bringing us hex core processors sometime in the second half of 2009.

AMD also apparently plans to introduce a Socket G34 in 2010, and this new socket will apparently bring DDR3 and non-coherent HyperTransport 3.0 with the upcoming RD890 chipset as well as provide an additional HyperTransport link.

In 2010 AMD will also apparently offer six and 12 core Opterons, presumably using a multiple chip per module like Intel, by placing two six core dies into a single package - with a code name of "Magny Cours"

If the past is any indication, these "server" chips will also probably appear as "consumer" chips.

Yet another franchise that just won't die.

id Software has announced that it has started production on the next DOOM game and is currently hiring fresh talent for the task.

“DOOM is part of the id Software DNA and demands the greatest talent and brightest minds in the industry to bring the next installment of our flagship franchise to Earth.  It’s critical for id Software to have the best creative minds in-house to develop games that meet the standards synonymous with our titles," said Todd Hollenshead, id CEO.

DOOM is a practically a trademark, having once been rated “one of the ten most influential games of the decade” by PC Gamer.  But having already suffered a horrible movie adaptation and currently in line to experience a sequel, which will no doubt be just as pathetic, isn't it time to let the franchise rest?  It's had a good run.

Still, if anyone is interested in replying to id Software, here is their little pitch and contact info:

id Software is looking for talented, ambitious and passionate individuals eager to join its accomplished team of developers working on the industry’s most innovative and anticipated games. For a complete listing of available positions, visit www.idsoftware.com. Resumes can be submitted via email to jobs@idsoftware.com. All applicants must be authorized to work in the United States.

 A co-worker, who shall remain anonymous, had this to say about the upcoming DOOM game:

"DOOM 3 was ew....4 will be ew too I bet."

Honestly, doesn't id have anything better to do?  You know, like better games to make.  All they brought to the table in DOOM 3 was a series of cookie cutter monsters ripped out of every sci-fi horror survival etc. video game.

VP of Content Relations says solution is more copy protection

Roy Taylor, NVIDIA's Vice President of Content Relations, says, in a Eurogamer interview, the future of PC gaming will see "more digital authentication, and we're going to see more of an approach that says that PC games aren't products - they're a service."

By this he means additional content, expansions and all that stuff for sale, because "pirates are just killing the developers - and I think it's really unfair, what they're doing."

It's certainly a divisive issue. Taylor is pretty hard in his stance though, expressing his disheartenment at the situation:

"One of the things that I find frustrating is that PC gamers tend to be very passionate, and they love the people that make great PC games. If you ask any PC gamer what they think of John Carmack, they'll say he's a hero. What do they think of Tim Sweeney? He's a hero. Ken Levine is a hero. And yet many of them, sadly, will go and steal from them. I just don't get that, I really don't."

Well, it's easy to blame the overall low PC sales on piracy, but there are examples that contradict this theory (inside and outside the gaming industry, take the music industry for example). A couple of months ago a developer from Sins of a Solar Empire posted an article about this on his game's forums. Empire, by the way, contained no copy protection, was under an independent development house, and topped the PC sales charts a few weeks after being released. Read on:

"Our games sell well for three reasons. First, they're good games which is a pre-requisite. But there's lots of great games that don't sell well.

The other two reasons are:

* Our games work on a very wide variety of hardware configurations.
* Our games target genres with the largest customer bases per cost to produce for.

It's irrelevant how many people will play your game (if you're in the business of selling games that is). It's only relevant how many people are likely to buy your game."

Obviously, there are a lot of PC gamers here. Why do you pirate or purchase PC games?

You'll have to re-activate Mass Effect every 10 days at the latest

On the heels of Crytek cry-babies saying that PC piracy ruined Crysis,  Bioware has announced some krogan and draconian copyright enforcement measures for the upcoming PC version of Mass Effect.

The first line of defense will be SecuROM. Used in many games over the last few years -- notably including last year's Bioshock -- SecuROM endeavors to make copying the DVD very difficult. Additionally however, Mass Effect will require a internet connection to validate its install not just  when the game is installed -- but every 10 days! 

Here's Derek French, Bioware's Technical Producer explaining their DRM choice in Bioware's forum:

"Mass Effect uses SecuROM and requires an online activation for the first time that you play it. Each copy of Mass Effect comes with a CD Key which is used for this activation and for registration here at the BioWare Community. Mass Effect does not require the DVD to be in the drive in order to play, it is only for installation.

After the first activation, SecuROM requires that it re-check with the server within ten days (in case the CD Key has become public/warez'd and gets banned). Just so that the 10 day thing doesn't become abrupt, SecuROM tries its first re-check with 5 days remaining in the 10 day window. If it can't contact the server before the 10 days are up, nothing bad happens and the game still runs. After 10 days a re-check is required before the game can run."

Needless to say, community members of the Bioware forums are going nuts. Some are in favor of the system; many are not so cheery about it.

Personally, I'm very much looking forward to Mass Effect, and I'll buy it if it requires a retinal scan and a 60-character alpha-numeric code to be manually typed in every time I play -- but nonetheless, I do have some troubles with the system. Previously, with Bioshock, that DRM was annoying enough -- as a video card testing guy, I had to re-install that game many times, on different benchmarking systems. Even though the game would only be installed on one system at a time, my legitimate serial code would de-validate itself, and eventually, it would not install at all. But this Mass Effect system is even more extreme. What if, say, you move to a new apartment and no longer have internet access? You should be able to play a single-player game somehow, without requiring access to check some serial on the Internet. At least in my perfect world anyways.

While I can understand Bioware's position, I do not think it'll be effective. There has never been a single single-player game that was not cracked -- (and quickly cracked) -- by the all the dark-side programmers out there, cracking away. Multi-player games are a different story, but single-player games invariably have their anti-piracy methods bypassed.

Piracy is not as big of a problem on the consoles because of how much of a hassle it is. Really: it is not so much about the money. It's the hassle. In North America, chipping your console and getting pirated games is probably a pain. Downloading a problem-free, pirated game on the PC from your home the day it is released is easy, and here is my point: once it becomes far less of a hassle to play a pirated game than a legitimate one, then we have a problem. I point to the success of Steam to backup my claims. Game-buyers appreciate convenience. And people who don't have enough money to buy games, well, you don't have to worry about them pirating all that much, because they aren't the people buying games.

What's a better solution for Bioware? I can think of one in about five seconds -- okay, done: you put a in-game anti-piracy droid in the game. Make it a full in-game character. In order to get Commander Shepard into certain randomized solar systems in the game, you have to meet this droid in-game, where he authorizes you to travel further. In each game you start, say the droid can appear in 40 different randomized locations in the galaxy. For each of the 40 different positions, have a different DRM-key that needs to be checked online. All 40 of the DRM-keys are derived through algorithms from the one serial code that you enter when you first install the game. That way, people would be able to play if they did not have internet access at the moment. And with 40 different keys at randomized positions, it would be far more difficult to crack. And then, on top of this, you release bi-weekly updates to the game, which only tweak the game in very small ways, or squash the small inevitable bugs that pop up, but additionally, you study the anti-cracking methods out there, and shut down whatever methods they use with these updates. For the money that Bioware pays to SecuROM for their DRM, Bioware could instead pay some comp. sci. intern to develop these updates for them.

The thing with game piracy is that the crackers and warez groups do it for props. Releases older than a couple of days mean nothing to them. If games were updated often, the skilled crackers would lose motivation fairly quickly to work on the game. 

"It's fair to say that the first year of PlayStation 3 was somewhat of a difficult one.."

I like Sony, as a game company at least (uh oh). Know why? They're a company that doesn't binge itself so much on marketing and PR that they won't admit their weaknesses. Too many interviews feature journalists asking the same tired questions and the company president or developer or whatever answering with the same tired answers. If we're lucky, we see the journalist asking actually honest questions, like, 'why is your system sucking so bad? How will you make it not suck so bad?' (I'm paraphrasing). But typically at this point we just get tired answers anyway, marketing psychobabble the company owner or whoever was told to say if any 'tough questions' came up. So that's why I like Sony. This isn't to say they're completely devoid of marketing psychobabble, cause I've seen it, but the fact they can admit where they've gone wrong and where they can improve speaks volumes. Marketing people and CEO's don't want anyone from the company saying stuff like that. That means potentially lower stocks, less sales, etc. What they don't realize, (some of them anyway), is at the end of the day, people who support these companies really just want them to be honest. Am I right? We need transparency if we're ever going to really know what to buy, when to buy it, and how to get the most satisfaction out of what we buy.

So yeah, at Sony's own Playstation Day, president Kaz Hirai admitted the Playstation 3 has had 'a rough year':

"It's fair to say that the first year of PlayStation 3 was somewhat a difficult one. There were some teething problems, success from our competitors, and our customers were a little underwhelmed by the range of titles that were available. This was something that we were very much aware of, and something that we were confident we could over come."

Certainly seems to be heading that way too, even though just two killer apps have hit shelves - Gran Turismo 5: Prologue and Grand Theft Auto IV.

"Things have improved since the Christmas season and 2008 has gotten off to a fantastic start," [commented Hirai]. "What fills me with even greater pleasure is that our year so far has only seen the launch of two of our key titles."

Regarding all the Home delays, Hirai apologized, and again, I respect his position. That is, to not release it until he is completely happy with it, as I had suspected:

"I realise this announcement was disappointing to many people, from TGS where we were aiming for a spring launch, so please accept my apologies for this delay. But as I said at Tokyo Game Show, I would not open up Home until I was completely happy with it, and I still stand by that statement."

He says the company believes it can provide the best possible experience with it in the autumn, hence the wait.

Honesty and transparency like this is what could eventually eliminate that hardened tyrant image Sony kind of has now. Again, customers need that with a company, and while it's possible it could hurt them in the short-term, long-term, it's very necessary and could put them ahead of the competition.