behind the times

So it seems that someone finally read the EULA for ea's "Origins" software and realised that it basically said they could take your computer, play football with it, and sell it back to you.

Okay, I'm exaggerating to the level of just plain making things up. :P Read the article yourself.

But considering what a massive arsepain dealing with that 'Origins' thing was and how eager it is to cram stuff down my throat while trying to play a FREE game, I had already mentioned that it pretty much turned me off buying any future product using it. I'm not at all surprised to find sinister undertones, whether or not they have any intention of misusing them. If they don't, it's just another sign of the system being badly thought-out and generally crap.

And when the best you can say is that their system is generally crap...

well that's new

Apparently GameStop is breaking into new copies of games and removing any free-gift items that they disapprove of, then selling them full-price as new, unmarked.

Of course, while they feel that the included gift certificate served as an advertisement for their competitor, I think *ripping off your customers* is an even better way to lose your customers to the competition....

Visions of the past

On a trip to see relatives I got my hands on a pile of my old computer game stuff. Boxes, in a rare few cases, but mostly MANUALS. And copy protection. And maps. ALl the stuff that used to be jammed into these things. Not my entire collection ever, but a good bunch of stuff. So what have I got here?

The "manual" for FACEMAKER, which includes how-to-load-game for all the various computer systems it was available on (LOAD"SPIN",8) and how to 'play'. It's not exactly much of a game. Why did I even have this? (I was obviously VERY young.)

The rather thick manual for Wonderland most of which is taken up by "how to use windows", and a similarly thick but weirder shaped one for the Magnetic Scrolls Collection.

The insert map and how-to-load for that blasted Hobbit text adventure that I remember frustrating me as a kid and I've always been confused about it because when I tried to look it up I found things that didn't quite match. However, this proves it was indeed the Hobbit Software Adventure - either I just have NO memory of the graphics or I played in text-only mode because I liked words.

The foldout 'Getting Started' for Super BoulderDash.

An almost-complete box for a game called Rings of Medusa that I obviously owned but have zero memory of. It's got the box, a manual, and the loading instructions sheet, but the original disk is gone, replaced by a 3.5" backup disk.

A probably-complete box for Joan Of Arc: Siege & The Sword which I also have zero memory of. Amusing because 85% of the big box is taken up with nothing but a cardboard spacer.

... I probably bought both of those just because they had women on the covers, and then didn't play them because I don't actually like strategy games.

Sierra stuff (there's lots!):
The big map and twisty city streets guide from Quest For Glory 2. And the official hint book. And the technical manual. And the BOX. Or at least, that's the sleeve that I put on the one original Sierra box I still have. They all looked alike! And ONE original disk, probably dead, and no idea where the others are.
The fingerprint sheet AND the red-plastic-spyglass used for reading it from the Colonel's Bequest. WHich I know I lost at least once while I still had the game. Stupid annoying copy protection. :)
Hint book for Space Quest IV.
A manual from Hoyle Solitaire which I don't think i actually played, it's my mom who liked Solitaire.
The 'manual' (background story, slight tech info, and crucial copy-protection spellbook) from King's Quest III.
A fold-out "hint map" from King's Quest 1, decorated with my confused attempt to solve the Rumplestiltskin puzzle, and the official hint book. Which was one of the ones that you had to use yellow markers to make the invisible ink appear (now rather faded). The later books used the red plastic window approach. Also the game backstory-manual.
Box sleeve for King's Quest V.
The original box sleeve for King's Quest VI (5.25" version) and the included fluff/copy-protection guidebook to the isles. Also the hint book, when they gave up all this 'reveal the hidden text' rigamarole and just printed the answers.
Hero's Quest reference card and Famous Adventurer's Correspondence Manual.
A Sierra tenth anniversary product catalog.
New products catalog listing for 1988.
'A Letter From The President' explaining why gamers should buy sound cards to improve their Sierra experience.

chicks in chainmail (as it were)

Only tangential to games, but I was passed a link to a tumblr blog of Women Fighters In Reasonable Armor

(That is, wearing something more than a chainmail bikini)

Not that hotness should be the most important part of a female character, but I think you'll agree that they can still be very attractive WHILE wearing something that covers important regions!

marketing fail

So I spotted a potentially interesting new game on DLsite (not H).

The description says it's a physics-based puzzle sim. Sounds fun! But... what is it? There's no demo version. Of the three posted screenshots, one is just a title screen image, nothing to do with the gameplay. One is a picture of the back of the BOX (many doujin games sell at least a handful of box copies) with screenshots too small to make out gameplay details. Only the third lets you see anything about what the game looks like to play... and with so little information it would be a huge gamble to assume that it even RUNS on English windows, much less is comprehensible to people who can't read Japanese.

And for all that, it's got a highish price for a doujin title. Certainly not unreasonable, there are plenty of games on DLsite for $20, but it's not the STANDARD price. Most things are cheaper.

Unsurprisingly it's not selling any copies on the English side. (Okay, the majority of stuff doesn't sell on the English side, because, well, it's not in English. But still.)

... Of course, the next thing I click on is a downloadable set of speech bubbles. For $50. Good luck, you'll need it.

ship it

(When I saw that title on the tweet that linked me to this post, I thought it was going to be about shipping. Like, romance. No.)

Basically, they discover a catastrophic-but-rare bug in a game shortly before ship date, and rather than delay the game to put in a fix, ship it anyway.

I've never worked in a big game company, I don't know much about console games. Trying to extrapolate from a business perspective, I can kind of see their point in not addressing it. The majority of customers never finish games, so a bug that only happens sixteen hours in is already of lower importance (no surprise, anyone who plays games has seen how much buggier the endgames get.) On top of that, it requires the player doing something unusual at a precise moment. (At least, I'm guessing that the autosave is somehow visible, in order for the tester to have been able to find and replicate this behavior.) So the odds of a normal player hitting it seem low, and therefore IF it really would take ages to fix, you can see why they wouldn't.

On the other hand, bricking your console is a much bigger deal than just not fixing a crash bug. (Of course, that also sounds like a bug in the console, no?) I have no idea what game this was, but if they didn't report the problem to the console manufacturers and take responsibility in case the bug did hit someone... lawsuit?

Anyway. I can see why you might not fix the bug. But I can't see why you'd fire the poor tester trying to tell you what you'd done. :)

back to dust

Well, if you were foolish enough to buy a PC game from Ubisoft, at least you can request a refund.

Dear Ubisoft - STOP RELEASING BROKEN STUFF. STOP YOUR NONSENSICAL DRM. STOP IT.